What the exam asks
On the exam, you are never asked simply to name a speaker; instead, you must analyze how textual details reveal who the speaker or character is, what drives them, and how they see the world.
- Section I (Multiple Choice): Questions ask you to identify what specific lines imply about the speaker’s attitude, perspective, or underlying motive, or to trace how a speaker’s thoughts develop from stanza to stanza.
- Section II, Question 1 (Poetry Analysis): Prompts frequently ask how the poet uses poetic elements and techniques to convey the speaker’s complex perspective on a person, memory, or situation, or to portray a complex relationship between the speaker and another character.
Core ideas
Paraphrasing the literal situation first
Before hunting for deep symbolic meaning, establish what the poem literally says, part by part. Poetic syntax often delays subjects or verbs across lines, so read sentence by sentence (punctuation to punctuation) rather than stopping at the end of every line.
Ask four basic questions as you read:
- Who is speaking, and to whom are they speaking?
- Where and when does the situation take place?
- What literally happens or is being described, section by section?
- How does the speaker react to this situation?
Poet vs. speaker vs. character
A poem is an artistic creation, not a diary entry. Always distinguish between three roles:
- The poet: The real historical author who crafts the lines, meter, and word choices.
- The speaker: The voice or persona inside the poem who utters the words. Even if a poem uses “I” and resembles the poet’s life, treat the speaker as a distinct dramatic persona.
- Characters in the poem: Other figures the speaker describes, remembers, or directly addresses (the auditor or listener).