Note that monosyllabic words allow the meaning of the line to vary according to which words we choose to stress when reading (i.e., the choice of rhythm we make). Alliteration is a common device used in poems in order to increase the rhyme and even the rhyme present in lines. Although on a purely practical level the verse between "thus to mine eyes" and "thou sure and firm-set earth" might seem superfluous or merely embellishment, it is, after all, dramatic poetry. Also, the direct statement of the last line certainly addresses the human speaker as well as the human reader. Detailed quotes explanations with page numbers for every important quote on the site. In this way, begin your analysis by identifying and describing the speaking voice or voices, the conflicts or ideas, and the language used in the poem. LitCharts Poetry Guides will help you actually understand poetry, with line-by-line analysis, a modern translation, and explanations of speaker, setting, meter, rhyme scheme, poetic devices, and more. Teacher Editions with classroom activities for all 1396 titles we cover. This statement implies that we are all trapped or controlled by some remote object or entity. Definitions and examples of 136 literary terms and devices. These couplets draw attention to the contained nature of the all objects in the poem, and they draw attention to the final line’s lesson. The prominence or emphasis given to a syllable or word. Read the poem silently, then read it aloud (if not in a testing situation). 3 Stumbling across a field of clods towards a green hedge. Alexandrine A line of poetry that has 12 syllables. Here is an example. We cannot absolutely identify Wordsworth with the speaker of the poem, so it is more accurate to talk about “the speaker” or “the poet” in an explication. So near the freedom and rush of the sea? “I have listened all night to its laboring sound, At the same time, the assertion that “Nothing escapes” reflects the limitations of life in the world and the death that no person can escape. writing_center@unc.edu, Hours Second, the line refers to the ocean; in this respect the water cannot escape its boundary or control its own motions. Or, as does the undergraduate here, the writer may choose simply to stop writing when he or she reaches the end of the poem: Refer to the speaking voice in the poem as the “speaker” or “the poet.” For example, do not write, “In this poem, Wordsworth says that London is beautiful in the morning.” However, you can write. Monday 10 am-8 pm EDT Tuesday 10 am-10 pm EDT Wednesday 8 am-8 pm EDT Thursday 10 am-8 pm EDT Friday 10 am-4 pm EDT Saturday Closed Sunday 3 pm-7 pm EDT, © 2021 The Writing Center • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Singing at night alone? The final couplet rhymes with the middle line of the last three-line stanza. Find related themes, quotes, symbols, characters, and more. Since the moon, an object far away in the heavens, controls the ocean, the sea cannot be free as the speaker asserts. According to UNC ‘s Professor William Harmon, the foolproof way to begin any explication is with the following sentence: Such a beginning ensures that you will introduce the major conflict or theme in the poem and organize your explication accordingly. Hardy’s poetry explores the themes of rural life and nature, love and loss, cosmic indifference, the ravages of time, the inevitability of death and the inhuman ironies of war. Some of the most common patterns include the following: Meter (from the Greek metron, meaning measure) refers principally to the recurrence of regular beats in a poetic line. Determine the basic design of the poem by considering the who, what, when, where, and why of the dramatic situation: To analyze the design of the poem, we must focus on the poem’s parts, namely how the poem dramatizes conflicts or ideas in language. 450 Ridge Road Use the present tense when writing the explication. The following are the four most common metrical feet in English poetry: Meter also refers to the number of feet in a line: Any number above six (hexameter) is heard as a combination of smaller parts; for example, what we might call heptameter (seven feet in a line) is indistinguishable (aurally) from successive lines of tetrameter and trimeter (4-3). If we read the line this way, the statement takes on a musing, somewhat disinterested tone. Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, but his family moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1884 following his father’s death. Enjambment is often used by poets as a means of minimizing the difference between the sound of verse and the sound of prose, creating a poem that flows freely and emphasizes unexpected beats and words for the reader.For example, T.S. Eliot utilizes enjambment as a literary device in his poem “The Waste Land”: April is the cruelest month, breeding Line-by-line modern translations of every Shakespeare play and poem. Finally, the poet gives the fountain a voice to say that its perpetual motion (rising and falling) is “enough” to maintain its sense of existence. By concentrating on the parts, we develop our understanding of the poem’s structure, and we gather support and evidence for our interpretations. Requesting a new title requires a free LitCharts account. After great pain, a formal feeling comes –, If thou must love me, let it be for nought, Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae, On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year, somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond, Sonnet 19: When I consider how my light is spent, Sonnet 71: No longer mourn for me when I am dead. The name probably comes from a medieval romance about Alexander the Great that was written in 12-syllable lines. Poetry Guides LitCharts Poetry Guides will help you actually understand poetry, with line-by-line analysis, a modern translation, and explanations of speaker, setting, meter, rhyme scheme, poetic … Repeat as necessary. Though there are a few rhyming lines, it is a free verse poem. In the word poetry, the accent (or stress) falls on the first syllable. There are a total of four stanzas in the poem. Often, when a reader reads a line of verse, choices of stress and unstress may need to be made. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim”. 0127 SASB North This last line works on several levels to address the poem’s conflicts. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. Secondly, the speaker not only addresses the fountain but asserts that it speaks and sings, personifying the object with vocal abilities. The first paragraph should present the large issues; it should inform the reader which conflicts are dramatized and should describe the dramatic situation of the speaker. Teachers and parents! This final personification fully dramatizes the conflict between the fountain’s appearance and the poem’s statement of reality by giving the object intelligence and voice. Instant PDF downloads. Writing an explication is an effective way for a reader to connect a poem’s plot and conflicts with its structural features. These acts imply that, not only can the fountain speak in a musical form, but the fountain also has the ability to present some particular meaning (“what do you say” (1)). A poetry explication is a relatively short analysis which describes the possible meanings and relationships of the words, images, and other small units that make up a poem. In this way, the writer could explore the implications of the dramatic situation even further: why does the speaker ask a question of a mute object? The first strophe, four lines of alternating 4- and 3-foot lines, takes the form of a ballad stanza. Here in my basin of stone.” Finally, the line addresses the speaker, leaving him/her with an overriding sense of fate and fallacy. Such tension adds meaning to the poem by using meter and rhythm to dramatize certain conflicts. To improve this explication, the writer could focus more on the speaker’s state of mind. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License. A line-by-line dramatic verse analysis of Macbeth's speech in Act II, scene 1. First, since the speaker addresses an object usually considered voiceless, the reader may abandon his/her normal perception of the fountain and enter the poet’s imaginative address. 2 In raw-seamed hot khaki, his sweat heavy,. The explication should follow the same format as the preparation: begin with the large issues and basic design of the poem and work through each line to the more specific details and patterns. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Struggling with distance learning? However, because the first five words are monosyllabic, we may choose to read the line differently. Hardy’s poetry is characterised by fatalistic pessimism, earthy realism, and abstract philosophising. (919) 962-7710 In fact, we may be tempted, especially when reading aloud, to stress the first two syllables equally, making the opening an emphatic, directive statement. First, the line refers to the fountain itself; in this final rhymed couplet is the illustration of the water’s perpetual motion in the fountain, its continually recycled movement rising and falling. It heaves and sags, as the moon runs round; A student’s explication of Wordsworth’s “Composed upon Westminster Bridge” might begin in the following way: The next paragraphs should expand the discussion of the conflict by focusing on details of form, rhetoric, syntax, and vocabulary. The poem, as a work of literature, continues to exist! Take Shelley’s line: Then mark the polysyllabic nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs that are normally stressed: The line consists of four iambs; therefore, we identify the line as iambic tetrameter. Campus Box #5135 Ocean and fountain, shadow and tree, Request a new guide. For instance, line three which reads “A various language; for his gayer hours” or line twenty-three: “Thy image. In the second stanza, the last two lines contain an imperfect rhyme. Our own thoughts are restricted by our mortality as well as by our limits of relying on appearances. 7 The patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eye. Some of the details we should consider include the following: As you analyze the design line by line, look for certain patterns to develop which provide insight into the dramatic situation, the speaker’s state of mind, or the poet’s use of details. The most common form of meter in English verse since the 14th century is accentual-syllabic meter, in which the basic unit is the foot. Chapel Hill, NC 27599 The first couplet connects the rhyming words “be” and “sea” these connections stress the question, “Is the fountain content when it exists so close to a large, open body of water like the ocean?” The fountain responds to the tempting “rush of the sea” with much wisdom (6). A poetry explication is a relatively short analysis which describes the possible meanings and relationships of the words, images, and other small units that make up a poem. In this way, the poem begins by suggesting that it will be story that will perhaps teach a certain lesson. The second strophe expands the conflicts as the speaker questions the fountain. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. The opening trochees and repetition stress the address to the fountain, and the iamb which ends line 1 and the trochee that begins line 2 stress the actions of the fountain itself. By personifying a voiceless object, the poem presents a different perception of reality, placing the reader in the same position of the speaker and inviting the reader to question the conflict between appearance and reality, between what we see and what we can know. The ocean itself is trapped between landmasses and is controlled by a distant object’s gravitational pull. Refine any search. The fallacy here is that the fountain presents this wisdom of reality to defy the speaker’s original idea that the fountain and the ocean appear to be trapped and free. Again, this line is predominantly iambic, but a problem occurs with the word “Disobedience.” If we read strictly by the meter, then we must fuse the last two syllables of the word. Rhythm refers particularly to the way a line is voiced, i.e., how one speaks the line. In this way, meter pertains to the structure of the poem as it is written. The first line of Milton’s Paradise Lost presents a different type of problem. Hardy’s poetry contains great moral conviction. Finally, the writer could include a more detailed consideration of rhythm, meter, and rhyme. With a free LitCharts account, you'll also get updates on new titles we publish and the ability to save highlights and notes. 5 Bullets smacking the belly out of the air –. The response of the fountain illustrates its own rise and fall in the iambic line 3, and the rhyme of “alone” and “stone” emphasizes that the fountain is really a physical object, even though it can speak in this poem. Alliteration But are you content as you seem to be In this example, Milton forges such a tension to present immediately the essential conflicts that lead to the fall of Adam and Eve. A foot is a combination of two or three stressed and/or unstressed syllables. “It is enough to rise and fall The last line is finely balanced between the fragility of ‘pale’ and the steeliness of ‘metal’ – a word whose sound softens and moderates its sense .The line serves to evoke a precise visual image of the snowdrop, the relative heaviness of whose flower cannot be entirely supported by its frail stem. In this way, the fountain suggests that the sea’s waters may be described in images of labor, work, and fatigue; governed by the moon, these waters are not free at all. Writing an explication is an effective way for a reader to connect a poem’s plot and conflicts with its structural features. The fountain’s reply posits the sea as “laboring” versus the speaker’s assertion of its freedom; the sea becomes characterized by heavily accented “heaves and sags” and not open rushing (7, 8). The writer observes and presents many of the most salient points of the short poem, but she could indeed organize the explication more coherently. 4 That dazzled with rifle fire, hearing. Only a quarter of his productive life was given to writing poetry, but many of the same values, attitudes, and feelings that are expressed in his poems achieve a fuller or more balanced formulation in his prose. Instant downloads of all 1396 LitChart PDFs. 8 Sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest, – The end of the explication should focus on sound effects or visual patterns as the final element of asserting an explanation. For example, the first line of Keats’ “Ode on Melancholy” presents the reader with a problem: If we determine the regular pattern of beats (the meter) of this line, we will most likely identify the line as iambic pentameter. Structure and Form of Amends ‘Amends’ by Adrienne Rich consists of four-line stanzas. Consider the poem as a dramatic situation in which a speaker addresses an audience or another character. Can’t find what you need? The “as” of line 8 becomes a key word, illustrating that the sea’s waters are not free but commanded by the moon, which is itself governed by gravity in its orbit around Earth. However, if we read the word normally, we have a breakage in the line’s metrical structure. The poet reveals the fountain’s intelligence in rhyming couplets which present closed-in, epigrammatic statements. The explication does not require a formal introductory paragraph; the writer should simply start explicating immediately. As a direct address to an inanimate object “The Fountain” presents three main conflicts concerning the appearance to the observer and the reality in the poem. PDF downloads of all 1396 LitCharts literature guides, and of every new one we publish. 6 He lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm;. You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The Writing Center The move was actually a return, for Frost’s ancestors were originally New Englanders, and Frost became famous for his poetry’s engagement with New England locales, identities, and themes. To avoid unnecessary uses of the verb “to be” in your compositions, the following list suggests some verbs you can use when writing the explication: Fountain, fountain, what do you say The student’s explication continues with a topic sentence that directs the discussion of the first five lines: The explication has no formal concluding paragraph; do not simply restate the main points of the introduction! This handout reviews some of the important techniques of approaching and writing a poetry explication, and includes parts of two sample explications. Perhaps the best way to begin scanning a line is to mark the natural stresses on the polysyllabic words. With this line of thought, the writer could also examine more closely the speaker’s movement from perplexity (I am trapped but the waters are free) to a kind of resolution (the fountain and the sea are as trapped as I am). For analysis of poetry where there are different line lengths (this poetry may or may not have the distinctive features of 'variable line poetry') a simple notation is needed. Among the major Victorian writers, Matthew Arnold is unique in that his reputation rests equally upon his poetry and his poetry criticism. In these paragraphs, the writer should explain the poem line by line in terms of these details, and he or she should incorporate important elements of rhyme, rhythm, and meter during this discussion. To scan a line is to determine its metrical pattern. 1 Suddenly he awoke and was running – raw. Nothing escapes, nothing is free.”. 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