Reading poems is a beautiful pastime. It makes us feel better, sharpens our emotions, and expands our vocabulary. However, reading poetry in your own sweet time is different from reading a poem and writing an analysis essay about it.
Analyzing a poem requires much more than casual reading. Aside from getting aware of the piece, you should also complete a dozen steps to produce logical and comprehensive work. This takes a while, but you don’t have to worry about missed deadlines. Nor should you think about “Who Can Write My Essay for Cheap?” This article contains everything you need to know to compose an excellent poem analysis. Keep reading to learn more.
Reading and comprehending
The first step toward writing a flawless poem analysis essay is understanding what it is about. Before delving into writing, make sure to read the piece at least twice until you comprehend every word and its meaning. Don’t stress out if you can’t get a specific verse. Poems are often hard to understand, so don’t shy away from using dictionaries or simply googling things.
Finding the poem’s central idea
Once you read the story and find out the meaning of every troublesome word, it is time to find the poem’s primary idea. What’s the main message? In other words, what does the author strive to say? You may need to break down your reading into several approaches to succeed in your searches.
Determining literary techniques
Every well-established author is famous for their unique writing style. The latter can manifest in many comparisons, allegories, alliterations, foreshadowing, irony, metaphor, and many more. Whatever it is, write them down, learn their meaning, and evaluate how well they fit the poem.
Establishing the style, theme, and tone
The next step is to determine the poem’s style, theme, and tone. When looking over the style, check the length of the verses. They will help you establish whether the piece is narrative, lyrical, observational, or persuasive.
Once you do that, proceed to a theme. Apart from the main message, what’s the theme? How do various parts of the poem interact? Is there any conflict or change of setting? Look at the poem as a whole and try to establish a theme along with its tone.
Locating descriptive elements
Descriptive elements are present in every poem. Not only do they help the writer deliver the message, but they also let readers reexperience the author’s feelings and emotions.
Usually, such items emerge in adjectives, allegories, and comparisons to enhance the five principal sensory feelings – smell, taste, touch, sight, and hearing.
Upon finding them, try to evaluate their level of success, i.e., do they help the audience see, touch, taste, smell, or hear an object?
Evaluating the poem
Besides understanding the idea and all the mentioned aspects, an essay must thoroughly analyze and assess the poem from various perspectives. That is, your job is to look at the poem and determine its strengths and weaknesses. But before you do that, keep in mind that you must be reasonable. Suppose something doesn’t seem compelling in a poem. For instance, an imagery detail that was supposed to evoke a particular emotion is unsuccessful. In that case, make sure to provide an example from the poem and explain why you think it fails to deliver the feeling.
To prove that you’re credible, include other sources that analyze the piece. They will demonstrate that you don’t have tunnel vision and did meticulous research when analyzing the poem. But again, whatever source you rely on, make sure it is reliable and updated (published within five years).
Last but not least, remember the formatting style. Typically, such works would require using the MLA citation style. However, academic institutions are autonomous and can require sticking to a different format. Therefore, ensure to learn which style you must follow beforehand.
Creating an outline
So, the theoretical part is behind you, finally. This means you are ready to kick off the writing session. To make the process even more effective and quick, outline the scope of your work.
An outline is a powerful tool that has several functions. First and foremost, it lays out the most critical steps you have to complete when writing an essay. An outline encapsulates essential information and shows you what you should include in the work and what you should omit.
Second, because it outlines your every move, you not only know what to write about, but you also write it incredibly fast. This way, you can build the draft quickly and efficiently.
Writing according to the structure
While poems can be written in various forms and rhyme differently, a poem analysis essay has only one structure to follow. It is an introduction, body part, and conclusion. Every part has a set of subsections, which your essay must contain. Let’s look at them in a broader scope.
Introduction
It is no secret that an introduction begins the paper and introduces the topic to the reader. The problem is, writing an impeccable intro is easier said than done. For starters, it doesn’t only introduce the topic. It should also be as catchy as possible. Write a stunning opening, touching upon the author or poem itself. Depending on your audience, you can include a joke, statistics, quote, or shocking statement.
Once you spark the audience’s attention, use it to provide some background on the topic. Background information will help the reader learn more about the author and their literary work.
The introduction’s last element is a thesis statement. It provides the main idea of the piece in a very compressed manner. A thesis is a brief and accurate sentence; you will develop its central points within the body part.
Body
The number of body paragraphs may vary depending on your requirements and the paper’s volume. But assuming you are writing a five-paragraph paper, your body part would typically include three sections.
Each body paragraph needs to have the following elements:
- Topic sentence: The first sentence that talks about the point from a thesis that will be discussed.
- Poetic evidence: Includes a shred of evidence from the poem.
- Development: Once you let the readers know about the point, develop it, providing authoritative thoughts.
Aside from those, each body section includes a short encapsulation and a transition phrase to make an essay cohesive.
Conclusion
The conclusion reviews central points and provides key information the reader needs to retain. The last paragraph also answers so what question to make the entire piece informative and worthy of reading. Ultimately, it ends with a call to action to motivate others to set up the discussion or keep investigating the topic.
Although analyzing poetry isn’t elementary, writing a poem analysis essay is more than manageable. If you are ever assigned to examine a poem, use the above strategy. It will help you build a well-organized piece and score a high mark.
This work was edited by Anjali Roongta on 6th April 2023.
