Literary Analysis III: The Comparative Essay

Why compare?

Put two texts side by side and each one becomes easier to see. A poem that seems simply patriotic looks different next to a poem that calls patriotic slogans a lie. Comparative essays are common in Grade 11 and 12 English, and the curriculum names an essay comparing the themes of two short stories or poems as a typical writing task.

The trap is writing two essays stapled together: one about text A and one about text B, with a sentence at the end saying they are similar but different. A real comparative essay argues what the comparison reveals.

The second poem: "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen was a British soldier and poet. He wrote "Dulce et Decorum Est" in 1917 and 1918, and it was published after he was killed in action in November 1918, one week before the fighting ended. The poem is in the public domain, so you can read it in full online; it has 28 lines. Be aware that its middle section describes a soldier dying in a gas attack in graphic detail.

Here are the lines this lesson uses:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, (lines 1-2)

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots (line 5)

The poem ends by speaking directly to a reader at home:

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. (lines 25-28)

The Latin, from the Roman poet Horace, means It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. Ardent means eager, passionate.

Step 1: Choose meaningful points of comparison

A good point of comparison is a feature that both texts have, where the difference or similarity matters. Useful categories:

• Speaker and listener: who speaks, and to whom?
• Imagery: how is the central subject pictured?
• Structure and form: how is each poem built, and how does it end?
• Tone and attitude: how does each poem feel about its subject?
• Context: when and why was each written? (Use context to support analysis, never to replace it.)

Both poems are by soldiers of the First World War, both speak to people at home, and both end with a direct demand on the reader. That shared ground makes their differences meaningful.

Step 2: Write a comparative thesis

A comparative thesis should say what you are comparing, how the texts are alike or different, and what the comparison reveals. A helpful frame:

Both A and B [shared ground], but whereas A [difference], B [difference], which reveals [insight].

• Weak: McCrae's and Owen's poems are similar and different in many ways. (No claim.)
• Better: McCrae presents war as a duty and Owen presents it as horror. (A claim, but a simple one.)
• Strong: Both McCrae and Owen speak from the battlefield to readers at home, but whereas McCrae's Dead ask the living to carry on their cause, Owen's survivor exposes the language of glorious sacrifice as "The old Lie," which reveals how differently the same war could be framed for the people who did not fight it.

Step 3: Organize point by point

For most comparative essays, point-by-point is the better choice: each paragraph puts both poems side by side on one point, so the comparison happens in every paragraph, not just in the conclusion.

Using context without losing the analysis

The two poems were written at different points in the war: McCrae's in 1915, Owen's in 1917 and 1918, after years of trench warfare. Context like this can deepen a comparison: Owen writes after years of fighting that the early-war language of glory could no longer describe. But context cannot replace analysis. A paragraph about the history of gas warfare is not literary analysis. Use one or two sentences of context, then return to the words of the poems.