English 1100 C & D1
Fall 2005
Essay #2
Due: Oct. 31

You have most likely been advised by all of your writing teachers that revision is an essential part of the writing process. In this essay, you will have the chance to observe expert writers/revisers at work. Attached are alternate drafts of the poems from the first essay assignment. In an essay of 4-5 typewritten pages, compare and contrast the poem you explicated in the first essay to its attached draft. Please submit both a hard copy, due in class, and an attachment to jaime (dot) cleland (at) gmail (dot) com.

Some hints on composing the body of the paper:

• All the techniques we’ve covered in class (words, images, rhymes, etc. etc.) are fair game, but you may want to focus only on one or two as they apply to your poems.
• You are welcome to concentrate on different aspects of the poem from those you discussed in the first essay; conversely, you are also welcome to return to those ideas and rework them to suit the purpose of this essay.
• Choose very specific points of comparison; call attention to the important words of the poems. I’ll prefer papers that go into depth about a few points over papers that skim briefly over many different points.
• You may end up making a decision about which poem is better than the other, overall and/or in certain specific ways.
• You may want to review Chapter 38, “Writing About a Poem.” A section on comparing and contrasting begins on page 1450.

What not to do:

• Use any outside source other than the dictionary or a factual reference source that will help you understand the content of the poem.

Attached poems included:

• D.H. Lawrence, "Piano" (An earlier, unpublished draft, ca. 1906-1910)
  
• William Butler Yeats, "Leda and the Swan" (An earlier, unpublished draft, 1923)
  
• Dorothy Wordsworth, selection from The Grasmere Journals (Written two years before William Wordsworth first drafted his poem, and not intended for publication. For additional comments on Wordsworth’s revisions, which you may also wish to address, see Kennedy & Gioia, page 460.)
  
• Marianne Moore, "Poetry" (Both 1925 and 1967 versions included. After publishing the 1921 version which you have already read, Moore published these revised versions. In your essay you may work with either revision, or with both.)