In 1980, Robert Bly, a leading American poet, compiled an unusual poetry anthology titled News of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness. It is a substantial book comprising over one hundred and fifty poems, ranging from the eighteenth century to the present day and over a number of different cultural traditions. One of the poems…
Tag: Wendell Berry
The Peace of Wild Things – Setting
Social Upheaval and War in the 1960s It is not difficult to understand why someone writing in the late 1960s might express despair about the state of the world. For Americans, this period was fraught with social upheaval and the horror of war. In April 1968, the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was…
The Peace of Wild Things – Literary Devices
Allusion An allusion in a work of literature is a reference to another literary work. It can be a reference to a person, an event, or simply a phrase that occurs in another work. When the poet writes in line 8 about his awareness of the body of water that is nearby, he uses words…
The Peace of Wild Things – Themes
The Human World versus the Natural World The poem contrasts the turbulence of the human world, and the workings of the human mind, with the peace of the natural world. Human life is chaotic and dangerous. People are unable to live at peace with one another, and the news always seems to be bad. The…
The Peace of Wild Things – Poem Summary
Lines 1–5 ‘‘The Peace of Wild Things’’ begins with the poet, writing in first person, describing what he likes to do when his mind becomes agitated and he needs to calm down. He presents himself as a man who is concerned about the state of the world. He appears to have no hope that the…