How are Gerard Hopkin’s “Spring” and Susan Griffin’s “Love is Like a Wild Iris in the Fields” alike and different? The setting, tone, and imagery within the poems are what one must analyze to fully understand each poem and its purpose. Not only are these three literary elements crucial to a successful poem, they also set the mode for the literary work as a whole. Therefore, I decided to compare and contrast setting, tone, and imagery between these two amazing pieces of literature. The first step to understanding a poem is knowing what poetry truly is. Poetry is a form of art in which the human language is used for its aesthetic qualities instead of notional and semantic content. It comprises largely of oral or literary works in which language …show more content…
The tone is generally conveyed through the choice of words or the viewpoint of a writer on a particular subject. Every written piece comprises a central theme or subject matter. The manner in which a writer approaches this theme and subject is the tone. The tone can be formal, informal, serious, comic, sarcastic, sad, or cheerful, or it may be any other existing attitude (Literary Devices Editors, 2017). Both poems contain a bright yet reminiscent tone. Spring is the season of new beginnings and life and this is mirrored in both poems. Both poems reflect on past feelings, whether it be recalling the feeling of spring in “Spring” or recalling homely experiences where love lingers in “Love is Like a Wild Iris in the Fields”. Yet the tone of Susan Griffin’s poem is more serious. Love is being discussed and compared. Evaluating feelings sets a slightly serious tone, especially in explaining how love should be like a wild iris but it is not (Griffin,1972). Tone, in a piece of literature, decides how the readers read a literary piece, and how they should feel while they are reading it. In addition, tone lends shape and life to a piece of literature because it creates a mood. Moreover, tone bestows voice to characters and throws light on the personalities and dispositions of characters that readers understand