Comparison of Poems

1. Comparison of Poems PRELIMINARY EXAMINATIONS 2012

2. UCLES Band Descriptors • UNSEEN • The descriptors do not list every possible literary feature that may be identified by candidates, but candidates will be rewarded for detailed comment on language, form and style such as: structure, genre, diction, syntactical devices, register, imagery, tone, rhythm, rhyme, linguistic patterns and dramatic qualities.

3. Unseen • A 35+ (18-25) • Very good work, showing discrimination and sometimes originality in making an informed personal and critical response to the poems • Compares the two poems skillfully, and perhaps in original ways, moving between them with ease. • Engages with the poems through detailed close analysis.

4. A 35+ (18-25) • Develops a seamless, coherent response to the question. • Uses quotation, paraphrase and critical terminology appositely and economically. • Work in this band responds sensitively, perceptively and personally to the poems; it is often subtle, concise and sophisticated, with a style that is fluent and gives economic expression to complex ideas; at the upper end this work may be elegant and allusive.

5. A 35+ (18-25) • Analyses with skill and discrimination ways in which writers’ uses of poetic form, structure and language creates the meanings of the poems. • Evaluates the effects of the writers’ use of form, style and language with a mature judgement and clear focus on the question and key issues.

6. Prelim Paper 1 Unseen Q 1a • Write a critical comparison of the following poems, considering in detail ways in which your responses are shaped by the writers’ language, style and form. • So what are your responses to both poems in terms of their similarities and differences ? • Style: What are the distinguishing features of the writing?

7. What are the distinguishing features of language, form and style? A Travel B Solitary Travel Conveys in contrast the “futility of moving on” in a… Somewhat detached manner emotional recollections bound up in obvious ways with place and time. The writing is sensory: expressing visual perceptions yet spoken in a controlled and flat manner: not betraying emotions in an obvious way though repetitions of the word “alone” suggest deep seated angst. • The simplicity of the language creates a sense of immediacy and longing for travel or the need to change – leave the place and move on “Yet there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take , no matter where it’s going” Not a poem about escapism but more about wanting perhaps a change and the need to move on.

8. Style A Travel B Solitary Travel Poem B is in contrast richer and more complex. Visual perceptions are captured concretely through detailed descriptions of lists of names of cities, hotels, fruits, flowers, coloursthat give it authenticity Yet the drudgery and futility in spite of the differences are amplified with the repetition of the words “same” and the high modality verb “always” Similar to A, B too sets up dichotomies between travel and the intense loneliness vs staying • The train and the railway track take centre-stage and are presented as attractive ideas in the persona’s mind. • The sense of immediacy of the haunting idea is created by the predominance of the continuous tense at the end of alternate lines “Speaking” , “shrieking”, dreaming”. “steaming”, “knowing”, “going” • Further, the dichotomies help to create the dilemmabetween wanting to stay and the need to move on (travel).

9. Form A Travel B Solitary Travel Organisation of stanzas into 6 quatrains that all end predictably in rhymimg couplets suggest the same ness and dreariness of travel that he longs to escape from. However, the predictable rhyme patterns suggest an endeavour in futility ending in resignation and sense of entrapment heightened by the imagery of the ice box and the oven: places he would like to escape into. • The Structure of the poem conveys perhaps the all pervasive power of thoughts/ideas or images that can mesmerise, displace and unsettle. • That the persona is smitten is evident in the way the author organises the stanza that takes you from “day” to “night” to the resolve expressed in the last word of the poem which suggests determination to act “going” in spite of everything.

10. A. Comparison of Imagery • The imagery used also differs. Travel mainly focuses on the image of a train. The active words used to describe the train like “whistle shrieking”, “engine steaming” and “it’s going” even though she constantly says that “there isn’t a train goes by” shows this expansion of the imagery: in the static image of a train one can expand their imagination by thinking of all the places it goes to and all the sounds it makes.

11. Comparison of Imagery cont’d • This emphasizes on the feeling of wanderlust in the poem because of the combined use of aural and visual imagery. The whistle shrieking and the engine steaming immediately evokes the senses of the reader and allows them to be immersed in the poet’s sense of excitement for a journey as well. • However, in poem B, the use of static imagery is purposely kept static rather than being expanded upon. The poet uses static images like “flowers on the table”, “oven or ice box”, “chess game” where it implies the severe lack of free movement in traveling is highly ironic. The irony further underlines the traveller’s sense of restlessness and discontent from the weariness of being alone.

12. B. Comparison Of Imagery • The auditory imagery on the other hand, too romanticises the idea of the train and travel “whistle shrieking” and “engine steaming” but does so by highlighting the urgency of travel and the immediacy of the call to travel. • The combined effect of this is the call of the urgent dream of the narrator to travel which is seen as somehow dreamlike. In contrast poem B, uses sparsely and with a much more banal focus - “oven”, “ice box”, “test tube”.

13. Comparison Of Imagery • Far from romantic, in Poem B, the use of imagery not only evokes a distinct realism but in fact highlights the very ironically constraining nature of travel. The imagery in Poem B is very much used to present ideas of containment, claustrophobia and discomfort which stand in direct opposition to Poem A’s dreamlike ideals.

14. Comparison of Imagery • In fact, through the two different uses of imagery one can pick up the differing tones of the narrators – one in an idealistic youthful hopeful dream and another (in B) a tired, world weary and ‘disenchanted” lament. Thus imagery in both poems is used most apparently towards the purpose of revealing the attitude of the narrator’s toward travel.

15. Comparison of Rhyme Patterns • Both poems are made of rhyming quatrains: 3 in poem A and 6 in poem B. The rhyme scheme in each however has a subtle difference to profound effect. The ABAC rhyme scheme of A suggests a regularity, a sureness of conviction which in conjunction with the short masculine rhymes “by” and “sky” evoke the very regular movement of the steam engine itself. The poem in itself is a suggestion of movement because of its fluid , constant rhyme scheme, which aligns with its theme of wanderlust.

16. Comparison of Rhyme Patterns • On the other hand, the use of the ABCC rhyme scheme of poem B when considered in conjunction with the use of repetition previously explained and the long run on lines present at the start of the quatrains e.g. “though the land outside be empty or man-cRammed oven or ice box” and “But the customs clamour, the stamp is raised, the passport” creates a sense of deflation.

17. Comparison of Rhyme Patterns • It is as if the chaos, the endless frantic travel of escaping from one place to another inevitably ends like each quatrain, in the same slow realisation of futility. The rhyme structure parallels this process , even as the rhyme scheme in A parallels the movement of the train.

18. Q 1b • Write a critical comparison of the following poems, considering in detail ways in which language, style and form contribute to each writer’s portrayal of hope. • Style: What are the distinguishing features of the writing?

19. What are the distinguishing features of language, form and style? A In Spite of War B Hope is the Thing with Feathers Rising Whilst the defiant stance in A is seen to spring from indomitable hope (implied) In Poem B the author breaks ground with a bold attempt to define hope, concretise it in the hope of owning it. “Hope is the Thing with Feathers”, she says playfully. Instead of being boldly declarative B is subtle. Yet it achieves breathtaking effects by compressing language as it explores the abstract concept of hope. • Powerful poem projects a clear anti-war salvo with the title and first words of the poem: “In spite of War” • The repetition of “in spite of …” sets up a clear dichotomy between war with its “death”, “suffering” and “hate” against the defiant stance with “laughs”, “sings” “breath” and “praise”

20. Style A In Spite of War B Hope is the Thing with Feathers Whilst Poem A is riddled with exclamation marks and loud proclamations Poem B is soft, light and minimalist. Yet it achieves a sense of drama through subtle linguistic mastery through theconflation of bird andhope thus giving hope the lightness of a bird with feathers to transcend barriers. • Incantory, regular beat which is used to express the resolve not give up hope by waging a war against war. • 8 syllabus per line , 4 iambs, stressed /unstressed syllabus replicates march of war – doggedness in trying to not just find hope but “ecstacy”, “in spite of war, in spite of death!”

21. Form A In Spite of War B Hope is the Thing with Feathers Divided into 3 regular quatrains abab rhyme scheme The first stanza celebrates how hope springs eternal: “And never stops at all” The second stanza introduces oppositions to hope in the form of the “gale” and “storm” • 2 regular stanzas – 8 lines each; last stanza halved to 4 in a dramatic conclusion • The last stanza wraps up the argument concisely with an effective fggf rhyme pattern with a declarative statement “Look and see/That life is naught but ecstacy/In spite of war, in spite of death!”

22. B Hope is the Thing with Feathers Form • The last stanza breaks the abab rhyme pattern with abba thereby neatly wrapping up the triumph of Man as hope gives him the optimism to live in spite of the “chillest” and “ strangest sea” It triumphs with its “sweetest” tune and “perches lightly on the soul.”

26. Summary • ” rhymes with “Sea” and “Me” in the third stanza, thus, technically conforming to an ABBB rhyme scheme. • Commentary • This simple, metaphorical description of hope as a bird singing in the soul is another example of Dickinson’s homiletic style, derived from Psalms and religious hymns. Dickinson introduces her metaphor in the first two lines (“ ‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers— / That perches in the soul—”), then develops it throughout the poem by telling what the bird does (sing), how it reacts to hardship (it is unabashed in the storm), where it can be found (everywhere, from “chillest land” to “strangest Sea”), and what it asks for itself (nothing, not even a single crumb). Though written after “Success is counted sweetest,” this is still an early poem for Dickinson, and neither her language nor her themes here are as complicated and explosive as they would become in her more mature work from the mid-1860s. Still, we find a few of the verbal shocks that so characterize Dickinson’s mature style: the use of “abash,” for instance, to describe the storm’s potential effect on the bird, wrenches the reader back to the reality behind the pretty metaphor; while a singing bird cannot exactly be “abashed,” the word describes the effect of the storm—or a more general hardship—upon the speaker’s hopes.

27. The speaker describes hope as a bird (“the thing with feathers”) that perches in the soul. There, it sings wordlessly and without pause. The song of hope sounds sweetest “in the Gale,” and it would require a terrifying storm to ever “abash the little Bird / That kept so many warm.” The speaker says that she has heard the bird of hope “in the chillest land— / And on the strangest Sea—”, but never, no matter how extreme the conditions, did it ever ask for a single crumb from her.

28. Like almost all of Dickinson’s poems, “ ‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers—...” takes the form of an iambic trimeter that often expands to include a fourth stress at the end of the line (as in “And sings the tune without the words—”). Like almost all of her poems, it modifies and breaks up the rhythmic flow with long dashes indicating breaks and pauses (“And never stops—at all—”). The stanzas, as in most of Dickinson’s lyrics, rhyme loosely in an ABCB scheme, though in this poem there are some incidental carryover rhymes: “words” in line three of the first stanza rhymes with “heard” and “Bird” in the second; “Extremity” rhymes with “Sea” and “Me” in the third stanza, thus, technically conforming to an ABBB rhyme scheme.