English 113
Essay 2: Metaphor and Imagery
Due Monday, February 25
Write a paper in which you discuss the use of metaphor or imagery in 1 – 3 of the poems assigned (any of
the poems on Blackboard or on the Lib Guide). If you want to use a poem that is not on either of these
sites, you must consult with me first.
Criteria for a Successful Paper
A successful paper will:
 Describe the metaphor or imagery in the poem(s). This can mean many things, including:
 physical description (what objects, people, places, animals, or other physical phenomena does the
poem describe)
 Symbols (objects, etc., that represent some larger idea)
 Motifs (objects, etc., that repeat throughout the poem)
 Individual metaphors, whether isolated or extended
 The entire poem or one aspect of the poem, such as its setting, understood as a metaphor
 Discuss the meaning(s) of the poem(s), including the feelings evoked (that is, not just the ideas)
 Discuss the relationship between the metaphor(s) or imagery and the poem’s meaning.
 Give specific examples drawn from the poem(s) that illustrate the form and its relation to the content
 Explain how the examples work (how they support the point they illustrate)
 Have a thesis—a single, unified point about the relationship between form and content to which every
part of the paper relates.
 Be between 1,000 and 1,200 words.
Possible Topics or Questions
There are many, many ways to approach this assignment. The examples below are provided to illustrate the
kind of thing I want you to be writing about, and to stimulate your own thinking. You are not required to
use any of them, but you may if you find yourself without ideas. (These examples may refer to poems not
discussed in class.)
 Why does Camille Dungy in “Language” use the metaphor of language to describe natural phenomena
like the sound of a river or the howl of a coyote? (Or is it the other way around?)
 What is the point of Stevens’s metaphor of “The Emperor of Ice Cream”?
 What does the broken statue symbolize in “Ozymandias”?
 What feeling is created by the imagery in Ed Roberson’s “blue horses”? How does that feeling support
or enhance or offset the content?
 How do the metaphors in Shakespeare’s sonnet, “That time of year thou may’st in me behold,” develop
throughout the poem? What patterns, similarities, parallels, or significant changes do you observe
between the metaphors in the successive parts of the poem?
Format
The paper should follow the same format as the previous paper.