How to Write About Poetry

• 1. Who is the speaker? What kind of person is the speaker?

  The speaker is a man who suffers from unrequited love and so blames Cupid.

• 2. Is there an identifiable audience for the speaker? What can we know about it (her, him, or them)?

  No identifiable speaker beyond – perhaps – the speaker talking to himself

• 3. What is the occasion?

  The speaker has come to a crisis in his love life.

• 4. What is the setting in time (hour, season, century, and so on)?

  Nothing identifiable

• 5. What is the setting place (indoors or out, city or country, land or sea, region, nation, hemisphere)?

  Nothing identifiable

• 6. What is the central purpose of the poem?

  The central purpose is seek redress to the problem of unrequited love.

• 7. State the central idea of theme of the poem in a sentence.

  All forms of love are valuable – even unrequited love.

  Infidelity is morally reprehensible.

• 8. What is the tone of the poem? How is it achieved?

  The tone of the poem is frustration and confusion.

• 9.

  • a. Outline the poem so as to show its structure and development, or

  • b. Summarize the events of the poem.

    Complaint: Cupid has overstepped his bounds, acting like a tyrant and condemning the speaker to unrequited love.

    Reconsideration: The speaker chastises himself for excess and realizes how wrong he was to love someone who might already be marred.

• 10. Paraphrase the poem. (See attachment.)

• 11. Discuss the diction of the poem. Point out words that are particularly well chosen and explain why.

Vice – (6): a combining form meaning “deputy,” used in the formation of compound words, usually titles of officials who serve in the absence of the official denoted by the base word: viceroy; vice-chancellor.

Even (10): free from variations or fluctuations; regular

Purlieu (18): a place where one may range at large; confines or bounds

Ungod (20): to reduce a god to mortal status or to deprive a god of his divine powers

Modern (15): recent, contemporary (by implication created after the first beginning)

• 12. Discuss the imagery of the poem. What kinds of imagery are used? Is there a structure of imagery?

  “an even flame two hearts did touch”(line 10) – visual/tactile, speaks to the warmth of mutual love

• 13. Point out examples of metaphor, simile, personification, and metonymy, and explain their appropriateness.

  “Love’s Deity” (title) is an allusion to Cupid. By personifying love (or deifying it, if you please), the speaker creates for himself a more concrete target for his complaint.

  “an even flame two hearts did touch”(line 10): the flame is a metaphor for love (the literal part is implied; the figurative part is directly stated). It is a long-standing metaphor for the emotion and suggests passion because the flame consumes. It is, however, that which consumes without devouring.

• 14. Point out and explain any symbols. If the poem is allegorical, explain the allegory.

  Cupid is both the literal god of love and the figurative motivations of love.

• 15. Point out and explain examples of paradox, overstatement, understatement, and irony. What is their function?

  “scorn” (4) – overstatement that expresses the lack of her responsiveness to an adulterous affair

  “hate” (27)– overstatement that expresses the lack of her responsiveness to an adulterous affair

  The speaker who blames Cupid for his situation in the end recognizes that even unrequited love can be positive, in this case teaching a valuable moral lesson.

• 16. Point out and explain any allusions. What is their function?

  The symbol (allegorization) of love is familiar to readers but calls upon them to know the use of the godling’s mischievousness and powers.