How does Ben Jonson use language and structure to convey the message of the poem "On my first Sonne"?

Commentary Assessment Task - Stage 3 Writing Draft Grade 9 Task: How does Ben Jonson use language and structure to convey the message of the poem "On my first Sonne"? "On my first Sonne" is a poem where Jonson describes his reaction to sorrow when his first son dies. Jonson confronts conflict, loss and despair when "Ben Jonson his best piece of poetrie" was "exacted by fate, on the just day". He uses his son as an inspiration in this poem and describes his different stages that he has gone through by using language and structural features in this poem. The structural layout in this poem suggests that a progression of ideas is taking place. The first five lines indicate struggle, conflict, loss and despair. He experiences shock and guilt as he says, "My sinne was too much hope of thee, loved boy". The feeling then develops to acceptance in line six, where he asks rhetorically "For why will man lament the state he should envie?" Jonson then follows this statement with various points trying to argue his bitterness and guilt. Simultaneously, he resolves his feelings in the last lines by saying "For whose sake henceforth, all his vowes be such," Throughout the poem, modality in verbs changes, this supports the idea mentioned above. Jonson uses low modalities and conditional phrases at the beginning of the poem to show doubt, confusion and guilt. Because of the progression of

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Poem comparison showing relationship between parents and child

The poems 'On my first Sonne' by Ben Jonson, 'The Affliction of Margaret' by William Wordsworth, 'Catrin' by Gillian Clarke and 'Digging' by Seamus Heaney all show the relationship between parents and their children. 'On my first Sonne' by Ben Jonson uses euphemism by saying "rest in soft peace" to his son to show how he cares about his son and how it is his fault for the death of the child because he says "lent to me, and I thee pay". This shows that he was lent the son from God and now has to pay it back with the son's life. He shows a lot of pain and loss when he says "as what he loves may never like too much" which is Jonson reminding himself of the sin where he loved his son too much and hopes that it will not happen again so that he will not have to go through the same pain again. This shows that the parent had a close relationship with his son as the father loved his son too much and feels a lot of pain at his son's death. Conversely, 'The Affliction of Margaret' by William Wordsworth has language of despair and questioning of where Margaret's son may be and wondering "where art thou, worse to me than dead". This shows how Margaret is thinks that not knowing where her son is, is worse than him being dead and would like the son to "come to me" or "send some tidings" so she doesn't need to worry about where her son is. Wordsworth also uses language of accusation;

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  • Word count: 1886
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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