poetic essay definition

• Literary Terms
• Definition & Examples
• When & How to Write an Essay

I. What is an Essay?

An essay is a form of writing in paragraph form that uses informal language, although it can be written formally. Essays may be written in first-person point of view (I, ours, mine), but third-person (people, he, she) is preferable in most academic essays. Essays do not require research as most academic reports and papers do; however, they should cite any literary works that are used within the paper.

When thinking of essays, we normally think of the five-paragraph essay: Paragraph 1 is the introduction, paragraphs 2-4 are the body covering three main ideas, and paragraph 5 is the conclusion. Sixth and seventh graders may start out with three paragraph essays in order to learn the concepts. However, essays may be longer than five paragraphs. Essays are easier and quicker to read than books, so are a preferred way to express ideas and concepts when bringing them to public attention.

II. Examples of Essays

Many of our most famous Americans have written essays. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson wrote essays about being good citizens and concepts to build the new United States. In the pre-Civil War days of the 1800s, people such as:

• Ralph Waldo Emerson (an author) wrote essays on self-improvement
• Susan B. Anthony wrote on women’s right to vote
• Frederick Douglass wrote on the issue of African Americans’ future in the U.S.

Through each era of American history, well-known figures in areas such as politics, literature, the arts, business, etc., voiced their opinions through short and long essays.

The ultimate persuasive essay that most students learn about and read in social studies is the “Declaration of Independence” by Thomas Jefferson in 1776. Other founding fathers edited and critiqued it, but he drafted the first version. He builds a strong argument by stating his premise (claim) then proceeds to give the evidence in a straightforward manner before coming to his logical conclusion.

III. Types of Essays

A. expository.

Essays written to explore and explain ideas are called expository essays (they expose truths). These will be more formal types of essays usually written in third person, to be more objective. There are many forms, each one having its own organizational pattern.  Cause/Effect essays explain the reason (cause) for something that happens after (effect). Definition essays define an idea or concept. Compare/ Contrast essays will look at two items and show how they are similar (compare) and different (contrast).

b. Persuasive

An argumentative paper presents an idea or concept with the intention of attempting to change a reader’s mind or actions . These may be written in second person, using “you” in order to speak to the reader. This is called a persuasive essay. There will be a premise (claim) followed by evidence to show why you should believe the claim.

c. Narrative

Narrative means story, so narrative essays will illustrate and describe an event of some kind to tell a story. Most times, they will be written in first person. The writer will use descriptive terms, and may have paragraphs that tell a beginning, middle, and end in place of the five paragraphs with introduction, body, and conclusion. However, if there is a lesson to be learned, a five-paragraph may be used to ensure the lesson is shown.

d. Descriptive

The goal of a descriptive essay is to vividly describe an event, item, place, memory, etc. This essay may be written in any point of view, depending on what’s being described. There is a lot of freedom of language in descriptive essays, which can include figurative language, as well.

IV. The Importance of Essays

Essays are an important piece of literature that can be used in a variety of situations. They’re a flexible type of writing, which makes them useful in many settings . History can be traced and understood through essays from theorists, leaders, artists of various arts, and regular citizens of countries throughout the world and time. For students, learning to write essays is also important because as they leave school and enter college and/or the work force, it is vital for them to be able to express themselves well.

V. Examples of Essays in Literature

Sir Francis Bacon was a leading philosopher who influenced the colonies in the 1600s. Many of America’s founding fathers also favored his philosophies toward government. Bacon wrote an essay titled “Of Nobility” in 1601 , in which he defines the concept of nobility in relation to people and government. The following is the introduction of his definition essay. Note the use of “we” for his point of view, which includes his readers while still sounding rather formal.

 “We will speak of nobility, first as a portion of an estate, then as a condition of particular persons. A monarchy, where there is no nobility at all, is ever a pure and absolute tyranny; as that of the Turks. For nobility attempers sovereignty, and draws the eyes of the people, somewhat aside from the line royal. But for democracies, they need it not; and they are commonly more quiet, and less subject to sedition, than where there are stirps of nobles. For men’s eyes are upon the business, and not upon the persons; or if upon the persons, it is for the business’ sake, as fittest, and not for flags and pedigree. We see the Switzers last well, notwithstanding their diversity of religion, and of cantons. For utility is their bond, and not respects. The united provinces of the Low Countries, in their government, excel; for where there is an equality, the consultations are more indifferent, and the payments and tributes, more cheerful. A great and potent nobility, addeth majesty to a monarch, but diminisheth power; and putteth life and spirit into the people, but presseth their fortune. It is well, when nobles are not too great for sovereignty nor for justice; and yet maintained in that height, as the insolency of inferiors may be broken upon them, before it come on too fast upon the majesty of kings. A numerous nobility causeth poverty, and inconvenience in a state; for it is a surcharge of expense; and besides, it being of necessity, that many of the nobility fall, in time, to be weak in fortune, it maketh a kind of disproportion, between honor and means.”

A popular modern day essayist is Barbara Kingsolver. Her book, “Small Wonders,” is full of essays describing her thoughts and experiences both at home and around the world. Her intention with her essays is to make her readers think about various social issues, mainly concerning the environment and how people treat each other. The link below is to an essay in which a child in an Iranian village she visited had disappeared. The boy was found three days later in a bear’s cave, alive and well, protected by a mother bear. She uses a narrative essay to tell her story.

VI. Examples of Essays in Pop Culture

Many rap songs are basically mini essays, expressing outrage and sorrow over social issues today, just as the 1960s had a lot of anti-war and peace songs that told stories and described social problems of that time. Any good song writer will pay attention to current events and express ideas in a creative way.

A well-known essay written in 1997 by Mary Schmich, a columnist with the Chicago Tribune, was made into a popular video on MTV by Baz Luhrmann. Schmich’s thesis is to wear sunscreen, but she adds strong advice with supporting details throughout the body of her essay, reverting to her thesis in the conclusion.

VII. Related Terms

Research paper.

Research papers follow the same basic format of an essay. They have an introductory paragraph, the body, and a conclusion. However, research papers have strict guidelines regarding a title page, header, sub-headers within the paper, citations throughout and in a bibliography page, the size and type of font, and margins. The purpose of a research paper is to explore an area by looking at previous research. Some research papers may include additional studies by the author, which would then be compared to previous research. The point of view is an objective third-person. No opinion is allowed. Any claims must be backed up with research.

VIII. Conclusion

Students dread hearing that they are going to write an essay, but essays are one of the easiest and most relaxed types of writing they will learn. Mastering the essay will make research papers much easier, since they have the same basic structure. Many historical events can be better understood through essays written by people involved in those times. The continuation of essays in today’s times will allow future historians to understand how our new world of technology and information impacted us.

List of Terms

• Alliteration
• Amplification
• Anachronism
• Anthropomorphism
• Antonomasia
• APA Citation
• Aposiopesis
• Autobiography
• Bildungsroman
• Characterization
• Circumlocution
• Cliffhanger
• Comic Relief
• Connotation
• Deus ex machina
• Deuteragonist
• Doppelganger
• Double Entendre
• Dramatic irony
• Equivocation
• Extended Metaphor
• Figures of Speech
• Flash-forward
• Foreshadowing
• Intertextuality
• Juxtaposition
• Literary Device
• Malapropism
• Onomatopoeia
• Parallelism
• Pathetic Fallacy
• Personification
• Point of View
• Polysyndeton
• Protagonist
• Red Herring
• Rhetorical Device
• Rhetorical Question
• Science Fiction
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• Synesthesia
• Turning Point
• Understatement
• Urban Legend
• Verisimilitude
• Essay Guide
• Cite This Website

Poetry Explained

How to Write a Poetry Essay (Complete Guide)

Unlock success in poetry essays with our comprehensive guide. Uncover the process to help aid understanding of how best to create a poetry essay.

While many of us read poetry for pleasure, it is undeniable that many poetry readers do so in the knowledge that they will be assessed on the text they are reading, either in an exam, for homework, or for a piece of coursework. This is clearly a daunting task for many, and lots of students don’t even know where to begin. We’re here to help! This guide will take you through all the necessary steps so that you can plan and write great poetry essays every time. If you’re still getting to grips with the different techniques, terms, or some other aspect of poetry, then check out our other available resources at the bottom of this page.

This Guide was Created by Joe Samantaria

Degree in English and Related Literature, and a Masters in Irish Literature

Upon completion of his degrees, Joe is an English tutor and counts W.B. Yeats , Emily Brontë , and Federico Garcia Lorca among his favorite poets. He has helped tutor hundreds of students with poetry and aims to do the same for readers and Poetry + users on Poem Analysis.

How to Write a Poetry Essay

• 1 Before You Start…
• 2 Introductions
• 3 Main Paragraphs
• 4 Conclusions
• 6 Other Resources

Before You Start…

Before we begin, we must address the fact that all poetry essays are different from one another on account of different academic levels, whether or not the essay pertains to one poem or multiple, and the intended length of the essay. That is before we even contend with the countless variations and distinctions between individual poems. Thus, it is impossible to produce a single, one-size-fits-all template for writing great essays on poetry because the criteria for such an essay are not universal. This guide is, therefore, designed to help you go about writing a simple essay on a single poem, which comes to roughly 1000-1200 words in length. We have designed it this way to mirror the requirements of as many students around the world as possible. It is our intention to write another guide on how to write a comparative poetry essay at a later date. Finally, we would like to stress the fact that this guide is exactly that: a guide. It is not a set of restrictive rules but rather a means of helping you get to grips with writing poetry essays. Think of it more like a recipe that, once practiced a few times, can be modified and adapted as you see fit.

The first and most obvious starting point is the poem itself and there are some important things to do at this stage before you even begin contemplating writing your essay. Naturally, these things will depend on the nature of the essay you are required to write.

• Is the poem one you are familiar with?
• Do you know anything about the context of the poem or the poet?
• How much time do you have to complete the essay?
• Do you have access to books or the internet?

These questions matter because they will determine the type, length, and scope of the essay you write. Naturally, an essay written under timed conditions about an unfamiliar poem will look very different from one written about a poem known to you. Likewise, teachers and examiners will expect different things from these essays and will mark them accordingly.

As this article pertains to writing a poverty essay, we’re going to assume you have a grasp of the basics of understanding the poems themselves. There is a plethora of materials available that can help you analyze poetry if you need to, and thousands of analyzed poems are available right here. For the sake of clarity, we advise you to use these tools to help you get to grips with the poem you intend to write about before you ever sit down to actually produce an essay. As we have said, the amount of time spent pondering the poem will depend on the context of the essay. If you are writing a coursework-style question over many weeks, then you should spend hours analyzing the poem and reading extensively about its context. If, however, you are writing an essay in an exam on a poem you have never seen before, you should perhaps take 10-15% of the allotted time analyzing the poem before you start writing.

The Question

Once you have spent enough time analyzing the poem and identifying its key features and themes, you can turn your attention to the question. It is highly unlikely that you will simply be asked to “analyze this poem.” That would be too simple on the one hand and far too broad on the other.

More likely, you will be asked to analyze a particular aspect of the poem, usually pertaining to its message, themes, or meaning. There are numerous ways examiners can express these questions, so we have outlined some common types of questions below.

• Explore the poet’s presentation of…
• How does the poet present…
• Explore the ways the writer portrays their thoughts about…

These are all similar ways of achieving the same result. In each case, the examiner requires that you analyze the devices used by the poet and attempt to tie the effect those devices have to the poet’s broader intentions or meaning.

Some students prefer reading the question before they read the poem, so they can better focus their analytical eye on devices and features that directly relate to the question they are being asked. This approach has its merits, especially for poems that you have not previously seen. However, be wary of focusing too much on a single element of a poem, particularly if it is one you may be asked to write about again in a later exam. It is no good knowing only how a poem links to the theme of revenge if you will later be asked to explore its presentation of time.

Essay plans can help focus students’ attention when they’re under pressure and give them a degree of confidence while they’re writing. In basic terms, a plan needs the following elements:

• An overarching answer to the question (this will form the basis of your introduction)
• A series of specific, identifiable poetic devices ( metaphors , caesura , juxtaposition , etc) you have found in the poem
• Ideas about how these devices link to the poem’s messages or themes.
• Some pieces of relevant context (depending on whether you need it for your type of question)

In terms of layout, we do not want to be too prescriptive. Some students prefer to bullet-point their ideas, and others like to separate them by paragraph. If you use the latter approach, you should aim for:

• 1 Introduction
• 4-5 Main paragraphs
• 1 Conclusion

Finally, the length and detail of your plan should be dictated by the nature of the essay you are doing. If you are under exam conditions, you should not spend too much time writing a plan, as you will need that time for the essay itself. Conversely, if you are not under time pressure, you should take your time to really build out your plan and fill in the details.

Introductions

If you have followed all the steps to this point, you should be ready to start writing your essay. All good essays begin with an introduction, so that is where we shall start.

When it comes to introductions, the clue is in the name: this is the place for you to introduce your ideas and answer the question in broad terms. This means that you don’t need to go into too much detail, as you’ll be doing that in the main body of the essay. That means you don’t need quotes, and you’re unlikely to need to quote anything from the poem yet. One thing to remember is that you should mention both the poet’s name and the poem’s title in your introduction. This might seem unnecessary, but it is a good habit to get into, especially if you are writing an essay in which other questions/poems are available to choose from.

As we mentioned earlier, you are unlikely to get a question that simply asks you to analyze a poem in its entirety, with no specific angle. More likely, you’ll be asked to write an essay about a particular thematic element of the poem. Your introduction should reflect this. However, many students fall into the trap of simply regurgitating the question without offering anything more. For example, a question might ask you to explore a poet’s presentation of love, memory, loss, or conflict . You should avoid the temptation to simply hand these terms back in your introduction without expanding upon them. You will get a chance to see this in action below.

Let’s say we were given the following question:

Explore Patrick Kavanagh’s presentation of loss and memory in Memory of My Father

Taking on board the earlier advice, you should hopefully produce an introduction similar to the one written below.

Patrick Kavanagh presents loss as an inescapable fact of existence and subverts the readers’ expectations of memory by implying that memories can cause immense pain, even if they feature loved ones. This essay will argue that Memory of My Father depicts loss to be cyclical and thus emphasizes the difficulties that inevitably occur in the early stages of grief.

As you can see, the introduction is fairly condensed and does not attempt to analyze any specific poetic elements. There will be plenty of time for that as the essay progresses. Similarly, the introduction does not simply repeat the words ‘loss’ and ‘memory’ from the question but expands upon them and offers a glimpse of the kind of interpretation that will follow without providing too much unnecessary detail at this early stage.

Main Paragraphs

Now, we come to the main body of the essay, the quality of which will ultimately determine the strength of our essay. This section should comprise of 4-5 paragraphs, and each of these should analyze an aspect of the poem and then link the effect that aspect creates to the poem’s themes or message. They can also draw upon context when relevant if that is a required component of your particular essay.

There are a few things to consider when writing analytical paragraphs and many different templates for doing so, some of which are listed below.

• PEE (Point-Evidence-Explain)
• PEA (Point-Evidence-Analysis)
• PETAL (Point-Evidence-Technique-Analysis-Link)
• IQA (Identify-Quote-Analyze)
• PEEL (Point-Evidence-Explain-Link)

Some of these may be familiar to you, and they all have their merits. As you can see, there are all effective variations of the same thing. Some might use different terms or change the order, but it is possible to write great paragraphs using all of them.

One of the most important aspects of writing these kind of paragraphs is selecting the features you will be identifying and analyzing. A full list of poetic features with explanations can be found here. If you have done your plan correctly, you should have already identified a series of poetic devices and begun to think about how they link to the poem’s themes.

It is important to remember that, when analyzing poetry, everything is fair game! You can analyze the language, structure, shape, and punctuation of the poem. Try not to rely too heavily on any single type of paragraph. For instance, if you have written three paragraphs about linguistic features ( similes , hyperbole , alliteration , etc), then try to write your next one about a structural device ( rhyme scheme , enjambment , meter , etc).

Regardless of what structure you are using, you should remember that multiple interpretations are not only acceptable but actively encouraged. Techniques can create effects that link to the poem’s message or themes in both complementary and entirely contrasting ways. All these possibilities should find their way into your essay. You are not writing a legal argument that must be utterly watertight – you are interpreting a subjective piece of art.

It is important to provide evidence for your points in the form of either a direct quotation or, when appropriate, a reference to specific lines or stanzas . For instance, if you are analyzing a strict rhyme scheme, you do not need to quote every rhyming word. Instead, you can simply name the rhyme scheme as, for example, AABB , and then specify whether or not this rhyme scheme is applied consistently throughout the poem or not. When you are quoting a section from the poem, you should endeavor to embed your quotation within your line so that your paragraph flows and can be read without cause for confusion.

When it comes to context, remember to check whether or not your essay question requires it before you begin writing. If you do need to use it, you must remember that it is used to elevate your analysis of the poem, not replace it. Think of context like condiments or spices. When used appropriately, they can enhance the experience of eating a meal, but you would have every right to complain if a restaurant served you a bowl of ketchup in lieu of an actual meal. Moreover, you should remember to only use the contextual information that helps your interpretation rather than simply writing down facts to prove you have memorized them. Examiners will not be impressed that you know the date a particular poet was born or died unless that information relates to the poem itself.

For the sake of ease, let’s return to our earlier question:

Have a look at the example paragraph below, taking note of the ways in which it interprets the linguistic technique in several different ways.

Kavanagh uses a metaphor when describing how the narrator ’s father had “fallen in love with death” in order to capture the narrator’s conflicted attitudes towards his loss. By conflating the ordinarily juxtaposed states of love and death, Kavanagh implies the narrator’s loss has shattered his previously held understanding of the world and left him confused. Similarly, the metaphor could suggest the narrator feels a degree of jealousy, possibly even self-loathing, because their father embraced death willingly rather than remaining with the living. Ultimately, the metaphor’s innate impossibility speaks to the narrator’s desire to rationalize their loss because the reality, that his father simply died, is too painful for him to bear.

As you can see, the paragraph clearly engages with a poetic device and uses an appropriately embedded quotation. The subsequent interpretations are then varied enough to avoid repeating each other, but all clearly link to the theme of loss that was mentioned in the question. Obviously, this is only one analytical paragraph, but a completed essay should contain 4-5. This would allow the writer to analyze enough different devices and link them to both themes mentioned in the question.

Conclusions

By this stage, you should have written the bulk of your essay in the form of your introduction and 4-5 main analytical paragraphs. If you have done those things properly, then the conclusion should largely take care of itself.

The world’s simplest essay plan sounds something like this:

• Tell them what you’re going to tell them
• Tell them what you’ve told them

This is, naturally, an oversimplification, but it is worth bearing in mind. The conclusion to an essay is not the place to introduce your final, groundbreaking interpretation. Nor is it the place to reveal a hitherto unknown piece of contextual information that shatters any prior critical consensus with regard to the poem you are writing about. If you do either of these things, the examiner will be asking themselves one simple question: why didn’t they write this earlier?

In its most simple form, a conclusion is there, to sum up the points you have made and nothing more.

As with the previous sections, there is a little more to a great conclusion than merely stating the things you have already made. The trick to a great conclusion is to bind those points together to emphasize the essay’s overarching thread or central argument. This is a subtle skill, but mastering it will really help you to finish your essays with a flourish by making your points feel like they are more than the sum of their parts.

Finally, let’s remind ourselves of the hypothetical essay question we’ve been using:

Remember that, just like your introduction, your conclusion should be brief and direct and must not attempt to do more than it needs to.

In conclusion, Kavanagh’s poem utilizes numerous techniques to capture the ways in which loss is both inescapable and a source of enormous pain. Moreover, the poet subverts positive memories by showcasing how they can cause loved ones more pain than comfort in the early stages of grief. Ultimately, the poem demonstrates how malleable memory can be in the face of immense loss due to the way the latter shapes and informs the former.

As you can see, this conclusion is confident and authoritative but does not need to provide evidence to justify this tone because that evidence has already been provided earlier in the essay. You should pay close attention to the manner in which the conclusion links different points together under one banner in order to provide a sense of assuredness.

You should refer to the poet by either using their full name or, more commonly, their surname. After your first usage, you may refer to them as ‘the poet.’ Never refer to the poet using just their first name.

This is a good question, and the answer entirely depends on the level of study as well as the nature of the examination. If you are writing a timed essay for a school exam, you are unlikely to need any form of referencing. If, however, you are writing an essay as part of coursework or at a higher education institution, you may need to refer to the specific guidelines of that institution.

Again, this will depend on the type of essay you are being asked to write. If you are writing a longer essay or writing at a higher educational level, it can be useful to refer to other poems in the writer’s repertoire to help make comments on an aspect of the poem you are primarily writing about. However, for the kind of essay outlined in this article, you should focus solely on the poem you have been asked to write about.

This is one of the most common concerns students have about writing essays . Ultimately, the quality of an essay is more likely to be determined by the quality of paragraphs than the quantity anyway, so you should focus on making your paragraphs as good as they can be. Beyond this, it is important to remember that the time required to write a paragraph is not fixed. The more you write, the faster they will become. You should trust the process, focus on making each paragraph as good as it can be, and you’ll be amazed at how the timing issue takes care of itself.

Other Resources

We hope you have found this article useful and would love for you to comment or reach out to us if you have any queries about what we’ve written. We’d love to hear your feedback!

In the meantime, we’ve collated a list of resources you might find helpful when setting out to tackle a poetry essay, which you can find below.

• Do poems have to rhyme?
• 10 important elements of poetry
• How to analyze a poem with SMILE
• How to approach unseen poetry
• 18 Different Types of Themes in Poetry

Home » Poetry Explained » How to Write a Poetry Essay (Complete Guide)

About Joe Santamaria

Experts in poetry.

Our work is created by a team of talented poetry experts, to provide an in-depth look into poetry, like no other.

Cite This Page

Santamaria, Joe. "How to Write a Poetry Essay (Complete Guide)". Poem Analysis , https://poemanalysis.com/how-to-write-a-poetry-essay/ . Accessed 28 June 2024.

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The Poetry issue

The Shape of the Void: Toward a Definition of Poetry

“Poetry leaves something out,” our columnist Elisa Gabbert says. But that’s hardly the extent of it.

• Share full article

By Elisa Gabbert

I once heard a student say poetry is language that’s “coherent enough.” I love a definition this ambiguous. It’s both helpful (there’s a limit to coherence, and the limit is aesthetic) and unhelpful (enough for what, or whom?). It reminds me of a dictionary entry for “detritus” that I copied down in a notebook: “the pieces that are left when something breaks, falls apart, is destroyed, etc.” That seemed so artfully vague to me, so uncharacteristically casual for a dictionary. It has a quality of distraction, of trailing off, of suggesting you already know what detritus means. Part of me resists the question of what poetry is, or resists the answer — you already know what it means.

But let’s answer it anyway, starting with the obvious: If the words have rhyme and meter, it’s poetry. Nonwords with rhyme and meter, as in “Jabberwocky,” also are poetry. And since words in aggregate have at least some rhyme and rhythm, which lines on the page accentuate, any words composed in lines are poetry. There’s something to be said for the obvious. Virginia Woolf wrote of E.M. Forster: “He says the simple things that clever people don’t say; I find him the best of critics for that reason. Suddenly out comes the obvious thing one has overlooked.”

Is there much else? I think so. I think poetry leaves something out. All texts leave something out, of course — otherwise they’d be infinite — but most of the time, more is left out of a poem. Verse, by forcing more white space on the page, is constantly reminding you of what’s not there. This absence of something, this hyper-present absence, is why prose poems take up less space than other prose forms; the longer they get, the less they feel like poems. It’s why fragments are automatically poetic: Erasure turns prose into poems. It’s why any text that’s alluringly cryptic or elusive — a road sign, assembly instructions — is described as poetic. The poetic is not merely beauty in language, but beauty in incoherence, in resistance to common sense. The missingness of poetry slows readers down, making them search for what can’t be found. The encounter is almost inherently frustrating, as though one could not possibly pay enough attention. This is useful: Frustration is erotic.

“What is poetry?” is not the same question, quite, as “What is a poem?” How many poems did Emily Dickinson write? It depends what you count. In “Writing in Time,” the scholar Marta Werner writes, of Dickinson’s so-called Master letters, “At their most fundamental, ontological level, we don’t know what they are.” Perhaps my favorite poem of Dickinson’s is not, perhaps, a poem — it’s an odd bit of verse in the form of a letter to her sister-in-law, ending with the loveliest, slantest of rhymes: “Be Sue, while/I am Emily —/Be next, what/you have ever/been, Infinity.” Are the “breaks” really breaks? The letter is written on a small, narrow card; the words go almost to the edge of the paper. I think, too, of Rilke’s letters, which often read like poems. In 1925, he wrote to his Polish translator: “We are the bees of the Invisible. We wildly gather the honey of the visible, in order to store it in the great golden hive of the Invisible.” In these letter-poems, poetry reveals itself as more a mode of writing, a mode of thinking, even a mode of being , than a genre. The poem is not the only unit of poetry; poetic lines in isolation are still poetry. The poem is a vessel; poetry is liquid.

From time to time I’m asked, with bewilderment or derision, if this or that poem isn’t just “prose chopped into lines.” This idea of the free verse poem as “chopped” prose comes from Ezra Pound via Marjorie Perloff, who quotes Pound in her influential essay “The Linear Fallacy,” published in 1981. The essay encourages an oddly suspicious, even paranoid reading of most free verse as phony poetry, as prose in costume. The line, in Perloff’s view, in these ersatz poems, is a “surface device,” a “gimmick.” She removes all the breaks from a C.K. Williams poem to make the case that a stanza without the intentional carriage returns is merely a paragraph.

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• Knowledge Base
• How to write a literary analysis essay | A step-by-step guide

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay | A Step-by-Step Guide

Published on January 30, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on August 14, 2023.

Literary analysis means closely studying a text, interpreting its meanings, and exploring why the author made certain choices. It can be applied to novels, short stories, plays, poems, or any other form of literary writing.

A literary analysis essay is not a rhetorical analysis , nor is it just a summary of the plot or a book review. Instead, it is a type of argumentative essay where you need to analyze elements such as the language, perspective, and structure of the text, and explain how the author uses literary devices to create effects and convey ideas.

Before beginning a literary analysis essay, it’s essential to carefully read the text and c ome up with a thesis statement to keep your essay focused. As you write, follow the standard structure of an academic essay :

• An introduction that tells the reader what your essay will focus on.
• A main body, divided into paragraphs , that builds an argument using evidence from the text.
• A conclusion that clearly states the main point that you have shown with your analysis.

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Table of contents

Step 1: reading the text and identifying literary devices, step 2: coming up with a thesis, step 3: writing a title and introduction, step 4: writing the body of the essay, step 5: writing a conclusion, other interesting articles.

The first step is to carefully read the text(s) and take initial notes. As you read, pay attention to the things that are most intriguing, surprising, or even confusing in the writing—these are things you can dig into in your analysis.

Your goal in literary analysis is not simply to explain the events described in the text, but to analyze the writing itself and discuss how the text works on a deeper level. Primarily, you’re looking out for literary devices —textual elements that writers use to convey meaning and create effects. If you’re comparing and contrasting multiple texts, you can also look for connections between different texts.

To get started with your analysis, there are several key areas that you can focus on. As you analyze each aspect of the text, try to think about how they all relate to each other. You can use highlights or notes to keep track of important passages and quotes.

Language choices

Consider what style of language the author uses. Are the sentences short and simple or more complex and poetic?

What word choices stand out as interesting or unusual? Are words used figuratively to mean something other than their literal definition? Figurative language includes things like metaphor (e.g. “her eyes were oceans”) and simile (e.g. “her eyes were like oceans”).

Also keep an eye out for imagery in the text—recurring images that create a certain atmosphere or symbolize something important. Remember that language is used in literary texts to say more than it means on the surface.

Narrative voice

Ask yourself:

• Who is telling the story?
• How are they telling it?

Is it a first-person narrator (“I”) who is personally involved in the story, or a third-person narrator who tells us about the characters from a distance?

Consider the narrator’s perspective . Is the narrator omniscient (where they know everything about all the characters and events), or do they only have partial knowledge? Are they an unreliable narrator who we are not supposed to take at face value? Authors often hint that their narrator might be giving us a distorted or dishonest version of events.

The tone of the text is also worth considering. Is the story intended to be comic, tragic, or something else? Are usually serious topics treated as funny, or vice versa ? Is the story realistic or fantastical (or somewhere in between)?

Consider how the text is structured, and how the structure relates to the story being told.

• Novels are often divided into chapters and parts.
• Poems are divided into lines, stanzas, and sometime cantos.
• Plays are divided into scenes and acts.

Think about why the author chose to divide the different parts of the text in the way they did.

There are also less formal structural elements to take into account. Does the story unfold in chronological order, or does it jump back and forth in time? Does it begin in medias res —in the middle of the action? Does the plot advance towards a clearly defined climax?

With poetry, consider how the rhyme and meter shape your understanding of the text and your impression of the tone. Try reading the poem aloud to get a sense of this.

In a play, you might consider how relationships between characters are built up through different scenes, and how the setting relates to the action. Watch out for  dramatic irony , where the audience knows some detail that the characters don’t, creating a double meaning in their words, thoughts, or actions.

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Your thesis in a literary analysis essay is the point you want to make about the text. It’s the core argument that gives your essay direction and prevents it from just being a collection of random observations about a text.

If you’re given a prompt for your essay, your thesis must answer or relate to the prompt. For example:

Essay question example

Is Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” a religious parable?

Your thesis statement should be an answer to this question—not a simple yes or no, but a statement of why this is or isn’t the case:

Thesis statement example

Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” is not a religious parable, but a story about bureaucratic alienation.

Sometimes you’ll be given freedom to choose your own topic; in this case, you’ll have to come up with an original thesis. Consider what stood out to you in the text; ask yourself questions about the elements that interested you, and consider how you might answer them.

Your thesis should be something arguable—that is, something that you think is true about the text, but which is not a simple matter of fact. It must be complex enough to develop through evidence and arguments across the course of your essay.

Say you’re analyzing the novel Frankenstein . You could start by asking yourself:

Your initial answer might be a surface-level description:

The character Frankenstein is portrayed negatively in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein .

However, this statement is too simple to be an interesting thesis. After reading the text and analyzing its narrative voice and structure, you can develop the answer into a more nuanced and arguable thesis statement:

Mary Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as.

Remember that you can revise your thesis statement throughout the writing process , so it doesn’t need to be perfectly formulated at this stage. The aim is to keep you focused as you analyze the text.

Finding textual evidence

To support your thesis statement, your essay will build an argument using textual evidence —specific parts of the text that demonstrate your point. This evidence is quoted and analyzed throughout your essay to explain your argument to the reader.

It can be useful to comb through the text in search of relevant quotations before you start writing. You might not end up using everything you find, and you may have to return to the text for more evidence as you write, but collecting textual evidence from the beginning will help you to structure your arguments and assess whether they’re convincing.

To start your literary analysis paper, you’ll need two things: a good title, and an introduction.

Your title should clearly indicate what your analysis will focus on. It usually contains the name of the author and text(s) you’re analyzing. Keep it as concise and engaging as possible.

A common approach to the title is to use a relevant quote from the text, followed by a colon and then the rest of your title.

If you struggle to come up with a good title at first, don’t worry—this will be easier once you’ve begun writing the essay and have a better sense of your arguments.

“Fearful symmetry” : The violence of creation in William Blake’s “The Tyger”

The introduction

The essay introduction provides a quick overview of where your argument is going. It should include your thesis statement and a summary of the essay’s structure.

A typical structure for an introduction is to begin with a general statement about the text and author, using this to lead into your thesis statement. You might refer to a commonly held idea about the text and show how your thesis will contradict it, or zoom in on a particular device you intend to focus on.

Then you can end with a brief indication of what’s coming up in the main body of the essay. This is called signposting. It will be more elaborate in longer essays, but in a short five-paragraph essay structure, it shouldn’t be more than one sentence.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific advancement unrestrained by ethical considerations. In this reading, protagonist Victor Frankenstein is a stable representation of the callous ambition of modern science throughout the novel. This essay, however, argues that far from providing a stable image of the character, Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as. This essay begins by exploring the positive portrayal of Frankenstein in the first volume, then moves on to the creature’s perception of him, and finally discusses the third volume’s narrative shift toward viewing Frankenstein as the creature views him.

Some students prefer to write the introduction later in the process, and it’s not a bad idea. After all, you’ll have a clearer idea of the overall shape of your arguments once you’ve begun writing them!

If you do write the introduction first, you should still return to it later to make sure it lines up with what you ended up writing, and edit as necessary.

The body of your essay is everything between the introduction and conclusion. It contains your arguments and the textual evidence that supports them.

Paragraph structure

A typical structure for a high school literary analysis essay consists of five paragraphs : the three paragraphs of the body, plus the introduction and conclusion.

Each paragraph in the main body should focus on one topic. In the five-paragraph model, try to divide your argument into three main areas of analysis, all linked to your thesis. Don’t try to include everything you can think of to say about the text—only analysis that drives your argument.

In longer essays, the same principle applies on a broader scale. For example, you might have two or three sections in your main body, each with multiple paragraphs. Within these sections, you still want to begin new paragraphs at logical moments—a turn in the argument or the introduction of a new idea.

Robert’s first encounter with Gil-Martin suggests something of his sinister power. Robert feels “a sort of invisible power that drew me towards him.” He identifies the moment of their meeting as “the beginning of a series of adventures which has puzzled myself, and will puzzle the world when I am no more in it” (p. 89). Gil-Martin’s “invisible power” seems to be at work even at this distance from the moment described; before continuing the story, Robert feels compelled to anticipate at length what readers will make of his narrative after his approaching death. With this interjection, Hogg emphasizes the fatal influence Gil-Martin exercises from his first appearance.

Topic sentences

To keep your points focused, it’s important to use a topic sentence at the beginning of each paragraph.

A good topic sentence allows a reader to see at a glance what the paragraph is about. It can introduce a new line of argument and connect or contrast it with the previous paragraph. Transition words like “however” or “moreover” are useful for creating smooth transitions:

… The story’s focus, therefore, is not upon the divine revelation that may be waiting beyond the door, but upon the mundane process of aging undergone by the man as he waits.

Nevertheless, the “radiance” that appears to stream from the door is typically treated as religious symbolism.

This topic sentence signals that the paragraph will address the question of religious symbolism, while the linking word “nevertheless” points out a contrast with the previous paragraph’s conclusion.

Using textual evidence

A key part of literary analysis is backing up your arguments with relevant evidence from the text. This involves introducing quotes from the text and explaining their significance to your point.

It’s important to contextualize quotes and explain why you’re using them; they should be properly introduced and analyzed, not treated as self-explanatory:

It isn’t always necessary to use a quote. Quoting is useful when you’re discussing the author’s language, but sometimes you’ll have to refer to plot points or structural elements that can’t be captured in a short quote.

In these cases, it’s more appropriate to paraphrase or summarize parts of the text—that is, to describe the relevant part in your own words:

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The conclusion of your analysis shouldn’t introduce any new quotations or arguments. Instead, it’s about wrapping up the essay. Here, you summarize your key points and try to emphasize their significance to the reader.

A good way to approach this is to briefly summarize your key arguments, and then stress the conclusion they’ve led you to, highlighting the new perspective your thesis provides on the text as a whole:

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

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By tracing the depiction of Frankenstein through the novel’s three volumes, I have demonstrated how the narrative structure shifts our perception of the character. While the Frankenstein of the first volume is depicted as having innocent intentions, the second and third volumes—first in the creature’s accusatory voice, and then in his own voice—increasingly undermine him, causing him to appear alternately ridiculous and vindictive. Far from the one-dimensional villain he is often taken to be, the character of Frankenstein is compelling because of the dynamic narrative frame in which he is placed. In this frame, Frankenstein’s narrative self-presentation responds to the images of him we see from others’ perspectives. This conclusion sheds new light on the novel, foregrounding Shelley’s unique layering of narrative perspectives and its importance for the depiction of character.

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Literary Devices

Literary devices, terms, and elements, definition of essay, common examples of essay, significance of essay in literature.

Many famous writers and thinkers have also written numerous examples of essays. For instance, the treatises of the philosophers Plutarch, Cicero, and Seneca are all early forms of essay writing. Essay writing might seem dull to school children, but in fact the form has become extremely popular, often converging with a type of writing called “creative non-fiction.” Authors are able to explore complex concepts through anecdote, evidence, and exploration. An author may want to persuade his or her audience to accept a central idea, or simply describe what he or she has experienced. Below you will find examples of essays from famous writers.

Examples of Essay in Literature

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an essayist and poet who was a part of the Transcendentalist movement and who believed strongly in the importance of individualism and self-reliance. The above essay example, in fact, is titled “Self-Reliance,” and encourages human beings to trust themselves and strike out on their own.

Yet, because he was so small, and so simple a form of the energy that was rolling in at the open window and driving its way through so many narrow and intricate corridors in my own brain and in those of other human beings, there was something marvelous as well as pathetic about him. It was as if someone had taken a tiny bead of pure life and decking it as lightly as possible with down and feathers, had set it dancing and zig-zagging to show us the true nature of life. Thus displayed one could not get over the strangeness of it. One is apt to forget all about life, seeing it humped and bossed and garnished and cumbered so that it has to move with the greatest circumspection and dignity. Again, the thought of all that life might have been had he been born in any other shape caused one to view his simple activities with a kind of pity.

Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd — seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the ‘natives’, and so in every crisis he has got to do what the ‘natives’ expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle. A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing — no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man’s life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at.

George Orwell’s marvelous essay “Shooting an Elephant” tells the story of when he was a police officer in Lower Burma and was asked to deal with an elephant wandering through a market. Orwell brilliantly extrapolates his role in shooting and killing the animal to the effects of Imperialism and the British Empire.

Not that it’s profound, but I’m struck, amid the pig’s screams and wheezes, by the fact that these agricultural pros do not see their stock as pets or friends. They are just in the agribusiness of weight and meat. They are unconnected, even at the fair’s self-consciously special occasion of connection. And why not?—even at the fair their products continue to drool and smell and scream, and the work goes on. I can imagine what they think of us, cooing at the swine: we fairgoers don’t have to deal with the business of breeding and feeding our meat; our meat simply materializes at the corn-dog stand, allowing us to separate our healthy appetites from fur and screams and rolling eyes. We tourists get to indulge our tender animal-rights feelings with our tummies full of bacon. I don’t know how keen these sullen farmers’ sense of irony is, but mine’s been honed East Coast keen, and I feel like a bit of an ass in the Swine Barn.

(“Ticket to the Fair” by David Foster Wallace)

Test Your Knowledge of Essay

3. Which of the following statements is true? A. Essays are found in many intellectual magazines. B. Essays are only used in school settings. C. Essays are always boring. [spoiler title=”Answer to Question #3″] Answer: A is the correct answer.[/spoiler]

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Writing About Poetry

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Writing about poetry can be one of the most demanding tasks that many students face in a literature class. Poetry, by its very nature, makes demands on a writer who attempts to analyze it that other forms of literature do not. So how can you write a clear, confident, well-supported essay about poetry? This handout offers answers to some common questions about writing about poetry.

What's the Point?

In order to write effectively about poetry, one needs a clear idea of what the point of writing about poetry is. When you are assigned an analytical essay about a poem in an English class, the goal of the assignment is usually to argue a specific thesis about the poem, using your analysis of specific elements in the poem and how those elements relate to each other to support your thesis.

So why would your teacher give you such an assignment? What are the benefits of learning to write analytic essays about poetry? Several important reasons suggest themselves:

• To help you learn to make a text-based argument. That is, to help you to defend ideas based on a text that is available to you and other readers. This sharpens your reasoning skills by forcing you to formulate an interpretation of something someone else has written and to support that interpretation by providing logically valid reasons why someone else who has read the poem should agree with your argument. This isn't a skill that is just important in academics, by the way. Lawyers, politicians, and journalists often find that they need to make use of similar skills.
• To help you to understand what you are reading more fully. Nothing causes a person to make an extra effort to understand difficult material like the task of writing about it. Also, writing has a way of helping you to see things that you may have otherwise missed simply by causing you to think about how to frame your own analysis.
• To help you enjoy poetry more! This may sound unlikely, but one of the real pleasures of poetry is the opportunity to wrestle with the text and co-create meaning with the author. When you put together a well-constructed analysis of the poem, you are not only showing that you understand what is there, you are also contributing to an ongoing conversation about the poem. If your reading is convincing enough, everyone who has read your essay will get a little more out of the poem because of your analysis.

What Should I Know about Writing about Poetry?

Most importantly, you should realize that a paper that you write about a poem or poems is an argument. Make sure that you have something specific that you want to say about the poem that you are discussing. This specific argument that you want to make about the poem will be your thesis. You will support this thesis by drawing examples and evidence from the poem itself. In order to make a credible argument about the poem, you will want to analyze how the poem works—what genre the poem fits into, what its themes are, and what poetic techniques and figures of speech are used.

What Can I Write About?

Theme: One place to start when writing about poetry is to look at any significant themes that emerge in the poetry. Does the poetry deal with themes related to love, death, war, or peace? What other themes show up in the poem? Are there particular historical events that are mentioned in the poem? What are the most important concepts that are addressed in the poem?

Genre: What kind of poem are you looking at? Is it an epic (a long poem on a heroic subject)? Is it a sonnet (a brief poem, usually consisting of fourteen lines)? Is it an ode? A satire? An elegy? A lyric? Does it fit into a specific literary movement such as Modernism, Romanticism, Neoclassicism, or Renaissance poetry? This is another place where you may need to do some research in an introductory poetry text or encyclopedia to find out what distinguishes specific genres and movements.

Versification: Look closely at the poem's rhyme and meter. Is there an identifiable rhyme scheme? Is there a set number of syllables in each line? The most common meter for poetry in English is iambic pentameter, which has five feet of two syllables each (thus the name "pentameter") in each of which the strongly stressed syllable follows the unstressed syllable. You can learn more about rhyme and meter by consulting our handout on sound and meter in poetry or the introduction to a standard textbook for poetry such as the Norton Anthology of Poetry . Also relevant to this category of concerns are techniques such as caesura (a pause in the middle of a line) and enjambment (continuing a grammatical sentence or clause from one line to the next). Is there anything that you can tell about the poem from the choices that the author has made in this area? For more information about important literary terms, see our handout on the subject.

Figures of speech: Are there literary devices being used that affect how you read the poem? Here are some examples of commonly discussed figures of speech:

• metaphor: comparison between two unlike things
• simile: comparison between two unlike things using "like" or "as"
• metonymy: one thing stands for something else that is closely related to it (For example, using the phrase "the crown" to refer to the king would be an example of metonymy.)
• synecdoche: a part stands in for a whole (For example, in the phrase "all hands on deck," "hands" stands in for the people in the ship's crew.)
• personification: a non-human thing is endowed with human characteristics
• litotes: a double negative is used for poetic effect (example: not unlike, not displeased)
• irony: a difference between the surface meaning of the words and the implications that may be drawn from them

Cultural Context: How does the poem you are looking at relate to the historical context in which it was written? For example, what's the cultural significance of Walt Whitman's famous elegy for Lincoln "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" in light of post-Civil War cultural trends in the U.S.A? How does John Donne's devotional poetry relate to the contentious religious climate in seventeenth-century England? These questions may take you out of the literature section of your library altogether and involve finding out about philosophy, history, religion, economics, music, or the visual arts.

What Style Should I Use?

It is useful to follow some standard conventions when writing about poetry. First, when you analyze a poem, it is best to use present tense rather than past tense for your verbs. Second, you will want to make use of numerous quotations from the poem and explain their meaning and their significance to your argument. After all, if you do not quote the poem itself when you are making an argument about it, you damage your credibility. If your teacher asks for outside criticism of the poem as well, you should also cite points made by other critics that are relevant to your argument. A third point to remember is that there are various citation formats for citing both the material you get from the poems themselves and the information you get from other critical sources. The most common citation format for writing about poetry is the Modern Language Association (MLA) format .

In literary nonfiction, no form is quite as complicated as the lyric essay. Lyrical essays explore the elements of poetry and creative nonfiction in complex and experimental ways, combining the subject matter of autobiography with poetry’s figurative devices and musicality of language.

For both poets and creative nonfiction writers, lyric essays are a gold standard of experimentation and language, but conquering the form takes lots of practice. What is a lyric essay, and how do you write one? Let’s break down this challenging CNF form, with lyric essay examples, before examining how you might approach it yourself.

Want to explore the lyric essay further? See our lyric essay writing course with instructor Gretchen Clark. 

What is a lyric essay?

The lyric essay combines the autobiographical information of a personal essay with the figurative language, forms, and experimentations of poetry. In the lyric essay, the rules of both poetry and prose become suggestions, because the form of the essay is constantly changing, adapting to the needs, ideas, and consciousness of the writer.

Lyric essay definition: The lyric essay combines autobiographical writing with the figurative language, forms, and experimentations of poetry.

Lyric essays are typically written in a poetic prose style . (We’ll expand on the difference between prose poetry and lyric essay shortly.) Lyric essays employ many of the poetic devices that poets use, including devices of repetition and rhetorical devices in literature.

That said, there are few conventions for the lyric essay, other than to experiment, experiment, experiment. While the form itself is an essay, there’s no reason you can’t break the bounds of expression.

One tactic, for example, is to incorporate poetry into the essay itself. You might start your essay with a normal paragraph, then describe something specific through a sonnet or villanelle , then express a different idea through a POV shift, a list, or some other form. Lyric essays can also borrow from the braided essay, the hermit crab, and other forms of creative nonfiction .

In truth, there’s very little that unifies all lyric essays, because they’re so wildly experimental. They’re also a bit tricky to define—the line between a lyric essay and the prose poem, in particular, is very hazy.

Rather than apply a one-size-fits-all definition for the lyric essay, which doesn’t exist, let’s pay close attention to how lyric essayists approach the open-ended form.

There are few conventions for the lyric essay, other than to experiment, experiment, experiment

Personal essay vs. lyric essay: An example of each

At its simplest, the lyric essay’s prose style is different from that of the personal essay, or other forms of creative nonfiction.

Personal essay example

Here are the opening two paragraphs from Beth Ann Fennelly’s personal essay “ I Survived the Blizzard of ’79. ”

“We didn’t question. Or complain. It wouldn’t have occurred to us, and it wouldn’t have helped. I was eight. Julie was ten.

We didn’t know yet that this blizzard would earn itself a moniker that would be silk-screened on T-shirts. We would own such a shirt, which extended its tenure in our house as a rag for polishing silver.”

The prose in this personal essay excerpt is descriptive, linear, and easy to understand. Fennelly gives us the information we need to make sense of her world, as well as the foreshadow of what’s to come in her essay.

Lyric essay example

Now, take this excerpt from a lyric essay, “ Life Code ” by J. A. Knight:

“The dream goes like this: blue room of water. God light from above. Child’s fist, foot, curve, face, the arc of an eye, the symmetry of circles… and then an opening of this body—which surprised her—a movement so clean and assured and then the push towards the light like a frog or a fish.” 

The prose in Knight’s lyric essay cannot be read the same way as a personal essay might be. Here, Knight’s prose is a sort of experience—a way of exploring the dream through language as shifting and ethereal as dreams themselves. Where the personal essay transcribes experiences, the lyric essay creates them.

Where the personal essay transcribes experiences, the lyric essay creates them.

For more examples of the craft, The Seneca Review and Eastern Iowa Review both have a growing archive of lyric essays submitted to their journals. In essence, there is no form to a lyric essay—rather, form and language are experimented with interchangeably, guided only by the narrative you seek to write.

Lyric Essay Vs Prose Poem

Lyric essays are commonly confused with prose poetry . In truth, there is no clear line separating the two, and plenty of essays, including some of the lyric essay examples in this article, can also be called prose poems.

Well, what’s the difference? A prose poem, broadly defined, is a poem written in paragraphs. Unlike a traditional poem, the prose poem does not make use of line breaks: the line breaks simply occur at the end of the page. However, all other tactics of poetry are in the prose poet’s toolkit, and you can even play with poetry forms in the prose poem, such as writing the prose sonnet .

Lyric essays also blend the techniques of prose and poetry. Here are some general differences between the two:

• Lyric essays tend to be longer. A prose poem is rarely more than a page. Some lyric essays are longer than 20 pages.
• Lyric essays tend to be more experimental. One paragraph might be in prose, the next, poetry. The lyric essay might play more with forms like lists, dreams, public signs, or other types of media and text.
• Prose poems are often more stream-of-conscious. The prose poet often charts the flow of their consciousness on the page. Lyric essayists can do this, too, but there’s often a broader narrative organizing the piece, even if it’s not explicitly stated or recognizable.

The two share many similarities, too, including:

• An emphasis on language, musicality, and ambiguity.
• Rejection of “objective meaning” and the desire to set forth arguments.
• An unobstructed flow of ideas.
• Suggestiveness in thoughts and language, rather than concrete, explicit expressions.
• Surprising or unexpected juxtapositions .
• Ingenuity and play with language and form.

In short, there’s no clear dividing line between the two. Often, the label of whether a piece is a lyric essay or a prose poem is up to the writer.

Lyric Essay Examples

The following lyric essay examples are contemporary and have been previously published online. Pay attention to how the lyric essayists interweave the essay form with a poet’s attention to language, mystery, and musicality.

“Lodge: A Lyric Essay” by Emilia Phillips

Retrieved here, from Blackbird .

This lush, evocative lyric essay traverses the American landscape. The speaker reacts to this landscape finding poetry in the rundown, and seeing her own story—family trauma, religion, and the random forces that shape her childhood. Pay attention to how the essay defies conventional standards of self-expression. In between narrative paragraphs are lists, allusions, memories, and the many twists and turns that seem to accompany the narrator on their journey through Americana.

“Spiral” by Nicole Callihan

Retrieved here, from Birdcoat Quarterly . 

Notice how this gorgeous essay evolves down the spine of its central theme: the sleepless swallows. The narrator records her thoughts about the passage of time, her breast examination, her family and childhood, and the other thoughts that arise in her mind as she compares them, again and again, to the mysterious swallows who fly without sleep. This piece demonstrates how lyric essays can encompass a wide array of ideas and threads, creating a kaleidoscope of language for the reader to peer into, come away with something, peer into again, and always see something different.

“Star Stuff” by Jessica Franken

Retrieved here, from Seneca Review .

This short, imagery -driven lyric essay evokes wonder at our seeming smallness, our seeming vastness. The narrator juxtaposes different ideas for what the body can become, playing with all our senses and creating odd, surprising connections. Read this short piece a few times. Ask yourself, why are certain items linked together in the same paragraph? What is the train of thought occurring in each new sentence, each new paragraph? How does the final paragraph wrap up the lyric essay, while also leaving it open ended? There’s much to interpret in this piece, so engage with it slowly, read it over several times.

5 approaches to writing the lyric essay

This form of creative writing is tough for writers because there’s no proper formula for writing it. However, if you have a passion for imaginative forms and want to rise to the challenge, here are several different ways to write your essay.

1. Start with your narrative

Writing the lyrical essay is a lot like writing creative nonfiction: it starts with getting words on the page. Start with a simple outline of the story you’re looking to write. Focus on the main plot points and what you want to explore, then highlight the ideas or events that will be most difficult for you to write about. Often, the lyrical form offers the writer a new way to talk about something difficult. Where words fail, form is key. Combining difficult ideas and musicality allows you to find the right words when conventional language hasn’t worked.

Emilia Phillips’ lyric essay “ Lodge ” does exactly this, letting the story’s form emphasize its language and the narrative Phillips writes about dreams, traveling, and childhood emotions.

2. Identify moments of metaphor and figurative language

The lyric essay is liberated from form, rather than constrained by it. In a normal essay, you wouldn’t want your piece overrun by figurative language, but here, boundless metaphors are encouraged—so long as they aid your message. For some essayists, it might help to start by reimagining your story as an extended metaphor.

A great example of this is Zadie Smith’s essay “ The Lazy River ,” which uses the lazy river as an extended metaphor to criticize a certain “go with the flow” mindset.

Use extended metaphors as a base for the essay, then return to it during moments of transition or key insight. Writing this way might help ground your writing process while giving you new opportunities to play with form.

3. Investigate and braid different threads

Just like the braided essay , lyric essays can certainly braid different story lines together. If anything, the freedom to play with form makes braiding much easier and more exciting to investigate. How can you use poetic forms to braid different ideas together? Can you braid an extended metaphor with the main story? Can you separate the threads into a contrapuntal, then reunite them in prose?

A simple example of threading in lyric essay is Jane Harrington’s “ Ossein Pith .” Harrington intertwines the “you” and “I” of the story, letting each character meet only when the story explores moments of “hunger.”

Whichever threads you choose to write, use the freedom of the lyric essay to your advantage in exploring the story you’re trying to set down.

4. Revise an existing piece into a lyric essay

Some CNF writers might find it easier to write their essay, then go back and revise with the elements of poetic form and figurative language. If you choose to take this route, identify the parts of your draft that don’t seem to be working, then consider changing the form into something other than prose.

For example, you might write a story, then realize it would greatly benefit the prose if it was written using the poetic device of anaphora (a repetition device using a word or phrase at the beginning of a line or paragraph). Chen Li’s lyric essay “ Baudelaire Street ” does a great job of this, using the anaphora “I would ride past” to explore childhood memory.

When words don’t work, let the lyrical form intervene.

5. Write stream-of-conscious

Stream-of-consciousness is a writing technique in which the writer charts, word-for-word, the exact order of their unfiltered thoughts on the page.

If it isn’t obvious, this is easier said than done. We naturally think faster than we write, and we also have a tendency to filter our thoughts as we think them, to the point where many thoughts go unconsciously unnoticed. Unlearning this takes a lot of practice and skill.

Nonetheless, you might notice in the lyric essay examples we shared how the essayists followed different associations with their words, one thought flowing naturally into the next, circling around a subject rather than explicitly defining it. The stream-of-conscious technique is perfect for this kind of writing, then, because it earnestly excavates the mind, creating a kind of Rorschach test that the reader can look into, interpret, see for themselves.

This technique requires a lot of mastery, but if you’re keen on capturing your own consciousness, you may find that the lyric essay form is the perfect container to hold it in.

Closing thoughts on the lyric essay form

Creative nonfiction writers have an overt desire to engage their readers with insightful stories. When language fails, the lyrical essay comes to the rescue. Although this is a challenging form to master, practicing different forms of storytelling could pave new avenues for your next nonfiction piece. Try using one of these different ways to practice the lyric craft, and get writing your next CNF story!

[…] Sean “Writing Your Truth: Understanding the Lyric Essay.” writers.com. https://writers.com/understanding-the-lyric-essay published 19 May, 2020/ accessed 13 Oct, […]

[…] https://writers.com/understanding-the-lyric-essay […]

I agree with every factor that you have pointed out. Thank you for sharing your beautiful thoughts on this. A personal essay is writing that shares an interesting, thought-provoking, sometimes entertaining, and humorous piece that is often drawn from the writer’s personal experience and at times drawn from the current affairs of the world.

[…] been wanting to learn more about lyric essay, and this seems a natural transition from […]

thanks for sharing

Thanks so much for this. Here is an updated link to my essay Spiral: https://www.birdcoatquarterly.com/post/nicole-callihan

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, the 20 poetic devices you must know.

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Looking to spice up your writing? Poetic devices are the salt and pepper (and, if you get really into them, the saffron and caraway) of writing; when deployed effectively, they add flavor and texture to your work.

But what is a poetic device? Do they only work in poetry? In this article, we’ll cover what they are, when you can use them, and how to better understand their function in any literary form!

What Is a Poetic Device?

At its most basic, a poetic device is a deliberate use of words, phrases, sounds, and even shapes to convey meaning. That sounds so broad that it could basically encompass any form of written expression, but poetic devices are generally used to heighten the literal meaning of words by considering sound, form, and function.

There are a lot of poetic devices, just as there are a lot of literary and rhetorical devices. Anything that impacts the way a poem or other written work looks or sounds is a type of poetic device, including devices that are also classified as literary or rhetorical devices .

Consider your writing—whether it’s an essay, poem, or non-fiction article—as a meal you’re cooking. You use good ingredients and put a lot of care into the dish, so you know it’s going to taste good. But there are ways to make it taste even better, little additions that can bring out the taste of each ingredient to make it even tastier—a pinch of salt, a touch of cumin.

That’s what poetic devices do. Like the metaphor I used in the last paragraph, poetic devices infuse literal meanings (what words actually say) with figurative meanings (implications, unexpected connotations, and so on) . You might have gotten the point that poetic devices improve writing without me comparing them to spices, but that metaphor added flavor and enhanced the meaning that was already there.

But metaphors are only one method of enhancing your writing. A poem about a horse may use a hoofbeat rhythm (otherwise known as an anapest or dactyl, depending on which syllable is stressed— da-da-DUH  for the former and DUH-da-da for the latter) to really draw the reader in. The reader doesn’t have to notice the hoofbeat rhythm for it to be effective, either; often, a rhythm helps readers remember what they’ve read without them necessarily realizing it.

One important thing to remember is that literary devices, like spices, are great in moderation, but overpowering if overused. Nobody wants to eat a bowl of pepper, just like nobody wants to read something if its meaning is totally obscured by flowery language. You don’t have to hold back entirely—many wonderful poets, essayists, and authors can use flowery language to great effect—but do make sure that your poetic devices are enhancing rather than overshadowing your point.

Writers commonly use literary devices in poetry to help make their points memorable or their language more evocative. You’ve likely used poetic devices without thinking about it, but deliberate use can make your writing even stronger!

20 Top Poetic Devices to Remember

There are tons of poetic devices out there—it would be nearly impossible to list all of them. But to get you started, we've compiled some of the most common poetry terms, along with a few of the more interesting ones!

An allegory is a story, poem, or other written work that can be interpreted to have a secondary meaning.

Aesop’s Fables are examples of allegories, as they are ostensibly about one thing (such as “The Ant and the Grasshopper” ) but actually have a secondary meaning. Fables are particularly literal examples of allegories, but there are many others, as well, such as George Orwell’s Animal Farm or Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Fruit.”

Alliteration

Alliteration is the repetition of a sound or letter at the beginning of multiple words in a series.

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary…”  -  Edgar Allen Poe, “The Raven”

Poe uses alliteration with the “wh,” sound at the beginning of multiple words. The repetition here mimics the sound of the wind (something you might hear on a dreary night), and also sounds a little soothing—something that’s interrupted in the next couple of lines by a different sound, just as Poe interrupts his soothing, round vowel sounds with repetition of the ‘p’ sound in “suddenly there came a tapping, / As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door….”

An allusion is an indirect reference to something.

“The Cunninghams are country folks, farmers, and the crash hit them hardest.”

- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Lee isn’t speaking of a literal crash—she’s referencing the stock market crash of the late 1920s, which left many people without money. Scout, To Kill a Mockingbird ’s narrator, references the stock market crash in a way that’s appropriate for her context, which readers can gather from the novel’s setting.

Using this allusion allows Lee to do some quick scene-setting. Not only does it establish the novel firmly within its setting, but it also shows that Scout herself is a clear part of that setting —she speaks to the audience in the way that a child of that era would speak, giving the story a greater sense of realism.

An apostrophe is a poetic device where the writer addresses a person or thing that isn’t present with an exclamation.

“O stranger of the future! O inconceivable being! awhatever the shape of your house, no matter how strange and colorless the clothes you may wear, I bet nobody there likes a wet dog either. I bet everybody in your pub even the children, pushes her away.” - Billy Collins, “To A Stranger Born In Some Distant Country Hundreds Of Years From Now”

Though we know from the title that Collins is addressing a stranger from the future, in the final stanza of the poem he addresses that stranger directly. Apostrophe was particularly common in older forms of poetry, going all the way back to Ancient Greece —many works of Greek literature begin with an invocation of the Muses, typically by saying something like, “Sing in me, O Muse.” Because the narrator of Collins’ poem is calling out to someone in the future, he mimics the language of the past and situates this poem in a larger context.

Assonance is the repetition of vowel or diphthong sounds in one or more words found close together.

“ Hear the loud alarum bells—                  Brazen bells!/ What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!        In the startled ear of night        How they scream out their affright!         Too much horrified to speak,          They can only shriek, shriek,                  Out of tune….” - Edgar Allen Poe, “The Bells”

When Poe talks about alarm bells, he uses sharp, high-pitch vowels to echo their sound: notice the repetition of long “e” and “i” sounds, both of which sound a bit like screams.

Blank Verse

Blank verse refers to poetry written without rhyme, especially if that poetry is written in iambic pentameter.

“But, woe is me, you are so sick of late, So far from cheer and from your former state, That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust, Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must. …” - William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”

Many of Shakespeare’s plays are written in blank verse, including much of “Hamlet.” Here, the dialog is without rhymes, which makes it sound more realistic, but it still follows a strict meter—iambic pentameter. This lends it a sense of grandiosity beyond if Shakespeare had tried to mimic natural speech, and the deliberate space of stressed and unstressed syllables gives it a satisfying sense of rhythm.

Consonance is the repetition of specific consonant sounds in close proximity.

“Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” - William Blake, “The Tyger”

Black repeatedly uses multiple sounds in the first stanza of this famous poem. One of the most prominent is ‘r,’ which shows up in every line of the first stanza, and almost every line of the poem as a whole. As Blake is writing about the tiger, he’s musing on its fearsome nature and where it comes from, with the repeated ‘r’ sound mimicking the tiger’s growl like a small, subtle threat in the poem’s background.

An enjambment is the continuation of a sentence beyond a line break, couplet, or stanza without an expected pause.

“What happens to a dream deferred?        Does it dry up       like a raisin in the sun?       Or fester like a sore—       And then run?       Does it stink like rotten meat?       Or crust and sugar over—       like a syrupy sweet?        Maybe it just sags       like a heavy load.         Or does it explode? ” - Langston Hughes, “Harlem”

Hughes plays with multiple methods of ending lines in this poem, including enjambment. The first two lines of the second stanza and the second-to-last stanza are examples of enjambment, as the thought continues from one line to the next without any punctuation. Notice the way these lines feel in comparison to the others, especially the second example, isolated in its own stanza. The way it’s written mimics the exhaustion of carrying a heavy load, as you can’t pause for breath the way that you do with the lines ended with punctuation.

Irony has a few different meanings. The most common is the use of tone or exaggeration to convey a meaning opposite to what's being literally said. A second form of irony is situational irony, in which a situation or event contradicts expectations, usually in a humorous fashion. A third form is dramatic irony, where the audience of a play, movie, or other piece of art is aware of something that the characters are not.

Basic irony, where what someone says doesn't match what they mean, might look something like this:

"Yeah, I  love dogs," she said dryly, holding the miniature poodle at arm's length as hives sprang up along her arms.

Situational irony would include things like a police station getting robbed or a marriage counselor getting a divorce—we would expect police to be able to resist getting robbed and a marriage counselor to be able to save their own marriage, so the fact that these unexpected things occur is darkly funny. 

One of the most famous examples of dramatic irony is in  Romeo and Juliet . The audience knows that Juliet isn't dead when Romeo comes to find her in the tomb, but obviously can't stop Romeo from killing himself to be with her. Unlike other forms of irony, dramatic irony often isn't funny—it heightens tension and increases audience investment, but doesn't necessarily have to make people laugh.

A metaphor is when a writer compares one thing to another.

“An emotional rollercoaster” is a common example of a metaphor—so common, in fact, that it’s become cliche. Experiencing multiple emotions in a short period of time can feel a lot like riding a roller coaster, as you have a series of extreme highs and lows.

Meter refers to the rhythm of a poem or other written work as it’s expressed through the number and length of the feet in each line.

“But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief…” - William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare famously wrote frequently in iambic pentameter ,  a specific type of meter containing five iambic feet. Iambs are a foot—a unit of rhythm—consisting of one unstressed and one stressed syllable. In the first line of this passage, you have five iambs, which produces a sort of heartbeat-esque rhythm.

“But soft / what light / through yon- / -der win- / -dow breaks ?”

Meter like this gives readers expectations about how each line will go, which can be very useful if you want to subvert them, such as how Shakespeare does in Hamlet :

“To be / or not / to be / that is / the ques- / -ion.”

Because we expect iambic pentameter, the rule-breaking here clues us in that something isn’t right with Hamlet.

An ode is a short lyrical poem, often in praise of something.

“Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,        Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express        A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape        Of deities or mortals, or of both,                In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?        What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?                What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?” - John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn” covers all the required bases of the ode—it’s short at just five stanzas, it’s lyrical (the language is clearly elevated above regular speech), and it’s written in praise of a scene on an imagined Grecian urn, which preserves the beauty of several scenes for eternity.

Though Keats’ ode here may be in earnest, the deliberate use of language far outside our normal method of speaking often makes the form ripe for satire. In this case, Keats is using this language to discuss beauty and truth, two rather lofty themes that work in tandem with the lofty language.

A pun is a play on words, using multiple meanings or similar sounds to make a joke.

"Mine is a long and a sad tale!" said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing.  "It is a long tail, certainly," said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse's tail; "but why do you call it sad?" And she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking...." - Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Here, Alice clearly misunderstands what the mouse is saying—he says ‘tale,’ referring to his long and sad story, and she hears ‘tail,’ referring to his literal tail. The result is a misunderstanding between the two that ends with Alice looking rude and uncaring.

Though it makes Alice look bad, it’s quite entertaining for the reader. The world of Wonderland is full of strangeness, so it’s not really a surprise that Alice wouldn’t understand what’s happening. However, in this case it’s a legitimate misunderstanding, heightening the comedy as Alice’s worldview is once again shaken.

Repetition is fairly self-explanatory—it’s the process of repeating certain words or phrases.

“Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.” - Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”

Throughout this poem, Thomas repeats the lines, “Do not go gentle into that good night,” and “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” The two lines don’t appear together until the final couplet of the poem, cementing their importance in relation to one another. But before that, the repetition of each line clues you in to their importance. No matter what else is said, the repetition tells you that it all comes back to those two lines.

Rhetorical Question

A rhetorical question is a question asked to make a point rather than in expectation of an answer.

“Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?” - Sojourner Truth, “Ain’t I a Woman?”

Sojourner Truth’s question to the Women’s Convention of 1981 in Akron, Ohio isn’t a question that needs an answer. Of course she’s a woman—she, as well as everybody else in the audience, knew that perfectly well. However, Sojourner Truth was a black woman in the time of slavery. Many white women wouldn’t have considered her to be part of the women’s rights movement despite her gender.

By asking the question, Sojourner Truth is raising the point that she is a woman, and therefore should be part of the conversation about women’s rights. “Ain’t I a woman?” isn’t a question of gender, but a question of race—if it’s a conference about women’s rights, why weren’t black women included? By asking a question about an undeniable truth, Sojourner Truth was in fact pointing out the hypocrisy of the conference.

A rhyme is a repetition of syllables at the end of words, often at the end of a line of poetry, but there are many unique kinds of rhymes .

“It was many and many a year ago,    In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know    By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought    Than to love and be loved by me.” - Edgar Allen Poe, “Annabel Lee”

Poe’s poem starts off with a fairly typical ABAB rhyme scheme—the first line rhymes with the third, the second with the fourth. However, in line five, we get a jarring line that does not rhyme, which is carried through the rest of the poem. The rhyming sounds hearken back to classic songs and stories, but is undone by something that doesn’t sound right, just as the classic love story of the narrator and Annabel Lee is undone by tragedy.

Rhythm refers to the pattern of long, short, stressed, and unstressed syllables in writing.

“Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the caldron boil and bake…” - William Shakespeare, Macbeth

In this scene from Macbeth, the witches are positioned as being strange and unnatural, and the rhyme scheme Shakespeare uses is also unnatural. It lends the passage a sing-song quality that isn’t present in other parts of the play, which is easy to get stuck in your head. This is important, because their prophecies also get stuck in Macbeth’s head, leading him to commit his horrible crimes.

A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem with a strict rhyme scheme, often written in iambic pentameter.

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right; I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.” - Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “How Do I Love Thee”

Sonnets were a standard poetry format for a long time—Shakespeare famously wrote sonnets, as did poets like Browning. As with blank verse, sonnets are often written in iambic pentameter, which gives the writing a sense of realism, as it’s not quite as affected as other rhythms, but also makes it feel purposeful and different from natural speech.

Because sonnets have a rhyme scheme, they feel removed again from realistic speech. But that works in form’s favor— the rigid structure encourages unconventional word use (hence the memorability of “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”) and marks poems in this style as having a kind of heightened reality. Because blank and free verse arose later, writing sonnets in modern times gives poems a classic or even intentionally antiquated feeling, which can work in the poet’s favor.

How to Identify and Analyze Poetic Devices

It’s nearly impossible to remember every poetic device, but teaching yourself to identify and analyze them is a great way to increase your vocabulary and writing ability. To learn more about them, you can:

Reading widely in a variety of literary forms—poetry, prose, essays, non-fiction, and so on—is one of the best ways to learn more poetic devices. You may not notice them all, but challenge yourself to find one example of a poetic device every time you read. Remember, there are lots of kinds of poetic devices; they don’t always have to be things you’d only find in poetry.

The more you read, the more exposed you are to different kinds of writing styles. If you read widely, you’ll see more people using language creatively—when you see something interesting, make note of it and see if it’s a poetic device you can use in your own writing!

Use Them In Your Own Writing

Identifying them is great, but to really understand poetic devices, try using them. Not every device is right for every situation, but playing a little with your language can reveal to you exactly how these devices work. Challenge yourself to use new devices to get a better appreciation for how they can elevate your writing.

Question Poetic Devices

When you come upon a poetic device in something you’re reading, ask yourself what the author is doing with it. What purpose does alliteration serve in a specific context? Why did I choose to use that spices metaphor earlier in this article? Was it effective or confusing?

The more you think about these devices, the more you’ll get a feel for how they work and why writers use them. Understanding the different ways they can be used will help you discover how to use them better, so don’t be afraid to start questioning how and why professionals do it!

Key Tips for Literary Devices in Poetry

Enhancing your writing with poetic devices is great, but there are a few things to keep in mind to be sure you’re doing it right.

First, don’t overuse them. Poetic devices can be great for making your writing sound more interesting or to deliver information in a more impactful manner, but too much really stands out. Alliteration is great, but an alliterative sonnet that’s an allusion to Greek literature can feel a little gimmicky. Even too much alliteration can quickly feel hackneyed if it’s not done with a purpose. Ask yourself why you’re using these devices and trim them if you can’t think of a reason—restraint is as much a part of good writing as the skillful use of a poetic device.

Don’t forget that poetic devices are good for more than just poetry. A well-written essay can use a great metaphor. A sonnet can be written in plain English for a great effect. An article for your school newspaper might be improved with a little alliteration. Feel free to experiment with how and when these devices are used—adding in an unexpected poetic device is a great way to elevate your writing.

What’s Next?

Poetic devices are just one of the many kinds of tools you can use to enhance your writing. Check out this list of rhetorical devices for even more things you can do to liven up your work!

Want even more poetic devices? Check out this article on personification , which covers examples of this device in both poetry and literature!

Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," is a great example of repetition, but there's a lot more to it than that! This article will give you some in-depth information on the meaning of Dylan Thomas' poem , including how to analyze it!

Melissa Brinks graduated from the University of Washington in 2014 with a Bachelor's in English with a creative writing emphasis. She has spent several years tutoring K-12 students in many subjects, including in SAT prep, to help them prepare for their college education.

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poetry , literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning , sound, and rhythm .

(Read Britannica’s biography of this author, Howard Nemerov.)

Poetry is a vast subject, as old as history and older, present wherever religion is present, possibly—under some definitions—the primal and primary form of languages themselves. The present article means only to describe in as general a way as possible certain properties of poetry and of poetic thought regarded as in some sense independent modes of the mind. Naturally, not every tradition nor every local or individual variation can be—or need be—included, but the article illustrates by examples of poetry ranging between nursery rhyme and epic . This article considers the difficulty or impossibility of defining poetry; man’s nevertheless familiar acquaintance with it; the differences between poetry and prose; the idea of form in poetry; poetry as a mode of thought; and what little may be said in prose of the spirit of poetry.

Poetry is the other way of using language . Perhaps in some hypothetical beginning of things it was the only way of using language or simply was language tout court , prose being the derivative and younger rival. Both poetry and language are fashionably thought to have belonged to ritual in early agricultural societies; and poetry in particular, it has been claimed, arose at first in the form of magical spells recited to ensure a good harvest. Whatever the truth of this hypothesis , it blurs a useful distinction: by the time there begins to be a separate class of objects called poems, recognizable as such, these objects are no longer much regarded for their possible yam-growing properties, and such magic as they may be thought capable of has retired to do its business upon the human spirit and not directly upon the natural world outside.

Formally, poetry is recognizable by its greater dependence on at least one more parameter , the line , than appears in prose composition . This changes its appearance on the page; and it seems clear that people take their cue from this changed appearance, reading poetry aloud in a very different voice from their habitual voice, possibly because, as Ben Jonson said, poetry “speaketh somewhat above a mortal mouth.” If, as a test of this description, people are shown poems printed as prose, it most often turns out that they will read the result as prose simply because it looks that way; which is to say that they are no longer guided in their reading by the balance and shift of the line in relation to the breath as well as the syntax .

That is a minimal definition but perhaps not altogether uninformative. It may be all that ought to be attempted in the way of a definition: Poetry is the way it is because it looks that way, and it looks that way because it sounds that way and vice versa.

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Definition of essay

 (Entry 1 of 2)

Definition of essay  (Entry 2 of 2)

transitive verb

• composition

attempt , try , endeavor , essay , strive mean to make an effort to accomplish an end.

attempt stresses the initiation or beginning of an effort.

try is often close to attempt but may stress effort or experiment made in the hope of testing or proving something.

endeavor heightens the implications of exertion and difficulty.

essay implies difficulty but also suggests tentative trying or experimenting.

strive implies great exertion against great difficulty and specifically suggests persistent effort.

Examples of essay in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'essay.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Middle French essai , ultimately from Late Latin exagium act of weighing, from Latin ex- + agere to drive — more at agent

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 4

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 2

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Cite this entry.

“Essay.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/essay. Accessed 29 Jun. 2024.

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“Description” in Greek. An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the “action” of a painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning. A notable example is “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” in which the poet John Keats speculates on the identity of the lovers who appear to dance and play music, simultaneously frozen in time and in perpetual motion:                What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?             What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?                What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?             Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard                      Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;             Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,                      Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:             Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave                      Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;                  Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,             Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;                    She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,                          For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!             Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed                        Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;             And, happy melodist, unwearied,                        For ever piping songs for ever new. . . . See W. S. DiPiero’s poem guide on Robert Browning for more on ekphrasis. Browse more ekphrastic poems .

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What is the poetic diction

Table of Contents

Poetic diction , often referred to simply as “poetic language” or “poetic style,” is a distinctive mode of expression that poets employ to create and convey their art. It includes the literary techniques, vocabulary, and imagery that take poetry above the level of everyday speech or writing. Poetic diction is essential to poetry’s beauty and potency because it shapes the way poets express their thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

Historical Evolution of Poetic Diction:

The evolution of poetic diction can be traced through different literary eras, each marked by shifts in style, language, and poetic sensibilities.

• Classical and Ancient Poetry: In ancient poetry, such as that of the Greeks and Romans, poetic diction often focused on metrical and rhythmic qualities. This included the use of specific poetic forms, meters, and rhyme schemes to create a sense of musicality and symmetry in the verses.
• Medieval and Renaissance Poetry: During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, poetic diction in various regions exhibited a blend of classical influences and emerging vernacular languages. The use of alliteration, assonance, and consonance was prominent in many poetic traditions.
• Neoclassical Poetry: The Neoclassical period emphasized order, rationality, and adherence to established forms. Poets adhered to a set of formal rules and a strict diction characterized by clarity, restraint, and decorum. This period marked a significant departure from the elaborate and ornate language of the Renaissance.
• Romantic Poetry: The Romantic movement, which emerged in the late 18th century, sought to break free from the constraints of Neoclassical diction. Poets like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge celebrated emotional spontaneity and individual expression. This period saw the use of vivid, emotional, and imaginative language.
• Modern and Contemporary Poetry: The 20th and 21st centuries have witnessed a wide range of poetic diction styles, from traditional and formal to experimental and avant-garde. Poets like T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound experimented with language and employed fragmented and allusive diction, challenging conventional norms.

Also Read- The purpose spontaneity, emotions and personality serve in Wordsworth’s theory of poetry Why does Plato want the artists to be kept away from the ideal state What is sphota philosophical thought in India

Key Elements of Poetic Diction:

Poetic diction encompasses several key elements:

• Imagery: Poetic language often relies on vivid and sensory-rich imagery. It engages the reader’s senses and emotions, creating a deeper and more immersive experience. Metaphors, similes, and other figurative language devices are frequently used to create powerful imagery.
• Figurative Language: Poetic diction employs various forms of figurative language, such as metaphors, similes, personification, and symbolism. These devices add depth and layers of meaning to the text.
• Sensory Appeal: Poetic language aims to engage the senses. It can describe not only what can be seen but also what can be heard, touched, tasted, and smelled. This sensory appeal enriches the reader’s experience.
• Connotation and Symbolism: Poets often use words and symbols with rich connotations and layers of meaning. These words can evoke multiple interpretations and create a sense of depth and complexity in the poem.
• Rhythm and Sound: The musical quality of language, achieved through techniques like rhyme, meter, alliteration, and assonance, is a crucial component of poetic diction. The rhythm and sound contribute to the overall aesthetic appeal of the poem.
• Archaisms and Neologisms: Poets may use archaic or outdated words and expressions to create a sense of timelessness or to evoke a specific historical or cultural context. Conversely, they may also introduce neologisms or new coinages to expand the boundaries of language.

Functions of Poetic Diction:

Poetic diction serves several important functions in poetry:

• Aesthetic Appeal: Poetic language adds aesthetic value to a poem. It enhances the sensory experience of reading or listening to poetry, making it more engaging and enjoyable.
• Conciseness and Precision: Poetic language often aims for conciseness and precision. Poets strive to convey complex ideas or emotions in a compact and powerful form, using carefully chosen words and images.
• Emotional Intensity: Through metaphors, similes, and other figurative language, poetic diction can convey emotions with intensity and depth. It allows poets to express feelings in a way that resonates with readers on a profound level.
• Symbolism and Allusion: Poetic diction enables poets to make use of symbolism and allusion, referencing cultural, historical, or literary elements to enrich the poem’s meaning and invite deeper interpretations.
• Exploration of Language: Poets often explore the boundaries of language, experimenting with wordplay, phonetic effects, and linguistic creativity. This linguistic experimentation can challenge established norms and expand the possibilities of expression.
• Communication of Complex Ideas: Poetic diction can be a powerful tool for conveying complex or abstract ideas. It allows poets to distill intricate concepts into evocative and memorable language.

Contemporary Relevance of Poetic Diction:

In the contemporary literary landscape, poetic diction continues to be relevant and influential:

• Diverse Styles: Contemporary poetry encompasses a wide range of styles and approaches to poetic diction. While some poets maintain a traditional and formal style, others engage in experimental and avant-garde forms of expression.
• Intersection with Other Art Forms: Poetic diction intersects with other art forms, such as spoken word poetry, performance poetry, and visual poetry. These art forms often rely on innovative and dynamic language use.
• Cultural and Social Commentary: Contemporary poets use poetic diction to address pressing social and cultural issues. They employ language to convey messages of activism, protest, and reflection on the complexities of modern life.
• Digital and Multimedia Poetry: The advent of digital and multimedia poetry has opened up new possibilities for poetic diction. Poets now have access to multimedia elements, allowing for a fusion of text, images, sound, and interactive components.
• Global Voices: Contemporary poetry features diverse voices and perspectives from around the world. This diversity extends to the use of language and poetic diction, reflecting the rich linguistic tapestry of human expression.

Poetic diction, as a fundamental aspect of poetry, plays a pivotal role in shaping the aesthetics, emotional impact, and meaning of poetic works. Its historical evolution has seen shifts in style and sensibilities, from classical forms to contemporary experimentation. Poetic diction encompasses key elements such as imagery, figurative language, sensory appeal, and the musical quality of language.

It accomplishes goals including boosting visual appeal, explaining difficult concepts, and arousing strong feelings. Poetic diction is still relevant, varied, and flexible in today’s literary scene, mirroring the dynamic character of artistic innovation and human expression in poetry.

1. What is poetic diction?

Poetic diction refers to the distinctive mode of linguistic expression employed by poets to create and convey their art. It encompasses the use of language, imagery, and literary devices that elevate poetry beyond ordinary speech or prose.

2. How has poetic diction evolved over time?

Poetic diction has evolved through different literary eras, each marked by shifts in style, language, and poetic sensibilities. It has transitioned from classical forms to modern experimentation, reflecting changing cultural and artistic contexts.

3. What are the key elements of poetic diction?

Key elements of poetic diction include imagery, figurative language, sensory appeal, connotation and symbolism, rhythm and sound, and the use of archaisms and neologisms.

4. What functions does poetic diction serve in poetry?

Poetic diction serves several functions, including enhancing the aesthetic appeal of poetry, conveying complex ideas and emotions, creating emotional intensity, using symbolism and allusion, exploring the boundaries of language, and fostering concise and precise expression.

5. How is poetic diction relevant in contemporary poetry?

In contemporary poetry, poetic diction remains dynamic and diverse. It intersects with other art forms, addresses social and cultural issues, embraces digital and multimedia elements, and reflects the rich linguistic diversity of global voices.

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Fall 2024 Semester

Undergraduate courses.

Composition courses that offer many sections (ENGL 101, 201, 277 and 379) are not listed on this schedule unless they are tailored to specific thematic content or particularly appropriate for specific programs and majors.

• 100-200 level

ENGL 151.S01: Introduction to English Studies

Tuesday and Thursday, 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

Sharon Smith

ENGL 151 serves as an introduction to both the English major and the discipline of English studies. In this class, you will develop the thinking, reading, writing and research practices that define both the major and the discipline. Much of the semester will be devoted to honing your literary analysis skills, and we will study and discuss texts from several different genres—poetry, short fiction, the novel, drama and film—as well as some literary criticism. As we do so, we will explore the language of the discipline, and you will learn a variety of key literary terms and concepts. In addition, you will develop your skills as both a writer and researcher within the discipline of English.

ENGL 201.ST1 Composition II: The Mind/Body Connection

In this section of English 201, students will use research and writing to learn more about problems that are important to them and articulate ways to address those problems. The course will focus specifically on issues related to the mind, the body and the relationship between them. The topics we will discuss during the course will include the correlation between social media and body image; the efficacy of sex education programs; the degree to which beliefs about race and gender influence school dress codes; and the unique mental and physical challenges faced by college students today. In this course, you will be learning about different approaches to argumentation, analyzing the arguments of others and constructing your own arguments. At the same time, you will be honing your skills as a researcher and developing your abilities as a persuasive and effective writer.

ENGL 201.S10 Composition II: Environmental Writing   

Monday/Wednesday/Friday 1-1:50 p.m.

Gwen Horsley

English 201 will help students develop the ability to think critically and analytically and to write effectively for other university courses and careers. This course will provide opportunities to develop analytical skills that will help students become critical readers and effective writers. Specifically, in this class, students will:

• Focus on the relationships between world environments, land, animals and humankind.
• Read various essays by environmental, conservational and regional authors.
• Produce student writings. 

Students will improve their writing skills by reading essays and applying techniques they witness in others’ work and those learned in class. This class is also a course in logical and creative thought. Students will write about humankind’s place in the world and our influence on the land and animals, places that hold special meaning to them or have influenced their lives and stories of their own families and their places and passions in the world. Students will practice writing in an informed and persuasive manner, in language that engages and enlivens readers by using vivid verbs and avoiding unnecessary passives, nominalizations and expletive constructions.

Students will prepare writing assignments based on readings and discussions of essays included in "Literature and the Environment " and other sources. They may use "The St. Martin’s Handbook," as well as other sources, to review grammar, punctuation, mechanics and usage as needed.

ENGL 201.13 Composition II: Writing the Environment

Tuesday and Thursday 9:30-10:45 a.m.

Paul Baggett

For generations, environmentalists have relied on the power of prose to change the minds and habits of their contemporaries. In the wake of fires, floods, storms and droughts, environmental writing has gained a new sense of urgency, with authors joining activists in their efforts to educate the public about the grim realities of climate change. But do they make a difference? Have reports of present and future disasters so saturated our airwaves that we no longer hear them? How do writers make us care about the planet amidst all the noise? In this course, students will examine the various rhetorical strategies employed by some of today’s leading environmental writers and filmmakers. And while analyzing their different arguments, students also will strengthen their own strategies of argumentation as they research and develop essays that explore a range of environmental concerns.

ENGL 201 Composition II: Food Writing

S17 Tuesday and Thursday 12:30-1:45 p.m.

S18 Tuesday and Thursday 2-3:15 p.m.

Jodi Andrews

In this composition class, students will critically analyze essays about food, food systems and environments, food cultures, the intersections of personal choice, market forces and policy and the values underneath these forces. Students will learn to better read like writers, noting authors’ purpose, audience organizational moves, sentence-level punctuation and diction. We will read a variety of essays including research-intensive arguments and personal narratives which intersect with one of our most primal needs as humans: food consumption. Students will rhetorically analyze texts, conduct advanced research, reflect on the writing process and write essays utilizing intentional rhetorical strategies. Through doing this work, students will practice the writing moves valued in every discipline: argument, evidence, concision, engaging prose and the essential research skills for the 21st century.

ENGL 221.S01 British Literature I

Michael S. Nagy

English 221 is a survey of early British literature from its inception in the Old English period with works such as "Beowulf" and the “Battle of Maldon,” through the Middle Ages and the incomparable writings of Geoffrey Chaucer and the Gawain - poet, to the Renaissance and beyond. Students will explore the historical and cultural contexts in which all assigned reading materials were written, and they will bring that information to bear on class discussion. Likely themes that this class will cover include heroism, humor, honor, religion, heresy and moral relativity. Students will write one research paper in this class and sit for two formal exams: a midterm covering everything up to that point in the semester, and a comprehensive final. Probable texts include the following:

• The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Middle Ages. Ed. Alfred David, M. H. Abrams, and Stephen Greenblatt. 9th ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012.
• The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Sixteenth Century and Early Seventeenth Century. Ed. George M. Logan, Stephen Greenblatt, Barbara K Lewalski, and M. H. Abrams. 9th ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012.
• The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century. Ed. George M. Logan, Stephen Greenblatt, Barbara K Lewalski, and M. H. Abrams. 9th ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012.
• Gibaldi, Joseph. The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 6th ed. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2003.
• Any Standard College Dictionary.

ENGL 240.S01 Juvenile Literature Elementary-5th Grade

Monday, Wednesday and Friday noon-12:50 p.m.

April Myrick

A survey of the history of literature written for children and adolescents, and a consideration of the various types of juvenile literature. Text selection will focus on the themes of imagination and breaking boundaries.

ENGL 240.ST1 Juvenile Literature Elementary-5th Grade

Randi Anderson

In English 240 students will develop the skills to interpret and evaluate various genres of literature for juvenile readers. This particular section will focus on various works of literature at approximately the K-5 grade level. We will read a large range of works that fall into this category, as well as information on the history, development and genre of juvenile literature.

Readings for this course include classical works such as "Hatchet," "Little Women", "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and "Brown Girl Dreaming," as well as newer works like "Storm in the Barn," "Anne Frank’s Diary: A Graphic Adaptation," "Lumberjanes," and a variety of picture books. These readings will be paired with chapters from "Reading Children’s Literature: A Critical Introduction " to help develop understanding of various genres, themes and concepts that are both related to juvenile literature and also present in our readings.

In addition to exposing students to various genres of writing (poetry, historical fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, picture books, graphic novels, etc.) this course will also allow students to engage in a discussion of larger themes present in these works such as censorship, race and gender. Students’ understanding of these works and concepts will be developed through readings, research, discussion posts, exams and writing assignments designed to get students to practice analyzing poetry, picture books, informational books and transitional/easy readers.

ENGL 241.S01: American Literature I

Tuesday and Thursday 12:30-1:45 p.m.

This course provides a broad, historical survey of American literature from the early colonial period to the Civil War. Ranging across historical periods and literary genres—including early accounts of contact and discovery, narratives of captivity and slavery, poetry of revolution, essays on gender equality and stories of industrial exploitation—this class examines how subjects such as colonialism, nationhood, religion, slavery, westward expansion, race, gender and democracy continue to influence how Americans see themselves and their society.

Required Texts

• The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Package 1, Volumes A and B Beginnings to 1865, Ninth Edition. (ISBN 978-0-393-26454-8)

ENGL 283.S01 Introduction to Creative Writing

Steven Wingate

Students will explore the various forms of creative writing (fiction, nonfiction and poetry) not one at a time in a survey format—as if there were decisive walls of separation between then—but as intensely related genres that share much of their creative DNA. Through close reading and work on personal texts, students will address the decisions that writers in any genre must face on voice, rhetorical position, relationship to audience, etc. Students will produce and revise portfolios of original creative work developed from prompts and research. This course fulfills the same SGR #2 requirements ENGL 201; note that the course will involve a research project. Successful completion of ENGL 101 (including by test or dual credit) is a prerequisite.

ENGL 283.S02 Introduction to Creative Writing

Jodilyn Andrews

This course introduces students to the craft of writing, with readings and practice in at least two genres (including fiction, poetry and drama).

ENGL 283.ST1 Introduction to Creative Writing

Amber Jensen, M.A., M.F.A.

This course explores creative writing as a way of encountering the world, research as a component of the creative writing process, elements of craft and their rhetorical effect and drafting, workshop and revision as integral parts of writing polished literary creative work. Student writers will engage in the research practices that inform the writing of literature and in the composing strategies and writing process writers use to create literary texts. Through their reading and writing of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction, students will learn about craft elements, find examples of those craft elements in published works and apply these elements in their own creative work, developed through weekly writing activities, small group and large group workshop and conferences with the instructor. Work will be submitted, along with a learning reflection and revision plan in each genre and will then be revised and submitted as a final portfolio at the end of the semester to demonstrate continued growth in the creation of polished literary writing.

• 300-400 level

ENGL 424.S01 Language Arts Methods grades 7-12  

Tuesday 6-8:50 p.m.

Danielle Harms

Techniques, materials and resources for teaching English language and literature to middle and secondary school students. Required of students in the English education option.

AIS/ENGL 447.S01: American Indian Literature of the Present 

Thursdays 3-6 p.m.

This course introduces students to contemporary works by authors from various Indigenous nations. Students examine these works to enhance their historical understanding of Indigenous peoples, discover the variety of literary forms used by those who identify as Indigenous writers, and consider the cultural and political significance of these varieties of expression. Topics and questions to be explored include:

• Genre: What makes Indigenous literature indigenous?
• Political and Cultural Sovereignty: Why have an emphasis on tribal specificity and calls for “literary separatism” emerged in recent decades, and what are some of the critical conversations surrounding such particularized perspectives?
• Gender and Sexuality: What are the intersecting concerns of Indigenous Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and how might these research fields inform one another?
• Trans-Indigeneity: What might we learn by comparing works across different Indigenous traditions, and what challenges do such comparisons present?
• Aesthetics: How do Indigenous writers understand the dynamics between tradition and creativity?
• Visual Forms: What questions or concerns do visual representations (television and film) by or about Indigenous peoples present?

Possible Texts

• Akiwenzie-Damm, Kateri and Josie Douglas (eds), Skins: Contemporary Indigenous Writing. IAD Press, 2000. (978-1864650327)
• Erdrich, Louise, The Sentence. Harper, 2021 (978-0062671127)
• Harjo, Joy, Poet Warrior: A Memoir. Norton, 2021 (978-0393248524)
• Harjo, Sterlin and Taika Waititi, Reservation Dogs (selected episodes)
• Talty, Morgan. Night of the Living Rez, 2022, Tin House (978-1953534187)
• Wall Kimmerer, Robin. Braiding Sweet Grass, Milkweed Editions (978-1571313560)
• Wilson, Diane. The Seed Keeper: A Novel. Milkweed Editions (978-1571311375)
• Critical essays by Alexie, Allen, Cohen, Cox, King, Kroeber, Ortiz, Piatote, Ross and Sexton, Smith, Taylor, Teuton, Treuer, Vizenor, and Womack.

ENGL 472.S01: Film Criticism

Tuesdays 2-4:50 p.m.

Jason McEntee

Do you have an appreciation for, and enjoy watching, movies? Do you want to study movies in a genre-oriented format (such as those we typically call the Western, the screwball comedy, the science fiction or the crime/gangster, to name a few)? Do you want to explore the different critical approaches for talking and writing about movies (such as auteur, feminist, genre or reception)?

In this class, you will examine movies through viewing and defining different genres while, at the same time, studying and utilizing different styles of film criticism. You will share your discoveries in both class discussions and short writings. The final project will be a formal written piece of film criticism based on our work throughout the semester. The course satisfies requirements and electives for all English majors and minors, including both the Film Studies and Professional Writing minors. (Note: Viewing of movies outside of class required and may require rental and/or streaming service fees.)

ENGL 476.ST1: Fiction

In this workshop-based creative writing course, students will develop original fiction based on strong attention to the fundamentals of literary storytelling: full-bodied characters, robust story lines, palpable environments and unique voices. We will pay particular attention to process awareness, to the integrity of the sentence, and to authors' commitments to their characters and the places in which their stories unfold. Some workshop experience is helpful, as student peer critique will be an important element of the class.

ENGL 479.01 Capstone: The Gothic

Wednesday 3-5:50 p.m.

With the publication of Horace Walpole’s "The Castle of Otranto " in 1764, the Gothic officially came into being. Dark tales of physical violence and psychological terror, the Gothic incorporates elements such as distressed heroes and heroines pursued by tyrannical villains; gloomy estates with dark corridors, secret passageways and mysterious chambers; haunting dreams, troubling prophecies and disturbing premonitions; abduction, imprisonment and murder; and a varied assortment of corpses, apparitions and “monsters.” In this course, we will trace the development of Gothic literature—and some film—from the eighteenth-century to the present time. As we do so, we will consider how the Gothic engages philosophical beliefs about the beautiful and sublime; shapes psychological understandings of human beings’ encounters with horror, terror, the fantastic and the uncanny; and intervenes in the social and historical contexts in which it was written. We’ll consider, for example, how the Gothic undermines ideals related to domesticity and marriage through representations of domestic abuse, toxicity and gaslighting. In addition, we’ll discuss Gothic texts that center the injustices of slavery and racism. As many Gothic texts suggest, the true horrors of human existence often have less to do with inexplicable supernatural phenomena than with the realities of the world in which we live. 

ENGL 485.S01: Undergraduate Writing Center Learning Assistants 

Flexible Scheduling

Nathan Serfling

Since their beginnings in the 1920s and 30s, writing centers have come to serve numerous functions: as hubs for writing across the curriculum initiatives, sites to develop and deliver workshops and resource centers for faculty as well as students, among other functions. But the primary function of writing centers has necessarily and rightfully remained the tutoring of student writers. This course will immerse you in that function in two parts. During the first four weeks, you will explore writing center praxis—that is, the dialogic interplay of theory and practice related to writing center work. This part of the course will orient you to writing center history, key theoretical tenets and practical aspects of writing center tutoring. Once we have developed and practiced this foundation, you will begin work in the writing center as a tutor, responsible for assisting a wide variety of student clients with numerous writing tasks. Through this work, you will learn to actively engage with student clients in the revision of a text, respond to different student needs and abilities, work with a variety of writing tasks and rhetorical situations, and develop a richer sense of writing as a complex and negotiated social process.

Graduate Courses

Engl 572.s01: film criticism, engl 576.st1 fiction.

In this workshop-based creative writing course, students will develop original fiction based on strong attention to the fundamentals of literary storytelling: full-bodied characters, robust story lines, palpable environments and unique voices. We will pay particular attention to process awareness, to the integrity of the sentence and to authors' commitments to their characters and the places in which their stories unfold. Some workshop experience is helpful, as student peer critique will be an important element of the class.

ENGL 605.S01 Seminar in Teaching Composition

Thursdays 1-3:50 p.m.

This course will provide you with a foundation in the pedagogies and theories (and their attendant histories) of writing instruction, a foundation that will prepare you to teach your own writing courses at SDSU and elsewhere. As you will discover through our course, though, writing instruction does not come with any prescribed set of “best” practices. Rather, writing pedagogies stem from and continue to evolve because of various and largely unsettled conversations about what constitutes effective writing and effective writing instruction. Part of becoming a practicing writing instructor, then, is studying these conversations to develop a sense of what “good writing” and “effective writing instruction” might mean for you in our particular program and how you might adapt that understanding to different programs and contexts.

As we read about, discuss and research writing instruction, we will address a variety of practical and theoretical topics. The practical focus will allow us to attend to topics relevant to your immediate classroom practices: designing a curriculum and various types of assignments, delivering the course content and assessing student work, among others. Our theoretical topics will begin to reveal the underpinnings of these various practical matters, including their historical, rhetorical, social and political contexts. In other words, we will investigate the praxis—the dialogic interaction of practice and theory—of writing pedagogy. As a result, this course aims to prepare you not only as a writing teacher but also as a nascent writing studies/writing pedagogy scholar.

At the end of this course, you should be able to engage effectively in the classroom practices described above and participate in academic conversations about writing pedagogy, both orally and in writing. Assessment of these outcomes will be based primarily on the various writing assignments you submit and to a smaller degree on your participation in class discussions and activities.

ENGL 726.S01: The New Woman, 1880–1900s 

Thursdays 3–5:50 p.m.

Katherine Malone

This course explores the rise of the New Woman at the end of the nineteenth century. The label New Woman referred to independent women who rebelled against social conventions. Often depicted riding bicycles, smoking cigarettes and wearing masculine clothing, these early feminists challenged gender roles and sought broader opportunities for women’s employment and self-determination. We will read provocative fiction and nonfiction by New Women writers and their critics, including authors such as Sarah Grand, Mona Caird, George Egerton, Amy Levy, Ella Hepworth Dixon, Grant Allen and George Gissing. We will analyze these exciting texts through a range of critical lenses and within the historical context of imperialism, scientific and technological innovation, the growth of the periodical press and discourse about race, class and gender. In addition to writing an argumentative seminar paper, students will complete short research assignments and lead discussion.

ENGL 792.ST1 Women in War: Female Authors and Characters in Contemporary War Lit

In this course, we will explore the voices of female authors and characters in contemporary literature of war. Drawing from various literary theories, our readings and discussion will explore the contributions of these voices to the evolving literature of war through archetypal and feminist criticism. We will read a variety of short works (both theoretical and creative) and complete works such as (selections subject to change): "Eyes Right" by Tracy Crow, "Plenty of Time When We Get Home" by Kayla Williams, "You Know When the Men are Gone" by Siobhan Fallon, "Still, Come Home" by Katie Schultz and "The Fine Art of Camouflage" by Lauren Johnson.

Definition of Conclusion / A Concluding Paragraph in Essay

Difference between a body paragraph and conclusion, examples of conclusion in literature, example #1:  free-speech follies (by stanley fish).

“Are there then no free-speech issues on campuses? Sure there are; there just aren’t very many. When Toni Smith, a basketball player at Manhattanville College, turned her back to the flag during the playing of the national anthem in protest against her government’s policies, she was truly exercising her First Amendment rights, rights that ensure that she cannot be compelled to an affirmation she does not endorse … And as she stood by her principles in the face of hostility, she truly was (and is) a First Amendment hero , as the college newspaper editors, the members of the Harvard English department, and the head of the Emma Goldman Project are not. The category is a real one, and it would be good if it were occupied only by those who belong in it.”

Example #2: In Praise of The Word “F” Word (by Mary Sherry)

“Flunking as a regular policy has just as much merit today as it did two generations ago. We must review the threat of flunking and see it as it really is—a positive teaching tool. It is an expression of confidence by both teachers and parents that the students have the ability to learn the material presented to them. However, making it work again would take a dedicated, caring conspiracy between teachers and parents. It would mean facing the tough reality that passing kids who haven’t learned the material—while it might save them grief for the short term—dooms them to long-term illiteracy. It would mean that teachers would have to follow through on their threats, and parents would have to stand behind them, knowing their children’s best interests are indeed at stake. This means no more doing Scott’s assignments for him because he might fail. No more passing Jodi because she’s such a nice kid. This is a policy that worked in the past and can work today. A wise teacher, with the support of his parents, gave our son the opportunity to succeed—or fail. It’s time we return this choice to all students.”

Example #3: Common Decency (by Susan Jacoby)

“Fortunately for everyone, neither the character of men nor the general quality of relations between the sexes is that crude. By censuring the minority of men who use ordinary socializing as an excuse for rape, feminists insist on sex as a source of pure pleasure rather than as a means of social control. Real men want an eager sexual partner—not a woman who is quaking with fear or even one who is ambivalent. Real men don’t rape.”

Function of Conclusion

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