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How To Turn Tpcastt Into An Essay

The document provides background information on the Fireside Poets, a group of 19th century American poets including Longfellow, Bryant, Whittier, Holmes, and Lowell. It notes that they were the first American poets to rival British poets in popularity in both countries. The Fireside Poets celebrated virtues of home, family, and democracy in their works and displayed a simple diction and love of freedom. Their poetry spanned the century and included works immortalizing American figures and reflecting on themes of the soul's immortality. They took on political causes like abolition but preferred conventional forms over experimentation and often featured American scenes and legends as subjects.

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1K views

How To Turn Tpcastt Into An Essay

The document provides background information on the Fireside Poets, a group of 19th century American poets including Longfellow, Bryant, Whittier, Holmes, and Lowell. It notes that they were the first American poets to rival British poets in popularity in both countries. The Fireside Poets celebrated virtues of home, family, and democracy in their works and displayed a simple diction and love of freedom. Their poetry spanned the century and included works immortalizing American figures and reflecting on themes of the soul's immortality. They took on political causes like abolition but preferred conventional forms over experimentation and often featured American scenes and legends as subjects.

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© © All Rights Reserved
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How to turn TPCASTT notes into an essay of poetry analysis

Note: The suggested approach here may result in a four-paragraph essay, but it could just as easily result in a five or six
paragraph essay, depending on how the writer chooses to break down the elements that are included.

1. TAG line: Use the authors full name in the introduction, and then use the authors last name for the rest of the
essay. Since you are writing about the same poem and author all the way through, your parentheticals ONLY need
to include the line numbers. Make sure to mention the title (capitalize correctly) and the genre. Give a short
synopsis of the poem, using your notes from the Paraphrase segment. It is also OK to blend in some of your
interpretive remarks from your notes on Connotation. Then, near the end of this opening paragraph, work in your
Thesis statement.
Example:
In section 1 of Song of Myself, Walt Whitman opens his epic by setting a tone of celebration, while, at
the same time, giving his mission statement for the long poem. In the guise of a speaker who is at once the writer
and also a mythic persona, he declares to the reader that he plans to celebrate and sing of his life, but also reveals
that through this poem he will create an intimate relationship with the reader; and the implication is that his
experiences will be those of the reader as well. He invites his inner self, his soul, to join in the dialogue and the
contemplation of life in general, and of nature in particularso this will be an inner journey as well as a lifelong
adventure. In fact, he claims that part of his mission will be to get in touch with nature on a fundamental level,
and without compromise. When he says, I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard/Nature
without check, with original energy he seems to be setting the ground rules for his journey through life. He
intends to learn from traumatic experiences as well as joyful ones, and experience nature and life without any
preconceived notions. Although this is only part one of a very long work, he clearly implies that life must be
experienced without prejudice if one expects to find meaning.

2. Now begin your body paragraphs. I suggest that you write one paragraph dealing with the Connotative elements
you havent already explained in your introduction. Explore each element in depth and develop your ideas
completely.

3. Next, write a paragraph about the Tone, or Attitude of the poem and how it shifts or changes over the course of
the poem.

4. Finally, give a little consideration to the Title and how your impression of it changes from the first reading to the
point where you revisit the title after doing some analysis. Then give your thesis statement in an expanded form
and make a new statement of some kind to finish off the analysis. If you are writing about a single poem, then
come up with a more universal version of the Theme statementsomething that is true on a larger scale than just
within the context of the poem. The purpose of all literature is to help the reader make sense of the experiences of
life, so a universal truth should apply to experiences outside the world of the poem. Explain how the topic/main
idea of the poem relates to the outside world.
After reading poems by the Fireside Poets, write an essay that describes how the
authors style and use of literary devices effect the presentation and meaning of
the poem and addresses the question. Support your discussion with evidence
from the text.
PROMPT: How does the poets stylistic choices (rhyme scheme, figurative
language, literary devices) contribute the overall structure, meaning, and impact
of the poem?
QUOTING ONE LINE OR LESS FROM A POEML: Only include the line number in the parenthetical citation. Be sure to make
clear the author and the poem in your sentence. In Richard Howards Oystering, he writes, Lunch is served (45).

QUOTING BETWEEN ONE AND THREE LINES FROM A POEM: Replace the line breaks with a virgule (a backslash). For a
stanza break, use two virgules. Mary Reufles The Hand opens with the lines, The teacher asks a question. / You know the answer,
you suspect / you are the only one... (1-3).

Unit 2: Literary Nationalism


The Fireside Poets
Some of the best-known poets of this period have been classed he "Fireside
Poets," so named probably because of the congeniality and gentle
persuasiveness of their finest verse. These poets: Longfellow, Bryant,
Whittier, Holmes and Lowell. (same order as picture)
All from New England, they celebrated the virtues of home, family, and democracy. In their best verse, they display a
simple diction, a courageous love of freedom, and a keen eye for natural beauties of heir eastern locale. Writings of the
long-lived Fireside Poets, like these poets own lives, spanned the century. Works such as Snowbound and "The
Chambered Nautilus," which were written after the National Period, have been included in this unit since they reflect
the spirit of the era. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized historical figures such as Miles Standish and Paul Revere
and made the fictional characters Hiawatha and Minnehaha part of the American heritage. His poem "A Psalm of Life," is
an optimistic and quotable acknowledgment of the immortality of the soul.
William Cullen Bryant first wrote this poem when he was about 17, after reading the British "graveyard poets." The
British "graveyard poets" are Romantic writers who wrote poems about the meaning of death. His inspiration came from
poets and poems like Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," Robert Blair's "The Grave," and William
Wordsworth's "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal." John Greenleaf Whittier, like so many of the poets of his time, was
primarily a public rather than a private poet - an orator for the people's interest not a quiet voice speaking to the private
self. Like Lowell, he wrote poems in support of the abolition movement, but his most enduring contribution to American
letters is Snowbound, a reminiscence that captures the people and the rural New England setting of his youth.
In both verse and prose, Oliver Wendell Holmes was often informal. He wrote numerous verses like "The Ballad of the
Oysterman," in which he employed a mock-epic tone, ballad stanzas, and heroic couplets. "I hold it to be a gift of a
certain value," he wrote to Lowell, "to give that slight passing spasm of pleasure which a few ringing couplets often cause,
read at the moment." Yet he abandoned his light tone in "The Chambered Nautilus" as he pondered the soul's immortality.
James Russell Lowell, a man of wit and indignation, championed in essays, speeches, and poems (such as "Stanzas on
Freedom") humanitarian causes, especially the abolition of slavery. His poetry, like that of is Puritan predecessors, was
often moralistic.

Americas First Literary Stars


Who were the Fireside Poets? The Fireside poets (also called the "schoolroom" or "household" poets) were the
first group of American poets to rival British poets in popularity in either country. Today their verse may seem
more Victorian in sensibility than romantic, perhaps overly sentimental or moralizing in tone, but as a group
they are notable for their scholarship, political sensibilities, and the resilience of their lines and themes. (Most
schoolchildren can recite a line or two from "Paul Revere's Ride" or The Song of Hiawatha.)
First group of American poets to rival British poets in popularity in either country.
Notable for their scholarship and the resilience of their lines and themes.
Preferred conventional forms over experimentation.
Often used American legends and scenes of American life as their subject matter.
Lasting Impact
Longfellow remained the most popular American poet for decades. When Poe criticized him, he was all
but ostracized. Longfellow remains the only American poet to be immortalized by a bust in Westminster
Abbeys Poets Corner
They took on causes in their poetry, such as the abolition of slavery, which brought the issues to the
forefront in a palatable way.

Through their scholarship and editorial efforts, they paved the way for later Romantic writers like Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman.

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