English 350:219
Principles of Literary Study
Prof. Jacobs

Write a 5-7 page paper on how the ending or beginning (or both) of one of the following poems shapes your reading of the poem as a whole:

Emily Dickinson, "I heard a Fly buzz-when I died-" (N 634)
Robert Frost, "Come In" (N 708)
Adrienne Rich, "Diving into the Wreck" (N 1006)
Thomas Wyatt, "Whoso List to Hunt" (N 89)

These are poems which we have not read as a class, but you should be able to apply our general discussions-and, more particularly, our discussions of these same authors-to your work in this essay. Keep in mind our focus on titles, beginnings, and endings, as well as our discussions of word meanings and the ambiguity they create. Use the OED!

The most important things to remember for this essay are the following:

*BE SPECIFIC: in arguing for a given meaning, or in discussing a general aspect or pattern in the poem, you need to refer to specific lines directly. See the handout on Quoting from Poems for guidelines on how to quote effectively. References to a poem's "intensity," "smoothness" (or "harshness"), or "feeling" will come across as meaningless unless they are supported by your reading of a given line or passage.

*DON'T MAKE A LIST: the fact that there are such things as rhyme, alliteration, or repetition in a given poem is not, in itself, a point worth making. The only reason that readers of poetry talk about formal aspects of a poem is to add to an overall understanding of the poem's meaning-i.e., the combination of formal effects of language, and the poem's theme or narrative. Even the most basic effort on your part to connect rhyme or image to the poem's overall themes will be much more appreciated than an expert listing of alliteration, etc. that does not make such connections.

*DO WRITE AN ESSAY: even though you're being asked to write on parts of a poem, you do need to write an essay that begins with an introduction and proceeds logically through various parts of an overall argument. Give the reader some sense of the poem as a whole before talking about specific parts or lines.