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Explicating a Sonnet
            Now that we’ve finished reading and analyzing a handful of Shakespeare’s sonnets, it’s time to put some of the tools we’ve developed and honed into use on our own. For this project, you should pick a sonnet that we have not analyzed together and explicate it. Don’t worry, the explanation is coming.
            So explicating basically means explaining something, like a poem, in great detail.  (Explicate means unfold, and you’re unfolding the poem to expose its meanings.) You will explain the entire poem, line-by-line, to unfold its complexities. The goal of this assignment is to look at an individual sonnet, to consider the ideas, and to explain how almost every word has a significant contribution to the general themes of the poem. So where should you start? Good question, l was just getting to that.
            Once you’ve picked the sonnet that interests you most, you should read it multiple times. Do this silently as well as out loud, since poems are about sound as well as content. Then you should immediately write your introduction. This isn’t like the introduction of an essay with a thesis and all of that business. It’s more like a hypothesis in a lab report. What do you think this poem is about? What are your first impressions? Who is the speaker, what situation is he in, who is he addressing or talking about? Do this right away, so that you don’t lose your first thoughts.  There is no right or wrong answer. It’s a place to jump off from. You might find that your initial ideas were way off, and that would be completely fine. 
            The next part of the explication is the most important and is, by far, the longest section of the writing. This is the analysis section, and you should interpret the sonnet on a line-by-line and even word-by-word basis. You can look at each line for imagery, simile, metaphor, and personification. As you find the presence of these literary devices, discuss them and how they contribute to the themes of the poem.  Look for words that have multiple (and different) meanings.  In addition, explore the narrator’s tone and whether he’s being ironic, overstating issues, or understating issues. As you continue to delve deeper into the line, you should consider the sounds of the language such as consonance, assonance, and rhyme and how they add to and develop the meaning and complexity of the poem. As you’re attacking the poem in this way, you will see patterns emerging in the ideas and the language like the way we worked the poems in class. Make connections between the words and lines that deal with similar topics. Following these patterns and how they evolve is part of explicating. Man this is awesome. Now what?
            All right, now comes the final part of the explication: the conclusion. This is where you reflect back on your analysis and introduction and make a claim about what the main themes of the poem are and how Shakespeare uses language to accomplish his goal. You should address whether you agree with your introductory ideas now that you’ve read the poem very thoroughly and how your thoughts have evolved over the process. And that’s it.
            I know that there may be many questions about the assignment and what it looks like, so I attached a sample explication, but in a much simpler form. We will read it together and talk about what you should follow and what you should go beyond in your own version. Remember, it is an exploration. The idea is not to finish as soon as possible. The explication should take a long time even though you don’t have to worry about thesis statements, paragraph structure, and including quotes. So don’t save this for the night before, or even two nights before it’s due. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. Have fun and good luck!

Here’s a sample explication written by an English teacher at another school:
Here is the “poem” he chose to use:
Mary had a little lamb,/Little lamb, little lamb,
Mary had a little lamb,/Its fleece was white as snow
And everywhere that Mary went,/Mary went, Mary went,
Everywhere that Mary went/The lamb was sure to go

This poem is about a farm animal (a lamb) that follows a person around wherever she goes.  It seems odd that a lamb would follow a person everywhere and that there were no fences to keep the animal from straying.

Line 1.  Jesus Christ is sometimes known as Agnus Dei or the “lamb of God.”  It is possible that Mary is the Virgin Mary, and the little lamb is Jesus Christ.  It is interesting that the verb is in the past tense.  Mary’s possession of the lamb seems to be in the past.  It is also worth noting that Mary only has “a” little lamb.  She has only one lamb.  Jesus is the only son of Mary.  She has no others.
Line 2.  It seems important that the lamb is little.  “Little” might signify innocence, powerlessness, its need for protection, or the fact that it is non-threatening, gentle, or simply small.  “Little” could be referring to a baby Jesus or Jesus’s innocence.  It could also be an example of irony.  Jesus was just one small man, but his influence is immeasurable. 
Line 3-4.  This line also seems to refer to innocence, purity, youth, faith, hope, and a pristine existence.  White is often interpreted as a sign of these qualities. 
Line 5-8.  The Christian Church believes that God is everywhere.  There are countless stories of people trying to escape God, but they end up running right into him.  It follows that everywhere that Mary would try to go, Jesus as part of God would be right behind, if not already there.  It also suggests that innocence, purity, and faith can be protective, watchful forces. 

Nursery rhymes or children’s songs are often much more than simple little stories that children learn.  Ring around the Roses originated from 14th century Europe, when the bubonic plague killed a quarter of the population.  “Ashes to ashes we all fall down” is referring to people dropping dead of the Black Death.  This text seems similar.  Instead of being about a farm animal, this poem seems to want to teach children about faith, the ever-present nature of G-d, and about the value of innocence.