Sonnet 130

However, although Coleridge has often expressed a fear that his poetic powers have declined, I believe his melancholic feelings may have inspired his poetry more than he realizes. As my colleague, Christopher Murray notes, by writing this poem Mr. Coleridge’s melancholy is “productively transformed in the writing of the poem itself’ (Murray, 722). Although Coleridge has insisted to me time and time again that his poetic powers are waning, I believe that this may be one of the greatest poems that…

The stanza derived from Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” is representative and reflective of the loss of faith in 19th century, Victorian England. In the stanza, “The Sea of Faith” a metaphor for the retreat from religious ideologies. Throughout the stanza Arnold is referring to this metaphor, as when he states that it “was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore.” I think that the poet is claiming that the religious beliefs that he and others have had were once very important to them. The…

In Robert Pack’s poem “An Echo Sonnet: To an Empty Page”, the narrator is uncertain about what comes with death. He worries about his future and what may happen to him. As the narrator asks questions into the emptiness, he finds answers in the echoes of his voice. Robert Pack uses literary devices such as rhetorical questions, selection of detail, metaphors, juxtaposition, and connotation to construct the meaning of his poem. Beginning in the first quatrain, the voice is very anxious and…

In the poem “After Apple-Picking” by Robert Frost there is a complex message as most poem or works of literature do. In this specific poem there is a message of death or the thought of death and how the narrator feels about how his life was lived and when his own personal end will come. As he thinks his life was to repetitive and not as he wanted it since he is just a simple apple picker. In the pome Robert Frost mentioned “Long ...Or just human sleep” (Apple-picking 42) as the “Apple Picker”…

Poems are very complex and sometimes hard to understand at first. Some may even have more than one meaning or maybe not any true meaning at all. The best way to figure out poems is to reread them and during your second time rereading the poem, slowly read through it and jot down some notes or what you picture when you read a certain line or lines. What this is called is analyzing. When you do this you look for the deeper meaning and understanding of a poem. The poem I am going to analyze is…

Francesco Petrarch’s Sonnet 333 represents his feelings towards a woman and his life. Petrarch explains his feelings by conveying a dark, melancholy tone at the beginning of his sonnet and a more hopeful tone towards the end. He uses irony in the form of a paradox to convey that his love for a woman is alive, although she is dead. He also juxtaposes death and life, and hope and sadness throughout his sonnet. By using metaphors, paradoxes, and diction Petrarch shows his love, grief, and longing…

Camille Bruce Mr. Evans English 12, Period 3 3 January 2018 Poem Summary The poem “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Eliot talks about the struggles of the men/women in a special world. These people are called hollow men and ultimately represent many of the people in the real world. Eliot is trying to show the similarities of the hollow men to the people in the real world by saying they are lacking certain things such as happiness, love, and hope. The first section of the poem talks about the…

This paper will be taking a look into the carefree lenses of three poems. Carefree in that the authors were unhampered, unrestricted, or unconstrained in their writing styles. The first poem is called “Tornado Child” by Kwame Dawes. Dawes was born in Ghana, spent most of his childhood living in Jamaica and currently lives in South Carolina. He is an Emmy winning professor known for his accomplishments as a poet, author, editor, critic, and musician. As a musician and writer, According to the…

John Steinbeck’s “The Leader of the People” studies the relationships between three generations and how quickly one generation can forget the accomplishments and concerns of another. “Yet Do I Marvel” by Countee Cullen is a poem that expresses his doubts and confusions about the world and the relationship between people and God. “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks is a poem written in an ironic manner to portray the carefree and eventual tragic lives of seven dropouts who think that they are…

Keats, in To Autumn, offers a very similar message to that of Shelley, and once again displays how some of the most well-known Romantics often engage with society instead of fleeing from it. Autumn is also used to set the tone in this poem, and whilst Autumn for many may produce visions of the death and decay, Keats urges us to remember that it is the “close bosom-friend of the maturing sun”. The state imposed on the world by autumn is one of darkness and rot, yet this seasonal change is…