Tone shift analysis

How should a student identify and analyse a tone shift in an unseen poem? Give a worked example. (8 marks equivalent)

Answer guidance:

• Identifying a tone shift: read the poem in sections — where does the feeling change? Which line is the pivot? Is it at a stanza break, a caesura, a new stanza?
• Worked example: A poem opens with celebratory sensory imagery and closes with a bare, monosyllabic line. The shift occurs at the conjunctive adversative "but" — the simplicity after richness registers loss through form.
• In the essay: "The tone shifts at the volta — from sensory abundance to stark monologue — the single monosyllable bearing the full weight of elegy." Name the technique; quote the evidence; explain the effect.