Poetry Analysis

I have a feeling that this category is meant to be taken seriously as a written essay or thoughts on poetry in general. My regular readers will know that I’m a great lover of this Art and write a fair bit myself. Lately I have been looking on poetry sites and dabbling in a few new forms of poetry. This is a great way to widen your knowledge and maybe even find a style that suits you perfectly. I write mostly rhyming poetry by choice, but I have tried my hand at Haiku and found the concept challenging. Recently I have used a workshop on one of my favourite sites to dabble in, “Forward Press” ... more

O my Luve's like a red, red rose That's newly sprung in June (Robert Burns) Poetry-more than a mere materialization of what is known and exploration to the unknown; a dialectic of objectivity and subjectivity; or a meeting point between movement and stillness-is basically an activity of 'self' to get in touch with 'others.' In pondering about this 'self-others' contact in poetical works, we may look at the works of Prague-borned writer: Rainer Maria Rilke. Rilke (1875-1926) is generally considered the German language's greatest 20th century poet. He wrote in both verse and a highly lyrical ... more

Anyone studying English Language and Literature for GCSE has to be able to analyse poetry, and recognising figures of speech and being able to quote them and comment on them will make any essay more impressive. There again, actually using them yourself in creative writing or descriptive writing brings your work alive and gives it an extra dimension. Various figures of speech are explained here; the examples quoted are from the AQA Anthology for GCSE English Language and Literature (Specification A) for 2005 onwards. (The book is published by Oxford University Press but is only distributed in ... more

This was an essay that I wrote as part of my A level English course. Hope you don't get too bored... How far do the language features, form and themes of 'The Emulation' seem to you typical of 18th Century poetic writing? (50 marks) 'The Emulation' was written in the mid 18th century. There are different aspects of the poem which follow, integrate, or alter from the standard forms of poetry around this times. The main ideas that must be explored are the language features, the form of the poem and the themes which are consistent through the poem. The author of 'The Emulation' is Sarah Egerton ... more

A comparison of 'London' by William Blake and 'Composed upon Westminster Bridge' by William Wordsworth. These two poems were written within eight years of one another, the first being 'London' in 1794 and then 'Composed upon Westminster Bridge' in 1802. They are both Romantics and typical of the style, both have an emotional and expressive freedom in the way they are written and a seemingly honest view of real life. Both poems have an immediate link in the form of the mention of London or places related to London in the tittle, this means that even before reading the poem you would expect that ... more