DIRECTIONS: Write a well-organized composition on the topic below.

Write an essay, arguing how a Canadian poem you have studied is indeed “rooted in Canada and has drawn its essential characteristics from there”(Northrop Frye – from “Preface to ‘The Bush Garden’”).

Using specific references from the poem and Frye, explain the poem’s “essential characteristics,” the way they shape the discussion of figurative elements of the poem, and their importance to the overall theme of the poem.

As you write your composition, remember to:

• Give the title and the author of the poem.
• Focus on a poem’s “essential characteristics.”
• Give specific examples, reasons, and details from the poem and Frye to explain the poem’s “essential characteristics,” the way they shape the discussion of the figurative elements of the poem, and their importance to the overall theme of the poem.
• Write in complete sentences.
• Write coherent and well-developed paragraphs.
• Use correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.

Hints for “figurative elements of the poem”:

• Identify emotionally charged words.
• Explain any images/actions that can be interpreted as symbols/archetypes and defend your choice.
• Explain any use of poetic devices: repetition, couplet, rhyme, simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, juxtaposition, alliteration, irony, stanza, meter, synechdoche, pun, paradox, image, symbol, archetype.

 

Choose your poem from The Essential Canadian Poem list