2. AGENDA
• REVIEW
• USING RHETORICAL STRATEGIES
• APPLYING THE NEW CRITICAL LENS TO
ANALYZE “MY PAPA’S WALTZ
3. The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
My Papa’s Waltz
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
4. Analyzing Poetry
Speaker
The person speaking in the poem may not be the poet. It
may be that the poet has created a persona, or a person
in the poem.
In “My Papa’s Waltz,” the speaker is the little boy now
grown up. We know this because he says in the last stanza
“you beat time on my head,” my head telling us it is the
speaker who is the boy. However, the language is not of a
small boy but of an adult – so we can figure out the poem
is of a memory.
Audience in the poem
There’s often an audience that is in the poem. For
example, the poem may be written to someone specific
[not us].
The audience in “My Papa’s Waltz” is the father because
he says “the whiskey on your breath” [your breath =
father’s breath]. Also the title – My Papa’s Waltz.
5. Words
• Diction: the choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing.
– Why does the author use specific words?
• Syntax: order of words
– When words appear in a non-standard order, there is cause for further
investigation.
• Denotation: the literal meaning; Connotation: the implied meaning
– For example, the word slimy by itself can accurately describe a slug or
or the feeling on your face after your big dog greets you. However,
when slimy is used to describe a person, the reader recognizes that this
person is not someone you want to ask to housesit while you head to
the Bahamas for a week.
– Poets often make use of both literal and implied meanings in poems –
in fact, he or she may want us to see both meanings at the same time.
6. Figures of Speech
Allusion is a brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea
of historical, cultural, literary or political significance. It does not describe
in detail the person or thing to which it refers. It is just a passing comment
and the writer expects the reader to possess enough knowledge to spot
the allusion and grasp its importance in a text.
This is a regular Garden of Eden
Relax, Romeo
That is a Pandora’s box.
Oxymoron - impossibilities and contradictions
An oxymoron combines two contradictory terms like jumbo shrimp or
business ethics. The oxymoron can be similar to the paradox
7. More Figures of Speech
• Metonymy – words based on association
– Crown = monarchy, so when we say he took the crown, we don’t
mean he stole the crown We probably mean that he is ascending
the throne.
• Synecdoche – a part = the whole
– Hand = whole person, so when he takes her hand in marriage, he
does not just marry her hand, he marries all of her.
• Hyperbole—exaggeration
– I told you a million times to turn down that stereo!
• Litotes—understatement
– Litotes are figures of rhetoric speech that use an understated
statement of an affirmative by using a negative description.
• “not the brightest bulb”
• “not a beauty”
• “not bad”
• “not unfamiliar”
8. Impressions
• Imagery: sensory impressions
– The first stanza of “My Papa’s Waltz,” offers an
olfactory image: “the whisky on your breath could
make a small boy dizzy.” There are also sound images:
“we romped until the pans slipped from the kitchen
shelf.”The reader can hear the clatter. Of course
there are visual images as well.
• Symbolism: [red rose = love]
– In “My Papa’s Waltz,” the waltz itself is kind of a
symbol. It is a formal dance that could symbolize two
people moving together.
9. The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
.
My Papa’s Waltz
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
10. What can we learn from the
text of the poem
Let’s start with the title
What do you notice?
My Papa’s Waltz
11. Next, let’s determine the poetic
techniques Roethke employs.
Line1: diction = "whiskey" (suggests
drunkenness)
Line 2: diction = "small boy" (speaker
is male)
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
Line 3: diction = "hung" (past tense of "hang" so speaker is a son
reflecting on his childhood)
simile = "like death" (negative connotation)
Line 4: metaphor = "waltzing" (the dance of life)
Alliteration= waltzing was (not easy). The gentle sound of the repeated
“w” (also hear the z/s/s sounds) contrasts with the striking simile about
death in line three and with the characterization of the waltz as “not
easy.” The alliteration makes the waltz sound natural and tranquil, but
there are clear indications to the contrary.
12. We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
Try to do the next stanza in your
groups or alone
13. Line 5: diction = "romped" (positive denotation = "to play or frolic
boisterously)
irony = meter is iambic trimeter
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
Line 6: discord/disharmony/noisy = [the pans] "slid," "kitchen" and "shelf”
Lines 7-8: alliteration = "countenance" and "could”
Line 8: personification suggesting “countenance” might control itself?
synecdoche* = her "countenance / Could not unfrown
itself" (Her entire appearance signifies her face.)
diction= unfrown is not a real word.
14. What is the significance of the poem's structure? (New
Critics do not use the term form because of its historical
connotations.) Your answer will affect your interpretation
of the poem. (Remember, do not separate the overall
structure from the verbal meanings.)
A waltz is a ballroom dance in triple time. The prevailing
meter (trimeter) mimics the rhythm of the dance. The
interruption in the iambic rhythm alludes to the “step[s]
[papa] missed” Furthermore, the alternate rhymes
metaphorically represent the two dancers and the two
moods: one of “romping” and another of “clinging.”
Determine the Significance of the
Structure
15. Summarize and interpret the poem via New Criticism.
Paradox: “Such waltzing was not easy.” The waltz suggests ease.
Ambiguity: On the one hand , the poem might speak of child abuse by an
alcoholic father; on the other hand , the poem could be a cherished childhood
reflection of a boy waltzing with his dad who's slightly tipsy. The language we have
discussed could potentially support either hypothesis.
Tension: Fun for the adult/ frightening for the child
Love/abuse
Comfort/pain
excitement/ lullaby
Irony: The first stanza introduces a persistent, heavily ironic. A waltz sounds like a
pleasant enough diversion, but the whiskey, the dizziness, and especially the word
death collectively undercut this assumption and make us understand that the
situation is not entirely lighthearted.
16. Irony in "My Papa’s Waltz
• lines 1-2 - "The whiskey on your breath / Could make a small boy dizzy"
These lines are ironic because, while it is possible that the smell of “the whiskey”
alone would make the child dizzy, being swung drunkenly about is probably to blame
too.
• line 3 - "I hung on like death"
This line emphasizes the irony of line 4. Because the speaker’s father presents a
certain danger, he “hangs on” to him here not necessarily “like death” but rather for
dear life. The word death is thus ironic, but it makes the danger of the situation clear
and offsets the notion that this is just a lighthearted waltz.
• line 4 - "Such waltzing was not easy"
The waltz should be easy, on a literal level, because the speaker is just being swung
around by his father. It isn’t easy because, apparently, their lives together aren’t easy.
• lines 5-6 - "We romped until the pans / Slid from the kitchen shelf"
Continuing the tone of the first stanza, the word romped here is ironic because it
makes the waltz sound carefree, yet the effect of this romping is to cause a violent,
crashing disruption in their domestic world.
17. The father’s waltz becomes a symbol here (the child
is being waltzed, figuratively and literally, to bed). The
poem indicates early on that the waltz is not easy,
and yet it ends with the comfort and stability of bed.
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
.
My Papa’s Waltz
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
Image
Image
Personification suggesting
“countenance” might control
itself? “Unfrown” is not a word.
18. Homework
• Choose one of these poems to begin to
analyze. You may use the one you
scanned,, or you may choose a different
one.
• “There Is a Girl Inside”
• “The Fish”
• “A Black Rook in Rainy Weather”
• “Memories of West Street and Lepke”
• Post #7: Find multiple examples of poetic
conventions
• Bring your notes to class tomorrow
