Comparative Commentary Between Two Poems About Loss and Death

“The Lamb” and “The Tyger” are contrasting poems. They seem to be opposites of each other, “The Lamb” sends a message of innocence and purity, while “The Tyger” sends a message of evil, fear, and hate. “The Tyger” is definitely a stronger poem, it’s written in questions and progressively gets more and more intense. Both poem uses symbolism and the animal represents a quality. There are references to the Christian figure Jesus, it says in “The Lamb,” “For he calls himself a Lamb: He is meek & he is mild, He became a little child (14):” However there is no references to any religious figure in “The Tyger.” “The Lamb” is written in a question and answer format. The first stanza was a series of questions that asked who created such innocence. Afterward the first stanza, it’s followed by a stanza of answers and responses to the first stanza. The whole poem is written in a gentle nature that calms the reader and adds assurance to the reader. However contrasting “The Lamb,” “The Tyger” is written very aggressively and makes the reader doubt and question the innocence of the world.

The use of symbolism and imagery is beautifully orchestrated in a magnificent dance of emotion that is resonated throughout the poem. The two main ideas that are keen to resurface are that of personal growth and freedom. Furthermore, at first glimpse this can be seen as a simple poem about a women’s struggle with her counterpart. However, this meaning can be interpreted more profoundly than just the causality of a bad relationship.

The poem’s structure as a sonnet allows the speaker’s feelings of distrust and heartache to gradually manifest themselves as the poem’s plot progresses. Each quatrain develops and intensifies the speaker’s misery, giving the reader a deeper insight into his convoluted emotions. In the first quatrain, the speaker advises his former partner to not be surprised when she “see[s] him holding [his] louring head so low” (2). His refusal to look at her not only highlights his unhappiness but also establishes the gloomy tone of the poem. The speaker then uses the second and third quatrains to justify his remoteness; he explains how he feels betrayed by her and reveals how his distrust has led him

This poem by Charlotte Mew tells a story in which a farmer marries a very young girl who could not be less ready to marry. The maid in this poem is abused throughout the poem by her so called husband who does not treat her even as a human. Her marriage arranged at a young age the girl is forced into adult duties and actions much too early. This cause many issues to her mental health and her trust towards other humans. The farmer, as the narrator, uses several similes throughout the poem comparing the maid to a rabbit. This shows how he views her and why he treats her like he does in the poem. The six uneven stanzas allows Mew to express her intentions not limited to another's style. This allows for amazing line placement throughout the poem, and the only form she follows throughout the poem is iambic tetrameter. There is no rhyme scheme allowing Mew to have freedom like the girl so much desires. In “The Farmer’s Bride”, Charlotte Mew uses irregular rhyme and form with iambic tetrameter, as well as thorough imagery and comparison to show the broken marriage in this poem.

she decides to get rid of her lover - and the poem ends as she pulls

All of a sudden (???) in both poems something catastrophic happens, that makes the characters suffer and feel sad. What happened and why are they suffering?

The first stanza uses concrete imagery to depict a working man “with cracked hands that ached” (3), the speaker’s father, starting a fire. The second stanza starts with warm connotations of the fire rescuing his home from the cold; however, the stanza ends with the speaker expressing his fear, a figurative coldness, of “the chronic angers of that house” (9). The third stanza completes the epiphany that the final line of the first stanza, “No one ever thanked him” (5) hints at. It is at this point that the speaker understands that his father expresses his love differently. While the speaker was looking for an overt expression of his father’s love, his father, a working man, can only show his love with the means by which he is familiar. To the father, love is an expression of actions, actions that the speaker is oblivious to during his childhood. By the setting being early Sunday morning, it shows that the father’s actions, as a symbol of his love, are omnipresent and supersede his own desire for rest. The final lines of every stanza reflect the speaker’s growing realization that he was indeed loved by his father, that he initially didn’t recognize his father’s actions as an expression of this love, and that his obliviousness to this unfamiliar expression of love helped contribute to what

"Death, Be Not Proud" by John Donne, "Because I could not stop for Death" and "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died" by Emily Dickinson all have one theme in common: death. Typically, death is associated with negative connotations, but "Death, Be Not Proud" is a more cheerful tale of how death lost its sting. "Because I could not stop for Death" also has a similar theme because. Like the other two poems, "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died" talks about an interruption of a person's death by a fly. "Death. Be Not Proud," "Because I could not stop for Death," and "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died" are all poems revolving around the theme of death.

The two poems that I am analyzing are “I Cry” by Tupac Shakur and “A lonely tear” by Megan Dugan. The themes of both the poems are about loneliness. I chose this theme because I think being lonely is one of the worst feelings ever, being alone can make you feel worthless and insecure. These poems show that being lonely can make you cry, and when you cry you start to think you are alone because nobody is there for you, and when you really need to tell someone about how you feel, you may think you are wasting their time or that they don’t really want to be there.

How I was going to be used away and tossed away like the trash he believed I was

Claude McKay’s two poems, “If We Must Die” and “Baptism” explain creative life of African American art as the ability to maintain their dignity in the face of any obstacle. This facility that black artists used, persistence, also applies to Solomon Northup’s journey. In both poems, the reader is able to see that the narrator is not scared of what lies ahead of him: “If we must die, let it not be like hogs” (“If We Must Die” line 1), and “Into the furnace let me go alone;/ Stay you without in terror of the heat” (“Baptism” lines 1-2). While it is impossible for anyone to create meaningful art without being vulnerable, it was many times harder for African Americans to do so because of the risks they faced. Coming from a history where your ancestors

Have you ever loved so deep and so unconditionally that it becomes your own way of being?

Defying Gravity by Roger McGough and Mort Aux Chats by Peter Porter are two poems that have death as a theme. Although they refer to death in different ways. Mort Aux Chats refers to death to convince you to dislike cats. Whereas Defying Gravity is about a mans “victory” with death. These poems rely on language to emphasise the attitude to death.

Upon looking at these two poems, the reader automatically sees fundamental differences. In spite of that, once read and analyzed,

It is quite clear from the beginning that the poem is a lamentation as the very first words of the poem are “Woman much missed”. These are followed by the poetic repetition of “how you call to me, call to me” which is a suggestion, and echo of himself and also a direct apostrophe to the woman of the desperate urgency and desire that the speaker feels on hearing her. It also shows how insistent and incessant the voice in his mind is. The stanza is built on a couple of timeframes and the woman meant different things to the speaker at different times. The speaker is convinced that she is telling him she has changed, she is not the same as she was in when they first met, when she was all to the him, as he puts it. This demonstrates his longing for her, how he misses her. Not the most ‘recent her’ but the ‘distant her’ and the love they had shared at the beginning of this relationship.