Paper 2 Eng 2341

Length: 4 FULL pages, not counting the Works Cited page

Due: Wed, Oct 28, submitted through D2L (Course Activities, then Assignments, then Paper 1)

Format: MLA (google MLA and purdue owl for examples). No cover page, double spaced, 1” margins, no extra space between paragraphs, MLA heading, Times NR, 12 point font, indent the start of every paragraph.

Introduction:

In the recent discussion posts and quizzes, we’ve been going over alliteration and assonance and how those techniques can help emphasize the mood or emotion the poet is trying to get across at the moment of that line. We’ve also seen how the mood or emotion can change throughout the poem based on the idea the poet is conveying at that moment. In other words, if the poem is covering a dark idea, it might use one type of poetic sounds and then when the poem ends on a happier note, the sounds of the poem will also change. This paper is going to ask you to consider more deeply one poem and analyze the various moods and how the sounds shape those.

The Assignment

Read the five poems at the links provided on the fourth page of this handout, pick one and write an essay of at least 4 full pages (not counting the Works Cited page) breaking the poem down into different moods or feelings you believe the poet wanted us to feel in that stanza and use what you’ve learned of consonance and assonance to help prove each mood. Each paragraph should start with a clear topic sentence describing the mood that paragraph is proving. If you would like an example of that, please see Disc Post 5 (Topic Sentences), #1. Then the paragraph could illustrate that point with quotes, paraphrases and analysis.

You can argue whatever you can prove with quotes and paraphrases. I will be grading these on how well you support your points (and of course how well you write it and implement all of the things we’ve gone over in the discussion posts and quizzes). It’s important for you to remember that figuring out alliteration is not a math problem but that you can be creative in your points, as long as your arguments make sense. You can argue what you can support with evidence.

Organization:

You should have an introduction (see Disc Post 6), a thesis statement (see quiz 5), topic sentences for every body paragraph (see quiz 4 and Disc Post 5). Your paragraphs should have a mixture of quoting and paraphrasing (Disc Post 1), making sure to cite the line for every quote AND PARAPHRASE (Disc Post 1) and to avoid Crasher Quotes (Disc Post 2). The better essays will do some in depth analysis of each quote and paraphrase (See Quiz 3). Then you should have a conclusion (See Disc Post 6). Finally, there should be a Works Cited page (see below).

On this one, it might help you to make your first body paragraph after the introduction about a basic explanation of the poem and what it is saying. That will give you something to refer back to as you write the rest of the paper.

Works Cited page.

See the following link for how the Works Cited page should look: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_sample_works_cited_page.html . For the proper MLA listing for the poem you are using, see the following link and scroll down to see the formats for “A Page on a Website” and “Article in a Web Magazine”: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_works_cited_electronic_sources.html#:~:text=Cite%20web%20postings%20as%20you,author%20name%20is%20not%20known. . Because you are writing on only one poem, there will be only one entry for the Works Cited page.

To get the hanging indent on the Works Cited page, the best way is to highlight the entry and press Control T.

Thesis Statement

Please give another look to the Thesis Statement Quiz (which is #5). Your thesis should in a few words say what the poem is about and mention the main shift in mood or emotion that the poem features. After you figure that out, you can then go back and write your funnel introduction to lead up to that thesis and give the thesis something to refer back to (e.g.,This transition from bitterness to hope can be seen in Wayne Baker’s poem “Island Heat” which uses verbal sound effects to help show this transition.)

Some reminders:

Don’t forget to cite the line as in (Jones l. 12-13) and ALSO FOR WHEN YOU PARAPHRASE. If you don’t cite your paraphrases, you will get an F on this. See Disc Post 1 about that.

For literature, write in present tense. The narrator is called “the speaker.”

You are not supposed to do any research for this but if you do, make sure to cite the source every time you quote it or even take an idea from it. I have picked poems that should not have any interpretations online but if you do happen to find an article on any of these sources, make sure you take organized elaborate notes from the sources, distinguishing quotes from paraphrases and also listing the exact page for every quote. Then in the paper, you will either quote the source or paraphrase it and make sure to correctly cite the source right after bringing it up. Regarding any paper you ever write, you should never look at a source about it and not quote that in your paper. If you think you can look at a source and not use it, you are wrong. Just hearing an interpretation can FREEZE your reading of a text and you could easily steal that idea without knowing. You will either have to write this paper based ONLY on your own ideas or you will have to document every single idea you take from an outside source or risk failing the paper for plagiarism.

Points about consonance and assonance (copied from the information I provided with your quizzes)Alliteration is the repetition of the same consonant within a few lines in a poem. A quick example would be the “b’s in the line “the bombastic buzzing of the abominable man.” This quiz will concern the repetition of consonants (which is also called “consonance”) and the next quiz will concern the repetition of vowel sounds (which is called “assonance”).

In consonants, there are “hard” consonants (such as d, b, t, k, p, hard g) and “soft” consonants (such as m, n, s, l, r, w, h, sh, soft g). The basic idea is that the softer consonants are probably better in depicting peaceful moments, especially when they are repeated next to each other. Harder consonants are often helpful in giving the feeling of discomfort or something jarring, like the ‘b’s in my example above. Also, while all hard consonants are called “plosives” because they explode in the mouth, some soft consonants are shorter lasting like “l” and “v” and some you sound indefinitely like “m,” “w,” “sh” which maybe could contribute to a more flowing feeling. Finally, notice that some hard consonants are louder than others. The “d,” “b,” and hard “g” sounds are louder because they have voice in them, while the “p” and “t,” while harder than say “n” or “s,” are more like pops in the mouth than bombs.

When making a literary argument about alliteration, to interpret the feeling the letter is intended to give us, you do have to look at the context of the poem. If the poem is about boxing and has the line “the drum beat of blows to the head,” I think it would be a reasonable argument to say the d’s and b’s are intended to simulate getting punched over and over. In a different poem, say Walt Whitman’s “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”, when he criticizes an astronomer for his attempt “to add, divide and measure” the universe, the d’s might be argued to set up a regular rhythm which implies logic and order. Clearly, based on what I just wrote, some of the interpretation of alliteration is creative and some of you may have a better argument for Whitman’s d’s than I just made. There’s no formula for this, other than the difference between hard and soft consonants. However, if someone wrote Whitman’s other phrase in the poem “mystical moist air” was full of violent sounding consonants, I’d say there’s no support for that, as the m’s and s’s outweigh the t’s and give the whole phrase a more comfortable, mellow feeling (which generally happens with m’s and s’s).

The repetition of vowel sounds is called assonance. It’s what rhyming poetry uses. My problem with rhyming poetry though is that the loudest alliteration is always at the end of the line, so most rhyming poetry sounds like da dat da dat da TRUCKS/ da dat da dat da DUCKS / da dat da dat da BUCKS, which obliterates the poet’s attempt to use sound effects inside the line. For that reason, assonance is usually called “internal rhyme.” Like repeated consonants, it can be used to subtly effect the “feeling tone” on the language.

When analyzing assonance, it’s important to remember that there are long vowels (as in moan, spoon, dime) and short vowels (as in kick, intricate). Long vowels are probably better to describe someone lounging, taking their time, relaxing, at peace (or in other poems, sadness), whereas short vowels might be better for something being done in a jumpy or complicated manner. Still, like with consonance, that would always depend on the context of the poem. 

Also, like musical notes, vowels have different pitches. The highest I think would be either e as in (heat) or i as in (kite) and the lowest probably the oo (of doom) or u (of dumb). The higher pitched vowels bring with them a certain intensity, maybe better suited to intense, raw moments, while the lower vowels might go better with sadness or blues or gloom.

Poems

Thomas Sayers Ellis—“Sticks”

https://poets.org/poem/sticksEd Hirsch—”For the Sleepwalkers”

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=34708Suzanne Marie Hopcroft—“Tantrum”

http://www.versedaily.org/2013/tantrum.shtml“Kelly, Ringling Bros. Oldest Elephant, Goes on Rampage”

The New York Times, February 3, 1992

Joel Brouwer

Her reasons for snapping seem clear: barbed up

of the whipcord, squirming toddler cargo

glopping Sno-Cone on her back, cramped freight cars,

stale hay, the vet’s incessant vitamin shots…

Or maybe it was boredom. Think of all the circles

she wore into the earth. Twenty-seven years of plod,

orbiting the Ringmaster’s megaphoned jokes

while squads of ballerinas dug their heels

into her spine. Perhaps it wasn’t pain

but repetition: the routine — balance beachball

on trunk-tip, wag ears — as sure and dull

as gravity. The question then is not why

but why today? Why that exact instant to ragethrough the bleachers, tossing clowns like peanut husks,

sending dozens of kids to nightmare clinics?

What spark or fulcrum, what sudden volitionrose like a bubble through her four tamed tons

and burst in her meaty head?

After all, means of escape are always

at hand. Nothing remarkable

about shotgun triggers or train tickets,

the hard part is when to use them.

You yourself, right now, with a few

well-placed blows, could knock your world down

to the pile of boards it started as,

pick up a hammer and being again from scratch:

move to Phoenix, raise cattle, change your name.

The brittle unbearable rests in your palm.

Will you close your fist or won’t you, and why?

They shot her forty times before she died.

From Exactly What Happened, Purdue University Press, 1999, page

Spring

Mary Oliver

Somewhere    a black bear      has just risen from sleep         and is staring

down the mountain.    All night      in the brisk and shallow restlessness         of early spring

I think of her,    her four black fists      flicking the gravel,         her tongue

like a red fire    touching the grass,      the cold water.         There is only one question:

how to love this world.    I think of her      rising         like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against    the silence      of the trees.         Whatever else

my life is    with its poems      and its music         and its glass cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness    coming      down the mountain,         breathing and tasting;all day I think of her—    her white teeth,      her wordlessness,         her perfect love.

From New and Selected Poems, Beacon Press, 1990, page 70,