Essay Instructions: A. The Jewel Stairs' Grievance: Ezra Pound (after Li Po)
What can we say about this poem? Does the poem tell us anything about its speaker? Where does the speaker seem to be? Can we get any other information from the poem?
Who might the "he" be whom the note refers to? What might the speaker's grievance be?
If the speaker is outside on the jewelled steps, what does she mean by the "crystal curtain"? Why might the moon be a good image to present here?
B. Shakespeare's Sonnet 73
Does Sonnet 73 give us any information about the speaker? Can we speculate if it is a man or a woman? What might indicate a gender? Can we speculate about the age of the speaker? Do we get any other hints about anything? We'll come back to the last two questions later.
Do we get any hints about the internal audience's gender or age. Can we speculate about his or her relationship with the speaker? In what ways might this audience affect what the speaker says?
What do you notice about the sentence structure of Sonnet 73?
What images do we notice in Sonnet 73? Do some of them coalesce into image patterns or structures? How are the images organized in the sonnet? Do the images in this sonnet seem to work together? What do they contribute to the intellectual and emotional aspects of the sonnet?
We earlier noted the repetitions at the beginning of each of the parts of the sonnet. What do these repetitions convey? Is there something a little strange in what the speaker seems to be doing? What is he telling the internal audience?
Finally, does the last line of the poem kind of take us off guard? How?
Element Description of Element
The speaker
Who is (s)he? What does (s)he tell us about him/herself? about other subjects? Is (s)he credible? What does (s)he desire his/her speech to accomplish?
The internal audience
The "internal audience" is the implied hearer within the poem itself, as distinct from us as readers who are outside the poem and, in a way, overhear it.
We can identify an internal audience by the presence of a second-person pronoun (e.g. you, your, thou, thee, thy) in the poem.
• Who is being spoken to?
• What is his/her/their relationship to the speaker?
• In what ways does this audience affect what the speaker says?
What's going on???"the situation
• What is the poem's setting?
• Where in time and space does the speech seem to take place?
• What is its dramatic context?
• Does the speech of the poem constitute or seem to form part of a "narrative plot"?--a developing series of actions?
• The "plot" may be either explicit or implicit.
The relationship between the poem's syntactical structure and the structure of the verse form
• This is one of the most important things to keep in mind when you are reading a poem. The poem creates and transmits its meaning (semantic content) through its sentence structure.
• The metrical structure of the poem??"the line is its basic unit??"can reinforce, add to, or even work against that meaning, but in order to get the full significance of the poem, you must be sure to read the poem's sentences!
• Sometimes the poem's syntactical structure (sentence structure) and metrical structure will work together. Sometimes they won't.
The imagery: the "things" the poem mentions or alludes to
• Imagery consciously or unconsciously contained in the words of the speaker??"his/her comparisons, the things (s)he talks about, etc.
• Imagery included in the setting of the poem.
The diction
• What kinds of language does the speaker use?
• Is it used in an unusual way?
• Is it special in any way or drawn from a particular area of experience?
• Does it characterize the speaker in any way?
The verse elements
• Rhyme, meter, rhythm, alliteration, consonance,etc.
• These elements are most important when they contribute to the poem's overall effect.
C. Shakespeare's Sonnet 3
1. Does the sonnet give any information about or lead us to infer anything about the speaker of the poem? Where? How?
2. Does the sonnet have an "internal audience"? Does the sonnet give any information about or lead us to infer anything about the internal audience of the poem? Where? How?
3. What is occurring in the sonnet, i.e., what "situation" does the sonnet present?
4. Write out the independent clauses of the poem (remember an "independent clause" can be punctuated with a semicolon [or occasionally a colon] or a question mark, or a comma along with one of the "coordinating conjunctions," in most cases, and, or, nor, or but), as well as with a period. You should find eight (8) independent clauses.
5. Identify the images in the poem, and describe how they are presented.
6. Is there any remarkable diction in the sonnet? Look particularly at the second quatrain.
7. Do you notice any significant poetic devices or musical effects?
8. Try to construct a "thesis statement" derived from your study of the sonnet that you could use as a starting point to develop an "explication" of the sonnet.
D. Shakespeare's Sonnet 18
1. Does the sonnet give any information about or lead us to infer anything about the speaker of the poem? Where? How?
2. Does the sonnet have an "internal audience"? Does the sonnet give any information about or lead us to infer anything about the internal audience of the poem? Where? How?
3. What is occurring in the sonnet, i.e., what "situation" does the sonnet present?
4. Write out the independent clauses of the poem (remember an "independent clause"can either stand alone or be linked to another independent clause by a coordinating conjunction [and, or, nor, but] and can be punctuated with a colon, semicolon or a question mark, as well as with a period). You should find about twelve (12) independent clauses; the third quatrain's syntax is a bit weird.
5. Identify the images in the poem, and describe how they are presented.
6. Is there any remarkable diction in the sonnet? What do the two instances of this in the last line refer to?
7. Do you notice any significant poetic devices or musical effects?
8. Try to construct a "thesis statement" derived from your study of the sonnet that you could use as a starting point to develop an "explication" of the sonnet.
