Holy Sonnets

William Wordsworth once wrote “There neither is, not can be, any essential difference between the language and metrical composition” (147). In his book, “Preface to Lyrical Ballads”, Wordsworth argues for a poetry in which the poet puts an emphasis on emotions, rather than intellect, and on resemblance to common life. He uses these ideas about poetry to claim that prose is essentially no different from poetry. However, many readers might find this idea troublesome; certainly short stories differ…

Book 1: What is the theme expressed in the first line of the poem? What request does Chryses make of Agamemnon? What is the reaction of the Achaeans, also known as the Greeks, the Danaans, and the Argives? What is Agamemnon’s response? Why does Chrses pray to Apollo and what prayer does he make? How does Apollo answer his prayer? What advice does Achilleus give to Agamemnon in the midst of the plague? What does Kalchas fear? What effect will Achilleus’s promise to protect Kalchas have on…

One art in particular, the sonnet, was a literary art form that gave beautiful poems a rich and powerful expressions for the readers to interpret. Many of these sonnets would be formed into sequences. A sequence in which a collection of sonnets formed to create some kind of unified work by a poet to convey a theme. There was one poet who could do this best than any other and that was the genius that is known as William Shakespeare and his sonnet sequence of sonnets 12,15,18, and 19, depicting…

Whereas many people experience love only as different mental, as well as emotional states in contemporary times, John Donne’s Songs and Sonnets do not simply characterise one constant view of love, but include a vast variety of attitudes and emotions. One could almost think that Donne tried to depict his knowledge of love with the help of his poetry. Love is able to be experienced with the soul, the body, or even both. Moreover, it can also be a religious experience, it can further increase the…

Pfitzner composed “Gewalt der Minne”, like the first song of the opus, to a translation of a Middle High German poem by Walther von der Vogelweide. I got interested in Walther’s original when I noticed that the poem is in the form of a Canzone stanza that consists of an Aufgesang with two symmetrical Stollen (vv. 1-2 and 3-4) and an Abgesang (vv. 5-9). My assumption that the Lied text is part of a bigger work got confirmed when I discovered that the translation covers only one of the six stanzas…

The Sonnet, derived from the Italian word sonetto which means "a little sound or song." Traditionally the sonnet form of poetry is created with 14 lines written in iambic pentameter, has a fixed form, and employs one of many rhyme schemes. The original and most common form is the Italian sonnet. Also referred to as the Petrarchan, named after the Italian poet Petrarch who is considered one of its greatest practitioners. The Italian form has two stanzas. The first stanza is the octave, eight…

reading an awe-inspiring translation of Homer into English by Chapman. It rhymes ABBAABBACDCDCD and is dominated with the presence of the sound “I” that suggests a subjective individualistic quest of “poetic truth” in a seemingly lyric text. This is a sonnet made up of two stanzas which develop two aspects of a main theme: Homer’s poetry and its effects on the speaker. The two parts are complementary in that they depict a chain of events, ideas and thoughts hence the use of “Yet” and “Then”…

William Shakespeare (1564-1616), the most considerable literary figure of the Elizabethan Age and often called the English national poet is considered by many to be the greatest dramatist of all time. He occupies a unique position in world literature. The opening lines of Dr. Samuel Johnson’s Preface to Shakespeare are tribute to Shakespeare’s long–continued popularity, which Johnson considers to be an acceptable criterion of greatness. According to Johnson, no other test of the greatness of…

The poem ‘September 1913’ and ‘Easter 1916’ written with its title marking the year and one has September and the other with Easter. Both the poems has very harsh tone, written in iambic meter with AB, AB, CD,CD verses. The surface and the hidden meaning for both these poems have been portrayed as Yeats love towards his country and to the freedom fighter ‘Irish Men’. It is said “September 1913” is directly referring to workers strike, which Yeats is directly linked to “Romantic Ireland’s Dead…

Larkin feels that poetry must be rational and delightful and therefore opposes Dylan Thomas’s use of too much expression and excessive romantic surrealism. Surrealistic poetry of the 1940s especially of Dylan Thomas appears odd and irrational to Larkin. The poetic sensibility of Larkin and other Movement poets was as per the likes and dislikes of the audience of the post-War period. Larkin’s “Plymouth” is about his continuing struggle to find a distinctive manner. The poem betrays the influence…