Poem

Sylvia Plath has never directly stated that her poem “Daddy” is about her father, Otto Plath. In fact, in the months before her suicide, Plath had described the poem as being about, "a girl with an Electra complex [whose] father died while she thought he was God. Her case is...

The best works of literature are those which present the reader with more than one interpretation. Often, they have more than one layer, one which stands out as obvious to the reader and one which can only be found at a deeper level. Many of Robert Frost’s poetry is like...

While politicians argue at the pulpit over which laws and policies are best for their respective countries, or their own pocketbooks, poets and artists have been writing about utopian possibilities for centuries. William Blake, born in a time when religion had an even greater grasp on societal views than now,...

Poetry of Departures is a lyric poem by the famous Philip Larkin. Just as many other Larkin’s poems, Poetry of Departures contains some implications for fatalism, irreversibility, and loss. The poem is based on an opposition between two different concepts: a familiar and stable life and a new, reformed life....

In Robert Frost's poem, "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening," the person who is speaking is describing driving through the woods on a snowy evening and enjoying the beautiful scene and its silence and solitude. He describes the scenario and gives the impression that he would be content...

Thomas Hardy’s The Ruined Maid is a poem consisting of an imagined dialogue between two working class women, one of whom, ‘Melia, has transformed herself into an apparently wealthy, sophisticated lady. In the time since the two last met, it is heavily implied ‘Melia has become a “kept” woman, a...

Robertson’s “La Stanza Delle Mosche” conveys something of an entire world within a single space, and in a matter of thirteen lines. Nothing particularly dramatic is the subject. In fact, there is virtually no real event, feeling, or action of any overt meaning as the subject. It is instead a...

The poem I beg of you, Zhong Zi appears to be one of the most interesting songs found in the anthology The Classic of Odes. This poem refers to the early Zhou period and reflects on the most important values of that period. I beg of you, Zhong Zi is...

Theodore Roethke's poem, "My Papa's Waltz" is a poem that describes the speaker's complicated memories of his father, particularly in how he seems to think fondly of what very well may have been an abusive relationship. The exact extent of the abuse, if present, is intentionally unclear; the poem's overall...

Robert Frost is famous for his philosophical approach to poetry so that each poem contains numerous symbols and allusions behind which vital questions of life and essence are to be found. One of the most curious things about his poetry is that Frost manages to use one and the same...

Leung Ping-Kwan's "Poem with Dinosaur" describes a scene in which the speaker hears a roar from a television, as if a dinosaur were about to appear, then muses on his observations while he waits. Many of his observations include details relating to specific consumer products, such as "Chanel suits" (line...

This brief prose poem by Robert Hass describes a painful interaction between a young man and an older woman, and the message that she leaves for him the following morning. The narrator is a young composer who is spending the summer at an artists’ colony. He becomes infatuated with an...

There Was a Child Went Forth by Walt Whitman is very curious poem for analysis and interpretation due to its symbolic nature as well as to the abundance of stylistic devices that compose it. The poem tells us a story of personal becoming carefully listing all the factors that impact...

Edwin Muir's “Childhood” is a short poem that still manages to capture the range of emotions which often grip children. It combines the dual realities of how a child will dream of going into adventures while still needing the security of home. This is a critical stage in life. The...

To begin, Bishop sets the tone for the entire piece by telling a story about a fish—not just any fish, but a “tremendous” fish. Especially with poetry, in which the substance of the piece is there as soon as it begins (contrasted with prose, where you usually have a little...

Why Study This Poem? Published in 1820, “Lamia” is not often included among Keats’ greatest poems, yet it is worthy of analysis nonetheless. Some have claimed that the poem lacks suspense and characters that are too uninteresting to garner widespread public attention, but I suggest that the message being conveyed...

Sylvia Plath wrote the poem, “Daddy” in reference to her father’s death and how she coped with her bereavement and feelings about the life her dad lived. The writer of the poem used symbolism to describe her father and her thoughts about him. The most prominent symbolism in the poem...

On a first reading, the immediate striking quality of William Carlos Williams’ “Red Wheelbarrow” is the poet’s sparse and hyper-minimalistic style. The entire poem consists of four stanzas, each numbering only two lines, and each stanza containing only four words. This minimalism, however, seems appropriate considering the subject matter: Williams...

‘The Road Not Taken’ is a poem by Robert Frost which states that people come to make strategic decisions in life, and that at various points, the individual must be subject to fate. Understanding this poem requires the reader to understand the meaning of life, which the author helps the...

Poetry is a unique form of art that enables readers to feel the most complexed and nuanced emotions. Unlike the language of prose, the poetic language is expressive and relies more on various decorations (ReadWriteThink, 2008). To maximize the emotional impact on readers, poets use a broad set of literary...