Poetry: Structure and Argument

This is Unit Nine of Analyzing and Interpreting Literature, part two of two. Part one worked Sonnet twenty-nine whole and left Sonnet seventy-three at the end of its day. This part finishes it, and finishes the poetry band. Part one's governing idea was that structure is the route a poem's thinking takes, and that the exam asks about it more than about form. This part pays it off at a couplet that does not turn at all but draws a consequence, because a couplet can do two things and the difference is examinable. First the fire, the narrowing scale that the poem never states, the parallel openings, the paradox, and that couplet. Then the two sonnets side by side, one scheme and two structures, which is the most useful thing in this unit; a single question for poems of many stanzas; and Donne's Valediction read as a proof. Then the exam's four structure questions, with restatement decided by grammar and inference by restraint. Then four traps. Last, a four-step procedure, the repeated word, the turn as a tone shift, the limit of what structure settles, why the sonnet carries four of ten sample questions, and the close of the poetry band. By the end you will be able to finish Sonnet seventy-three. To read movement rather than label. To answer the four structure questions. To defeat four traps. And to run the procedure and carry the band's tools into prose.

Five entries that finish Sonnet seventy-three: the fire on its ashes, the scale that narrows without saying so, three parallel openings, the paradox in the third quatrain, and a couplet that concludes.

A fire, on its own ashes.

AIL 0826 The Fire

The third quatrain offers the glowing of such fire as lies on the ashes of its youth, as on the death-bed whereon it must expire, consumed with that which it was nourished by. A year, then a day, now the last minutes of a fire; the scale has gone from a year to minutes.

Each image is shorter than the last.

AIL 0827 The Narrowing Scale

Season, day, dying fire. Each image is shorter than the last, so the poem's structure is an accelerating clock. Nothing states that the intervals shrink; the reader assembles it from the three images, which is a structural inference and exactly what the exam rewards; the pattern is never stated.

Three parallel openings, one set.

AIL 0828 "In Me Thou See'st"

The second and third quatrains both open with the phrase in me thou seest, and the first opens with a close variant. Parallel openings mark the three as a set to be compared rather than a sequence to be followed. Unit eight called this parallel grammar; compare them, do not follow them.

Fed by what destroys it.

AIL 0829 "Consumed With That Which It Was Nourished By"

The fire is destroyed by the thing that fed it: wood becomes ash, and the ash smothers the fire. It is a paradox in the glossary's sense, seeming contradictory and resolving on reflection. It is also the poem's strongest claim about living, paradox again and doing real work.

It concludes; it does not reverse.

AIL 0830 The Consequence, Not a Turn

The couplet says that perceiving this makes the beloved's love more strong, to love that well which he must leave before long. It draws a consequence from the three images rather than reversing them. A couplet can conclude as well as turn, and the difference is examinable; here the governing idea pays off.

Five entries on structures compared: the two sonnets side by side, movement against label, one question for a poem of many stanzas, and Donne's Valediction as a chain of images that proves.

Same scheme, different structures.

AIL 0831 Two Sonnets, Two Structures

Sonnet twenty-nine pivots on one word at line nine. Sonnet seventy-three accumulates three parallel images and draws a consequence. Both are Shakespearean by rhyme scheme, so the scheme does not determine the structure. That is the single most useful thing in this unit: the scheme does not fix the movement.

The label gives less than it seems.

AIL 0832 Read the Movement, Not the Label

Knowing a poem is a Shakespearean sonnet does not tell you where it turns or whether it turns. The label gives the rhyme and the line count. The movement has to be read, which is why the marker-hunting procedure matters more than the classification; classification is not structure.

Could the stanzas be reordered.

AIL 0833 Structure Across Stanzas

In a poem of many stanzas, ask what each stanza adds and whether the order could be changed. If it could not, something is developing; if it could, the poem is a set of variations. That single question characterises most multi-stanza structures quickly, and one question sorts the structure.

Each image needs the one before.

AIL 0834 Donne's Valediction as Structure

Donne's poem moves through three images in order: dying men, beaten gold, then twin compasses. Each is more elaborate than the last and the order cannot be reversed, because the compasses depend on the expansion the gold established. That dependency is the structure, and the order cannot be reversed.

Each image performs a step.

AIL 0835 An Argument That Proves

Where Shakespeare's sonnets state and revisit, Donne's poem argues toward a conclusion, each image doing a step of the proof. Unit seven called this the metaphysical manner. Structurally it is a demonstration, and asking what step an image performs is the way into it; ask what step, not what feeling.

Three entries on the exam: the four shapes of structure question, the restatement item decided by tense and mood, and the inference item decided by going no further than the lines.

Shift, contribution, restatement, inference.

AIL 0836 How the Exam Asks About Structure

Four shapes appear: where does the passage shift, what does a given stanza contribute, which option restates a line, and what can be inferred. Sample questions seven, eight and nine are all of this family, worked on one sonnet, which shows how much a single passage can carry.

Restatement must keep the tense.

AIL 0837 The Restatement Question

Sample question eight gives a line and asks which option restates it. Every option is grammatical, so the item is decided by tense and mood rather than by literary judgment. This is unit two's work, and a structure unit needs it because a restatement must preserve the line's place in the argument.

Supported, and no further.

AIL 0838 The Inference Question

An inference question asks what follows from the passage without being stated in it. The answer must be supported by the text and must not go beyond it. Unit one's overstatement trap lives here: the option that infers most is rarely the option the lines support; the boldest inference is usually wrong.

Four entries on the traps: assuming every sonnet turns at nine, the paraphrase that adds a motive, the theme stated as though the poem said it, and answering from the couplet alone.

Nine is usual, not universal.

AIL 0839 Trap: Assuming Every Sonnet Turns at Nine

Line nine is the usual place, not the only one. Shakespearean sonnets sometimes hold the turn to the couplet, and Sonnet seventy-three has no turn to find. A candidate who answers from the convention rather than the page will misread both kinds, since some sonnets do not turn at all.

Reject additions, however reasonable.

AIL 0840 Trap: The Paraphrase That Adds

A restatement option may be accurate and add a claim the line does not make, usually an explanation of motive. Compare the option to the line word by word and reject any addition, however reasonable. Reasonableness is not the standard; correspondence is, and correspondence is what decides the item.

Most likely is a permission to weigh.

AIL 0841 Trap: The Theme Stated as Fact

An option may give a defensible theme in flat terms, as though the poem said it outright. Decision D6 is the guard: a theme is an interpretation. The exam signals this with most likely or best supported, which is a permission to weigh rather than to know; a theme is never stated outright.

The verdict needs its evidence read.

AIL 0842 Trap: Reading the Couplet Alone

A couplet is short, quotable and sounds authoritative, so candidates answer from it and skip the twelve lines that earned it. Where a couplet overreaches, that shortcut produces a wrong answer confidently. Read the development before trusting the verdict; short and final is not the same as true.

Eight entries to close: a four-step procedure, the repeated word, structure and tone as one question, what structure does not settle, the sonnet's weight on the exam, what to carry, and the poetry band complete.

Divisions, markers, repetitions, summary.

AIL 0843 A Procedure for Structure Questions

Mark the stanza divisions, look for a conjunction or tense change at each opening, note any repeated word, then say in one sentence what changed and where. Four steps, all mechanical, and the one-sentence summary is what the options are then compared against; summarise before reading the options.

A repeated word is structural.

AIL 0844 Tracking a Repeated Word

Both worked sonnets turn on a repetition: state in twenty-nine, in me thou seest in seventy-three. A word that appears twice in fourteen lines is doing structural work, because the form is too short to waste one. Circle repetitions on sight, since fourteen lines waste nothing.

A turn is often a tone shift.

AIL 0845 Structure and Tone Together

A turn usually changes the tone as well as the argument, so locating a volta locates a tone shift. Unit four's hinge question and this unit's turn question are frequently the same question in different words, and the same marker answers both; one marker answers both questions.

Where it turned, not what it says.

AIL 0846 What Structure Does Not Settle

Locating a turn tells you where the poem changed direction, not what it now claims. The claim still has to be read from the words. Units six, seven and eight each made this point about their own material, and it holds here as the last of the four; this is the fourth statement of one rule.

Four questions from one sonnet.

AIL 0847 Why the Sonnet Carries So Much

A sonnet is short enough to print whole and complex enough to support four question types at once. That is why the board's calibration set devotes four of its ten questions to a single one. Expect a sonnet, and expect it to be asked about more than once on the paper.

Two schemes, one marker list.

AIL 0848 What to Carry Forward

Carry the two sonnet schemes, the marker list for finding a turn, the habit of circling repetitions, and the warning that a scheme does not fix a structure. Those four handle the structure family without needing any poem to have been read before; none of it needs prior reading.

Four units, the largest band covered.

AIL 0849 The Poetry Band Complete

Four units have covered the exam's largest band: sound and metre, figurative language, form, and structure. Every device question, form question and structural question on the paper is answerable from those four. The remaining poetry work is period orientation, in units seventeen to nineteen; only orientation remains.

Next: who is telling it.

AIL 0850 What the Next Unit Does

Prose carries as much of the exam as poetry does. The next unit begins it with narration and point of view, the glossary term unit five deferred, worked on Austen, Bronte, Conrad and Joyce. The reading procedure is unchanged; the unit of analysis becomes the paragraph, and the paragraph replaces the line.

That is Sonnet seventy-three finished, two structures compared, the exam's questions, the traps, the procedure, and the poetry band complete, with the governing idea paid off at a couplet that concludes. You can finish Sonnet seventy-three with the fire on its ashes, assemble the accelerating clock the poem never states, read in me thou seest as a set to compare, resolve the paradox of a fire fed by what destroys it, and read a couplet that concludes rather than turns. You can say that one scheme yields two structures, read movement rather than label, ask whether stanzas could be reordered, and read Donne's dying men, gold and compasses as steps of a proof. You can name shift, contribution, restatement and inference, decide restatement by tense and mood, and infer no further than the lines. You can refuse the turn assumed at nine, reject the paraphrase that adds, hold a theme as a permission to weigh, and read the development before the verdict. And you can run divisions, markers, repetitions, summary, circle a repeated word, read a turn as a tone shift, keep where apart from what, and expect one sonnet asked about four times. Unit ten begins prose.