AP Lit and Comp - Poem Essay

Essay:

Choose one of the following poems. Write a minimum of 1,000 words, but no more than 1,500. Typed, double spaced.

Your task is to 1.) develop a thesis 2.) explicate the poem 3.) interpret the poem.

In a nutshell, the thesis is your overall position/argument, explication is the unpacking of the poem (explaining how it is built, dealing with murky areas, what significant devices are used and their effect etc.), and interpretation is the unpacking of your thesis using a text-based argument.

“The World is Too Much With Us” by William Wordsworth
“Work Without Hope” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“To Wordsworth” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
“To Autumn” by John Keats
“Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister” by Robert Browning
#175 (“I cautious, scanned my little life —”) by Emily Dickinson
#355 (“It was not Death, for I stood up”) by Emily Dickinson