Purchase Solution

Comparative Analysis - Work Poetry

Not what you're looking for?

Ask Custom Question

Select 3 poems from the attachment that share one or more themes for comparison. Need approximately on the 3 selected poems analyzing the relationship between language and content. Do not use or provide quotes from any sources outside those in the attachment. Explain the relationship of poetic technique and workplace themes and the relationship between poetic techniqes and reader response:

1. Analyze how poets shape their language and use different literary techniques to communicate their selected workplace themes.

2. Address any ways in which the poets' choices are especially fitting and any ways in which they are not in discussing the workplace themes.

3. Adress any ways in which the poets' act of shaping their messages into verse caused the poets' message to be less emotionally resonant with the workplace themes discussed.

4. Analyze the use of specific poetic techniques (rhythm, rhyme, line breaks, metaphor, simile, symbols, connotation, sound, and figurative langquage). All of these poetic techniques need not be addressed, as not all poems use all of them. Focus on explaining those that are most important for the poems and themes in question and the techniques that played the biggest part in your personal response to the material.

5. Analyze the content of the poetry. What message is the writer trying to express?

Attachments
Purchase this Solution

Solution Summary

Comparative Analysis is achieved with work poetry.

Solution Preview

I do not think anything with statement "3" makes the message less emotionally resonant; in fact, I think the poetry makes it more resonant.

I hope this information helps!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Poetry Comparison

The poems I would compare on the basis of similar theme are: "Old Men Working Concrete" by Phil Hey, "Share-Croppers" by Langston Hughes, and "The Song of the Factory Worker" by Ruth Collins.

In all three poems, the authors describe the workers completing manual tasks that they, in one way or another, are obligated to do as their jobs for seemingly forever. The "old men" working the concrete are rather happy completing the menial task of creating, mixing, and applying concrete. These men are not forced by a slaveholder to complete this task; however, their satisfaction over a job well done motivates them to continue working. The old men "...look one more time. / It's good. Yes sir, it's good. / They talk. They dip snuff. / They are happy." It is quite clear that the old men are content in what they do, largely in part because of the pride and self-satisfaction of completing a task thoroughly and with high quality.

The black people (or "Negroes") in Langston Hughes' poem are not technically slaves; the title notes that they are share-croppers, who essentially farm and tend a landowner's property in exchange for some pay, while most of the profit goes to the owner. The reader knows they must come back because the speaker notes, "Than a herd of Negroes / Driven to the field-- / Plowing life away / To make the cotton yield." This incinuates that the "Negroes" will spend their entire lives working in the field, not making much money ("Boss man takes the money / And we get none").

Collins, in "The Song of the Factory Worker," threads a line between the satisfaction of the concrete workers and the dismay of the share-croppers. The speaker states, "You're like a vampire, / For wherever I go / You know I'm ...

Purchase this Solution


Free BrainMass Quizzes
Charles Dickens Literature

Do you know about Charles Dickens and his literature? Find out with this quiz!

How to use Homonyms

Homonyms are words that sound the same, but have different meanings. See if you can tell which word goes with each sentence.

19th Century American prose authors

Test your knowledge of American prose writers of the 19th Century. Use this quiz to brush up on your familiarity of major titles and writers.

The I-Search Paper

Students will test their knowledge of what an I-Search paper is and Ken Macrorie's theory about writing.

The Third Wave Reading Comprehension

Check students' understanding of initial reading of The Third Wave (found at http://libcom.org/history/the-third-wave-1967-account-ron-jones). Great ESL exercise!