Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde <br /> The Laboratory <br /> Education for leisure<br /> Mother, any distance greater than a single span<br /> My Last Duchess <br /> How doth the little crocodile <br /> Superman and Paula Brown's New Snowsuit<br /> The Charge of the Light Brigade<br /> The Destruction of Sennacherib<br /> Bayonet Charge vs Dulce et Decorum Est<br /> Porphyria's Lover<br /> Autumn vs Today<br /> Depiction of a relationship in Porphyria's Lover vs Hamlet
Your rating is required to reflect your happiness.
It's good to leave some feedback.
Something went wrong, please try again later.
This resource hasn't been reviewed yet
To ensure quality for our reviews, only customers who have purchased this resource can review it
Report this resource to let us know if it violates our terms and conditions. Our customer service team will review your report and will be in touch.
Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy and Sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning are two poems in the WJEC GCSE poetry anthology. They’re incredibly different, but both speak about the author’s intense love for their partners – and there are some fantastic points about both language and structure you can discuss for each.
Oh yes, and there’s a lot of onions…
Because Carol Ann Duffy is a modern poet and Elizabeth Barrett Browning is a Victorian poet, you can also bring-in lots of interesting background on context and the style each poet uses. They make a fantastic comparison for your final GCSE exams.
So, what’s the best way to approach the similarities and differences and write a Grade 9 essay?
First things first, it’s essential to remind yourself of each poem.
Here’s a reading of Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy:
And here’s a reading of Sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
You can also find loads of revision resources with plenty of tips on language, structure and context analysis online, but this one (from Central Lancaster High School) is one of the best I’ve come across.
Once you’ve done a bit of revision, it’s time to start writing a plan for your essay.
Ready? Let’s go. Here’s a sample exam question.
Read this poem from your anthology:
Sonnets from the Portuguese 43: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right; I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
In both Sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Valentine by Carol Anne Duffy, both poems deal with the theme of romantic love. While Duffy shows the darker side of love (as well as its positive power), Browning presents a completely committed and all-encompassing love. These ideas are reinforced by the structure of each poem, with Valentine presented in an unconventional “free verse” form while Sonnet 43 uses a more traditional sonnet form.
In Valentine, Duffy makes use of concrete images, primarily the extended metaphor of an onion as a symbol for her multi-layered, complex love. She expands this idea with further metaphoric descriptions “I give you an onion / it is a moon wrapped in brown paper”. Just like the onion itself, her love is not as beautiful on the outside (it’s brown exterior) compared to the white, shining moon beneath. Duffy adds to this unusual love with techniques such as enjambment (sentences flowing between lines), reflecting the continuing nature of her love. In a comparable manner, Browning uses multiple comparisons and enjambment throughout the poem, to demonstrate the intense nature of her romantic feelings. She uses more abstract metaphors and religious imagery, suggesting she has even replaced her faith in God with her love for her husband. The semantic field of religion pervades the poem, with strong declarative statements such as “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach” / “I love thee purely, as they turn from praise” / “I love thee with the love I seemed to lose with my lost saints”.
Although the poems differ in their structure, they both make use of listing to build intensity and a strong impression of their love. Carol Ann Duffy repeats refrains such as “not a red rose or a satin heart” and “not a cute card or a kissogram”. Instead of these clichéd gifts, she repeats “I give you an onion” to reflect the unconventional nature of her love. Much of Carol Ann Duffy’s poetry is written from a feminist perspective and reflects late-twentieth century views on diverse types of love. Indeed, lots of modern writers adopted free verse and less traditional poetic forms in this period. This differs to Browning’s more traditional sonnet form (a 14 line poem, written in iambic pentameter) – reflecting more constrained and conventional Victorian views on love and marriage. Browning lists the “ways” she loves her husband however, in response to the initial rhetorical question “How do I love thee?”. The use of asyndetic listing (“breath, smiles, tears”) also highlights the diverse and ongoing ways she loves her husband. Building on this impression, both poems use the device of “anaphora” (repeating phrases and sentence structure from the start of the poem) to foreground their consistent love throughout.
Over to you for paragraph three! What points would you add?
Here are a few ideas….
In conclusion , both poems present a unique and personal view of romantic love. While Duffy uses the extended metaphor of an onion to expresses her unconventional love, Browning uses a more traditional poem form and abstract imagery of religion to express her love for her husband. Overall however, both female writers express the depths of their feelings for their lovers.
Again, how would you add to this conclusion, and what would you improve?
Preparing for your GCSE poetry exams (no matter what exam board you’re sitting) is all about getting as comfortable as possible with each poem. Once you’ve understood the poems, it’s a great idea to pick five key quotes from each that allow you to make some fantastic points, backed up with a bit of terminology and context. Have a go!
Good luck, happy revision – and let me know if you have any questions.
Have you found this post helpful? By making a contribution, you’ll help me continue creating free study materials for students around the country. Thank you!
Resources you can trust
A blank template for students to complete to compare the features of two poems. Prompts encourage students to summarise the:
Key vocabulary banks are included to remind students of the key poetic terminology and linking words and phrases.
Have you used this resource?
Sonia Jallane
Tasnim Azad
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
GCSE; AQA; Comparing poems - AQA Structuring a comparative essay. How do you tackle a poetry exam question that asks you to compare one poem with another? Learn about effective ways to explore ...
12. Write a clear essay with a central argument based on your own opinions. All parts of the essay must directly answer the question. Select quotations and references from both the given poem and one other of your choice. Quotations must be accurate, and provide evidence for the points you make in your argument. AO2.
Overview. You can discover a lot about a poem by comparing it to one by another poet that deals with a similar subject or has a similar . Thinking about two poems and identifying where they differ ...
Planning your response. 1. Read both poems through carefully and get an overall sense of what each poem is about and how the poets handle their topics. 2. Re-read poem 'A' and make brief notes either around the poem, if you are able, or on a separate sheet, noting key words, phrases, images etc. and your response to it.
A comparative thesis as an introduction - this only need be two or three sentences long. 3 analysis paragraphs. a. Poem 1 - core difference/similarity from thesis. b. Poem 2 - core difference/similarity from thesis. c. Thoughtful comparative paragraph [AKA the guitar solo paragraph] which will generally be a difference within the core ...
Poetry Essay - Comparing Two Poems - GCSE Standard.Here is an exemplar poetry essay, at GCSE standard, which attained almost full marks. The poetry essay wa...
Poetry comparison - or writing a comparative essay about two poems, seen or unseen - is what students will eventually be assessed on when they come to sit the poetry analysis part of their English Literature GCSE. It makes sense, therefore, to get some early poetry comparison practice in. See what the assessment criteria will be asking for ...
An exceptional-quality poetical comparison essay written by a level 9 GCSE Student in accordance with the AQA English Literature syllabus. This essay has been marked as level 9. The resource is also suitable for other exam boards such as Edexcel and OCR. 'London' by Blake is compared with 'Checking out me History' by Agard on the theme ...
Responding to poetry - AQA Essay plan. Responding to poetry - AQA. Writing your response to a poem, or making comparisons between two poems, takes careful planning. These tips show you how to ...
Structuring the Essay. Your exam question paper will ask you to compare two of your studied anthology poems. This can seem daunting, especially as you have to write about two separate poems in one essay, and that only one of these poems is printed in the exam paper. However, examiners just want to see your ideas and opinions on the poems you ...
Here is an example of the AQA mark scheme for the last unseen poetry question. This question assesses AO2 only which requires you to analyse the language, form and structure used by the poets to create meanings and effects, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate. In addition, you are also required to identify the similarities and/or differences between the two unseen poems.
One of the elements of our students' exam performance we identified as a weakness in last summer's examination series was comparing poems from the AQA poetry anthology, Poems Past and Present, which forms part of GCSE English Literature Paper Two. In the English Department at Boroughbridge High School, where we teach the Power and Conflict cluster, we've been spending time over these ...
This GCSE poetry essay is based upon the AQA English Literature exam format. This Power and Conflict essay is a top band, Grade 9 response, linked to the June 2019 AQA exam. Compare how poets present the ways that people are affected by war in 'War Photographer' and in one other poem from 'Power and Conflict'. ... For example, in ...
Overview. You can discover a lot about a poem by comparing it to one by another poet that deals with a similar subject or has a similar . Thinking about two poems and identifying where they differ ...
Exposure by Wilfred Owen and Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson are two reasonably tricky poems.Having said this (in my humble opinion), they are two of the best poems in the whole AQA Conflict poetry anthology… and there's so much you can say about both!. To help you get started comparing Exposure and Charge of the Light Brigade, here is a sample essay.
The exam question chosen: "Compare the ways the relationships between the speaker of the poem and other people are shown in four of the listed poems". The four poems chosen from the list for comparison within the essay: 'Education for leisure', 'Mother, any distance greater than a single span', 'The Laboratory' and 'My Last Duchess'.
In both Sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Valentine by Carol Anne Duffy, both poems deal with the theme of romantic love. While Duffy shows the darker side of love (as well as its positive power), Browning presents a completely committed and all-encompassing love. These ideas are reinforced by the structure of each poem, with ...
The essay guide for Power and Conflict poems is an extremely well-written and detailed guide that is filled with useful information. It helps students to be able to structure their answers accurately and with cohesion in order to achieve higher marks in their GCSE exams. In addition to containing helpful information, the study guide gives ...
Here are some questions to help you think about the themes, ideas and attitudes of two poems when making a comparison: Two poems that deal with the theme of family relationships are Walking Away ...
A blank template for students to complete to compare the features of two poems. Prompts encourage students to summarise the: poems' topic. poems' ideas. language and techniques. links and contrasts between the poems. Key vocabulary banks are included to remind students of the key poetic terminology and linking words and phrases.
An important aspect of analysing poems involves making comment on form, structure and language. For a reminder of how to approach this sort of analysis, read the study guide on 'Responding to ...
For Paper 2, Section B, you will study a cluster of 15 poems which are thematically linked. This page will provide an overview of the Love and Relationships anthology. This cluster of poems is dealt with in Question 25 of Paper 2, Section B. This should help you identify which poem you should compare a given poem to in your exam question, and ...
This page will provide an overview of the Power and Conflict anthology. This cluster of poems is dealt with in Question 26 of Paper 2, Section B. This page includes: A complete list of the poems in the cluster. A brief overview of what is required in the exam. A brief explanation of key themes. A thematic comparison table of all 15 poems.