Poem Essay- Basic Guidelines

A poem essay generally means writing critical analysis of a given poem. It will involve discussing the writing style of the poet, the basic theme of the poem and the message it conveys to its readers. The essay style will be generally in the form of a literary article and essay formatting like the APA/MLA/Chicago/Harvard, will be as the teacher instructs. Given below is an example of an essay analyzing the Shakespearean sonnets.

Introduction

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is one of the most dominant writers in the world of English literature and perhaps inarguably the greatest playwrights of the English Renaissance period. He has 37 plays and154 sonnets to his credit that carry his name. His sonnets are extremely popular and represent the many phases of life, written by the poet in different times……

Body

Sonnet is a poem or “A 14-line verse form usually having one of several conventional rhyme schemes.” (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Sonnet). Shakespearean sonnet is characterized by three quatrains and a couplet and is divided into four parts. Each of the first three parts has a length of four lines, each part rhyming differently and forms the quatrain. Its rhyming goes as ABAB, CDCD and EFEF. The fourth part forms the couplet and has an independent rhyming that goes as GH. Shakespeare in his sonnets used the….

This sonnet talks about the passage of time. The first quatrain talks about, how time goes on like the waves that break upon the shore, a minute being replaced by another as the waves replace each other in a regular sequence. The second quatrain compares life to that of the sun, being born (nativity), then passing to maturity in the noontime and going for the setting that “eclipses” its glory. The third one compares time to an evil that can only destroy and ravage one’s youth and beauty. The couplet at the end fights against time and defies it, to convey….

Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets are on love that are dramatic and seem to tell us a story. There are two distinct phases in this – the Fair Lord Sonnets (the man, whom the poet is deeply in love with) and the Dark Lady sonnets (whom the poet lusts for and hates, both). The Fair Lord Sonnets consists of the poems from 1 to 126 which are addressed towards an unknown man for whom the poet expresses his love. There is a movement in these sonnets as the poet’s affection towards the fair lord keeps on increasing till he is rejected at the end. Of these….

Conclusion

….. the poet talks of his Fair Lord, the lovely boy whose beauty has arrested time. In the last quatrain, however, the poet talks about the how eventually nature, the sovereign mistress will overpower the beauty of the fair lord and how at the end, even the radiant beauty of the fair lord has to submit itself in front of nature. Main theme of the sonnets 1- 126 thus, comprises of morality, beauty, passing away of youth with time and his love for the fair lord which is too strong for time to ravage and rejection to destroy.

Poem essays generally fall into the genre of easy essays. It however tests the writing and analytical skills of the writer to some extent, and also checks the capacity of the writer to understand the underlying meaning of any given poem. Read various essay examples and sample essays that analyse poems written by various poets to get a clear understanding of how these essays are written. If you feel that a certain poem is too difficult for you to comprehend and analyse, then simply place an order at

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