ENG200.001 -- Introduction to Literary Study

Prof. Eileen Joy

Spring 2005

EXERCISE #4 (10 points)

Figure 1. Facsimile of Shakespeare's Sonnet #18 (1609 Quarto edition)

paraphrase (noun): 1. to tell the same thing in other words. 2. An expression in other words, usually fuller and clearer, of the sense of any passage or text; a free rendering or amplification of a passage.

For your fourth exercise, you will choose a poem from our textbook and paraphrase it. When you paraphrase a passage you are restating the LITERAL meaning of the text, using your own words (but sticking as closely as possible to what the poem actually states on the surface--we're not thinking about "meaning" yet). Unless you master the art of paraphrase, you won't be able to do anything else with a poem.

Here are the steps to take, once you have chosen your poem:

• Ask: who is doing what to whom?
• Untangle the syntax.
• Put everything into the most common diction possible. (You need not, however, seek to avoid repeating words used in the original.)
• Don't skip over any part of the original.

The thornier the original you choose, the greater your chance of honor on this assignment. In fact, I would even urge you strongly NOT to choose a poem whose literal, surface meaning is readily apparent and can't be simplified any more than it already is.

For more guidance, look at the section on "paraphrase" in your textbook in Appendix A5.

TYPED, please.