TP-CASTT

TP-CASTT: Analysis of Poetry __**Title**__—examine before reading the poem. Consider connotations

__**Paraphrase**__--translate the poem into your own words (literal/denotation). Resist the urge to jump to interpretation. A failure to understand what happens literally inevitably leads to an interpretive misunderstanding: Look for:
 * Syntactical units (complete sentences rather than line by fine)
 * Enjambment vs. end-stopped lines

__**Connotation**__—examine for meaning beyond the literal Look for:
 * Diction
 * Imagery
 * Irony—paradox, understatement, oxymoron
 * Metaphor, simile
 * Symbolism
 * Allusions
 * Effect of sound repetition (alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, rhyme)

__**Attitude**__—tone: examine both speaker's and poet's attitudes (remember, don't confuse author with persona) Look for:
 * Speaker's attitude toward self, other characters, and the subject
 * Attitudes of characters other than speaker
 * Poet's attitude toward speaker, other characters, subject, and finallytoward the reader

__**Shifts**__—note shifts in speaker, attitudes Look for:
 * Punctuation (dashes, periods, colon)
 * Occasion of poem (time and place)
 * Key words (e.g. but, yet)
 * Stanza divisions
 * Changes in line and/or stanza length
 * Irony (sometimes irony hides shifts)
 * Examine effect of structure on meaning

__**Title**__—examine the title again on an interpretive level

__**Theme**__—first, list what the poem is about (subjects); then, figure out what the poet is saying about those subjects (theme). Remember, theme is expressed as a complete sentence.