“Finding Meaning”

Write an essay employing formal and objective language, direct evidence, and inductive reasoning that responds to one of the following topics. Each topic asks you to choose one poem from the anthology and to analyze the poem’s form and content to form and defend a claim about its meaning. Formalist readings are encouraged. Historical and biographical readings will be considered off-topic, or indirect, or both. Understanding a poem’s content often requires careful analysis; do not confuse summary and paraphrase with analysis, and make sure that the paper analyzes both form and content to explain, demonstrate and support the claim.

Use MLA format and documentation; see pages 825-828 and 620-648 in The
Little, Brown Handbook. Double-space and use conventional fonts and margins. Do not use a title page. Your name and student number, the course instructor’s name, the course and section number, the essay number and topic number, and the date should all appear in the upper left hand corner of the first page. Your last name and the page number should appear in the upper right hand corner. Give your essay a meaningful and suggestive title that clearly identifies the text being discussed, and conclude your essay with a works cited page.

The assignment asks you to think about the text and the topic independently.
You are permitted to use the readings listed on the syllabus (the OED; the LBH; the Elements” essays, brief biographies, and glossaries from the course package), but discouraged from consulting or referencing any other sources. Using other sources will result in a -20% deduction per source.

Citation and Documentation must be complete; cite every direct and indirect reference, including summary and paraphrase, and document every source that you cite.
Citing sources without documentation will result in a -20% deduction. Documenting sources without citations will result in a -20% deduction. Failing to document or cite a source that is directly or indirectly referenced in any way, including summary or paraphrase, is plagiarism.

Only count the words in the essay itself when calculating the total number of words composed, and respect the upper and lower limits of the assignment. Papers that are either too long or too short will receive a -20% deduction.

1) Walt Whitman’s poetry is free from many of the formal conventions that many people associate with poetry. As a result, Whitman has been called the first truly American poet and the father of free verse. Analyze and discuss the relationship between form and content in any one of Whitman’s poems. What is the poem about, and what does the poem show or suggest about that topic?

2) Emily Dickinson’s poetry opened the conventional forms of poetry subtly – so subtly that her poetry’s insightful expression was not acknowledged until decades after her death. Analyze and discuss the relationship between form and content in any one of Dickinson’s poems. What is the poem about, and what does the poem show or suggest about that topic?

3) ‘ e.e. cummings’ poetry explores and explodes not only poetic conventions, but the conventions of language itself. His poetry is notoriously playful, satirical, and
eccentric. Analyze and discuss the relationship between form and content in any one of cummings’ poems. What is the poem about, and what does the poem
show or suggest about that topic?

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