Poem Analysis Guidelines

Objective

To construct a persuasive argument about the meaning of a poem by John Keats from our reading list.

Procedure

1. Choose a poem by John Keats that is an assigned reading for this class, and write an analysis of it.

2. Take notes on the passage and consider details that explain its meaning and significance. Such details may include rhyme, meter, word choice, comparison/contrast, punctuation, context in a larger collection of poems and related texts, and/or anything else Keats has used to make his meaning clear to an audience. Focus on those elements that are the most useful in explaining the meaning of the poem.

3. Formulate a thesis statement summing up the meaning and significance of the chosen poem. This thesis will undoubtedly change as you write your paper, but at least it will give you a starting point. A good thesis is arguable rather than obvious.

4. Write a draft of your argument. Refer to specific words and phrases in the selected poem in order to support the points in your argument. You may also refer to other quotations in the larger work, as long as you maintain your focus on the passage in question. You may also refer to critical works on Keats's poetry in the Norton Critical Edition, but this is not a requirement. And, you are also welcome (but not required) to cite other texts, such as Habib's Literary Studies.

5. Share a word-processed, correctly formatted draft of this paper with peer editors on February 23rd, 2023, as a GoogleDoc. Include the poem, or at least a portion of it, at the top of the first page of your paper.

6. After considering feedback from peer editors and reconsidering your own argument, revise your paper.

7. Proofread your draft to identify and correct spelling and grammatical errors.

8. Submit the completed final draft through Canvas before the end of the day on March 2nd, 2023.

   Close Reading

   Close reading means paying careful attention to details in a written work. It is part of any literary analysis, regardless of your chosen critical approach. Since you will be looking more closely at this poem than most people who read it, your paper can offer perspectives on its meaning that will engage your audience and challenge their expectations.

   In analyzing a poem, you might ask yourself the following questions:

   What, literally, does the poem attempt to describe and/or argue for?

   Where in the collection of poems does this poem occur?

   Who speaks in the poem? To whom? What does the speaker hope to accomplish?

   How is this poem different from other poems by Keats? Why should your reader pay close attention to this poem?

   What will make your paper interesting to an audience consisting of your classmates, your teacher and yourself? You will want to tell them something new—that would not otherwise have occurred to them after reading this passage.

   Thesis Statement

   This is a one-sentence version of the whole paper, and it should be in an arguable claim. It should not merely restate the passage in your own words. A good thesis statement refers directly to the chosen poem, saying something like, "In this poem, . . ."

   Good thesis statements will challenge readers in some way to regard the poem in a new light. They may make claims regarding the poem's importance in the Keats's larger corpus, or to a little-noticed subtext within the poem.

   Some possible thesis language:

   This poem provides one of the clearest examples of Keats's romanticist orientation because . . .

   The dominant feature of this poem is a contradiction between . . . and . . . which Keats must then reconcile by . . .

   This poem may appear on its surface to be about . . . but it is actually describing . . .

   These are just a few examples of thesis statement language that can lead to productive arguments about the text. You may adapt these to your needs or develop your own.

   Writing Tips

   1. MLA format means you should include a list of works cited at the end of your paper, even if it only includes one work. For example:

      Keats, John. "The Eve of St. Mark." Keats's Poetry and Prose. Edited by Jeffrey N. Cox, W. W. Norton, 2008, pp. 307-311.

   2. Some grammatical tips:

      1. Avoid using the passive voice whenever it is possible to do so. When writing in the passive voice, you remove the subject from the sentence or at least de-emphasize it. This makes writing less engaging to most readers.

         Example:

         PASSIVE VOICE:

         The joys of all his life were said and sung. (John Keats, "The Eve of St. Agnes," l. 24)

         (Structure: object/"to be" verb/past participle)

         ACTIVE VOICE:

         Bards had already said and sung the joys of all his life.

         (Note structure: subject/verb/object—with the addition of the implied subject)

      2. Avoid contractions when writing college papers. For example, replace they're with they are and replace don't with do not.

      3. Italicization is the best way to signal that you are referring to a word itself and not to the thing that the word represents. Notice how I am using italicization of the terms in the following section "d". You should also italicize titles of books—but not the titles of individual poems within those books. Unless a poem is long, its title goes in quotes.

      4. The word it's (with an apostrophe) is a contraction of it is. The word its (without an apostrophe) is the possessive of it. Its and whose both deviate from the above rule about possessives.