Comparative Commentary

The Soldier is a poem written by Rupert Brooke in 1914 and Colonization in Reverse is written by Louis Bennett in 1966 and in this essay I will talk about 2 poems that talk about same things. Both were written in a similar time, so that is why they have the same subject that is England. In both poems each of the authors refers to England in different ways, Rupert as a place of battle, as a soldier and Louis was from Jamaica who wants to be independent from England and how they got it and then how Jamaica then wants to conquer  England something that never happen.

The purpose of each poem is totally different but falls to the same point. In “The soldier” Rupert talks about England in a beautiful way he says that if he dies people should think as him as it is forever England but we don’t need to take it literally. He is trying to say that England is a wonderful place full of rivers, blest by sun, their sights and sounds, dreams and lots of things more. In the second poem “Colonization in Reverse” Louis is a woman that talks about the independence of Jamaica from England and how proud they were, but she tells in her poem how Jamaica wants to conquer England after that know that all the Jamaicans are free, but that was something that never happen, she only imagines that.

The Structure and Text type of “The Soldier” is linear because it is congruent and he is only saying arguments about England and how he saw it and wanted people to see it too. And in “Colonization in Reverse”  is circular because it begins talking about colonization and ends talking of colonization and it has an antithesis of the perception of England with the perception of Jamaica and how some of the prefer to go to the colony and others stay in Jamaica. The Images and Figurative language vary in each poem In The Soldier while we are reading we can imagine everything he is describing and has similes like “corner of a foreign field That is forever England”, “dreams happy as her day” and metaphors like “A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam” and “blest by suns of home”. In Colonization in Reverse we can see simile in “I feel like me heart gwine burs”, “Dem countryman like fire” and metaphors like “De seat a de Empire” and “Wat a devilment a Englan”. So both poems counts with images and obviously they bring us different although they have a similar subject.

 The tone of The Soldier is an Ideal of peace because he is describing like a perfect place where everything is happy, also patriotic feelings because he said that he would die for his country, and a tone of liberty and liberalism in a pursuit of peace. And in the second one it has a tone of glory, and like the perception of two life styles that are England and Jamaica and how Louis has a dream of one day Jamaica conquer England. The Stylistic devices the author uses in each of the poem for example in The Soldier he repeats a lot how beautiful it is England for him and in Colonization in reverse the repetition about the differences in Jamaica and England.

In Conclusion I found interesting this poems, although I am a person who find difficult the interpretation of poems, but this ones I really try to understand them and for example in the Colonization in Reverse that is written in Jamaican English which it is too different to the one we speak, some words were too difficult for me to understand so I try to find a translation in an English I can understand so that way was easier to me to understand the poem. Both poems share similar subjects that is England, so as a result we can assume that their objective was to talk about their culture either England or Jamaican and show us how important was for the colonization, or in The Soldier the war which both of them at the end envolve battles which is also another similitude.  So I enjoy this activity because I never get do deep in too poems before.