Name: _______________________
Ms. Harvey
AP Literature & Composition
Date: _______________
Writing the Poetry Analysis 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 should also integrate brief quotations to
convey the author’s sense of style and tone.
Format:
*Nothing else on the précis page other than the information stipulated here.
1. Name of poet, genre and title of work (date and additional publication information 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?
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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:
Penelope by Dorothy Parker
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, 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.
Example of Poetry Précis for “The School Children” by Louise Gluck:
The School Children by Louise Gluck
The children go forward with their little satchels.
And all morning the mothers have labored
to gather the late apples, red and gold,
like words of another language.
And on the other shore
are those who wait behind great desks
to receive these offerings.
How orderly they are--the nails
on which the children hang
their overcoats of blue or yellow wool.
And the teachers shall instruct them in silence
and the mothers shall scour the orchards for a
way out,
drawing to themselves the gray limbs of the
fruit trees
bearing so little ammunition.
Example #1:
In her poem “The Schoolchildren,” Louise Gluck implies that there is an ever-present and ongoing struggle
as a mother detaches herself from her children by sending them to school. She develops this predicament by first
labeling the children in the title of the poem, second, by referring directly to mothers who have “labored” or
struggled, third, by using a simile which compares apples to another language, suggesting they are going to a
foreign nation, fourth, by creating a magnanimous images of teachers waiting behind “great desks to receive [these]
offerings, fifth, by creating a parallel between the roles of teachers and mothers, and finally, by emphasizing the
emotions of the mothers in the absence of their children as the mothers “draw themselves [to] the grey limbs. .
.bearing so little ammunition”. The structure follow the steps in a battle: in stanza one the mothers reluctantly let
go of their children; in stanza two “on the other shore” teachers wait for the children; in stanza three the teachers
retain the children; in stanza four the teachers “instruct” victory in silence while the mothers “bear so little
ammunition”. The speaker’s tone remains relatively objective throughout, but he or she seems to sympathize with
the mothers.
Example #2:
In the poem “The School Children” Louise Gluck illuminates that the stereotypical “first day of school”
scene is a day that brings feelings of sickening worry and dread for all mothers, feelings that are brought on by a
sense of helplessness as the mothers are forced (by society) to release their children into what they know is a
dangerous world as well as a sense of abandonment fearing that their children will forget them with all new
wonders, that their maternal bond of inextinguishable love will go unrecognized and forgotten for what may be
years to come. She reveals this common truth by first referring only to the “school children” in the title of the poem
leaving the reader to discover that the poem is in fact not about the children but, surprisingly, about the feelings of
their mothers; second by using “shore” to symbolize the school to emphasize that they are sending their children to
a strange world far from home, almost as if they are sending the little tykes off to war; third by employing
enjambment in the third stanza when “the nails/ on which the children hang” allude to the biblical crucifixion which
is also a representation of the death of each of each child’s innocence; and finally by describing the mothers
metaphorically hugging the barren fruit trees to relieve the aching emptiness the growing children left in the wake
of their march (towards doom in the mothers’ eyes). As for the structure of the poem, the first stanza describes the
mothers busily preparing for their child’s first day of school, the second stanza describes them resignedly watching
their children leave as they are sent off, the third stanza offers what the mothers are imagining their children to be
doing with a deep undertone of pessimism, and the fourth reveals their aching loneliness as they attempt to “let go”.
The speaker of the poem is rather a collective voice that represents the general feelings of all mothers. The tone of
the maternal voice begins as one of remorse for releasing their children into a world of corruption, but slowly that
tone descends into one of despair with the knowledge that they cannot control what influences their children, a
recognition that seems to cause them much inner turmoil.