As have other of works by Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock (1712) has inspired many full-length books of critical consideration, so important was its effect upon Pope, his readership, the genre of poetry, and Pope’s legacy. The new… Read More ›
Literary Theory
Analysis of John Milton’s Paradise Regained
Written in four books, John Milton’s Paradise Regained (1671) tells the story of Christ’s temptation by Satan and ultimate victory, using as a historical basis the version of the tale found in the Gospel of Luke. Milton preferred Luke’s version… Read More ›
Analysis of John Dryden’s Mac Flecknoe
Although a first authorized published edition of Mac Flecknoe; or, A satyr upon the True-Blue-Protestant Poet, T.S. by John Dryden appeared in Miscellaney Poems in 1684, it had been circulated in unapproved versions since 1682. Critics cannot pinpoint the year… Read More ›
Analysis of John Milton’s Lycidas
John Milton had known Edward King at Cambridge and wrote Lycidas (1638) as an elegy for his friend’s death. When word arrived that King had drowned in the Irish Sea returning to Dublin in 1637, his many friends were strongly… Read More ›
Analysis of John Donne’s A Hymn to God the Father
Scholars of the works of John Donne continue the search for various elements in his poetry to aid in the dating of their creation and even in the ways to refer to the poems. As Donne did not title his… Read More ›
Analysis of John Dryden’s The Hind and the Panther
John Dryden wrote The Hind and the Panther (1687) in order to contribute to an ongoing dispute between Protestant and Catholic factions. While his exact date of conversion from devotion to the Church of England to Catholicism remains uncertain, it… Read More ›
Analysis of John Donne’s The Good Morrow
The Good Morrow was first published in John Donne’s posthumous collection Songs and Sonnets (1633) and ranks among his best known love poems. Critics have developed various theories regarding the poem’s symbolism, many relating to the Platonic theory of love…. Read More ›
Analysis of John Donne’s Go and Catch a Falling Star
John Donne enforced a tight structure on his song Go and Catch a Falling Star (1630), with three stanzas each containing sestets with a rhyme scheme of ababcc and concluding with a rhyming triplet. That controlled format contrasts with the… Read More ›
Analysis of John Donne’s The Flea
Most critics agree that John Donne wrote The Flea during his youth, before becoming an ordained minister. It was first published as part of Songs and Sonnets in a posthumous collection that appeared in 1630, 1635, 1650, and 1669. As… Read More ›
Analysis of Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Man
By the time Alexander Pope chose to publish his An Essay on Man (1734), he had received thorough and undeserved criticism from the poetasters, or “dunces,” whose activities he so often correctly lambasted, most notably in The Dunciad (1723). Still… Read More ›
Analysis of Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Criticism
An Essay on Criticism (1711) was Pope’s first independent work, published anonymously through an obscure bookseller [12–13]. Its implicit claim to authority is not based on a lifetime’s creative work or a prestigious commission but, riskily, on the skill and… Read More ›
Analysis of Alexander Pope’s Epistle to Miss Blount
Alexander Pope originally published Epistle to a Young Lady in 1712. His subject may have been imaginary or real, but in 1735 he changed the poem’s title to reference his dear friend, Martha Blount: Epistle to Miss Blount. They had… Read More ›
Analysis of Alexander Pope’s Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot
Alexander Pope spent some time considering the choice of form for his late-career rebuttal of those who had most demeaned him in print. He selected a poetic letter, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (1734), which later critics would deem a rhetorical… Read More ›
Analysis of Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
Thomas Gray may have begun writing Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard as early as 1746. He discarded four stanzas of an early version, which were probably read by his friend Horace Walpole, and planned to title the work simply… Read More ›
Analysis of Alexander Pope’s The Dunciad
Alexander Pope has long been acknowledged as one of the leading satirists of his age. Adopting the 18th-century belief that the “lash” of satire could lead to change, he applied that lash liberally in various works targeting those who established… Read More ›
Analysis of Oliver Goldsmith’s The Deserted Village
When Oliver Goldsmith wrote his 431-line poem in rhyming couplets The Deserted Village (1770), he exhibited the talent for shrewd observation and scene for which he had gained a reputation. He also imbued this idealization of English rural life with… Read More ›
Analysis of John Donne’s Death Be Not Proud
While discussion continues over the order in which John Donne wrote the individual poems that compose his Holy Sonnets, the critic Helen Gardner has argued convincingly that Death Be Not Proud was published in 1633. Structured as a variant of… Read More ›
Analysis of John Donne’s The Canonization
Critics basically agree to divide John Donne’s writing into two groups related to his life stages, his romantic, or love, poetry in the stage dating prior to 1615, and the spiritual poetry emanating from the time of his ordination in… Read More ›
Analysis of John Donne’s Batter My Heart
Critics feel fairly certain that one group of John Donne’s Holy Sonnets was published in 1633, a collection that included “Batter My Heart,” sometimes listed as “Batter My Heart, Three Person’d God.” It gained fame as a prime example of… Read More ›
Analysis of John Dryden’s Alexander’s Feast
John Dryden wrote his second ode (1697) in celebration of St. Cecilia’s Day, Alexander’s Feast; Or the Power of Music, 10 years after his first tribute, A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day. Set to music by Jeremiah Clarke, it became… Read More ›