Year 11 Literature

Poetry Study

The following may be helpful in getting you started on Tasks 7, 8 and 11.

A framework for discussing poetry

Some tasks will give you specific topics to respond to, so you will shape your material accordingly. Others may require a general analysis. The following models may be helpful when discussing poetry in a general way.

1. When writing a poetry analysis, it is a good idea to begin with a general comment about the meaning of the poem. Save the discussion of techniques until after you've established what the poem is about.

Here are a few appropriate general introductions for some poems in your text Form and Feeling.

  • The traditional ballad Barbara Allen tells the story of a young woman who cruelly rejects a young man's love. Only after he dies of a broken heart does she come to realise the unkindness of her actions, and she too, then learns what it is to suffer.
  • In Jacques' speech from Shakespeare's play As you Like It (Act II Scene VII) we hear a man reflecting on the various stages of life that we pass through and the many roles we play over the course of a lifetime.
  • My Last Duchess is a dramatic monologue by Robert Browning. The persona speaking is an arrogant, aristocratic, cold-blooded murderer who recounts the events that led to his wife's demise.
  • In his poem the not-so-good earth, Bruce Dawe is critical of the values and insensitivity of western culture to others.
  • Edwin Brock's poem Five Ways to Kill a Man explores the destructive nature of man, and the ways in which his means of destroying his fellow man have become more sophisticated over the past few centuries.

2. Having made some general comments about meaning, it is then appropriate to identify some important techniques of poetry that are present in the poem and that contribute to the meaning in some way.

Here are some comments that would be appropriate to follow on from the ones above, in which techniques have been highlighted.

  • Barbara Allen unfolds in the traditional manner of ballads. There is a strong narrative which is conveyed through description, dialogue and with a strong rhyme and rhythm.
  • Shakespeare uses imagery, and in particular an extended metaphor of the theatre to convey man's life span. In talking about 'players' (actors), entrances and exits and playing 'many parts', he is alluding to the various ages we experience, ranging from infancy, childhood and adolescence through to old age.
  • An important technique Browning uses is in the poem is irony. The persona, the Duke, thinks he is informing the listener about his wife's supposed infidelities while in reality, he revealing what a cold and cruel person he is.
  • The poet has created a persona who speaks in free verse, describing his family watching a news or documentary programme on television in which the Chinese are suffering through political riots and starvation. Dawe encourages the reader to see beyond the conversational tone and shallowness of the persona's words and is being ironic in this poem.
  • One of the most noticeable features of Brock's poem is the bright, conversational tone compared with the horror of what is being described. Brock has structured his poem in to five stanzas, each symbolic of a particular period of man's history.

3. A good response will go on to discuss the meaning and techniques in more depth and detail and will support arguments with evidence from the poem. If you are unsure of quoting conventions, be sure to consult Lesson Book 11.5 page 17. It is important to master these conventions.

To make your discussion flow smoothly, be sure use linking expressions or transition phrases between paragraphs.

4. In your study of Judith Wright in Lesson Book 11.6, you may find the following websites helpful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helen