... the slowness of the butter making process, the much slower pace of life in general. Heaney is harking back in this poem to how things used to be. The care and work that went into making butter for the family and the sounds, smells and feelings this evoked. He is looking ... eye" (Line 26) describes that the rat's eye was glistening like a raindrop and mono-coloured. Heaney finishes by being ironic, almost laughing at how he used to be scared of this little, and harmless creature. Heaney uses metaphors mainly in "Churning Day" because there is a lot for him to describe. He ... verbs such ...

• Word Count: 3308
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: High School

... . Society became more fragmented and individual identities more fluid. The British Empire, which had expanded under Queen Victoria and in 1900 had reached 13 million square miles, also began to disintegrate. The Boer War (1899–1902), which was fought by the British to establish control over ... 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 literary public, the rise of the popular press, and the mass production of ' ...

• Word Count: 10566
• Approx Pages: 42

... line "whistles / far and wee," halts the momentum and creates ambiguity to the atmosphere. The language has a nursery rhyme type quality where the adjectives subverts the language. Long vowels, such as those in "lame balloonman," "far and wee," and "marbles and piracies" slow the tempo and create ... it springs at us.... ...In a way which is, in the conventional sense of the term, clear--and yet poetically not very impressive--Cummings here used sex as a symbol of uninhibited spontaneity, of natural vitality in contrast to sterile human conventionality. It is a rather blunt instrument, ho...

• Word Count: 2857
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... have the repeated F sound: "foreign field" and "forever." Then in lines 7 and 8, we have the B sounds: "bodies," "breathing," "by," and "blest by." Line 12 gives us "sights and sounds," line 13 has "laughter, learnt," and line 14 ends with "hearts" and "heaven." But it's not just the beginning sounds that are repeated here. Even in a very short poem like this, we ... .) A young Winston Churchill, who gave Brooke his commission in the Royal Navy, also wrote part of his obituary. (Source.) Now this is eerie. Rupert Brooke is buried on the Greek island of Skyros. That's right. He's in "some...

• Word Count: 3268
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: High School

... as the third nature of literature. Fourth, literature, sometimes, may exist in 'boundary' area. Literature is commonly identified with imagery. Imagery is used both in prose and poems. As much as possible, the authors indicate the visualization by imagery. Generally, imagery describes what the author wants to visualize ... imitation, and then everybody takes pleasure in imitation" (Poetics, IV, p72). He in one sense narrows down the object of imitation. Plato used a theory concerning the painter, who often imitates static objects (such as a bed), and whose creations are necessarily s...

• Word Count: 5585
• Approx Pages: 22
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... and her pain in the depths of the mighty deep. However, her works remain and like "lost gems, and wasted gold- they have resurfaced bit by bit to form the treasure trove of a matriarchal literary legacy so sought after by Victorian female authors. Hemans' literary portrait of Sappho reoccurs in Caroline Norton's "The Picture of Sappho-. Like Hemans' "The Last Song ... not only is she not mourning her lover, but reveling in the separation and her ability to remember or not as suits her whim. Either way, the Sappho-Corinne voice used by Rossetti creates a new female voice in Victorian Lit...

• Word Count: 3904
• Approx Pages: 16
• Grade Level: High School

... human cyclical phenomena, moreover the past links to the present in which dreams and illusions intertwine with reality. As we can see in section 13 the poet is confused by this intertwining of dream and reality and I think that for the poet the appropriate solution is death, in ... from others. Nightingales sing, flying from person to person, like hope. "For surely once, they feel, we were/ Parts of a single continent" (13-14)! Arnold is expressing his thoughts about him and his girlfriend separating but he also is speaking about mankind in general. He hopes for a re-connection ... ful...

• Word Count: 5237
• Approx Pages: 21
• Grade Level: High School

... fifteen years since he had started working on The Prairie Years (Hacker 84). What was supposed to be a 400-page biography for children ended up a six-volume 3,500 page historical treasure (Hacker 89). On ending the book, Sandburg cried because he was parting with Lincoln after all those years. The tears ran down his face for more than two hours (Hacker ... ...

• Word Count: 2533
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... ,"" "tapping,"" "rapping,"" with the double "p- sound in lines 3 and 4 "while I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping/ As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door."" In line 13, the "s- sound is repeated in the words "silken,"" "sad,"" "uncertain,"" "rustling,"": "And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain. . ."" All these sounds appeal to the mental senses, and ... . ."" (8), gives the reader a mental picture of a fireplace flickering out, throwing shadows upon the floor. "And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain/ . . . ...

• Word Count: 2508
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

... (the "we") – from the way they react to a usually very unwelcome household occurrence, one can derive that they are not used to maintaining the household together, but rather enjoy the unexpected romantic situation created by the shortcut and the sense of secrecy, which is surrounding the silent ... the poet wants to pay most attention too in this poem. Sitting "in the cosmic chain of being," as she calls it (12-13), she and her lover are both busy with their, obviously habitual, occupations – namely, she is working, while he is reading the poems. The ... of chain reserved for hum...

• Word Count: 2584
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

... and of God. Walt Whitman and Robert Frost compare and contrast in the fulfillment of the Critical Literary Theories, psychological and historical. Walter Whitman was born in West Hills, Long Island, N.Y., on May 31, 1819, the second of six children. When he was four years old, his family moved to Brooklyn, where he attended public school for six years before being ... apprenticed to a printer. Two years later he went to New York City to work in printing shops, but returned to Long Island in 1835 and taught in country schools. Between 1838-39 he edited a newspaper, the Long-Islander, at ...

• Word Count: 3004
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... and takes off from that place to propose a series of ideas about spirituality and meaningful experience. Each quartet separates into five sections. Eliot used these divisions and the transitions between them to try to create an effect he described as similar to the musical form of the sonata. ... poem" hallmarks highlight the infinit circularity of time. Just as past, present, and future cannot be separated with any precision, neither can the words used to describe them. Rather than exploiting bizarre combinatons of images or intricate formal devices, Eliot uses the gravity of terms like...

• Word Count: 2598
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... sounds together to form words and to compose complex words with multiple syllables they were in fact composing the first poems. Early poems were used not only to entertain but also to preserve history, as was the case with Homer's Illiad of the 7th century BC. Early poems ... style allowed for the populous of illiterate people to be able to memorize the religious teachings. "Which is easier to memorize, a poem or a chapter in your biology text book?"(Sherriffs, Poetry Discussion). That is because its syntax and rhyme scheme facilitates memorization in the human mind. It is this ... Ballad...

• Word Count: 4095
• Approx Pages: 16
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... his use of blank verse, are acknowledged as contributing to the development of English poetry. Wyatt and Surrey invented the form which was later used by Shakespeare and many other writers (Lathrop 463). Surrey's poetry was widely disseminated in manuscript form at court. While Wyatt presented sonnets in ... Marlowe's Tamburlaine, which was performed one year after Sidney's death, became the first play that contained blank verse known as iambic pentameter. Sidney extensively used meter at the time when works of Marlowe, Shakespeare, Spenser, and other writers were still not published (S...

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

... kenning is a compressed metaphor often substituted for a noun, it is also a "mini riddle- and it is often hyphenated. In "After a Journey- the kennings that Hardy used are "nut-coloured-, "rose-flushed- (ll. 7-8), and "mist-bow-. Hardy uses the kennings "nut-coloured- and "rose-flush- to describe the way that the speaker ... of personality to an impersonal thing, and neither time nor caves are human, and yet they are spoken about as if they are. Lastly, alliteration is used in this poem many times, some examples of the alliteration is "frailly follow!- (l. 24), and "Life lours,"" (l. 29)....

• Word Count: 2972
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... patterns, which mirror the chaotic and pulsating tempo of city life. He worked with the structures, rhythms, themes, and words of the blues. When he used the musical and stanza-like structure of the blues to write his poetry he most often relied on the twelve-bar blues which is widely ... used. The collection of poems found in his first book entitled "The Weary Blues," contains many which involve sounds and rhythms of the blues. The first ... fraught with sadness (Dace). The first poem is called "The Weary Blues." The title introduces the reader to the basic theme of the poem. The desc...

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

... the hands of his father. Owen writes, "When lo! An Angel called him out of heaven; / Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad" (10-11). The entire story is used as a metaphor for the war. Owen suggests that the leaders create this war, and they sacrifice their youth, their sons, to fight it for themselves. They could choose another path ... grain can be trampled and left to rot. Owen finishes by saying "But now, for us, wild Winter, and the need / Of sowings for new Spring, and blood for seed" (13-14). Owen is mourning the loss of the progress, and he blames the war for it all. He believes...

• Word Count: 2584
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... the realm of that hyphen - the place where two worlds collide or blend together." "What makes her a peculiar, non-traditional Dominican writer is her divided identity," Stavans remarks (Stavans "Las" 13). When questioned if the title "Latina writer" was accurate, Alvarez was unsure, remarking, "I think when I write, I write out of who I am and the questions I need to figure out. A lot of ... within her disillusioned self. One critic remarks, "The idea of "losing" one's accent is nothing but a metaphor: a symbol of cultural abandonment." Indeed, there is another facet to the language bei...

• Word Count: 2799
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... the garden (509-510), for both characters have severed themselves, psychologically at least, from their worldly surroundings. The poet suggests that the external world has become illusory to him (12 ­13); similarly, the knight has removed himself from court and is caught in "his owne thoght" (504). He remains impervious to the beauty of the garden around him, the garden that ... ...

• Word Count: 5753
• Approx Pages: 23
• Grade Level: High School

... rose becomes the message and the poem at the same time. In fact, through the synesthesia, syllables and sentences are described by words generally used in describing petals, which compose the flower's cup like syllables and sentences compose a poem. Hence, "the image of wealth and luxury ... . Have you room for the sequel, in your Vase?". The word 'Vase' from the letter (note capitalization)as "an open container, often used to hold cut flowers " (www.websters-online-dictionary.org/ ) can be interpreted, according to the metaphor meaning explained above, as a request for ... metaphor...

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

... I agree with the 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 ... shame for their flirtation and enjoyment of each other. These first four lines of the poem are written in ABBA style, and this is used by Rosetti to show the orderly and undisrupted happiness of the birds. From these four lines alone we could assume that Rosetti does indeed ...

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

... poem that has been based around a spiritual correspondence between man and nature. Also, the fantasy style poem brings about a strong contrast with the style used in the more recent poems of Hughes and Heaney, who have chosen to use more realistic representations in their poems with the boy and the man, ... brow", which is common imagery for death. This idea of death is furthered when Keats writes, "And on thy cheeks a fading rose...", where the "rose" is used as a metaphor for death. Also, when describing the faery, he writes, "And her eyes were wild", which gives the reader a devilish ...

• Word Count: 3408
• Approx Pages: 14

... This makes modern society seem devoid of emotions and very impersonal, again promoting the natural world and conveying his desire for isolation. The alliteration used in 'thin and thistled' and 'night north' uses harsh consonant sounds which make the man - controlled landscape sound inferior to the countryside ... desires sound simple and unimportant due to enjambment which increases the pace allowing the reader to skim quickly over the words. The single syllables used in 'sharp shoes' portrays these material possessions as tacky and to lack meaning. The people in the town are describes ...

• Word Count: 2501
• Approx Pages: 10

... the war which of course directly relates to Sassoon's "The Death-Bed" because he also describes a dying soldier going to a better place. The imagery used in this poem is aided by the change of punctuation. The first line of the fourth stanza has not as much punctuation as the stanzas before: - ... . Since it is the extreme physicals conditions in the trenches that really but pressure on the men, the weather must also be their enemy. The diction used is mostly descriptive since Owen is trying to portray a realistic picture of what life was like. "Exposure" also gives the impression that O...

• Word Count: 3313
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: High School

... . Then it goes small again. This was because the soldiers died, a small stanza suggests the tempo is slow, it gets peaceful and calm. The language used is very posh a grand. Tennyson makes us think if the deaths were not that bad and the mistakes were not that stupid. He honours the dead and ... the same in the course of the poem. The poem is slow but it is effective because the audience can feel the silence. The words that were used were like suffering, frail, weak and torture. It is different to Charge of the light brigade'. The poet's intention was to inform the audience that ... whic...

• Word Count: 3174
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: High School