Category: Poetry

Seamus Heaney’s ‘Mid Term Break’ and ‘In Memoriam Francis Ledwidge’ lament needless violence, as well as the one-dimensional and euphemistic way with which general society deals with the loss of innocent, pure lives, whether it be a personal tragedy, or a swathe of atrocities wreaked on society by war. To do this, Heaney depicts these…

Seamus Heaney’s poem “Digging,” an eight-stanza poem written in free verse, is the first in his collection of poems entitled Death of a Naturalist, which was published in 1966. Written in first-person narrative, this circularly structured poem utilizes formalistic elements to reconcile the fact that the speaker will not follow in his forebears’ footsteps as…

‘Funeral Rites’ examines the role of rituals and ‘customary rhythms’ in the ‘arbitration of the feud’ in an Ireland plagued by the incongruous notion of ‘neighbourly murder’. However, in preference to the sterility of ‘tainted rooms’ in which the dead lie ‘shackled’ by religious chains of ‘rosary beads’, Heaney’s affinity for the mythological, archaic ‘serpent’…

‘The Tollund Man’, as is his ‘sad freedom’, seems tellingly paradoxical in death – ‘naked’ and exposed, yet somehow venerated as a ‘trove’ and a ‘bridegroom to the goddess’. He is destroyed, but elevated as a sacred symbol of serenity after this sacrifice. This peaceful death is emblematic of Heaney’s concerns in this poem, as…

A master of humor and satire, Ben Jonson was a playwright, poet, and actor; he was also known as one of Shakespeare’s theatrical contemporaries, if not Shakespeare’s prime literary rival. His poem “To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare” was as an elegy to commemorate Shakespeare and his works. However, Jonson…

Sharon Olds is renowned for keeping her readers on their toes and changing the direction of her poems drastically and without warning (Galens). This remains especially true in her poem “I Go Back to May 1937”. Olds’ brash style ensures that her message is clearly delivered but her original and sometimes unexpected use of imagery…

Philip Larkin’s ‘Church Going’ and George Herbert’s ‘Prayer’ present similarities in that they both explore the ambiguities of religion. The difference lies in their approach: Herbert contemplates the significance of religion, whereas Larkin, almost three centuries later, contemplates its very existence. The content and thematic elements of these poems perhaps differ so greatly due to…

In ‘Denial’, George Herbert presents a narrator appealing to God to help him reconfigure a disordered mindset, and yet the form of monologue is used to imply that there is little hope that the narrator’s pleas will be answered, hinting at his fate to remain ever-alone. Through use of simile, the poet suggests that the…

A Time for Preparation Cemeteries (and other places of burial) are terrestrial sanctuaries for the fragile remains of one’s mortal existence. Wandering these grounds can be a peaceful and hallowing experience. Some individuals speak to the graves and if one listens carefully, they may hear them whisper back. In Herbert’s poem, Church Monuments, which could…

George Crabbe’s The Village has long been perceived as a response to the flowery pastoral poetry of the late Eighteenth century, a genre marked by its praise of the countryside and the simple lives of shepherds and peasants. Indeed, Crabbe presents his dreary country village and the bleak existence of its rural poor using the…