Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
importance of literature to culture
poem comparison essay
poem comparison essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: importance of literature to culture
Comparing poems from different cultures. Many poems deal with the theme of cultural identity. I have chosen three to compare, they are: Search For My Tongue, by Sujata Bhatt Half-Caste, by John Agard and Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan, by Moniza Alvi. I chose these three poems because I feel that they all deal with different aspects of cultural identity. For example Search for my tongue covers the aspect of losing your native tongue and using a ‘foreign’ language, Half-Caste addresses the point of racism and stereotyping, whilst Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan highlights the issues of alienation and not being able to fit in with either side of your family. Search For My Tongue is quite unusual as instead of the text being in one language all the way through it starts in English and then changes into Arabic part of the way through. This leaves the reader with a feeling of disorientation and that the reader, unless bilingual in those two languages, can not read or make sense of the foreign language. This poem also relays to you the fact that even if you’ve forgotten your mother tongue and don’t speak it for some time it will always come back and blossom if it is used enough. The poet also puts the point across by repeating the word tongue over and over again. The foreign tongue can never take the place of the mother tongue, because it is part of your own identity. The passage ‘….but over night while I dream it grows back..’ gives the impression that although you may speak in the foreign language most of the time you still dream in your native tongue and it will never go away. The poem ‘Half Cast’ also deals with the aspects of a different language but instead of writing in a ... ... middle of paper ... ...e to fit in with either side of their family. For example when her Aunts bring the Candy-striped glass bangles they snapped and made her wrists bleed, this is because people from Asia are very small boned, so because of her being mixed race she was not able to put then. Also it says that her school friends where not impressed by her Salwar kameez, they wanted to see weekend clothes and where not interested in the mirror work or the story how three of them sailed toto England. I find all of these poems very interesting and thought provoking. My favourite out of these three is half-caste because it give such a strong point and all the examples make sense. Where we live there aren’t many people from different cultures, so we don’t face racism and people from mixed race that often. These poems make you see the points of view and traditions of other cultures.
The civil rights movement may have technically ended in the nineteen sixties, but America is still feeling the adverse effects of this dark time in history today. African Americans were the group of people most affected by the Civil Rights Act and continue to be today. Great pain and suffering, though, usually amounts to great literature. This period in American history was no exception. Langston Hughes was a prolific writer before, during, and after the Civil Rights Act and produced many classic poems for African American literature. Hughes uses theme, point of view, and historical context in his poems “I, Too” and “Theme for English B” to expand the views on African American culture to his audience members.
As Edgar Allan Poe once stated, “I would define, in brief the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of beauty.” The two poems, “Birthday,” and “The Secret Life of Books” use different diction, theme, and perspective to give them a unique identity. Each author uses different literary devices to portray a different meaning.
Ozymandias, the rhyme is the end of lines 1 & 3 & 5, 2 & 4, 6 & 8, 7 &
which is perhaps what the girl in the poem was lacking as a child and
Which implies that she just committed suicide so herself and perhaps her husband wouldn’t face embarrassment due to her giving birth to a part black
on: April 10th 1864. He was born in 1809 and died at the age of 83 in
The three sources I have selected are all based on females. They are all of change and transformation. Two of my selections, "The Friday Everything Changed" by Anne Hart, and "Women and World War II " By Dr. Sharon, are about women’s rites of passage. The third choice, "The sun is Burning Gases (Loss of a Good Friend)" by Cathleen McFarland is about a girl growing up.
All the poems you have read are preoccupied with violence and/or death. Compare the ways in which the poets explore this preoccupation. What motivations or emotions do the poets suggest lie behind the preoccupation?
to beat the slaves and the stick used to beat the drum, as the slaves
In class we have been studying poetry, and the two poems I have chosen to compare are “In a Brixtan Markit” and “Not My Business”.
“Ode to the Chameleon” by Yusef Komunyakaa utilizes metaphors and allusion to convey and enhance the meaning of his poem. A common subject among his poems is what it was like to be an african-american man fighting alongside white men in the Vietnam War. A very powerful metaphor used in lines 3 - 5 is, “You are a glimpse/of a rainbow, your eyes an iota/of amber” (Komunyakaa 3-5). Komunyakaa is comparing a chameleon to a faint rainbow or a small amount of amber, both of which are fairly special. Prior to reading the poem, someone may have never thought of a chameleon as being similar to a rainbow or a piece of amber. But, the poem brings chameleons into a new light; they are hard to spot, and when spotted, are unforgettable. The entire poem is an extended metaphor, comparing a chameleon to a soldier in combat. While in war, it is crucial to stay concealed in order to survive. Lines three through five demonstrate this similarity because, like spotting a chameleon, spotting an enemy soldier is rare as well as critical to success. The end of the poem tells of the chameleon’s hideaway. the poem reads, “Called into the hanging garden/you sit there, almost unseen/as dusky shadows climb/the blooming Judas tree” (20-23). Judas was one of Jesus’ disciples, but he betrayed Jesus. This betrayal lead Jesus to his crucifixion. Judas was also a chameleon, and Komunyakaa uses this allusion to highlight his theme. Judas was successful in a sense; his goal was for Jesus to die. This exemplifies the fact that ‘chameleons’ generally emerge as victors. But, Judas’ story does not end in glory. The extreme guilt he faced led him to take his own life, hanging himself from a tree. This piece of history is meant to illustrate that being a chameleon comes wi...
“I, too, dislike it: There are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.” Poetry has been around for a long time. As the years go by poetry adapts to the time period. However, the authors have different views. Majority of them will read and enjoy all types of poem, but they have their own opinions. The new, has to be truly unique to the author and to the time period. Shakespeare still had plays that we study, but it is hard to comprehend the message behind the words. Worlds change and the literature's change with the trends. The important question is how it should change. During each time period there are people that publish their opinions, but different people have different ideas. Within Poetry and Of Modern Poetry shows the similarities and differences between the two authors, Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore through three ways: is of the mind, it has to be genuine and it has to be unique to the people writing it.
A Comparison of Two Poems Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan by Moniza Alvi and Search for my Tongue by Sujata Bhatt
Moving Between Different Cultures in Poetry For my essay I will be looking at two poems which deal with the experience of moving between different cultures, these are Half-Caste and Search for My Tongue. These poems are written from experience. John Agard the author of Half-Caste was born in Gugana and moved to Britain in 1977. He is half-caste himself and his poem expresses his feelings about the term half-caste. Sujata Bhatt the authoress of Search for My Tongue was born in India in 1956, her family moved to the United States of America in the 1960's and she now lives in Germany.
In my own perspective I view poetry as one 's way of expressing how they feel or how they perceive things that had happened to them, or what they have seen or heard about. I have found that my perspective of poetry doesn 't divagate too much in comparison to the perspective of others, when a woman named Kasopay speaks her thoughts of poetry “I think poetry is the language of the heart. Poetry is very manifold and with it, it is possible to write down every kind of mood and feeling. The most poems are timeless and have a deep message. With the different variations of interpretations get everyone an own access to the poem. Poems are often drawn of the life and this worldly wisdom makes them important for other.” I agree with her in that we both