Comparison of Four Poems about Loss Essay - 2011 Words

Comparison of Four Poems about Loss I am comparing â€Å"On my first Sonne† by Ben Jonson (a pre-1914 piece of poetry, written in 1616), â€Å"My Last Duchess† by Robert Browning (a pre-1914 piece of poetry, written in 1845), â€Å"Mid-Term Break† by Seamus Heaney (a piece of poetry from the Heaney bank) and â€Å"Cold Knap Lake† by Gillian Clarke (a piece of poetry from the Clarke bank). The poem, â€Å"On my first Sonne† is about the loss of a close family member, Ben Jonson’s first son, who died at the age of seven. The poem is about the poet coming to terms with the truth, that his first son had died and he would never see him again. In the poem, the poet goes through different stages of grief and he is very emotional about his loss. The poem†¦show more content†¦The poem is of cold emotion; the only emotion is anger at her behaviour. Another poem about loss, â€Å"Mid-Term Break†, confronts the death of Seamus Heaney’s younger brother, probably from an accident. Like the previous two poems, Mid-Term Break concerns the loss of a close family member. The overall view of death in this poem is quite a dramatic one, with the description of contrasting emotions of different people. At the beginning it is unemotional. Then the poet describes the emotions and behaviour of others (father, family, friends, the baby, and mother). Finally, the next morning, he goes into his brother’s room to see his body. There is a sense of peace in the room, â€Å"Snowdrops And candles soothed the bedside,† and he sees his brother looking pale and lying in his small coffin. At the end of the poem, Heaney appears to accept that his brother is dead and there is an air of calm. In contrast to the other three poems discussed previously, the poem, â€Å"Cold Knap Lake† describes the near loss of a stranger who would have drowned to death if it was not for Gillian Clarke’s mother doing resuscitation on an unknown child. Gillian Clarke remembers her mother giving the girl the kiss of life which ultimately saved her. â€Å"my mother gave a stranger’s child her breath.† In her memory of the incident, Clarke’s â€Å"father took her (the child) home to a poorShow MoreRelated The Theme of Death in Poetry Essay819 Words   |  4 Pagesconsistently wrote about the theme of death. While there are some comparisons between the two poets, when it comes to death as a theme, their writing styles were quite different. Robert Frost’s poem, â€Å"Home Burial,† and Emily Dickinson’s poems, â€Å"I felt a Funeral in my Brain,† and â€Å"I died for Beauty,† are three poems concerning death. While the theme is constant there are differences as well as similarities between the poets and the ir poems. 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