STEP 3: READING FOR DETAIL

Determining the subject of a poem and the speaker's attitude toward it will help you form an original opinion about the meaning of the work. However, a truly effective

close analysis incorporates support from the text itself - that is, you must show how the poem's meaning is created, using the poet's language, style, and structure choices as

evidence. You may be familiar with many of the terms used to analyze poetry, sometimes

called the elements of style. As you strengthen your familiarity with them, keep in mind

that close analysis is more than just a treasure hunt for where examples of these

elements occur. Remember, all style elements help convey the speaker's attitude, and

successful close analysis considers the effect that each style element has on the tone

and meaning of the poem. Below, we work with "To an Athlete Dying Young," by

A E. Housman, to examine how several of its style elements help create and reinforce

meaning. Examples for all of these concepts, and more, are available in the glossary at the back of the book.

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~To~;an;~A~th~l;et;e}D~y~in;g~Yi~o;u;n;g~====================================~ A. E. HOUSMAN

The time you won your town the race We chaired you through the market-place;

Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come, Shoulder-high we bring you home, And set you at your threshold down,

Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away From fields where glory does not stay And early though the laurel grows It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut Cannot see the record cut,

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And silence sounds no worse than cheers 1s

After earth has stopped the ears:

Figurative Language

·11 not swell the rout NowyouWI Of lads that wore their honours out,

Runners whom renown outran And the name died before the man. 20

So set, before its echoes fade, The fleet foot on the sill of shade,

And hold to the low lintel up

The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head 2s

Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,

And find unwithered on its curls

The garland briefer than a girl's.

[1896]

As we discussed in Chapter 3, language that is not literal is called figurative. Often such

language is called metaphorical because it explains or expands on an idea by making a

direct comparison between unlike things. Similes make such comparisons by using the

words like, as, or than (e.g., cold as ice), while metaphors directly state that one thing is

another (e.g., an icy glare). An extended metaphor, or conceit, is one that spans several

lines of a work. Let's look back at the poem's last two stanzas:

So set, before its echoes fade, The fleet foot on the sill of shade, And hold to the low lintel up Thi! still-defended challenge cup.

And round that early-laurelled head Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead, And find unwithered on its curls The garland briefer than a girl's.

Here, Housman develops a metaphor in which the speaker compares the burial of the young athlete to walking through a door - the "sill of shade." His trophy will be displayed

at the "low lintel" (the beam across the top of a door), a metaphor for the edge of his

coffin. In the next stanza his "garland briefer than a girl's" will be admired by the "strength­less dead," the crowd he will meet in the afterlife. This metaphor implies that dying young

blessing because it keeps youthful achievements ar,ve the thl t -11

k is a - a e e w1 never now

the cheering stops or that his records have been brok when . . en. sometimes a poet will pe~somfy an object or idea, giving it human qualities. A good

Pie of this can be found in the fourth stanza of Housman' . exam s poem. Eyes the shady night has shut cannot see the record cut, And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears:

Here, "the shady n'.ght"_- death - "has sh_ut" the eyes of the young athlete. Personifying death in this way gives it a gentler quality, in keeping with the idea of death as a blessing.

imagery

As we discussed in Chapter 3, imagery is language that appeals to any of the five senses.

When you read poetry, it's important to think about how impressions of sensory experi­

ences are created. Often, patterns of images are repeated throughout a poem. As you

consider poetic imagery, it may be helpful to begin by asking yourself whether the images

are concrete, or whether they depend on figurative language to come alive. Two of the

strongest images in "To an Athlete Dying Young" are of the young athlete on two different

days. In the first stanza he is held shoulder high in a chair and marched before the cheering crowd, having just won a race:

The time you won your town the race We chaired you through the market-place; Man and boy stood cheering by,

And home we brought you shoulder-high.

In the second stanza he is also held shoulder high, but this time in his coffin by pallbearers:

To-day, the road all runners come,

Shoulder-high we bring you home,

And set you at your threshold down,

Towrn:man of a stiller town.

Let's think about what the mirroring of these two images suggests. The first image is quite

concret1:; ~ the speaker remembers the cheers when the young athlete was carried home

"shouider--high" after his success in the race. The second image, of the athlete in a coffin

held "shoulder high," is more abstract. He is lowered into a much "stiller town": a grave.

That he is carried shoulder-high in both a victory parade and his funeral march suggests

that an early death has preserved his glory; he will always be remembered as a young athlete in his prime.

ACTIVITY

Read "XIV" by Nobel laureate Derek Walcott and identify the ways the poem's figurative

language and imagery convey the importance of the event the speaker describes.

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XIV DEREK WALCOTT itS skin,

k shedding Id With the frenzy of an old sna e . ts smelling of rno ,

d ored with n1 , • the speclded roa , sc he forest In, twisted on itself and reentered t ,1d folk stories beg

I· •ken a where the dasheen leaves t 11c limbed closer Sunset would threaten us as ~e c d whose yarn vtnes

halt 111II roa , to her house up the asp d k reek of rnoss,

with the er wrangled over gutters lids of that mfmosa the shutters closing like the eye per lanterns,

.. th _ lucent as pa e-caJJed Ti-Mane, en . h use after hous

h h the nbs, o th lamplight glowed t roug k twist of the pa .

1 mp at the blac th there was her own a . h d's aftertna .

d d there's child 00 There's childhoo , an . f the fireflies,

b r at the mmute o She began to remem e . . kerosene tins, to the sound of pipe water bangmg m stories she told to my brother and mys~lf.

. . f the Caribbean. Her leaves were the hbraries o . . th fr grant origms!

The luck that was ours, os~ a e gull of her voice Her head was magnificent, S1done. In th YI y shelves

d alk d her voice trave s m . shadows stood up an w e , . d boys

. th t of two mesmerize She was the lamplight m e s are · di · 'ble twins still joined in one shadow, m vis1 . [1984]

Poetic Syntax

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Sv.r::ax _ fris arrangement of vvo,·ds into phrases, clauses, and sentences - is another

3~.;is element that applies to both prose and poetry. For example, Housman uses inversion in ·several piaces, perhaps to maintain the rhyme scheme but also to emphasize a point.

When he writes, "And home we brought you shoulder-high" (I. 4), the shift in expected word

order ("We brought you home") emphasizes "home," which is further reinforced through

repetition two lines later: "Shoulder-high we bring you home." The first home is the trium­

phant return of the living athlete; the second is the home he will inhabit in the cemetery.

When you analyze poetry, you will want to be on the lookout for enjambment (also

called a run-on line, when one line ends without a pause and must continue into the next

line to complete its meaning) and caesura (a pause within a line of poetry, sometimes

punctuated, sometimes not). You can see an example of enjambment in lines 17-18 of "To an Athlete Dying Young":

I Now you will not swell the route

Of lads that wore their honours out,

There is also an instance of caes . . ura in hne 9:

1 Smart lad, to slip betimes away

You can see how the continuation of . . d' the sentenc . procession win mg through the t e in the first ex

own. The cae ample echoes th unexpected death of the athlete sura in the second e

. example reflect th You will also want to pay attenr s e ' . ion to syntactic

poems Imes long, short or a comb' ti Patterns such as r 1 ' ina on of the t ? ine ength· are th

generally short, which could be seen a wo The lines in Housm , · e s a comment on the h . an s poem are

Meter s ort hfe of the athlete.

The lines in structured poems often f 11 o ow a regular patt

Literally, meter counts the measure of 1• • ern of rhythm called a met

a ine, referring to th er. unstressed syllables, combinations f h' e pattern of stressed or

. . o w ich we call feet I . common m English. An iamb is a poeti f · amb1c meter is by far the most the second, as in the word "aga·,n "o tch oothof two syllables with the stress, or accent on

' r e P rase "b f " ' patterns are iambic pentameter, ·n h' h . Y ar. The two most common metric

' w 1c a hne cons· t ff' · tetrameter, which measures four ia b' f is s O ive iambic feet, and iambic m ic eet "To an Athlet o ·

tetrameter. Each of its lines follows a hyth · e ying Young," is in iambic r m of four beats each · · the emphasis on the second syllable: ' one an 1amb1c foot with

I 1Jie ti~e I you ~won I yo~ur to~ I the race I Vie chai.red I you through I the mar I ket-place.

Vou can. probably see and even feel how the meter, with its steadily flowin p·•r-, ="'sion h It 1 9 pace, m1m1cs a

''"_'--'~~- . or mare • wou d sound odd and halting if you were to emphasize the first s1!:2:01e instead:

! Tl~e time I you won I your town I the race

Form

Poetry is sometimes written in conventional forms that can give you hints about how the structure relates to the meaning of the poem. When you recognize a traditional form,

consider whether it maintains the conventions or defies them. One way to approach this is to ask yourself whether the poem's content strikes you as traditional or unusual. Looking at

the connection between form and content through this lens will help inform your analysis.

When you look at the structure of a poem that is not in a traditional form, try to figure out how it is organized. Is it a narrative, in which the action dictates the structure? Are the stanzas chronological, cause and effect, or question and answer? What is the relationship between them? Look for word or sentence patterns or patterns of imagery that might reveal the relationships among the stanzas. Ultimately, what you should be on the lookout

for is how the structure reinforces the meaning of the poem. "To An Athlete Dying Young," for instance, is quite traditional: it has four-line stanzas that rhyme; its narrative is chrono­logical; and it develops a particular idea metaphorically. The poem addresses the age-old question of how to make meaning from the death of a young person, and this traditional

form suits Housman's purpose.

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. . d f the most common is the sonnet. h have many spec1ahze orms,

Althoug poems h b en used for a wide variety of • • • 1 oems the sonnet form as e

Trad1t1onally written as ove P ' d' es Sonnets generally consist . • protest poems and paro 1 ·

purposes, including war poems, ' bserve in the opening lines of of fourteen lines, usually in iambic pentameter, as you may o

Shakespeare's Sonnet 29 in Chapter 1 (p. 7):

I wiien, in I d'is- grace I with for- I tune a~d J men's eyes

i ;u I a- lone I be - w~ep j 1ny o~t-1 cast state.

. p t han sonnet is divided into an There are two classic types of sonnet. The ltahan, or e rare , . . octave (eight lines) rhyming abba, abba and a sestet (six lines) with a variety of different rhyme

schemes: cdcdcd, cdecde, or cddcdd. Traditionally, the octave raises an issue or expresses a

doubt, and the sestet resolves the issue or doubt. The shift from the first to the second section is called the "turn." The English, or Shakespearean, sonnet consists of three four-line stanzas

and a couplet at the end. This type of sonnet rhymes abab, cdcd, efef, gg. The third stanza

usually provides the turn, and the last two lines often close the sonnet with a witty remark.

Other common traditional forms include:

• Elegy. A contemplative poem, usually for someone who has died. • Lyric. A short poem expressing the personal thoughts or feelings of a first-person

speaker.

• Ode. A form of poetry used to meditate on or address a single object or condition. It originally followed strict rules of rhythm and rhyme, but by the Romantic period it was more flexible.

QJ Villanelle. A form of poetry in which five tercets, or three-line stanzas (rhyme scheme aba), are followed by a quatrain (rhyme scheme abaa). At the end of tercets two and four, the first line of tercet one is repeated. At the end of tercets three and five, the last line of tercet one is repeated. These two repeated lines, called refrain lines, are

repeated again to conclude the quatrain. Much of the power of this form lies in its repeated lines and their subtly shifting sense or meaning over the course of the poem.

ACTIVITY

Read the poem "Sonnet" by Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson and consider the relationship between form and meaning. Describe the ways the· poem's content does and does not

conform to the traditions of the sonnet form. Next, explain how the poem's form reflects the speaker's attitude toward springtime.

Sonnet

ALICE MOORE DUNBAR-NELSON

I had no thought of violets of late, The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet In wistful April days, when lovers mate

J\lld wander through the fields in raptures sweet. The thought of violets meant florists' shops, j\lld bows and pins, and perfumed papers fine; j\lld garish lights, and mincing little fops .And cabarets and songs, and deadening wine.

so far from sweet real things my thoughts had strayed,

1 had forgot wide fields, and clear brown streams; The perfect loveliness that God has made, _ W'tld violets shy and Heaven-mounting dreams. And now- unwittingly, you've made me dream Of violets, and my soul's forgotten gleam.

[1922]

Sound

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Sound is the musical quality of poetry. It can be created through some of the other

techniques we discuss, such as rhyme, enjambment, and caesura. It can also be created by word choice, especially through alliteration (the repetition of initial conso­nant sounds in a sequence of words or syllables), assonance (the repetition of vowel sounds in a sequence of words or syllables), consonance (identical consonant sounds in nearby words that follow different vowel sounds), and onomatopoeia (use of a word

that refers to a sound and whose pronunciation mimics that sound). Sound can also be created by rhythm and cadence (similar to rhythm, but related to the rise and fall of the voice). like all of the elements of style, the key to analysis is to connect the sound of the

poem to its meaning. Take a look at the alliteration in stanzas 4 and 5 of "To an Athlete

Dying Young":

Eyes the shady night has shut

Cannot see the record cut, And silence sounds no worse than cheers

After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout

Of lads that wore their honours out,

Runners whom renown outran

And the name died before the man.

Within these stanzas consider these two lines in particular: "And silence sounds no worse ' t " (I 19) The repetition of the s and r

than cheers" (I 15) and "Runners whom renown ou ran · · · f b lowered voices at a funeral. You'll

sounds quiet the poem evoking the sound o som er, ' , t marches the poem forward, much

also see how the rhythm, created by the poems me er,

like a funeral procession.

I Rhyme R th written in free verse - do not. hyme at As you know, some poems rhyme and some - ose . et is called internal the end of a line is called end rhyme, while rhyme within a '.~~e of ~hl~e Dying Young": rhyme. There is an example of both in the first two lines of o an e

I The time you won your town the race We chaired you through the market-place;

The last two words of each line, "race" and "market-place," are end rhymes, while "you"

and "through" in the second line is an instance of internal rhyme. , Sometimes a rhyme is visual; you can see it though the sounds of the two wo~ds don t

rhyme. When an author uses poetic license to rhyme words that do not sound quite the same, it is called near rhyme, also known as slant rhyme. Lines 5 and 6 of Housman's

poem contains a good example:

To-day, the road all runners come,

Shoulder-high we bring you home,

Rhyme is usually notated using letters of the alphabet; you use one letter for each sound

that rhymes. For instance, a simple quatrain or four-line stanza might rhyme abab, meaning

that every other line rhymes. Or it might be arranged as couplets that rhyme aabb; the first

two lines rhyme with each other and the second two lines rhyme with each other. The

pattern of rhyme for an entire poem is called its rhyme scheme. It can be useful to consider

the effects of rhyme in a poem by charting its rhyme scheme; reading a rhyming poem out

loud is also helpful. Notice how the consistent aabb rhyme scheme in "To an Athlete Dying

Young" contributes to the rhythm of the procession - the young athlete's funeral march.

ACTIVITY Read "The Century Quilt" by Marilyn Nelson. Describe how the poem,s sound and musicality help convey the importance of the quilt to the speaker.

The Century Quilt

MARILYN NELSON

My sister and I were in love

with Meema's Indian blanket.

We fell asleep under army green

issued to Daddy by Supply.

that blanket, how we used to wrap ourselves at play in its folds and be chieftains

When Meema came to live with us

she brought her medicines, her cane,

and the blanket I found on my sister's bed

the last time I visited her.

I remembered how I'd planned to inherit .

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and princesses.

Now I've found a quilt I'd like to die under; Six Van Dyke brown squares, two white ones, and one square the yellowbrown of Mama's cheeks. Each square holds a sweet gum leaf

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whose fingers I imagine .

ld aress n1e into the silence. woU C

think I'd have good dreams

:or a hundred years under this quilt, as Meema must have, under her blanket,

dreamed she was a girl again in Kentucky

among her yellow sisters,

their grandfather's white family

nodding at them when they met.

When their father came home from his store

they crarrke1 u.p the pianola

and all of t.h-r: beautiful sisters

giggled anrl d2nced.

She must have dreamed about Mama

when the dancing was over:

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a lanky girl trailing after her father

through his Oklahoma field.

Perhaps under this quilt I'd dream of myself,

of my childhood of m iracles,

of my father's burnt umber pride,

my mother's ochre gentleness.

Within the dream of myself

perhaps I'd meet my son or my other child, as yet unconcei''"ved.

I'd call it The Century Quilt,

after its pattern of leaves.

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