Genre Essays

Miguel Street has been variously classified as a group of short stories, as a series of sketches, and as a novel. The latter classification is supported by the fact that it is unified by a single narrator and by several patterns and themes. Furthermore, although each chapter is dominated by a single character, those major […]

The poem ‘Telephone Conversation’ is written by Wole Soyinka, who is Nigerian by origin. In the poem, the poet shows a telephone conversation between an African who is in search of a house and his landlady. The poet thus briefly explains the treatment of the African people in European countries, especially England, where the so-called […]

The poem “Tattoo” by Ted Kooser dramatizes how things of your youth are carried with you although so much else changes with your age. These are dramatized through the comparison of what the tattoo meant at one time and how after years, the old man is just as any other old man. The tone of […]

The two poems “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and “Vitae Lampada” are both from the 19th century; they are also both based on war. Lord Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light brigade” tends to be more specific whereas Henry Newbolt’s “Vitae Lampada” doesn’t actually give information as to where or when the combat incident […]

These two poems have a lot of similarities and differences between them. “Charge of the Light Brigade” is a pro war poem and shows admiration for the young men, it is a third person narrative based on the Crimean war from 1854-1856. “Dulce et Decorum est” shows concern for the men that are risking their […]

This Be the Verse is a lyric poem in three verses of four iambic tetrameter on an alternating rhyme scheme, by the English poet Philip Larkin (1922–1985). It was written around April 1971, first published in the August 1971 issue of New Humanist, and appeared in the 1974 collection High Windows. The title also ironically […]

Billy Collins’ poem use conflicting images to drive home the point that people are multi-dimensional, even paradoxical. The title evokes positive images of two people hugging in camaraderie, friendship or love. It evokes images of tender moments in ones own life. The rest of the poem, however, is neither sentimental nor tender. The first line […]

“Annabel Lee” is a well-known and revered love poem from the nineteenth century, comparable in its prominence to “the Anniversary”, a seventeenth-century masterpiece by John Donne. Both poems utilize similar poetic symbols and techniques, but are distinguished by their unique form and thematic elements. They both highlight how the poets’ personal life experiences have deeply […]

In this paper I’m going to compare and contrast the poems “To a Daughter Leaving Home” by Linda Pastan and “At the San Francisco Airport” by Yvor Winters. Linda Pastan is one of the most notable contemporary poets and a winner of numerous literary awards. Yvor Winters is among the most influential poets of the […]

Brad Roberts’ song `Afternoons and Coffeespoons`, which alludes to T.S. Eliot’s poem `The Song of Love by J. Alfred Prufrock`, gives a great example of postmodern intertextuality invading our consciousness not only through the modern literature but through the texts of rock-songs as well. `Crash Test Dummies` leader, well-read and wit, refers to T.S. Eliot’s […]

Emily Dickinson’s “My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun” is a multi-faceted poem with distinct feminist and artistic themes. Despite Dickensons’s unique position as the only nineteenth-century American female poet to transcend typical sentimental poetry, her work indicates a strong feminine theme. This atypical perspective of feminism is also apparent in the aforementioned poem. […]

In this paper I will be discussing two poems of the Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska – “A Thank-You Note” and “The End and the Beginning” – and how she uses the element of irony in her works. Szymborska’s work has been considered grim poetry because she tackles on the subject of war and its aftermath, […]

When I first read “Proem: to Brooklyn Bridge,” by Hart Crane, I felt some difficulty in understanding the poem, but I wanted to probe its images and use of language to try to develop a better understanding of the poem. A reading of secondary sources informed me that the poem is actually the introduction or […]

Dionne Brand’s “Blues Spiritual for Mammy Prater” opens with a note: “On looking at the photograph of Mammy Prater an ex-slave, 115 years old when her photograph was taken”. This note points attention to the still-life that is photography and poetry, the distances between subject, object, and artist that are already in place – set […]

“Figure of Speech” is a literary term that encompasses several poetic devices. It is defined as a “word or group of words utilized to underscore a specific idea or feeling” (Encarta). The application of figures of speech in “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose” by Robert Burns, “The Victory” by Anne Stevenson, and […]

Poets everywhere choose themes that concern the most intimate matters of the human soul, the universal themes that every human being can relate to. Naturally, one of the themes most often referred to is love, as something all have experienced at some point in their lives. From the greatest to the meekest of poets have […]

In the poem’s “Ode, Intimations of Immortality” by William Wordsworth and “The Tyger” and “The Chimney Sweeper” by William Blake from Songs of Experience, the poets use light and dark imagery to give the audience a picture of life and, ultimately, death. The poems all have the idea of death in common but most importantly, […]

Can the poem beif necessary? Yes, it can. The poem depicts an individual reflecting on their various past occupations and asserts that the one job they would not repeat is being a telemarketer due to the discomfort caused by disappointing the people on the receiving end of their calls. Who is the speaker in the […]

Through his poem “Theme for English B”, Langston Hughes expresses his will to exterminate discrimination by proving that despite different skin colors, Americans all share similarities and learn from each other. Langston wrote the poem in 1900, when black Americans were not considered Americans. He talks about a black student being assigned to write a […]

When we attempt a general assessment of Robert Browning’s poetic caliber and overall achievement, his multi-faceted genius and his rarer treatment of love and its myriad moods and manifestations, all this strike our mind and heart intensely. The most characteristic of Browning’s poetry is his love-lyrics which remains the first and foremost of his total […]

The universe we live in is filled with a perplexing array of diverse perspectives which may often confuse us. Our understanding of the world, rooted in our common sense, could possibly be flawed with biases and errors unknowingly. We gather information about our surroundings through aspects like language, emotion, observation, and reasoning, yet none of […]

“Blackberry-picking” by Irish poet Seamus Heaney is about the futility of human life and the misfortune in its quickly passing nature. This poem, rich in vivid detail and diction tells us how young Heaney, who is the speaker in this case, begins to realize that nothing in life can last, especially the things we love. […]