Getting better and better! Here's some thoughts for helping hone our essay technique.
Primarily, there are two issues that seem to be emerging:
- General essay structure
- Ability to integrate knowledge of context
First things first:
Structure.
When comparing / contrasting two poems, if you're looking at how the poets do things separately, make sure you emphasise that. Example- when beginning analysis of the second poem, you might start by saying something like,
"While Scott has put more weight on personification, a 1st person narrator, and concrete structure, Stevenson has chosen to employ epitaphic form, and to alternate between use of a 1st person narrator in the first stanza and 3rd person narrator in the second."
Then you could discuss the effects of these choices. Alternatively, you could save this discussion for the conclusion section.
And for the love of all that is good and makes cookies in this world, learn the difference between 'apart' and 'a part'.
Integrating context:
When you've explained the effects of a particular language feature, or combination of language features, extend the idea in your paragraph by adding another sentence or two, explaining how the context makes your observation more meaningful.
Example.
"This pain of loss in love is particularly touching in that the author was experiencing marriage difficulties at this time. The sense of betrayal is keenly felt in the semantic field, with words such as..."
That sort of thing.
In the conclusion, you could also further your observations by discussing how the author's contexts balance against the key concerns of the question.
'Context' should now include English Literature eras. Find out what era each of these poems was from, and try to discern which eras most influenced the authors. Occasionally you will discover a conflict, which may be meaningful.
Hope that helps.
- T. Marcus
No comments:
Post a Comment