Poetry Comparison Q1a

1. Poetry Comparison Q1a • Write a critical comparison of the following poems, considering in detail ways in which language, style and form contribute to each poet’s portrayal of journeys.

2. Language Poem A • Terse, formal; descriptive • Tone: rather ambivalent in its short lines • Tends towards uncertainty (‘almost come’, ‘sudden awe’, ‘Behind, a sealed route’) reflected in Poem B) before reaching some closure / acceptance (‘God at every gate’) Poem B • More informal, casual; emotive • 1st voice reflects fear of the journey ahead in its repeated questions (‘Shall I…’, ‘But is there..’, ‘May not’, ‘Then must I’) • 2nd voice is self-assured throughout and grows gradually more convicted, comforting (‘You cannot’, ‘They will not’, ‘you shall’, ‘Yea, beds for all who come’).

3. Imagery Poem A • Symbolic landscapes: Being, Eternity, ‘the forest of the dead’ • Journey as looming, unfathomable (‘odd fork’) • Reference to feet first ‘almost come’, then ‘reluctant’: mix of reverence and fear (‘sudden awe’) • Defeat (‘Eternity’s white flag’, ‘Retreat’) turns into acquiescence at the end; acceptance of death, entering ‘the forest of the dead’ Poem B • Air of stolidity, calm compared to A. • Initial fear and pessimism in the ‘road wind(ing) uphill’ ‘to the very end’, and the ‘slow dark hours’ is offset by… • Prevailing images of shelter and protection (‘resting-place’, ‘roof’, ‘beds’) as well as friendship (‘other wayfarers’, ‘They will not keep you standing at that door’) • Finality in B is not found in death or of ‘God’: simply the rest we need in our journey

4. Form Poem A • 3 quatrains; movement from ‘advancement’ to ‘retreat’ but also awe and security • Shorter lines, more regular beat: lines 1, 2 and 4 in iambic trimetre, line 3 in iambic tetrametre • However, more pauses than in B: rhythm perhaps ponderous • Both poems do progress towards a conclusion, with A’s religious intonation more emphatic? Poem B • 4 quatrains; movement from uncertainty to certainty andsecurity • Also end-stopped lines, more varied rhythm, reflecting alternation of doubt and assurance. • Rhyme creates fluidity of the 2nd speaker’s rhetoric and conviction. • Poem thus ends on note of optimism and escape, not ‘God at every gate’, but rest if ye shall seek.

5. Poetry Comparison Q1b • 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 memory.

6. Form Poem A • Sonnet Form: 14 lines long, ABBA/ABBA/ CDEE/CD • Use of punctuation – “;”, “-”, “!”, “,” • Run on lines: line 7-8, 9-10, 11-12. Poem B • Free verse – run on lines in stanza 1. • Syntax in stanza 2 broken up by commas, colon, full stops. • Very succinct, shortest line of the poem: “But now my heart is heavy-laden”.

7. Meaning and Effects • Sonnet form (and the rhyme scheme), suggests a sad song of a loss love. The structured, controlled form of the poem contrasts with the speaker’s outburst of emotions of anger, disappointment, bitterness and sadness. • The use of punctuation, particularly the use of exclamation mark is used to different effect in the poem itself. The first of which has a forceful, accusatory tone in “who told me time would ease me of my pain!”. The latter, “There’s no memory of him here!” which is an apparent display of relief is immediately tempered with the ironic realisation of the remembrance of the absence. The poem ends then, with a poignant reminder of memory’s stronghold on the speaker. • The use of semi-colon in lines 3,4,5,6 achieves a listing of various reminders of the lost love. It is an endless list of seemingly insignificant moments of the day “rain”, “shrinking of tide” to larger changes in life, the change of seasons- “snow”, “leave” (which connote autumn). Her lamentations conveys the power of memory imbibing every single thing with meaning.

8. Contrasting the form of Poem A with B • Unlike Poem A, poem B’s use of free verse and run on lines are used to convey a sense of unrestrained emotions and memory. • The flow of the run on lines in stanza 1 provides fluidity and movement to the fond recollection of the speaker’s youth. “feckless as a colt (young horse)/Out in the fields” , “life was free/ And all the paths...” and “hawthorn-time/ Across the carolling meadows”. This effect of movement is apt in conveying the sense of freedom of open spaces. • However, the freedom of run on lines is immediately curtailed in the second stanza of Poem B where the short, stark sentences and punctuation reflects the lack of movement of the bitter old man. This break of syntax effects a dense, heavy reading of the poem, much like the speaker’s heart which is “heavy-laden”.

9. Comparison of form and meaning • While the form in the first conveys the bitter loss of love and the memory that haunts her at every space and time (places are attached with meaning for her), the form in the second poem provides a juxtaposition of emotions (nostalgic in Stanza 1 to bitter, depressed remembrance of friends lost in Stanza 2 – possibly war?) that conveys the polar opposites of memory’s effect on the individual. • What are the poets trying to convey about memory here? As well as the type of memory?

10. Ending of both poems • Both poems end with a clause that is impactful in its resounding sense of loss and poignancy. Poem A ends with “so remembering him”- not allowing her to elude the memory of his absence. This reinforces the very title of the poem- “Time Does Not Bring Relief”. Again, the speaker is caught up, restrained in the memory of a loss love. • Poem B ends with the vastness of “silence” and “(vanished) faces of my friends” engulfing the individual. Similarly, memory entraps and retains the individual. Awaiting only death, “the darkness and the nightingale” to release him from this.

11. Language/Style Poem A • Use of natural imagery, “rain, sea, mountains, trees. • The use of seasons, symbolising the progress of time. Note the snow and leaves have come and gone, they are now absent: “old snows melt”, “last year’s leaves are smoke”. • Diction associated with “excess” is used to exaggerate (?) and overwhelm the speaker: “heaped on my heart”, “his memory they brim”. To which eventually, she is paralysed and “stand(s) stricken”. • Tone moves from anger and accusatory to that of sorrow. Poem B • Use of natural imagery, “fields”, wind on the grass, “meadows”, “fields of long ago”, “wealds”. • The use of seasons (particularly summer) to symbolise youth is evident in stanza 1- Nature is filled with life, movement and warmth. • The use of binaries: “light/darkness”, “light/heavy”. • Tone changes from stanza 1 (nostalgic, tender, affectionate) as exemplified by the choice of words such as “gay”, “light”, “bloom”, thrilling sweet, my joy” to Stanza 2 (disheartened, dispirited) in his ironic perspective of “rich in all that I have lost” and his regrets in his old age: “burning my dreams away beside the fire”.