Literature Essays

Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) is a Spanish poet and artist who, along with others like Dali and Picasso, became well-known during the inter-war period. While their predecessors in the late 19th century occasionally maintain a satirical view of human existence – even Ibsen plays, in their bleakest moments, possess a touch of playfulness – Lorca’s […]

Metonymy doesn’t substitute like metaphor something like the thing that is meant for the thing itself, but substitutes some attribute or cause or effect of the thing for the thing itself. As an elaborate and repetitive device, it fulfils two functions in modernist poems. It depicts a fragmentation of perception – which it in part […]

Anton Chekhov once said “Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.” Clearly, this line suggests that knowledge lies not in knowing, but rather in its application. Despite Chekhov’s views, people have always prioritized on the accumulation of knowledge. The question then is not how much knowledge one can have, but instead […]

Christia Rosetti–“Uphill” Poetry Analysis “Uphill” in Depth Symbolism, by definiton, is an artistic imitation or invention that is a method of revealing or suggesting immaterial, ideal, or otherwise intangible truth or states. Symbolism in poetry has and still is used as an inspiration to write and sometimes can become the sole purpose of a poem. […]

Ispahan carpet is a four stanza poem written by Elizabeth Burge. From the title, you can see the poem is set in an eastern country and this becomes obvious as the poem evolves. The poem is set in a rug making factory, this is suggested by the way the narrator describes how she is with […]

Owen looks at what ceremonies will commemorate those who die in battle. Title is ironic. Anthem is praise and this poem in no way praises the war. The sonnet asks questions about what will be done to commemorate those who die in battle. Octet says they will have only sounds to accompany their funerals, and […]

‘Night of the Scorpion’ is a poem by Nissim Ezekiel that utilizes Indian English to capture the essence of Indian culture and ideology. The poet employs the ‘Poetry of Situation’ style to depict the selfless maternal reaction when bitten by a scorpion – ‘Thank God the scorpion picked on me and spared my children’. This […]

The poem They Eat Out by Margaret Atwood transforms the somewhat mundane experience of dining out at a restaurant into a powerful and somewhat caustic message regarding gender roles. Atwood employs potent literary techniques such as enjambment, symbolism, and metaphorical references to highlight her vision of female strength and the illusion of male progressivism. Writing […]

The poem “Shooting Stars” by Carol Ann Duffy, is written in the perspective of a Jewish woman who was killed during the Holocaust. The woman speaks to another woman about the atrocities they had endured as Jews, and how despite all hardships faith still remains.Structurally, the poem is very uniform. It has a title followed […]

The poem ‘At the San Francisco Airport’ by Yvor Winters is a heartwrenching poem written by a father to his daughter, upon sending her off at the airport terminal. The poem takes on a dramatic tone as it explores a father’s opinions and responses toward his daughter’s departure.In the first stanza, the speaker begins with […]

The Enfant Terrible Master of Poetry: W. H. Auden He has been described as “W. H. Auden, for long the enfant terrible of English poetry . . . emerges as its undisputed master” (Samson 227). W. H Auden is one of most influential poets of the Twentieth century, having written over 400 poems and countless numbers […]

Contrasting images of childhood in “Half-past Two” and “Hide and Seek” These poems are about two different children, each having their own experience of something new that is not always welcome. These Two poems are both looking back on a childhood experience that the poets have experience, and been marked after their discovery of this […]

At Castle Boterel by Thomas Hardy The poem was written in March 1913 when Hardy visited Cornwall after the death of his wife Emma Lavinia Gifford. The fictional name of the poem came from Boscastle, a mile from where Emma lived when she first met Hardy. It recalls a small incident during a journey he […]

Both “Before You Were Mine” by Carol Ann Duffy and “Mother Any Distance” by Simon Armitage focus on the role of being a mother and having to give up something. In “Before You Were Mine” its Carol Ann Duffy’s mother letting go and giving up her carefree lifestyle, to take up the important role of […]

Close Reading of “How Soon Hath Time” Milton’s sonnet “How Soon Hath Time” is a Petrarchian style poem written in iambic pentameter. It has a rhyme scheme of a, b, b, a, a, b, b, a, c, d, e, d, c, e. Each four line stanza makes up one complete sentence. This structure is ideally […]

Keating vs. Mersault Rousseau’s quotation, “Man is born free yet, everywhere he is in chains” implies that a person is gifted with great possibilities and potential. Unfortunately, the society surrounding that person is responsible for crushing that individual’s essence. Those who refuse to conform to such a society are judged negatively and consequently, feel alienated. […]

Sylvia Plath was a brilliant writer and is my favourite writer on our course. She was also highly accomplished in other fields, was an intense and complex woman, and a woman who was frequently ill. She died at a young age. It is often the latter facts that come to mind when we think of […]

The writing style of Henry James contrasts sharply with that of Dickens. James’ style focuses on capturing not only the reader’s imagination but also their personal experiences and reality. James uses the current reality to engage readers by employing a writing style known as literary literalism. With his keen understanding of human psychology, he delves […]

Compare and Contrast ‘First Ice’ and ‘Manwatching’ The two poems I am going to compare and contrast are ‘First Ice’ by Andrei Vosnesky and ‘Manwatching’ by Georgia Garrett. The first obvious difference between the poems is that ‘First Ice’ is written by a man and ‘Manwatching’ is written by a woman. However, both poets seem […]

Our speaker gets some advice from an older, wiser person: don’t bank too much on love. Like any young person, he promptly ignores the advice. Did we mention that he’s 21? Keep that in mind. It’ll be important later. Flash forward: now he’s 22. And as it turns out, the advice he got was pretty […]

I believe in Wilfred Owens’ poem ‘Exposure’, there are many different purposes, and an equal number of methods, which he employs to achieve them. Throughout the poem, he uses a variety of different techniques but I think there are several which are most successful.The first and foremost approach Owen has used is that of the […]

The utilization of traditional nature imagery by various poets and its interpretation have been examined in a set of poems. Nature is typically viewed as a positive entity, representing the goodness of the Earth. It stands in stark contrast to human civilization, cities, technology, and the contemporary computer-driven world. The prevailing perception of nature is […]