Home Burial by Robert Frost: Summary and Analysis

This dramatic poem 'Home Burial' was written and published in 1914. In this dramatic narrative Frost has depicted a critical situation arising between husband and wife over the death of their son. There is the drama of social adjustment in human relationship. The son dies. This breaks the wife completely. She is standing at the top of the staircase and peeps through the window and sees that her husband is digging the grave of the child. On returning home, he talks of daily concerns.

Mon, Oct 09 2017

Mending Wall by Robert Frost: Summary and Analysis

Mending Wall is a dramatic narrative poem in forty-five lines of blank verse composed by the 20th century modern poet Robert Frost. The title is conspicuously vague, in that "mending" can refer to either as a verb or an adjective. Considering "mending" as a verb, the title refers to the activity that the poem's speaker and his neighbor perform in repairing the wall in every spring.

Sun, Oct 08 2017

Portrait of a Lady by T. S. Eliot: Summary and Critical Analysis

'Portrait of a Lady' is a descriptive monologue written in 1911 at Harvard by T. S. Eliot. The poor lady is the female counterpart of Prufrock, a miserable soul longing for the touch of friendship and love which she never gets. The lady makes cautious advances to a man younger than herself. The poem is recited within the memory of the man, who is the speaker of the poem and deals with the psychological impasse of a sensitive young man who visits a lady, but the lady knows that there is an air of uncertainty in their amorous relationship, and their love is not going to be blessed with maturity. The lady makes the proposal of friendship or love to the handsome young man, but he shows no enthusiasm for her gestures of love.

Fri, Oct 06 2017

Gerontion by T. S. Eliot: Critical Analysis

Gerontion is a dramatic monologue of an old man who reminisces about his lost power to live and his last hope of spiritual rebirth which is a symbol of sterility and paralysis. It is the most important poem in 1920 volume. It is well-known that Eliot intended the 'Gerontion' of 1920 to be a part of The Waste Land of 1922, which was already in preparation, and that Ezra Pound dissuaded him. Hence the poem stands by itself.

Fri, Oct 06 2017

Gerontion by T. S. Eliot: Summary

At the beginning of the poem an old man is shown who is being read to by a boy. He starts drifting into his thoughts and the actual thoughts form the poem. His thought is fused with the description of Fitzgerald’s old age. He sadly misses the fight in the wars and regrets his living in the common place which is full of boredom. He goes on saying that there is a loss of humanity in the modern world. The truth is darkened and molded in any way one likes as per their wish. The divine judgment is there already for all the sinners.

Fri, Oct 06 2017

Marina by T. S. Eliot: Critical Analysis

Marina, the last of the four Aerial Poems, is the most touching personal poem by T.S. Eliot. This beautiful lyric was composed in September 1930 and leads the poet to faith in the Anglican Church. The poem is a monologue as it is spoken by Pericles at the instant of recognition. The context designated in the title is that of Pericles' reunion with his lost daughter Marina in Shakespeare's Pericles.

Wed, Sep 13 2017

Marina by T. S. Eliot: Summary

The poem starts with the questions asked by Hercules in the epigraph. Quis hic locus, quae regio, quae mundi plaga? Which means 'What place is this? What region, what quarter of the world?' Here the happy image of the regained daughter of Pericles is contrasted with an ominous reference of the story of Hercules.

Wed, Sep 13 2017

Sweeney among the Nightingales by T. S. Eliot: Summary and Analysis

Sweeney among the Nightingales is a short lyric poem composed by TS Eliot in 1918. The epigraph of this poem is taken from the Greek tragedy Agamemnon. The epigraph is all about the cry of the dying king who was betrayed and killed by his own wife Clytemnestra. It gives hints to the forthcoming plot in the life of Sweeney in the poem.

Thu, Sep 07 2017

The Hollow Men by T. S. Eliot: Summary

The Hollow Men is a soliloquy by one of the hollow men bewailing their lot in death's kingdom from which they cannot cross to death's other kingdom because of spiritual impotence. The four major sources of the content of The Hollow Men are: the Gun Powder Plot; Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, particular the successful conspiracy against Caesar; Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness; and Dante's Divine Comedy.

Thu, Sep 07 2017

The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: Summary of Section I – Section V

The first section of 'The Waste Land' is known as The Burial of the Dead which refers to the burial of the dead, fertility gods in Frazer's The Golden Beer and the burial service in the Christian Church. In both these cases, death is followed by re-birth, but in the modern wasteland rebirth is very doubtful, and people live in a stage of life-in-death.

Wed, Sep 06 2017