Poetry Analysis

"As I Walked Out One Evening"~W.H. AUDEN

• PARAPHRASE:  This poem is about the narrator taking a walk down Bristol Street and listening to the lyrics of a song that start off of eternal love. However as the song goes on the lyrics turn depressing and talking about how time is going to move on but love fades. How time has a harsh effect not only on love but life as well.
• PURPOSE: The purpose of this poem is to state the fact that time will turn things into less even the strongest love there is said to be. How time really does impact relationships and love you nurture with other people.
• STRUCTURE: Fifteen Four-Line stanzas
• SHIFT: The shift happens at line twenty-one where the mood of the song changes as well. The lyrics become more depressing and then the last four lines where the tone is still down but the poem goes back to the narrator.
• SPEAKER: The speaker of this poem is undefined due to the fact there is no characterization to him, the other voice in this poem however is the lover singing under the railway.
• SPELLING/GRAMMAR/DICTION: There is definitely characterization where time is being made into a character. Made into a person like thing that is going to destroy those relationships that are. There is also a lot of imagery from the diction used.
• TONE: At the beginning of the poem, say the first twenty lines or so, the tone of the poem is full of love and happy. Very optimistic however, there is a split into where the poem turns sad and cynical.
• THEME : Love and Time are two of the most obvious ideas however optimism I believe is a third. The interpretation of topics.

"Those Winter Sundays" ~Robert Hayden

• PARAPHRASE: The narrator is going back to the old memories he had of his father. About the fact that his father did many things for him and all his duties without receiving anything in return. The fact that he is upset he didn't treat his old man differently or did something that would have made a difference for him.
• PURPOSE:I feel the purpose is to show others that we have to value what we have because sometimes we don't and in the end we are only left with memories of those that mean the most to us.
• STRUCTURE: This is a free style poem with three stanzas and no type of rhyming what so ever.
• 'SHIFT: In line thirteen he comes to acknowledge the fact that he didn't know what love was and how he could have changed anything to make his dad happy.
• SPEAKER: The speaker is the child however the identity could be the author.
• SPELLING/GRAMMAR/DICTION: Nothing special used except for imagery.
• TONE: Sad and regretful
• THEME: Unspoken feelings and love

"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" `Dylan Thomas

• PARAPHRASE: This poem is basically telling men to fight to the last moment they have of life. To not let life just take them with no energy. That they should not be vulnerable and let the light end as it pleases but to resist it.
• PURPOSE: The poem is basically about how you can live your life, however it addresses the father as well as the readers to tell them that no matter how inevitable death is you should not just give up but continue to fight until the last moment of life where you can no longer.
• STRUCTURE: Three line stanzas with ABA pattern
• SHIFT: The last stanza changes the feel of the poem because the author takes it to a more personal level and addresses his father.
• SPEAKER: Do to the connection made with "my father" I would assume that the author is the speaker in this poem.
• SPELLING/GRAMMAR/DICTION: Metaphors and aggressive diction
• TONE:Sad and depressing but aggressive in the choice of actions described
• THEME:Death and mortality

"Dulce et Decorum Est"--Wilfred Owen

• Paraphrase: A poem written during World War I; it describes the horrible conditions that British soldiers had to endure (losing their boots and having to walk long, arduous marches while bloody and exhausted); it then describes chemical attacks on the soldiers and one mangled soldier in particular: his face is practically melting and he is choking in the gas attack, stumbling around blindly...It ends with a line from Horace: Dulce et decorum est/Pro patria mori (it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country)
• Purpose: Owen's own opinion on the atrocities of war
• Structure: I read in one place that it is two sonnets that are linked together by a couplet, but it doesn't quite fit the exact requirements for a sonnet...it has three stanzas and a couplet dividing the first two from the last
• Shift: The shift might be at the very end, when he mentions the Latin line (which is when he turns it into a lesson), but the actual might also come at the second stanza, as Owen shifts away from just a description of the soldiers' conditions to the panic of chemical warfare
• Speaker: A (WWI) soldier
• Spelling/Grammar/Diction: Owen includes the Latin line from Horace; he uses very powerful, nightmarish language in the third stanza, and his diction/syntax in the second stanza conveys a sense of terror and confusion
• Tone: It begins (first stanza) miserable and melancholy; the rest is nightmarish
• Theme: The horror of warfare