A NALYZING P OETRY Friends for Life © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

R EAD, R EAD, AND R E -R EAD The best way to make a new friend is to spend time together, discovering your friend’s quirks and habits, her sense of humor, the way her mind works, her taste and preferences. Good poems, too, take time to get to know. The denser, the richer, the more complex the poem, the more effort it takes to know the poem well— but it may mean making a friend for life. © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

L ISTENING I N Most poems begin in conversations we are privileged to overhear. Sometimes the speaker is talking to someone who is present, but sometimes the intended listener is elsewhere. Sometimes the speaker is talking to himself or herself, chastising or berating or remembering. Sometimes the speaker is talking to us, instructing or warning. Sometimes the speaker is telling a story. Listen to the voice in the poem that follows. Who is talking to whom? © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

M EET W ILL... When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate; For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings. –William Shakespeare © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

F IGURING H IM O UT Reading a poem for the first time is like meeting someone new. It’s best not to pass judgments right away. Read the poem several times, sometimes aloud. Listen particularly for the subjects and verbs of the sentences. They direct your attention to the main ideas and help you trace the evolution of the poem’s ideas. Spend some time in your new friend’s company before you decide what he’s like. © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

W ILL, AGAIN When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate; For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings. –William Shakespeare © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

WHAT ’ S UP WITH W ILL ? Poems, like narratives or stories, take place in time and space and emotion. When we start to read, we interrupt the poet in the midst of an event, a “moment” that motivates the speaker of the poem. We can tell a few things about Will’s moment after just a little listening. His word choice gives him away. First of all, he’s thinking back to “When” he has certain experiences and how he typically reacts to them. In Sonnet 29, what has brought the speaker to the point of expressing himself? © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

S PEAKER ? Yes, a poem has a speaker, and if we listen hard and well, we can hear that speaker’s personality. Will is not at all shy. Notice that right away he confesses that he has sometimes been in trouble “with Fortune and men’s eyes.” And he has lost his temper, it seems, crying out to “deaf heaven” about his troubles. And, too, he has been a little self-pitying, complaining about “his fate” and “despising” himself. And, frankly, he’s inclined toward envying others for their gifts and talents. But he’s also introspective. He tries to figure out what he feels and when and why. © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

C LASSROOM A CTIVITY : P ROFILING P ERSONALITY Read William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29 several times. Make note of his word choice and phrasing as well as the list of complaints he makes about his problems and how he responds to his “state.” Then write two or three sentences as though you were going to describe Will’s temperament to friends who did not know him. Would he make a good college roommate? © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

P ERSONALITY OR M OOD ? Personality is forever. Mood is for now. The word we use for “mood” in poetry is “tone.” Tone identifies the particular feeling the speaker or the poet expresses at a particular moment. And because people change, the tone of a poem can change from beginning to end. Just as we might say about a person’s mood that he or she was cheerful or depressed, snarly or snide, we can discuss a poem’s tone. Some common tone words include sentimental, nostalgic, wistful, cynical, bitter, angry, funny, teasing, satirical, sarcastic, playful, mournful, sad, loving, dreamy, proud, admiring, thoughtful, somber, conversational, sedate, grateful, regretful, and ruminative (look that one up!). © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

C LASSROOM A CTIVITY : T ONE Trace the evolution of tone in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29 from beginning to end. On what line or word does the tone shift? What words in the poem signal the shift in tone? © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

M AKING F RIENDS Besides knowing our new friend’s personality, we learn about some of the experiences that have shaped him. The content of the poem conveys the speaker’s ATTITUDES toward the subject. Make a list of the qualities in others that provoke the speaker’s envy in Sonnet 29. © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

F IGURES OF S PEECH Some people speak in hyperbole with clever turns of phrase and witty conversation, while others speak more plainly. Similarly, some poems are packed with figures of speech, while others seem simple and straightforward. The density of figurative language is not a sign of poetry quality but rather an indication of the tone or content of the poem. What other figures of speech does Sonnet 29 contain? How does the figurative language contribute to the poem’s meaning? © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

S TRUCTURE : E VOLVING I DEAS The structure of a poem is a kind of inner conversation that reveals the evolution of the poet’s or the speaker’s thoughts. Shakespeare’s poem is an English sonnet, and like many sonnets of that kind proposes an idea in the first three quatrains and then comments on the idea in the couplet. Underline the trigger words in the sonnet that reveal shifts in the speaker’s attitude, tone, or experience. Pay particular attention to conjunctions, transition words, and punctuation. © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

C LASSROOM A CTIVITY : H OW S TRUCTURE L EADS TO M EANING Choose an Italian sonnet from your text. (Your teacher can help you select the right poem.) Analyze the difference in subject matter between the octave and the sestet. Look for something like this: A question and an answer A problem and its solution A “then” situation and a “now” An concrete incident, anecdote, or narrative followed by a broader, more philosophical commentary Then discuss how the structure of the sonnet reveals the poet’s larger meaning. © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

P ATTERNS : I MAGERY Many poems or sections of poems are united by a thread that runs through them. The thread is made of words, images, figures of speech, and even allusions that weave together a pattern of meaning. What do the following have in common in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29: “disgrace,” “men’s eyes,” “alone,” “outcast,” “deaf heaven,” “bootless cries,” “fate”? What words form a thread through the second quatrain? © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

P ATTERNS : S OUND Will has been talking to us all this time, his pitch rising and falling, his words chosen for driving an insistent rhythmic punctuation throughout the end-stopped lines of the first two quatrains and into the remainder of the poem. The sound patterns come from several sources—the end rhyme, the regular iambic pentameter, the balance of one-syllable and multi-syllabic words, the alliteration and the assonance. Only once does Shakespeare use enjambment. Find the enjambment and suggest its contribution to the meaning of the poem. © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

C LASSROOM A CTIVITY : S OUND P ATTERNS Review the definitions of rhyme, including masculine and feminine rhyme and slant-rhyme. Review the definitions of alliteration, assonance, dissonance, and consonance. Review the definitions and kinds of rhythm, including how to identify foot and meter. Then both scan the rhythm and identify the rhyme scheme of Sonnet 29. Finally, discuss the way William Shakespeare uses sound devices to communicate his sonnet’s themes. © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

T ITLES : C LUES TO M EANING A charming smile can make a good first impression. In poetry, the title is often that first impression. Some titles are merely re-statements of the poem’s first line. Other titles give us a clue to the poem’s content or meaning. Often after we know the poem better, the title takes on new significance. From your text, choose a poem whose title takes on additional significance after you have read and studied the poem. What additional meaning does the title then supply? © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

C LASSROOM A CTIVITY : S LEUTHING BY WAY OF THE T ITLE Revisit a poem you have studied in class. Then give the poem a new title in light of the way you understand the poem now. Share your new title with your classmates. Does the new title enrich the reader’s experience of the poem? Or is the original title better? © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

T HE N EXT D AY B LUES It’s sad to make a new friend and then not see her again. So, too, with reading a new poem. Come back to it, again and again. With each reading, you bring a different part of yourself to the relationship, and the poem takes on new meaning in light of how you have changed since the last encounter. © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.