GUIDELINES FOR OPENING PARAGRAPH OF LITERARY ESSAY (POETRY)

• Mention the author’s name and the title of the work
• Remember that short works (stories, essays, and poems) require the use of quotation marks (e.g. “Wild Geese”) while long works such as novels and plays require italics (Huckleberry Finn)
• Use present tense verbs when writing about literature
• Provide a general plot summary of the work or establish the context in some way—no need to go into great detail—just the basic gist of things. What is the situation? What is at stake for the speaker?
• Provide a more analytical understanding of the work’s underlying tension and its resolution. What is the work’s overall purpose, its reason for being?
• This poem concerns itself with…
• The author explores…
• In this poem we can see…
• This poem examines…
• This poem questions…
• Explain the method or “how” (i.e. the elements of poetry: diction, speaker, symbolism, setting, figurative language, point of view, tone, imagery, line breaks/enjambment, rhyme, meter, rhythm, allusion, stanza, etc.) through which the author achieves his or her purpose for the poem.