Portrait of a Lady

According to Furniss & Bath, ‘literacy criticism in the Twentieth Century has come to regard ambiguity in poetry as one of its most characteristic and valuable features’, as shown in Michael Drayton’s sonnet ‘The Parting’, Lord Byron’s poem ‘When we two parted’ and Letitia Elizabeth Landon’s poem ‘Love’s Last Lesson’ (Furniss & Bath, 1996: 207). The symbolism used in these poems portray the ambiguous representation of love/death elegies, love symbolizing hope and death symbolizing loss.…

“Icarus in Catechism Class,” a poem written by Dominador Ilio, revolves around the persona wanting to escape the catechism class that he is in. On the other hand, “Musée des Beaux Arts,” a poem written by WH Auden, shows how the “Old Masters” understand suffering as depicted in several artworks, especially Brueghel’s painting of the fall of Icarus, as seen by the persona in a mueseum. This close reading will focus on the importance of Icarus and how suffering is depicted in the poems. Making…

Naturalistic Play Synopses The Father (W: 1887; P: 1887) Strindberg, August (1849-1912) Translated by Edith and Warner Oland 1912 Source- Strindberg, August. The Father. Edited by Edmund R Brown. Translated by Edith Oland and Warner Oland, Boston International Packet Library, 1912. Characters- Eight cast members total. Three women, four men, and the orderly’s gender is never specified. A Captain of Cavalry Laura- his wife Bertha- their daughter Doctor Östermark The Pastor The Nurse…

Out of all the situations we face in life, knowing that tomorrow is guaranteed is something that no person is for sure of. The poem, “Summer Solstice, New York City” by Sharon Olds is a perfect example of the uncertainties in life. This short poem deals with an immensely suicidal man meeting death's face to face at the edge of a building’s roof in New York City while he is surrounded by policemen. At first, this poem seems to be primarily about a depressed man being talked out of suicide by the…

The ‘Miniver Cheevy’ The narrative poem, Miniver Cheevy, was written by Edwin A. Robinson. It was first published in 1910. The poem tells the tale of a despairing lover who spends his days contemplating how things would have been had he been born earlier. Although the poem affords no exact setting, a reader will get to know that Cheevy lives in the fictional town Tilbury, which is quite similar to Robinson’s hometown in Maine. Robinson has maintained the use of this town in several of his poems…

Indian English poetry since 1970 has been characterized by failure, hopes and despair, immediacy and anger, search and struggle for identity, human relationship and growing sense of dissatisfaction. It is a kind of strong reaction against romanticism and idealism of its predecessors. It not only tries to establish individuality and reconceptualise values but also tries to redefine culture. Poetry consists of verbal and contextual features, choice of words (diction), syntactic and semantic…

One of the themes during the Modern era for many writers was a lack of connecting or a lack of communication. “The Dead” by James Joyce and “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot are great examples of exemplifying the theme. In Eliot’s poem Prufrock shows a lack of communication in that he is insecure, and he truly thinks everyone is talking about him and his looks. In Joyce’s poem, Gabriel shows how socially insecure he is. The authors realized the importance of being social among…

The migrant experience engenders growth and cultivation of the human identity, however the aspects of cultural belonging and the emotional remonstrance affiliated with adaptation, assimilation and personal transfiguration are concomitant to the journey. Peter Skrzynecki's poems ‘Postcard’ and ‘Feliks Skrzynecki’ from his acclaimed ‘Immigrant Chronicle’ capture the aspects associated with the migrant experience in vivid detail, his abstract use of motifs, personification and metaphors explicitly…

T.S. Elliot uses diction and a depressing and regretful tone to express the meaning of this poem. In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, he shows meaning by using Prufrock as a man who is upset and regrets what he has done with his life. T.S. Elliot’s word choices show that J. Alfred Prufrock is a lonely old man who regrets the things he has not done in life. He believes he should have done more with his life. Throughout the poem, T.S. Eliot uses diction. A really good example is, “A…

In T.S Eliot's poem, “ The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” the tone of a reflective, bitter, and morose man is achieved through the use of epigraphs, imagery, allusion, metaphor , and diction. J. Alfred Prufrock is followed through his night, romanticizing what could have been. To develop the tone of reflectiveness the love song opens with an epigraph from “Dante’s Inferno”, which is about Dante trying to talk to Guido about the atrocities Guido committed in his life; Guido is resilient to…