(Click here for a sample poetry explication)

A. Diction

1.  Denotation (dictionary definition)

       2. Connotation (accumulation of emotional responses)

B. Imagery (any analogical unit of thought meant to convey idea, state of mind, or emotion)

C. Figurative Language

     1. metaphor (as in, "A = B, but not really")

     2. metonymy & synecdoche (metonymy: treating an attribute of an object as the thing itself: "Crown"
                     for king, or "Scythe-Bearer" for Death; synecdoche is closely related: an important aspect of the
                     thing for what it stands for: "blood" for race)

     3. personification (treating an object as if a person with feelings or thoughts)

 D. Rhetorical Devices (of the hundreds, here are a few0

     1. hyperbole (overstatement)

     2. litotes (understatement)

     2. ambiguity

     3. ellipsis (as in " ..." or, leaving something out that's understood or implied)

     4. irony (something with, usually, an innocent meaning on the surface, but for the informed has
                     greater and different significance)

     5. paradox (either an apparent contradiction or at odds with the feel or idea; an oxymoron, for
                     instance, represents a form of paradox: two contradictory ideas that, when brought together,
                     represents something greater than its parts: "living death," "civil war," or "sophomore"--from 
                     sophos, "wisdom," and moron, "foolish"; thus sophomores in school are said to be "wise fools,"
                     those who  think they know things but do not)

A. Sound

    1. rhyme

    2. alliteration

    3. onomatopoeia

B. Versification

    1. rhyme & meter

    2. lines of verse

    3. stanza forms

    4. sonnet

    5. free verse

C. Form & Meaning

A. Narrative

B. Emotion

C. Ideas

    1. historical

    2. explicit statement

3. allegory

    4. symbol

    5. allusion

    6. myths & archetypes

Example poems:

"She Walks in Beauty" by George Gordon, Lord Byron

(from the volume Hebrew Melodies)

She walks in beauty, like the night

[note the scansion: -- ' -- ' -- ' -- ' (this represents an iambic tetrameter line, with a weak, then strong syllable [accent], with a total of four strong syllables or accents in the line of verse; then note that line one rhymes with line three--"night" with "bright," so that we say we have an A rhyme; but then line two and line four rhyme, giving us a B rhyme--each new word gets a new letter.  So, it follows in this poem that the rhyme scheme is A B A B A; then C D C D C D; E F E F E F]; note the hyperbole of her beauty described as "heavenly," and "tender light" for night and moonshine, or softness; consider the emotion behind the description, the symbolism of his love like the soft night, and the metaphors, such as her hair likened to "waves" of "raven tress" ]

Of cloudless climes and starry skies:

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellow'd to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o'er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent.

(1814)

"Counting the Beats" by Robert Graves

(from Collected Poems)

You, love, and I,

(He whispers) you and I,

And if no more than only you and I

What care you or I?

Counting the beats,

Counting the slow heart beats,

The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,

Wakeful they lie.

Cloudless day,

Night, and a cloudless day.

Yet the huge storm will burst upon their heads one day

From a bitter sky.

Where shall we be,

(She whispers) where shall we be,

When death strikes home, O where then shall we be

Who were you and I?

Not there but here,

(He whispers) only here,

As we are, here, together, now and here,

Always you and I.

Counting the beats,

Counting the slow heart beats,

The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,

Wakeful they lie.

(1951)

 A sample poetry explication of this poem may be found at the following link: "Sample Poetry
Explication."