Comparing Two Poems

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Many poets write about life, their opinion on life, and how they like to live it. Alexander Pope writes how he would rather spend his life in "Ode on Solitude". While William Wordsworth expresses his opinion on life "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud. The authors both have different opinions on life and how life should be taken. Both poems can be compared and contrasted about their perspective on life.

These two poems are from two different poetic ages. "Ode of Solitude" is from the Age of Reason. The Age of Reason was in the time period of 1600s-1800s. This age followed the Renaissance and was filled with valuing reason over emotion. The Age of Reason also had man being the center of all truth and thought. On the other hand "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" was from the Romantic period. The Romantic period fell between the years of 1798 to the 1830s. Unlike the Age of Reason period the Romantic period favored nature and believed that nature holds all truths. Though time periods may be the same, they can also be very different. …show more content…

The theme that is common among both poems is, life is whatever makes a person happy. Pope and Wordsworth both believe that life should be what a person makes it. Pope's opinion on life is being alone is better than being with other people. Pope would rather live off of his land. Pope has everything he needs like clothes and food, "whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, whose flocks supply him with attire" (5-6). On the other hand Wordsworth believes that nature needs to be thought of, and properly "worshiped" when one is pondering about life, "They flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude" (21-22). Wordsworth also believes that a person should go walk among nature and take in all of its beauty to understand nature itself. Though two poems may seem different simply because of the periods, they may be very

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