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Poetry Analysis

1. Finding the meaning

a) General meaning: This should be expressed simply in one or at the most
two sentences. It should be based on a reading of the whole poem.
b) Detailed meaning: This should be given stanza by stanza, but you should
not paraphrase the poem. If a poem is not divided into stanza, you should
make some rough attempt in your reading to divide the line into fairly-
contained groups.
c) Writer’s intention: Your interpretation of a poet’s aims is, therefore, largely
your personal matter, but at the time it should never be far-fetched. It is,
however, most important to explain what you have understood a poet’s
purpose to be.

2. Structural devices
a) Contrast: Two completely opposite pictures side by side. Sometimes it is
immediately obvious and sometimes implied.
b) Illustration: The poet’s way to make the (abstract) idea clear in the form of
a vivid picture.
c) Repetition: Repetition single lines or the whole stanza at intervals to
emphasize a particular idea.

3. Sense devices
a) Simile: This is direct comparison and can be recognized by the use of the
words like and as.
b) Metaphor: This is rather like a simile except that the comparison is not
direct but implied: the words like and as are not used.
c) Personification: A figurative speech in which inanimate object or abstract
ideas is endowed with human qualities or action.
d) Hyperbole: A figure of speech in which emphasis in achieved by deliberate
exaggeration.

4. Sound devices
a) Alliteration: The repetition of the same sound at frequent intervals.
b) Onomatopoeia: i.e. in bahasa, small house lizard was named as its sound
(Cicak, bunyinya cek..cek..cek)
c) Rhyme: the same pattern phoneme in the end of each line of a stanza. (a
b a b, c d c d)
d) Assonance:
a. This occurs when a post introduces imperfect rhymes.
b. The close repetition of similar vowel sound, usually in stressed
syllable.
e) Rhythm: The sense of movement attribute to the pattern of stressed and
unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.

5. Imagery: Changing an abstract idea into concrete idea, also called mental
picture. This process will be possessed by someone if a reader is able to
participate cognitively as well as emotionally.
a) Visual fx (sight fx)
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b) Internal sensation (hungry, thirsty, drunken, sick, etc)

c) Tactile/thermal imagery (thouch/feel)
d) Olfactory imagery (smell)
e) Auditory imagery (sound)