Unfortunately, I have been out sick for a
long while. Making up work from all
of my classes has been so hard, but
nothing confuses me more than poetry.
Which happens to be part of what I
missed out on. So here is my attempt
on analyzing poetry.
So I guess in class we have been learning how
to analyze poetry. Poetry can be really
confusing and hard to understand without a
systematic method to look at every element
of the poem one step at a time. Most of us
would just ask someone for the meaning of a
poem, or just leave it and hope someone will
fill us in. Thanks to our packet we can use
TPCASTT or SOAPST on a poem to get a
closer look and better understanding of
of the poem.
T- title
P- paraphrase
C- connotation
A- attitude
S- shift
T- title
T- theme
And now to test myself on how well
I have managed to learn the way of
this strategy on a poem from our
book "Sound and Sense".
I LIKE A LOOK OF AGONY
I like a look of Agony,
Because I know it’s true--
Men do not sham Convulsion,
Nor simulate, a Throe--
The Eyes gaze once--and that is Death--
Impossible to feign
The Beads upon the Forehead
By homely Anguish stung.
Emily Dickinson
T- I like a look of Agony
P- She is describing how she likes the look of suffering
on people’s faces because it's honest. People don't fake
suffering.
C-Personal pronoun (I) it's her personal opinion.
“Impossible to feign” she is saying that agony
is true.
A-Calm, and very grim.
S-No shift
T-I like a look of Agony
Addresses herself and states
That she likes truth and honesty.
T- Human honesty in the hours
of pain and suffering.
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3 comments:
Tania great job on analyzing the poem and using the TPCASTT technique on this poem especially with being gone. My only question is why didn’t you do both TPCASTT and SOAPST with the poem or go into deeper explanation of the different parts of SOAPST? Please don’t think I’m not bashing your blog. What I’m trying to bring up is my opinion on the technique SOAPST. Talking to other students and looking at other poetry blogs it seems that most people prefer TPCASTT over SOAPST. I too prefer to use TPCASTT. I think this may be because of several reasons. First, with SOAPST you need more background information on the time period and the author to fully answer the O, A, P, and S. Knowing the beliefs of the author can help determine if he/she is the speaker and knowing the time period can tell you answer the time and place of O, and help you answer what the audience and purpose is better. I think SOAPST might actually be a really good way of analyzing satire. Think about it. It asks you to analyze the subject, audience, purpose and tone. Tone can help answer the techniques of the satire by looking at what in the piece adds to the tone. Audience answers the target of the piece. Purpose and subject answers the aim of the piece. In conclusion, I think SOAPST might be a better way to analyze satire rather than poetry especially because you need more background information to use it. TPCASTT on the other hand helps you understand the poem better by paraphrasing the confusing language. Also, Connotation, Attitude, Shift, and Title can all be used to answer the typical AP prompt of how does the author convey the theme. Does anyone else agree?
Senia Lee
I too think that poetry can be really confusing at times because it can be portrayed in different ways. Sometimes we happen to be in different situations when I think that the poem is being look at in this way and it can be interpreted in a different way for yourself. I really like the poem you chose by Emily Dickinson and I know her work is sometimes hard to understand for me. For the P in your TPCASTT, "People don't fake suffering", is that more of a command or a fact that Dickinson indirectly puts into her poem? Again, poems can be interpreted in different ways. It can especially be different from when you read it to when someone else reads it out loud.
Tania, that was a good poem to pick. Despite the fact that it is about liking agony, Emily Dickinson has a good point and, like the poet she is, eloquently describes her thoughts. Kristine, I like how you separated TPCASTT and SOAPSTone. I find myself also using TPCASTT much more often becuase, like you said, it doesn't require as much knowledge of background information. Another thing I like about TPCASTT is the paraphrasing. I think I usually take too much time trying to paraphrase it, but it really does help to dig more into the text and really try to figure out what the speaker is saying. For example, with "I Like a Look of Agony," I initially didn't understand it until I took the time to read through it more slowly and try to understand what ideas are being conveyed. All in all, I think this practice in class has really helped me start to grasp what is going on in poetry and how to work through it.
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