Forms of World Literature
(CMLIT010)
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Course Home / Schedule/ Assignments/Announcements
| Assignment: Analysis of Lyric Poem
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Due: 16 March (in-class
assignment) |
| Overview
Your team will be given
a short passage from a lyric poem on the syllabus, and
asked to identify the poem and to prepare a report on its
features described below.
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 |
| At the
start of class, your team will be given a short passage
from one of the lyric poems on the syllabus. You will
need to identify the poem (the assignment is open-book
and open notes) and to write a report in which you unpack
the poem's meaning through analysis of the features
described below. Items
to be addressed in your analysis include (click for
details):
- Characterizing the
speaker of the poem.
- Characterizing the
addressee of the poem.
- Describing the mood of the poem.
- Explaining cultural
references and coordinates in the poem.
- Identifying figures
of diction and figures of thought in the poem. Don't give
a list, but rather pick out one or two of central
importance to explain.
- Interpreting the overall
meaning
of the poem, especially as an embodiment of its
theme (either eros or devotion, or a mixture of
the two).
How is This
Assignment Graded?
Items 1-4 are worth one
point each, items 5 & 6 two points each, for a total
of eight points. Specific DETAILS and EXAMPLES
are necessary to achieve full credit.
How Should We Divide
Up the Work?
It is strongly
recommended that you distribute the work by elements of
analysis -- for example, one member would read all the
poems with special attention to the speaker, another with
special attention to the addressee, and so on down the
list. One team member could "specialize" in
introductory materials and knowledge of the author. That
way, each team member will have something to contribute
to the report.
Problems
If you are having
difficulties or specific problems during this project,
please email Dr.
Beebee. Be sure you clearly state your
problem and are able to propose a few solutions before
you contact him.
Good luck!
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Speaker
One can think of a
lyric poem as a miniature drama: it is important to know who is
speaking to whom onstage. Most lyrics have a single
"speaker" who is addressing the poem to a listener or
listeners, or perhaps to himself or herself. Other terms for this
speaker include: the "lyric I"; and
"persona." The latter term derives from a Latin word
meaning "mask," and this is appropriate, for the
speaker of the poem can be viewed as a mask "covering"
the poet's real personality.
Some poems work on
the assumption that the speaker is the poet, whereas others
create a speaker quite different from the poet in age,
temperament, gender, etc. In general, unless there are textual
clues to the contrary, it is considered legitimate to use
biographical data about the poet in characterizing the speaker.
Combining clues in
the poem with what you know about the poet, write about the
speaker as if he were a character in a play. What do we know
about age, gender, cultural origins, social class, etc.?
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Addressee
Poems are thought
of as spoken to addressees, ranging from a single individual
(such as a lover or God) to an entire nation or to the world. How
much information can you gather about this addressee from the
poem?
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Mood
In discussing the
concept of rasa, we have already encountered the idea
that a poem or drama will create a prevailing mood or emotion.
You might start with the list of eight stable rasas and see if
any of them captures the situation in your poem. Besides an
overall, or predominant mood, see if there are other, secondary
or transient ones created. Besides identifying the mood, you
should also seek to explain the choice of vocabulary, etc. which
creates the mood. In other words, the question is not only WHAT,
but also HOW the mood is created.
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Cultural References
Poems from different world
cultures use varied references and symbols to convey meaning. A
chrysanthemum in a Chinese poem does not mean the same thing as
one appearing in a European poem, where the flower is generally
associated with death. Obviously, a Christian outlook can often
be assumed in many European poems, whereas poems from India might
reference Hinduism and those of Japan Zen Buddhism, etc. You
should ask:
through what signs
does the poem indicate its origin in a particular culture
of the world? and
how do those signs
contribute to the poem's mood or meaning, or play a role
in identifying the speaker?
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Figures of Diction
Traditionally, poetic
figures are divided into two large categories: figures of diction
(also called "tropes") and figures of thought. Figures
of diction are confined to words or phrases, while figures of
thought are strategies of presentation which can structure an
entire poem. Generally, figures of diction bring new meanings
into the poem, while figures of thought account for the poem's
aesthetic qualities, its impact on the reader, and even its shape
and its length. Some poems are rich in tropes but poor in figures
of thought; others are rich in figures of thought but use few
tropes. Some poetry, particularly that of Japan and China, makes
very little use of either.
In discussing poetic
figures, a simple catalog of tropes is not very enlightening. You
should instead pick out just a few which seem crucial to the
meaning or the effect of the poem. Noting whether the poem is
rich or poor in figures overall can also be important.
Figures of diction can be
thought of as substitutions of one word by another. Here are
three such to consider:
Trope
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How
it Works
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Example
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Metaphor
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One word
substitutes another on the basis of resemblance or shared
feature(s).
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"The
pearls of her mouth" (pearls for teeth on the basis
of whiteness, etc.)
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Metonym
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One word
substitutes another on the basis of association or
contiguity.
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"At long
last, a sail on the horizon!" (sail stands for the
whole ship)
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Catachresis
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A word is
used in a technically incorrect, but meaningful fashion
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"She
prosecuted her love for him vigorously"
(technically, prosecution happens only in court; but the
meaning is clear and expressive)
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Figures of Thought
There are dozens of figures
of thought. Some of them will seem so obvious to you as to need
no explanation, while others are more obscure. This web page will
introduce you to a selection of them, with examples drawn from
Dante's Inferno (sorry about the choice of examples;
this poem was on the syllabus in earlier.
| Name of
Figure |
Definition/Description
of Figure |
Example
from the "Inferno" |
| Vivid
Description |
The
name of the figure says it all. Description occurs when
the poem shows rather than tells,
trying to place the scene before the reader's eye (ear,
or nose).
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Dante
does not discuss the fate of the soul abstractly, but
vividly describes the torments of individual souls. Any
of the tortures which stick in your mind is an example of
vivid description.
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| Distribution |
Certain
specified roles are assigned among a number of things, or
persons.
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Dante
assigns different fates of the soul to different
individuals.
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| Dialog |
Ideas and
information are introduced through characters' speeches,
rather than through narration. Some poems (like the Inferno)
contain a great deal of dialog, others none at all.
Dramas such as Tartuffe can be considered as
poems completely in dialog. |
Throughout the Inferno,
we gain knowledge of sin and divine justice through
Dante's conversations with Virgil and with individuals in
Hell. See especially Dante's questions and virgil's
responses in Canto XI. |
| Refining |
When a writer
dwells on a point by delivering the same message
repeatedly in ever new guises. |
The infinitely varied fates of
the souls in Hell can be considered refinements of a
single message of divine justice and of the motto written
on the gate of Hell (beginning of Canto III) |
| Simile |
Simile is the combination of
two more general figures, comparison and exemplification.
It compares two concrete examples with each other.
Usually one of these is the action or attitude of a
character, the other a well-known process from the
natural or social world. |
In Canto I, when Dante emerges
from the "valley of evil" he looks back on it,
comparing his action with that of a nearly-drowned
swimmer: "Just as a
swimmer, who with his last breath flounders ashore from
perilous seas, might turn to memorize the wide water of
his death -- so did I turn, my soul still fugitive from
death's surviving image, to stare down that pass that
none had ever left alive."
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| Exaggeration
(Hyperbole) and Understatement (Litotes) |
These two figures are opposites
of each other, and each is adequately explained by its
English name. |
When Francesca explains how she
and Paolo were seduced by the tale of Lancelot, he
concludes "that day we read no further" (V,
1035). She understates the passion that evolved in the
two lovers. Dante's
reaction, "I was swept into such a swoon as death
is" (1036), exaggerates, both in the action and its
comparison to death.
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| Personification |
Makes a mute thing
or one lacking form articulate, and attributes to it a
definite form and a language or a certain behavior
appropriate to its character. |
Geryon, as the embodiment of
fraud |
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Overall Meaning of the Poem
Ideally, after
analysis of a poem into its component parts, everything would be
brought together and a "message" or meaning derived. In
general, a simple prose statement of a poem's "message"
contributes very little to our understanding of the poem, because
poems tend to treat the same themes over and over again. The
originaly of a lyric lies not in its content, but in its
language.
All of the lyrics
on the syllabus treat one of two themes (or both at the same
time:
EROS (love
in all its varieties, physical and spiritual)
DEVOTION
(relationship with God, the supernatural, afterlife,
etc.)
The way you should
frame your discussion of the poems meaning is: what is NEW or
DIFFERENT about this particular approach to the topic, or about
the way the statement is made?
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Dr. Thomas Beebee (tob@psu.edu)
The Pe