Tone

Tone involves the active interplay of speaker, subject (spoken about), and listener (spoken to). To analyze the tone of a poem, answer the following four questions and discuss their interrelationships:

1. Who is presented as speaking in this poem? (Is the narrator explicitly identified? Is the narrator a participant or an observer? Is the poet speaking through a persona?)
2. To whom is the poem addressed? (Is the poem addressed to a specific person or a generalized audience? If the former, is this person a participant or an observer?)
3. About whom or what is the poem written? (What are the relationships between the subject matter of the poem and the speaker and addressee?)
4. How do the form and structure of the poem relate to its subject matter? (What is the relationship between the emotions expressed and the manner of their expression? Does the form of the poem mimic these emotions, or does it contradict, belie, or stand in tension with them? Is this subject matter typical or atypical for this genre of poetry?)