Literary Analysis
A sonnet is a fourteen-line lyric poem with a single theme. Each line in a sonnet is usually in iambic pentameter—five
groups of two syllables, each with the accent on the second syllable. Sonnet forms include these:
•The Petrarchan sonnet is divided into an eight-line octave, rhyming abbaabba, followed by a six-line sestet, rhyming
cdecde. Often, the octave poses a problem that is answered in the sestet.
•The Spenserian sonnet rhymes abab bcbc cdcd ee.
In a sonnet sequence, sonnets are linked by theme or person addressed. As you read these sonnets, identify their form and
how they are linked.
Reading Strategy
To better understand what you read, determine the main idea or essential message of literary works or passages. For
instance, you can determine the main idea of a passage of poetry by paraphrasing it, or restating it in your own words. First
read the passage to find a complete thought. Then, separate the essential from the nonessential information, and express
the essential information in your own language. Use a chart like the one shown to help you write a paraphrase.
Literary Analysis
A Shakespearean sonnet has fourteen lines, with five iambic feet to the line (an iambic foot is an unstressed syllable
followed by a stressed one).
Unlike Petrarchan and Spenserian sonnets, a Shakespearean sonnet follows the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg, giving it
this structure:
•three quatrains, or four-line stanzas
•a rhyming couplet that dramatically restates or redefines a theme
As you read, notice Shakespeare’s quatrains and couplets. Also notice how his sentences often continue past lines and
sometimes past quatrains.
Though all Shakespearean sonnets have fourteen rhyming lines, there are no rules about the number or types of sentences.
Shakespeare uses this freedom of syntax, or sentence structure, to create dazzling dramatic effects. By saving his main idea
until the end of one long sentence (lines 13–14), he makes Sonnet 106 build like a lawyer’s statement to a jury.
Reading Strategy
A sonnet’s rhyme scheme, stanzas, and syntax are text structures. You can better understand a sonnet by analyzing its text
structures, noticing how they contribute to the sonnet’s clarity of meaning. For example, each quatrain helps develop the
main problem or argument, which the couplet then dramatically restates or redefines. Use a chart like the one shown to
analyze each sonnet’s pattern of organization.
Literary Analysis
During the late 1500s, Elizabethan drama blossomed. Using models from ancient Greece and Rome, writers reintroduced
tragedies—plays in which disaster befalls a character. Dramatists also began writing their plays in carefully crafted
unrhymed verse, using rich language and vivid imagery.
Because the Globe, like other Elizabethan theaters, had no lighting, plays were performed in broad daylight. There were
also no sets, so the words of the play had to create the illusion of time and place for the audience.
Dramas also used a device called a soliloquy, a long speech usually made by a character who is alone (the Latin solus means
“alone”). This speech reveals thoughts and feelings to the audience but not to other characters. In Shakespeare’s tragedies,
the greatest works of Elizabethan drama, tragic characters reveal secret desires or fears through their soliloquies.
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/Tillyard01.html
Reading Strategy
Like many dramas, Shakespeare’s plays were meant to be performed, not read. By analyzing information from text
features like introductory background notes, stage directions in brackets, illustrations, and footnotes on the side of the text,
you can picture the action in your mind. You can also better understand the meaning and tone of the characters’ words.
Use a chart like the one shown to analyze information from text features and clarify the meaning of passages.
Literary Analysis
Works in the pastoral tradition, in poetry or prose, celebrate the pleasures of country life. This tradition, dating back to
ancient Greece, was developed by skilled authors writing for an urban audience. These conventions of the pastoral allowed
city dwellers to imagine a carefree country life:
•shepherds addressing or describing a beloved shepherdess
•a natural setting that seems perfect in every respect
•simple pleasures and games, including singing contests
Reading Strategy
When reading related poems, analyze similar themes in the poems by comparing and contrasting patterns of organization
and repetition. For example, Marlowe’s and Raleigh’s poems express different views of pastoral by means of similar
patterns of organization. Use a chart like the one shown to contrast their different treatments of the pastoral theme. Blank
verse—unrhymed iambic pentameter—was invented during the English Renaissance to reflect natural speech. An iamb
consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (ˇ ´). In iambic pentameter, there are five such feet (units)
to the line. Hamlet is written mainly in blank verse, as follows:
The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold” (I,iv,1)
For interest, Shakespeare varies his meter, as when he begins this line with a trochaic foot (´ ˘): “List’ning their fear, I could
not say ‘Amen’” (II, ii, 28). Another variation is the anapestic foot (ˇ ˘ ´). As you read, listen for the rhythm as well as the
meaning of the dialogue.
Literary Analysis
Shakespeare sometimes interrupts his blank verse with prose, which is writing that is not divided into poetic lines and lacks
a definite rhythm. (By contrast with Shakespeare’s work, most modern plays are written entirely in prose.) In his tragedies,
lower-ranking characters often speak in prose to provide comic relief, a humorous break from a tense mood.
A key pattern of organization in Shakespeare’s blank verse is the way in which sentences and blank verse lines interact. By
analyzing that interaction, you can better understand how Shakespeare achieves clarity of meaning. In making your
analysis, follow sentences past line endings. For instance, you must follow this sentence past the end of the line to learn
what the owl does:
“It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern’st good-night. . . .” (II, ii, 3–4).
Literary Analysis
Conflict—the struggle between two forces—is what creates drama.
•An external conflict is a struggle between two characters or groups.
•An internal conflict is a struggle within a character.
The climax of a play is the point at which the internal and external conflicts are greatest. The action rises to the climax—
the moment of highest tension—and then falls as the conflicts are resolved.
In Act III of Macbeth, notice how the rising action leads the new king to a state dinner and the sight of a guest—a guest
who should not be there!
In connection with that dinner, Macbeth makes this critical remark to Banquo in Act III, Scene i, line 27: “Fail not our
feast.”This invitation is an example of dramatic irony, a device that playwrights use to heighten conflict. Dramatic irony
occurs when the words or actions of a character take on a meaning for the audience or readers different from the one the
character intends.
Observe how Macbeth’s remark takes on dramatic irony as events unfold, and becomes a different kind of invitation,
answered by a different kind of guest.
Reading Strategy
Connecting different passages in a text will also enable you to identify cause-and-effect relationships—to show, for
example, how an earlier event or remark (cause) leads to a later one (effect). The Ghost's appearance may be a cause that
has many effects in Act II and III.
Literary Analysis
The Bible conveys themes of faith in a few genres, including these:
•Psalms—sacred songs or lyric poems in praise of God.
•Sermons—speeches offering religious or moral instruction. The Sermon on the Mount contains the basic teachings of
Christianity.
•Parables—simple stories from which a moral or religious lesson can be drawn. The most famous are in the New
Testament.
Literary Analysis
Imagery is the language that writers use to re-create sensory experiences and stir emotions. It is what helps you see, hear,
feel, smell, and taste, rather than just read or listen to words. Shakespeare uses imagery to pack sensory experiences and
strong emotions into almost every line. Further, he creates these patterns of images that run through the whole play:
•Blood
•Ill-fitting clothes
•Babies and children, sometimes killed by Macbeth and sometimes threatening him
These images reinforce important themes in the play. The last group of images suggests that Macbeth is in some way
warring against the future, which babies and children represent. As you read, link patterns of images to the play’s central
ideas.
Some images are powerful because they are archetypal—they relate to ideas and emotions expressed by people in many
cultures. In Act IV, for example, images of banishment from an ideal world—shrieking, groaning, and bleeding—indicate
that Macbeth’s Scotland resembles an underworld region where the dead are punished. Look for such archetypal images as
you read.
Literary Analysis
Shakespearean tragedy usually contains these elements:
•A central character of high rank and personal quality, yet with a tragic flaw or weakness
•Causally related events that lead this character to disaster, at least partly through his or her flaw
•An experience of pity, fear, and awe for the audience
•Lively action that creates a vivid spectacle and the use of comic scenes to temper and offset the mood of sadness
All of the elements except the last are common to both Shakespearean and Greek tragedy. As you read, look for the
elements of Shakespearean tragedy in this act and recall their appearance in previous acts.
Reading a Shakespearean tragedy is often uplifting despite the disasters that befall the hero. This positive experience
results from the tragic impulse, which shows the tragic hero acting nobly.
Dramatic Characters

Round, dynamic, developing, and growing (Hamlet)

Flat, static, fixed, and unchanging (Polonius)

Realistic v. Nonrealistic characters

Stereotype or stock characters
 Stock Renaissance characters: The stubborn father, romantic hero and heroine, clever male servant, saucy
maidservant, braggart soldier, bumpkin, trickster, victim, insensitive husband, shrewish wife, lusty youth...

Ancillary Characters

Foil - Laertes and Fortinbras are foils

Choric figure - Horatio (also called raisonneur or commentator)

Symbolic
General Study Guide – Terms to know and own!
Poetry Terms
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Alliteration
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Assonance
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Caesura
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Litotes
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Elegy
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Epic
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Rhyme and Meter
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Psalm
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Sermon
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Parable
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Pastoral
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Lyric
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Sonnet
 Petrarchan (Italian)
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Shakespearean
(Elizabethan)
Spenserian
Literary Terms
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Theme
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Allusion
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Archetype
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Metaphor
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Simile
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Imagery
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Personification
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Irony
 Verbal
 Situational
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o
o
o
Dramatic
Characterization
Symbolism
Theme
Dramatic Elements
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Dialogue
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Monologue
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Soliloquy
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Aside
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Stage Directions
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Tragedy
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Freytag Pyramid
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Choric Figure