Category: Poetry

In “Portrait d’une Femme,” Ezra Pound examines the fragmented nature of the modern woman; cluttered with culture and accumulated intellect, her character exhibits mere parts of a whole that is both inscrutable and alluringly fascinating. Contrasting one feminine archetype, the radiant goddess, the mystifying siren, Pound’s urban lady struggles to configure her identity within the…

In Book II of Troilus and Criseyde, the character Pandarus states: “Wommen are born to thraldom and penance, /and to been under mannes governance.”(Chaucer, line 286-7) Extracted from an exchange between the maiden Criseyde and her uncle, Pandarus, the passage speaks volumes on contemporary views on romance, and the ways in which those views were…

Explicit accounts of hellfire and damnation may not be the hallmarks of contemporary popular novels, but America’s first bestseller was full of such shocking imagery. Graphic illustrations of the Christian faith’s Judgment Day saturate Michael Wigglesworth’s poem, “The Day of Doom.” Published in 1662, this piece is the highlight of his anthology of the same…

When reading through Goethe’s version of “The Erl-King,” then Carter’s, it is striking how different many of the core elements are between the two stories. Major changes Carter has made include the introduction of a female character and the narrative voice which becomes first person rather than the third person narrator Goethe uses. Although obvious,…

W.B. Yeats is considered one of the greatest Irish writers due to his eloquent, ‘otherworldly’ early poetry and many of his later dramas and works for which he received the Nobel Prize. Often associated with the Irish Literary Revival, Yeats’ early work can be looked at in a postcolonial sense. The poetry utilises Irish and…

In The Slave Mother and Room, respective authors Frances Harper and Emma Donoghue use the raw human emotions of hope, fear, and maternal love to convey how people cope with traumatic events. These qualities deepen the enduring that continue to resonate with different audiences. Both authors draw attention to the way that society often views…

The poem “The Four Quartets” by T. S. Eliot illustrates an intricate link between the various problems and limitations of language and those of religious thought. This direct relationship is expressed through the poem’s first two quartets, “Burnt Norton” and “East Coker,” which see the poet struggling with both the meanings and perceptions of language…

Frank O’Hara’s “Why I Am Not a Painter” constantly draws parallels between painting and poetry. O’Hara uses the title to set up these parallels. Next, he proceeds to use the first stanza to catch the reader’s interest in why, in fact, he is not a painter. The second stanza draws the reader into the world…

It is important to acknowledge that the past and the present can coexist in a single work to remarkable effect. In Maxine Hong Kingston’s “Woman Warrior”, memories are so closely associated with the present and with legends that it becomes difficult to distinguish reality from fiction; indeed, the subtitle of Kingston’s work is “Memoirs of…

In “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, the interpretation of the poem depends on the readers perspective. It is a great poem that can give different ideas to different people. Some people believe that this poem has a hidden message of parental abuse. But other people think that this poem is one of happy moment…