Poetry

POETRY REPORT

1. THE DANCE 
	The song The Dance was written by Country Music star Garth Brooks in 1989.  To Garth The 
Dance has many meanings, such as a love gone bad or life.  He really thinks that it is about the loss of the 
people who gave up their life as an ultimate sacrifice.  Some of these people are John F. Kennedy and 
Martin Luther King, Jr.  
	I chose this song because it is one of my favorites and the meaning that it gives to the listener.  
The meaning is that life is better left to live and chance than to miss everything by not do anything or even 
living.
	Throughout the song many of the poetic terms are used. The rhyme scheme that is used is that the 
first verse has no rhyme in it.  The chorus, second verse and the tag have the first two lines and the second 
two lines rhyme with each other.  The tone that is displayed is sad but if the person didn’t take a chance he 
wouldn’t of had anything at all.  ‘The dance we shared ‘neath the stars above’ shows the imagery of the 
song.  A metaphor is used in ‘I could have missed the pain but I’d of had to miss the dance.  The dance is 
referring to life and the pain is where the person never lived or did anything at all.  The line that is repeated, 
or the refrain, is‘I could have missed the pain but I’d of had to miss the dance.’  There are four stanzas 
present in the song.  The mood that is given to the reader is sympathetic and/or empathetic.  Similes and 
personification are not used.

2.ELDORADO
	The poem Eldorado was written by Edgar Allan Poe on April 21, 1849.  Eldorado was a ‘Golden 
City’ to the Spanish Conquistadors that they never found.  In the poem the knight is looking for this special 
thing, and he travels all his life to find it.  The knight is very sad and never finds what he is looking for.  
Later in the poem he starts to die (it’s actually later in his life).  The knight finds a vision and asks it why he 
cannot find what he is looking for.  The vision tells him where it is and that it could be unreachable if he 
did not continue looking for it.  The vision encourages the knight not to give up and to always try really 
hard to achieve your goals.
	I chose this poem because it sounded cool.  Once I analyzed it I really liked the meaning it gave: 
to never give up and to always try until you succeed.
	This poem uses many of the poetic terms.  The sequence AABCCB makes up the rhyme scheme.  
The author’s tone is a feeling of frustration and inadequacy in not finding his ‘gold’.  The imagery is given 
in dark and light.  ‘In sunshine and in shadow’ which probably mean life and death is a metaphor.  
Eldorado which is thesomething special or gold is also a metaphor.  The last line in every stanza are similar 
and make up the refrain.  Personification is represented with the ghost(shadow) giving the knight advice in 
how to find his ‘gold’.  The mood that the reader has is a supernatural feeling.  It is also mythical because 
Eldorado was a mythical place.  Similes are not used in this poem.















POETIC TERMS
1.RHYME SCHEME- A regular pattern of rhyming words in a poem.
2.TONE- The writer’s attitude toward his or her subject, characters, or audience.
3.IMAGERY- Is the descriptive or figurative language used in literature to create word pictures for the 
reader.
 4. METAPHOR- A figure of speech in which one thing is spoken of as thogh it were something else.
5. SIMILE- A figure of speech that makes a direct comparison between two subjects using either like or as.
6. REFRAIN- A repeated line ora group of lines in a poem or a song.
7. PERSONIFICATION- A figure of speech in which a nonhuman subject is given human characteristics.
8. STANZA- A group of lines in a poem.
9. MOOD- Atmosphere, is the feeling created in the reader by a literary work or passage.