AP Literature: Cogswell / Solano
Poetry Series: Précis and Response
Part One: The Précis
Definition:
The poetic précis is a highly structured four sentence paragraph that records the essential elements of a poem, including the name of the
poet, the context of the delivery, the theme or meaning of the poem, the stylistic elements of development, the overall structure, the
identity of the speaker and his or her attitude towards the subject of the poem. Each of the four sentences requires specific information;
students are also encouraged to integrate brief quotations to convey the author’s sense of style and tone.
The voice used in a précis is an academic voice. There should be no personal pronouns (no 1 st person narrative. You should disappear as a
narrator). Language is all standard English, and the tense for poetry analysis is always present tense. (The poem is still in existence, even
if the poet is deceased)
Format:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Name of poet, genre and title of work (date and additional publication information may be in parenthesis); a rhetorically accurate verb
(such as implies, reveals, illuminates, etc.) and a THAT clause containing the theme (meaning) of the poem. Identifying the theme
involves taking everything into account and drawing a conclusion regarding the overall meaning of the poem. Consider: What idea
about life or experience has the poem articulated? What is relevant to the human experience that this poem offers?
An explanation of how the poet develops the theme. This sentence should address elements of style and poetic devices (for example,
figurative language, imagery, sound devices, allusion etc.), listed in chronological order, moving progressively through the poem. Be
sure to consider the title of the poem in your analysis.
A statement that identifies the overall structure of the poem. This may be identified through shifts in subject and/or tone, stanza-form,
and sometimes (as in the case of a sonnet, for example) a prescribed rhyme pattern.
A description of the speaker of the poem and the attitude the speaker has towards his or her subject. This may include an explanation
of the tone progression. Poems rarely sound a single note and acknowledging the complexity of tone is indicative of “a mind at
work”.
Example of Poetry Précis for “Penelope” by Dorothy Parker:
Dorothy Parker, in her poem “Penelope” suggests that the archetypal role of women has not changed throughout time
and that what is valued in society are the heroic “manly” feats rather than the trying and tedious “womanly” tasks. She
develops this idea by first alluding to Odysseus’s wife Penelope from The Odyssey in the title of the poem; second, by
personifying the sun and the breeze that lead her husband on his journey; third, by describing a glorious image of him as he
metaphorically “ride[s] the silver seas” and “cut[s] the glittering wave”; fourth by contrasting the image of him on his journey
with her daily tasks and alluding to Penelope’s long wait during Odysseus’s twenty years away when she was forced to allow
suitors in her house and delayed accepting any of them in marriage by weaving and unweaving his father’s funeral shroud;
fifth, by using the symbolic bleaching of the linens of her bed as a reference to her chastity; and lastly, by stating that “they
will call him brave”. The structure of the poem can be classified as a description of her husband’s adventures in stanza one, a
description of her daily activities in the first four lines of stanza two, and a shift back to him in the last line that implies they
(not she), will call him (not her) brave. Although the speaker of the poem, the wife who has been left behind, seems admiring
of her husband’s feats in the first stanza, the description of her daily duties suggests that she is dissatisfied with her position,
but the definitive connotation of “he shall” “I shall” and “they will” suggests that she is resigned to the fact that it will not
change.
Penelope
In the pathway of the sun,
In the footsteps of the breeze,
Where the world and sky are one,
He shall ride the silver seas,
He shall cut the glittering wave.
I shall sit at home and rock;
Rise, to heed a neighbor’s knock;
Brew my tea, and snip my thread;
Bleach the linen for my bed.
They will call him brave.
Dorothy Parker
Poem précis will be graded for format, accuracy, and insight into the poem.
Part Two: The Personal Response
This portion of your poetry assignment is a personal response and should be a typed half page or so, in which you discuss your
personal observations, questions, connections to your own life, connections to the world around us or current events, favorite
lines, and so on.
Be sure to refer directly back to the poem where appropriate, with specific detail.
In this section, you should use your personal voice (1st person, personal pronouns used), but without slang, text -speak or textspelling, or addressing the reader personally, i.e., “Hey Mrs. Cogswell/Solano, why did you assign this poem to us?”
Personal responses will be graded for thoughtful reflection on the poem and clarity of writing and expression.
Poem List
(Read ALL of the poems and then select a different poem to address for each deadline. All poems are in Sound and Sense.
Please double-space your papers)
Brooks, “We Real Cool”
Reed, “Naming of Parts”
Shelley, “Ozymandias”
Yeats, “The Wild Swans at Coole”
Auden, “The Unknown Citizen”
Donne, “Batter my heart, three- personed God”
MacLeish, “Ars Poetica”
Rich, “Living in Sin”
Sexton, “Her Kind”
Plath, “Mad Girl’s Love Song”
Due Dates: (all Thursdays)
September 20, 2012
October 11, 2012
October 18, 2012
November 8, 2012
December 6, 2012
(Précis explanation and example adapted from Stout: www1.nsd131.org
Giovanni, “Nikki-Rosa”
Ortiz, “Speaking”
Pope, “Sound and Sense”
Tennyson, “Crossing the Bar”
Berry, “On Reading Poems to a Senior Class…”
Browning, “My Last Duchess”
Collins, “The Story We Know”
Hughes, “Thistles”
Piercy, “Work of Artifice”
Oliver, “The Summer Day”