Page 17 - 100 Best Loved Poems - Teaching Unit

Essay
(Answer any two.)

1. Compare and contrast the use of art as a symbol in Keats’ “Ode to a Grecian Urn” and
Auden’s “Musee des Beaux Arts.”

2. Citing specific examples, compare the following poems’ treatment of war and dying.
Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” Kipling’s “Gunga Din,” and Owen’s
“Anthem for Doomed Youth.”

3. Consider Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good
Night.” Has the speaker in Frost’s poem accepted Thomas’ pleas? Explain your answer.

4. Compare Wyatt’s “The Lover Showeth How He is Foresaken of Such as He Sometime
Enjoyed” with John Suckling’s “Why So Pale and Wan, Fond Lover.” Are the speakers of
the two poems similar? How are they different?

5. Discuss the ways in which “On His Deceased Wife” and “My Last Duchess” reveal the
characters of widowed men. How are the two men alike? How do they differ?

6. Citing specific examples from the text, explain how the character traits of “Barbara
Frietchie” reflect or refract the messages found in at least three of the following poems:
• Vaughan’s “The Retreat”
• Gray’s “The World is too Much with Us; Late and Soon”
• Hunt’s “Abou Ben Adhem”
• Longfellow’s “The Village Blacksmith”
• Holmes’ “Old Ironsides”
• Yeats’ “When You Are Old”
• e.e. cummings’ “anyone lived in a pretty how town”

7. Discuss the theme of religion in early poetry. Include in your discussion the poetry of John
Donne, William Blake, and George Meredith.

8. Compare and contrast the sonnets of Shakespeare to the sonnets of John Donne and
Elizabeth Barrett Browning in terms of form, voice, and the ways in which they address
love.

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