Comparing Poems

Section B of your poetry and prose paper is the only question on the whole qualification where the marks live in something that is not printed on the page. Two anthology poems sit in front of you, each already understood, and the examiner is waiting to read the one thing neither poem contains on its own: the relationship between them. A candidate who writes brilliantly about Rossetti and then brilliantly about Thomas has written two good essays and one weak answer.

This note teaches the comparative habit rather than a list of similarities. You will learn how to pick a pair that will actually generate argument, what the four axes of comparison are and which of them examiners reward most, how to build a paragraph that carries both poems at once, and how to plan the whole thing in five minutes under exam conditions.