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Anne Bradstreet was born around 1612 to a Puritan family in England. Bradstreet was known as being one of the first published poets in America. Her first poem entitled “To My Dear and Loving Husband” was written between 1641-1643, but published 6 years after her death in 1678. It was rare for women in these times to become writers given that more than half were educated due to father’s often feeling that education should not be wasted on girls. However, her father Thomas Dudley held a high…

Anne Sexton’s poem, “Her Kind,” is a portrayal of a women who do not fit into society. The women of the poem are independent and powerful. Sexton uses two voices in each stanza. Each stanza describes a woman who is an outcast. These descriptions are based on stereotypes of women who go against the norms of society. The repetition of “a woman like that” and “I have been her kind” uncovers the true speaker of the poem. “Her Kind” reveals the expectations society has placed on women and how denying…

Love can always turn sour when misunderstandings happen and jealously enters the heart. The poem, My Pretty ROSE TREE, in The Longman Anthology of British Literature, was originally published in Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience by William Blake. My Pretty ROSE TREE, under the section of ‘Experience’, tells a simple yet heartful story about a love gone wrong. Blake uses tone, rhyme, and figurative word choice to paint a picture with nature imagery to highlight the emotions and themes of…

The poem “The Hawk” written by Harold Witt explores the dominance of the fierce creatures in the natural world and powerful corrupted figures in society. Although Witt describes the hawk’s attempt to capture its prey in the poem, Witt’s ultimate purpose to write this poem is to expose the reality of the social structure in society where dominating figures controls the community. Using literary features such as symbolism and metaphor, the contrast between predator and prey, powerful and weak is…

In Poem 341, commonly referred to by the opening phrase, “After Great Pain,” Emily Dickinson performs an “autopsy of grief” by dissecting the turmoil of the speaker -- allowing the reader to enter the headspace of a person who has experienced a tragedy (ppt). Within each stanza, the speaker travels along the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. However, just like the actual grieving process, Dickinson does not give the poem a finite resolution, but…

Christian Ammerman Dr. Boynton ENGL310 – Nature of Poetry 20 February 2018 Just On Time Originating in Italy in the 13th century, sonnets are a shortened and intense poetic form, which are composed of 14 lines, with 10 syllables in each consequent line. Sonnets have evolved over time, yet their functionality remains the same. John Milton, renowned writer and poet, incorporated his religious beliefs into many of his works, in which he utilized his skills as a poet. Almost 400 years ago, Milton…

“The White House” is a poem written by Claude McKay in 1919 to express the struggles of African Americans with the Jim Crow Laws. McKay was born in Jamaica and his work consisted of poetry, novels, and scientific texts. During this time in America, African Americans were experiencing harsh segregation laws; which caused McKay to portray the struggles of African Americans trying to fit in the society. Title of the poem “The White house” is referring to the whites and the house refers to the…

The importance of nature in Shakespearian poetry is certainly used as a reflection of the speaker’s inner feelings. Sonnet ‘73’ by William Shakespeare takes us on a journey demonstrating the artistry of the natural world. The sonnet is written in iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme of abab, cdcd, efef, gg. It is divided into three quatrains that each use literal nature to metaphorically explore the impact of ageing and death. Shakespeare engages the readers through the metaphoric use of…

In Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 116” the speaker gives the reader a set of guidelines on what love is and what love is not. Quatrain 1 and 3 focuses on what love is not, except for the last line of quatrain 3 which tells us what love is. In quatrain 1, the speaker uses wordplay and an enjambment to explain that real love does not change under any circumstance. In quatrain 3 the speaker explains what love is not through the personification of time. Love is not at the mercy of time, it is not “Time’s…

Throughout the novel Vardaman presents himself as a curious and innocent character, with simplicity and complexity in equal measure. The reader is left none the wiser as to the true level of comprehension Vardaman possesses with regards to the tragic and morbid events affecting him and his family. Although his age remains unspecified by Faulkner, we can surmise that he is either a young child or a boy in his early teens. The tragedy befalling young Vardaman would prompt inquisition and a thirst…