Poetry & Prose Analysis
High SchoolClose reading is the discipline of showing how a text's form produces its meaning. This chapter covers the machinery of verse — meter, rhyme, form — and a repeatable method for analysing both poems and passages of prose.
Poetry
- Organised in lines and stanzas.
- Meter and rhythm, often rhyme.
- Compression: image and sound carry meaning.
- The line is the unit; line breaks matter.
Prose
- Continuous sentences and paragraphs.
- Natural speech rhythm; no fixed meter.
- Expansive: diction, syntax, point of view.
- The sentence is the unit; pacing matters.
The elements of verse
- Meter — the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. The unit is the foot. The iamb (da-DUM) is the commonest in English; iambic pentameter is five iambs per line: "shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"
- Common feet — iamb (˘ ´), trochee (´ ˘), anapest (˘ ˘ ´), dactyl (´ ˘ ˘), spondee (´ ´).
- Rhyme scheme — the pattern of line-end rhymes, labelled by letters (ABAB, AABB, ABBA).
- Enjambment — a sentence running over the line break without pause; its opposite is an end-stopped line.
- Caesura — a strong pause within a line.
- Stanza — a grouped set of lines: couplet (2), tercet (3), quatrain (4).
Fixed forms
The sonnet (14 lines of iambic pentameter; Shakespearean = 3 quatrains + a couplet, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, with a volta or turn near the end); the haiku (5–7–5 syllables); blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter); and free verse (no fixed meter or rhyme).
Analysing prose
For prose, attend to diction (word choice), syntax (sentence shape — long and flowing vs. short and clipped), point of view (first person, third-limited, omniscient), tone, and pacing.
The governing principle of close reading is form enacts meaning: the how of a text is part of its what. A poem about breathless excitement written in short, enjambed lines makes the reader rush; the same content in slow, end-stopped couplets would feel calm. When you analyse, always connect a formal feature to an effect — "the enjambment mimics the speaker's tumbling thoughts," not merely "there is enjambment here."
Meter matters because deviation is meaning. Once a poem sets up a regular iambic beat, a sudden reversal — a trochee where an iamb belongs — jolts the ear and lands emphasis exactly where the poet wants it. Shakespeare's "Now is the winter of our discontent" opens on a stressed "Now," breaking the iambic expectation to seize attention. You cannot hear the break unless you first hear the pattern.
(1) Read aloud and note first impressions of tone. (2) Identify form, meter, and rhyme. (3) Mark shifts — a volta, a change of tense, a turn in mood. (4) Examine diction and imagery for patterns. (5) Ask how each formal choice serves the meaning. (6) Synthesise into one interpretive claim the details support. Analysis is always evidence → effect → meaning, never plot summary.
Exercise: scan and analyse a couplet
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:"
Scansion (line 1): ˘ ´ | ˘ ´ | ˘ ´ | ˘ ´ | ˘ ´ — "shall I / compare / thee to / a sum / mer's day." Five iambs = iambic pentameter, the sonnet's regular measure.
Form: the opening of a Shakespearean sonnet; expect three quatrains (ABAB CDCD EFEF) and a closing couplet, with a volta later where the argument turns.
Rhetoric: line 1 is a rhetorical question that sets up a comparison; line 2 begins the answer and immediately rejects the comparison as inadequate ("more lovely … more temperate") — the poem will argue the beloved surpasses summer.
Diction & effect: "temperate" carries both "mild in weather" and "even in temperament," linking the natural and human registers; the metrical smoothness enacts the very evenness the word praises.
Interpretive claim: even in two lines, form and content align — a regular, temperate meter mirrors the "temperate" beloved, and the question-then-correction structure previews the whole poem's move from comparison to transcendence.
Now you try: scan "The woods are lovely, dark, and deep" (Frost). Mark the four iambs, note the caesurae created by the commas, and say how the pauses slow the line to a hush.
How do I scan a line of poetry?
ARead the line aloud naturally and listen for which syllables you stress. Mark stressed syllables (´) and unstressed (˘) above each. Then group them into repeating units (feet) and identify the pattern: a run of ˘´ is iambic, ´˘ trochaic, and so on. Count the feet per line to name the meter (five = pentameter). Do not force every line into perfect regularity — real poems substitute feet for effect, and those deviations are exactly what your analysis should notice.
What is a volta and why does it matter?
AA volta is the "turn" in a sonnet — the point where the argument, mood, or perspective shifts. In an Italian (Petrarchan) sonnet it typically falls at line 9, between the octave and sestet; in a Shakespearean sonnet it often comes at the closing couplet. It matters because it is the poem's hinge: the octave might pose a problem and the sestet resolve it, or the quatrains build a case that the couplet overturns. Locating the volta reveals the poem's structure of thought — how it moves from one idea to another.
What does point of view do in prose?
APoint of view controls what the reader can know and how much they trust it. First person ("I") gives intimacy and bias — we see only what the narrator sees and may be misled by an unreliable narrator. Third-person limited follows one character's inner life closely while keeping some distance. Third-person omniscient sees into all characters and knows everything, offering breadth at the cost of intimacy. Each choice shapes suspense, sympathy, and reliability; analysing a passage means asking why the author granted us exactly this vantage and no other.
How is analysing a poem different from summarising it?
ASummary says what happens; analysis says how and why it means. "The speaker misses a lost love" is summary. Analysis shows the mechanism: how the halting syntax, the funeral imagery, and the shift from present to past tense at the volta together create the sense of loss. The test is whether your sentence points at a technique and its effect. If you could write the same sentence after reading a plot synopsis without the actual words, you are summarising; if it depends on specific language and form, you are analysing.