Blog #14: Compare and Contrast Essay

                Both “Five Flights Up” and “Five AM” center on a narrator’s thoughts in the early morning. However, the thoughts of the narrator differ significantly with Stafford’s focusing on how a new day washes away problems while Bishop’s focusing on how problems never fade. Both make heavy use of imagery to accomplish this goal, but “Five Flights Up” uses its images ironically against the narrator’s feelings to show the struggles of the narrator while “Five AM” is more direct about how the morning cleanses.

                The structure of both help to establish the tone each is trying to set. Structurally, both poems are free verse poems with no rhyme scheme. Free verse lends both a conversational tone, as if the narrator were just talking plainly. For both, this helps them achieve a sense of immediacy with the narrator, as there are no tricks of language to color their words. However, “Five AM” has a more organized two stanza, eight line structure while “Five Flights Up” is rather chaotic with the length of its lines and stanzas. “Five AM” feels calmer and less busy because of this; there is a clear order that helps preserve Stafford’s calm, contemplative tone. “Five Flights Up” uses its uneven construction to create a sense of disorder and unease even though the images are quite beautiful.

                The imagery is also very different. “Five Flights Up” focuses initially on the lives of a dog and bird. They live carefree, focusing on their sensory lives. The dog “bounces up and down.” The bird “seems to yawn.” The simplicity of the actions taken by the animals is contrasted to the humans. The owner is stern shouts “You ought to be ashamed!” The narrator flatly states “…yesterday I find almost impossible to lift.” The morning here brings only new things, good and ill. For the dog and the bird, they “know everything is answered.” But for the owner and narrator, the new morning promises a new day of struggle.

“Five AM” creates a calm tone that it never leaves through Stafford’s word choice. Stafford uses very soft verbs like, “breath, flicker, pad, touch.” These verbs help to stifle the action with their light and soft connotation. Enjambment also creates a droning effect by making the words go on and on and on. Stafford has a constant tone, but a dramatic shift in subject at the start of the second stanza creates complexity. Stafford shifts from very personal, sensuous images of a walk in the morning to a rumination on the nature of good and evil for humanity. Then just as suddenly shifts back to him. Stafford looks at positive things, “people… who never turn into killers, saints have built sanctuaries…” Similarly, he walks uphill where “the air doesn’t stir.” Stafford ends stanza one bothered by his ease and lack of difficulty. However, he realizes that thousands of people go through a good life without trouble; or rather their troubles are washed away each morning with the rain. He realizes this through his tone shift back to himself during stanza two. 

Blog #13: Revised Paired Poetry Essay

In William Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper," Blake criticizes how spirituality offers no real solution to suffering. Blake's first poem has a sweeter image that belies that nothing has changed while his second shows bluntly how religion has done nothing to help the sweeps.Through similar poems with dramatically different tone, Blake criticizes how the church offers no genuine help to the Chimney Sweeps.

Both poems have quatrains with an AABB rhyme scheme. The short stanzas allow Blake to paint a vivid image in each stanza which forms the centers of the poems. The AABB rhyme scheme creates a whimsical tone with the its immediate rhyme. This contrasts the first poem with the second, where the first has a lighter tone that better fits the AABB rhyme while the 1794 poem is very dark, making the whimsical scheme ironic and a little sardonic. The 1794 poem is mocking the naive attitude of the 1789 by having the same structure- having the same simple stanza construction and rhyme scheme to show the 1789's true colors.

The two have opposite imagery with the symbols of black and white. The 1789 poem has a more hopeful tone. Tom has white hair in black surroundings such as "coffins of black."  The children are also "naked & white" when they are freed from their suffering by the angel. The presence of white in a black surrounding suggests hope and good in miserable conditions. The 1794 poem uses the opposite imagery, with the sweep as a "little black" thing in white snow. The white surroundings feel hypocritical here, a beautiful landscape that leaves the sweeps still black and miserable. The use of black in white, or bad in good, suggests that all the help being "given" is useless.

Both poems also directly discuss religion. The 1789 deals more with how Tom's faith promises him salvation from his sweeping. Religion is a positive here, helping Tom cope with his hopeless condition because one day "He'd have have God for his father & never want joy." However, the 1794 poem is far less flattering. Religion here is useless. The narrator's parents are busy praying for help in the church, but it's done nothing to help the sweep. This time, religion is seen as a useless institution, promising change with no actual improvement; an institution that "make up a heaven of [the sweeps'] misery."

The bitter 1794 poem is also half the length than the 1789. Most of the bulk of the 1789 was the vision of the angel and salvation, which is not present in the 1794 poem. This makes the hope for salvation seem extraneous and forced, like it were tacked on to try to justify the pain in the first three stanzas of the 1789. Tom is cheered up by a dream, something that isn't real. In the 1794, Blake states the hopelessness of the sweep's condition quickly and directly, with no long-winded attempts to alleviate the pain.

Blake looks at two opposites here, a faith in established institutions to help a person and the disillusionment to the failings of those institutions. When examined side by side, the 1794 poem makes the 1789 poem look naive and foolish. The first represents what the church wants to be seen as, a genuine provider of good. The second represents what Blake sees, an institution giving empty promises.

Blog #12: Paired Poems Essay

In William Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper," Blake looks at how a Chimney Sweep can be happy in deplorable conditions. Conversely, William Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper" looks at how a Chimney Sweep is sad and depressed in his deplorable conditions. These two poems which deal with the same subject matter feature polar opposite tones: one of hope and innocence, the other of bitterness and experience. In William Blake's ""The Chimney Sweeper," Blake takes two contrasting stances on the church from the perspective of the same person.

The 1789 poem deals with dark imagery, but makes such horrible suffering bearable through the promise of a better life. Dacre's dream also begins with thousands of coffins. However, the tone lightens when an Angel comes to free all the sweeps from their suffering. With that knowledge, Dacre gets up and continues happily, safe in the knowledge that one day he will be saved. Here the child has great faith in the established institution of religion, and can bear his suffering with the knowledge that the Powers that Be will one day save him.

The 1794 poem also deals with religion, but is fair less celebratory. The irony here is that the narrator's parents are busy praying, which normally brings a change for the better. But Blake juxtaposes the promise of a better future with no change. The Chimney sweep still suffers despite all his prayers and hopes, and God "make up a heaven of our misery." This time, the narrator is far less faithful, he notes how all his parent's prayers have done nothing to improve his life. He feels "God & his Priest & King" are happy because they can survive on the fruits of his suffering.

The bitter 1794 poem is also far shorter than the 1789, half the length. Most of the bulk was the vision of the Angel and happiness, which is not present in the 1794 poem. This makes the hope for salvation seem extraneous and forced, like it were tacked on to try to justify the bad images in the first three stanzas. In the 1794, it states the hopelessness of the narrators condition quickly and directly, with no long-winded attempts to alleviate the pain. Also, Tom is cheered up by a dream, something that isn't real.

Blake looks at two opposites here, a faith in established institutions to help a person and the disillusionment to the failings of those institutions. A fairly archetypal arc is that from innocence to cynicism to action. The person begins innocent and hopeful, but grows more cynical as they see more suffering. Eventually, they decide to try to change the suffering into something that the hoped for when they were younger. These two poems fit the first two of that arc. If there were a third, it would likely be of someone working personally to save the sweeps.

Reflection

This was our first attempt to write a compare and contrast essay with two works of poetry. I had quite a bit of trouble with this one. I think that this is a four essay; it closely resembles the benchmark essay for four. I had a few interesting ideas but they don't go anywhere and don't have any sort direction. After we read the two, I was a bit thrown on what to do. I think it was because the prompt was quite vague- only compare and contrast, no more instruction? Also, I'm not that familiar with poetic devices. I normally used a list of devices when we did analysis- I never really memorized the devices. I only really noticed the imagery, which was the most superficial part of the poems. I also think that I tried to create a single thesis before I tried to interpret the poems separately to find their individual meanings. I think that I need to study the list of poetic devices and learn to create two separate arguments before trying to synthesis a compare and contrast argument to become better at this type of prompt.

Blog Post #11: Mythology Presentation

Blog #10: Fairy Tale Presentation

Blog #9: Poetry Forms: Ode