...glish literature How to Write an A* GCSE English Literature Poetry Response Copyright © 2008 www.englishteaching.co.uk + www.english-teaching.co.uk How to Write an A* GCSE English Literature Poetry Response 2 The Poetry Component of the GCSE Literature Paper The poetry task is the second question on the GCSE English Literature exam paper. It is perhaps the more demanding of the tasks on the paper, because unlike the question on the prose, in this section you are being asked to compare four poems simultaneously throughout your answer. In the exam you should spend one hour on this section of the paper. Given the greater demand of the task, your response to the poetry is worth more marks than the response to the prose. In order to perform at the highest level on this paper, it is important that you develop a nuanced and sophisticated comparative written style. However, this is achievable if you adopt a systematic approach to ordering and writing your responses. It does, however, demand considerable practice prior to the final examination. What is the Examiner looking for in a response to the Poetry? The exam is designed to test your ability to do the following things: Can you respond to the poems critically, in detail, and sensitively using textual evidence? Can Can you explore language, structure and form contribute to the meaning of texts? Can Can you compare the ways that ideas, themes and relationships are presented in the poems by...
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...writings. Attaching paramount importance to poetry in his essay "The Study of Poetry", he regards the poet as seer. Without poetry, science is incomplete, and much of religion and philosophy would in future be replaced by poetry. Such, in his estimate, are the high destinies of poetry. Arnold asserts that literature, and especially poetry, is "Criticism of Life". In poetry, this criticism of life must conform to the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. Truth and seriousness of matter, felicity and perfection of diction and manner, as are exhibited in the best poets, are what constitutes a criticism of life. Poetry, says Arnold, interprets life in two ways: "Poetry is interpretative by having natural magic in it, and moral profundity". And to achieve this the poet must aim at high and excellent seriousness in all that he writes.This demand has two essential qualities. The first is the choice of excellent actions. The poet must choose those which most powerfully appeal to the great primary human feelings which subsist permanently in the race. The second essential is what Arnold calls the Grand Style - the perfection of form, choice of words, drawing its force directly from the pregnancy of matter which it conveys. This, then, is Arnold's conception of the nature and mission of true poetry. And by his general principles - the" Touchstone Method" - introduced scientific objectivity to critical evaluation by providing comparison and analysis as the two primary tools for judging...
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...write poetry because it’s cute, we read and write poetry because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion. Poetry, beauty, romance, love -- these are what we stay alive for Let poetry work its magic We didn’t just read poetry, we let it drip from our tongues like honey; spirits soared, women swooned, and gods were created. Language was developed for one endeavor and that is to woo women A man isn’t very tired, he is exhausted; don’t say very sad, say morose We must constantly look at things in a different way When you read, don’t just consider what the author thinks, consider what you think Strive to find your own voice; dare to strike out and find new ground Sometimes the most beautiful poetry can be about simple things – a cat or a flower or rain Poetry can come from anything with the stuff of revelation in it Don’t let your poems be ordinary Say the first thing that pops into your mind even if it’s total gibberish; describe what you see, now give it an action Mr. Keating: I always thought the purpose of education was to teach one to think for himself Mr. Nolan: No John, tradition, discipline, prepare them for college and the rest will take care of itself Will the rest take care of itself? Should teachers be concerned with “the rest” – developing independent thinkers There is a time for daring and there is a time for caution; a wise man understands which is called for ESSAY & DISCUSSION...
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...night of a fire. I shook hand after hand, saw face after face, that said nothing to me: they were doors that I did not see before in the street, eyes that did not know my face, and in the dead of night, after welcoming me, I succumbed to fatigue, to sleep my country’s anguish… “A poem is the perfect form of expression.” Discuss this statement using reviews of at least one poem and a number of articles, which discuss the poet’s work. Poet ~ Pablo Neruda Poem ~ Poema 20, Canto 10 – The Fugitive Introduction Why poetry? One argument dates back to Aristotle, to the famous distinction between history and poetry: history reports what happened and is therefore subject to all the constraints and imperfections of actual life; poetry by contrast uses words in their fuller potential and creates representations that are more complete and meaningful than nature can give us raw. In the quest to explain why poetry is the perfect form of expression, the works of poet...
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...Poetry Analysis Essay for “Road Not Taken” By: Robert Frost Course # and Title: ENGL 102: Literature and Composition Semester of Enrollment: Spring 2012 Name: Timothy Bayless ID #: L22915807 Writing Style Used: MLA Timothy Bayless L22915807 ENGL-102 C04 Poetry Analysis Essay Outline I. Introduction A. Facts: Robert Frost thought a poem should start with delight but end in wisdom and has also won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry four times. B. Title and Author: “The Road Not Taken” By: Robert Frost C. Thesis: The poem displays the difficult decisions people make in order to progress in life and how one choice can alter the future for better or worse. II. Body A. Meaning and Message i. Surface Meaning: A person comes to a “y” in the road and has to decide which way to go. ii. Deeper Meaning: Internal debates are overwhelming when deciding what the right decision to make is. iii. Theme: The choices made in life can alter the future for better or worse. B. Tone i. The person speaking in the poem seems to have a certain level of maturity and it shows in the debate about which road to take. ii. The tone of the speaker is solemn in nature. iii. The reason the tone seems solemn is because the speaker is left with...
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...will doing an essay on the comparison and similarities of short stories and poetry, and drama. They all are different types of literature but they share many of the same elements. Some of the things that short stories, poems, and drama have in common are figure of speech, conflict, and foreshadowing. The setting id the same element in short stories poetry, and drama. Setting can also be important in short stories, and the other literatures because setting encompasses a wide variety physical and cultural elements. The settings can add attitude to a short story, or poem. Short stories and plays have narrators, but poems have voice. The speaker is a persona that poets creates. The narrator or voice can set the tone for a poem. An allegory is a short story with two parallel meanings one is figuratively and the other is literal. An allegories is often used by writers in short stories and poetry and drama to give their writing a deeper meaning and can be used to teach reader or viewers a lesson. Foreshadowing is often used in short stories, and poetry and drama. Foreshadowing can be used in poetry in the title to give the reader an idea of what the poem is about. Another element shared by short stories poetry is mood. The mood is used to add atmosphere and to help convey the theme. Mood gives these literary feeling. Figure of speech is another element that is shared. Figure of speech are expression such as a hyperbole element in drama, short stories, and poetry. Writers use...
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...Sun Hwa Choi English 3 Thursday Evening Class Professor Humphrey Due May 21, 2015 Essay 4: Development of Heroes (+Hamlet) The Heroes of the Greek and Rome poetries share few common uniqueness. They are heroic in that they all sacrifice, they are all intelligent, they all have their own faith or luck, they are all remembered or also known as Kleos and they all wander and deal with many problems. We have read many of them in this course such as Odysseus, Oedipus, Aeneas, Achilles and Beowulf. Then there is the great Hamlet who is not one of the Greek Heroes but a character from a play by William Shakespeare. Today in this essay, I want to compare some of the Greek poetry characters with the Prince Hamlet. First of all, I want to talk about few similarities between Hamlet and one of the Greek poet characters we have learned from this course. In my opinion, the story of Hamlet itself can be very analogous to the story of the poetry Oedipus. Both of the story have a plague or a outbreak going on from the beginning of the story. In the Oedipus the King, it starts with the Plague of Thebes where then Oedipus start to take actions for his people. This is where he shows his heroic features being a great leader for his city and sacrificing himself to solve the problem. The play Hamlet also starts with an outbreak and there seems to be something strange. The play starts with, "who’s there?" (Act 1 scene 1 line 1) by one of the guards. The fact that the play starts out with a question...
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...Comparison and Contrast Essay between two Poems of Emily Dickinson and Mary Oliver Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, or called Emily Dickinson for short (1830 – 1886) and Mary Oliver (1935), are the two poets who contributed great works of art to American society during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In spite of several characteristics that can be found in both Emily Dickinson and Mary Oliver poems, there are undeniably things that distinguish them from one another, although outside both are very famous poets of the poems that they wrote at that time, but actually inside, every poem that they bring the reader has a different meaning and quite deep in reader hearts. For example, as we read the poem “Alligator Poem” by Mary Oliver poem and the poem “A Bird Came down the Walk” by Emily Dickinson, we can clearly see that both poets have borrowed the images of the bird to express the deeply of each verse, and to add lively for their poem. This method is called personification, is one of the main methods by which the poet used to write a poem vividly. Although both poets use personification methods in both poems, such as borrowing the images of the bird to write a poem as an example, but actually the use of such methods have different deeply meaning in the two poems. And that is the topic I write this essay, what are the similarities and differences between how they use images of birds to express their verses? How they have been very successful in using the personification...
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...Literature is a term used to describe written or spoken material. Broadly speaking, "literature" is used to describe anything from creative writing to more technical or scientific works, but the term is most commonly used to refer to works of the creative imagination, including works of poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction. Literature, in its broadest sense, is any written work; etymologically the term derives from Latinliteratura/litteratura "writing formed with letters", although some definitions include spoken or sung texts. More restrictively, it is writing that possesses literary merit, and language that foregrounds literariness, as opposed toordinary language. Literature can be classified according to whether it is fiction or non-fiction and whether it ispoetry or prose; it can be further distinguished according to major forms such as the novel, short story or drama; and works are often categorised according to historical periods or their adherence to certain aesthetic features or expectations (genre). IMPORTANCE OF LITERATURE It also encourages students to think critically, specifically for the discussing and thinking components. Those people studying literature look at poems, plays, essays, stories and novels. Reading and learning about these helps people to sympathize with others and see how complex humans truly are. It aids in broadening a person's intellectual horizons and it stimulates a more active imagination. Literature explores different human beliefs, ideas...
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...Essay 1- Comparison of the neighbors In Robert Frost’s poems “Mending Wall” and “The Ax-Helve,” the characters demonstrate the comparable differences of being each other’s neighbor. Frost uses these poems to tell us that we shouldn’t determine one’s worth on first interaction. Although Frost suggests that we should share amongst our neighbors yet there should be a boundary. In both poems, one neighbor is willing to be the open and “good neighbor” while in contrast, the other wants excludes himself. (Frost, Mending Wall) I “Mending wall” the neighbors like having a fence between the two. The fence symbolizes many different things, but ultimately it symbolizes a space or boundary between the two. This is completely different from “The Ax Helve” where the French neighbor wants the other neighbor over. So while they are very much different they are also very much similar. (Frost, Ax helve) The similarities come into play when you look into the underlying meaning and triggers of each poem, in both the neighbors have this unspoken suspicion of the other neighbor. For example in “Mending Wall” the narrator did not see the need for the wall between them which was there to create an alienation and a similar alienation was created by the cultural differences between the two neighbors in “The Ax Helve.” In the “Mending Wall” the narrator and the neighbor pretty much agree on the benefit of the wall, and in the end they both repair the wall, but the narrator did question the...
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...most general genres in literature are (in loose chronological order) epic, tragedy,[1] comedy, and creative nonfiction.[citation needed] They can all be in the form of prose or poetry. Additionally, a genre such as satire, allegory or pastoral might appear in any of the above, not only as a subgenre (see below), but as a mixture of genres. Finally, they are defined by the general cultural movement of the historical period in which they were composed. Genre should not be confused with age categories, by which literature may be classified as either adult, young-adult, or children's. They also must not be confused with format, such as graphic novel or picture book. GenresEdit For more details on this topic, see List of literary genres. Just as in painting, there are different types: the landscape, the still life, the portrait; there are different types of literary works. These types tend to share specific characteristics. Genres describe those works which share specific conventions.[2] Genres are often divided into subgenres. Literature, is divided into the classic three forms of Ancient Greece, poetry, drama, and prose. Poetry may then be subdivided into the genres of lyric, epic, and dramatic. The lyric includes all the shorter forms of poetry, e.g., song, ode, ballad, elegy, sonnet.[2] Dramatic poetry might include comedy, tragedy, melodrama, and mixtures like tragicomedy. The standard division of drama into tragedy and comedy derives from Greek drama.[2] This parsing into...
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...ENGLISH 281 Draft Workshop Questions for Essay Two in Wikis Steps: 1. Post your draft to your appointed Wiki area by Sunday, April 5 by midnight. 2. Review drafts attached to your Wiki area and provide feedback using the below questions, pasting the answers in to the Wiki area and making it clear who the answers are for/whose draft you are commenting on and that you are the writer. For example, you could paste in something like the following: Susan, here are my thoughts/feedback on your draft posted so far: #1. [Provide feedback using the criteria below] #2 [Provide feedback using the criteria below] #3 on [Repeat above] You are expected to complete these steps for at least one draft posted to your group’s Wiki by Monday, April 6 by midnight for possible five points credit. Be sure to answer the “Specific Questions” below the first ten questions here depending on which essay prompt you are reading for a draft. 1. Does the author/student have all of the “front matter” needed in the draft? (i.e, Does it give an author tag with the title of the poem in quotes or name of book in italics and name of film in italics being worked with in the essay, for example and the author(s) name of text being discussed in the first one or two sentences of introduction)? If this is information is missing, let the author know here and also provide an example please of how it could be better. 2. Are the introductory sentences attention-grabbing? If they are...
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...The Comparison-Contrast Essay Daouda Soumahoro September 13, 2011 American Intercontinental University Abstract James Baldwin and Kurt Vonnegut Jr were two eminent writers that marked American fiction literature after world war two. James Baldwin is the author of Sonny’s Blues published in early 1950 in New City. The story is narrated by unknown man who pertain his attempted to come to the damage with his long disaffected Brother Sonny, Jazz musician. In this work Baldwin absorbed many of his own experiences to search the issuances of racial conflict, individuality and the complexity of human needs. Similar to Sonny, Harrison Bergeron, written by Kurt Vonnegut Jr is a fourteen year boy who rebels against his tyrannical government. Vonnegut used a satirical humoristic commentary of society and its leaders as James used the lightness and darkness symbols to describe his suffering characters. The question is how the author literacy styles differ or similar to one another in term of themes? The Comparison-Contrast Essay Sonny’s Blues written by James is a story that addresses with very expression of the society and is done so through symbolism and imagery. Baldwin’s story is carefully written using lightness and darkness as typifies through out the entire story, he focuses of “Sonny’s Blues” on the character of sonny who eventually and endlessly fighting to find what makes him happy. Finally Sonny finds two breaks loose, one of them disastrous drug abuse and musician ...
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...Narration The person telling the story is the narrator the narrator helps t shape the story for the reader. Point of view The point of view is the perspective from which the narrator tells the story. The point of view can be indentified in five ways. 1 First person It will use the Pronoun “I” and will place the narrator in the story. 2 Third person this will use the pronouns “he” or “she but will typically limit it to one characters Point of view Third Person Omniscient Will use the pronouns “he” “she” and “they however, the narrator will move in and out of the mind of several characters. Third person objective point of view will limit the intervention of the narrator. The setting and action will be described and we will listen in audience. The narrarator will not interpret for the reader. Shifting point of view The shifting point of view will shift the focus from a narrow to a broader perspective of the omniscient narrator Setting the location and the atmosphere of the story Conflict this is the struggle of opposing external or internal forces Plot This is the structure of the story. It’s the twists & turns. It you the story un folds. Plot structure Crisis / Climax The moment of truth rising action conflict builds, exposition, We learn about the various characters, the falling action crisis is over resolution the story ends. what happens at the end. Allteration This is the use of similar consant sounds. Using woods that begin with the same on similar...
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...Elyse Carbajal ENGL-102 B02 Liberty University Professor Washer Poetry Analysis Essay Outline I. Introduction a. Facts: Frost won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry four times; he had unique approach to poetry. He believed that a poem began with delight and concludes in wisdom. b. Thesis: The poetic pieces displays the difficult decisions individuals make in order to progress in life. Moreover, one choice can alter the future for better or worse. II. Body c. Body i. Surface meaning: An individual comes to “x” in the road and must decide which path he must go. ii. Deeper meaning: Internal debates are overwhelming when faced with the choice to make the right decision. iii. Theme: The choices, which we make in life, can alter the future for better or worse. d. Tone iv. The individual speaking in the poem displays a certain level of maturity and it is revealed in the debate of the path, which must be taken. v. The tone of the speaker is solemn in nature. vi. The tone is solemn due to the fact that the speaker is left with the uncertainty in regards to what lies down each road and speaks in past tense throughout the poem. e. Figures of Speech vii. The speaker is using a metaphor when speaking. viii. The comparison of the wear of the two roads makes the decision more difficult. Moreover, the yellow wood usually refers to autumn, or an age of dying....
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