Poetry Analysis Using TPCASTT

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Lesson 12

• Poetry Analysis Using TPCASTT

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Todays Agenda

• Collect Lesson 11 homework
• TPCASTT What in the world do those letters
  mean?
• Auto Wreck by Karl Shapiro
• Annotate (using TPCASTT)
• Formulate thesis.
• Support with evidence.
• DUE LESSON 13
• OBJECTIVE Critical Analysis of Poem

3
Getting Started

• This is a process to help you organize your
  analysis of poetry.
• Together, we are going to analyze Auto Wreck by
  Karl Shapiro using TPCASTT.
• You have a note sheet that looks like this

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(No Transcript)
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T is for TITLE

• Analyze the title first.
• What do you predict this poem will be about?
• Write down your predictions.
• We will reflect on the title again after we have
  read the poem.
• The next step is often omitted, but it is the
  most important!!!!

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READ THE POEM!!!!
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P is for PARAPHRASE

• YOUR OWN WORDS
• May be three sentences or a page, depending on
  the particular poem

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C is for CONNOTATION
SYMBOLISM
apostrophe

• Analyze the figures of speech and sound effects
  of the poem.
• These are the poetry vocabulary we have already
  studied.
• These elements add to the meaning.

ASSONANCE
alliteration
RHYME
diction
personification
simile
onomatopoeia
metaphor
meter
HYPERBOLE
CONSONANCE
metaphor
REPETITION
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A is for ATTITUDE

• Tone is the attitude of the speaker toward the
  subject of the poem.

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S is for SHIFT

• If there is a change in
• Time
• Tone
• Speaker
• This should always be noted as this will also
  affect the meaning.

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T is for TITLE (again)

• At this time, you should reconsider the title.
• Were you right in your predictions?
• What other meanings might the title have in light
  of your analysis?
• Next, the biggie.

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T is for THEME

• As you already know, theme is the general insight
  into life conveyed by the author through his/her
  work.
• It does not make a judgment.
• example Dont do drugs is not a theme. It
  merely states something that is true to life and
  the human condition.

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How do I find the THEME?

• Look at the other parts of TPCASTT.
• What insight are all of these working together to
  convey?
• What is the poet trying to say about life?

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(No Transcript)
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Auto Wreck by Karl Shapiro
Its quick soft silver bell beating, beating,And
down the dark one ruby flarePulsing out red
light like an artery,The ambulance at top speed
floating downPast beacons and illuminated
clocksWings in a heavy curve, dips down,And
brakes speed, entering the crowd.The doors leap
open, emptying lightStretchers are laid out,
the mangled liftedAnd stowed into the little
hospital.Then the bell, breaking the hush, tolls
once.And the ambulance with its terrible
cargoRocking, slightly rocking, moves away,As
the doors, an afterthought, are closed. We are
deranged, walking among the copsWho sweep glass
and are large and composed.One is still making
notes under the light.One with a bucket douches
ponds of bloodInto the street and gutter.One
hangs lanterns on the wrecks that cling,Empty
husks of locusts, to iron poles.      

• Our throats were tight as tourniquets,Our feet
  were bound with splints, but now,Like
  convalescents intimate and gauche,We speak
  through sickly smiles and warnWith the stubborn
  saw of common sense,The grim joke and the banal
  resolution.The traffic moves around with
  care,But we remain, touching a woundThat opens
  to our richest horror.Already old, the question
  Who shall die?Becomes unspoken Who is
  innocent?For death in war is done by
  handsSuicide has cause and stillbirth,
  logicAnd cancer, simple as a flower,
  blooms.But this invites the occult mind,Cancels
  our physics with a sneer,And spatters all we
  knew of denouementAcross the expedient and
  wicked stones.

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Putting It All Together

• In Auto Wreck by Karl Shapiro, Shapiro uses
  similes and metaphors to emphasize the
  fantasy-like and wild setting of the auto wreck.
  He describes the light as Pulsing out red light
  like an artery, comparing the red light emitted
  from an ambulance to the blood of an artery. The
  idea that a light is spurted out like blood is
  abstract and bizarre. In addition to that simile,
  Shapiro describes the wreckage as Empty husks
  locust-like in the devastation they cause. This
  depiction of the auto wreck is extravagant and
  almost unreal. Using figurative language, Shapiro
  reinforces the theme of death as being bizarre
  and perplexing.