A Method for Poetry Analysis

 1. Title:           Examine the title before reading the poem.

                     Consider connotations.  dictionary

 2. Paraphrase:          Translate the poem into your own words (literal/denotation).

 Resist the urge to jump to interpretation. A failure to understand what happens literally inevitably leads to an interpretive misunderstanding

 Look for: Syntactical units (complete sentences rather than line by line), enjambment vs. end-stopped lines

 3. Connotation:          Examine the poem for meaning beyond the literal.

                              Look for: Diction

 Imagery (especially metaphor, simile, personification)

 Symbolism

                              Irony (paradox, understatement, oxymoron)

                              Allusions

 Effect of sound devices (alliteration, onomatopoeia, assonance consonance, rhyme)

 4.Attitude/tone:          Examine both the speaker’s and the poet’s attitudes.

                              Remember, don’t confuse the author with the persona.

 Look for: Speaker’s attitude toward self, other characters, the subject

                              Attitudes of characters other than speaker

 Poet’s attitude toward speaker, other characters, subject, and finally toward reader

5. Shifts:          Notes shifts in speaker, attitudes

                     Look for:           Occasion of poem (time and place)

                                        Key words (e.g. but, yet)

                                        Punctuation (dashes, periods, colons…)

                                        Stanza divisions

                                        Changes in line and/or stanza length

                                        Irony (sometimes irony hides shifts)

                                        Effects of structure on meaning

                                        Parallels

                                        Commonalities

 6.    Title:     Examine the title again, this time on an interpretive level.

 7. Theme:          Use the “this is a poem about           ” to find possible themes.