Explication #2
For this 3-4 page (double-spaced) explication, choose one of the sonnets below. Write out the sonnet and triple space it, so that you can play with it, noting what echoes what, how the poem builds, moves, plays with sound, etc. See first what you see!
Then go to either the Literature Resource Center or Bloom’s Literature database (found through QC library databases), and find 2 articles of literary analysis of the poem (make sure when you do your search that you limit it to analysis—though feel free to read biographical material if it suits you!). Find the articles that give you the most or most interesting insights into the poem.
Your paper will consist of walking your reader through the poem with the help of the two literary critics.
Begin with an opening paragraph that introduces the poem, the poet, and offers a quick overview/summary of the poem.
Then show through your analysis how the poet uses the sonnet form, the rhyme scheme, meter, metaphor, conceit, allusion, imagery (or whatever else surfaces in the poem) to create the poem’s unified meaning.
You do not have to quote the entire poem—select those lines, phrases, word choices that help highlight the poet’s craft (and remember to show line breaks with a slash / ). Bring the two critics into your discussion as well. Introducing them first with their name and the title of their analysis, and thereafter, referring to them simply by their last name. Be sure to cite the page number after you have quoted them or used one of their ideas. Do not limit yourself to one quote per paragraph. Bring the critics in throughout your discussion as part of the conversation, using them to help describe what is going on in the poem or to offer readings alternative to what you are suggesting.
Employ best practices of writing through this paper—prewriting, drafting, revising. Being sure that your paragraph breaks are deliberate (and please, move away from the five-paragraph format), and that each paragraph begins with a strong transition. Proofread carefully as well.
Your essay should end with a strong conclusion. Include a Works Cited page in correct MLA format.
Shakespeare: “Let not to the marriage of true minds”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45106/sonnet-116-let-me-not-to-the-marriage-of-true-minds
Wordsworth: “The World Is Too Much with Us”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45564/the-world-is-too-much-with-us
Keats: “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44481/on-first-looking-into-chapmans-homer
Yeats “Leda and the Swan”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43292/leda-and-the-swan
McKay “The Harlem Dancer”
https://poets.org/poem/harlem-dancer
Brooks “First Fight then Fiddle”
https://www.violinist.com/blog/nobilemente/20102/10966/
