Below are a few essay titles you could use for your 2000 - 2500 word essay. You can use these essay titles as they are or you could adapt them to meet your own interests. You can of course write an essay completely of your own devising – but these do need to be checked with me first.
Once you have selected an essay title you should begin to plan the essay. One way to start this could be to write down everything that comes to your mind that is relevant to the essay topic. Consider the key word in relation to two or three poems from one of the poets. And then consider the same key word in relation to one other text – two poems or a short story. Try and identify links – similarities and or differences between the different writers you have chosen. As you continue to do this make a note of relevant quotations that you might use in the essay. Another starting point might be to define the key word in the title and jot down ideas associated to that concept. You could re-write the title using your own words.
REMEMBER THE ESSAY MUST COMPARE TWO TEXTS* ON A COMMON THEME. ONE WRITER MUST BE A POET!
1. Compare the variety of ways in which Heaney and or Frost and Joyce explore the theme of play in their work.
2. Compare the different ways in which Heaney and or Frost and Joyce present childhood experience in their work.
3. Compare the different ways in which Heaney and or Frost and Joyce examine the world of work in their texts.
4. Compare the ways in which Heaney and or Frost and Joyce present isolated characters in their literature.
5. Compare the variety of ways Heaney and or Frost and Joyce explore ideas of community in their works.
6. Compare the variety of ways in which Heaney and Joyce examine the theme of loss in their texts.
7. Compare the variety of ways Heaney and or Frost and Joyce explore the use of settings in their literature.
8. Compare the variety of ways in which Heaney and or Frost and Joyce present the world of adults in their work.
9. Compare the variety of ways in which Heaney and or Frost and Joyce present personal relationships in their texts.
10. Compare the variety of ways in which Heaney and or Frost and Joyce use the first person narrator in their literary works.
11. Compare the variety of ways in which Heaney and Frost examine the theme of nature in their poetry.
12. Compare the variety of ways in which Heaney and or Frost and Joyce explore the theme of self discovery in the works.
*You should aim to refer to two or three poems in detail from a poet and one short story in detail from Joyce.
