Poetry Essay
Write a 750-word (approximately 3 pages) essay that analyzes 1 poem from the Poetry Unit. Format using Turabian style. The final essay must include, a title page (see the General Writing Requirements), a thesis/outline page, and the essay itself followed by a works cited/references/bibliography page of any primary and/or secondary texts cited in the essay. Choose 1 of the poems from the list below to address in your essay:
• “The Lamb,” “The Tiger,” and “The Chimney Sweeper” by William Blake
• “Batter my heart, three-personed God” and “Death Be Not Proud” by John Donne
• “Journey of the Magi” by T. S. Eliot
• “God’s Grandeur” and “Spring” by Gerard Manley Hopkins
• “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats
• “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
• “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning
• “Sailing to Byzantium” by William Butler Yeats
• “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost
• “It Sifts from Leaden Sieves” and “There’s No Frigate Like a Book” by Emily Dickinson
• “Ulysses” by Alfred Lord Tennyson
• Psalm 1 or 23
• “Virtue” by George Herbert
• “That Time of Year” (Sonnet 73) by William Shakespeare
Consider answering the following questions about the poem that you have chosen:
• What is/are the theme(s) of the poem?
• Is there a literal setting or situation in the poem? What lines from the poem tell the reader this information? What details does the author include?
• Is the setting symbolic?
• How would you describe the mood of the poem? What elements contribute to this mood?
• Is the title significant to the poem’s content or meaning? How?
• What major literary devices and figures of speech does the poet use to communicate the theme(s)?
• How are rhyme and other metrical devices used in the poem? Do they support the poem’s overall meaning? Why or why not?
• Is the identity of the poem’s narrator clear? How would you describe this person? What information, if any, does the author provide about him or her?
• Does the narrator seem to have a certain opinion of or attitude about the poem’s subject matter? How can you tell?
NOTE: These questions are a means of ordering your thoughts while you collect information for your essay. You do not need to include the answers to all of these questions in your essay; only include those answers that directly support your thesis statement.