English 201

Introduction to Literary Analysis

Dr. O'Dea

Poetry Analysis Essay

Due: Thursday, December 9

General
The word “explication” comes from the Latin verb explicare, meaning to “unfold.” When
you explicate a work of literature, you “unfold” some of its nuances by carefully analyzing
a portion of it—by drawing out and revealing some aspect of the text’s imaginative
representation. You can analyze form, theme, word choice, tone, sound, structure, and
so on. Of course, you can’t account for everything that goes on in a text, so you should
focus on one element (or perhaps a pair of very closely connected elements) that you
think enlightens an overall reading of the work.
For this paper, you will write five page comparative explication of a pair of poems.
Choose any two of the eight poems that appear in the "Poems About Parents" section of
our anthology (778–83). Your essay should have:

1. a clear, carefully phrased argumentative thesis;

2. a logically developed argument supporting that thesis, based on well-chosen
evidence from the text; and
3. a conclusion explaining how your reading of the poems helps us to understand them
better.

Preliminary

1. Choose the two poems you will compare.

2. Read the poems several times, annotating them as you did for the poetry annotation
project. Take special note of the questions and problems that the texts seem to
present.
3. Your annotations should reveal to you a set of concerns that you have with the texts
—related issues that you seem to be drawn to. Write about these concerns in a "free
writing" style; get them down and explain the ideas to yourself on paper. This is a
"pre-draft" that no one else will see, so don't worry about spelling or grammar. Just
write about the ideas and concerns that seem important to you, trying to relate the
ideas to one another. This set of related ideas will become your subject.

For advice about writing and drafting, and for guidelines about the final format of your
essay, refer to the fiction analysis assignment distributed earlier this term.