Poetry
A helpful website when you need to write a critical analysis essay (for any genre, but this one talks about poetry).http://www.mgccc.edu/learning_lab/writing/poetry/poetry.html
This is another site that deals with writing critical responses. Worth looking at :http://classes.berklee.edu/llanday/resources/criticalresp.html
Finally, this site will take you to an example of a critical analysis essay. Certainly worth looking at - consider it a model.
You should probably read the poem first before you read the essay (link follows the poem).
Home is so Sad by Philip Larkin
Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft
And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.
http://modelessays.acadiau.ca/index.php?p=First+Year+Literary+Analysis+of+a+Poem#
You should probably read the poem first before you read the essay (link follows the poem).
Home is so Sad by Philip Larkin
Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft
And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.
http://modelessays.acadiau.ca/index.php?p=First+Year+Literary+Analysis+of+a+Poem#