Writing Homework Help. FSU Carrion Comfort by Gerard Manley Hopkins Discussion
- In 1-2 sentences, identify the title and author of the poem, the title and artist of the song, and the most interesting thing they have in common.
- Select one example of stress, alliteration, or rhyme in the poem (your example might include both or all of these features, but it should be no more than 1-2 lines of the poem). Explain clearly how this example works and what it highlights or conveys in the poem. (about 100 words)
- Select one similar or related example of stress, alliteration, or rhyme in the song lyrics, and explain clearly how this example works and what it highlights or conveys in the song. (about 100 words)
- In 2-3 sentences, reflect on what this comparison highlights for you about the song and/or the poem that you might not have noticed without the comparison
poem used “Carrion Comfort” by Gerard Manley Hopkins
once done reflect on this answer
- point out another interesting similarity of form (that is meter, alliteration, stress, rhyme, etc) between your classmate’s chosen poem and song that you think supports or extends the comparison your classmate is making.
- Offer a constructive suggestion or correction if you think your classmate may have mis-identified one of the poetic features or described it incorrectly. Suggest how else you think they could support their point(s) if this is the case.
The poem “Carrion Comfort” by Gerard Manley Hopkins and the song “Messed up Kid” by Zach Bryan both convey a message of hopelessness. Both pieces provide examples of truly heart broken situations that relate very closely together even though they are 100s of years apart. Both of these pieces use stress, alliteration, and rhyme for this message of hopelessness. For example the line in “Carrion Comfort”, “ Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? Scan With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,”(6-7). Hopkins used alliteration with the words wring-world, darksome devouring, and bruised bones. This was done because the words and the sounds he used create a depressive mood. When your read the line “ darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones” (7) outloud you can hear the hopelessness in your voice generated by those dark alliterated words. Hopkins also adds stress to these words helping the alliteration develop the depressing mood. The stress is really put on the words “darksome”, devouring, bruised, and bones. This emphasis out loud does a great job for conveying sadness. In the song “Messed up Kid” the first verse says, “And I guess pawn shop diamond rings proves that girls love goodbyes”(2). I noticed that Zach Byan doesn’t use alliterations in this line but what really stuck out to me was hearing how he added stress to the words like pawn shop, diamonds, rings and goodbyes. Hearing the song you can hear it in his voice as he sings the words and the emotion he adds by emphasizing the words. Bryan does use alliteration but not to create a mood like Hopkins. When using scansion to evaluate both pieces it is easy to view how both artists use the majority of stressed syllables in those lines. If it wasn’t for the stress syllables in the poem I would have never been able to draw a comparison between the two. It also got me thinking about more songs and how artists have to utilize stress to add emotion into the songs. Some lyrics sound dry when just read but by adding stress it opens up a different mood. This goes hand in hand with poetry that I never understood until comparing these two pieces. Poetry is more than just writing; it involves the pronunciation and stress like music to generate more complex emotions.
