How to Write a Poetry Comparison
I’m going to be referring to a timed essay I wrote whose title was “Compare the methods the poets use to explore violence, death and the attitudes towards them.” Of course this wasn’t a perfect essay, but it did get a level 5, so hopefully it will help a bit to see an example if you’re struggling with structure or technique.
The introduction should, of course, briefly lay out what your general argument will be during the essay without any language analysis or developed points.
You could structure your introduction by summarising the similarities and then differences between each poem, as below:
This works, but naming some techniques or perhaps mentioning the context of your anthology poem might be more sophisticated.
There are several aspects of a poem that you could examine when comparing your two poems; these include:
This packet includes: brainstorming sheets, charts to identify similarities and differences between two poems, notes on how to write each paragraph, etc.
How to Write a Compare & Contrast Essay in Poetry
Every point can be broken down into sub-points; here, they are:
You can see here that every sub-point analyses the language used in a quotation from the text, explains the effect of the language used and links back to the question; this is kind of like the “point, evidence, explanation, link” thing you might have done in your GCSE, only more sophisticated, because now you’re making lots of sub-points and comparing two poems as well.
contributes to the similar or different way in which the poets convey the theme in the title.
Here are examples of a similarity and a contrast point (try to include fairly equal numbers of each, although arguing that there are more similarities or more contrasts is fine):
In the above example, I explored different elements of word choice: the connotations of certain words and phrases, including what contexts they would usually be found in and the implications of those contexts for the tone of the poem, and also the phonology of the words (the sounds which make them up).
You could structure your introduction by summarising the similarities and then differences between each poem, as below:
This works, but naming some techniques or perhaps mentioning the context of your anthology poem might be more sophisticated.
There are several aspects of a poem that you could examine when comparing your two poems; these include:
“The poet uses many linguistic techniques.” That’s too vague even for an introduction, but giving examples of literary techniques and stating what effect they have in a few words will do the trick.
How to Write a Top Grade Comparative Poetry Essay
Also worth comparing are the voices that speak in each poem: the murmuring voice of “On His Blindness” and the Muse in “Sonnet 1.” Can you make any connections between these two voices?
How do I write a poetry comparison essay
The most important part of any English essay is the planning: you need to make sure that you know what you are writing about before you start. With a poetry comparison essay, you will usually be looking for similarities and differences in the poems.
Grade 9 poetry comparison essay
The most important part of any English essay is the planning: you need to make sure that you know what you are writing about before you start. With a poetry comparison essay, you will usually be looking for similarities and differences in the poems. Once all that planning is done and dusted, you can write the essay! Part 1: Introduction: The introduction should be short and clearly explain which poems you will be writing about, and what it is in each poem that you will be discussing. Part 2: Body: This is where all those similarities and differences go: it will depend on the poems, but usually it is best to alternate similarlity and difference. This will mean you have four paragraphs, which could go like this:Similarity (Language)Difference (Language)Similarity (Structure)Difference (Structure)Part 3: Conclusion: After these four paragraphs, you can write your conclusion, which should be a few sentances long, and explicitly answer both the question and the introduction. And you're done!
Hi please could someone mark this poetry comparison essay?
Now that you have the basics down and know exactly how to pit Taylor and Miley against each other, you can move on to the big leagues: writing a comparison essay for actual poems.
Comparison of Poetry Essay Examples
The other way for how to compare and contrast poems is to switch between works every paragraph. In this way, you discuss one element of one poem and move on to discuss the same element in the second poem. Often, this method is the easiest for a reader to follow.