The Teaching ELA Podcast

Sara Teasdale wrote “There Will Come Soft Rains” during World War I, commonly known as the Great War or the War to End All Wars during the time Teasdale wrote the poem. The poem asserts that nature cares not for the wars of humans and that the impending destruction of humankind would not be heeded by Nature.

Links

• How to annotate and analyze a poem.
• Poetry Collections at ELACommonCoreLessonPlans.com
• "There Will Come Soft Rains" Blog Post
• "There Will Come Soft Rains" Poetry Analysis Lesson Plan

If I were writing a poetry analysis, I would begin with the poem's theme: In 'What Happens to a Dream Deferred" Langston Hughes uses imagery and figurative language to show how an oppressed people can turn from passivity to violence if not allowed to pursue their God-given rights.

Links

• Poetry Collections at ELACommonCoreLessonPlans.com
• Figurative Language in Poetry Lesson Plan
• "Dreams" and "What Happens to a Dream Deferred" Blog Post
• Langston Hughes Page at ELACommonCoreLessonPlans.com
• Imagery in Poetry Lesson Plan

If I were writing a poetry analysis, I would begin with the poem's theme: (1) In "Dreams" Langston Hughes uses figurative language to stress the importance of having dreams; or (2) In "Dreams" Langston Hughes uses metaphors to show how miserable a life without dreams becomes; or (3) In "Dreams" Langston Hughes uses personification and imagery to contrast a life with dreams and a life without dreams.

Links

• Poetry Collections at ELACommonCoreLessonPlans.com
• Figurative Language in Poetry Lesson Plan
• "Dreams" and "What Happens to a Dream Deferred" Blog Post
• Langston Hughes Page at ELACommonCoreLessonPlans.com

Metaphor: I know why the caged bird beats his wing / Till its blood is red on the cruel bars; / For he must fly back to his perch and cling / When he fain would be on the bough a-swing; / And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars / And they pulse again with a keener sting-- / I know why he beats his wing!

Analysis: Dunbar uses a metaphor comparing a caged bird beating its wings against its cage until they bleed to his own struggle against oppression. The bird's physical scars metaphorically refer to the mental scars of oppression. 

Links

• Poetry Collections at ELACommonCoreLessonPlans.com
• Figurative Language in Poetry Lesson Plan
• "Sympathy" by Paul Laurence Dunbar Post
• "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou Post

Simile: The entire poem is a simile. Line 2 contains the comparison "and we are like the deer" and the rest of the poem describes in what manner his people are like the deer.

Analysis: Momaday writes of the fate of Native Americans, having himself grown up on the Kiawa Indian reservation. The deer is portrayed as submissive, yet noble, able to break forth without warning.

Links

1. Poetry Collections at ELACommonCoreLessonPlans.com
2. Figurative Language in Poetry Lesson Plan
3. "Simile" Blog Post

The first question I have is in regards to the title. It’s not an ode to a Grecian urn; it’s an ode on a Grecian urn, which would indicate, at least on the surface (no pun intended), that there is an ode on the actual urn. The poem begins as an ode should, with an apostrophe, the act of speaking to someone not there, or to an object, such as an urn, which means either the urn is speaking, unlikely even in a poem, or the poet is translating a picture on a Grecian urn into an ode.

As I continue reading, however, it’s obvious the poet is speaking to the Urn about what’s on the urn; it is, therefore, both an ode on a Grecian urn and an ode to a Grecian urn. The title, I’m guessing, is “Ode on a Grecian Urn” in order to emphasize the painting on the urn and not the speaker of the poem.

“Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats describes a perfect scene of beauty and peace sprinkled with philosophical truths regarding Truth, Beauty, and Eternity. The scenes on the urn are frozen in time, frozen in their perfect form, as only an artist, or a poet, could depict them. Keats asserts, “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter” (11-12). Music exists in perfection only in art. Any attempt to replicate it lessens its beauty. He writes of “happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed / Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu” (21-22). In the perfect world, youth, synonymous with beauty, can only exist in the artist’s mind. As it progresses, it loses its perfection. The final stanza concludes the poet’s thoughts with an eternal suggestion that perfection exists, Beauty exists and “that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know” (49-50). In other words, learn that perfection exists and don’t worry about figuring out the rest.

Takeaways

1. This poem might be too good to teach
2. If you teach it, teach it to a class that knows how to annotate and analyze a poem
3. I don’t understand how or why Keats’ poems elevate my soul

• “Ode on a Grecian Urn” blog post
• John Keats’ Poetry: “Ode to a Nightingale” Analysis and “Ode on Melancholy” Analysis
• An Overview of British Romanticism and the English Romantic Poets
• Poetry Collections at ELACommonCoreLessonPlans.com

In Emily Dickinson’s “Far from love the Heavenly Father,” the speaker examines the paradoxical view that through trials and tribulations are the chosen brought to heaven. It is not an evil-doer who brings about trials, but the very Father in Heaven who does so. Although the images suggest the action in the poem takes place in the physical realm, a more pragmatic, worldly application can be found: those who seek comfort, rarely find it; those who take upon themselves challenges, eventually do find comfort. Unlike Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” which suggests individuals choose their path, Dickinson implies that the path is thrust upon the individual, an assertion supported by her Calvinistic beliefs.

The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s “Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it” is pathetic. I’m not sure if the object of her desire has a restraining order, but he should. She’s proud to have been dumped? Sounds like someone has a self esteem issue, which she rationalizes as humility. If Dickinson lived in a trailer park, she’d be prime for an abusive relationship. No wonder she was a reclusive freak.

Dickinson captures the inner turmoil associated with love and rejection in “Heart, we will forget him.” She vows to her heart, personified as a dear friend, that they will forget “him.” While in the act of forcing herself to forget, the speaker focuses on the person whom she is trying to forget and his good qualities. She realizes she and her heart are fighting a losing battle as the speaker urges her heart to forget quick, for she is helpless to forget otherwise.

Links

• Dickinson Love Poems Post
• Poetry Collections at ELACommonCoreLessonPlans.com
• Figurative Language in Poetry Lesson Plan
• Theme in Poetry Lesson P

Poetic form and structure often enhance a poem's theme or meaning. Frost's ironic use of meter and rhythm in "Fire and Ice" underlies his hidden theme that moderation is the world's salvation. Frost uses two extremes, fire and ice, as the poem's controlling images, images which symbolize the two extremes of lust and hate. These two extremes, he expostulates, will eventually destroy the world. The rhythm and meter of the poem and the use of meiosis offer an alternative to extremism--moderation--and provides a solution to the world's impending doom. Frost chooses the fast-flowing, less serious iambic tetrameter mixed with iambic duometer over the more serious, slower-moving iambic pentameter as a framework for his understated theme of the world's destruction and potential salvation, a meter that brings to the forefront his use of meiosis: he casually states "I hold with those who favor fire" (4), and "for destruction ice / Is also great / and would suffice" (7-9) to comment on cataclysmic events. Although his poetic form contrasts the overt theme of the poem, it underscores its underlying meaning.

Links

• "Fire and Ice" Blog Post
• Poetry Collections at ELACommonCoreLessonPlans.com
• Figurative Language in Poetry Lesson Plan
  
  
  

• British Romanticism Page
• "Tyger! Tyger!" blog post
• Poetry Collections at ELACommonCoreLessonPlans.com
• Figurative Language in Poetry Lesson Plan

A literary analysis of "The Bells" by Edgar Allan Poe demonstrates the mastery of sound devices and creates a sensory extravaganza. Let us, therefore, begin our journey with examples of onomatopoeia, internal rhyme, alliteration, assonance, and consonance.

Links

• "The Bells Blog Post"
• Poetry Collections at ELACommonCoreLessonPlans.com
• Figurative Language in Poetry Lesson Plan
• Sound Devices in Poetry Lesson Plan