LIT 1000 Professor Hollis Poetry Essay Topics In an essay of approximately 650-700 words (2.5-3 pages/12 point font/double spaced) write an argument advancing an interpretation (claim) of one of the poems from your readings. Select one of the following prompts as a basis in constructing your interpretation or develop an interpretation of your own. Your essay must contain a focused thesis statement that makes a claim/interpretation of the theme of the poem and utilizes specific textual examples and provides reasoning on how the examples support your thesis/claims. Remember: poetry is a much more condensed mode of expression than the short story and thus your analysis might go as deep as how a single word choice affects the whole of the poem. Be sure your analysis is structured effectively in adherence to the guidelines of scholarly writing as covered in the textbooks and discussed in class (formal diction, effective argument structure, grammatical correct, etc.). Also, when quoting lines directly from a poem it is appropriate to insert a / in between line breaks, for instance: “He stood, and heard the steeple/Sprinkle the quarters on the morning town”. At the end of the sentence in which the quote appears you should include the line numbers, not the page numbers, inside the parenthetical citation, i.e. (2-3). Your essay must be properly cited in MLA format (See Little Seagulls Handbook) and must include a one-page works cited as the last page of your paper citing the poem you analyzed as a work from an anthology. (Remember: the following prompts are just suggestions, and you are free to interpret the poems in any fashion you so choose so long as you can back up those interpretations with direct textual support and solid reasoning/analysis). Finally, I recommend using the textbook as a resource, as the introductory chapters (which you were already assigned to read) on poetic interpretation provide crucial information on constructing your analysis, as do Chapters 1-3, pages 2-40, and the questions for discussion and writing following each poem, as well as reading any of the sample student essays at the end of each chapter (such as the one on pages 429-431) as a model for writing a proper poetic analysis. As always, please feel free to e-mail me with any questions, comments, tentative parts of your essay, etc. 1. Analyze the speaker in either “The Sins of the Father” or “The Unknown Citizen.” What is the prevalent tone in either of the poems? If selecting “The Sins of the Father”: does the speaker’s tone shift at any point in the poem. If so, how and when does this shift occur and what does it signify? What is the significance of the title and how does this illuminate the plight of the speaker? If selecting “The Unknown Citizen”: discuss the role of irony in the poem. What sort of attitudes and characteristics are being praised by the speaker and are these really praise-worthy virtues? (What is Auden’s – as opposed to the speaker’s – view of the Unknown Citizen?) Examine the satirical effectiveness of Auden’s choice of tones in depicting his detached narrator. How does Auden’s use of irony add to the poem’s function as a form of social critique? 2. Analyze the paradox that is central to “My Son My Executioner”? 3. Analyze the speaker in the poem “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer.” Why is the speaker unable to appreciate the astronomy lecture? Are the two temperaments contrasted in the poem (the poetic and the scientific/rational) truly antithetical? How is this opposition between the two illustrated in the poem? 4. Discuss Shakespeare’s strategy in “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun” and how the poem works to subvert the prevalent sonnet tradition of the time. What is the speaker’s attitude towards his mistress? How is the speaker’s more grounded praise of his beloved actually more genuine and heart-felt than the cliché, artificial comparisons that predominated the sonnets of Shakespeare’s contemporaries? 5. What point is A.E. Housman trying to make in his poem “To an Athlete Dying Young”? What would you state as the theme or themes of the poem? Analyze Housman’s metaphor of athletic completion (particularly the race) as representing life? Analyze the significance of some of the poem’s central images (for instance the laurel) and how they work to strengthen this metaphor? What is the overall tone of the poem? Can the poem be read as ironic, and if so, what does this imply? 6. What about the poet’s use of regular rhyme scheme (rhyming couplets) and stanza break (quatrains)? How does the form impact the poem’s overall effect? 7. Is the poem “Funeral Blues” merely a parody or is Auden’s speaker simply carried away in the moment of grief? Identify the tone of the poem and analyze it as either mock elegy or serious composition. 8. How does the above poem compare (in both tone and structure) with Housman’s “To an Athlete Dying Young.” Write an analysis comparing or contrasting both elegies and the elements that make them either similar or different. 9. In the poem “A Hundred Years from Now,” how does the prose poem form impact the overall effect of the poem? Does the lack of more traditional line breaks make the poem more or less poetic? How well is the subject matter suited to the form? Who is the speaker addressing, and why? What do you make of the last line: “Do you still have horses?” and how does the question serve to resonate in the reader’s mind long after he has finished reading the poem? 10. In “Eight O’ Clock” how does Houseman use poetic language and the poetic devices (line break, rhyme scheme, personification, word choice) to evoke a specific atmosphere, mood, and tone in the first stanza? How does that tone change in the second stanza, and how does it accentuate the twist of the poetic narrative (the hanging)? 11. Examine the theme of Adrienne Rich’s poem “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers.” What type of life does Aunt Jennifer lead? What does her wedding band symbolize? How do the tigers help us to understand her plight? How is knitting a form of escape for Aunt Jennifer from the oppressive reality of her home life? What traits do the tigers possess and what do these traits help us to understand about Aunt Jennifer? Perform a close reading of the poem down to the level of word choice in coming up with your analysis. 12. What is the theme of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem “We Wear the Mask”? Who is speaking in the poem? Who are the “we”? Is the “we” humanity in general, some specific, perhaps marginalized, group (see Dunbar’s biographical blurb in the book before the poem), or both? What is the poem claiming about human nature? Do “we” all wear masks and if so, why, according to the poem? 13. Analyze the main theme or themes of Marge Piercy’s poem “Barbie Doll.” What is the significant of the poem’s title? How is the poem’s subject dehumanized throughout the poem? What leads to the suicide in the poem? In what way is the poem’s ending ironic? 14. Analyze the tone of Stephen Crane’s “War is Kind.” What is the central theme of the poem and how does Crane’s use of verbal irony serve to reinforce this theme? What central message do you feel the speaker of the poem is trying to get across? Why is the flag referred to as “the unexplained glory” (line 9) and how does this work to advance the poem’s central message and theme?

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