3/1-3/2 Poetry Mini Lesson

3/1-3/2 Poetry Mini Lesson

Analyzing Analogies & Allusions

• An extended comparison between two unlike things is called an analogy.

• A reference to well-known stories, artworks, events, and people are called allusions.

Read the excerpt from "Any fool can get into an ocean..." then answer the questions.

Any fool can get into an ocean

But it takes a Goddess

To get out of one.

What's true of oceans is true, of course,

Of labyrinths and poems. When you start swimming

Through riptide of rhythms and the metaphor's seaweed

You need to be a good swimmer or a born Goddess

To get back out of them

What is the purpose of the speaker's allusion to the labyrinth?

• to compare the abilities of a powerful Green goddess to the heroic deeds of Thesus

• to highlight the puzzling yet stirring message at the heart of the poem

• to suggest that readers can trap themselves insides the many layers of meaning suggested by figurative language

• to emphasize that readers can lose themselves in a good poem, just as they would in a maze