Compare and Cntrasting

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Though The History Teacher and A Barred Owl share similar themes, Billy Collins and Richard Wilbur use very different approaches and writing techniques. Both poems are based on the perseverance of child-hood innocence, and tell the tale of adults using white lies to help save children from the harsher realities of life. In The History Teacher, Billy Collins uses unmetered rhyme, and imagery. In contrast, Richard Wilbur uses austere rules to structure A Barred Owl, employing a traditional rhyme scheme, consonance, and iambic pentameter. A Barred Owl tells of a girl’s parents, and how they reassure her with a simple lie, so that she may fall asleep without nightmares. “Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,/Can also thus domesticate a fear,/And send a small child back to sleep at night/Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight/Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw/Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.” Wilbur incorporates a structured rhyme scheme, with the end rhymes occurring in an AABBCC pattern. The stress from the iambic pentameter falls on the important words, accentuating warp, boom, dark, brave, clear, send, sleep, and raw. This choice of meter helps the reader to determine what the author considers important. The History Teacher is written with an unmetered rhyme scheme, which maintains a poetic flow while allowing Collins more freedom to describe his story. He gives an anecdote of a teacher devoted to protecting his students from the unsympathetic and insensitive world he finds himself in. Adjusting history so as to convince his students that humanity is inherently good, he insists on eradicating all negativity from his lessons. Collins poem is more humorous and holds an ironic connotation, while Wilbur’s poem demonstrates a conventional story with an insightful and endearing tone. While both poems do have similar beginnings and

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