TPCASTT Poetry Analysis



TPCASTT Poetry Analysis

Poem Title: Author:

|Title: | |

|Consider the title before reading the poem and predict what the poem may be | |

|about. | |

|Paraphrase: | |

|Translate the poem into your own words. Focus on one syntactical unit at a | |

|time, not necessarily on one line at a time. Or write a sentence or two for | |

|each stanza of the poem. | |

|Connotation: | |

|Contemplate the poem for meaning beyond the literal. What do the words mean | |

|beyond the obvious? What are the implications, the hints, and the | |

|suggestions of the particular word choices? | |

|Attitude: | |

|Observe both the speaker’s and the poet’s attitudes (tone). Diction, images,| |

|and details suggest the speaker’s attitude and contribute to understanding. | |

|Shifts: | |

|Rarely does a poet begin and end the poetic experience in the same place. As| |

|is true of most of us, the poets understanding of an experience is a gradual | |

|realization, and the poem is a reflection of that epiphany. Trace the | |

|changing feelings of the speaker from the beginning to the end, paying | |

|particular attention to the conclusion. To discover shifts, watch for key | |

|words: but, yet, however, although. Punctuation: dashes, periods, colons, | |

|ellipsis. Stanza and/or line divisions: change in line length or stanza | |

|length or both. Irony: sometimes irony hides shifts. Effect of structure | |

|on meaning, how the poem is built, changes in diction (slang to formal or | |

|vice versa), the crux (one crucial part of the work that stands out, perhaps | |

|expressing the complete idea all by itself.) | |

|Title: | |

|Now examine the title again, this time on an interpretive (read between the | |

|lines) level. | |

|Theme: | |

|In identifying theme, recognize the human experience, motivation or condition| |

|suggested by the poem. | |

The Journey

-by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice---

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

“Mend my life!”

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

but little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do---

determined to save

the only life that you could save.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download