Amardeep Singh
Due
Monday September 17
Length:
3-4 pages (UG); 5 pages (grad)
Do
a close reading of a poem or poems by Yeats, Eliot, or Tagore. If you choose to
work on more than one poem, I would strongly encourage you to limit yourself to
poems by a single author for this paper, as I am less interested in broad
historical claims or biographical issues than I am in readings of the poems
themselves (though I certainly feel that references to political issues and
issues such as race, gender, sexuality, and religion can belong in these
readings). You are not limited to the poems assigned for class.
There
are many ways of doing a “close reading.” At the most general level, a
“reading” is simply a general claim (or argument) about a poem that is
supported with specific evidence from the poem itself. Traditionally, a close
reading will refer to some or all of the following elements in the service of
explicating the reading:
Form
– rhyme,
meter, visual/spatial devices (such as stanzas, the location of
words or phrases, etc.)
Language
– a poem’s
particular diction (an entire paper could be written on Yeats’ use of
the word “gyre,” for instance), rhetorical figures, or figurative
language (metaphor, simile, metonymy, etc.)
Theme
– For
instance, modernity, technology, human-ness, etc. It’s often helpful to define
themes in relationship to each other, including oppositions (such as fluidity/
blockage in Tagore or vitality/decay in Eliot). Also, issues such as the
representation of race, gender, sexuality, etc. might be classified as themes.
If
this brief list is insufficient, or if you would like to find out a little more
about common poetic devices, I would recommend taking a look at M. H. Abrams’ Glossary
of Literary Terms (especially see the entries for meter, rhyme, rhetorical
figures, figurative language, poetic diction, and stanza). Referring to these
terms is by no means required; indeed, over-reliance on terms that do not add
to your argument can be distracting.
Note:
A reading of a poem that might refer to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is
acceptable (Eliot’s Hollow Men has an epigraph from Conrad).