WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS (1865-1939) : A Prayer for My Daughter

W.B. Yeats has thought and written much about the theory and practice of his own poetic art. For a full understanding of his poems, it is necessary to have some knowledge of his theory of poetry. He believed in the theory of "Art for art's sake" during the early stage of his poetic career. But actually, his genius was lyrical. It penetrated his essentially lyrical dreams. In the 1919s in his early career, he became the advocate of "art for art's sake". He began writing "pure poetry" under the influence of the French symbolists and the English Aesthetes. He divested such poetry of all the exterior decorations.

A Note on Romanticism "(1798-1832)

 Romanticism was a movement emphasizing emotion, individualism, imagination, and a deep connection with nature, emerging in Europe in the late 18th century.

It is not easy to define romanticism. Like many other literary terms, this word has been used in different ages in widely different senses. Goethe placed it against Classicism: "Romanticism is disease; Classicism is health."

William Wordsworth: A Master of Nature

 William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 at Cockermouth in Cumbria. His boyhood was happy; he could roam among the fields of his beloved countryside, in company with Nature and the books he loved (see The Prelude). Both Wordsworth's parents died before he was 15, and he and his four siblings were left in the care of different relatives. Sent to St. John's College, Cambridge, 1787. As a young man, Wordsworth developed a love of nature, a theme reflected in many of his poems.

Christina Rossetti's "Echo": A brief description

 Christina Rossetti (1830–1894):

Christina Georgina Rossetti was one of the most important Victorian poets of England. She was born on December 5, 1830, in London into a highly literary family. Her father was the poet Gabriele, and her brothers, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Michael Rossetti, were founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. This artistic movement emphasized emotional sincerity, medieval symbolism, and intense imagery.

Elegy: Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in A Country Churchyard

 An elegy is a poem of sorrow or mourning for the dead; also, a reflective poem in a solemn or sorrowful mood.  The adjective ‘elegiac’ is used to describe poetry that exhibits the characteristics of an elegy.

Well-known elegies lamenting the death of a particular person include John Milton's Lycidas (Edward King), P.B. Shelley's Adonais (John Keats), Alfred Lord Tennyson's In Memoriam (Arthur H. Hallam), and Walt Whitman's When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd (Abraham Lincoln). Perhaps the most famous elegy, Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, is a solemn, meditative poem mourning not the death of a person, but the passing of a way of life. Closely related terms of elegy are monody, threnody, and dirge.

The main characteristics of the

An Introduction to the Sonnets of Shakespeare

 Shakespeare wrote a long sonnet-sequence consisting of 154 pieces. These sonnets were written over a number of years and, though there are several strands to impart to them a unity of sorts, they do not have the kind of continuity which one might expect from a collection which has been called a sequence. These sonnets were written during thé years 1592 and 1597 or 1598; but they were not published until 1609, only seven years before Shakespeare's death. They were not published by Shakespeare himself. The publisher was a man called Thomas Thorpe, a literary-minded man who had previously published a number of famous plays, particularly those written by Ben Jonson and Chapman, and who had also published Marlowe's translation of Lucan. Now, this Thomas Thorpe had obtained the manuscripts of the sonnets from one Mr. W.H. but nobody really knows who this Mr. W.H. was.

From Petrarch to Shakespeare: The Evolution of the Sonnet

 The literary form of 'sonnet' is a foreign importation in English literature. The sonnet, as a literary form, in fact, appeared in England as one of the distinct and immediate effects of the Renaissance. A sonnet is a fixed poetic form that originated in Italy in the 13th century. The word sonnet comes from the Italian sonetto, meaning “a little song.” Traditionally, a sonnet consists of 14 lines written in iambic pentameter and follows a strict rhyme scheme. Despite its brevity, the sonnet is capable of expressing deep emotions, complex ideas, and philosophical reflections.

Rhetoric

Rhetoric (Greek rhetor, a public speaker) is the art and study of effective communication, particularly the skillful use of language to inform, persuade, or motivate an audience. It is a discipline that dates back to ancient civilizations and has been a central part of education, politics, philosophy, and literature throughout history. The word is, however, now generally used to mean the whole art of elegant and effective composition, whether spoken or written. Indeed, knowingly or unknowingly, every person uses a bit of rhetoric when they try to express themselves effectively and beautifully.

Limerick:

A limerick is a short, humorous poem with five lines, with a distinct rhythm and rhyme style. It is a type of nonsense verse with a definite pattern: a five-line STANZA rhyming aabba in which lines one, two, and five have their anapestic feet and lines three and four have two anapestic feet. The origin of the limerick is uncertain. It first appeared in print with the publication of Anecdotes and Adventures of Fifteen Young Ladies and History of sixteen Wonderful Old Women in 1820. Still, they were popularized by Edward Lear and his book of Nonsense in 1846. During the early twentieth century, especially in America, the improvisation of limericks became a popular parlor game.

Ode:

In English, an ode is  much-practiced form of lyric poetry from the time of Ben Johnson to that of Tennyson, with sporadic modern revivals. in its traditional application, ‘ode’ is a type of long lyric poem, usually addressed to a particular subject that is serious in treatment, elevated in style, and often expressing deep feeling or admiration. It originates from ancient Greece, and mostly elevated and complicated species of lyric, was often written to celebrate monumental public occasions or universal themes.

Abolitionist Literature

 

According to J.A. Cuddon, the term ‘abolitionist’ refers to the 18^th and 19th-century black British, African American, and white European and American men and women who campaigned for the abolition of slavery in the British Empire and North America. The origin of abolitionist literature are found in the long history of slave rebellion, particularly in the Caribbean colonies in the 17th and 18^th centuries. This literature refers to writings- both fiction and non-fiction that took a moral stand against slavery, expose the horrors of the slave trade and the inhumanity of slavery, and called for the abolition of this institution. it often used sentimental and biblical rhetoric to attract sympathy for the abolitionist cause, and eventually, it played a critical role in changing public opinion and fueling the anti-slavery movement, especially in the United States and Britain.

Irony

Whitman as a Modern Poet

Modern poetry refers to poetry written between 1890 and 1950 in the tradition of modernist literature. Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is often considered a pioneering modern poet because of his innovative style, themes and approach to poetry. His works break away from traditional forms. It embraces free verse and focuses on individuality, democracy and the complexity of human experience. Whitman’s poetry demonstrates his modern sensibilities and marks him as pivotal in the transition to modernist literature.

 

Iliad by Homer

 

The Iliad is an epic poem written down in Homeric Greek, a literary mixture of the Ionic Greek and other dialects, probably around the late 8^th or early 7^th century BC. One of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer’s Iliad is a part of an extended mythology around the legendary Trojan war that tells the story of the Greeks and the Trojans fought for ten years. Its center is Achilles, the greatest warrior champion of the Greeks, and his Conflicts with his leader, Agamemnon. Agamemnon has captured a woman named Chryseis during his siege against the other towns around Troy. Chryseis’ father is a priest of Apollo, who begs Agamemnon to return his daughter. When Agamemnon refuses, the priest prays to Apollo, who, in turn, unleashes havoc on the Greek armies in the form of plagues.