Literature: Poetry
Poetry tests your ability to read a poem as a crafted object: speaker, situation, tone, imagery, figurative language, sound, form, and theme. The exam rewards explanation of effect, not a list of devices.
Reading method
- Identify the speaker and occasion; the poet is not automatically the speaker.
- Paraphrase each stanza in one sentence to establish literal sense before interpreting.
- Name a device only with its function: metaphor, simile, personification, allusion, apostrophe, irony, alliteration, assonance, enjambment.
- Watch punctuation and line breaks: a full stop can turn a statement; enjambment can speed or suspend reading.
- Tone is built through diction and sound; harsh consonants and soft vowels create different textures.
- Theme must be phrased as an idea (“grief isolates”), not a topic (“grief”).
Worked example
Lines: “The moon is a coin / dropped in a well.” Question: Explain the effect of the metaphor. Reason: the metaphor fuses moon and coin, suggesting something bright but remote and perhaps lost; “dropped” adds a downward, accidental motion. A weak answer says only “it is a metaphor”; a strong answer links image to loss and distance.
Traps
Do not identify a device without explaining its effect. Do not invent the poet’s biography. Do not ignore a question’s instruction to compare two poems. Do not treat every poem as a riddle with one hidden meaning.