dear all
the following pointers may help with poem analysis. Poetry is a compact language that expresses complex feelings. To understand the multiple meanings of a poem, readers must examine its words and phrasing from the perspectives of rhythm, sound, and images. Readers then need to organize responses to the verse into a logical, point-by-point explanation. A good beginning involves asking questions that apply to most poetry. Clear answers to the following questions can help establish good understanding and analysis of a poem. Readers should read through a poem several times, at least once aloud and look for repetition of specific words, phrases, or verses in the poem. Locating and identifying theme is crucial to understanding dominant ideas; theme is the poem's essence.
Before reaching a conclusion about the meaning of a poem, readers should summarize their personal responses. Are they emotionally moved or touched by the poem? Are they entertained or repulsed, terrified or stirred to agree? Do words and phrases stick in their memory? How has the poet made an impression? Why? Notice also that not all questions apply to all poems.
1. Who wrote the poem? Does the poet suggest any special point of view? Does this point of view express something that is literally specific?
2. When was the poem written and in what country?
3. Does the poem belong to a particular period or literary movement?
4. Is it an epic, (a long poem about a great person or national hero)?
5. Is it a lyric (a short, musical verse)?
6. Is it a narrative (a poem that tells a story)?
7. Is it a haiku (an intense lyrical three-line verse of seventeen syllables)?
8. Does the poem confess personal memories and experiences?
9. Is the title's meaning obvious?
10. Does it imply multiple possibilities?
11. Is there historical significance to the title?
12. Why certain information seems to deserve the repetition.
13. Does the poet place significant information or emotion in these places?
14. Does the poem leave a lasting impression by closing with a particular thought?
15. Does the poet specify a time?
16. Who is the speaker? Is the person male or female?
17. Does the voice speak in first person
18. Does the speaker talk directly to a second person
19. Is the voice meant to be universal
20. Are there character names? Is there a significance for this meaning?
21. Is the poet deliberately concealing information from the readers,
22. Does the poem stress cultural details, such as the behavior, dress, or speech habits of a particular group or a historical period or event?
23. Is the poem a fantasy?
24. What is the mood of the poem? Is it cheerful, mysterious, provocative, ominous, festive, fearful, or brooding?
25. What is the poet's tone? Is it satiric, serious, mock serious, playful, somber, brash, or teasingly humorous?
26. Does the poet admire, agree with, ridicule, or condemn the speaker?
27. What is the subject of the poem?
28. Is the poet merely teasing or entertaining or trying to teach a lesson?
29. Does the poet emphasize the theme by means of onomatopoeia, personification, or controlling images?
30. Is there a dominant rhythm?
31. Does the poem stress sense impressions — for example, taste, touch, smell, sound, or sight? Are these impressions pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral?
32. What are the there images or pictures the poem employs?
33. Are the pictures created by means of comparisons, personification, metaphor or simile?
34. Does the poet stress certain sounds?
35. Are certain sounds repeated (alliteration)?
36. Is there a rhyme scheme or sound pattern at the ends of lines?
37. Is there onomatopoeia, or words that make a sound that imitate their meaning?
38. Does the poem give biographical information؟