Acquainted with the Night (1928) I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed… Read More ›
Literature
Analysis of Robert Frost’s Acceptance
Acceptance (1928) When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud And goes down burning into the gulf below, No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud At what has happened. Birds, at least must know It is… Read More ›
Analysis of Rubén Darío’s To Roosevelt
Poem Text It is with the voice of the Bible, or verse of Walt Whitman, that we should reach you, Hunter! Primitive and modern, simple and complicated, with a bit of Washington and a bit of Nimrod. You are the… Read More ›
Analysis of Léopold Sédar Senghor’s New York
I New York! At first I was bewildered by your beauty, Those huge, long-legged, golden girls. So shy, at first, before your blue metallic eyes and icy smile, So shy. And full of despair at the end of skyscraper streets… Read More ›
Analysis of Wole Soyinka’s Telephone Conversation
Paradoxically apologetic and bitingly sarcastic, Soyinka’s Telephone Conversation is a 35-line poem dealing with bigotry and the absurdity of racist hierarchies. Written in free verse, the poem portrays an African’s attempt to rent an apartment in London. Describing a conversation with… Read More ›
Analysis of Dante’s Divine Comedy
Dante’s crowning achievement, one of the most important works in Western literature and undisputedly the most important poetic text of the European Middle Ages, is the great poem he calls his Comedy, or Commedia (ca. 1307–1321). This seems an odd… Read More ›
Critical Analysis of Jane Austen’s Emma
SYNOPSIS Volume 1 Emma is the story of the wealthy, beautiful, spoiled only daughter of an aging widowed hypochondriac, Mr. Woodhouse. Nearly 21, she runs their large house, Hartfield, in Highbury, Surrey. The novel opens with the marriage of her… Read More ›
Critical Analysis of Sense and Sensibility
SYNOPSIS Volume 1 Old Mr. Dashwood of Norland Park in Sussex and his heir, his nephew Henry Dashwood, have died. Henry married twice. By his first marriage, he has a son, John. John and his four-year-old son, Henry, are in… Read More ›
Critical Analysis of Pride and Prejudice
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife” [3]. So begins Jane Austen’s arguably most enduringly successful novel—one that has been translated into at least… Read More ›
FIELD POETICS
Field poetics may be defined by a systematic integrity that overrides individual authorial intention. The system in play is usually a form of language, purely acoustic, or purely visual, often scored speech or another verbal matrix. Among the most uncompromising… Read More ›
Analysis of Tolkien’s The Hobbit
The origin of The Hobbit (1937) is well known. One day in the late 1920s, Tolkien was grading essays when he came across a blank page and absently wrote the sentence “In a hole in the ground there lived a… Read More ›
The Lord of the Rings Character Analysis
Analysis of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Analysis of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Analysis of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Aragorn (Strider, Elessar) Aragorn is the… Read More ›
Analysis of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Analysis of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Analysis of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Synopsis for The Return of the King Book 5: The War of the Ring Chapters 1–3: The Brink… Read More ›
Analysis of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Analysis of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Synopsis The Two Towers Book 3: The Treason of Isengard Chapters 1–2: Pursuit to Rohan In a chapter entitled “The Departure of Boromir,” book 3 begins where book… Read More ›
Analysis of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
The Lord of the Rings is the crowning achievement of Tolkien’s literary career, and the one narrative by which he is chiefly remembered and admired. In the more than 50 years since the trilogy’s initial publication, it has been republished… Read More ›
Analysis of Tracy Letts’s August: Osage County
Originally produced by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company in June 2007, August: Osage County opened on Broadway in December 2007 and won the Pulitzer Prize, the Tony Award, and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award. The play takes place in… Read More ›
Asian-American Drama
The acknowledged origins of Asian-American drama date to the 1890s and the controversial symbolist plays of Sadakichi Hartmann, including Christ: A Dramatic Poem in Three Acts (privately printed, 1893), Buddha: A Drama in Twelve Scenes (written, 1891–95; privately printed, 1897),… Read More ›
Analysis of Shelley’s Mont Blanc
On July 21, 1816, Percy Bysshe Shelley, his companion Mary Godwin (who would subsequently marry him), and her half sister Claire Claremont, first saw Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain in Europe. The sight impressed them mightily, so much so that… Read More ›
Analysis of Tennyson’s The Lotos-Eaters
The Lotos-Eaters represents one of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s most extended experiments in, and demonstrations of, the sensual nature of poetry. Tennyson—heavily influenced by John Keats—was interested in testing the limits of poetic expression, and thus, more than most poets, he… Read More ›
Analysis of William Blake’s London
London is one of the grimmest of William Blake’s songs of experience (see Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Like “The Tyger” and the “experienced” version of “Holy Thursday,” this is one of the comparatively few songs that seem to be… Read More ›
You must be logged in to post a comment.