English 2010

Introduction to Literary Analysis

Dr. O'Dea

Writing Workshop, Wednesday March 21:

Developing Critical Topics into Critical Theses and Arguments

Earlier this term you developed some critical topics on Shakespeare's Sonnets and on Plath's
poetry. I've selected a few topics, combined several others, or fleshed out some ideas you
proposed, and present them below as items to work with in class on Wednesday. Here's what
you should do before class (if you do this right, it should take about two hours):

1. Read through the topics carefully.

2. Choose two or three topics (at least one Shakespeare, at least one Plath) that you find
interesting and might want to discuss in class.
3. Go back through the relevant poems and carefully work out a paragraph or so in
response to each of the topics you've chosen. Be sure to point to particular poems, and
try to work out some relationships between poems, if appropriate.
4. Examine each of your paragraph responses and make some lists of the kinds of specific
examples and evidence you would need to support your ideas: images, metaphors,
patterns, sequences of poems, etc.

The critical topic poses (or at least implies) a question or problem. The paragraph of response
poses an answer to the question or a solution to the problem; this is your critical thesis, and
perhaps a map of the supporting points. The examples and evidence on your lists are the
details necessary to make a convincing, developed critical argument in support of the thesis.

NOTE: These are not the only topics available for this essay; they are offered only as examples
for discussion. Topics posted in our discussion board forums or topics of your own devising may
certainly be developed into useful arguments. I am always happy to talk about your ideas.

Shakespeare's Sonnets

1. Death plays a major role in the sonnets dedicated to the Fair Youth, beginning in the
Procreation sonnets that beg the Youth to preserve his legacy after he is gone,
continuing through Sonnets 66 and 73 especially. How does the view of death change
over the narrative of these sonnets? In what ways does its portrayal differ, and how does
the poet’s description of death metamorphose into something more sinister and more
closely ominous? Why do you think this is?

2. In what way is sonnet 62 a response to the three previous sonnets? How does it fit into
the larger story of the sonnets?

3. Shakespeare often toys with traditional ideas of gender in the sonnets, sometimes
remolding the masculine as feminine and vice versa – for example, addressing the
young man as a kind of Petrarchan love object, casting the Dark Lady as sexual
aggressor, punning about body parts, teasing us with masculine and feminine rhyme
schemes, etc. What is the overall effect of Shakespeare's gender bending in the
sonnets?
4. Examine a particular set of metaphors that cut across several sonnets (roses/gardening,
for example, or legal contracts) and explain how these metaphors develop in the
different mood contexts of the sonnets. For example, is the Fair Youth always a
blooming rose, or is he at some points a cankered flower? Under what circumstances?
Claims of legal ownership might cast the poet as debtor or creditor, etc. – how does this
situation develop?

5. Although the couplets are short, they often convey a very powerful meaning. Choose a
set of particularly intense couplets and account for their intensity. How do they work with
their sonnets as a whole? Can you invent categories of couplets, to designate the
different ways Shakespeare uses the device?

6. Examine the three metaphors of Sonnet 73. The periods of time within this sonnet grow
shorter and shorter to belie how little time the poet thinks he has had to be alive, and
how mortal he is. Show how those metaphors complement and reinforce each other,
from length of time, and from warm to cold, etc.

Sylvia Plath's Poetry

1. In “Black Rook in Rainy Weather,” Plath mentions miracles as “spasmodic tricks of

radiance,” and waiting for the “rare, random descent” of an angel. Do you think she
treats her religious beliefs often in her poetry? And if she is quite skeptical about
miracles, God, etc., why doesn’t she have poems directed with anger towards God?

2. “There is a charge / For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge / For the hearing of my
heart,” Plath writes in “Lady Lazarus.” She alludes to the public viewing of her scars in
other poems, such as “Tulips.” It often seems that the entire world is a voyeur just
waiting to sneak a peek at the unhappy poetess. Discuss the body as a public artifact in
these and other such poems.

3. In her “Bee poems,” (“The Bee Meeting,” “The Arrival of the Bee Box,” “Stings,” “The
Swarm,” and “Wintering”) Plath uses images of bees and bee keeping to illustrate her
transformation and self-renewal. However, she is shaping her renewal around a
metaphor strngly connected to her memory of her father. How might these poems
illustrate both her self-renewal and her continued dependency?

4. What is Plath’s opinion of the stereotypical woman of the 1950’s? How is this idea
related to ideas of beauty and motherhood in her poetry?

5. In many of her poems, Plath seems to have an obsession with time. “Lady Lazarus” and
“Daddy,” along with many other poems both mark time in some way. Also, poems like
“Mirror” have a theme of aging in them. Pick two or more poems that deal with time in
some way and explain its significance. What exactly is being counted? What do these
numbers correspond to in regard to events in Sylvia Plath’s life?

6. How and to what purposes does Plath use imagery of the Holocaust – Germans, Jews,
death camps, etc.?