Guidelines for Textual Analysis
 
1st Step-Consider the title and see what expectations it creates about the possible content of the poem.
"Just considering the title I expect the poem to be about something happening in spring, probably when spring has just started:early spring."
 
2nd Step-Read the poem at least twice in order to be sure to have understood what is about:

-look for the new words;
-be able to translate each line;
-try to find some connections between the content of the poem and the title.
 
3rd Step-Write the denotative analysis: of the poem (in your own words say what the poem is about.

"The poem is expressed by a speaking voice, in the first person, who says he or her heard the notes of Nature while he was sitting in a grove. The speaking voice was in a good mood, thinking of something pleasant when suddenly his or her mind was crossed by some sad thoughts."
 
4th Step-Structural analysis.Describe the component parts of the poem and say what the function of each
part is.
ex. "The poem consists of six quatrains ( made up in, four lines each...) where the poet at first provides the reader with the description of a pleasant spring landscape and, in the last parts, invites him or her to reflect on the relationship between man and Nature. Therefore the poem is partly descriptive and partly reflective.
The reflection invited is anticipated in the refrain of the second stanza (what man has made of man).
 
5th Step-Connotative analysis which consists in:
Phonological level. (all that concerns sound devices: kind of vowels -open, close- and consonants, rhyme scheme, rhythm, alliterations, assonances, pauses, punctuation, run-on-lines, end-stopped lines. Explain what is the effect it produces and EXPLAIN HOW THE CHOICES MADE ADD MEANING TO THE TEXT;
Semantic level (consider the word choice -concrete, abstract, Latinate or anglosaxon words-, semantic fields, metaphorical use of words, recurrent words, what verb tenses are used, WHAT IS THE EFFECT CREATED AND HOW CHOICES MADE ADD MEANING TO THE TEXT;
Syntactical level (deviation for the norm, punctuation -clash-, inverse, pauses...).