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Essay Available:
Pages:
3 pages/≈825 words
Sources:
1 Source
Style:
APA
Subject:
Literature & Language
Type:
Essay
Language:
English (U.S.)
Document:
MS Word
Date:
Total cost:
$ 10.8
Topic:

Textual and Thematic Analysis of the Poem Middle Passage by Robert Hayden

Essay Instructions:

Review Assignment
Being able to read critically and absorb the contents of a work of creative writing is a vital skill for any researcher or writer. This assignment will offer a poem and require students to evaluate the contents. Students should consider the author's relationship to the material he or she has published. Major debates which relate to the articles should be identified and discussed within the review. The review must be 1-3 pages in length and correspond to an appropriate journal format suitable for an academic publication.
Value: 5% of course grade
Objective:
The academic world requires that scholars be able to engage with the thinking of their colleagues in a respectful manner, but be able to offer critical analysis where it is necessary. Reviewing material is an excellent way to better understand it as well as to engage with broader topics.
Learning Outcomes:
Recognize major contributions to research within scholarly publications
Identify and contextualize a given scholar
Demonstrate respectful analysis without hesitating to identify problems
Instructions:
Students will be provided with a poem by Robert Hayden and must read, analyze, and contextualize it in a 1-3 page review. An appropriate style sheet will be attached indicating the journal style which will be adhered to for this assignment, to closely mirror an actual review process. This work is not academic, but is creative, and students are encouraged to reflect on the poem and what inspired it, what sources the poet has used, and how the poet is engaging with this brutal history.
Find it here
Style Guidelines (from the Journal of West African History: http://jwah(dot)msu(dot)edu/submissions/)
Length: Review essays (not exceeding 1,000 words) should engage the interpretation, meaning, or importance of an author’s argument for a wider scholarly audience. Justification for shorter or longer reviews should be discussed with the Book Review Editor prior to submission.
Style: Head your review according to the Chicago Manual of Style, as follows:
Header format: Title Author City, State: Publisher, Year.
Header Example: Achieving Blackness: Race, Nationalism, and Afrocentrism in the Twentieth Century Algernon Austin New York, NY: New York University Press, 2006.
Include your name and affiliation at the end of the review. Double space your document, with an extra space between paragraphs (rather than indenting each one). For transliteration questions see below. For style questions not addressed in these guidelines, follow the Chicago Manual of Style.
Transliteration: General Guidelines
If there is an English word for a foreign term, please use it. Foreign terms not found in a standard dictionary (e.g., http://www(dot)merriam-webster(dot)com/) should be italicized and fully transliterated according to the appropriate system (see below). However, italicization and transliteration are not necessary for the following: 1. Foreign words found in a standard dictionary, 2. The names of heads of state and similarly well known individuals, and 3. Well known foreign organizations (e.g., Hamas). Foreign titles should be italicized and transliterated (e.g., däǧǧazmač), unless they can be found in a standard dictionary (e.g., sheikh). Use italics for foreign currency terms. Foreign language quotations, long or short, should not be italicized but should include quotation marks.
https://www(dot)poetryfoundation(dot)org/poems/43076/middle-passage

Essay Sample Content Preview:

MIDDLE PASSAGE: ROBERT HAYDEN ATLANTA: PHYLON 1945
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Robert Hayden's poem "Middle Passage" is a narrative account of the atrocities and horrors associated with the slave trade of black Africans by the white slavers. Heavily laden with historical allusions, the poem contains various narrative accounts by the six white crewmembers of the suffering, turmoil, and ultimate revolt of the black African slave ships en route to North America from Africa. The use of diverse characterization and relevant title, a peculiar structural form to reveal the point of view of the narrators, ornate use of literary devices and historical references, elaboration and ghastly account of the sufferings of the enslaved people via their white slavers are some of the aspects of the poem that accentuate the central theme of the poem. These aspects of the poem make it a charge sheet against the barbaric practice of the slave trade, as the following paragraphs substantiate.
The title of the poem is very significant in accentuating the poem's theme as Middle Passage was an actual sea route that slave ships used to travel back to America from Africa. Moreover, the use of six white narrators with their varying accounts of the sufferings and hardships, and inhuman conditions of the slaves lends a unique character to the poem as it provides an outside opinion to depict the atrocities committed by the slave traders. In this regard, Hayden's structural form is of utmost significance; he uses a mosaic form of the poem, interspersed with six narrative accounts, and each is distinguished from the other in terms of forms and structure of sentences in free verse form. In addition, Robert Hayden uses italicized text to elaborate on one narrator's account; on the other hand, he uses quotes to depict the viewpoint of the other white man.
Similarly, he uses double spacing, hanging indent, and simple text to differentiate accounts of other narrators. This peculiarity of the poem's text is instrumental in bringing out the different aspects of the slave trade as viewed and interpreted by six white slavers. Using this structural anomaly, Robert Hayden exposes the ghastly picture of the murderous, inhuman environment, the spirit and thought of the slaves, and the graphical depiction of the agony and mental and physical suffering of the black slaves in the form of a collage of different points of view. Indeed, this technique serves its purpose at various levels; for instance, the very use of the narrative of white men reveals the suppression of the voices of the black slaves. In the same way, the varying degrees of views give a broader and more elaborate picture of various dimensions of the slave trade. Thus, the structure and title, providing the poem's historical context, significantly assist Hayden in elaborating the poem's central theme.
Appropriate use of literary devices is another feature of the poem that comprehensively portrays the sad picture of the slave trade. The accounts are riff with extensive use of devices like allusion, ...
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