Poetry Presentation

                                                                        40 points

 

Each group will choose one of the following poems to present:

 

The World Is Too Much with Us by William Wordsworth

Song to Celia by Ben Jonson

Sonnet 64 by William Shakespeare

Spring and Fall by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Litany in Time of Plague by Thomas Nashe

 

Using the Poetry Handbook and Poetry Term List given to you in class, your group will analyze your poem in order to present it to the class.

 

You will begin your presentation by reading your poem aloud to the class. Your reading should be accompanied by an artistic power point presentation illustrating the images and important meanings in your poem. You may also choose to incorporate a musical background if it suits your poem (but please be sure that the music does not detract from your reading. It may be best to use instrumentals). You must also have some sort of prop to help bring your poem to life and make the presentation interesting. For example, if your were presenting the poem An Irish Airman Foresees His Death, the members of your group may decided to come dressed as air force pilots.

 

Once you have read your poem for the class, you will present your explication of the poem, otherwise know as the analyzation. I would recommend using either the power point or transparencies to illustrate aspects, and the use of color can also be helpful (I will demonstrate this in my own presentation of The Merry-Go-Round).

 

The following aspects must be addressed in your presentation (not necessarily in this order):

 

  1. Voice – Identify the tone of the poem, giving supportive evidence, and how the tone contributes to the significance of the poem.
  2. Words – What type of diction is used? Are the words predominately concrete or abstract? Is the diction formal, standard, colloquial? Are any allusions used? Are there any shifts in word order? How do all of these things contribute to the significance of the poem?
  3. Symbols – What symbols are used in the poem, what do they mean, and how are they effective?
  4. Imagery – What type(s) of imagery is/are used? Visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory? Or you may need to discuss the LACK of imagery. What effect does the presence or absence of imagery have on the meaning of the poem?
  5. Figures of Speech – Metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, understatement, paradox. How do they contribute to the poem?
  6. Sound – What is the rhyme scheme of the poem and what kinds of rhyme are used (exact rhyme, slant rhyme, internal rhyme, etc.)? Does the poet use onomatopoeia, alliteration, or assonance? How do these things contribute to the poem?
  7. Rhythm – Is the poem end-stopped or enjambed? Try to identify the meter, and count out the first four line using stress marks on a transparency. How does the meter work with the meaning of the poem? If there is not a regular meter, discuss what effect its absence has.

 

Please have the above information on a typed handout for the class. These handouts will be used as study aids for the test.

 

Your presentation should probably last between 20 and 30 minutes. After your presentation, the floor will be opened to the class for questions and discussion. 

 

You will be graded on the creativity and professionalism of your presentation, as well as your ability and accuracy in identifying the different aspects of the poem.

 

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Explication Composition

50 points

 

Each student will write her own explication of a poem in composition form.

 

Choose one of the poems we read in class, excluding the five poems used for the presentations. Analyze the poem based on the same seven aspects used in the presentations. Please be sure to write the analysis in a cohesive, cogent essay; do not simply list. You may choose to dedicate a paragraph to each aspect or group similar aspects into paragraphs. Do not forget to include the effect each aspect has on the poem.

 

Requirements

*     About 2 pages long

*     Typed, 12 point font, double spaced

*     Appropriate heading and header (no title page please)

*     Title

*     A solid introduction summarizing the poem and mentioning the title and poet

*     Well-written and well-organized body paragraphs

*     A brief concluding paragraph

 

Due Date: