MLA Format: Double space the entire paper. Use 12 point Times New Roman font. Set the margins to one inch on the left, right, top, and bottom. Include a creative title; do not title your paper Poetry Essay or use the title of the poem you are analyzing. Add the required materials in the heading and header.
Prompt:
Write an essay where you identify 2 or 3 relevant poetry terms/ concepts to discuss a specific theme of the poem; use your analysis of specific elements in the poem to show how those elements relate to each other to support the poem’s theme. The specific analysis you make about the poem will be your thesis, so you will support this thesis by drawing examples and evidence from the poem and the secondary source.
Analyze how the poem works:
First, what is the poem’s theme- love, war, death, peace, historical context, humor?
Then, what poetic techniques and figures of speech are used to help “show” this theme in the poem- metaphor, simile, setting, tone, voice, personification, irony, rhyme, form, sound, etc.? Select at least two but no more than three! Do not use a dictionary to define terms; define terminology in your own words.
***Hint: you may want to include very brief definitions of the terms in the introduction paragraph. Do not use dictionary definitions; you need to provide a short definition of the term. Then in the body paragraphs provide a reading / interpretation of the poem using the terms you have chosen. I suggest that you devote one paragraph per term. For example, if you want to discuss the metaphors and the sound in the poem, devote one body paragraph to the metaphors and a second body paragraph to the sound(s) in the poem.
