Alfred Edward Housman

Modernist Poets Discuss the Impermanence of Glory In the period following World War I, citizens of all nationalities faced a dark disillusionment forcing them to grapple with personal identity and the purpose of life. People looked to artists of the age as builders of morale and shapers of societal perspective, yet the writers of that time had little more sense of direction than anyone else in the midst of ideological desolation. The only thing to be certain of was uncertainty. Two Modernist poets – Thomas Hardy, and A. E. Housman – chose to cope with such insecurity by depicting Glory meeting an undefeatable adversary and returning to obscurity; using allusions, imagery and tone to set a mood of either negativity or cheerful acceptance, each…

people, convinced it is the truth. Unaware of the horrors, the men will go in with a positive attitude. After their experience on the battlefield, they will leave a different person having experience first hand the horrors and destructions of war. Others will enter from a draft; they will not want to fight for their country. Instead they want to make it out alive. Seeing the horror invokes the savagery in man for the one goal of survival. Different reasons for entering the war results in…

improve society. During the romanticism period, artists, authors, etc. took a different route, then how it was in the Neoclassical era. Artists chose to go in a more emotional, creative style for their creations. These artists also chose to display more symbolic and exotic subjects (i.e. paintings, books, poems). One piece of art that displays these characteristics is The Lady of Shalott, created by John William Waterhouse. John William Waterhouse was an Italian artist who painted mainly…

In the poem, “Ulysses,” author Lord Tennyson writes about the king of Ithaca, Ulysses, who had fought in the Trojan War, and had so deeply enjoyed his many travels that he is bored of ruling over his island home, and once again yearns to explore the world. Tennyson writes this poem in the form of a dramatic monologue, and by using this technique the reader is told details of the main characters life and personality through his speech. This is also accomplished through the way the poem itself is…

Complete Isolation Throughout history, art and poetry have seemed to begin to share some of the same characteristics. Poetry is another form of art, and the art itself allows you to visualize the setting and feelings of the poem. Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem and Waterhouse’s painting, both titled “The Lady of Shalott,” depict the lady not experiencing reality and only seeing life through a reflection. Her life is lived in complete isolation, and remains that way even after she departs from the…

Poetry is a journey into a new world of language that leaves readers fascinated. Poets take their time to intermingle different forms of figurative language to present their topic in a way that takes time to understand. By using rhetorical devices a poet is capable of taking short stanzas and making them into a work of art that can leave the reader guessing the intended meaning for generations. Well written poems contain various types of rhetorical devices such as imagery, metaphors, similes,…

The Lady of Shalott: Tantalus’s Daughter Alfred Lord Tennyson is a Victorian poet who seldom strays out of narrative territory. His poems are stories, and “The Lady of Shalott” is no exception. The Lady of Shalott, for whom the poem is titled after, is a heartbreaking heroine who spends most of her life locked away in a tower, only to finally emerge and softly depart from the world. In the short span of four parts, her tale spans the themes of dreams, imprisonment, misogyny, and death. Not only…

Neutral Tones Analysis The poem ‘Neutral Tones’ by Thomas Hardy is a dark, solemn poem, reflecting on the termination of a relationship that he had in the late 1860s. It has a very melancholic note and in the duration of the poem, he shows the sadness and emotions in the narrator. The poem was published in 1898, however at the bottom of the poem he marked it as being written in 1867, perhaps he did not want it to be published then, before he met Eliza Nickels. It has a rhyme pattern of ABBA as…

Within “The Lady of Shallot”, James R. Kincaid argues that through the contrasting elements of fiction and reality, negative results occur as a means of drawing attention to the perpetual uncertainty within Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem, “The Lady of Shallot”. This level of ambiguity is emphasized within the text through the Lady’s lack of agency, causing the events of the poem to be enacted on her rather than through her own devise. Kinkaid pushes forth the idea that the text removes the Lady’s…

that it was not suggestive in any way. Alfred, Lord Tennyson was a prominent author in the Victorian era. By the age of forty-one, Tennyson became the most popular poet of the Victorian era. “The Lady of Shalott” is a famous poem written by Tennyson that expresses a great deal of isolation. In Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s lonely “The Lady of Shalott,” Tennyson uses the characteristics…