Blog #2: AP English Literature Benchmark Poetry Essay & Reflection/Revision & Reflection

    In the poem, For That He Looked Not upon Her by George Gascoigne, the narrator expresses his conflicted emotions when approached by a new potential lover. Gascoinge employs a metaphor in his poem to illustrate the thoughts that are racing through the narrator's mind as he struggles to get over his past experiences. The poet also uses rhyming schemes to portray the narrator's emotions.

    From lines 5-8, George Gascoinge compares the speaker's experience with a woman to a mouse wary of bait on mousetraps. He describes the mouse, having previously escaped a trap before, to be "still in doubt of deep deceit." The metaphor parallels what the narrator has probably experienced with his past lovers. The narrator likely had his heart broken in the past because of what a woman did to him. Thus, like the mouse, the speaker is now wary of any new love in his life, fearing that the past may repeat itself. By using this metaphor, Gascoinge shows how the narrator's conflict is completely natural, as even mice can experience the same emotions. By giving this subtle information about the speaker, Gascoinge allows the reader to understand the narrator's perspective and have some empathy toward him.

    Gacoinge also demonstrates the speaker's complex attitude through his rhyming scheme. In general, the poem is organized into groups of 4 lines where every other line rhymes. For example, lines 1 and 3 rhyme with strange and range, and lines 2 and 4 rhyme with low and grow. There are, however, two exceptions to this pattern. Lines 6 and 8 form an imperfect rhyme, with bait and deceit. The difference in these lines demonstrates how the narrator feels as these lines occur. Lines 6 and 8 both make up part of the mouse metaphor. By having a dissonance in his rhyming pattern, Gacoinge indicates that the speaker is conflicted himself. He recognizes the harmony that this new woman brings to his life, but his past experiences force a conflict inside. This is a subtle detail that Gacoinge uses to hint at what the speaker's attitude is.

    The exception to the rhyming pattern of the poem are the last 2 lines. These lines rhyme perfectly with each other, instead of continuing the every other line pattern from before. This may indicate that the narrator has set aside his qualms about the past and is willing to accept his new love interest, as she brings harmony to his life. These lines are also indented, which may further show that they are disconnected from the rest of the poem, disconnected from what has happened in the past. The narrator, it seems, is ready to move on to the  next step in his life.

    In just a 14 line poem, George Gascoigne is able to tell an intriguing love story. Through the use of purposeful rhyming and a descriptive metaphor, the reader is able to get a perspective on the narrator's emotions.

Reflection:
The poem For That He Looked Not upon Her by George Gascoingne was my first experience with analysing a poem. In this poem, Gascoingne describes a man who is skeptical of a woman’s love after his past experiences. Personally, I felt that I was able to understand most of what Gascoingne was trying to convey. For me the most learning resulted from deconstructing the metaphors between animals and the speakers struggles with love. Initially, I was a bit concerned about how I could handle the abstract language that many poems contain. Afterwards however, I was more confident in my ability to perform on the poetry essay. I believe, in general my essay contained a solid argument for my interpretation of the poem. It may not have contained the technical terms such as “ABAB rhyming scheme”, but I feel like I did understand the passage and did a decent job analysing it. I gave specific examples from the poem such as “still in doubt of deep deceit” that helped strengthen my essay. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but I think my first attempt at a poetry essay was quite good and deserves the score of a 6.

Comments:
This essay contains effective points on diction and imagery, and uses direct quotes from the poem to support its argument. The essay also attempts to make a connection between the quotes and  the speakers attitude that "regret is the only feeling when your love, your significant other is no longer with you." This connection, although apparent, is not fully brought to life as the essay does not delve deeper into how the poem's diction or imagery demonstrates the attitude of the speaker. Overall, this essay contains the right content to reach an upper level score, but ultimately fails to consider the nuances of Gascoigne's poem. A few small edits would increase this essay's score, but a mostly superficial analysis earns this essay the score of a 5. 

http://patelyashapenglish2016.blogspot.com/

This essay does well to discuss the imagery and figurative language of George Gascoigne's essay. The three points that the essay makes are each valid and are supported by evidence from the poem. However, none of the three points are explained sufficiently to reach the point of a high level essay. The analysis is rather barren and superficial. With some more explanation of the points, this essay would have been pretty solid. That said, the lack of adequate analysis brings down the score to a 4. Potentially shortening it to 2 body paragraphs may have helped the writer better explain his ideas. In general, this essay is not a bad start.

http://tongnoahapliterature2015.blogspot.com/

REVISED DRAFT:


In For That He Looked Not upon Her, George Gascoigne admits his weariness to commit to a new love. Gascoigne illustrates the speaker's conflicted emotions to reveal the forces that are pushing him both towards and away from a new lover. By utilizing specific metaphors of a mouse and a fly, as well as an imperfect Shakespearean sonnet rhyming scheme, Gascoigne crafts his poem to demonstrate the speaker's hesitance to commit to love after his brutal experiences in the past.  
In lines 5-8, Gascoinge compares the speaker's experience with a new woman to a mouse wary of bait on mousetraps. He describes the mouse, having previously escaped a trap before, to be "still in doubt of deep deceit." The metaphor parallels what the speaker has experienced with past lovers. He likely had his heart broken by the pain that a woman inflicted upon him. A similar metaphor is employed in lines 9-10, describing a fly that "once hath 'scaped the flame." Again, much like the mouse, this fly will tend to avoid the thing that had come close to taking its life. Thus, like the mouse and the fly, the speaker is now wary of any new love in his life, fearing that the past may repeat itself. By using this metaphor, Gascoinge shows how the speaker's conflict is completely natural, as even simple animals such as mice and flies can experience the same misgivings. By giving this subtle information about the speaker, Gascoinge allows the reader to understand the speaker's perspective and have some empathy toward him.
   Gascoigne also demonstrates the speaker's complex attitude through the sonnet form of his poem. However, Gascoigne alters the traditional Shakespearean sonnet form by crafting an imperfect rhyme between lines 6 and 8. These lines, ending with "bait" and "deceit", depicts the speaker's feelings during this part of the poem. The imperfect rhyme in the mouse metaphor hints to the reader the discord the speaker is feeling.  He recognizes the harmony that this new woman brings to his life, but like the mouse, his past experiences force a conflict inside. The imperfect rhyme is subtle sign of the speaker's complex emotions.
   The rhyming couplet at the end of the sonnet reveal the speaker's intentions for the future after his emotions have battled between themselves. In contrast to the imperfect rhyme in lines 6 and 8, these lines rhyme perfectly with each other,indicating that the speaker has set aside his qualms about the past and is willing to accept his new love interest, as she brings harmony to his life. Furthermore, these lines are indented, which show that they are disconnected from the rest of the poem, disconnected from what has happened in the past. The speaker has convinced himself that he is ready to move on with his love life and forget the tragedies of the past. This new woman completes him and he is ready to accept her.

    In just a 14 line sonnet, George Gascoigne is able to tell an fascinating love story. The speaker goes through a conflict of emotions before convincing himself to move forward in life. Through the use of purposeful rhyming patterns and descriptive metaphors, Gascoigne little by little reveals the speaker's intense, complex feelings.

Reflection:
After the 3 sentence thesis and shift activities, I feel like I was more prepared to analyze the nuances of George Gascoigne's poem. Like I told my group, I was able to analyze the meanings of Gascogne's words and not just regurgitate what he said. I think these activities helped set a framework for my essays to potentially reach the upper level scores. If I am able to continue my education of closely analyzing poetry, I think I will be able to write poetry essays at a high level.