Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “I, being born a woman and distressed” or George Elliott Clarke’s “Blank Sonnet.”
In this assignment, you will practice your critical reading skills. This assignment is designed to guide you through the steps of analysis and argument. You will be analyzing either Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “I, being born a woman and distressed” or George Elliott Clarke’s “Blank Sonnet.”
Because this is a structured response, be sure that your essay is structured as follows:
- Begin with a brief paragraph introducing the text you are discussing and the general topic of your essay. End this paragraph with a thesis statement that makes an argument about the meaning of the poem and the reason for the use of the sonnet form.
- Write a paragraph or two to present your close reading of the poem. You are expected to work very closely with the primary text, offering specific examples from the text and clearly articulated readings and interpretations of those examples. Consider any elements of the poem you think contribute to the creation of the poem’s meaning. Keep in mind that this is a relatively short essay, so you may not have time to discuss everything you see in the poem. Focus your discussion on the elements about which you have the most to say and which most clearly reveal the meaning you see in the poem.[unique_solution]
- Write a paragraph or two that move outward from the specific elements you discuss in your close reading to consider the poem as a whole and the poem’s relationship to the traditional sonnet form. Why do you think the poet chose to use a sonnet to discuss this subject? What parts of the traditional sonnet form do they keep? What parts to they play with, manipulate, or completely eliminate? What connection does this manipulation have to the meaning of the poem as revealed by your close reading of the content?
- Conclude with a brief paragraph to wrap up your essay. Restate your thesis in different words and briefly summarize any points you made in your analysis of the content and form.
Prompt:
Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “I, being born a woman and distressed” and George Elliott Clarke’s “Blank Sonnet” both make use of a traditional sonnet form in order to confront challenging topics not typically dealt with in sonnets – gender (in Millay’s poem) and race (in Clarke’s poem). Select one of these two poems and use your close reading skills and knowledge of the sonnet form to construct an essay that provides a close reading of the poem and makes an argument about the connection between the meaning of the poem and the poet’s engagement with the tradition of the sonnet. Your analysis should consider both the content and the form of the poem and follow the structure outlined above.
ENG1121B Winter 2020 Prof. Keeler
Note:
Since we haven’t covered MLA documentation yet, you are not expected to provide a Works Cited page. However, since we have covered how to quote poetry, you are expected to use the information from that lecture to properly quote and provide in text citations.