What is the best way to structure a comparative essay?

When handling two texts in response to an exam question, it is important to chose whether to structure your response thematically or handle one text and then the other. Personally, I would recommend the thematic approach as it allows for a more sophisticated comparison and will provide a more engaging flow to your written work. To give an example question: 'Compare the significance of natural imagery in two Romantic poems' Firstly, we would break down the question. Comparison is straightforward and immediately when choosing our texts we need to consider complimentary but varying examples to chose. Significance is slightly more difficult and can often trip students up. Here it means for you to discuss what the natural imagery signifies rather than why it is important, though an advanced essay will be able to do both. Using the commonalities in Romantic literature as a back bone for this essay, I would tailor my answer around how the poems use natural imagery conventionally in respect to their genre and how they divert from those conformities. Each time I made a descriptive point in this way I would then go on to what that signifies, reminding the reader throughout what the poet meant (albeit my interpretation). This evaluation of the self in a literature essay gets you a long way and it is important to stress your impartiality.