How Do Walt Whitman and John Clare Describe Nature in Their Sonnets?
Summary:
A comparison of two sonnets, Walt Whitman's "Patrolling Barneget" and John Clare's "Sonnet," and how each describes nature and other aspects. Meaning, structure, language, and poetic devices in the two poems are considered.
There are many similarities in Walt Whitman's 'Patrolling Barnegat' and John Clare's 'Sonnet'. Many similarities are obvious but some are harder to find. We will compare meaning, structure, language and poetic devices in these two poems.
There are a lot of similarities in the attitude and meaning in both poems. One similarity is that both poems are about nature and the weather as in the evidence in 'Patrolling Barnegat', 'Wild wild the storm' and in 'Sonnet', 'To summer winds'. In 'Patrolling Barnegat', Whitman describes dangerous threatening weather, while Clare describes a happy, gentle summers day. The evidence in 'Patrolling Barnegat' is 'savage trinity savagely lashing' and in 'Sonnet', the evidence is 'summer beaming forth'. The two poems are very different in mood.
Both poems are very descriptive using rhymes, similes, metaphors and alliteration. There is a descriptive line in 'Patrolling Barnegat', it is 'There are milk white combs' which means the combs, (waves) are very white. There are metaphors used in 'Sonnet' as in the evidence 'white wool sack clouds'. Whitman uses complex and interesting words, on the other hand, Clare uses simple adjectives. In the line 'with incessant undertone muttering', Whitman makes the poem have more power. In 'Sonnet's line 'Wild flowers come again', the words are kept pretty simple.
The imagery and poetic devices used in these poems vary because both poems are completely different. The line 'like a wind shook wood' shows that Clare uses similes. He also uses a number of repeated words such as 'I love' to emphasize that it is a happy poem. Whitman also uses strong description like 'the sea high running' which is a personification. The main thing that is different is that he uses sibilance alliterance in several places such as 'slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting'. However, there are differences in personification, Whitman expresses nature in a fierce way like in the phrase 'shouts of demoniac laughter', but Clare describes nature in a happy, quiet way. 'I love to see the summer beaming forth' is an example of a 'nice' line with the personification of summer is happy.
The two poems are considered to be Sonnets with 14 lines and around 10 syllables. The difference is that 'Sonnet' is written in rhyming couplets such as 'day' and 'play' while 'Patrolling Barnegat' has the same rhyme throughout. Some examples of the endings in 'Patrolling Barnegat' are 'confronting', 'watching', 'flaring', 'pealing' etc. Whitman uses stronger rhyme and a more powerful rhythm, rather than the simpler rhyme scheme used by Clare.
On the whole, I think 'Patrolling Barnegat' by Walt Whitman is a better, more descriptive poem. Even though 'Sonnet' is a happy poem, it uses too simple words but its rhyme scheme is still effective. Therefore, 'Patrolling Barnegat' is a more interesting choice.
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