A poem is a way in which people can express their ideas, their point of view, and their feelings. Poems are classified by the author purpose, structure and text, tone, linguistic figures, and stylistic devices. This essay will focus in two specific poems which are; “The Soldiers” written by Rupert Brook (1887-1915) in 1914, and “Colonization in Reverse” by Louise Bennet (1919-2006) in 1966. These poems are written in different periods of time, since one is in 1914 and the other in 1966 and there is a difference of 52 years, but that does not mean that they do not have things in common. You will find out a comparative commentary in the authors communicative purpose, structure and text type, and finally the tone of this two poems.
First of all, the authors wrote these poems thinking about something. In the first poem, “The Soldiers” I can infer that the author wants to talk about the experiences in the First World War. It does not say anything specific about WWI, but since it was written during that time I can deduce that. In this poem Rupert Brook, talks about how the life of a soldier was in that time, and their feelings they have. He shows us how soldiers defend his country no matter what. They did whatever they had to, knowing that England could gain territory. We can see it in this part of the poem “If I should die, think only this of me “that is with what the author start the poem. While in “Colonization in reverse” Louise Bennet wants to express she is proud about Jamaican people went to England to have a better life. This action brought good things for them, since they started like colonizing England, even though it should be in reverse because they went to look for new opportunities not caring the treat they were going to receive. We can notice the author’s purpose since we read the poem title, because it says “in reverse” because Jamaica was an England colony until they became independent.
Since we are talking about two different poems, is obvious that both texts have a structure of verse. The poem written by Rupert Brook it is organized by two stanzas. The first stanza is composed of eight verses and the second of six. While the poem written by Louise Bennet is organized in eleven stanzas and each stanza is composed of four verses. . Both poems rhyme at the end of each line. It may sound ridiculous that, but there are poems in which the last words does not rhyme at all.
The tone in poetry is the mood in which the poem is written. It shows the poet’s attitude toward his audience. In the first poem, there is a change in the tone. In the first four verses there can be an informative tone, since it is talking about World War I, but starting in the 5 verses to the end of the poem, it has a dramatic tone because it start talking about his experiences, his goals, and finally dead. In contrast in the second poem we studied, we can find an ironic tone. Jamaica was an England colony that gets independence in 1962. Now Jamaica people start going to England because they were having a better life. That is ironic because it has only pass four years since they became independent, and they already had a better life than England.
Both poems are different in the aspects we talked about. While one have the purpose of telling experiences, the other express the proud of Jamaica people. Their structures are so different, logically both are written in stanzas, since they are poems, but they differ in the number of verse in each poem. And finally the tone of each of them is different. Since the beginning “The Soldiers” have two different tones, while “Colonization in Reverse” only has one. But the poems have something in common. They both talk about patriotism, about England. They focus on a war, but they are also proud about different aspects, in the first about their patriotisms and in the second one about having better opportunities for living. As already mention, the poems differ in many thing, but they also have similarities between them.
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