‘‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’’ may well be the most anthologized poem in the English language, and generations of school students have been presented with it as an accessible work by one of England’s greatest poets. ‘‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’’ may indeed be a simple poem but it is not quite as…
Tag: Analysis
The Hollow Men: Poem Analysis
Eliot was born into a family that was influential in the Unitarian Church. His grandfather was the founder of the Unitarian sect in St. Louis, Missouri, and his uncle founded the Unitarian Church in Portland, Oregon. Yet, as Eliot matured, he rejected his family’s beliefs. For much of his early adulthood, Eliot lived without regard…
Fully Empowered by Pablo Neruda – Analysis – Essay
When Neruda published ‘‘Fully Empowered’’ in 1962 he was no longer a young man. At the age of fifty-eight, he was entering what has been described as his ‘‘autumnal period,’’ often dated from about 1958 to 1970. According to Christopher Perriam, who uses this term in his book The Late Poetry of Pablo Neruda, the…
Elena by Pat Mora: Analysis
Pat Mora’s poem ‘‘Elena’’ is a work in which the narrator expresses her sense of isolation from her children. Elena pinpoints language as the source of this growing divide, faulting her Spanish as insufficient, and demonstrating the problems in understanding that the English language generates in her household. Her children speak English well; she does…
Classic Ballroom Dances: Analysis
‘‘Classic Ballroom Dances’’ consists of four four-line unrhymed stanzas. The poem has no strict metrical form. It consists of a single incomplete sentence, using semicolons to link together a series of images that, together, form a gloss (an interlinear explanation, or a description inside the poem’s lines) on the poem’s title. The title itself is…
The Wives of the Dead – Analysis
Although “The Wives of the Dead” is a story about events surrounding two widows in early eighteenth century colonial America, it is the narrator who sets the tone of the story and filters information in such a way as to shape the reader’s understanding of events. The narrator is not Hawthorne but a persona created…
Winter Dreams by F. Scott Fitzgerald: Analysis
Fitzgerald wrote his short story “Winter Dreams” while he was drafting The Great Gatsby, which became one of the most celebrated novels of all time. The two works share several thematic and stylistic elements as they each center on a young man from a modest background who strives to be a part of the exclusive…
To Da-Duh, in Memoriam: Analysis
Marshall’s short story “To Da-duh, in Memoriam,” revolving around a rivalry between a grandmother and a granddaughter, functions within a series of contrasts as each female tries to prove that her world is superior. “I tried giving the contests I had sensed between us a wider meaning,” Marshall notes in her introduction to the story…
That in Aleppo Once by Vladimir Nabokov: Analysis
In his opening paragraph to V., the narrator of “That in Aleppo Once…” explains that he learned V.’s address from a mutual acquaintance who “seemed to think somehow or other” that V.”was betraying our national literature.” While the opinions of “good old Gleb Alexandrovich Gekko” matter little to V. or the narrator (who even slightly…
The Replacement by Alain Robbe-Grillet: Analysis
Prior to the twentieth century, writers structured their works to reflect their belief in the stability of character and the intelligibility of experience. Traditionally, novels and stories ended with a clear sense of closure as conflicts were resolved and characters gained knowledge about themselves and their world. Many writers during the twentieth century challenged these…