Poetry Lord Randal a Traditional Scottish Ballad Essay

now to begin  this 1800-2000 words, you will compare two poems (or one poem and one set of song lyrics) from different time periods  like one from  The renaissance time  and another from a different time  in order to illuminate how a particular poetic form or strategy persists and is used in different time periods. You may also choose to two poems from the same time period if one of the poems directly and explicitly responds to or parodies the other. To increase the sophistication of your analysis, you will make use of at least one of our critical readings to shed light on what both poems are doing.

If you choose to use a set of song lyrics as one of your poems, be sure that 1) you can use it to make an interesting and specific comparison to an earlier poem, form, or set of ideas and 2) you believe it has genuine artistic merit and deserves a full-length analytical essay.

The goals of this essay are 1) to integrate a theoretical understanding of how lyric works into your written investigations of poetic form and meaning and 2) to appreciate and analyze how poets in different time periods are in conversation with one another and with a literary tradition.

Critical Reading Options:

The critical readings we discussed this semester are as follows:

• Northrop Frye, “Approaching the Lyric” (chapter in an anthology)
• John Hollander, “Breaking into Song” (book chapter)
• Lisa Lai-Ming Wong, “A Promise (Over)heard in Lyric” (journal article)

Publication information for each of these readings appears in the PDF. Use the Purdue Owl to look up the publication type and follow the examples there when citing your chosen source.

You do not need to make extensive use of your chosen critical reading if you would not find that useful, but you should quote from it at least once in a way that meaningfully contributes to your analysis of your chosen poetic works. On the other hand, if you integrate your critical source more thoroughly into the essay, you should not over-rely on the critical reading to provide you with your argument.Your argument should be in the driver’s seat, and it should not simply repeat what the critic argues. Quotes from your chosen critical text should represent no more than 25% of quotes used in the essay. (75% or more should come from your poetic texts.)

Some general words of advice:

When making comparisons between literary works, it is important that there should be a clear basis of comparison. In other words, there must be enough similarity between the two poems that the differences between them are meaningful. So, you might compare how two poems use the sonnet form to convey two different messages about love or politics, or you might consider two love poems with similar themes (e.g., the pain of unrequited love, the beauty of the beloved, feelings of betrayal or loss) that use completely different forms. What I do not recommend is comparing completely different poems that have very little in common. This will cause your reader to question what the point of comparing them is, since they are so different.  

The most successful essays will identify and thoughtfully analyze several specific ways the later poem or set of lyrics seems to intentionally shift, update, or perhaps use in a new way particular formal elements and ideas from the earlier poem you are comparing it to. In contrast, a very weak essay would make vague statements about how one poem reminds you of another even though they are not really the same.

Although this essay is not centered on poetic form, form (as you know!) is an important aspect of how ideas are conveyed in poetry. A strong essay is therefore very likely to consider some details of form in both chosen poems.

Some ideas to get you started:

You are by no means limited to these options when writing your essay. I am very happy for you to design your own topic and will gladly offer feedback if you’d like advice when doing so. But in case you are having trouble thinking of a topic, here are some sample topics.

• Compare a Petrarchan sonnet about a cruel mistress (such as Wyatt’s “The Long Love That in My Thought Doth Harbor”) to Claude McKay’s “America,” which portrays a country as a kind of cruel mistress. For your critical source, you might use Frye’s discussion of the “discontinuous” aspects of lyric to discuss both poems as a “turning away” from continuous temporal experience or from straightforward language. Or you might think about how Wong’s theory of the lyric as “promise” applies to these poems about persevering in love despite lack of encouragement.
• Develop an argument about how specific formal choices and/or repetitions of key words allow one poet to put forward an implicit argument that responds directly to an earlier poem. (Here you might consider Raleigh’s “The Nymph’s Reply” in response to Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd” OR Kenneth Koch’s “Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams” in response to Williams’ “This Is Just to Say” OR any other pair of direct response poems or songs you would like to analyze.) Wong’s concept of “overhearing” may be especially helpful here. You might also consider how the response poem represents a response to a “promise” in the earlier poem.
• Discuss one of Emily Dickinson’s poems that uses ballad meter in relationship to a more traditional ballad or hymn. How does the ballad form help Dickinson to convey particular feelings or associations? How is she modifying or tweaking the form in order to do something new and different? What does analyzing the more traditional ballad help us to see about Dickenson’s poem that we might otherwise miss (aside from its form). Here Wong’s concept of lyric “overhearing” may be especially interesting and productive, but you are welcome to apply another theoretical lens.
• Compare the traditional ballad “Lord Randal” to Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain” in order to analyze what Dylan is trying to convey in his song lyrics and how he is using specific ballad techniques to convey it. Hollander’s discussion of refrain and repetition would be especially helpful here, but you are welcome to apply another theoretical lens.
• Compare an example of anaphora in Walt Whitman’s poetry to a similar use of anaphora in one of the psalms we read. What striking similarities and departures do you notice in both theme and form? Based on the similarities between the two, what can you say about the associations and effects Whitman is trying to conjure up in your chosen excerpt from one of his poems? Here, you might adapt Hollander’s discussion of refrain to discuss how anaphora works differently or similarly to refrain in both poems.