English Study Hub

W. B. Yeats’ “The Second Coming” (1921), as a modern poem, is viewed as the most vivid record of momentary prophetic insight in a chaotic world. An analysis of The Second Coming summary and the Second Coming poem analysis shows that it is an archetypal pattern of horror vision of destruction which exposes poet’s political wordiness through an exceptional and visionary masterful art. The poem predicts the close of the Christian era and the arrival of the new age, an age of political upheavals. The poet also suggests that after the numbers of anarchy the beast of apocalypse will arrive, as the revelation is near at hand. So, the poem blisters with apocalyptic ominous visions and consequently The Second Coming is studied as an apocalyptic poem. The Second Coming as a modernist poem portrays, in the very beginning, the contemporary situation of the modern world through a metaphorical and allegorical description of the landscape of falcon. ...

Canonization is the act by which the Roman Catholic Church officially declares a dead man as a saint. In John Donne's famous love-lyric ''The Canonization'' , the poet expresses his desire to be canonized or to be announced as the saint of love through excellent conceits and imageries. The love of the poet and his beloved is supreme and noble, they are models of love. So they will be immortalized and honoured as the saints of love after their death. Though no one will officially declare them to be canonized, he expects that they will be canonized through their love lyrics and sonnets. The lovers are devoted to each other as a saint is devoted to God. Thus, they are canonized by their holy passion of love . The significance of the title of the poem is exceptionally high. John Donne, who is considered to be the founder and leader of the metaphysical school of poetry, has revealed his desire to become legendary and immortal, through his love poems and lyrics. We fin...

Who is the hero of Paradise Lost? Satan or Adam? Discuss with your logics.                         or Satan embodies all the qualities of an epic hero-justify your logics with reference from the book.                            or Critically examine the character of Satan as presented by Milton in ''Paradise Lost'' Much controversy has clustered round the question as to who is the hero of Paradise Lost. The idea that Satan is the hero , or at least a type of hero is widespread, also John Milton never directly mentioned him as the hero. There are very sensible persons who advocate the claim of Satan, and others, that of Adam. Denis Saurat, a French critic puts forward the strange thesis that Milton himself is the hero of Pa...

“A Valediction : Forbidding Mourning” is one of John Donne’s most famous and simplest poems and also his most direct statement of his ideal of spiritual love to his wife. He was supposed to go to France for a business purpose with his friend in 1611. That time his wife started to mourn. To give consolation to his wife the speaker wrote this poem. To console his wife the poet uses some similes, metaphysical conceits etc. Now I am trying to discuss according to the statement. The poem starts with the use of simile. The poet compares their love as virtuous man. Virtuous men are not afraid of death. In the same way true lovers are not afraid of separation. Their loyalty and devotion can be enhanced and tested with separation. The poet proposes his wife to let him go without making any noise. There must be no floods of tears or tempest of sighing. Because it can make their love unholy. It would be a disgrace to their holy love if they portray it like the common people. In the 3...

'Because I Could Not Stop for Death' is one of Emily Dickinson's most enigmatic poems regarding death. The idea of death in this poem is not portrayed as lonely or scared, but as serene and content. She treated death as more like a person rather than just an event in one's life. In this poem the speaker is communicating from beyond the grave, and describing her journey with death. Death is one of the foremost topics in Dickinson's poetry. Death is sometimes gentle, sometimes menacing and sometimes simply inevitable. In 'Because I Could Not Stop for Death', she personifies death and presents it as an actual character who is gentle and kind in nature, who kindly takes away the speaker for the expedition to the eternity. The poem starts with the titled line where death is personified by the use of capital D. The opening stanza immediately establishes what kind of person Death is:      "Because I could not stop for Death -  He kindly stopped ...

The power of immortality is one of the main themes in William Shakespeare's 'Sonnet 18' and 'Sonnet 55'. It is a stock theme which had been used by many poets, but nearly all of them were mainly concerned with their own fame in the future. Shakespeare uniquely thinks poetry as a tool to immortalize his friend. He is not concerned with his own glory. The Roman poets say: “Because of my poems I will never die”. But Shakespeare says: “Because of my poems you will never die”. What distinguishes Shakespeare is that he values the identity of his friend and wants to immortalize him through his verses. Both in 'Sonnet 18' and 'Sonnet 55', we find an impassioned burst of confidence as the poet claims to have the power to keep his friend’s memory alive forever. In 'Sonnet 18', the poet starts with his hyperbolic attitude towards his friend: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate:"...

The Paradise Lost by John Milton is an outstanding creation in the history of English Literature. Man’s disobedience is the main theme and the immediate result of his disobedience in the loss of the Paradise. The first 26 lines of this epic is the Invocation part. Invocation is a formal prayer to the Muses for inspiration, help and guidance at the beginning of an epic. Usually the invocation in an epic goes together with the proposition (declaration) of its subject. In the opening lines, the poet says, “Of mans first Disobedience, and the Fruit of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste brought death into the world, and all one woe, with loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful set.” At first the poet is proposing his subject matter that this is the story of the first disobedience of human being. They took the fruit of the forbidden tree and brought death into the world. They became mortal and lost the opportunity to live in Paradise until one gr...

William Butler Yeats is one of the most influential poets of the modern age. He represents for us the literary side of the Irish national movement. He believed that civilization represents tyranny for the free spirit of the individual and was unusual in his age in the fact that he did not rail against it but chose to bring to its attention by his own superbly different world of the spirit. ‘A Prayer for My Daughter’ is a poem in which Yeats’s future concern is found clearly. ‘A Prayer for My Daughter’ is a personal poem which reflects the gloom of the poet and his fear of a stormy future. The poem was written in 1919 after the First World War and it reflects the post war frustration. The war ended in 1919 but Ireland remained disturbed. His infant daughter, Annie Butler Yeats, born in 1919, will have to face the challenges of the future. At this point in time, it is inevitable for Yeats to have been concerned about his daughter’s future in such a world. The poet thinks of s...

T. S. Eliot is one of the most influential poets of the modern age. Blessed with a terrible mind, he has become a proverbial name in the realm of modern poetry for his use of symbols and images in his poetry. It is a well-known fact that Eliot was much influenced by the French Symbolists, especially by Laforgue, Mallarme and Gautier. Eliot praised Donne for the reason that drew him to the French Symbolists. It is symbols that enable him to express the mysterious, the obscure, the complex and the new. To quench the thirst of spiritual attainment, he has to depict and interpret the abstract and the mystical by means of symbols alone. As a traditionalist, Eliot adopts certain conventional symbols and images in his poetry. Thus, he chooses the cross for Christianity; deserts, dust and the wasteland for infertility in spiritual terms; water especially as rain or flood for spiritual revival or awakening; the rose for love; the fog, the evening and night for the lost soul wanderin...

The word ‘satire’ is derived from  the Latin word ‘satira’ which is a literary attack on the follies and vices of an  individual or a society with a view to correcting them through laughter and ridicule written either in prose or verse. As Shakespeare is the poet of man, Alexander Pope is a poet of society.   The Rape of the Lock   is a social document because it mirrors satire, too. Pope paints about England in the 18 th   century. The whole panorama of the Rape the Lock revolves around the false standard of the 18 th   century. Pope satirizes the young boys, girls, aristocratic women and men, their free time, activities, nature of husbands and wives, the professionals. Pope clearly depicts the absurdities and the frivolities of the fashionable circle of 18 th   century England. The world of Belinda is a world of fashion or a trivial world. The whole life of Belinda is confined to sleeping, make- up, enjoyment and alluring the affection, malice, coq...