Poetry > W Poetry

Advantages: Everything Oscar Wilde has written
Disadvantages: Cheap and tacky book won't last long

...has its flaws. Firstly the book is bulky and probably won't last long if your an avid reader. The print is small and the paper cheap. A true fan of wilde would probably be better off spending money on a decent edition of his works or buying their favourite pieces seperatly. That said the content of this collection is superb. It includes all the well-known pieces adn much that is less well-known but no less readable. Some of the early poetry is not ...
...know little about wilde. The intor is servicable but nothing special and is worth reading as an overview. Wildes works thought are welll worth reading. His plays are funny and perceptive commidies about victorian manners and society. His childrens stories are evocative fairy tales. The classic Dorian Grey is probably one of the best works of fiction produced in this era. To accompany all this there are the poems. The ballad of Reading Gaol stands ... Read review

Advantages: A breezy format; excellent discussion of translation; cheap price; highly provocative
Disadvantages: None

...(Paz’s own entry). Numbered in nineteen sections, the first three are devoted explicitly to the original: 1) Wang Wei’s text in Chinese characters, 2) its transliteration using the Pinyin system of rendering Chinese sounds with our alphabet, and 3) a word-for-word gloss of each character, including numerous potential translations. Weinberger provides excellent commentary on all nineteen sections, and Paz adds a little essay at the end. While ostensibly ...
...it can be transmuted, and in some cases, utterly ruined through translation, the authors’ text can easily serve as a mini-course on the vicissitudes of translation in general. The universal applicability of their conclusions to any notion of poetic translation is an added bonus to what is first and foremost a guide to the challenges and demands of translating classical Chinese poetry. The book tells as much about "bad" translation practices as it ... Read review

Advantages: Memorable poem!
Disadvantages: N/A

...the city, Wordsworth's title: "composed upon Westminster Bridge" is in a way romantic and euphoric when compared with Blake's "London" - he is dismissing it as London and giving it no other credit for the huge industrialised machine that it has become. One should note that Blake's poem was written at the end of a centaury where as Wordsworth's was written at the beginning of the next, suggesting that the latter would be more imaginative and appreciative, ...
...the sun has never shone upon something so beautiful "In his first splendour, valley, rock or hill.". This highlights the difference in time of day between Wordsworth's and Blake's poems. Wordsworth's is obviously set in the brilliant morning sun, where as Blake's is set in the middle of the night ("…through midnight streets I hear…"). Wordsworth then says that he has never seen or felt "a calm so deep", repeating the word never twice. I think he ... Read review

Advantages: Powerful and gripping storyline, Great contributions of all characters
Disadvantages: None that I have found

Written by Arthur Miller in the early 1950s during the time of the McCarthyism when the government blacklisted accused communists. Miller was also summoned in court and he wrote this play as a parable and links the Salem witch-hunt and the McCarthy trials which took place nearly 250 years apart. A very powerful play and an excellent one to study for GCSE English Literature for its revoloutionary work in the theatre and its portrayal of the human ...
...man's struggle to find and do what is right by him. With just 4 Acts and 5 important characters, this truly is a masterpiece. Proctor, a hard-working family man finds in the middle of lying and confessing to witchcraft, both of which go against his newly developed religious beliefs. ... Read review

Advantages: Interesting concept behind the plot
Disadvantages: Slow paced

Author: George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright born in 1856, and who died in 1950. Although he write music as well, he most enjoying writng plays, with the prupose of putting across a social message, and making it more memorable with the use of comedy, whilst doing so. Some of his plays addressed the issue of education, religion and government, however one topic he often considered was the exploitation of the working class. As a socialist, ...
...a British socialist movement, writing brochures and leaflets for them. He even married a fellow member of the Society, called Charlotte Payne-Townshend. He was an eloquent orator, and gave speeches on equal rights in politics for men and women, how to live healthy lifestyles, and condemning the attitudes of the rich towards the poor. This socialist attitude of Bernard Shaw influenced many of his writings, including Pygmalion, which has become a classic. ... Read review