Comparison of Wordsworth and Duffy

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Compare any two poets, using the framework of Meaning-Language-Style, to discuss the way they explore the thoughts and feelings surrounding personal relationship.

The two poets I will compare are William Wordsworth and Carol Ann Duffy.  Wordsworth lived from 1770-1850 and so his poems are quite old whereas Duffy lived from 1955-present day so her poems will be more modern and have a more modern outlook on things.

William Wordsworth was born in 1770 to John Wordsworth who was an attorney and his mother who died when he was eight, he had a sister named Dorothy who was a very important part of his life because she was a source of many of his poems, though he was separated from her when their father died five years after their mother. He died on 1850 and was buried in St Oswald's Church in Grasmere.  

Wordsworth has written many poems including The Affliction of Margaret which is about a son who has moved out and left his mother and lost contact with her and so now she doesn’t know where he is and is wondering if he is ok, or even still alive.  These things, however ‘do not make her love the less’ which shows strong emotion, he left her for seven years, abandoned her and has not talked to her since, but she still loves her only son regardless.  Although this poem is written in third person some of the time it is mainly written in first person and because the title is The Affliction of Margaret it is clear that the poem is from this imaginary person’s point of view and so we know this is not the point of view of Wordsworth himself although some of his views may have been shown through the guise of ‘Margaret’.  

This poem is very expressive and is a very sad and lonely poem as it is about a mother effectively loosing her child who she says is ‘worse to me than dead’ which shows her grief because she is saying she has not seen him for seven years and has no idea if he is even alive and then goes on to describe him and say that he was absolutely perfect.  Wordsworth uses many very strong words to portray the feelings of the mother, such as ‘beloved’ to show how strong the feelings for her son are and ‘prosperous or undone’  which shows that she does not care how he finds her, either ill or healthy, rich or poor, as long as he finds her and she gets her son back.  This shows that Wordsworth must think that a mother, or indeed father, must never be parted from her child because the result would be devastating.  In this poem there is no mention of a father in this poem there is only the mention from Margaret that ‘I have no other earthly friend’ which implies that the father has died or left or they no longer speak which increases the sadness of the poem and the feeling Wordsworth creates that her child leaving has left her lonely and devastated.  The way Wordsworth has described the son as ‘an object beauteous to behold’ shows that the mother and son obviously had a good relationship before he left because although she would probably not have abused or said anything nasty about him had they had a bad relationship, a mother would not describe her son as something that is beautiful and well bred. We get all these feelings from Margaret through her thoughts, not actually through her telling the reader her feelings.

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Wordsworth has written this poem so that it is quite clear and easy to understand, it does not contain any personification or metaphors which and it is not full of riddles either.  It is right to the point.  At some points it does leave you wondering, such as where the boys father is now and why the boy left without a word.  For example she says how much she now hates the world because ‘all the world appears unkind’ which is straight to the point.  I think that Wordsworth has written the poem like this because this is what ...

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