Poetry Response––Visual + ¶ Analysis

 

Type the poem onto a separate sheet, or find it on the Internet and paste it into a separate document.  Put it in a font you like, and size it at 14–16 point.  Make sure the poem is transferred exactly as it appears in our book, down to the smallest bit of punctuation.

 

Create a legend that identifies how you will mark and analyze the poem.  The approach you use is up to you; put the legend at the top of your poem.  You may opt to use colored letters, to highlight using certain colors, to put a certain shape/symbol next to a certain element, etc.  You may create a new legend each time you analyze a poem. 

 

Having carefully read and annotated the poem, please mark it using the system you have outlined on the legend.  Look up any words you do not know, and put the definitions below the words.  Also, look up words you suspect may have double meanings due to the fact that they stand out in the poem.  If the system you have created requires that you also write on the poem after you have printed it, that is fine.  Regardless of the system you use, be thorough. 

 

When you are finished, you will compose a ¶ that explores the poet’s use of one or two poetic elements to convey a theme.  Keep in mind that you will mark more than you comment on.  This ¶ will be approximately 300 words long & will encompass the following:

·        One topic sentence connecting element(s) to theme

·        An explanation of how the poet uses the element(s) to convey the theme

·        Quotes/examples from the poem

·        Analysis firmly connecting the element(s) to the theme and perhaps reflecting on the theme

 

Tip:  To quote poetry, you need the information below:

 

·        Indicate a line break using a backslash with spaces around it. 

·        In your citation, cite lines rather than page numbers.

 

Example:  “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood […]” (Frost 1-3).

 

Margaret Juncker

 

Professor Brown

 

English 1B

 

15 October 2008

 

Legend:     =m;     = I;     =s;     =a (pain);     ~=slant;     +=perfect

 

Much Madness is divinest Sense— (1862), Emily Dickenson, 984

 

~Much Madness is divinest Sense—       

 

~To a discerning Eye—            

 

~Much Sense—the starkest Madness—  

 

~’Ti s the Majority                     

 

In this, as All, prevail—

 

+Assent—and you are sane—

(Assent, used as a verb:  agree) 

 

Demur—you ’re straightway dangerous—       

(Demur, used as a verb:  hesitate; object; protest)

 

+And handled with a Chain—  


Margaret Juncker

Professor Brown

English 1B

18 March 2009

Rantings of a Recluse

     In "Much Madness is divinest Sense” (1862), Emily Dickenson uses alliteration and rhyme to point out that going along with the majority, although seen as "sane," is actually the questionable thing to do.  This is emphasized in several ways.  The first is the interchanged, repeated M and S sounds she uses when speaking of the ideas of sanity and insanity, suggesting that there is a fine line between the two.  After line one's initial alliteration using M when referring to Madness, the same M (Much Sense) is used to refer to Sense in line two—society's definition of sense should be questioned rather than blindly accepted.  In lines 1 and 2, the letter I is used to underscore that there are few who understand the inherent insanity in simply going along with the crowd.  Only the eye (I), Emily Dickenson, is divine and can thus see the truth in this oxymoron, whereas mere humans are not enlightened enough to comprehend this.  Alliteration is used again in lines 6 and 8 with the letter A (sane and chain).  In this capacity, it emphasizes the synonymous natures of "sanity" and imprisonment.  Dickenson also employs various versions of rhyme to make this same point.  The first is slant rhyme, wherein she places eye (I) and Majority in opposition to one another, setting herself apart from the crowd (2, 4).  She is also alluding to the fact that the I, any I, is the opposite of the majority simply by virtue of definition.  Finally, in lines 6 and 8, she uses perfect rhyme draw a correlation between "sanity" and being bound, emphasizing the point she has made with alliteration:  that to go along with the crowd is to accept an agreed-upon sanity and is thus in opposition to the freedom of  individuality.  Succinctly then, in eight brief lines, Dickinson asserts the divinity of the self and condemns the baseness of the masses using only the sounds of words.

Word Count:  324 (without title)

 

Work Cited

Dickinson, Emily.  “Much Madness is divinest Sense.”  Literature and Its Writers:  A

            Compact Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama.  4th ed.  Ed.  Ann and Samuel

            Charters.  Boston:  Bedford, 2007.  984.