Analyzing Poetry: Unit 1

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman
Three Haiku by Matsuo Bashō
Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare

Edgar Allan Poe Matsuo Bashō

1809-1849 1644-1694
Walt Whitman William Shakespeare

1819-1892 1564-1616
 The Raven
Meet the Writer
Edgar Allan Poe’s life was
brief and mostly tragic. Born
in 1809, he died at forty, two
years after losing his young
wife to tuberculosis.
Although “The Raven” earned
him some fame and other
writers admired his stories,
he never managed to
support himself with his More About the Writer
writing.
 The Raven
by Edgar Allan Poe
 The Raven
Background
“The Raven” gave Poe his first and only taste of
fame in his lifetime. Published in 1845 in a New York
newspaper, it was such a hit that both the poem and
Poe’s name seemed to be on everyone’s lips. Yet
Poe received only about ten dollars for his work.
 The Raven
by Edgar Allan Poe
Has something outside of you—an object in nature,
an animal, a landscape—ever echoed your feelings
so strongly that it seemed to “speak” to you?
 The Raven
by Edgar Allan Poe
At midnight on a bleak December night, a weary
student is studying in his room and mourning his
dead love, Lenore.
• Suddenly, he hears a tapping
at his door.
• He is filled with terror.
• Is it only a visitor, or is it
something more?
 The Raven
Literary Focus: Sound Effects
Like a catchy song, “The Raven” has pleasing
sound effects, such as

evocative rhythms Once upon a midnight dreary

“On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes

have flown before.”
Then the bird said “Nevermore.”
clever rhymes

While I nodded, nearly napping

alliteration (repetition of consonant sounds)
 An Excerpt from The Raven
(1) Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
(2) And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
(3) Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow
(4) From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore
(5) For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore
(6) Nameless here for evermore.

Answer the questions in your packet.

 Walt Whitman
1819–1841 Student of the World
• Born on Long Island, just
outside of Brooklyn on May
31, 1819
• Dropped out of school at
age eleven and became a
printer’s assistant
• Spent five years teaching
school
 Walt Whitman
1819–1841 Student of the World
• Traveled to New Orleans;
saw American frontier
firsthand
• Returned to New York,
became an editor, and
began writing poetry
• Supplemented income
working as carpenter and
contractor
 Walt Whitman
1861–1892
• During Civil War, traveled to Virginia to nurse
his injured brother
• Stayed to help
thousands of other
injured soldiers
• Profoundly affected by
experience
Union Hospital at Fair Oaks,
Virginia
 Walt Whitman
1861–1892
• After the Civil War and Lincoln’s
assassination, published Drum-Taps
• Included elegies for Lincoln
—“When Lilacs Last in the
Dooryard Bloom’d” and “O
Captain! My Captain!”
•His elegy for Lincoln served as
the public voice for the nation’s
grief over Lincoln’s death.

• Lived in Camden, New Jersey, from

1884 until his death
I Hear America Singing
by Walt Whitman

Construction of the Dam by William Gropper

 I Hear America Singing
by Walt Whitman

This poem celebrates the unique “songs”

expressed by the labors of ordinary workers—
people who

• take pride in their

occupations

• go about their work with

a spirit of joy

Turn to “I Hear America Singing” in your packet and read

along. (Go to next slide for audio.)
I Hear America Singing
by Walt Whitman
I hear America singing . . .

Answer the questions in your packet.

 Matsuo Bashō
(1644-1694)
 Matsuo Bashō is considered the
developer of the haiku form as
well as its greatest master.
 His haiku show a zest for every
speck of life – a sense that nothing
in this world is unimportant.
 In his youth, he lived in luxury as
the companion to the son of a
lord. Later, however, he lived
apart and devoted himself to
writing haiku.
 Bashō was a deeply spiritual man
who became a Zen monk in his
later years.
 Haiku
 A haiku is a brief,
unrhymed poem three lines
long. In Japanese each
haiku has seventeen
syllables: The first and last
lines have five syllables
each and the middle line
has seven. This strict,
compressed form
challenges haiku poets to
convey their feelings and
observations in a few vivid
images.
 Haiku

 A haiku . . .
 presents images from nature and from
everyday life – usually two contrasting images
 contains a seasonal word or symbol
 presents a moment of discovery or
enlightenment
 can capture moments of life with the speed
and precision of a snapshot
The Challenges of Haiku
 Since the Japanese language
differs so much from English,
translators must make
accommodations in order to
capture the spirit of the original.
In many cases translated haiku
have more than seventeen
syllables and sometimes more
than three lines. Another
challenge for translators is that
Japanese haiku leave so much
unsaid. As a result, the same
haiku can be translated in
numerous ways, each with subtle
differences.
 Translations of Haiku
 Consider these three versions of a well-known haiku by
Bashō. The first is a fairly literal translation by Harold G.
Henderson: 
Old pond: 
        frog jump-in
        water-sound. 
Harry Behn’s translation retains the seventeen-syllable structure
of the original Japanese:
        An old silent pond ...
     A frog jumps into the pond, 
       splash! Silence again. 
A looser translation by Asatarō Miyamori captures the image
but abandons the three-line form:
     The ancient pond! 
     A frog plunged—splash! 
Three Haiku by Matsuo Bashō
It would melt
in my hand -
the autumn frost.

First day of spring -

I keep thinking about
the end of autumn.

Spring!
a nameless hill
in the haze. Page 571

Answer the questions in your packet.

William Shakespeare
 William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
is best known for his brilliant
success as a playwright. However,
had Shakespeare written no plays
at all, his reputation as a poet
would still have been immense.
His sonnets—all 154 of them—are
regarded as some of the finest
poetry ever written.
 Sonnet 18:
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?
Meet the Writer
William Shakespeare was born in
1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, a
market town about a hundred miles
from London. He was one of eight
children.
At grammar school, Shakespeare
would have learned to read, write,
and speak Latin and would have
studied some of the classical poets
and historians. He did not attend
university.
Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway
in 1582, and they had three children.
 Sonnet 18:
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?
Meet the Writer
 There have been more words written about the
English playwright William Shakespeare than
about any other artist in history.
 He wrote 37 plays, 2 long narrative poems, and
154 sonnets all within a period of 23 years.
 Many details of Shakespeare’s private life are
shrouded in mystery.
 Although he was married with three children,
most scholars agree that many of his sonnets (love
poems) were written about a man.
 The time period in which Shakespeare lived is
often referred to as the Elizabethan Era, referring
to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England
(1558-1603).

“ . . . Not of an age, but for all

time.”
- Ben Johnson
 Sonnets
Shakespeare’s greatest non-dramatic poetry is in
a group of 154 sonnets. These sonnets
• have a vast richness of language and imagery
• show an unusual depth of perception and feeling
• extend beyond the conventional subject of love
to a contemplation of the beauty of life and the
mortality of man
 Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?
Literary Focus: The Sonnet
A sonnet is a fourteen-line lyric poem, usually
about love.
• The English sonnet consists of three
quatrains (four-line stanzas) followed by a
couplet (a pair of rhyming lines) at
the end.
 Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?
Literary Focus: The Sonnet
In an English sonnet
• a situation is presented in the first two lines of
the first stanza
• the three quatrains often express related ideas
or examples
• a turn (shift in focus or thought) begins at the
third quatrain – Line 9
• the couplet sums up the poet’s conclusion or
message
The English sonnet is also called the Shakespearean sonnet
— not because Shakespeare invented the form, but
because he perfected it.
Literary Focus: Shakespearean Sonnet

The typical rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean

sonnet is abab cdcd efef gg.

First quatrain:

(1) Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? a

(2) Thou art more lovely and more temperate: b
(3) Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, a
(4) And summer's lease hath all too short a date: b

—Sonnet 18, lines 1–4

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?
by William Shakespeare
 Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?
Introducing the Poem
Why does the speaker ask if he should compare
his sweetheart to a summer’s day?
• Perhaps, his beloved’s beauty is so shining
and so eternal that the speaker is not sure
that this comparison will be adequate to
express how beautiful she is.
 Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?
Introducing the Poem
Shakespeare’s Sonnets: Personal or Persona?
• Scholars are unsure whether real-life individuals
lie behind the characters in these poems.
• Some believe that the speaker
is not even Shakespeare
himself but rather a persona,
or character, he invented.
 Sonnet 18
Literary Focus: Shakespearean Sonnet

As you read Sonnet 18, notice

• where each quatrain begins

and ends
• which words rhyme in the
quatrains
• how the couplet is used to
sum up the message
 Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare
(1) Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
(2) Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
(3) Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
(4) And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

(5) Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

(6) And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
(7) And every fair from fair sometime declines,
(8) By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

(9) But thy eternal summer shall not fade

(10) Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
(11) Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
(12) When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

(13) So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

(14) So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Answer the questions in your packet.