Poetry Explication Paper with documented support
Explication: According to Perrine’s Literature Structure, Sound, and Sensean explication is a “detailed elucidation of a work, sometimes line by line or word by word, which is interested not only in what that work means but in how it means what it means. It considers all relevant aspects of a work—speaker or point of view, connotative words and double meanings, images, figurative language, allusions, form, structure, sound, rhythm—and discusses, if not all of these, at least the most important” (6).
Example of a poetry explication: Perrine’s p. 40 (This has limited and informal documentation but it is an example)
Prewriting: p. 746-7 has a list of questions that you should use as prewriting
Finding research: Minimum of two outside resources: You need to have one full- length critical essays on your poem. The second source may deal with the poet’s style or background and not be specifically on the poem you have chosen as long as it contributes an understanding of your poem. These need to be credible sources. You will need to know the authors of the essays and their credentials. (I do not want to read your rehashing of some college flunky’s take on the chosen poem.)
Twayne’s
Internet Public Library
Infotrac
Net library
Ebsco, elibrary, proquest
Library catalogue
use interlibrary loan for journal articles, books
All you need is a public library card which is free to all students.
Finding your two sources might be a challenge so expect to exhaust all of the above avenues. You may find a source listed on infotrac that has only an abstract and then try to order that from interlibrary loan. Knowing how to do this is key to effective research skills.
This is as close as you will get to a research paper in this class. You will write the paper in MLA format. The paper will include a cover page, outline, paper, and works cited page. Use Citation machine on the resources page to create your works cited entry.
Write for College pages that you should consult:
Cover page—363page one—364Works Cited 371
Outline—363sample long quotation—368parenthetical citation—309
Works Cited: Use the citation machine found on the resources page to create your entries.
Topic: You will choose a poem and have it approved by the instructor. Choose a poem/poet that you can find resources for. I suggest that you turn to our textbook for ideas. Most poems that we have not yet studied would work.
I will list some suggestions:
Siren Song by Margaret Atwood
Musée des Beaux Arts by W. H. Auden
The Tiger by William Blake
Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A narrow Fellow in the Grass by Emily Dickinson
The Good-Morrow by John Donne
Song: Go and catch a falling star by John Donne
Son: Sweetest love, I do not go by John Donne
The Triple Fool by John Donne
Never Again Would Bird’s Song be the Same by Robert Frost
The Oven Bird by Robert Frost
Channel Firing by Thomas Hardy
To an Athlete Dying Young by A. E. Housman
Theme for English B by Langston Hughes
Song: To Celia by Ben Johnson
La Belle Dame sans Merci by John Keats
Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats
Aubade by Philip Larkin
Mad Girl’s Love Song by Sylvia Plath
The Mill by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock by Wallace Stevens
The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens
In Memoriam A. H. H by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas
I knew a woman by Theodore Roethke
Let me not to the marriage of true minds by William Shakespeare
When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer by Walt Whitman
Spring and All by William Carlos Williams
Composed upon Westminster Bride, September 3, 1802 by William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud by William Wordsworth
The Solitary Reaper by William Wordsworth
Sailing to Byzantium by William Butler Yeats
The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
The Wild Swans at Coole by William Butler Yeats
Any poem by John Donne (my favorite poet).
Any poem by Sylvia Plath (my other favorite poet)
Length: 3 ½-4 pages (This does not include the Works Cited page, cover, or outline)