Literature

Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” was published in 1867. This was during the Victorian era, when the world was shifting from one with a basic belief in Christian traditions to one based on the impersonal world of Darwin and other 19th century scientists. The poem is about how there is a conflict between religion and science and how the world is...

From: Poem Examples

This Web page has been designed to assist students to: Compare and contrast the life described in Italy and the promise of the American Dream. Understand the context of mass immigration of Italians to New York in the 1950s. Examine the impact of McCarthyism in shaping Miller’s presentation of betrayal. Gather historical perspective of the post-war period in America. Arthur...

From: Literature Guides

CONTENTS Key Facts First published in 1603, in a pirated quarto edition titled The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet and then in 1604 in a superior quarto edition. Hamlet is probably the most famous of Shakespeare’s tragedies. The source of the story of Hamlet is actually quite old. Some scholars date the tale of a hero-as-fool tale to classical antiquity. The most likely immediate...

From: Literature Guides

CONTENTS “Mother, monogamy, romance. High spurts the fountain; fierce and foamy the wild jet. The urge has but a single outlet. My love, my baby. No wonder those poor pre-moderns were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didn’t allow them to take things easily, didn’t allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy.”  This quotation is from Chapter 3. It...

From: Literature Guides

Nobel laureate W. B. Yeats in this coming-of-age poem ‘Brown Penny’ introduces us with a character who wants to fall in love but is unsure if he should. Although he finds himself tangled in the hair of his love-interest, however, he still questions his maturity and decides to toss a coin. Brown Penny BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS I whispered, 'I...

From: Poem Examples

When you hear the word ‘meter’ in relation to poetry, what is being referred to is the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllabic patterns in a particular verse, or in the lines of a poem. Stressed syllables are typically longer than their unstressed counterparts. Meter is a literary device used in poetry that acts as a linguistic sound pattern for...

From: Poetry

The poem “Birches” by Robert Frost dates back to 1916, where the poet uses birches as a symbol of peace and serenity, giving him a chance to go back to his childhood days. But the poet is also forced to acknowledge the harsh realities of life that stops to the poet from going to a world without the “Truth” of...

From: Poem Examples

CONTENTS Summary Ponyboy Curtis associates himself with a group of lower-class Oklahoma teens known as ‘greaser’; a named they’ve earned on account of their greasy, long hair. While walking home one evening after a movie, Ponyboy is confronted by members of the ‘Socs’, adversaries of the greasers who are teenagers from wealthy, upper-class families on the cities West end. The...

From: Literature Guides

CONTENTS Quotes and Analysis Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke between a silent blue...

From: Literature Guides

Simple Steps to Writing Poetry Writing a poem includes the following three steps: Step 1: Starting the poem Do some writing exercises. It involves finding out inspirations for your poem by using the world around you. A poem might start as a line or two lines that seem to have no source, as a snippet of a certain verse or an...

From: Poetry