Because I Could Not Stop for Death by Emily Dickinson: Summary and Critical Analysis

Because I Could Not Stop for Death is one of the most admired poems of Emily Dickinson. The greatest charm of the poem is in its ambiguity and the elusive nature of the heart of the meaning of the poem. The poem inspires more doubts than can be answered and therefore lends itself to multiple interpretations. The poem is indeed a challenge to the critical insights of the reader. Because of its multiple layers of its significance and the scope, the poem offers for further exploration of newer layers of meaning, it has attracted a good number of great critics.

Wed, Jan 06 2021

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray: Summary and Analysis

Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is composed in quatrains, where the first line rhymes with the third, and the second with the fourth. Elegiac poetry is mostly written in abab form. The last three stanzas of the poem have been written in italic type and given the title "The Epitaph".

Wed, Jan 06 2021

Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka: Summary and Analysis

In this poem, Telephone Conversation, Wole Soyinka is trying to highlight the impact of racial discrimination in the micro-structure of society. The title of the poem clearly reveals that two people are talking on the phone and the theme of racial discrimination is carried out through the dialogue form.

Fri, Oct 18 2019

Lost in Translation by James Ingram Merrill: Summary and Analysis

Lost in Translation by James Ingram Merrill was first published on April 6, 1974 which later included in his famous poetic collection Divine Comedies for which he was awarded with the most prestigious award the Pulitzer Prize in 1976. As the epigraph indicates, the exact translation is not possible in the language. When we try to translate, we are lost in it.

Fri, Oct 18 2019

Daddy by Sylvia Plath: Theme

The poem Daddy by Sylvia Plath is typically a protest poem whose themes are multiple. On its surface, it is the outpour of a daughter's anger against her dominating father, but the poem's deeper meanings should be more generalized and symbolically interpreted as themes of

Thu, Oct 17 2019

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley: Summary

The poem makes simple bare statements about the downfall of a certain tyrant called Ozymandias. The speaker in the poem reports to us what a traveler "from an antique land" told him. The traveler conjoins the past with the present. The traveler knew who Ozymandias was and what happened to his power and empire.

Thu, Oct 17 2019

The Lotos Eaters by Alfred Lord Tennyson: Summary

Ulysses asked his crew (while returning home from the Trojan War) to be courageous because the land was now in sight. He told his men that the next rising wave would carry them to the seashore in no time. All of them reached the land of the Lotos-Eaters in the afternoon.

Thu, Oct 17 2019

When You Are Old by William Butler Yeats: Summary and Analysis

"When You Are Old" is a short lyric of twelve lines in three stanzas. The poem is the product of the early period in Yeats's poetic career. It is addressed to Maud Gonne with whom he was in love. It forms a part of the group of poems published in 1893 with the title The Rose. It expresses the poet’s distress at the disastrous onslaught of Time.

Thu, Oct 17 2019

The Shield of Achilles by W.H. Auden: Summary

The Shield of Achilles is composed by W.H. Auden in 1955 where he represents the Homeric theme in a mock-heroic way making necessary changes. Thetis, the mother of Achilles, in Greek mythology, looks at the shield hung over the shoulder of her son.

Thu, Oct 17 2019

Ode on Melancholy by John Keats: Summary and Analysis

The poem Ode on Melancholy embodies one of Keats' greatest insights into the nature of human experience. Here, the two conflicting domains of experience manifest as joy and melancholy. The poem has an abrupt beginning, which reads like a conclusion after a long mental conflict of the speaker. The poem in fact had one stanza before the present first stanza, and so also the present poem begins like a drama of thoughts in medias res; the conflict has brought the speaker to a phase of resolution where he begins by declaring his understanding of the dialectics.

Thu, Oct 17 2019