Choose one of the following pairs of poems and songs: “The Lady of Shalott” by Alfred Tennyson; song “The Lady of Shalott” by Loreena McKennitt
“Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson; song “Because I Could not Stop” by Natalie Merchant
“Promises Like Pie-Crust” by Christina Rossetti; song “Promises Like Pie-Crust” by Carla Bruni
“The Two Trees” by William Butler Yeats; song “The Two Trees” by Loreena McKennitt
Plan to read the text version of the poem and listen to the song version a few times to get a good feel for the rhythm of each of the two versions. Then, think about how it contributes to the feeling and meaning of the poem in both situations.

Write a short essay (200–400 words) comparing the two versions of the poem, considering the following questions:

How does the meter of the poem change, if at all, when it is presented in song form?
Does the original poem have a meter that lends itself well to song lyrics?
How, if at all, is the poem changed or presented differently as a song?
Why might the artist have made changes to the poem?
Does the poem take on a different meaning in song form than in poetic form?
Structure your essay into an introduction, body, and conclusion. Make sure your essay focuses on a main idea, includes precise language to clarify ideas, and is written in a formal style. Use textual evidence, including scansion, to support your ideas.

as you read the passage below, consider how dana gioia uses

evidence, such as facts or examples, to support claims.

reasoning to develop ideas and to connect claims and evidence.

stylistic or persuasive elements, such as word choice or appeals to emotion, to add power to the ideas expressed.

explanation:

the thousand and one nights – or, as i prefer to call them in the following for purely practical reasons: the arabian nights – as we perceive them three hundred years after antoine galland’s epochal french adaptation bear a distinct arabic imprint. meanwhile, the commonly accepted model for their textual history acknowledges various stages in the conceptualization and effective formation of both the collection’s characteristic frame story and the embedded repertoire. the vast majority of tales in the preserved manuscripts of the nights has been integrated into the collection during two periods of arabic influence, the so-called baghdad and cairo periods (gerhardt 1963: 115–374). these “arabic” stages are preceded by an iranian version, probably dating to pre-islamic times, which in its turn profits from both structural devices and narrative contents originating from indian tradition. considering the eminent position that iran and iranian culture hold in the early stages of the textual history of the arabian nights, surprisingly few details are known concerning the collection’s relation to and its actual position within the iranian cultural context. in the following, i will discuss links between the arabian nights and iranian culture on several levels. in surveying these links, i will treat five major areas: (1) the iranian prototype of the nights; (2) tales of alleged persian origin; (3) persian characters within the tales; (4)persian translations of the arabian nights; and (5) the position of the arabian nights in modern iran