Literature

Richard Blanco's 'America' focuses on cultural identity, family and traditional foods served at the table. Five stanzas in free verse explore the notion of what it is to be an American citizen having been brought up in a Hispanic culture.

Romeo and Juliet is perhaps the most famous play of Shakespeare's. The deaths that take place in the play have a direct impact on the protagonists' characterization. Romeo is connected to all of the deaths, and in a sense, he is the character who is most burdened by conflict.

'The Fly' is one of Blake's poems from 'Songs of Innocence and Experience', a book for both adult and child. Simple in structure, the tone is thoughtful and philosophical, the reader having to decide if the fly is alive or dead, the speaker innocent or guilty.

In 'Philemon and Baucis', Gunn explores the loving relationship of two poor peasants who, having shown visiting gods Jupiter and Mercury great hospitality, request to be changed into trees as they die. The rest of the inhospitable township is drowned by flood.

Shelley’s "The Sensitive Plant" features a poetic drama of an Eden-like garden with the mimosa plant and a Mother-Nature-like personification, a presence that tends the garden. After the drama plays out, the speaker engages in a philosophical musing on the meaning of life and death.

Della Street is probably the most famous, and the most indispensable to her employer, of any legal secretary in history. But who is she really? Let's find out!

'Immigrants in Our Own Land' focuses on identity and the hopes and dreams of chicanos (Americans of Mexican descent) and mestizos (mixed race Mexicans) who are 'living without a soul' in prison and society. Jimmy Santiago Baca based his poem on personal experience—an example of Pinto poetry.

Gerard Manley Hopkins’ "Pied Beauty" is an innovative curtal sonnet, dedicated to honoring and praising the Divine Creator. "The Habit of Perfection" dramatizes the importance of silencing and stilling each of the five senses in order to advance in the spiritual realm.

In taking Baluchi literature to the next level, a few individuals had to emerge. Here are some of the most notable names in this regional tradition.

Chinua Achebe's 'A Mother in a Refugee Camp' focuses on the sad plight of a mother having to bury her son, carefully combing his hair before letting go of her loved one. Based on personal observations during the civil war between Biafra and Nigeria, the poem is a universal message to humanity.

'I think of thee' is Sonnet 29 in 'Sonnets from the Portuguese', Barrett Browning's groundbreaking sonnets in Petrarchan form which follow her emotional changes in her relationship with Robert Browning. Metaphor and simile combine, as tree and vine, thoughts disappearing as the two become closer.

Armitage's colloquial dramatic monologue highlights the death of a looter, shot by a soldier, the speaker still affected by the incident. 'Remains' takes the reader into the soldier's mind, repeating, altering, questioning the act. It explores PTSD, a stress-induced illness suffered by war veterans.

Hardy's 'The Man He Killed' is a short, rhyming poem focusing on an ordinary man returned from war who killed another because 'he was my foe.' Without war, they may have been friends. This monologue raises questions of emotional responses to and moral implications of cold acts of killing in war.

George Herbert's metaphysical poem uses a conceit or extended metaphor, and synecdoche, to explore the relationship between God and humankind. We're drawn back to God eventually because of the burden of living, as one pulley rope lifts our weight. True spiritual rest, a jewel, God does not bestow.

Shakespeare quotes about flowers appear throughout all his plays, poems, and sonnets. Some of the quotes here have a little twist of meaning. Some of them are funny. Quite a few offer philosophy along with the flowers.

Ceasefire uses Homer's Iliad to reflect on responses to the Troubles in Northern Ireland (1960s -1998), Longley's birthplace. Hector is killed by Achilles and old king Priam must then retrieve his son's body from the Greek camp. Achilles agrees; the two weep for lost life in war. Theme is grief.

These Shakespeare quotes about Spring range from simple to complex, from celebratory to cautionary. Each one is briefly explained in easy to understand language.

Dusting is a poem of memory and emotional cleansing. A woman, Beulah, is dusting her furniture and in the process tries to recall the name of the boy who first kissed her. Through mixed metaphor and the language of nature, Dove adds depth to what is a personal snapshot of love and family issues.

Trying to start a reading habit and looking for good, easy books? This list of easy Indian books will help you create a reading habit and hobby.

Balagtasan (/ba/-/lag/-/ta/-/san/) is an art of argumentative debate using verse-form poetry.

An essay about one of the most well-known poems by John Keats, "La Belle Dame sans Merci." The analysis takes a critical look at the poem, explains why the knight stays, and how his predicament with love could be the end of him.

Michel Udiany's History of Imaginary Worlds is a tour d'horizon of myths, fiction, and reality, but it is difficult at times to separate which is which and it only focused on a narrow selection.

The speaker in Phillis Wheatley’s "On Virtue" is describing the characteristics of that quality, as she supplicates to the heavenly realms to enrich and enliven her creative ability to produce useful, genuine, and delightful poems.

A quick analysis of the famous short story "Young Goodman Brown". The essay briefly touches on Goodman's existential crisis while living in Puritan Salem and the oppression of women during this time.

Robert “Rabbie” Burns has long been considered as the national poet (bard) of Scotland. From his works including "Tam O' Shanter" and "Old Lang Syne" to his colourful love life, Robert Burns, "The Ploughman's Poet," is a character that history could never forget.

“April is the cruellest month . . . ” Why wake us from our dreams? Eliot discusses a world that we know all too well.

Hoyt W. Fuller, critic, editor, and founder of the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC), has pointed out that Langston Hughes possessed a "deceptive and profound simplicity." Fuller insists that understanding these qualities in Hughes is the key to understanding and appreciating his poetry.

This article takes a look at the ideas explored in Hemingway's classic novella.

The speaker in Phillis Wheatley’s "A Hymn to the Evening" offers her spiritually motivated song/prayer as a tribute to evening, the part of the day when nightly slumber is arriving in all its glory.

A poetic retelling of the story about Noah and the Ark, this narrative poem is one of Johnson’s seven sermons in verse appearing in his collection, God’s Trombones. At certain points in the story, the narrator offers his own interpretations, embellishing the tale and adding further interest.

Audre Lorde’s "Father Son and Holy Ghost" celebrates memories of a belovèd father, who has died and who served as a rôle model for moral behavior. The speaker’s devotion becomes palpable as she relives special features of her father and her reaction to them.

Former U. S. poet laureate, Rita Dove, offers a simple yet powerful tribute to one of America’s heroes, Rosa Parks, who through her act of defiance by simply continuing to occupy a bus seat, became known as the "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement."

Barbara Kingsolver's 'Naming Myself' focuses on identity, race, rights and heritage, all tied up in the family name. The poem highlights an incident in her family's history where her grandfather left a privileged home to marry a Cherokee woman. He had to change his name and reinvent himself.

Phillis Wheatley’s classically influenced poem, "On Imagination," explores the powerful force of human imagination. Wheatley demonstrates her remarkable talent for use of mythological allusion and the classical forms in which she was trained and in which she excelled.

Emily Dickinson's "He touched me, so I live to know" dramatizes an experience in mystical union with the Divine Reality. Often interpreted and examined as madness, Dickinson’s mystical proclivities more easily and thoroughly explain her elliptical writings.

'The Horses' is Edwin Muir's post-apocalyptic poem where human and horse meet up again to begin life anew. The seven-day war is over, machines defunct, there is work to be done and the horses, symbols of spirit, have come to ignite fresh hope. Free verse narrative, simple language, profound story.

David Althouse’s "How Pecos Bill Saved Christmas" features Pecos Bill from cowboy folklore. Barker’s "A Cowboy’s Christmas Prayer" offers a humble cowpoke prayer, and Brininstool’s "Christmas Week in Sagebrush" dramatizes a cowboy shopping spree.

Short lines in short stanzas reflect the fall of the son who went too far. Williams based his poem on a 16th-century painting by Brueghel which depicts the mythological Icarus drowning in the sea whilst sailors, a shepherd, fisherman and farmer carry on life as normal. It's an example of ecphrasis.

Porphyria's Lover is a chilling dramatic monologue detailing the murder of a lover by a heartbroken and unstable partner. Browning's skilfully paced rhyming narrative brings sexual tension and takes the reader into the mind of the murderer who waits for the perfect moment before committing the act.

"They shut me up in Prose" is another of Emily Dickinson's 'protest' poems, where in three short stanzas she outlines why it is futile to put her in a closet as if she were a little girl. Her lively brain, like a bird, will continue creating poetry. No prose, no subservience for this genius.

The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s "A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!" dramatizes the intensity with which an individual may view the simple act of the opening of a day. She concludes by revealing the superior power of the soul in overcoming all adversity.

This article traces the inspiration behind Bram Stoker’s character and plot creation for his Gothic story of Dracula, taking the reader on a visit to Whitby and Cruden Bay, two of Stoker's favoured holiday locations, on the North-East coast of the UK.

Here is a full analysis and summary of "i carry your heart with me (i carry it in, a love sonnet from E.E.Cummings. The theme is full of traditional love and affection, but the syntax, grammar, and form are typical of Cummings: unorthodox, playful, and off the beaten track.

Edith Nesbit wrote some enjoyable books. The Psammead that she created is a strange character that grants the wishes of children, often with unexpected results.

William Butler Yeats’ widely anthologized "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" remains one of the poet’s most famous poems. Its emphasis on yearning to live a quiet, peaceful life renders it a pleasurable reading experience—the kind of poem that anyone taking a poetry break would appreciate.

In "I robbed the Woods," Emily Dickinson creates a speaker who confesses to a crime: she has robbed the "trusting" woods and "unsuspecting" trees, and she later wonders what those natural beings will say about her brazen act.

Li-Young Lee's "The Gift" is an atmospheric poem that focuses on the relationship a child has with his father by contrasting two similar scenarios from his life. He remembers the threat of a metal sliver in his finger, removed by his father; now he must pull out a splinter from his wife's thumb.

"Directive" is Robert Frost's "grail" poem, a single stanza that invites the reader on a journey into the work and life of the poet. Using metaphor, symbol and allusion, Frost suggests that an individual quest for transformative renewal through poetic inspiration, more than stays confusion.