Revised April 3, 2020
You are required to prepare FIVE poetry reports over the course of the semester. You need to do 3 reports by the midpoint of the semester Thursday, February 27th and TWO more by our final day of poetry Tuesday, April 21st.
*Poetry Reports are due on the day we discuss the poem*
*You may only turn in one poetry report per class meeting*
Poetry reports help you develop the reading tools necessary for thorough and insightful literary scholarship. Eventually you will begin to automatically follow the steps that I have outlined below whenever you read a poem.
I will expect your poetry reports to be written in complete, well-edited, and carefully proofread sentences.
Your responses should be limited to 2-3 double-spaced pages in Times 12. Please date and number the reports (i.e. Poetry Report #1, Poetry Report #2 etc.) and don’t forget your name. Each report should follow the following format.
- a. Give the title of work, its author, the date(s) of composition, and the date of publication. In some cases the works we have read were thoroughly revised after the first date of publication. Note works that underwent substantial revision and discuss the significance of that revision. In this section of the report, you should remark on any interesting aspects of the composition and publication process. [5 points]\
- a List three words you looked up in a dictionary. You must use The Oxford English Dictionary. Write down the most pertinent definition(s) and any significant etymology of the word — its root word or words and their meanings. Some words in a poem are more significant that others, you may look up several words before you find ones to work with. You are looking for words which you suspect are being used in a double manner, words that you think may have changed meaning since the nineteenth century, and/or words which seem of particular significance to the poem’s overall meaning. Note the significance of the word to the meaning of the poem.
b) Look up any allusions that you think are important to understanding the poem. Don’t just rush by a reference to Psyche. Find out who she is! You will be expected to go beyond any short footnotes you might find in an anthology. List and briefly comment on the significance of the two most significant allusions. If there aren’t any allusions you should note that as well as why that might be (i.e. verse form?). [2a and 2b are worth 15 points total]
The UGA Library’s Galileo database archive can link you to the Oxford English Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
3. Name the verse form of the work you are discussing (i.e. “blank verse,” “heroic couplets”) and define its major characteristics (i.e. stanza structure, rhyme scheme, etc.), as well as its customary subject matter (i.e. Why would a poet choose to write an “Ode” instead of a “Ballad”?) Don’t panic if you can’t immediately do this; we will be learning how to do it over the course of the semester. When you cannot specifically identify the verse form, you should describe the form instead. Some poems don’t actually use a named form. [5 points]
4. Briefly describe something you noticed about the technique of the poem (patterns of imagery, figures of speech, etc.) and discuss how it is related to the overall meaning of the work as a whole. (In literature, how the work means is as important as what it means.) Please provide at least one specific reference to the poem, with specific line(s) noted. [10 points]
5. Consider connections between works. Briefly describe a link between the poem you are working with and other literature read during the semester. Here you may discuss other poems but also essays and novels. What connections and disparities do you see between how one writer works with a particular form as compared to another? How do different writers approach the same subject material? Or, how does the same author develop his or her use of form, subject matter, and images over time? [10 points]
6. Develop a possible paper topic in relation to the poem in question. Your final long essay will be comparative, so it might be helpful to draw connections between the work in question and other material read. [5 points]
Reference Works for Poetry Reports
M. H. Abrams and Geoffrey Galt Harpham, A Glossary of Literary Terms, Wadsworth Publishing. This is a crucial part of any English major’s personal library but it is quite expensive “new.” I encourage you to purchase any used edition edited by both Abrams and Harpham.
Chris Baldick, The concise Oxford dictionary of literary terms.
Karl Beckson and Arthur Ganz, Literary terms: a dictionary.
David Grote, Common Knowledge: a reader’s guide to literary allusions. Abraham Lass and David Kiremidijan, The Facts on File Dictionary of Classical, Biblical, and Literary Allusions.
The Oxford English Dictionary. [Available via Galileo. Link above.]
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. [Available via Galileo. Link above.]
Eric Smith, A dictionary of classical reference in English poetry.
*You will be tempted to use Wikipedia and you may if you are confident that the information is to be trusted. It is best, however, to use Wikipedia as a starting point to more academically rigorous sites, however, many Wikipedia entries are written by academics and their affiliation is noted.
Grade Range for Poetry Reports
The range for an “A” report is 45 to 50; “B” 39 to 44; “C” 35-38; “D” 34; “F” less than 34 points. I will expect your reports to be written in complete, well-edited, and carefully proofread sentences.