The Parable of the Old Man and the Young’ is an unusual poem that doesn’t use a traditional rhyme scheme. It is one of his early poems, it not one of his well known one and therefore is not as popular with students.
The Rape of the Lock About the Poem Alexander Pope, the dominant poetic figure among the Augustans, reflects the social tone of the urban literary world of his day. Born of Catholic parents, he was denied a formal education both in schools and the universities. Therefore he was a completely self taught genius. He chose … Read more
Summary of The Shield of Achilles The Shield of Achilles is a wonderful poem. It is the title poem of the 1955 volume of poems entitled The Shield of Achilles. This is a very late poem in in the career of Wystan Hugh Auden. He is remembered as one of the greatest of 20th century … Read more
Introduction “In Memory of W.B. Yeats” was written by Auden in February 1939 in Memory of William Butler Yeats after his death in Roquebrune (Southern France) on January 29, 1939. This poem follows the traditional elegiac form. An elegy in literature is a poem that expresses mourning and grief, especially as a funeral song or … Read more
“September 1, 1939,” one of Auden’s most famous and oft-quoted poems, gained new prominence after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Curiously, though, Auden came to dislike this work, finding it “dishonest” and a “forgery.” He had his publisher include a note that the work was “trash he was ashamed to have written”; he also tried to keep it out of later collections of his poems. It is unclear why he felt so embarrassed by the poem. It has remained a staple of Auden’s work as well as an inspiring call to speak out in hope for justice and brotherhood despite times of war or terror.
Paraphrase of How Soon Hath Time Octave (Lines 1-8) The sonnet starts with the poet complaining and expressing surprise over the fact that Time, a soft winged-thief of youth, has stolen away the twenty three years of his life very quickly. He further says that the days of his life are passing very swiftly, but … Read more
Summary of How Soon Hath Time It is, generally, believed that the Sonnet – “How Soon Hath Time” was composed on 9th December, 1631, on the occasion of Poet John Milton’s twenty third birth anniversary. In this sonnet, John Milton expresses his dissatisfaction that Time is passing very swiftly and he has not been able … Read more
“This is a Photograph of Me” is written by a famous Canadian poet and novelist Margaret Atwood (1939- ). The poem is open to many interpretations. The poem begins in a seemingly conventional manner. It describes a photograph which was taken a few years back and evokes a mood of nostalgia but in the middle of the poem there appears parenthesis a remark beginning with the two lines. “The photograph was taken. The day after I drowned.”
Summary of the poem The poem ‘Fear Of Life And Death,’ by Sri Aurobindo, is nothing but a portrayal of death, in a beautiful way. Sri Aurobindo asks us not to fear death, but to look at it as a beautiful maiden. He also says that death can be painful initially, but its end-result is … Read more
Toru Dutt’s poem “Sita” which reveals her love for Indian myths and her sensitivity to women’s sufferings and victimization even in the ancient times.
In “The Looking Glass” Kamala Das searches for self-identity in the male dominant society where a woman has to give up everything to satisfy the male ego by accepting masculinity as superior to femininity. The poem is an externalisation of her humiliations and frustrations, the woman in the poem is every woman who seeks love, the man, is every man that wants a woman to satisfy his desire.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox was an American author and poet. She is well known through her works that are full of social criticism, in her poems she expresses sentiments of cheer and optimism in plainly written, rhyming verse. Her popular works include Poems of Passion (1883) and Solitude (1883).
