Comparison/Contrast of Two Poems on a Common Theme
"90 North" and "Dover Beach"

The introduction introduces the common theme explored in the thesis.

• Briefly introduce the common theme each work illuminates. Identify a Significance, Importance, Relevance, or Value (SIRV) reason for comparing these two works. What one thing do both works have to say about the subject?
• Thesis: A thesis is a SIRV statement on both works about this common theme. End the introduction with a thesis statement that identifies both works by title and author and identifies the SIRV reason for comparing the two works.
• What not to do:
  • Do not write about how hard it is to understand literature.
  • Do not write about what it means to compare two works of literature.
  • Do not suggest one theme for one work and a different theme for the other work (find a commonality--a shared theme, even if expressed in opposing ways).
  • Do not talk to the reader.
  • Do not talk about choosing the works. The essay is not about the essay. It is about the significance, importance, relevance, or value (SIRV) of the works.

In our modern world, people have become jaded about any sense of certainty in life. After two world wars, the birth of nuclear weapons, and continued skirmishes and wars across the planet, modern people have little faith in anything, and many predict the end of the world at any moment. But, for a person of faith, whether faith in God, faith in other people, or faith in one's own purpose, the loss of that faith can be troubling, even devastating. Randall Jarrell's "90 North" and Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" examine how people struggle to deal with a profound loss of faith.

• Always present the works in the body in the same order as they appear in the thesis.
• Begin with a topic sentence that identifies the work by title and author and indicates what this work has to say about the theme common to both works. In this type of essay, the topic sentence will model a thesis statement.
• Use present tense in discussing the work.
• Explicate the work, identifying evidence within the work supporting the theme being explored. What unique perspective does this work offer on the common theme? Use short quotations integrated into the argument rather than long quotations followed by paraphrase and explanation.
• Conclude by reiterating what this work has to say about the theme under consideration

What NOT to do in the body of the essay

• Don't write about how hard it is to understand literature or how writers try to express ideas in literature.
• Don't focus on superficial similarities or differences: both poems rhyme; this poem is a sonnet, but the other one isn't; this work is a poem, and the other is a short story.
• Don't leave the works to generalize about images or ideas the works introduce.

  Wrong: James Wright describes a spider in his poem "The Journey." Many people are afraid of spiders, but people can also learn from them like how spiders are able to walk across their web without getting trapped even though dust or insects get trapped (Wright, lines 14-23).

  Right: The spider in James Wright's "The Journey" becomes a metaphor for the human soul unfettered by life's troubles. Even though the spider web "Reeled heavily and crazily with the dust / Whole mounds and cemeteries of it" (Wright, lines 15-16), the spider is "Free of the dust" (22), not burdened by it, able to[step] / Away in her own good time" (24-25). And so, the speaker suggests, people, too, should "step lightly" (33), "let the wind / Blow its dust" (31-32) all over them, and live their lives despite their "ruins" (34) or their "dead" (35).

The speaker in Randall Jarrell's "90 North" experiences a loss of faith in himself when, having achieved his highest aspirations, he realizes that he has achieved nothing. The poem opens with a child dreaming of conquering the North Pole (Jarrell, lines 1-8). As a child, the speaker "reached [his] North and it had meaning" (Jarrell 22). In the remainder of the poem, the conquering of the North Pole becomes a metaphor for the speaker's achievement of his life's goals. But, unlike the child who was part of that "warm world / Where people work and suffer for the end / That crowns the pain" (Jarrell 19-21), in the real world, the speaker sees that he has achieved nothing. Having arrived at his goal, each "step is to the south" (Jarrell 14), a retreat backward. His "world spins on this final point / Of cold and wretchedness" (Jarrell 15-16), and he realizes that "all that [he has] done is meaningless" (Jarrell 24), that he is "alone" (Jarrell 25-26), and that "all the knowledge / [he] wrung from the darkness" (Jarrell 29-30), is no achievement at all, but "flung" (Jarrell 30) at him. Now his final achievement has become no more than "North, the night, the berg of death" (Jarrell 27). All the supposed "wisdom" (Jarrell 33) he has earned by his efforts is no more than "pain" (Jarrell 33). The poem ends with the speaker defeated, "alone" (Jarrell 26), his efforts, "meaningless" (Jarrell 24), his life, "worthless" (Jarrell 31).

• Begin with a transitional sentence that identifies the work by title and author and indicates what this work has to say about the theme common to both works and indicates the relation between what this work says and what the previous work says.
Examples:
• Similarity: "Like work A by Author A, work B by Author B also . . . "
• Similarity with expansion: "Not only can (whatever work A revealed about the theme), but work B by Author B shows (whatever extension of this idea work B offers)"
• Contrast: While work A by Author A suggests, work B by Author B reveals (a different perspective)"
• Explicate the second work, identifying evidence within the work supporting the theme being explored. Again, use brief quotations woven into an argument rather than long quotations followed by paraphrase and explanation.
• Conclude by examining the significance, importance, relevance, or value (SIRV) this work explores about the theme under consideration

While the speaker in Randall Jarrell's "90 North" experiences a personal loss of faith, Matthew Arnold in "Dover Beach" explores the consequences a loss of faith can have for an entire society. In "Dover Beach," Matthew Arnold uses the image of the tide coming into shore at Dover Beach as a metaphor for the loss of faith (Arnold, lines 19-28) in the 19th century as Europe, due to the influence of secularism and evolutionary thought, abandoned its faith in God. Where once "The Sea of Faith" (Arnold 21) came in like the tide, now the speaker "only hear[s] / Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, / Retreating" (Arnold 24-26) as 19th century Europeans retreat from their faith. The speaker sees the world as having "neither joy, nor love, nor light, / Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain" (Arnold 33-34), as a place full of "confused alarms" (Arnold 36) "Where ignorant armies clash by night" (Arnold 37). However, the speaker in "Dover Beach" is not without hope. In the place of faith in God, the speaker beseeches "love" to "be true / To one another" (Arnold 29-30). In a world torn by strife, only love can sustain. For the speaker in "Dover Beach," there is an answer to the loss of faith in God. The answer lies in being faithful to one another.

While restating the main ideas from the body of the essay will work as a conclusion, a much better approach is to come to some new awareness of the significance, importance, relevance, or value (SIRV) that these works reveal.

Many people face questions about the meaning of life or the purpose of their own lives. Those questions, when faced, can leave a person as devastated as the speaker in Jarrell's "90 North." Or that same sense of loss can drive people to find solace in something outside themselves. For the speaker in "Dover Beach," the worldwide loss of faith and the imminent threat of war coupled with the absence of any sense of God intervening in the affairs of the world push him to find comfort in the love of another person. Unfortunately, for the speaker in "90 North," his path has left him "alone" (Jarrell, line 26) with nothing but "pain" (Jarrell 33).

There are a number of different style manuals that are used in academics to format sources. These are standardized to fit the needs of particular academic fields of study. In English classes (as well as some other classes), teachers use the Modern Language Association (MLA) stylebook. However, individual instructors have the right to require their own rules to follow within MLA style. The course textbooks will include a section on MLA style. Teachers may include additional instructions within the course, via handouts, or as part of the assignment instructions.

Arnold, Matthew. "Dover Beach." Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43588. Accessed 15 Jun 2017.

Jarrell, Randal. "90 North." Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/57410. Accessed 15 Jun 2017.