Literary Theory and Criticism

Published in the modernist literary magazine Presença in 1933, this poem points to Fernando Pessoa’s obsession with the contrast between feelings and thoughts. It illustrates the main theme of the poetry signed with his own name (which Pessoa himself called… Read More ›

Analysis of Jorge de Lima’s That Black Girl Fulô

One of the major aspirations of Brazilian modernist and regionalistic writers during the 1920s was to affirm Brazilian identity through focusing on the Brazilian northeast and its culture and history. Jorge de Lima was one of the main exponents of… Read More ›

Analysis of Rolf Jacobsen’s Suddenly. In December

Rolf Jacobsen’s Suddenly. In December Suddenly. In December. I stand knee-deep in snow Talk to you and get no answer. You’re keep quiet. My love, now it’s happened after all. Our whole life, the smiles, the tears and the courage…. Read More ›

Analysis of Breyten Breytenbach’s The Struggle for the Taal

Written in prison, this poem (Taalstryd) fits squarely into the Afrikaner tradition of dissident writing associated with the Sestigers. At the same time, however, it marks a certain departure for the poet, as it directly challenges Afrikaans as the language… Read More ›

Analysis of Lars Gustafsson’s The Stillness of the World Before Bach

This poem (Världens tystnad före Bach) appeared in Swedish in Lars Gustafsson’s poetry collection of the same title in 1982, at the mid-point of the poet’s literary career to date. Over the past 50 years, Gustafsson has experimented with many… Read More ›

Analysis of Osip Mandelstam’s The Stalin Epigram

This precisely executed image of Stalin and his reign of terror led to Osip Mandelstam’s arrest and exile and ultimately to his death in the gulag. After sharing this poem (“My zhivem, pod soboiu ne chuia strany”) with a small… Read More ›

Analysis of Hagiwara Sakutarō’s Spring Night

Although it is not one of Sakutarō’s more harrowing compositions and does not contain the nightmarish imagery of so much of his poetry, Spring Night nevertheless creates a hauntingly melancholic mood by employing visual imagery to evoke the mystery of… Read More ›

Analysis of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus

Rainer Maria Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus (Die Sonnette an Orpheus) comprises 55 sonnets in two series. The first series (Erster Teil) contains 26 poems; the second (Zweiter Teil), 29. Poet and translator Willis Barnstone provides a breezy but comprehensive 97-page… Read More ›

Analysis of Tanikawa Shuntaro’s Sonnet 41

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 3, 2025

While Tanikawa is not the first Japanese poet to use the sonnet form, he has made unique contributions to the sonnet genre through his 62 Sonnets (62 no sonetto), in which the poet seems to have used the form of… Read More ›

Analysis of Okot p’Bitek’s Song of Lawino: An African Lament

First composed in 1956 in Acoli, a Ugandan language, Okot p’Bitek converted this book-length poem into English, and it was published a decade later. The author’s note informs readers that the English-language version “clipped a bit of the eagle’s wings… Read More ›

Analysis of Fadwa Tuqan’s Song of Becoming

Fadwa Tuqan wrote Song of Becoming in the aftermath of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War that resulted in the defeat of the tripartite Arab coalition (Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) by Israel. The defeat also meant that the Palestinian struggle against dispossession,… Read More ›

Analysis of Jorge Luis Borges’s A Soldier of Urbina

“A Soldier of Urbina,” from El otro, el mismo (The Self and the Other, 1946), is typical of Borges’s mature poetry. Classical in structure and containing both historical and literary allusions, it is also an outstanding example of Borgesian metaphysics…. Read More ›

Analysis of Mahmud Darwish’s A Soldier Dreams of White Tulips

This popular poem by Mahmud Darwish has had more than one translation in English. It is a striking poem and rare in its subject matter. It humanizes the enemy and, more specifically, the soldier enemy who invades one’s country. In… Read More ›

Analysis of Tarjei Vesaas’s Snow and Spruce Forest

Tarjei Vesaas’s Snow and Spruce Forest Talk about what home is — snow and spruce forest is home. From the very start it is ours. Before anyone has told us that it is snow and spruce forest, it has its place in… Read More ›

Analysis of Nicolás Guillén’s Small Ode to a Black Cuban Boxer

This poem from the collection Sóngoro consongo (1931) is an outstanding example of Nicolás Guillén’s poetry, reflecting both his Afrocentrism and his nationalist response to U.S. imperialism. The poem was inspired by and written for featherweight champion Eligio Sardiñas Montalvo…. Read More ›

Analysis of David Dabydeen’s Slave Song

David Dabydeen wrote the 14 poems that Slave Song comprises while an undergraduate at Cambridge University. The set of poems won Cambridge University’s Quiller-Couch Prize and the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1978. Several individual poems were published before their collective… Read More ›

Analysis of Niyi Osundare’s Siren

Siren, from Songs of the Marketplace, Niyi Osundare’s first collection, has eight stanzas. It describes the visit of typical Nigerian politicians to rural dwellers. The poem takes its title from the police car siren whose blaring traditionally announces the presence… Read More ›

Analysis of Giuseppe Ungaretti’s Shout No More