How to Analyse a Poem (WJEC Eduqas GCSE English Literature): Revision Note

What does it mean to analyse a poem?

Analysing a poem means explaining what the poem means and how the poet creates that meaning. The poet’s methods are the choices the poet makes about language, form and structure.

Good poem analysis connects the two. Every time you point out a method, explain what that method adds to the poem’s meaning.

Why does poetry analysis matter in GCSE English Literature?

Poetry analysis is a core skill in your WJEC Eduqas GCSE English Literature exam, for three reasons:

• Poetry appears as both anthology poems and unseen poems, so you’ll use this skill more than once

• The same method works for any poem, so you don’t need a different approach for each one

• It builds the close reading that you also need for your plays and novels

This is the kind of poem analysis GCSE examiners look for: a clear idea about the poem, supported by close comments on the poet’s methods.

How to analyse a poem step by step

Here is how to analyse a poem in six steps. The steps work in this order because it’s much easier to explain a method once you know what the poem is about.

• Read the poem once for meaning, and sum up in one sentence what happens in the poem

• Work out who the speaker is, who they’re talking to and what situation they’re in

• Pick out the key images and word choices, and note what each one suggests. You can annotate directly on the poem for this step

• Look at the form, including the type of poem, the length of the lines and stanzas, and any rhyme

• Look at the structure, including where the poem changes in tone or focus, what is repeated and how the poem ends

• Decide on the poet’s big idea, and link that idea to the question you’ve been asked

If you’re unsure what to look for when analysing a poem, steps 2 to 5 give you a checklist of the speaker, the language, the form and the structure.

How to work out the speaker and voice

The speaker isn’t always the poet, so call the voice of the poem “the speaker” in your essays. For example, in ‘Remains’, Armitage’s speaker is a soldier who describes how a looter “legs it up the road”. The casual slang makes the poem sound like a story told to friends. When the speaker says “End of story, except not really”, the casual voice starts to break down, which shows that he can’t move on from the killing.

How do you work out what a poem means?

Start with the title, the ending and any shift, because poets often put the most important idea in one of these places. For example, the title ‘Blackberry Picking’ sounds like a happy summer memory. However, Heaney ends with the line “Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not.” The ending suggests the poem is about disappointment, and how hard it is for a child to accept that the things you love won’t last.

How to analyse form and structure in poetry

You don’t need to name a metre to write well about form and structure. Notice the shape of the poem, such as a line that is much shorter than the others, rhyme that breaks its pattern, or a volta.

For example, Barrett Browning writes ‘Sonnet 29’ in the traditional sonnet form, which often turns partway through. Her speaker first describes her thoughts growing around her lover “as wild vines, about a tree”. The poem then turns with the word “Yet”, when the speaker calls for her lover to be with her in person.

Enjambment can hold back a key word. In ‘Blackberry Picking’, Heaney writes that the first berry leaves “stains upon the tongue and lust for / Picking.” The line break makes you pause on “lust for” before “Picking” arrives, so the children’s desire sounds greedy before you find out what it’s for.

What is the SMILE method for poetry analysis?

SMILE poem analysis uses an acronym to remind you what to look for. One common version is Structure, Meaning, Imagery, Language and Effect.

SMILE is useful for annotating, because it helps you check that you’ve noticed each type of method. However, writing one paragraph for each letter separates the poem’s meaning from its methods, so plan your paragraphs around your ideas about the poem, not around any fixed writing frame.

Analysing a poem you’ve studied and an unseen poem

The six steps work for both. With an anthology poem, you already know what the poem means, so spend more time on its methods. With an unseen poem, follow the steps in order, and expect your first reading to change as you read more closely.

What does a poem analysis look like?

Here is the six-step method applied to ‘Drummer Hodge’ by Thomas Hardy.

First-read notes

• Meaning: a young drummer from his “Wessex home” is thrown into a grave far from England, “Uncoffined — just as found”

• Speaker: the speaker never names himself, and describes the burial in a flat, detached tone, as in “They throw in Drummer Hodge”

• Language: foreign words such as “kopje-crest”, “veldt” and “Karoo” show how strange the land is to Hodge

• Structure: every stanza ends on the stars, and the final stanza turns on “Yet”

• Big idea: Hodge “never knew” this land, yet he will be part of it “for ever”

A strong analytical paragraph

Hardy presents Hodge’s death as something that leaves him lost in a world he doesn’t understand. In the first stanza, Hodge is thrown into the ground “Uncoffined — just as found”, as if even his burial has been rushed and has lost its dignity. Hodge “never knew” this land, yet he will be “portion of that unknown plain” for ever, which is a paradox. The paradox suggests the land he never understood is now the only home he will ever have. Structurally, every stanza ends on the night sky, from “foreign constellations” to “Strange stars amid the gloam” to “His stars eternally”. This repeated ending suggests Hodge is trapped under a sky that will never feel like home, because even the stars that become “His stars” are “strange-eyed”.

How to write about the effect of a poetic technique

The effect of a technique is what the technique makes the reader think or feel. A strong comment on effect also links that effect to the poem’s meaning, so the examiner can see why the technique is significant.

What are the common mistakes when analysing a poem?

• Retelling the poem line by line: a summary leaves no room to analyse the poet’s methods, so it earns few marks

• Technique spotting: naming a technique without explaining its effect earns very little credit, because the WJEC Eduqas mark scheme rewards “meanings and effects”

• Ignoring form and structure: writing only about language means you miss two of the three types of method you’re able to analyse

• Guessing about the poet’s life: inventing a link to the poet’s biography wastes time and can lead you to misread the poem

• Missing the shift: describing only the mood of the opening leaves your interpretation incomplete, and it may contradict the ending

Analysing poems in your WJEC Eduqas GCSE English Literature exam

WJEC Eduqas assesses your poem analysis mainly through AO1 and AO2. AO1 asks you to “use textual references, including quotations, to support and illustrate interpretations”. AO2 asks you to “analyse the language, form and structure used by a writer to create meanings and effects, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate”.

The two poetry sections are on different components:

The anthology questions also assess context (AO3). The unseen poetry questions don’t, so spend your time there on the poems’ meaning and methods. In the comparison question (25 marks), you compare what the two poems are about and how they are organised, the ideas the poets may have wanted us to think about, the poets’ choice of words, phrases and images, and how you respond to them.