Category: Poetry

Table of contents Introduction Discussion Works Cited Introduction For a text of Elizabethan literature, Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene is unique in its portrayal of chastity-a virtue generally associated with the domestic sphere-in the figure of Britomart the female warrior. Similarly unique is Britomart’s representation as an almost hermaphroditic figure: she dresses in a full…

The Northwest Rebellion of 1885 brought to the forefront issues of in Canadian literary dialogue. The Northwest Rebellion, a five month rebellion against the Canadian government, was fought by the Metis and their Aboriginal allies in what is currently Saskatchewan and Alberta (Beal and Macleod). The Indigenous peoples fought this rebellion largely out of fear…

Dylan Thomas expertly investigates notions of reality and higher power as he reflects on life and death in his poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. Seemingly a rejection of religion and God altogether, the poem never directly states a presence of a higher power. It does address the constancy of life in…

Death is an inevitable factor of life, one which all of humanity must eventually face. What varies among people is how they handle this ‘coming of the end’. Some accept it with grace and tranquility, while others fight it until their dying breath. Dylan Thomas is one such person who prefers the latter. In Thomas’…

Death is often a sensitive subject; after all, most individuals relate death to the loss of someone who was especially important or beloved. In Dylan Thomas’s “Do not go gentle into that good night,” a strong message is delivered to those who are near death. Thomas demands them to continue to fight their ailments and…

As time passes, plants grow, people age and eventually the ones who hold most dear will leave your side. In the myth of Ceres and Persephone, the God of Harvest loses her matured daughter to the King of the Underworld. The tale continues on to display the search for the prolonged search for her dear…

Eavan Boland is an and author born in Dublin, Ireland in 1944 who focuses much of her work on the national identity of Irish people, the role of Irish women throughout its history, as well as Ireland’s rich and, at times tragic, history and culture as a country itself—especially pertaining to the impact that the…

Victorian literature, like almost all literature, speaks inherently of the social, philosophical and religious issues which molded the people of the time. The Romantic ideals of the singling-out and celebration of the self are often challenged by Victorian literature, with its focus on putting the self into a social context and examining the relationship which…

The speaker in Mark Strand’s “Eating Poetry” is transformed so much by his consumption of poetry that he frightens a librarian with his animalistic behavior. At first glance, the poem focuses on the literal and visceral consumption of poetry by the speaker and how it transforms him into a doglike creature. On closer inspection, the…

‘The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point,’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, is a dramatic monologue spoken through the voice of a female runaway slave. Browning was an abolitionist. In this poem, Browning deviates from the traditional values of motherhood and creates a narration where the speaker kills her child, who is a product of this oppressive…