Option Assignment: Paired Poetry

2009 AP ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION

FREE RESPONSE QUESTIONS

ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION

SECTION II

Total time- 2 hours

 

 

Question 1

 

(Suggested time- 40 minutes. This question counts as one-third of the total essay score.)

 

The following two poems present two views on the moon, from the perspective of women. The first, is a post-modern poem written by Sylvia Plath, the second, a romantic poem written by Mary Darby Robinson. Read each poem carefully. Then write an essay in which you compare and contrast the two poems, analyzing the techniques they used to forge their complex ideas on the moon and how it affects the speaker.

 THE MOON AND THE YEW TREE                                      

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary 
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue. 
The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God 
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility 
Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place. 
Separated from my house by a row of headstones. 
I simply cannot see where there is to get to. 

The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right, 
White as a knuckle and terribly upset. 
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet 
With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here. 
Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky -- 
Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection 
At the end, they soberly bong out their names. 

The yew tree points up, it has a Gothic shape. 
The eyes lift after it and find the moon. 
The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary. 
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls. 
How I would like to believe in tenderness – 

The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,

Clouds are flowering 
Blue and mystical over the face of the stars 
Inside the church, the saints will all be blue, 
Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews, 
Their hands and faces stiff with holiness. 
The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild. 
And the message of the yew tree is blackness - blackness and silence.

ODE TO THE MOON

PALE GODDESS of the witching hour;
    Blest Contemplation's placid friend; 
  Oft in my solitary bow'r,
I mark thy lucid beam
    From thy crystal car descend,
Whitening the spangled heath, and limpid sapphire stream.

  And oft, amidst the shades of night
  I court thy undulating light;
    When Fairies dance around the verdant ring,
    Or frisk beside the bubbling spring,
When the thoughtless SHEPHERD'S song
I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering 
Blue and mystical over the face of the stars 
Inside the church, the saints will all be blue, 
Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews, 
Their hands and faces stiff with holiness. 
The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild. 
And the message of the yew tree is blackness - blackness and silence.

    Echoes thro' the silent air,
    As he pens his fleecy care,
Or plods with saunt'ring gait, the dewy meads along.

CHASTE ORB! as thro' the vaulted sky
    Feath'ry clouds transparent sail; 
  When thy languid, weeping eye,
    Sheds its soft tears upon the painted vale;

  As I ponder o'er the floods,
  Or tread with listless step, th'embow'ring woods,
  O, let thy transitory beam,
  Soothe my sad mind, with FANCY'S aëry dream.

  Wrapt in REFLECTION, let me trace 
  O'er the vast ethereal space, 
  Stars, whose twinkling fires illume 
  Dark-brow'd NIGHT'S obtrusive gloom; 
  Where across the concave wide; 
  Flaming METEORS swiftly glide; 
  Or along the milky way, 
  Vapours shoot a silvery ray;
And as I mark, thy faint reclining head, 
  Sinking on Ocean's pearly bed;
Let REASON tell my soul, thus all things fade.