Download Literary Analysis Guiding Questions

Literary Analysis Guiding Questions – Romantic Poetry
Use the following questions to help you understand the poetry we’ll be reading the next few weeks. You will have the
opportunity in an in-class essay to show off your skill of literary analysis; these questions will greatly help in this
endeavor.
1. Examine the poem’s content by considering these questions:
~ What is the poem about?
~ Who is the speaker? Are there other characters?
~ What is the setting?
2. Examine the poem’s meaning by considering these questions:
~ What are the major ideas of this poem?
~ Are any important statements about life or people made in the selection—either by the narrator or
characters in the selection?
~ Do any of the characters realize something important they had not known before?
3. Examine the poem’s language and style by considering these questions:
~ What figurative language stands out in this poem (e.g., metaphor, simile, personification, alliteration,
onomatopoeia, hyperbole, symbolism, etc.)?
~ What images does the poet create in this poem? How does the poet use word choice (diction) to create or
enhance these images?
~ How does the poet use the structure of the poem (couplets, stanzas, other organizing devices) to support the
content or meaning of the poem?
4. Examine the poem’s Romantic characteristics by considering these questions:
~ The characteristics of Romanticism are a profound love of nature, a focus on the individual, a stress on
emotion, not reason, the use of supernatural and mysterious elements, a focus on personal or political
freedom, an idealization of children and common people, and the use of imagination.
~ Can you recognize any of these in the poem? (Keep in mind that the poem will not have ALL of these
characteristics in it. In other words, don’t try to find something that may not be there.)
Glossary of Poetic Terms
Alliteration: The reiterated initial consonants of the
proximate words in a poem.
Meter: The recurrence of a similar stress pattern in some
or all lines of a poem.
Allusion: A reference to an idea, place, person or text (or
part of a text) existing outside the literary work.
Onomatopoeia: A word or expression which resembles
the sound which it represents, like the meow of a cat or
the quack of a duck.
Antithesis: A contrast or polarity in meaning.
Apostrophe: (Gk `to turn away') An address to a dead or
absent person—or personification—as if he or she were
present.
Connotation: The associated meanings of a word or
expression (for the opposite term, see denotation).
Denotation: The actual meaning of a word or expression
(for the opposite term, see connotation).
Diction: The selection of words in a particular literary
work, or the language appropriate for a particular
(usually poetic) work. The term poetic diction refers to
the appropriate selection of words in a poem.
Elegy: A poem which mourns the death of someone.
Figurative language: Language which goes beyond
what is denoted (see denotation), and has a suggestive
effect on the reader. Metaphor, simile, personification,
and imagery are all instances of figurative language.
Free verse: Poetry which lacks a regular stress pattern
and regular line lengths (and which may also be lacking
in rhyme). Free verse should not be confused with blank
verse.
Hyperbole: An overstatement or exaggeration.
Imagery: The 'mental pictures' which the reader
experiences in his/her response to a literary work.
Lyric: A short non-narrative poem that has a solitary
speaker, and that usually expresses a particular feeling,
mood, or thought.
Metaphor: A word which does not precisely or literally
refer to the entity to which it is supposed to refer. It is a
direct comparison between 2 objects or abstract ideas
(e.g. life is a dance; the mountain of homework
overwhelmed me).
Pathos: The sense of pity or sorrow aroused by a
particular element or scene in a literary work.
Persona: The unidentified personage who 'speaks' (see
speaker) in a poem or prose work. The persona should
not be identified with the author of the work.
Personification: Giving inanimate/non-human things the
qualities, abilities, or emotions of humans.
Personification heightens a reader’s emotional response
to what is being described by giving it human qualities
and therefore human significance.
Repetition: Repetition of a sound, syllable, word,
phrase, line, stanza, or metrical pattern is a basic
unifying device in all poetry. It may reinforce,
supplement, or even substitute for meter, the other chief
controlling factor in the arrangement of words into
poetry.
Rhyme: The identity of the sounds of the final syllables
(usually stressed) of certain proximate lines of a poem.
Simile: A comparison (using “like” or “as”) between 2
similar objects or things.
Speaker: The personage or persona responsible for the
voice in a poem; like the persona, the speaker should not
be confused with the poet.
Stress (or accent): The loud 'beats' in a poem; a regular
pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem
often gives the poem its distinctive quality.
Symbol: A word or expression which signifies
something other than the physical object to which it
directly refers. A rose, for example, may symbolize love,
the cross, or Christianity.
Tone: The attitude, as it is revealed in the language of a
literary work, of a persona, narrator or author, towards
the other personages in the work or towards the reader.