Emily Dickinson’s Poems

Essay 1: English 201 Fall 2020  Due date: Wednesday, September 30, 2020             In your three-page essay on three Emily Dickinson poems from the collection, Final Harvest, the assignment is to do an explication of three poems: one poem on death, one on love and one on nature. One poem must be at least four stanzas; one poem may be two-three stanzas; and, one can be very short. You need to analyze the meaning of each poem, quote from one or-two lines of each poem and provides a detailed interpretation of each stanza; the section included at the end of this assignement explains how to approach the explication by looking at the “large issues.”             For this essay, your scholarly source is the introduction to Final Harvest by Thomas Johnson. You must quote at least once from Johnson’s introduction and make it relevant to the topic of one of the poems.             You must include in-text citations for each quotation and a work cited section at the end of the essay. Your essay will be graded on all of the following: 1.    Topic development 2.    Introduction & Conclusion 3.    Examples: Quotations & Paraphrase 4.    Use of Critical Sources 5.    Formatting: Typed Double spaced  12-point font, 1-inch margins, uniform paragraph indents; double spacing 6.    Syntax 7.    Grammar 8.    Use of punctuation 9.    Citations: A Works Cited section at the end of the essay and the correct use of in-text citations in your essay 10. Proof reading evidence: this includes the spelling of proper names correctly               Choose poems that we did not discuss in class, specifically the ones I explicated: “Wild Nights” and “Because I Could Not Stop for Death.”                No titles are necessary. Also refer to the poet as “Dickinson” after you use her full name in the introduction—never as “Emily.”               Do NOT use other sources. I want your ideas on the explication of each poem.               At the end of your essay, list in MLA format, the poetry book and the introduction as the sources you used in the essay. If you need help getting started or proofreading your paper, sign up for an English tutor in the 5th floor at 199 Chambers, BMCC’s main building. This essay is due at the start of class on Wednesday September 30, 2020 The following was prepared by the Writing Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and copied and edited from its website: An explication is a close reading of a single poem or passage of poetry. The purpose of this exercise—originally a staple of French literary training from secondary school onward—is to [write] about the meaning(s) of the poem primarily in terms of how the poem works. Determine the basic design of the poem by considering the who, what, when, where, and why [and how] of the dramatic situation. The following is a list I have edited for you to consider when writing your essay. What is being dramatized? What themes does the poem present, address, or question? Who is the speaker? Define and describe the speaker and her voice. What does the speaker say? Who is the audience? Are other characters involved? What happens in the poem? What do you think is the poet’s state of mind?