Comparative commentary 1
The poems “Colonization in reverse by Loise Bennett and “The soldier” by Rupert Brooke present many similarities and differences, which will be analyzed deeply in this essay. The poems were written in different periods of time, but they refer to the same country, Great Britain. In a different way, because the poems have different purpose, I think that the authors wanted to communicate what they think of their native land, and they had different perspectives, one can be seen as a tribute to the “glorious” England and the other as a criticism of the Jamaicans migration to England because of the lack of well paid jobs in Jamaica, in my opinion the key for understanding both poems is knowing about the purpose the authors had when writing them, and the objective of the essay is demonstrate the thesis mentioned before and also analyzing other variables, comparing and contrasting the different poems in order to give a better understanding of the poems.
The structure in the poem “the soldier” presents harmonic terminations that resembles beautiful when reading it, the words are really well chosen and present a lot of symbolism within the lines, it does not have separation in paragraphs, and consist of fourteen lines. The poem “colonization in reverse” present a different structure than the one of “the soldier”, it is divided in paragraphs, each paragraph contains four lines, and because there are eleven paragraphs, the poem is conformed of forty four lines, that do not have harmonic terminations in all the cases.
The language used in the Poem “the soldier” is formal, with no spelling mistakes and reflecting the love that the “soldier” has to England, it mention the ideas in a direct form and has a repetition of the word England/English for making some emphasis in the glory of the “Mother Country”, just like in the line “A body of England’s, breathing English air washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.” In this line the author makes use of the repetition mentioned before and gives a feeling of peace and harmonic nature in England. In Bennett’s poem the use that the language has is different, is used to give us the readers, the feeling of the common Jamaican form of speaking and their ideologies, showing some of their perspective of the world, specially of Great Britain, the Island were they think they can have a higher quality of life than in their own country, because of the low wages they usually get in Jamaica.
Rupert Brooke reflect in the poem “the soldier” his concept of England, he had the purpose of expressing what he thought of his native country, it can be inferred that he was a soldier and was sent to a foreign battle field, he knew that the probabilities of dying were high, but he still wanted to fight for his beloved England, this feeling can be appreciated in the line “If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field.” The purpose of Loise Bennett was not too different from the one of Rupert Brooke, she also gave her opinion about her native country Jamaica, and also referred to England as a land of opportunities were Jamaicans searched a better life, criticizing in a sarcastic way the increased migration of Jamaicans to England. She also mention a little of the inequality they suffer in Great Britain, and in a sarcastic way imagine what would happen if Jamaicans colonize England, a fact that does not have much probabilities of take place, that is why I find his way of communicate the ideas sarcastic.
I can conclude that both author wanted the best for their respective countries, and reflected that in their poems, “the soldier” and “Colonization in reverse”, what Rupert Brook wanted to communicate was the love he fell to England, the glorious of England and the brave attitude of most of the warriors that fought for their country in order to keep it as the potency it still resembles today, while in the poem “colonization in reverse” the author criticize some aspects of the country, because the Jamaicans have to search for better opportunities in other countries, and she put as an example the power country of England, so both poems have some similarities and differences, but they still have their special features that make them unique, and a history behind that can help in the understanding of the real purpose of the author. (751 words)
