Numerous oppositions in As You Like It reveal Shakespeare’s partiality toward the pastoral rustic life of Arden forest to life at court. At Duke Frederick’s court, disorder holds sway. The deterioration of political authority is the most obvious form of disorder, for Duke Frederick has unlawfully seized Duke Senior’s kingdom. This political degeneration is compounded…
Tag: Themes
As You Like It – Themes
Pastoral Life Numerous oppositions in As You Like It reveal Shakespeare’s partiality toward the pastoral rustic life of Arden forest to life at court. At Duke Frederick’s court, disorder holds sway. The deterioration of political authority is the most obvious form of disorder, for Duke Frederick has unlawfully seized Duke Senior’s kingdom. This political degeneration…
Antony and Cleopatra – Themes
Rome versus Egypt The play focuses on the personal relationship between Antony and Cleopatra, and in doing so it juxtaposes two value systems, Rome and Egypt. Rome, the West, as embodied in Octavius Caesar, is a guardian of moral restraint, personal responsibility, social order, reason, and military discipline. Further, Rome places a high value on…
All’s Well That Ends Well – Themes
Critical interpretation of All’s Well That Ends Well often hinges on whether the critic believes the play lives up to its title. The widespread belief that it does not has led to its reputation as a problem play, or rather, a comedy with strings attached. Shakespeare, who was by all accounts an astute observer of…
My Mother Pieced Quilts – Themes
Kinship/Motherhood Teresa Palomo Acosta’s poem “My Mother Pieced Quilts” stitches together pieces of memory, history, and tradition to create a poem, much as her mother once stitched together pieces of old dresses, work clothes, and nightgowns to create a quilt. In the poem “My Mother Pieced Quilts,” the speaker reflects on images of her mother,…
maggie and milly and molly and may – Themes
The poem “maggie and milly and molly and may” represents one of e. e. cummings’s experiments with rhymed couplets. True to his disregard for formal rules of writing, cummings does not rhyme every couplet in this poem. It is also a perfect and, on the surface, simplistic expression of his belief that the outer self…
The Lamb by William Blake – Themes
Innocence When Blake published Songs of Innocence and of Experience in 1794, he subtitled the book, “Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.” The qualities displayed by the child speaker in “The Lamb” are an example of what Blake meant by the state of innocence, which may be found in children but is…
Having A Coke With You – Themes
Art and Experience “Having a Coke with You” privileges the flux of experience over the static nature of art. Rather than representing a thing, such as a face or a horse and its rider, O’Hara’s poem attempts to represent the rush of emotion itself. O’Hara captures the breathless quality of experience by launching into the…
Filling Station (Poem) – Theme
Beauty and Aesthetics An oil-soaked filling station seems an odd subject for a poem. This scene—“Oh, but it is dirty!”— is a stark contrast to those objects of natural and human beauty, which have traditionally inspired poets and artists. An oil-soaked monkey suit, a dirty dog, and a doily heavy with gray crochet would normally…
An Arundel Tomb – Themes
Love The theme of love is first hinted at in the last two lines of the second stanza, in which it is revealed that the earl and his wife are depicted as holding hands. This detail is celebrated twice: the reference to the “sharp, tender shock” that the speaker feels when he first notices it,…