How to Write a Romantic Poetry Paper for College

If you find yourself in a poetry class, or literature class studying poetry you will almost doubtlessly be called upon to write an analysis of the poem. An analysis is different from the way in which you might normally take a test on a poem; the paper isn't there to examine such things as rhyme scheme, meter, alliteration and the like. A genuine analysis of poetry will look for the meaning of the poem. Depending on what kind of analysis you are expected to given, this meaning you go in search of may be what the poet himself is alleged to have meant, or your own interpretation. Most contemporary literary criticism avoids looking for any authorial intent, considering such an enterprise to be an exercise in futility. After all, how can you really ever truly know what an author intended if he even doesn't know? The intent he had may have been usurped by subconscious motivations beyond his understanding. In addition, time has a unique way of subverting the reading of authorial intention. So, more than likely, you will be engaging in a search for your own interpretation.

To give a couple of example of how you might approach the daunting task of analyzing poetry that may-indeed, quite probably will-seem almost unintelligble, I'll analyze two poems by the great (greatest?) Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. If you are an English major and you are still reading at this point, it's probably just to see what I'll have to say. This guide is directed more towards the non-English majors who will either choose a literature class for an elective or else have one thrust upon them as a freshman or sophomore. Since you stand a terrific chance of having to write a paper on Romantic poetry more than any other poetic genre, I have chosen to focus on this particular Romantic poet. Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a poet that will amost certainly be on your reading list. The first poem of Coleridge's I will analyze will be "France: An Ode" and the second will be "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison."

France: An Ode