AS and A Level: Comparative Essays
- Marked by Teachers essays 4
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"My Last Duchess" and "Ulysses". Browning and Tennyson both employed strong personas to carry out the plots of their dramatic monologues.
The use of blank verse in mostly unrhymed iambic pentameters successfully captures his melancholy frame of mind. Browning's persona is dreadfully potent. He appears to be speaking casually and invitingly to the reader at first, saying, "That's my last Duchess... Will’t please you sit and look at her?â€(Browning Line 1-5). In fact, it's not until the last few lines that we are certain to whom he is speaking—a representative of "The Count your master"(Line 49)—and why. The entire piece has a subdued, nonchalant tone that contrasts horrifyingly and brilliantly with the horror of what the count has done.
- Word count: 1318
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Compare and contrast two poems, one by Liz Lochhead and one by Carol Ann Duffy, taking account of the methods (situation, form and structure, and language, including imagery, and tone) which each poet uses to write about relationships between men and women.
This captures her disdain for the man. Perhaps Lochhead?s reasoning for using a foreign word could be to emphasise the distant relationship between the man and woman in this poem. Moving on, both poems use vivid imagery to capture the complex relationships between men and women. As Duffy said herself: "I like to use simple words but in a complicated way." The main contrast between the two poems is the identity of the speaker. Duffy uses a French prostitute that is a life model for an artist, whereas Lochhead writes from the point of view of a Scottish woman after the breakdown of her marriage.
- Word count: 1242
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Compare and contrast two poems, one by Liz Lochhead and one by Carol Ann Duffy, taking account of the methods (situation, form and structure, and language, including imagery, and tone) which each poet uses to write about love.
Moving on, both poems use vivid imagery to capture the complex nature of love. Warming her Pearls focusses mostly on the physical attraction of love, whereas Epithalamium focusses on love more as an emotional ideal. For example, in the first stanza of Warming Her Pearls Duffy writes, ?Next to my own skin, her pearls,? conveying a deep intimate attraction between maid and mistress. The antithesis of, ?warm,? and, ?cool,? in the first stanza emphasise the unrequited nature of the love. On the other hand, whenever Lochhead uses physical imagery it is a more reciprocated love: ?Sweet ceremony, then hand-in-hand we go.? The sibilance and repetition in the opening line highlights the harmony between the couple.
- Word count: 1308
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Compare and contrast two poems, one by Liz Lochhead and one by Carol Ann Duffy, taking account of the methods (situation, form and structure, and language, including imagery, and tone) which each poet uses to write about childhood.
Moving on, key to understanding how the poets write about childhood is their use of imagery. Beginning with In Mrs Tilscher?s Class, Duffy begins by depicting a day in primary school, utilising the method of listing: ?Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswan.? These names have an intrinsic glamour because they are so foreign, and they help capture the wonder and discovery of childhood. She uses playful imagery, such as, ?a skittle of milk,? which is a pun on childhood toys. The sense of playfulness is continued through her use of a transferred epithet, ?the laugh of a bell swung by a running child.? In this case the laughter of the children is transferred onto the bell, perhaps to symbolise the vigorous ringing an the joy of playtime.
- Word count: 1556
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Compare and contrast two poems, one by Liz Lochhead and one by Carol Ann Duffy, taking account of the methods (situation, form and structure, and language, including imagery, and tone) which each poet uses to write about journeys.
when referring to Scotland captures how strongly the speaker feels towards their origin, and, ?red room,? conveys that they are apprehensive about this journey into the unknown. This could be a reference to HG Wells? The Red Room, in which red is associated with acute anxiety and suffering. Similarly, Lochhead also uses colour imagery in Lanarkshire Girls, but it is not so negative in connotation. She writes, ?Coming into Glasgow / in our red bus through those green fields.? Here red represents a sense of glamour and sophistication about this journey, contrasted with the green which symbolises how the girls are only on the cusp of puberty and are not quite ripe.
- Word count: 1445
