Study Like a Boss
Comedy, Courtly Love, Drama, Fiction, Novel, Protagonist, Short Story, Tragedy, 1984, A Raisin in The Sun, Animal Farm, Beowulf, Fahrenheit 451, Frankenstein, George Orwell, Hamlet, Into The Wild, Lord of The Flies, Macbeth, Of Mice and Men, A Modest Proposal, All Quiet on The Western Front, Allegory, Antigone, Between The World and Me.
Home The poem “Home “by Warsan Shire focuses on the importance of home and demonstrates how the connotation of home is experienced by refugees. The poem urges the west host countries to show modest receiving attitude to welcome the refugees and understand their suffering and pain. The speaker uses powerful imagery and metaphor to evoke … Read more
“Promises like Piecrust” by Christina Rossetti relates a narrative between a speaker and beloved in regards to the other’s romantic attraction towards the speaker. The title of the poem is taken from the expression ‘Promises are like pie crust, they are made to be broken’, likening the difficulty of keeping a promise to the fragility … Read more
In his poem, ‘The Widow’s Lament to Summer’, William Carlos Williams explores themes of mortality, the fleeting beauty of life and emotional attachment through the perspective of a recently widowed woman. Through limited descriptive techniques and reversed associations and metaphor, Williams presents an ironic and highly emotional depiction of life after the death of a … Read more
Legality, although often intertwined with morality, is not to be confused with it. In Hrafnkel’s Saga, Hrafnkel is a chieftain who makes an oath to slay anyone who rides his beloved Freyfaxi. He generously provides Einar with a job, only asking that he not ride Freyfaxi. Einar broke this oral oath and was subsequently killed. … Read more
Compared to the poetry prior to the 20th century, the poetry of T.S. Eliot rings vibrant, unconventional and inventive. Eliot’s poem “Journey of the Magi” is typical of his style and illustrates how Eliot’s poetry changed the genre forever. In its compression of image and language, “Journey of the Magi” is a complex poem, reflective … Read more
‘Mrs Midas’ is a revisionist version of the King Midas story told from the female perspective: traditionally, this ancient Greek myth was about a man who could turn everything to gold with a touch. This poem explores the sadness Mrs Midas feels in regards to not being able to feel the touch of her husband … Read more
Robert Browning ubiquitous examination of religious authority and its shortcomings becomes apparent within the very title of The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church. The religious reference to Saint Praxed carries ironic connotations, as whilst Saint Praxed herself was chaste, the monologist subverts his priestly requirements and engages in sexual acts. Therefore Browning … Read more
The Wanderer is a poem that laments both the temporality of human life and the material world, posing existential questions that only appear to be answered in the comparatively short conclusion though appeal to the Christian God. In part because of this structural oddity, critical attention towards The Wanderer has shifted dramatically in the past … Read more
Death is not the only way to lose a person. Often in life, people are lost to their career, to their friends, to their struggles, to their countries. Death is the physical end of one’s life, but people sometimes speak of losing a person who is not yet dead because their relationship has burned out … Read more
Zeus is certainly not a person to trifle with, especially when it comes to his sacred fire. The punishments dealt out by Zeus are probably anything but fair but are all very metaphorical and symbolic if the reader reads between the lines. Prometheus, creator of man and thief of fire, is punished by having his … Read more
In Theodore Roethke’s poem, “In a Dark Time,” the speaker crosses over into the undiscovered world of insanity and communicates perceptions that others have disproved. Likely representative of Roethke’s own personal struggles with schizophrenia, “In a Dark Time” displays the thought process of a disturbed individual. Through Roethke’s use of deceptive rhyme, constant paradox, and … Read more
Fidessa’s character in Edmund Spenser’s “The Fairy Queene”, introduced in the second canto of book 1, is essential to the understanding of one of Spenser’s main messages in the poem: the Roman Catholic Church is corrupt and falsely interprets Christianity. Through Fidessa’s and her Saracen’s names, Fidessa’s characterization and dress, and the relaying of the … Read more
The work of T. S. Eliot frequently presents society as degenerate and infertile. The deterioration of the post-war world is represented through the oppression and suffering of women – a concept explored most notably in Eliot’s 1922 work The Waste Land, but also in a number of his other poems. Eliot uses anonymous characters and … Read more
Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” and Andrew Marvell’s “To his Coy Mistress” offer powerful examples of sensual, carpe diem Renaissance poetry. In both poems, the poet-speakers attempt to spur their beloveds into action through various compliments and rhythmic patterns that create a hurried tone. However, the speakers’ tactics diverge at this point. … Read more
Among the fragmented layers and voices of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land there is a distinct cry for humanity to accept the comfort of a greater level of intelligence – God. This is dramatically reinforced in the lamenting howl of The Hollow Men. References to religion and differing cultures is a consistent theme within … Read more
When T. S. Eliot wrote The Waste Land in 1922 he was a self-proclaimed atheist. Some six years later, he described himself as an adherent to anglo-catholic Christianity and thus wrote the Four Quartets. As is possible to postulate, some scholars believe that there is an innate Christian-ness in The Waste Land and have hence … Read more
To His Coy Virgins The concept of carpe diem or “seize the day” is a popular poetic credo. Seventeenth century poets Andrew Marvell and Robert Herrick address carpe diem by admonishing young virgins against coyness and procrastination. Despite differences in device, motive, and narrative voice, Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” and Herrick’s “To the Virgins, … Read more
In a rapidly developing and consumerist world, humanity has fallen deep into the rabbit hole of materialism. The root of man’s estrangement from nature stems from the ongoing issue of the wasteful trappings of society. Believe it or not it seems that the inevitable forces of materialism was also present—if not created—in the early nineteenth … Read more
Power exists in many forms: weapons, threats, size, and even words. Amidst the violence and volatile power that exists between Israel and Palestine, Mahmoud Darwish attempts to influence people’s feelings through his poetry. In Darwish’s politically charged poems, he utilizes a combination of common symbols familiar to both Jewish and Arab peoples, and carefully chosen … Read more
Admirable qualities of men in Virgil’s The Aeneid include bravery, honor, and courage, but a woman’s value is based less on their power, wit and brains and more on their beauty, or lack of beauty. There are many instances within The Aeneid where both male and female characters value a woman based on how beautiful … Read more
The Romantic Era was a time when people embraced imagination, emotion, and freedom – quite a contrast to the preceding Neoclassic Era, which emphasized the values of reason, judgment, and authority. The values of the so-called Romantics are embodied in the poetry which developed during the period. Romantic poets, such as William Wordsworth and Samuel … Read more
In both Porphyria’s Lover and Andrea del Sarto, Robert Browning explores the notions of love and its capacity to corrupt an individual’s character and potential through his signature diegetic form; the dramatic monologue. While the form of these two poems is based around an implied audience, the primary agent and core subject matter is the … Read more
Home The poem “Home “by Warsan Shire focuses on the importance of home and demonstrates how the connotation of home is experienced by refugees. The poem urges the west host countries to show modest receiving attitude to welcome the refugees and understand their suffering and pain. The speaker uses powerful imagery and metaphor to evoke … Read more
Everyone has dealt with troubled times, which can accurately be described as ‘dark times’ or ‘internal storms.’ In the poem “Storm Warnings”, Adrienne Rich organizes the poem’s main statement in the middle of the poem in order to mimic the buildup and aftermath of a real storm, provide the division between her external and internal … Read more
Seamus Heaney’s “Casualty” is written as an elegy for a friend who was killed in a bombing in Northern Ireland shortly after Bloody Sunday. His friend, who was a Catholic, failed to obey a curfew set in place by the Irish Republican Army. He was consequently killed in the bombing of the pub he often … Read more
Despite being published in 1798, William Wordsworth’s “The Thorn” gracefully tackles many topics still controversial today in the 21st century. Themes such as pregnancy out of wedlock, murder, abortion, and ghosts are presented and addressed. Wordsworth uses detailed scenery as well as character ambiguity to cause the reader to believe that Martha Ray is merely … Read more
‘Dockery and Son’ is a reflective, pensive and uncertain poem in which Larkin produces a sense of life drifting away and considers “how much had gone of life, / How widely from the others.” Although it cannot be assumed that the narrator is Larkin, the tone, ideas and reflections in the poem support a biographical … Read more
Andrew Marvell’s Mower Against the Garden is the first in a series of four ‘Garden’ poems. The poem can be read literally, as a pastoral, ecological poem concerned with the destruction of the natural landscape as a result of human consumerism; in particular the fashion for highly ornate, architectural gardens. This is an easy assumption … Read more
Race played a huge role in determining a relationship with the police in London after the mass migration of non-caucasian individuals. The poem ‘Sonny’s Lettah’ by Linton Kwesi Johnson provides a clear representation of how the black race was treated on the streets, and their relationship with authoritative figures. The poem also portrays the relationships … Read more
Throughout the ages, the theme of impossible love in literature has prevailed. Impossible love is an overall broad theme; generally speaking, it is a love that is forbidden, unrequired, or unable to flourish. Somewhere between 29 and 19 B.C. the legendary Roman author Virgil wrote his epic: The Aenid. The Aenid chronicles the journey of … Read more
Wordsworth’s “I travelled among unknown men” appears at first to be a tribute to a woman he loved and a poem of patriotism. It is initially unclear how Lucy and England are similar beyond being things that are ultimately important to him. Through further interpretations, it becomes evident that Wordsworth used specific tools such as … Read more
In Literary Theory: The Basics, H. Bertens asserts that even in the works of culturally and sexually liberal male writers such as D.H Lawrence and Henry Miller, male characters are “denigrating, exploitative, and repressive in their relations with women.” In the poems Goblin Market and No, Thank You, John, Christina Rossetti subverts the idea that … Read more
The song “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday is a jazz ballad which can also be attributed to the blues style. Before Billie Holiday released the song, it was a poem, written by the American teacher Abel Merropol. This poem was a response to the lynching’s going on in the south due to racism and Jim … Read more
In his essay, “The Philosophy of Composition,” Edgar Allan Poe writes that in an ideal poem, “two things are invariably required first, some amount of complexity, or more properly, adaptation; and, secondly, some amount of suggestiveness some under-current, however indefinite, of meaning.” While he claims to use this statement to justify the “suggestiveness” of the … Read more
The poem ‘A Tempest in a Teacup’ is an idiomatic expression which means “a great commotion over an unimportant matter”. A. Van Jordan, the poet was hit on with this big idea from the Play “The Tempest” to poeticize his train of poetic thoughts. He received his BA in English literature from Wittenberg University in … Read more
An event marked by sex and celebration, the wake in Wallace Stevens’s “The Emperor of Ice-Cream” is inescapably bizarre. Though one might expect an air of sobriety, importance, or – at the very least – reflection to characterize a discussion of death, the poem’s language and content are instead suffused with an almost nonsensical air … Read more
In his poem “The Waste Land,” T.S. Eliot presents multiple relationships between men and women, both historical and of his own creation. The interactions that he describes allow the reader to infer how Eliot views relationships, sexuality, and gender. He presents relationships as dysfunctional while only focusing on their negative aspects. Through description of various … Read more
Charlotte Smith’s late poem ‘Ode to Death’, published in 1797 in her collection of Elegiac Sonnets, draws on the idea of accepting death as a ‘friend’ (l.1) rather than fearing it. The ode carries a deep sense of desperation and sorrow, as it alludes to the grief endured by Smith in her own lifetime; predominantly … Read more
In the long essay, “A Defense of Poesy,” Sir Philip Sidney responds to the attempts of repression by the Puritan Movement on poets and their work by characterizing poetry as the roots of culture and intelligence. Sidney uses mythical allusions and historical references to various cultures in order to create an all-encompassing argument promoting the … Read more
Larkin’s poetry reflects a certain dark humor, with an often-witty conveyance of a powerful message. There is certainly control and elegance in Larkin’s work; the subject matter is apposite and therefore has an impact on his reader rather than an expression of elegance in the traditional sense. There is elegance in the brutality of his … Read more
Both Lord Alfred Tennyson’s dramatic monologue, “Ulysses,” and Ezra Pound’s 1912 translation of the Old English dramatic monologue “The Seafarer” depict a man’s musings about seaward journeys. Tennyson wrote “Ulysses” in the wake of his best friend Arthur Henry Hallam’s death. “The Seafarer” has traditionally been recognised for its overtly elegiac overtones. One may assume … Read more
Virgil’s Aeneid is one of the seminal works of the antiquity which offers us a lens into the life and art of ancient Romans in the era of 1 BC – the year the epic was written. A reading of the epic shows that Virgil’s attitude towards fact and fiction is one of complexity. He … Read more
John Keats’ canonical Romantic poem “Lamia” emphasizes natural malevolence despite intention. Within “Lamia,” the reader is told of the titular character Lamia’s desire to have Lycius love her. Although her way to human form is not necessarily achieved through the noblest of intentions, she still does it out of love so that she can be … Read more
Thomas Richards, in his 1990 critical exposition, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England: Advertising and Spectacle, 1851-1914, states: “In the mid-nineteenth century the commodity became the living letter of the law of supply and demand. It literally came alive.”(Richards, 2) The “commodity” adopts a corporeal cling to Victorian society in the form of the female … Read more
Autumn is one of the most charming seasons due to a variety of reasons. People all over the world choose it as their favorite time of the year because of its mildness, quiet beauty, golden leaves, and grey sky, as well as exciting holidays, such as Halloween. It inspires and motivates people to create art. … Read more
The poem “The Secretary Chant,” by Marge Piercy, holds many characteristics that are meant to pull the reader in. As with any poem, the words mean more than they appear to. Each line is written with a purpose. Every word is there for a reason; otherwise, the poem would not be the same. “My hips … Read more
The poem “My Father’s Song” is based on the wisdom and values, as well as traditions passed from old generation to new one. The speaker uses his life experience between him and his father to depict the variation of values and traditions between the old and new generation. In emphasizing his theme, the writer has … Read more
T.S. Eliot’s 1922 poem The Waste Land is widely considered the most influential work of the twentieth century. Composed of five compelling parts, Eliot’s genius work forms an intricate collage of modern society. Many scholars view The Waste Land as Eliot expressing his fear and terror about the fate of humanity and culture. Modernists such … Read more
The title ‘televistas’ indicates that our perspective of the world is seen only through our television sets, that our experience of life is limited and controlled. In the poem ‘Enter Without So Much as Knocking’ we are only identified in terms of the brand names we chose to buy, but in ‘televistas’ we are only … Read more
Music has historically been a means of expression and a way of portraying the conditions of the time in which it was written, and the feelings and circumstances of the person by which it was created. This way of expression through music can be seem in the poem “Burying blues for Janis,” by Marge Piercy; … Read more
