GUIDE FOR INTERPRETING POETRY

1. Provide short information about the author of the poem.

2. Define the genre of the poem:
 what events in the poem form a narrative?
 what personal emotions does the poet express in a lyric?
 what character or characters speak within the poem to make it dramatic?
3. Analyze the metrical pattern of the poem. Does the poem have a regular meter?
4. Analyze the rhyme scheme of the poem and kinds of rhymes.
5. Identify the cases of alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia. Analyze their
functions and effect created.
6. Analyze the images of the poem.
7. Analyze the figurative language of the poem.
8. Find symbols in the poem and analyze their origin and functions.
9. Define the poem’s speaker.
10. What tone does the speaker use throughout the poem?
11. Interpret the title of the poem.
12. Identify the poem’s major theme. How do its elements express the theme? Is the
theme, or central idea, directly stated? If not, what theme is implied?