... economic systems. Culturally too, increasing access to literacy, and to education in general, led to profound changes in the reading public. The Education Act of 1870 made elementary education compulsory for everyone between the ages of 5 and 13. This led to the rapid expansion of a largely unsophisticated ... still harking back to the nineteenth century: after 1918, Modern begins to define the twentieth century. But as literacy increased after the 1870 Education Act and, asa result, many more people could read and write, the effect on literature was to expand its range, to fragment its...

• Word Count: 10566
• Approx Pages: 42

... " (Hibbard). Sexton's poem, Her Kind is one filled with imagery that she uses to identify the reader with personal stresses in her own life. The title suggests that she is talking about the life of someone else, someone she couldn't relate to, yet, in lines** she opens up, revealing "I have ... Throughout she implies that her existance is unimportant, "I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage" (ll 2). She examines suicide and the priciceness of the act. In this poem "Sexton notes that her own body, her essential physical self, is only a bad prison that should be emptied of breath, ...

• Word Count: 3441
• Approx Pages: 14
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... . Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), while living a life of seclusion, was very audacious mentally, revealing a complex psyche struggling to press her inner conflicts, which she interprets through the creative and reflective act of language. Writing about sex, (the) human body, many other "taboo" subjects and common objects and people, Whitman and Dickinson address the larger matters of life, namely death ... 's "Leaves of Grass" Whitman's masterpiece is certainly "Leaves of Grass", an anthology of poems he first published in 1855 and kept revising till his death. The title is the first element...

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

... vowel (i) in the word "in" repeated throughout the first stanza and in the name of the poem (A Castle In Lynn) emphasizes to the reader the act of intercourse; a man putting his penis in a woman over and over. Additionally, the first two stanzas contains words that have distinct and definite ending sounds ... short phrase suggests the anger of the narrator. The poet then metaphorically compares the hand of the father to a digging tool that recreates the violent act. Repeating the words "now" and "hand" over and over brings the reader into the event rhythmically. Again using pauses creat...

• Word Count: 3020
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... vowel (i) in the word "in" repeated throughout the first stanza and in the name of the poem (A Castle In Lynn) emphasizes to the reader the act of intercourse; a man putting his penis in a woman over and over. Additionally, the first two stanzas contains words that have distinct and definite ending sounds ... short phrase suggests the anger of the narrator. The poet then metaphorically compares the hand of the father to a digging tool that recreates the violent act. Repeating the words "now" and "hand" over and over brings the reader into the event rhythmically. Again using pauses creat...

• Word Count: 3020
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... . The news of his death reached his parents on the 11th of November; the day of the Armistice. "Dulce et Decorum est" is one of Owen's most renowned poems. The title is in Latin, and when translated into English, it means "It is sweet and fitting". The poem is written from the point of view of one of the soldiers; often ... the waste of life is. The way the soldiers die is not in the least bit honourable; they die whilst doing nothing. The harsh conditions that the winter weather produces act like an enemy to the soldiers and kill them. Owen's choice of language creates a very dramatic a...

• Word Count: 2724
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: High School