General Questions for Analyzing Poetry

General Questions for Analyzing Poetry
1. Who is the speaker? What kind of person is the speaker?
2. What is the occasion?
3. What is the setting in time (hour, season, year)?
4. What is the setting in place (indoors or out, city or country, land, or sea, region, nation)?
5. What is the topic of the poem?
6. State the central idea or theme in one sentence.
7. Outline the poem to show its structure and development or summarize the events of the poem

8. Discuss the diction of the poem. Write the dictionary definition for unfamiliar words.
9. Point out words that are unusual or particularly well-chosen and explain the possible purpose of their use?

10. Discuss the imagery of the poem. What kinds of imagery are used? Is there a pattern to the imagery?

11. Point out examples of metaphor, simile, personification, and metonymy, and explain their appropriateness.

12. Point out and explain examples of paradox, overstatement, understatement, and irony. What is their function?
13. Point out any allusions. What is their function?
14. What is the tone of the poem? How is it achieved?
15. Point out significant examples of sound repetition (alliteration, assonance, consonance or repetition of words) and explain their function?
16. What is the meter of the poem? Copy two stanzas or 14 lines of the poem and mark its scansion.
17. Criticize and evaluate the poem.