James Knox Taylor

Introduction This essay is a critical analysis of the poem Shower by the Australian writer Les Murray. Les Murray was born in 1938 in New South Wales/Australia. He grew up in a poor farming family, and his love for nature and the Australian landscapes, which shows in his poetry, developed early. Murray writes about his “love of the land, the tensions between rural and urban life”, and “the struggle for an independent means of expression” (Poetry archive, date unknown)1. The poem Shower is, as…

The Romantic period was one of important periods, Romantic poems have amazing view for the nature and landscape, we also can use term Romanticism to describe particular period, Romantic or Romanticism start in late 1700s to 1820s , the France revolution and the great Napoleonic wars help to forming the Romantic, the most famous and important poets of Romanticism are Percy Bysshe Shelley( the young poet), Thomas DE Quincey and William Wordsworth , according to Ross, he sees that the Romantic…

“Dover Beach”: In his “Dover Beach,” Matthew Arnold employs images related to the ocean to establish a theme relating to the cyclical nature of human life. Specifically, he refers to the continuation of misery throughout an individual’s life. This allusion to cycles is supported throughout the poem through the use of tidal imagery. For example, he refers to the French coast and how “the light gleams and is gone” (3-4) This is significant as light often works as a symbol of hope. Therefore, this…

Samuel Butler once said, “Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace.” This was similar to how Emily Dickinson viewed death, it was not something to be feared, but something to be embraced. Many of Emily Dickinson’s poems focus on this theme of death. Emily Dickinson’s early life and encounters with death led to the themes of…

The Scarlet Letter: Prompt 2 Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson were among a group of authors known as the Romantics that valued feeling over reason, imagination over science, and nature over civilization. These ideals are commonly displayed in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Like any writers of the same time period, Hawthorne and Emerson may have never completely accepted each other's beliefs, however the characters that Hawthorne creates agree with Emerson’s advice, “[d]o not go where…

Introduction to Author Oscar Wilde was a Anglo- English author, playwright, novelist, critic and poet. He was a popular literary figure in late Victorian England, known for his brilliant wit, flamboyant style. After graduating from Oxford University, he lectured as a poet, art critic and a leading proponent of the principles of aestheticism which emphasized aesthetic values more than moral or social themes. This doctrine can be clearly summarized by the phrase ‘art for art’s sake’. In 1890, he…

William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850) was an eminent English Romantic Poet, hose Lyrical Ballad, as a result of joint efforts, co-authoring with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Contributed to launch the Romantic Age in English Literature. He is known as the poet of Nature, reflecting his inner feelings while appreciating the wonderings and beauty of it. (Norton, 543-45) The poem ‘We Are Seven’, as Wordsworth says, has been “written an Alfoxden in the spring of 1798. The little girl who is the heroine I met…

“One does not use poetry for its major purposes, as a means to organize oneself and the world, until one’s world somehow gets out of hand.” This was Richard Wilbur’s response when someone asked him about fighting in World War II and how it changed him. Richard Wilbur is a famous modern day poet who won two Pulitzer Prizes for two of his collections of poems. He was the second poet laureate of the United States. Richard Wilbur fought as a combat soldier in World War II which changed his outlook…

Through their works, composers often convey both their personal and cultural values, as they reveal the impact it has on the relationship between people and landscapes, which are explored through the diverse attitudes and behaviours of individuals. This notion is explored through Judith Wright’s poetry, South of my Days and For New England, which demonstrates how enduring cultural values have influenced and shaped an individual’s identity. Similarly, the 2010 documentary by Kevin McCloud,…

As humans, we tend to put ourselves in the spotlight of our own world. We use humanistic terms that give a place imagined borders. Don McKay’s “Otherwise than Place” is a lyrical essay that starts off with the narrator holding an introspective stone from the West Coast of Vancouver Island, he asks himself what the relation is between place and wilderness. As encouraged by Don McKay, it is a good meditative practice for humans to notice that we label things according to our occurrence to the land…