Textual Analysis

1. Poetry Textual Analysis

2. Please remember that your Textual Analysis NAB overlaps with your study of literature. When you study a literature text you are really analysing it, and whenever you use the SEXY/TCQEL structure to write about a text, you are being analytical. Analysing poetry is very similar to analysing prose and you will use the same formulas as you did for the analysis and evaluation questions in Close Reading.

3. In your NAB you will need to look carefully at the writer’s: word choice: the words the writer deliberately uses structure: the way the writer builds up sentences, or paragraphs, or the whole text imagery: for example simile, metaphor and personification, in which the writer describes something by comparing it to something else, giving you a vivid image or picture in your mind Sound techniques: alliteration, onomatopoeia, enjambment, caesura- which add to the imagery created in the text by reminding you of a sound creating a sound effect and a number of other techniques.

4. FOCUS OF TASK… Just to remind you what these mean in terms of poetry, we’ll examine them by using examples from the poem ‘In the Snack Bar’ by Edwin Morgan. This poem tells a story, and you should be able to understand it fairly easily at first reading.

5. WARNING We will just use this poem to illustrate some techniques. This is not the same thing as studying the poem, and it doesn’t mean that you will end up knowing it well enough to be able to write about it in your exam.

6. A) IMAGERY Similies Metaphors Personification.

7. Imagery Imagery is the term we use whenever a writer creates a picture in language. If the words a writer uses immediately create a picture in your mind, then you’ve just encountered an image. Imagery techniques include simile, metaphor and personification.

8. Similes

9. Simile A simile is a figure of speech in which one thing is compared to another using like or as. This gives a more vivid picture because of the similarity between the two things compared. For example: ‘We go together like Chinese food and chocolate pudding.’ Will Ferrell. ‘That rock on your finger is like a tumour.’ Beyonce and Jay Z ‘Life is like a pipe and I’m a tiny penny, rolling up the walls inside.’ Amy Winehouse.

10. Now try this…. Look at ‘In the Snack Bar’ by Edwin Morgan Look at the simile below taken from the poem. ‘Like a monstrous animal caught in a tent in some story.’

11. What does the simile suggest? This suggests the size of the man, and shows how badly deformed he is as his disability has made him seem animal rather than human. Comparing his gaberdine coat to a tent shows that it seems ill-fitting and looks wrong on him.

12. Another example… Later in the poem, still describing the old man, Morgan notes his: ‘hands like wet leaves’

13. Now try this… What image does this suggest in your mind about the man’s hands? Write your own sentence(s) starting with the following words and trying to use the Just as…so… structure: The simile ‘hands like wet leaves’ compares his hands to wet leaves. Just as wet leaves are… so the man’s hands are being described as…

14. ‘hands like wet leaves’ The simile ‘hands like wet leaves’ compares the old man’s hands to wet leaves. Just as ‘wet leaves’ are… so the old man’s hands are described as being…

15. Now try this… There is another simile near the start of the second verse. Find it, and write your own explanation of it as before. The simile ‘A few yards of floor are like a landscape to be negotiated…’ compares…. Just as…so…

16. Metaphor

17. Learning Intentions To improve our analysis of metaphors and personification To improve our explanations of the imagery created by the above techniques.

18. Metaphor A metaphor is a comparison in which one thing is said to be another thing (not literally, but figuratively). For example: That child is a pain. Her room is a rubbish dump.

19. Metaphors vs Similes You won’t find any metaphors in the poem we were looking at last lesson, but you can find examples of metaphors in almost every poem you have studied/will study. Similes are easy to spot but metaphors are much more difficult. They do not always use the word is. Sometimes we have to ask ourselves if what the writer is saying can be literally true!

20. Example ‘That child is a pain.’ The child is being compared to a pain. Just as a pain is uncomfortable, annoying, sore, unwanted, causes distress so the child is being described as being disruptive, causing annoyance, causing distress, perhaps due to bad behaviour.

21. You are now going to try an example… Success criteria- Stay focused on your task! Identify the subject and the image. Think about the image carefully (picture it in your mind!) Use the Just as…so… structure.

22. Now try this.. ‘Who would be him, gorilla with a nightstick, whose home is a place he might, this time, never get back to?’ The poem is describing a Brooklyn Cop. Identify the metaphor and explain it in the same way that you did for the previous examples. The man/cop is being compared to…. Just as… so…

23. ‘Who would be him, gorilla with a nightstick’ The man/cop is being compared to a __gorilla with a nightstick_____________. Just as __a gorilla with a nightstick_ would be powerful, domineering, large, scary, short-tempered, wild, strong, violent and aggressive____________________________________________________________________________________ So the man/cop is___controlling, strong, well-built, not easy to control, forceful, angry, uncivilised.____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

24. Personification

25. Personification In this figure of speech, an inanimate, non-living, object is written about as if it was a person or a living creature. For example: The wind whistled through the sails. The sun treads a path through the woods.

26. An example from the poem… ‘The dismal hump looming over him forces his head down.’ (lines7-8) Can the hump on his back be pushing and forcing him? Of course not — it is not a living creature. So what is Morgan suggesting by making the lump ‘seem’ alive? Morgan is suggesting the hump seems alive because it looks as though it has deliberately pushed the man out of shape. Just as the human action of forcing someone’s head down suggests strength, power, almost bullying so the humps is being described as having power over the man, and its size and effect on his body/stature/appearance is emphasised.

27. Learning Intentions • To improve our analysis of personification • To improve our explanations of the imagery created by the above technique. • To improve our knowledge of and analysis of the structure of poetry

28. You are now going to try an example… Success criteria- Stay focused on your task! Identify the subject and the image/action. Think about the image/action carefully (picture it in your mind- what feelings/situations create such an action. When a human does it what does that tell you about them? What is the action like in itself?!) Use the Just as…so… structure.

29. Try this… ‘The sun treads a path through the woods.’ Explain the image created by use of personification in the above lines. The image created shows the _____as having the human action of________. Just as __________suggests_________________________________ so______________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________

30. Now try this… ‘I watch him helped on a bus. It shudders off in the rain. ‘ Explain the image created by use of personification in the above lines. Comment on how it helps us to understand the old man’s situation. The image created shows the _____as having the human action of________. Just as __________suggests_________________________________ so______________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________

31. Evaluation of learning • On the post-it note given, evaluate your understanding of how to analyse these techniques by writing the technique and a number beside it from 1-5 ( 1= I’m the bees knees at this!, 5= I still have no idea (sob!) ) • Underneath your evaluation, please write one thing you would like to learn more about in preparation for your NAB.

32. B) Figures of speech which involve SOUND1. Onomatopoeia2. Alliteration

33. Onomatopoeia

34. Onomatopoeia When a word sounds like what it is describing, we call this onomatopoeia. Words like thud, bang, splash, yawn and howl are all examples of this technique. Most onomatopoeic words are to do with either sound or movement. Onomatopoeia is used to make the writing sound more vivid.

35. Now try this… An example of onomatopoeia in the poem is: ‘slithering with a dull clatter’ Look at the quotation above. Which is the onomatopoeic word? In what way does that word’s sound suggest its meaning? Write your own sentence(s) starting: ‘The word (quote it) suggests…’

36. Alliteration

37. Alliteration When letters or sounds are repeated at the beginnings of words we call this alliteration For example: Steve seldom smiled on Sundays. Silently the spider spun its silken strands. (sibilance) Alliteration creates a certain sound that should add meaning or emphasis to what the writer is saying.

38. Now try this Look at the line below from the poem. A cup capsizes along the formica What effect does the alliteration in this line have? Why do you think the writer began his poem this way?

39. C) WORD CHOICE

40. Word Choice Of course all words that a writer uses are chosen in some way. But when we talk about word choice as a technique we mean that certain words are very carefully and deliberately chosen to obtain particular effects.

41. Now try this…. • Answer the following questions about some of the word choice in the poem. • 1 What can we tell about the snack bar from the fact that the old man’s stool is ‘fixed to the floor’? (Line 5) • 2 What effect is created by the writer’s use of ‘dismal’ in line 7? • 3 What effect is created by the writer’s description of the man’s gaberdine coat as ‘stained, beltless’ in line 9? • 4 What effect is created by the writer’s use of the word ‘fumbling’ in line 20?

42. Learning Intentions • To improve our analysis of poetry • To revise and practise imagery: similes and personification to ensure confidence

43. Imagery-similes and metaphors ‘1. ‘and on one remote road about twenty men in white robes going home after prayers. In Cairo they would have been unremarkable, just part of the mob, here they looked magical, their robes seeming much whiter on the night time road, their procession much spookier for its orderliness, like a troop of sorcerers. Identify the simile and analyse the image created by it. Use just as so. (2) • 2. ‘She has a piece of chalk in her right hand. She is waving it around like a dagger as she spews algebra gibberish at a hundred miles an hour.’ • Comment on the writer’s use of language to make the teacher’s behaviour seem threatening. • (4) • 3. ‘That particular part of the corridor, outside Mr Jones’s classroom, was a minefield to the children’ • Comment on the writer’s use of language and what is tells you about the way the children feel about Mr Jones. • (2) • 4.‘In the east, like three women conversing at a cocktail party, are the standing stones of Stenness.’ • What does the writer’s use of language suggest about the stones? • (2)

44. 1. ‘and on one remote road about twenty men in white robes going home after prayers. In Cairo they would have been unremarkable, just part of the mob, here they looked magical, their robes seeming much whiter on the night time road, their procession much spookier for its orderliness, like a troop of sorcerers. Identify the simile and analyse the image created by it. Use just as so. (2) • 2. ‘She has a piece of chalk in her right hand. She is waving it around like a dagger as she spews algebra gibberish at a hundred miles an hour.’ • Comment on the writer’s use of language to make the teacher’s behaviour seem threatening. • (4)

45. 2. ‘She has a piece of chalk in her right hand. She is waving it around like a dagger as she spews algebra gibberish at a hundred miles an hour.’ • Comment on the writer’s use of language to make the teacher’s behaviour seem threatening. • (4) • 3. ‘That particular part of the corridor, outside Mr Jones’s classroom, was a minefield to the children’ • Comment on the writer’s use of language and what is tells you about the way the children feel about Mr Jones. • (2)

46. 3. ‘That particular part of the corridor, outside Mr Jones’s classroom, was a minefield to the children’ • Comment on the writer’s use of language and what is tells you about the way the children feel about Mr Jones. • (2) • 4. ‘In the east, like three women conversing at a cocktail party, are the standing stones of Stenness.’ •  What does the writer’s use of language suggest about the stones? • (2)

47. Learning Intentions • To improve our knowledge of close reading questions and how to answer them correctly • SC. Go over prelim.

48. Learning Intentions • To improve our analysis of poetry • To revise and practise imagery: personification to ensure confidence

49. 1. “And the ice screams. It shrieks. And the voices call to you out of it. And you look into it and you see people. They beckon and wave, and they mock, and you shoot into the ice but they don’t shut up, and the ice wails. It wails all night, all night.” • How does the imagery used by the writer in this paragraph help to convey the man’s sense of panic and distress? (2)

50. 2. ‘in the morning sun, • down to the seafront stalls • where you get drunk • on seagull-screeching smells, • where cockles and mussels • sunbathe in white saucers’ • Was the remembered experience a happy one for the child? Give evidence for your opinion by referring to imagery used. (4)