Composed sometime between 1806 and 1809, The Excursion is a part of Wordsworth's epic/poem The Recluse. At the time Wordsworth himself was greatly disenchanted by the ongoing French Revolution with its attendant atrocities and oppression. This long poem was first published in 1814. The Solitary... Sign in to see full entry.
In There Was a Boy, Wordsworth addresses not the boy who is now dead but the cliffs and islands of Lake Windermere that have outlasted him. The scene is widened to take the stars rising in the east and setting. It is in the context of the vast spaces of the universe and the inexorable movement of... Sign in to see full entry.
, A company of a grammarian's pupils are bearing their master's coffin for burial at the summit of a mountain. One of them tells his story and dilates on the praises of the departed scholar. They cannot fittingly bury their master on the plain with the common folk. He shall rest on a peak whose... Sign in to see full entry.
Just as medicines are necessary to repair bodily ailments, so is 'meditation' medicinal for the mind to keep it perfectly healthy, peaceful and in a state of equanimous tranquil. The mind must be emptied of all toxins. Unlike the western concept that 'an empty mind is a devil's workshop', the... Sign in to see full entry.
The familiar conventional view of Joan of Arc (1412 – 1431) pictures her as a romantic heroic soldier done to death by cruelly unjust religious fanatics Shaw’s Joan is still a simple unlettered country lass in her teens, a virgin soldier-saint, still the called-of-God, still the martyred-by-men.... Sign in to see full entry.
“ That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands”. (The Duke is as if saying to a listener that the painted picture on the wall of his wife who under suspicious circumstances... Sign in to see full entry.
It is the austere language of a diffident man, Hardy, marked with stoical fortitude, patient and uncomplaining, that his poem, “I Look into My Glass”, has an indelibly immediate appeal on the readers’ mind, in his teaching man to face up to Time unflinchingly. Time, with its power, brings... Sign in to see full entry.
Woken up by a thunder steep as I was in a slumber deep Felt as if someone shouting, Wake up, look … a guest is waiting! Dead in the night groggy I was, went back to my treasured cause Morning, upon opening the door, saw no one waiting out there; sore I wondered, “A friendly guest?” but who! Then... Sign in to see full entry.
Although the background of Shaw's Pygmalion is phonetics, its basic theme is human relations. Pygmalion, in classical Greek mythology, was a legendary king of Cyprus, who, having fashioned an ivory statue of a woman, fell in love with it. The goddess Aphrodite (Venus) gave it life and Pygmalion... Sign in to see full entry.
In “ Postscript” Walter Peter examines the meaning of two words “classical” and “romantic” which, though commonly used, have resisted any precise meaning. The words “classical” and “romantic” define two tendencies in art and literature. But as the term “classical” has been used in a merely... Sign in to see full entry.