Preview

Ap English Poetry Comparative Essay

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1375 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Ap English Poetry Comparative Essay
Comparative Essay
-------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------
Write a comparative analysis of ‘An old man’s winter night’ by Robert Frost and ‘Lore’ by R.S. Thomas. Highlight each poet’s distinct attitude towards old age. Comment on the style through which the poets express how they feel about old age.

Both Frost and Thomas draw upon the theme of old age in their poems. However in ‘Lore’ the theme of old age is portrayed as a positive thing and the persona defies the stereotype. Whereas in ‘An old man’s winter night’ we are presented with the stereotype about old age and old age is portrayed in a more negative light.
In today’s society old age is often seen as a negative thing.
…show more content…
In ‘Lore’ Thomas uses Job to portray that old age is not a negative thing and that it can be thought of as a new beginning, particularly if one draws on the sustenance offered by nature.
However in ‘An old man’s winter night’ Frost thinks there is a fraught relationship between man and nature because in the poem the old man seems to fear nature, “and scared the outer night...” This is symbolic of the man’s fear of nature. ‘Lore’ has a regular rhyme scheme, whereas ‘An old man’s winter night’ has no specific rhyme scheme. The rhyming pattern in ‘Lore’ emphasises the rhythm of Jobs work, as when you read the poem its pace is upbeat and fast, just like Job.
Whereas in ‘An old man’s winter night’ there is only one stanza. This represents the old man’s separation from the rest of the world and nature. The poem is also a narrative poem which in contrast to ‘Lore’ is told in a third person view. This also adds to the sense of loneliness and separation from the rest of the world.
‘Lore’ and ‘An old man’s winter night’ both use enjambment, but to different effects. They also use parenthesis in their poems. However in ‘Lore’ the rhyme scheme emphasises Jobs rhythm of work. He also has a jump in his step while he is telling us about his life and
…show more content…
They also associate winter with death and portray nature as a harsh mistress. The rhetorical questions in ‘Lore’ are challenges to the reader, and this adds the feel of defiance. The image of “bearded” not only leads us to think of old age and old men but also shows the extent of Jobs immersion in nature. Thomas uses the images of “porridge” and “tea” which are both traditional hearty foods which help to add to the image of the old farmer. Colloquialisms make the character of Job seem more realistic. Also the image of dawn shows that age can be the start of something new and not something that should be looked down

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    “Acquainted with the Night” by Robert Frost is about loneliness and the sorrow it brings. The poem speaks to me because there have been certain times in my life where I have felt alone. Frost uses personification and imagery to convey the solitary atmosphere of the streets at night.…

    • 288 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Robert Frost's “Acquainted with the Night” describes a life that is filled with depression caused by isolation. Many believe this could have been written from Frost's own personal experiences, since it is well known that he experienced a very sad life with the losses of many of his close relatives. This would have left him feeling alone and detached, therefore giving him the inspiration for this poem. When examining the title's literal meaning, one can see Frost’s illustration of how he is very familiar with these dark and lonely feelings that seem to come with the night. The night, and these feelings, are nothing new to him. He uses an exceptionally descriptive setting, diverse symbols, and a unique style to develop his poem. In this poem Frost uses many symbols like the rain, the watchman, and the moon to illustrate the speaker’s depression, as…

    • 874 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Both poets write about the isolation of the individual in their poems An Old Man’s Winter’s Night and Man And Dog. Frost depicts an elderly individual who is isolated form others because of the harshness of the natural environment around him. Whilst Thomas depicts a nomadic individual who wanders the countryside and who, In contrast to Frosts character embraces his isolation, choosing instead a “brown bitch” for his only company…

    • 1127 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In part 1 of the poem the setting is described as a rural and beautiful retreat and gives the reader a feeling of summer, although as part 1 goes on so does the change of setting. In part 4 we see the setting as confusion for the Lady of Shallot and create a pathetic fallacy. The setting is described as ‘stormy’ and the woods ‘pale’ which paints a picture of un-loved place, which represents just how the Lady of Shallot felt.…

    • 491 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Night is associated to darkness, emptiness, and sometimes-even loneliness. Robert Frost’s “Acquainted With the Night” shows the character, which is the narrator, being overly too familiar almost friendly with the nighttime. The narrator of the poem is a man who described what he felt as he took a walk at night seemingly searching for something he had apparently lost. This “modernist” character was disposing loneliness throughout the whole poem. He is a representative of the alienated person typical of modern literature because he tried to seek out what were causing his loneliness from his environment.…

    • 432 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this poem Frost conveys the idea of a man stopping by some mysterious woods on a snowy evening and absorbing the quiet, beautiful scene. Frost reveals the temptation for the protagonist to stay for longer than he needs to in these woods, but knowing he has to return to reality and must continue travelling past the woods before he can rest for the night.…

    • 378 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The poet leads the reader from evening to night and morning and again from morning to evening-a full account of a day’s activities-or lack of them. “The winter evening settles down” could be any one evening in winter but ‘winter’ is usually associated with lack of growth, chill and gloominess. ‘’With smells of steaks in…

    • 1267 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Once people think of the poetry of Robert Lee Frost, whom the sole won four times of Pulitzer Price, it is natural to picture in their mind the pastoral landscape of rural New England which he lovingly described. The symbolic images include trees, leaves, snow, and, not surprisingly, frost. His poetry often reveal us the long stone walls, stretching across the grassy hills of the New England countryside, dark trees and mysterious woodlands, the hustle and bustle of energetic wildlife, gardens of flowers, flowing streams and brooks, and other images of rural farmland life. However, not a very successful farmer as he was, whom looked at the effects of nature on human beings and on their “land of living”, Frost, in the second thought, beyond the deceptively simple of depicting scenes from daily life, there is more inside his masterpieces. He has his ambiguities in his nature poetry that implied philosophic thoughts that engage with epistemological presuppositions, which examine the scope and limitation of human knowledge and confront the multi-sided nature of truth itself.…

    • 2276 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Robert Frost

    • 445 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Robert Frost’s poetry effectively deals with the critical ideas of life and death. Frost successfully relies on the forms and features of poetry to convey key philosophical views about meaning of life. Two poems that illustrate this are, “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “After Apple Picking”. Both of these poems are concerned with the persona contemplating the meaning of life and death. Frost utilises several poetic techniques such as alliteration, rhyme, metaphor and personification to demonstrate these important ideas.…

    • 445 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One Lie Leads to Another

    • 352 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The allegory that you might be interpreting in "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is one of obligations that a person has that should be done before the end of the day or the end of their life. What obligations or responsibilities do you feel the pressure to come back to at the end of a day—cooking, children, pets, taking care of your family? When are the “promises” we need to keep made explicit, and when do they remain unspoken? The evening is “the darkest evening of the year,” winter solstice. It is also the shortest, in a period of cold and darkness. The images of the frozen lake, the dark, the deep, could be used to argue that Frost is thinking of death. Death here is beckoning, an escape from care. The repeated lines at the end seem to reinforce the heavy sense of obligation. They make the “promises” seem more weighty, inescapable. Therefore, while the poem is laden with images of death, the poem hearkens to life and fulfilling responsibilities before it is too late. The poem ends with the repeated phrase "...miles to go...." There is always something a person can do before it is too late. So in a sense, life is reaffirming even at the end.…

    • 352 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The poem’s rhyme scheme is AABA. An example of this is the last words from lines one, two, and four of the first stanza which are “know,” “though,” and ”snow.” The poem continues with the last word of line three of the first stanza rhyming with lines one, two, and four of the second stanza which are…

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Darkling Thrush

    • 812 Words
    • 3 Pages

    As winter comes around the days grow short and the nights grow long. In “The Darkling Thrush,” the first stanza begins by referring to winter and how nature once beauty is now gone in the flash of an eye. In lines two and three, Hardy capitalizes the words “Frost” (2) and “Winter” (3) and he personifies how he uses the capitalizations. He describes the frost as being “specter grey” (2) and the winter as being “dregs made desolate” (3). They are personifications because he describes them as being less like natural elements but rather more like a person’s name. He uses winter as a metaphor for death and uses subtle messages in reference to the grim reaper. Hardy also uses the words “coppice,” (1) “specter,” (2) and “weakening” (4) to describe how the ice is cracking during the winter months with the hard k sounds. As the poem moves on towards the end, it begins to talk about rebirth and how with every death things are reborn.…

    • 812 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Robert Frost takes our imagination to a journey through wintertime with 
his two poems "Desert Places" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". These two poems reflect the beautiful scenery that is present in the snow covered woods and awakens us to new feelings. Even though these poems both have winter settings they contain very different tones. One has a feeling of depressing loneliness and the other a feeling of welcome solitude. They show how the same setting can have totally different impacts on a person depending on 
their mindset at the time. These poems are both made up of simple stanzas and diction but they are not straightforward poems.…

    • 806 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first stanza provides a context of isolation and solitude, an aspect carried out to the end of the poem. Stating that the owner of the wood’s “house is in the village, though;” evidently indicates that the woods that the narrator has ‘stopped by’ is quite far away from the village, a presumably much more populated place, as the owner “will not see me [him or her] stopping here / To watch his woods…” (Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” 2-4). The loneliness and isolation is further emphasized in the second stanza, “My little horse must think it queer / To stop without a farmhouse near” (Frost “Stopping by Woods on a Snowing Evening” 5-6). Similar to the “yellow woods” (1) of “The Road Not Taken”, Frost implies the season of winter, or even more specifically, most likely December 21st, as it states in the second stanza, “Between the woods and frozen lake / The darkest evening of the year” (7-8). Despite the usual negative connotations associated with isolation and darkness, Frost shines a more positive light on the aforementioned characteristics with words such as “easy” (12) and “downy” (12) to describe the wind and falling snow, presenting a calm and more relaxed tone to the ‘tense’ characteristics of ‘isolation’ and ‘darkness’. Frost goes further to…

    • 908 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Frost in his poem “Stopping byWoods on a Snowy Evening” generates anatmosphere of wonder and charm bydescribing the Woods as deep, dark andlovely. The speaker stops by some woodson snowy evening to stare at them. Heenjoys the lovely scene in near-silence andis tempted to stay a little longer butacknowledging the call of duty andconsiderable distance he decides toproceed without tarrying (Prema Joshua, 2008).…

    • 1196 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays