The poet, John Tobias, explores the tension between a highly blissful and idealized childhood and the harsh realities of a far more corrupt present in the poem 'Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickles Received From a Friend Called Felicity.' Alongside the character's loss of innocence, other supporting themes are present, such as drug abuse, the passage of time, and violence. Through immensely detailed description in imagery of the author's childhood memories and present day, we witness the personal growth and nostalgic recollection of memories of a character. Tobias builds the founda...

• Word Count: 809
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... in debate when he had the chance. With these resources he forged a rough and unstructured, yet advanced curriculum that consisted of everything from the literary arts (poetry, theatre, and writing) to history to geography. In his early teen years Walt got an apprenticeship with a liberal, blue- ... smooth, "spoken word" flow to it. "Leaves of Grass" had a wide range of subject material, and therefore it incorporated many different themes. In his first poem from the collection, "Song of Myself", Whitman attempts to comment on the entire human race and their place in the ... cause that f...

• Word Count: 1470
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... writings are often characterized by vulgar and perverse content, it is still to date among the most widely read and studied works. His radical themes, his innovative aesthetic ideas, and his cult of beauty all had phenomenal impacts on modern poetry. Charles-Pierre Baudelaire was born April 9, ... to vary from different types of works. Besides his writing of poetry, he wrote a number of prose works, including a collection of art and literary reviews and several short stories and novels. His earliest work, in 1847 was a short autobiographical story titled La fanfarlo. He incorporated int...

• Word Count: 1229
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... of Ezra Pound, the publication of his first poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, earned him tremendous recognition throughout the European literary community. His style was contemporary and more modern then the rustic poetry which characterized the early twentieth century (Sheridan, 342). In 1922, ... a number of German and French phrases. Both contribute to an overall sense of despair, which is consistent throughout the poem. However, some literary critics regard Elliot's usage of allusions and French and German vernacular as weaknesses which prohibit the average reader from inter...

• Word Count: 1198
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... statement that the work of Rosetti leans towards the "Dark Side." One of the obviously fundamental aspects of poetry is the language used and the literary devices employed, and Rosetti's poetry is certainly no exception to this. Saturated with intense description, all three of the poems I shall explore contain ... language which undoubtedly leads to a justified definition of Rosetti's work. The themes exposed in each poem reveal to a great extent Rosetti's beliefs and moral ideals as well as her views of life and any inclination she may ... second underlying theme in "A Dream" is on a sy...

• Word Count: 2526
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... in Shakespeare's play. The two plays and the epic poem by Milton simply point out that the desire for power is the beginning of wickedness and villainess. In the three literary works, all the villains gained the power they wanted including Satan who after his rebellion gained power over his followers. Satan also reveals his evil intentions just as Richard III ... his faith. Shakespeare's use of the sonnet form in various ways is more complex and richer than a simple division into parts. Apart from using large sequences which destabilize the traditional themes of love sonnets. For exampl...

• Word Count: 4910
• Approx Pages: 20
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... ;The course of true love never did run smooth." (I.i. 134) Earnestly professed by Lysander in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the character assertively articulates one of the play's most crucial themes: the complexities of love. Similarly, Carol Anne Duffy's poem Love, penned for her novel-length poem Rapture published in 2005, comments on the unpredictability of love's nature; an immortal, white ... tonality in the opening line of the poem, using soft, placid vowels and consonants to possibly denote the graceful and harmonious nature of love. In lines 1-2, Duffy presents somewh...

• Word Count: 1990
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... full support and encouragement of his parents. He attended Harvard from 1911 to 1915, studying literature and writing daily. He eventually joined the editorial board of the Harvard Monthly, a college literary magazine, where he worked with his close friends S. Foster Damon and John Dos Passos. In his senior year he became fascinated by avant-garde art, modernism, and cubism, an interest ... of Cummings's poems is markedly divided. Beginning with Tulips and Chimneys, reviewers described Cummings's style as eccentric and self-indulgent, designed to call attention to itself rather than to ...

• Word Count: 1201
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... and manufactured narrative incidents but from the "spontaneous overflow" of emotions, as Wordsworth wrote in the preface. Wordsworth privileged natural speech over poetic register and thus managed to incorporate simple themes without elaborate symbolism. In The Tables Turned, Wordsworth expands, Sweet is the lore which nature brings, Our meddling intellect Misshapes the beauteous form of things - We murder to dissect. ... The stories are written in the simple and grounded language of the people, freed from the synonyms of learned and literary language. The poet surrenders to the "emotio...

• Word Count: 1487
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... of his lover vivid and transparent, for all to imagine and hence, to admire. Additionally, the sonnets comprise of distinctive movements that highlight each of their unique aspects regarding the themes of love and eternity. Along with full stops, and the broken punctuation of the hyphens Browning strengthens the passion of her love. In the phrase "breath, Smiles, tears, of ... that love, in any form, is eternal and endless. Both Sonnets 18 and 43 are expressions of love that surpass elements of nature and religion. Through skillful craftsmanship and varying literary devices, both the so...

• Word Count: 1172
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Walt Whitman(1819-1892), broke the literary tradition of his time with regards to content, form and style of his vigorous verse. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), while living a life of seclusion, was very audacious mentally, revealing a complex ... other "taboo" subjects and common objects and people, Whitman and Dickinson address the larger matters of life, namely death and religion. Although they often deal with the same themes, their approaches differ and both pioneered their own unique style of writing. Whitman's style of free verse develops in complex and expansive lines and stanzas, which ...

• Word Count: 2619
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... even-tempered, but negative tone. The poem is based around the literal returning of passed soldiers in the sense that they were not appreciated. Dawe utilizes a variety of imagery and literary techniques to further emphasize the deeper significance while attempting to convey the message that war is unavailing and effectively a waste of human life. "Homecoming" makes use of enjambment throughout, more ... the word 'them', integrated so casually, supports the dehumanizing tone intended to display detachment of the living from the dead. Poetic devices are used to highlight the negativity a...

• Word Count: 951
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

During a period of depression a musician may write heavier, less upbeat music, or a painter may shift to darker tones and more downcast themes. In any medium of art that is personal to the artist, a change in the artwork can represent a change in the artist. The medium of poetry certainly has the power to ... clearly dismiss the notion that Whitman may have been against any type of sexuality, or any part of the human "self". In a sense, Whitman challenges the sexual conventions of the literary times, not just those of homosexual sex, but sex in general. He is challenging the 19th century wor...

• Word Count: 861
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... human spirit. Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, whole in itself [meaning that it has a beginning, middle, and end], and filled with many types of literary devices. In dealing with the definition of tragedy, there are many vital aspects of literature that come together to produce a well-written tragedy. Some of these aspects include the art ... the audience as it observes the action on the stage. In this way tragedy shields them from experiencing any harmful emotions, thus leaving them in a better state to understand the themes presented in such plays. Furtherm...

• Word Count: 1068
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... Passage." "On Being Brought from Africa to America" is a piece from the celebrated African poetess Phillis Wheatley. Wheatley is known for writing poetry with a dominant influence of religious and moral themes. In this poem she uses a highly intelligent and scathing verbal irony. Although it is written in a deceptively mild manner one can catch the hints of Wheatley's sarcasm especially in the ... the truths hardships of slavery. Robert Hayden uses his extensive knowledge of literature to make a new genre of slave poetry, but all of them recognized the effectiveness of irony as a litera...

• Word Count: 846
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... connection between the literal and the metaphorical, and in doing so, "reading between the lines." At first glance, Yeats" poetry may seem to be merely spontaneous emotion, however, after close literary analysis, it is clear that Yeats" poetry is often fairly systematic and reveals an assortment of reoccurring ideas. When analysis of Yeats" works is undertaken, especially when discussing Yeats" ideas ... convey the relationship between the intimate and the repercussions of the end of an epoch. "Politics" (1939) is another of Yeats" poems which embodies one of his many re-occurring theme...

• Word Count: 823
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... meanings to surface. The feel of the poem, the originality is somehow lost when the said epic is translated to plain English. Heaney does a fine job bringing "Beowulf" and its themes to the less experienced reader, and his words have feel, but it truly lacks the flair of the lost language. Both examples do exemplify and clarify stylistic realities of Anglo ... the Orcs of J.R.R. Tolkien. It is best to come to personal conclusions regarding "Beowulf" and its translation, simply put a version is only as good as its author and his knowledge, a literary critic must judge on personal joy, ac...

• Word Count: 740
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate