Analyzing Poetry.
I overheard Mr.Murray talking about this post Jayme B. had including a good method to use when analyzing poetry. I stole it.
I. Dramatic Situation
A. Who is speaking?
B. To whom is that speaker speaking?
C. What is the situation?
D. What is the speaker’s tone?
II. Imagery
III. Theme
IV. Diction (word choice)
A. Connotation (suggested meaning of words)
B. Denotation (dictionary definition)
C. Abstract (can only be understood intellectually)
D. Concrete (words describing physical objects)
E. Kinds of language
1. Figurative
a. Metaphor (implied comparisons)
b. Simile (comparison using ‘like’ or ‘as’)
c. Personification (giving human characteristics to an inanimate object)
d. Metonymy (the use of an attribute or quality of an object to represent the object itself)
e. Synecdoche (substitutes a significant part of something for the thing itself)
2. Rhetorical
a. Irony (opposite of what is meant)
b. Hyperbole (exaggeration)
c. Allusion (reference to something)
d. Pun (play on words)
e. Paradox (contradictory)
f. Oxymoron (self contradictory term)
g. Litotes (form of understatement)
V. Syntax (sentence structure)
A. Length
B. Transposed elements
C. “Unusual” sentences
VI. Conclusion
