Analysis Review
Poetry “a” Targets
Steps and Tips

Identify the specific tricks used


End Rhyme rather than Rhyme
Explain the poet’s purpose in the specific
poem


General: poets use repetition to emphasize key
concepts in a poem
Specific: “I am from” is repeated to emphasize
the importance of the poet’s roots or family in
her life, to indicate that her past impacts her
present.
Good Examples
Sound Test

[Repetition] brings a dramatic effect about
the lines being said, painting a picture
within the reader’s head. For example,
“Rode the six hundred” appears many
times throughout this writing. This brings
to light the bravery of the cavalry and
leaves an image of 600 horses charging
into battle for what seems to be the last
time.
Sound Test

Repetition of “cannons to --- of them”
[and] “Into the valley of death” gives the
poem a mood of chaos and hopelessness.

Tennyson rhymes the words “hell” and
“well” to contrast the two very different
conflicting words.
Sound Test

…the author also broke [the rhyme
scheme] up some. I didn’t like that, but it
did help with the hopeless feeling.
Metaphor/Simile Analysis
Symbolism Analysis
Practice
A Model
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and II took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Together
Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
On Your Own
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.