Robert Browning

Jackson Pollock was a psycho-alcoholic. According to the movie Pollock, Jackson Pollock’s work was first exhibited at a show with future wife, Artist Lee Krasner. In the beginning of his career, Pollock’s style of painting was close to the style of Picasso’s art, Cubism. Pollock seemed to have a love/hate feeling for Picasso. He seemed to admire him and maybe had been studying him for so long, like he was trying to crack some sort of code of Picasso’s paintings, but became frustrated that…

The Duke manipulates language throughout the monologue, only offhandedly saying what he means throughout. He reveals that he did love his late wife when he gets lost in admiration as he describes her. However, it quickly turns when he remembers “all and each would draw from her alike the approving speech.” Using euphemisms, the duke indirectly admits to having his wife murdered by saying, “I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together.” Smiles symbolize his wife’s life, as she smiled at…

The poetry of Queen Elizabeth I, Mary Wroth and Katherine Philips unarguably has similarities in style and theme. All three writers composed poems about love and relationships; and emotion is deeply expressed through their verses. Each author allowed their unique experiences in love and loss to guide their capable pen resulting in a poignant understanding for the reader. Queen Elizabeth, Wroth and Philips express a sense of jaded love in their poetry and make great use of figurative language…

In the poem Porphyria’s Lover, by Robert Browning, I believe that the central theme is obsession. Throughout the poem, the narrator has what I believe to be an unhealthy obsession with a woman named Porphyria. The lover’s twisted and warped idea of love ultimately leads to Porphyria’s, and possibly his own, death. For starters, I could detect right off the bat that the love that the lover held for Porphyria was unhealthy. You can see this without reading the poem and by simply reading the title…

In 1633, John Donne published a metaphysical poem titled The Flea. This poem consists of an erotic theme where a flea is used as a metaphor in order to demonstrate the affair between the speaker and their lover. In the same year, The Altar was published by George Herbert. This poem illustrates the religious notion of how one must sacrifice themselves to God through the use of an altar. In the following, The Flea and The Altar will be compared and contrasted in terms of the physical shape of the…

An Application for Slavery In Sylvia Plath's poem "The Applicant", a male marriage applicant is being interviewed for his quality as a suitor and his willingness to accept the girl being offered for marriage by the narrator. While the young man is being grilled by the narrator, he does not near experience the harsh narrative treatment that the prospective bride receives, being purposefully deprived of both gendered pronouns and choice of action as part of the arrangement. Plath uses metaphor…

In the movie, McFarland, one of the main characters, Damacio, wrote a poem about his passion: running. His poem brought people to tears and was a powerful way to express his feelings toward his hobby. Similarly, Walt Whitman wrote the poems “O Me! O Life!” and “O Captain! My Captain!” to express how he was feeling when he wrote each poem. “O Captain! My Captain!” is an elegy written in remembrance of Abraham Lincoln. However, according to Shenandoah Literary, “O Me! O Life!” represents how…

An essential theme present all throughout the novel, State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, is the journey it takes for people as individuals to find who they truly are, and how the topic of morality plays a big role in the process. From the beginning of the book, it is evident that the main character, Dr. Marina Singh, relies solely on past events which in consequence, continue to torment her as an adult and further dictate how she lives her life. Moreover, these fears increase as she begins her…

“Stand still, and I will read to thee, A lecture, love, in love’s philosophy.” - John Donne, Lecture upon the Shadow For the exceptionally intricate John Donne (1572-1631), love played a crucial role in his life, and ultimately became the basis of his poetry in all different aspects and forms. In essence, life had become love for him: the love for women, his wife and God. Either physical, emotional or religious, Donne’s poetry includes the omnipresence of romance, passion and worship…

Author Laurence Perrine states in his article, "Browning 's Shrewd Duke", “I shall contend, quite otherwise, that the Duke, vain and proud as he assuredly is, is also a shrewd bargainer and master diplomat who, while exposing himself fully to the reader, not improbably obtains high commendation from the…