ASSIGNMENT

2 ½ – 3 pages, double spaced (not including the Work Cited page)

This is the poem by Phillis Wheatley

Analyze how a poem draws on a turning point (or turning points) to encode implicit ideas, claims, or worldviews.  What ideas, claims or worldview emerge in the poem before the turning point(s)?  How does the poem shift after the turning point(s)?  What is the result of this shift?

Your essay must present an argument that is complex, interesting to you, and significant to understanding the poem as a whole. Through textual analysis, demonstrate how the details of the poem create key effects.  Be sure to include direct quotes to support your analysis.

Here are some angles of analysis to help you get started:

• Consider how the poem explores, reveals, or shapes key ideas or themes around the turning point (or turning points). Does a central tension get resolved by the end of the poem—or not? What are the implications? For example:

• What do the turning points in Wheatley’s poem “To S.M., A Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works” suggest about artistic inspiration and its relation to spiritual life?  What does the reflection on the art of painting suggest about the art of poetry?

• How does Bradstreet’s poem “Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666” explore the aftermath of a house fire? What do the turning points tell you about the speaker’s process? What are the implications of this traumatic event for the speaker–and maybe for readers of the poem as well?

 

• Consider how key patterns in the poem (such as repetition, imagery, or rhythm and rhyme) can develop an implicit claim. How do such patterns guide tone, emphasis, or relationships between ideas in the poem?  Do such patterns shift or take on new meaning in relation to the turning point(s)? How so?

o   For example, what is the effect of images about the sun and stars in Bradstreet’s “A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment”? How do such comparisons convey the relationship between the speaker and her husband?

o   What is the effect of the various words related to color in Wheatley’s poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America”? What does this pattern reveal for the poem as a whole?

TIPS:

• Identify the author’s full name and the full title of the work at the outset of your discussion

• Build on the skills in textual analysis from the first major writing assignment: rather than focusing extensively on the poet’s life in the body of your essay, build your analysis around the language and form of the poem

• Ground your analysis in specific textual evidence: quote directly!  Also, aim for quotes of varying lengths rather than just long quotes (multiple lines from the poem)

• You are welcome to use the power writing system to balance key claims, relevant textual evidence, and thorough explanation of the textual evidence, but color coding is not required for this assignment

• Don’t try to cover everything!  Instead, focus your analysis to address key points for understanding the poem as a whole

• Remember that in MLA format, quote line numbers rather than page numbers for poetry