Literature

"The Secret Garden" is a story about a seemingly magical garden that has healing powers. The garden has been hidden for ten years when a young girl discovers it.

Emily Bronte's Love and Friendship uses metaphor and simile to compare and contrast romantic love, the rose, and steady friendship, the holly. Love is something passionate and exciting but can fade, whereas friendship is more stable and evergreen, able to withstand seasonal changes.

Emily Dickinson's keen intellect serves her well as she allows her speaker to demonstrate a profound truth that is still today widely and tragically misconstrued.

Rabindranath Tagore's poem,"The Journey," appears in his most widely-known collection titled Gitanjali. The poet was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1913, specifically for this collection.

As I Walked Out One Evening is Auden's rhyming ballad about time, love and mortality. With allusions from nursery rhyme, song and fairy tale this poem also has vivid and sometimes surreal imagery. It highlights the power of the hour, the hope of love, the denial of reality as the river flows on.

A stubborn, hardworking woman inherits a farm and awakens passion in the hearts of three men who all have a dramatic, sometimes dangerous part to play in her life. She must learn to release her pride and make the best choice for herself and her farm.

Emily Dickinson's American (innovative) sonnet reveals an attitude dramatized in the Shakespeare sonnets: the poet's confidence in her creation of a world of beauty that will last forever.

Emily Dickinson's poem, "The Brain - is wider than the Sky," compares and contrasts the human brain with the sky, the sea, and God.

In "I measure every Grief I meet," the speaker examines the nature of human suffering. The poem is long by Dickinson standards, filling out a whopping ten quatrains.

"Tom’s Midnight Garden" is a classic children’s book about time travel, loneliness, and friendship. The appealing and popular story was written by Philippa Pearce.

The Borrowers is a children's book about the adventures of tiny people living in secret in a big house. They survive by taking items from the house. Mary Norton was the author.

William Blake’s strong talent lay in his artistic endeavors as an engraver. His renderings of various historical and biblical events remain viable pieces of art. His efforts in the field of poetry, however, remain unsuccessful, despite his occasional accuracy in siding with truth.

Ode On Melancholy is the shortest of the five odes Keats wrote. In it the speaker warns of the dangers of melancholy and advises against going to Lethe (giving in to death or even suicide) but to accept that joy, pleasure and sadness are an integral part of a profound and deep-seated beauty.

Remember to not forget that Seth Tomko reviews The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa.

Sharon Olds' deeply flawed, dishonest piece,“The Victims,” appears to have been composed solely for the sake of showcasing a handful of stark images.

While much less known than the poetry of Walt Whitman or Emily Dickinson, Henry Timrod's poems were well received during the poet’s lifetime; Timrod was honored with the unofficial title, "Poet Laureate of the Confederacy."