This document provides an agenda and materials for an EWRT 1C class. The agenda includes reviewing scanning poetry, introducing new rhetorical strategies, applying a new critical lens to analyze the poem "My Papa's Waltz", and an introduction to Essay #1. The document then provides the full text of "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke and guides students through an analysis of the poem's form, structure, imagery, symbols, and themes using a New Criticism lens.

1. EWRT 1C Class 5
VA DERS

2. AGENDA
• REVIEW SCANNING POETRY
• NEW RHETORICAL STRATEGIES
• APPLYING THE NEW CRITICAL LENS TO ANALYZE “MY PAPA’S
WALTZ
• INTRODUCTION TO ESSAY #1
– IN CLASS WRITING

3. u / u u / /
The whiskey on your breath 6
u / u / / /u
Could make a small boy dizzy; 7
u / / u / /
But I hung on like death: 6
u / u u / /u
Such waltzing was not easy. 7
u / u / u /
We romped until the pans 6
/ u u / u /
Slid from the kitchen shelf; 6
u / u / u u
My mother’s countenance 6
u / u / u /
Could not unfrown itself. 6
u / u / u /
The hand that held my wrist 3
u / u u / / u
Was battered on one knuckle; 3.5
u / u / u /
At every step you missed 3
u / / / u / u
My right ear scraped a buckle 3.5
u / / u u /
You beat time on my head
u u / / / u /
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
u / u / u /
Then waltzed me off to bed
/ / u / u /
Still clinging to your shirt.
a
b
a
b
c
d
c
d
e
f
e
f
g
h
g
h
Four line stanzas are called
quatrains
Feet per lineSyllables per line

4. Summarizing the form
Dominant foot: iamb
Number of feet per line: three
Prevailing meter (dominant foot + number of
feet per line): iambic trimeter
Structure: quatrain
Rhyme scheme: abab (imperfect, partial, near or
slant rhyme)
// cdc (imperfect) d // efef // ghgh

5. The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
My Papa’s Waltz
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
LET ME ASK YOU
Who is the speaker?
Who is the audience?

6. Analyzing Poetry
 Speaker
The person speaking in the poem may not be the poet. It may be
that the poet has created a persona, or a person in the poem.
In “My Papa’s Waltz,” the speaker is the little boy now grown up.
We know this because he says in the last stanza “you beat time on
my head,” my head telling us it is the speaker who is the boy.
However, the language is not of a small boy but of an adult – so we
can figure out the poem is of a memory.
 Audience in the poem
There’s often an audience that is in the poem. For example, the
poem may be written to someone specific [not us].
The audience in “My Papa’s Waltz” is the father because he says
“the whiskey on your breath” [your breath = father’s breath].
Also the title – My Papa’s Waltz.

7. Words
• Diction: the choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing.
– Why does the author use specific words?
• Syntax: order of words
– When words appear in a non-standard order, there is cause for further
investigation.
• Denotation: the literal meaning; Connotation: the implied meaning
– For example, the word slimy by itself can accurately describe a slug or
or the feeling on your face after your big dog greets you. However,
when slimy is used to describe a person, the reader recognizes that this
person is not someone you want to ask to housesit while you head to
the Bahamas for a week.
– Poets often make use of both literal and implied meanings in poems –
in fact, he or she may want us to see both meanings at the same time.

8. Figures of Speech
 Allusion is a brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea
of historical, cultural, literary or political significance. It does not describe
in detail the person or thing to which it refers. It is just a passing comment
and the writer expects the reader to possess enough knowledge to spot
the allusion and grasp its importance in a text.
This is a regular Garden of Eden
Relax, Romeo
That is a Pandora’s box.
 Oxymoron - impossibilities and contradictions
An oxymoron combines two contradictory terms like jumbo shrimp or
business ethics. The oxymoron can be similar to the paradox

9. More Figures of Speech
• Metonymy – words based on association
– Crown = monarchy, so when we say he took the crown, we don’t
mean he stole the crown We probably mean that he is ascending
the throne.
• Synecdoche – a part = the whole
– Hand = whole person, so when he takes her hand in marriage, he
does not just marry her hand, he marries all of her.
• Hyperbole—exaggeration
– I told you a million times to turn down that stereo!
• Litotes—understatement
– Litotes are figures of rhetoric speech that use an understated
statement of an affirmative by using a negative description.
• “not the brightest bulb”
• “not a beauty”
• “not bad”
• “not unfamiliar”

10. Impressions
• Imagery: sensory impressions
– The first stanza of “My Papa’s Waltz,” offers an
olfactory image: “the whisky on your breath could
make a small boy dizzy.” There are also sound images:
“we romped until the pans slipped from the kitchen
shelf.”The reader can hear the clatter. Of course
there are visual images as well.
• Symbolism: [red rose = love]
– In “My Papa’s Waltz,” the waltz itself is kind of a
symbol. It is a formal dance that could symbolize two
people moving together.

11. What can we learn from
the text of the poem
Let’s start with the title
What do you notice?
My Papa’s Waltz

12. Next, let’s determine the poetic
techniques Roethke employs.
Line1: diction = "whiskey" (suggests
drunkenness)
Line 2: diction = "small boy" (speaker is
male)
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
Line 3: diction = "hung" (past tense of "hang" so speaker is a son reflecting
on his childhood)
simile = "like death" (negative connotation)
Line 4: metaphor = "waltzing" (the dance of life)
Alliteration= waltzing was (not easy). The gentle sound of the repeated “w”
(also hear the z/s/s sounds) contrasts with the striking simile about death in line
three and with the characterization of the waltz as “not easy.” The alliteration
makes the waltz sound natural and tranquil, but there are clear indications to
the contrary.

13. We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
Try to do the next stanza in your
groups or alone

14. Line 5: diction = "romped" (positive denotation = "to play or frolic
boisterously)
irony = meter is iambic trimeter
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
Line 6: discord/disharmony/noisy = [the pans] "slid," "kitchen" and "shelf”
Lines 7-8: alliteration = "countenance" and "could”
Line 8: personification suggesting “countenance” might control itself?
synecdoche* = her "countenance / Could not unfrown
itself" (Her entire appearance signifies her face.)
diction= unfrown is not a real word.

15. What is the significance of the poem's
structure? (New Critics do not use the term
form because of its historical
connotations.) Your answer will affect your
interpretation of the poem. (Remember, do not
separate the overall structure from the verbal
meanings.)
Determine the Significance of the
Structure

16. The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
.
My Papa’s Waltz
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

17. What is the significance of the poem's structure? (New
Critics do not use the term form because of its historical
connotations.) Your answer will affect your interpretation
of the poem. (Remember, do not separate the overall
structure from the verbal meanings.)
A waltz is a ballroom dance in triple time. The prevailing
meter (trimeter) mimics the rhythm of the dance. The
interruption in the iambic rhythm alludes to the “step[s]
[papa] missed” Furthermore, the alternate rhymes
metaphorically represent the two dancers and the two
moods: one of “romping” and another of “clinging.”
Determine the Significance of the
Structure

18. Summarize and interpret the poem via New Criticism.
Paradox: “Such waltzing was not easy.” The waltz suggests ease.
Ambiguity: On the one hand , the poem might speak of child abuse by an
alcoholic father; on the other hand , the poem could be a cherished childhood
reflection of a boy waltzing with his dad who's slightly tipsy. The language we have
discussed could potentially support either hypothesis.
Tension: Fun for the adult/ frightening for the child
Love/abuse
Comfort/pain
excitement/ lullaby
Irony: The first stanza introduces a persistent, heavily ironic theme. A waltz
sounds like a pleasant enough diversion, but the whiskey, the dizziness, and
especially the word death collectively undercut this assumption and make us
understand that the situation is not entirely lighthearted.

19. Irony in "My Papa’s Waltz
• lines 1-2 - "The whiskey on your breath / Could make a small boy dizzy"
These lines are ironic because, while it is possible that the smell of “the whiskey” alone
would make the child dizzy, being swung drunkenly about is probably to blame too.
• line 3 - "I hung on like death"
This line emphasizes the irony of line 4. Because the speaker’s father presents a certain
danger, he “hangs on” to him here not necessarily “like death” but rather for dear life. The
word death is thus ironic, but it makes the danger of the situation clear and offsets the notion
that this is just a lighthearted waltz.
• line 4 - "Such waltzing was not easy"
The waltz should be easy, on a literal level, because the speaker is just being swung around by
his father. It isn’t easy because, apparently, their lives together aren’t easy.
• lines 5-6 - "We romped until the pans / Slid from the kitchen shelf"
Continuing the tone of the first stanza, the word romped here is ironic because it makes the
waltz sound carefree, yet the effect of this romping is to cause a violent, crashing disruption
in their domestic world.

20. The father’s waltz becomes a symbol here (the child
is being waltzed, figuratively and literally, to bed). The
poem indicates early on that the waltz is not easy,
and yet it ends with the comfort and stability of bed.
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
.
My Papa’s Waltz
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
Image
Image
Personification suggesting
“countenance” might control
itself? “Unfrown” is not a word.

21. CHOOSING A POEM
Essay #1: Preparing to write your paper

22. Essay #1: Prompt Introduction
• In a thesis driven essay of three to five pages, respond to one of the following
poems:
• “There’s a girl inside”
• “The Fish”
• Proceed on the assumptions of the New Criticism that (1) there is a difference between a good
poem and a bad poem, and (2) good poems have a “spirit” or life of their own because they
incorporate tensions that eventually are resolved into an “organic unity” or autonomous organic
whole. Following the New Critics, you should focus on the work itself; you should, however,
examine the literary allusions contained in the work as an important part of its total meaning. You
need only the primary text for this essay, but you may incorporate other texts we have read thus
far as additional support.
• An effective close reading will discuss HOW the poem communicates meaning (what poetic or
rhetorical strategies are used) as well as address WHY these strategies are used in this particular
way.
• One of the greatest challenges of a close reading is synthesis. Even as you divide the poem into its
composite elements, you will want to discuss how those elements come together to form a
whole. Your essay should reveal how the parts of the poem relate and form a totality.
• “A Black Rook in Rainy Weather”
• “Memories of West Street and Lepke”
• “To His Coy Mistress”

23. Step #1
• Choose one of these poems to begin to
analyze. You may use the one you
scanned, or you may choose a different
one.
• “There Is a Girl Inside”
• “The Fish”
• “A Black Rook in Rainy Weather”
• “Memories of West Street and Lepke”
• “To His Coy Mistress”

24. Get into groups based on
poem choice
• Discuss the
poem you have
chosen to
analyze; consider
the questions on
the next slide.

25. Poetry Analysis
• Who is the speaker?
The audience?
• What do the words tell
you about the poem?
– Diction
– Syntax
– Denotation/Connotation
• Tools of the new critic:
paradox, irony,
ambiguity, and tension
• Figurative Language:
images, symbols,
metaphors, similes,
alliteration,
personification, and
hyperbole, litotes,
metonymy, synecdoche,
allusion, oxymoron.
• Form:
– Rhyme, Rhythm, Meter

26. Now Think Again
• Discuss the poem you
have chosen to
analyze; consider the
questions on the next
slide to determine
least three ways you
might approach your
poem.
• Think about how one
of these approaches
might offer you
insight about a
potential thesis.

27. Consider which of these questions help you understand the
poem
1. How does the work use imagery to develop its own symbols?
2. What is the quality of the work's organic unity In other words, does
how the work is put together reflect what it is?
3. How are the various parts of the work interconnected?
4. How do paradox, irony, ambiguity, and tension work in the text?
5. How do these parts and their collective whole contribute to or not
contribute to the aesthetic quality of the work?
6. How does the author resolve apparent contradictions within the work?
7. What does the form of the work say about its content?
8. Is there a central or focal passage that can be said to sum up the
entirety of the work?
9. How do the rhythms and/or rhyme schemes of a poem contribute to
the meaning or effect of the piece?

28. Homework
• Post #: Answer 7
of the 9 questions
on slide 27
• Bring your notes to
our next meeting