Genre Essays

Shelley shows Ozymandias to have been a man who thought that he was indestructible, which also suggests the size of his eggo was enormous. The statue of Ozymandias is crumbling and has eroded away over time just like Ozymandias has, which shows he is not indestructible. Shelley shows Ozymandias as someone who fought he would […]

Ted Hughes’ poem, The Thought-Fox, uses a fox as an extended metaphor to represent his ideas and inspirations. Through a step-by-step description of the fox’s movements and actions, the poem gives insight into how it and other poems were written. The first stanza sets the scene in a mystical forest at midnight and introduces the […]

In this essay I will compare The Going, Beeny Cliff, The Voice and Your Last Drive by Thomas Hardy. I will discuss the ways in which he presents an image of his late wife Emma. The Going, like most of his poems about Emma, is written in the first person. Hardy is obviously speaking for […]

In both of the poems, ‘At Castle Boterel’ by Thomas Hardy and ‘Piano’ by D H Lawrence, the main idea is the thought of reminiscence for a lost loved one. The two poems show the tragic side of love, especially lost love. Also the two poets have used nostalgia, which means that you are happy […]

“When the Bomb Drops” is about a lady trying to chooses a family who live on her road to share her bomb shelter with. She uses a process of exclusion rather than including and through this she portrays her character as a narrow- minded, snobbish housewife. “Those people without an inside loo should be crossed […]

Ted Hughes was born in 1930 and since then throughout his life many wars have occurred during this time. Ted Hughes’s poem Thistle portrays the events of war and what it truly represents. Simply the title itself ‘Thistle’ is an exceptional word, which adequately suites the poems image for the reason being that the first […]

The Fish is an interesting poem that illustrates an encounter with a “tremendous” fish. The animal is anything but beautiful and is described in almost sick-like detail. In the end, the speaker releases the fish with joy. My reasoning for this is that the speaker understands the years of fighting the fish gave to survive. […]

The theme of deception and seduction is presented in both Eileen McAuley’s poem Seduction and Thomas Hardy’s story The Arch Deceiver, as both reflect a male character tricking a female character. Through the use of language techniques like similes, repetition, and alliteration, both writers in Seduction evoke an attitude of deceit and manipulation, ultimately eliciting […]

Firstly I will examine the title in relation to the poem ‘Pike’. The first stanza of Hughes’ poem shows a distinction between his own style and the Romanticism of the Nineteenth Century’s style of poetry: ‘Pike, three inches long, perfect Pike in all parts, green tigering the gold. Killers from the egg: the malevolent aged […]

This poem describes to us what happens during the long summer days, concentrating, mainly on the work of a sparrow, and through the sparrow’s eyes, what humans do and how they react and adjust to the hot temperatures. With this poem it is fairly easy to tell that the poet agrees with the sparrow’s opinions […]

The death of Emma Gifford caught Thomas Hardy by surprise as the death of his wife was unexpected. This unfortunate event caused Hardy to go into a form of shock and despair which forced his mind to cast back to forty years before, when he first met Emma, and to all in love with her […]

In this essay, we will compare and contrast Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” with Liz Lochhead’s “Lady of Shalott.” While both poems tackle similar concepts and topics, they differ in their approach. The former is set in the medieval era and recounts the tale of a woman confined to a tower. She fears […]

Owen generates sympathy for the soldier in the poem by portraying him as a young, disabled character, which induces a sense of vulnerability in the reader. The title itself “Disabled” labels the soldier as merely handicapped, implying he has lost his identity as a man. The poem begins with an anonymous pronoun “He sat in […]

“Dulce et Decorum Est”, describes the soldiers’ horrific trauma in World War1 with a bitter tone. The background of this poem is during World War 1 when the British soldiers were attacked by chlorine gas. In this poetry, one soldier was unable to get his mask on time and after suffering from the torturing gas, […]

The three poems explored in this essay each different explore ideas and views towards identity. In ‘Half Caste,’ John Agard writes as a representative for biracial people and addresses the problem of racism. In ‘Search for My Tongue,’ Sujata Bhatt explores who she has become after moving countries and questions her ethnicity while Grace Nichols’ […]

Comparing Half Caste and No Problem   In the poem “half cast” John Agard explores the theme of racism through vernacular dialect in the repeated refrain “explain yuself” the word “yuself” uses Caribbean dialect to demonstrate Agard’s origins, the use of Caribbean dialect portrays Agard being proud of his mother country. The effect of this […]

The memories that have left the biggest impression on me are those that engage my senses. Recollections of an evening breeze, the taste of milk chocolate, the sound of a hooting owl beneath a moonlit sky, and even something as simple as a cocktail stick resting on my finger all hold special significance to me. […]

In this essay I am going to compare and contrast ‘The Sick Equation’ by Brian Patten and ‘Long Distance’ by Tony Harrison. ‘The Sick Equation’ is about how two parent’s intense arguing and general disrespect for each other had such a damaging effect on their son’s thoughts, personality and life as an adult. Stanza one […]

Unmatched in the history of our literature, the period of the late 16th century, specifically the last 10 to 15 years, saw an incredible surge in poetic activity. During a particular era in history, a significant amount of intelligence was devoted to crafting poetry – particularly in the form of Sonnets. These Sonnets frequently expressed […]

Pre-1914, three love poems or sonnets were composed by writers who were vastly dissimilar. The poems in this collection each employ distinct styles in their representation of love. John Donny’s approach in “The Flea” employs clever language to entice sexual activity, while William Shakespeare places emphasis on the emotion of love itself. James Leigh Hunt, […]

‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ can be looked at on many different levels but on a basic level it is about a knight that is infatuated with a beautiful women. ‘Remember’ is a poem written by a women who says when I am gone forget me and move on with your life. The poem portrays […]

The poet Robert Browning of ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and the writer of ‘First Love’, John Clare, both delve into the complexity of love in many ways, some similar and others contrasting. The most apparent similarity is that both poems are written in the style of a monologue. Throughout these poems the reader is enlightened only to […]