Spring 1999
I wrote this my freshman year of FU in a Critical Writing class. I didn't enjoy the class much and my work suffered. However, in my teacher's mind, my work was well worth a B+. The assignment was to write three compare and contrast paragraphs about four poems, "Natural History," by White, "To a Waterfowl," by Bryant, "Design," by Frost, and a poem by Donne whose title escapes me. A symptom of not caring about my work, not really anyway. However, I do believe that these are adequate examples of Compare and Contrast Paragraphs, so, enjoy.
Compare and Contrast Paragraphs
Paragraph I:
Although both White and Donne's poems share the theme of a lover's departing and returning, they differ in that White focuses on the sure return of the lover while Donne focuses on, not only the sure physical return of the lover, but the idea that their love transcends distance. White never mentions the emotional connection between the lovers when they are apart. "The spider, dropping down from twig / unwinds a thread of his devising: / a thin, premeditated rig." Focused on the physical parting, White severs the emotional aspect of the relationship until the lover returns. Donne allows the love between the two to connect the lovers regardless of distance or loss of touch. "But we by a love so much refined / that ourselves know not what it is / inter-assured of the mind / care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss." The mind of the parted lover remains. White's spider is occupied with the "journey down through space." Donne's parted lover has no other concern but the love shared. "Our two souls therefore, which are one / though I must go, endure not yet / a breach, but an expansion / like gold to airy thinness beat." However, White's lover has concern for "the web" and is not as consumed in love as is Donne's. This difference is most clearly illustrated through the descriptive image of their departures. The images of the spider's journey and return are a "ladder" and a "silken strand." The images of the other lover are "gold to airy thinness beat" and a circle "formed by a compass." White's linear image does not express as much an emotional connection between the lovers as do an airy sheet of gold, which encompasses a wide, connected area, or a circle, which has no beginning and no end. White's lover parts and returns but Donne's lover never parts.
Paragraph II:
Although both poems contain a spider, White focuses on what the spider is doing while Frost focuses on how the spider appears. In White's "Natural History," "the spider, dropping down from a twig / unwinds a thread of his own devising." The reader is given no information as to the appearance of the spider. Frost vividly depicts the spider. "I found a dimpled spider, fat and white / on a white heal-all, holding up a moth." By doing this Frost stresses the appearance and, the appearance's greater meaning, while White stresses the spider's intent, it's greater meaning. Frost, criticizing the teleology of Christianity, describes a moth's death at the hands of a spider and asks, "what brought the kindred spider to that height? / then steered the white moth thither in the night? / what but design of darkness to appall?- / if design in a thing so small." This criticism is the greater meaning. Moreover, since Frost stated his point through such a small, basic insect, he suggests that greater beings too, are not under God's design. White's images of "a thing, premeditated rig / to use in rising," "a ladder to the place from which he started," and "one silken strand to you / for my returning," illustrate the spider's intent of returning, the poem's greater meaning. Frost's images relate to the spider, making the spider the vessel which contains the anti-teleological theme. White's images are those paths which the spider will take upon its return, stressing its intent of returning.
Paragraph III:
Frost's "Design," a criticism of Christianity, starkly contrasts Bryant's "To a Waterfowl," a poem supporting God's rotective, guiding nature. "Design" illustrates the death of a moth in a web of a spider. Frost proves - through the un-designed nature of the killing of a mere moth suggesting the lack of design in all things - that God does not design the earthly world. However, "To a Waterfowl" illustrates a bird's flight home. Although the chance of being killed by "the fowler" is present, the waterfowl safely reaches its nest. Bryant establishes the connection between heaven and earth in the first two lines, "whither, midst falling dew / while glow the heavens with the last steps of day." The heavens glow with, not separate from, "the last steps of day." Later, Bryant expresses God's care. "There is a Power whose care / teaches they way along the pathless coast - / the desert and illimitable air - / lone wandering, but not lost." The bird flies along a "pathless coast," is "wandering, but not lost," because of God. Finally, Bryant applies the idea of God's care to humans. "He who, from zone to zone / guides through the boundless sky in thy certain flight / in the long way that I must read alone / will lead my steps aright." Not only does god care, according to Bryant, but God guides everything as well. Moreover, God, "from zone to zone," is also omnipresent. "Design" and "To a Waterfowl" are polar opposites of one another, "Design" being anti-teleological, "To a Waterfowl," being teleological as well as supportive of the idea of God's being a guide, a protector, and omnipresent.