John Donne: study techniques (1 Viewer)

[Auron]

Does anyone study every poem and make sure they know them all pretty much off by heart because my class does, we were told we have to because they may ask you to talk about a specific poem. Does anyone have a similar approach and does anyone have some good responses to some of his poetry particularly Riding Westward? (that's the worst one)

 

[ezzy85]

i dont know all the poems, only 2. but im intending to sit down and learn them all. with the 2 i know well, i went through the poem line by line and wrote what it means and the techniques used. then i applied a reading to the poem and showed how this can be shown using quotes. so overall, an essay for me would have this structure:

Intro
Poem1: What hes saying an how, ie. tehcniques.
Poem1: A reading
Poem2:What hes saying an how, ie. tehcniques. (maybe even link the 2 poems if you can).
Poem2: A reading
Conclusion

Do this type of sturcutre for all his poems till eventually youll have 3 generic essays about 6 of the poems.

 

[sugaryblue]

I only know The Sunn Rising thoroughly well and Batter My Heart as well. have to work on the others. The way I study Donne's poetry is to listen to other people's opinions in class + I have an excellent teacher.

 

[JOhnNiLiCiouS]

I have such a bad English teacher... So wished I had changed classes.

My structure is almost exactly the same as you ezzy85. I was always told to integrate my essays to get top marks. But I'm not sure how you would integrate Donne's poetry. My guess is that you integrate through the techniques and somehow combine the critics...

Like I said, I'm not too sure. So if anyone does integrate Donne, can you please share how you do it? And the people getting top marks in Donne, do you integrate??