2. Writing Workshop Analyzing Literature Assignment Prewriting Choose and Analyze a Poem State Your Thesis and Gather Support Practice and Apply Feature Menu

3. Assignment: Write an essay in which you analyze the literary elements of a poem. Analyzing Literature You’ve probably had a strong response to a poem before. Why did the poem affect you as it did? If you dig deep to analyze a work of literature, you can explain how all the elements work together to create an overall effect. [End of Section]

4. Choose a poem about ten to twenty lines long. Make sure it is rich in meaning. Analyzing Literature Prewriting: Choose and Analyze a Poem re-read poems you enjoyed in the past page through your textbook ask teachers, family members, or friends to recommend poems

5. Analyzing Literature Prewriting: Choose and Analyze a Poem Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare

6. Read the poem carefully and find the basic literary elements: Analyzing Literature Prewriting: Choose and Analyze a Poem Speaker is the imaginary voice, or persona, assumed by a writer. The speaker is an elderly man. In each quatrain, or four-line stanza, he describes his advanced age with images of autumn, twilight, ruins, and a dying fire.

7. Analyzing Literature Prewriting: Choose and Analyze a Poem Sometimes the speaker of a poem is an animal, a force in nature, or even an abstract idea.

8. Analyzing Literature Prewriting: Choose and Analyze a Poem Stylistic devicesStylistic devices are the techniques a writer uses to control language to create effects. One stylistic device Shakespeare uses is rhyme: That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.

9. Analyzing Literature Prewriting: Choose and Analyze a Poem Theme is the central idea or insight of a work of literature. The last two lines of the poem are important to understanding the theme: This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long. These lines reveal that the poem is about love and death. The speaker reflects that his impending death makes him even dearer to his younger lover.

10. Analyzing Literature Prewriting: Choose and Analyze a Poem Tone is the attitude a poet takes toward the reader or subject of the poem. The poem’s tone is one of loss and sadness. What words in lines 2 and 3 convey the tone? When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold.

11. Dig Deeper Identify the ambiguities, nuances, and complexities of the poem. Analyzing Literature Prewriting: Choose and Analyze a Poem Ambiguities are lines or words that lend themselves to more than one interpretation. The word “consumed” in line 12 is ambiguous. It could mean: speaker’s youth destroyed by metaphorical fire speaker’s youth spent wastefully speaker obsessed with thinking about his youth

12. First three quatrains Final couplet (lines 13 and 14) “Sonnet 73” changes tone once: Analyzing Literature Prewriting: Choose and Analyze a Poem Nuances are changes in the tone or meaning of the poem. somber tone happier, hopeful tone

13. Analyzing Literature Prewriting: Choose and Analyze a Poem Complexities result when a poem is rich in meaning but difficult to interpret. The first four lines use a complex metaphor, going beyond the traditional association between winter and old age to create the image of an elderly person whose thin arms and legs (boughs, or limbs) shake in the cold. [End of Section]

14. Analyzing Literature Prewriting: State Your Thesis and Gather Support Do one or two literary elements stand out as more interesting or significant than others? What overall effect do the elements create? Ask yourself: Statement of Intent

15. Analyzing Literature Prewriting: State Your Thesis and Gather Support In “Sonnet 73,” Shakespeare develops a solemn metaphor for old age, leading up to a final statement of the poem’s hope-filled theme: Love grows strong in the face of approaching death. identifies the one or two elements you have chosen to analyze states your main idea about their effects Draft a thesis statement that

16. Analyzing Literature Prewriting: State Your Thesis and Gather Support three to five key points—the most important ideas for proving your thesis. Select literary evidence—direct quotations and paraphrases from the poem—to support your key points. Gather the poem to find accurate and detailed references to support your thesis. Review the evidence to elaborate on it and tie it to your thesis statement. Explain

17. Organizing Your Essay Analyzing Literature Prewriting: State Your Thesis and Gather Support Does your essay focus on a single literary element? Trace the development of the element from its first appearance in the poem to its last. Chronological Order Does it focus on two literary elements? Talk about the more important element first, then the less important one (or vice versa). Order of Importance [End of Section]

18. Analyzing Literature Prewriting: Practice and Apply Analyze a poem by critically examining the poet’s use of literary elements. Develop a thesis. Gather your support. Organize your analysis. [End of Section]

19. Analyzing Literature Stylistic Devices diction—the poet’s choice of words rhythm—alternating stressed and unstressed syllables alliteration—repeated consonant sounds in words that are close together onomatopoeia—use of a word whose sound suggests its meaning figurative language— describing one thing in terms of another (similes, metaphors, personification) imagery— language that appeals to the senses

20. summarize the plot or subject matter of a literary work The poem’s tone shifts between a somber note to a happier one. Use the literary present tense whenever you refer to an author’s relationship to his or her work Shakespeare compares the speaker’s impending death with autumn and winter. Analyzing Literature