Category: Poetry
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Masculinity in The Poetry of Owen Sheers
In Skirrid Hill, Owen Sheers explores many themes, one of which is undoubtedly manhood. Throughout the collection, he often focuses in on adolescence and discovering his power as an individual. In this way, it seems clear that Sheers is a poet who explores exactly what it feels like to be a man. Despite this, many…
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Fulfillment on The Susquehanna: Billy Collins’s Message
There comes a time for many people when the gruffness and chaos of the real world becomes too much and they crave a break from it all. Throughout the poem “Fishing on the Susquehanna in July,” Billy Collins is able to convey this desire to remove oneself from the chaos of the real world and…
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Ted Hughes’ Presentation of Animals
Hughes is well-known for his nature poetry and use of animal symbolism. In both “The Jaguar” and “Hawk Roosting”, the animals symbolize different human characteristics while remaining, on the surface, an in-depth, fantastic poem about the animal itself. “The Jaguar” is written on a literal level about a trip to the zoo. The point of…
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The Adaptation of Sapphic Aesthetics and Themes in Verlaine’s “Sappho Ballad”
Several aspects of classical lesbian poet Sappho’s work would come to be admired and built upon by the Decadent poets of the nearly two and a half millennia after her time. The mixing of gender aspects and themes of masculine power and feminine desire in “To Anaktoria” and “Seizure” nearly prefigured the radical combinations of…
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The Meaning of Honor in The Battle of Maldon
When reading The Battle of Maldon, I found myself attempting to grade the noble Byrhtnoth using the heroic code as a rubric. Initially, I doled out poor marks, labeling Byrhtnoth as a failure according to the heroic code. However, after reexamining the poem and critiquing my own verdict, I concluded that Byrhtnoth instead served an…
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The Battle of Maldon: How to Describe a Man of Honor
The Battle of Maldon uses linguistic tools to glorify the military capabilities of the Saxons, who are in reality the losing side, while minimizing the victory of the invading Vikings. Through use of language the poem eternalizes both individual heroes and traitors, while also reasserting the value of kinship and the promotion of the heroic…
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Female Wit in Barbauld and Cowley’s Works
“[Wit] means something pithy, penetrating, profound, aptly and forcefully expressed (and by extension, someone who is apt to speak in this way)” (Palmer 136). The female figure of wit was widely unaccepted in 18th and 19th century Britain. It was considered impolite or improper in these times for females to express witty sentiments in their…
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The Unaging Love in The Bean Eaters
In the poem “The Bean Eaters”, illustrates the image of a simple elderly couple, whose lives have become rather mundane and routine. The first two stanzas in the poem serve as the exposition of the story, as Brooks paints a picture of an impoverished, aging couple living an extremely routine life. In the third and…
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Perception Versus Truth in Roethke’s “In a Dark Time”
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…
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The Socially Revolutionary Nature of Coleridge’s Conversation Poems
The Romantics sought to distinguish their work from the Enlightenment Era’s prioritisation of logic and reason by rejecting and, in effect, redefining literary convention. Coleridge’s conversation poems are considered hallmarks of Romanticism for their revolutionary treatment of form and confrontation of core 19th century values. As a means of celebrating the imagination and communicating with…