Composition

First, we will deal with the outer composition of the poem “The History Teacher” by Billy Collins and analyze its structure. Then, we will focus on the poem’s inner composition and discuss its content. As you will see, the outer and inner compositions of the poem are related and, together, they can offer more information about the author’s intention and literary style.

Outer composition

The poem is composed of five stanzas, each one having a different length. Stanza 1 has 4 verses; stanza 2 has 2 verses; stanza 3 has 4 verses; stanza 4 has 3 verses, and stanza 5 has 9 verses.

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Inner composition

The poem can be structured in three parts: beginning, middle and ending. Also, when dealing with the inner composition of a poem, special attention must be given to the title. In our case, the title is very straightforward and presents the main character in the poem: a history teacher. However, as the poem progresses, we realize that the man is very atypical and that, in fact, he does not teach history at all.

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