Paper #1: Poetry Analysis Comparison & Contrast
Due Week 6
Minimum page requirement: 4-5 pages/1000-1250 words
Double-spaced
MLA documented
Steps for Writing a Poetry Analysis
1.Read each poem twice. Try to analyze your first impression of it and write down a few comments.
2.Research the author of the poems if you are not familiar with him or her yet, and the history of the poem’s creation. Try to find out what inspired the poet and what gave rise to the idea for this particular poem, whether it was a reflection on what the poet personally experienced or witnessed, etc.
3.Read the poems once again, this time slower. Try to pay attention to the particular word selection, organization of the poem and poetic figures used, etc.
4.Start your poetry analysis with a description of the story, or situation, depicted in the poem. Make sure to answer these questions: Where? When? What happened? What is described? Who is involved? Pay attention to how the author develops the story and what instruments are used to indicate the culmination of the poem.
5.Now move on to the technical side of your poetry analysis. Analyze the poem’s rhyme and meter, and the structure of each stanza. Define each poetic figure used and give specific examples of allegories, metaphors, hyperboles, personifications, similes, litotes, and other literary devices. Try to identify the mood of each stanza, whether it is ironic, sad, cheerful, bitter, romantic, philosophical, etc.
6.Give your personal reflection of the poems – what you think it is about (normally, there is a figurative sense behind every poem). Here you can go back to your primary research about the author and the poem’s history.
7.Give a conclusion. Mention, whether you enjoyed the poems and whether the poet, in your opinion, succeeded in bringing particular feelings and ideas to the reader (the one the author supposedly intended to bring up, in your understanding of the poems).
Poem I
By Pablo Neruda
If You Forget Me
I want you to know
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
Poem II
By Sara Teasdale
I Am Not Yours
I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.
You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.
Oh plunge me deep in love — put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in a rushing wind.
