9.25.2014

9.24.2014

Imagery at Work


Bob Dylan-A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (1964)



Basic D, Basic E

Keep It Simple

Choose one notable detail.
Write a simple sentence that contains that detail.
Be sure this sentence gets right to the point.
Don't say "the speaker says" or any of that kind of stuff.
Get to the real issue, the actual descriptions.
Put quotation marks around that detail.

Explain that notable detail
in a simple sentence that does nothing else but explain that detail.
Do not connect it to anything else besides that one detail (yet).
We are just practicing.
One D, One E.
.....

For example:

D: The trees in the widow's yard are full of "masses of flowers".


(This is just a sentence that gets right to the point, flows nicely, has no extra 'the speaker says' phrases, and quotes a specific detail.)

E: This imagery suggests the renewal of life that comes with Spring.


(This is just a simple sentence that attempts to explain the significance of the "masses of flowers"; it does not try to get to fancy, focuses its explanation on just that single detail, does not try to connect to larger ideas of the poem. It is just a clean and simple explanation of a detail.)

Again:

D: Because of her tremendous "grief", the widow is unable to experience the "joy" of the season's promise of growth and natural beauty.
E: The loss of her husband seems an overwhelming sorrow too painful to overcome.




Other points to include in your homework of the poems

Idea Sentence:
Who or what is the subject? What is being said about them or it? What does this poem "do"? (Supply best fitting verb.) Introduce idea.....then build towards a more complete AC of the idea introduced in I.

Situation: What is the basic setting? How does it begin? Who is talking? To who? How is the poem structured as a whole?

Analytic Conclusion: Based on a series of D>E that comprises the bulk of the analysis, what can be more completely expressed about the subject from I? What larger implications might come come into play?