Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Theme: Personal despair and self-pity. The power of love to uplift and transform.
Tone: Starts sorrowful and self-loathing. Shifts to joyful and grateful by the end.
Structure: Shakespearean sonnet: 14 lines, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme. Volta (turn) at line 9: mood
changes from despair to hope.
Summary: Speaker laments his misfortune and loneliness. Feels envious of others’ skills and prospects.
Remembers his beloved’s love, which lifts his spirits. Declares love to be more valuable than wealth
or status.
Literary Devices:
Alliteration: “sings hymns at heaven’s gate.”
Metaphor: compares his state to being “in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes.”
Personification: Fortune as a person who bestows favor.
Imagery: Lark rising at break of day, symbolizing hope.
Contrast: Between initial misery and later joy.
Message: True wealth lies in love and inner contentment, not external success.

Sonnet 138 by William Shakespeare

When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearnèd in the world’s false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
Oh, love’s best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told.
Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be.
Theme: Mutual deception in love. Acceptance of lies for the sake of comfort and pleasure. The complexity of
mature relationships.
Tone: Witty, ironic, yet tender. Realistic rather than idealistic.
Structure: Shakespearean sonnet: 14 lines, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme. Volta (shift) after line 8.
Summary: The speaker knows his mistress lies about his youth, but pretends to believe her. She knows he lies
too, yet accepts him. Both prefer lies over hurtful truths to preserve their relationship. They find
comfort in mutual flattery.
Literary Devices:
Irony: Both lovers knowingly deceive each other.
Paradox: Lies strengthen their bond.
Pun: "Simply" – both plainly and naively.
Alliteration: “Therefore I lie with her, and she with me...”
Message: In love, illusions can be willingly maintained for the sake of peace and happiness. Love is not
always about truth; sometimes it’s about what feels right.
 On His Blindness – John Milton
When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."
Theme: Personal struggle with blindness. Questioning God’s purpose. Acceptance of divine will. Value of
patience and inner service.
Tone: Initially frustrated and doubtful. Shifts to calm acceptance and faith.
Structure: Petrarchan sonnet: 14 lines, octave (problem) + sestet (solution). Rhyme: ABBA ABBA CDE CDE.
Summary: Milton laments losing his sight and wonders how to serve God now. Fears his “one talent” is wasted.
Personified Patience answers, explaining that God doesn’t need grand works. Simply bearing life’s
burden of patience is service enough.
Literary Devices:
Personification: Patience as a speaker. Allusion: Biblical reference to “talent” (parable of talents).
Metaphor: Life as “light denied.”
Symbolism: “Yoke” symbolizes life’s hardships.
Message: Active service isn’t the only way to serve God; accepting His will patiently is equally valuable.
Paradise Lost Book 1 – Lines 1 to 26 (Invocation of the Muse)
Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit That with no middle flight intends to soar
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues
Brought death into the world, and all our woe, Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
With loss of Eden, till one greater man And chiefly thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, Before all temples the upright heart and pure,
Sing heavenly muse, that on the secret top Instruct me, for thou know’st; thou from the first
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread
That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed, Dove-like sat’st brooding on the vast abyss
In the beginning how the heavens and earth And mad’st it pregnant: what in me is dark
Rose out of chaos: or if Sion hill Illumine, what is low raise and support;
Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flowed That to the height of this great argument
Fast by the oracle of God; I thence I may assert eternal providence,
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song, And justify the ways of God to men
Purpose: Milton invokes the Heavenly Muse to aid in telling the story of man’s fall. Declares his aim to justify
the ways of God to men.
Structure: Epic invocation, following classical tradition (Homer, Virgil). 26 lines in blank verse (unrhymed iambic
pentameter).
Key Themes: Man’s first disobedience (Adam & Eve’s sin). Loss of Paradise. Promise of redemption through
Jesus Christ (the “greater Man”).
Key Elements:
“Of man’s first disobedience...” – Focus on the Fall of Man.
“Heavenly Muse...” – Refers to the Holy Spirit (unlike pagan muses).
“Instruct me...” – Asks divine guidance to compose the epic.
“What in me is dark, illumine...” – Seeking enlightenment to tell truth.
Literary Devices:
Allusion: Genesis story, classical epics.
Personification: Holy Spirit as Muse.
Enjambment: Continuous flow of thoughts across lines.
Elevated Diction: Grand, solemn style.
Message: Epic will not merely narrate events but serve a theological purpose: explaining God’s justice and
Mercy. Knowledge, especially spiritual, is divinely inspired.
 The Canonization – John Donne
For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love, We can die by it, if not live by love,
Or chide my palsy, or my gout, And if unfit for tombs and hearse
My five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout, Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve, And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
Take you a course, get you a place, We’ll build in sonnets pretty rooms;
Observe his honor, or his grace, As well a well-wrought urn becomes
Or the king's real, or his stampèd face The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,
Contemplate; what you will, approve, And by these hymns, all shall approve
So you will let me love. Us canonized for Love.

Alas, alas, who’s injured by my love? And thus invoke us: “You, whom reverend love
What merchant’s ships have my sighs drowned? Made one another’s hermitage;
Who says my tears have overflowed his ground? You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;
When did my colds a forward spring remove? Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove
When did the heats which my veins fill Into the glasses of your eyes
Add one more to the plaguy bill? (So made such mirrors, and such spies,
Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still That they did all to you epitomize)
Litigious men, which quarrels move, Countries, towns, courts: beg from above
Though she and I do love. A pattern of your love!”

Call us what you will, we are made such by love;

Call her one, me another fly,
We're tapers too, and at our own cost die,
And we in us find the eagle and the dove.
The phoenix riddle hath more wit
By us; we two being one, are it.
So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
We die and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.
Poem Type: Metaphysical poem. Dramatic monologue. Five stanzas (9 lines each), ABBA CDDC E rhyme
scheme.
Theme: Love as sacred and eternal. Lovers become saints of love, deserving of canonization. Rejection of
societal criticism.
Tone: Witty, defiant, philosophical.
Summary: Speaker asks the critic to mind their own business, stop judging his love. Compares his love to holy
sainthood. Claims their love harms no one and is pure, spiritual. Through poetry, their love will be immortalized.
Literary Devices:
Paradox: Lovers become saints through physical love.
Conceit (extended metaphor): Comparing lovers to saints and their love to a religion.
Hyperbole: Love will be celebrated in sonnets and hymns.
Allusion: Canonization (declaring someone a saint).
Imagery: “Phoenix riddle,” “legend of love.”
Message: True love transcends social norms and becomes divine. Lovers, through their passion, achieve a
form of spiritual immortality. Poetry serves as the medium of eternalizing love.
 The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, When kind occasion prompts their warm desires,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things, When music softens, and when dancing fires?
I sing—This verse to Caryl, Muse! is due: 'Tis but their sylph, the wise celestials know,
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view: Though honour is the word with men below.
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise, Some nymphs there are, too conscious of their face,
If she inspire, and he approve my lays. For life predestin'd to the gnomes' embrace.
Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel These swell their prospects and exalt their pride,
A well-bred lord t' assault a gentle belle? When offers are disdain'd, and love denied:
O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd, Then gay ideas crowd the vacant brain,
Could make a gentle belle reject a lord? While peers, and dukes, and all their sweeping train,
In tasks so bold, can little men engage, And garters, stars, and coronets appear,
And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage? And in soft sounds 'Your Grace' salutes their ear.
Sol thro' white curtains shot a tim'rous ray, 'Tis these that early taint the female soul,
And op'd those eyes that must eclipse the day; Instruct the eyes of young coquettes to roll,
Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake, Teach infant cheeks a bidden blush to know,
And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake: And little hearts to flutter at a beau.
Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knock'd the ground, Oft, when the world imagine women stray,
And the press'd watch return'd a silver sound. The Sylphs through mystic mazes guide their way,
Belinda still her downy pillow press'd, Thro' all the giddy circle they pursue,
Her guardian sylph prolong'd the balmy rest: And old impertinence expel by new.
'Twas he had summon'd to her silent bed What tender maid but must a victim fall
The morning dream that hover'd o'er her head; To one man's treat, but for another's ball?
A youth more glitt'ring than a birthnight beau, When Florio speaks, what virgin could withstand,
(That ev'n in slumber caus'd her cheek to glow) If gentle Damon did not squeeze her hand?
Seem'd to her ear his winning lips to lay, With varying vanities, from ev'ry part,
And thus in whispers said, or seem'd to say. They shift the moving toyshop of their heart;
"Fairest of mortals, thou distinguish'd care Where wigs with wigs, with sword-knots sword-knots strive,
Of thousand bright inhabitants of air! Beaux banish beaux, and coaches coaches drive.
If e'er one vision touch'd thy infant thought, This erring mortals levity may call,
Of all the nurse and all the priest have taught, Oh blind to truth! the Sylphs contrive it all.
Of airy elves by moonlight shadows seen, Of these am I, who thy protection claim,
The silver token, and the circled green, A watchful sprite, and Ariel is my name.
Or virgins visited by angel pow'rs, Late, as I rang'd the crystal wilds of air,
With golden crowns and wreaths of heav'nly flow'rs, In the clear mirror of thy ruling star
Hear and believe! thy own importance know, I saw, alas! some dread event impend,
Nor bound thy narrow views to things below. Ere to the main this morning sun descend,
Some secret truths from learned pride conceal'd, But Heav'n reveals not what, or how, or where:
To maids alone and children are reveal'd: Warn'd by the Sylph, oh pious maid, beware!
What tho' no credit doubting wits may give? This to disclose is all thy guardian can.
The fair and innocent shall still believe. Beware of all, but most beware of man!"
Know then, unnumber'd spirits round thee fly, He said; when Shock, who thought she slept too long,
The light militia of the lower sky; Leap'd up, and wak'd his mistress with his tongue.
These, though unseen, are ever on the wing, 'Twas then, Belinda, if report say true,
Hang o'er the box, and hover round the Ring. Thy eyes first open'd on a billet-doux;
Think what an equipage thou hast in air, Wounds, charms, and ardors were no sooner read,
And view with scorn two pages and a chair. But all the vision vanish'd from thy head.
As now your own, our beings were of old, And now, unveil'd, the toilet stands display'd,
And once inclos'd in woman's beauteous mould; Each silver vase in mystic order laid.
Thence, by a soft transition, we repair First, rob'd in white, the nymph intent adores
From earthly vehicles to these of air. With head uncover'd, the cosmetic pow'rs.
Think not, when woman's transient breath is fled, A heav'nly image in the glass appears,
That all her vanities at once are dead; To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears;
Succeeding vanities she still regards, Th' inferior priestess, at her altar's side,
And tho' she plays no more, o'erlooks the cards. Trembling, begins the sacred rites of pride.
Her joy in gilded chariots, when alive, Unnumber'd treasures ope at once, and here
And love of ombre, after death survive. The various off'rings of the world appear;
For when the fair in all their pride expire, From each she nicely culls with curious toil,
To their first elements their souls retire: And decks the goddess with the glitt'ring spoil.
The sprites of fiery termagants in flame This casket India's glowing gems unlocks,
Mount up, and take a Salamander's name. And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.
Soft yielding minds to water glide away, The tortoise here and elephant unite,
And sip with Nymphs, their elemental tea. Transform'd to combs, the speckled and the white.
The graver prude sinks downward to a Gnome, Here files of pins extend their shining rows,
In search of mischief still on earth to roam. Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux.
The light coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair, Now awful beauty puts on all its arms;
And sport and flutter in the fields of air. The fair each moment rises in her charms,
Know further yet; whoever fair and chaste Repairs her smiles, awakens ev'ry grace,
Rejects mankind, is by some sylph embrac'd: And calls forth all the wonders of her face;
For spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease Sees by degrees a purer blush arise,
Assume what sexes and what shapes they please. And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes.
What guards the purity of melting maids, The busy Sylphs surround their darling care;
In courtly balls, and midnight masquerades, These set the head, and those divide the hair,
Safe from the treach'rous friend, the daring spark, Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown;
The glance by day, the whisper in the dark, And Betty's prais'd for labours not her own.
Form & Structure
● Mock-epic / Heroi-comical poem
● Written in heroic couplets (rhymed iambic pentameter)
● Five cantos
Published
● First version (2 cantos): 1712
● Extended version (5 cantos): 1714
🧵 Plot in Brief
● Based on a real incident: Lord Petre cut a lock of hair from Arabella Fermor.
● Pope turned the trivial social event into a mock-epic satire.
● Belinda (heroine) gets her lock of hair cut by Baron.
● Supernatural beings (sylphs, gnomes, nymphs) are involved.
● The lock is lost but immortalized among the stars.
🎯 Themes
● Triviality of aristocratic society
● Satire on vanity, superficiality, and social rituals
● Gender roles and flirtation
● Parody of classical epic grandeur
🧚‍♀️Characters
● Belinda – Beautiful, proud, central figure
● Baron – The bold admirer who cuts the lock
● Ariel – Chief sylph guarding Belinda
● Clarissa – Offers scissors, delivers moral advice
● Shock – Belinda’s lapdog
✨ Supernatural Machinery
● Inspired by Rosicrucian philosophy
● Sylphs (air), gnomes (earth), nymphs (water), salamanders (fire)
● Sylphs = guardians of virgins (Ariel, Umbriel)
🧠 Literary Devices
● Mock-epic conventions: invocation, epic similes, supernatural elements, battles (e.g., card game)
● Irony & satire
● Heroic couplets
● Hyperbole & elevated diction for trivial matters
🧾 Famous Lines
● “What dire offense from amorous causes springs, / What mighty contests rise from trivial things” – Opening
couplet
● “The peer now spreads the glittering forfex wide…” – Baron's dramatic action
● “But since, alas! frail beauty must decay…” – Clarissa’s moral speech
📌 Purpose
● Reconciliation between two feuding families through gentle satire.
● Elevates a petty quarrel to epic status to mock social pretensions.
 Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, Can storied urn or animated bust Their name, their years, spelt by th'
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? unletter'd muse,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way, Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, The place of fame and elegy supply:
And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death? And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
sight, Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Hands, that the rod of empire might have This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning sway'd, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
flight, Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre. Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind?
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll; Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
The moping owl does to the moon complain Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage, Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Of such, as wand'ring near her secret bow'r, And froze the genial current of the soul. Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene, For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Dead
shade, Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen, Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring And waste its sweetness on the desert air. If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
heap, Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. breast Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
The little tyrant of his fields withstood; "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn, Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Brushing with hasty steps the dews away
The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, blood.
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, His listless length at noontide would he
Or busy housewife ply her evening care: To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, stretch,
No children run to lisp their sire's return, And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes, And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone "Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their growing virtues, but their crimes Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; confin'd; Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
How jocund did they drive their team afield! Forbade to wade through slaughter to a Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy throne, love.
stroke! And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,
"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, The struggling pangs of conscious truth to Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree;
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; hide, Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;
The short and simple annals of the poor. Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. "The next with dirges due in sad array
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, borne.
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour. Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; Approach and read (for thou canst read) the
The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Along the cool sequester'd vale of life lay,
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged
Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, thorn."
If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect,
Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
vault With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

THE EPITAPH
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth No farther seek his merits to disclose,
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown. Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, (There they alike in trembling hope repose)
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own. The bosom of his Father and his God.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,

Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,
He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.
 Form & Structure
● Elegy (meditative lyric on death & mortality)
● 32 quatrains (4-line stanzas)
● Written in iambic pentameter, ABAB rhyme scheme
● Style: Graveyard Poetry (pre-Romantic)
Published: 1751
🌄 Setting
● A quiet rural churchyard at dusk
● Speaker reflects on death, obscurity, and memory
🎯 Themes
● Death is universal – comes to rich and poor alike
● Obscurity vs Fame – the unknown dead had potential too
● Transience of life – glory and beauty fade
● Value of the humble life – celebrates rural virtues
● The poet’s own legacy – ends with a self-written epitaph
🧑‍🌾 Key Symbols & Images
● Curfew bell – end of the day = life’s end
● Ploughman – symbol of honest rural toil
● Headstones – memory and the passage of time
● “The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power…” – vanity of worldly achievements
🧠 Literary Devices
● Personification – e.g., “Ambition” and “Grandeur” as futile forces
● Alliteration – “moping owl does to the moon complain”
● Imagery – pastoral, funereal, reflective
● Elegiac tone – calm, melancholic, contemplative
🪙 Historical & Literary Context
● Marks the transition from Neoclassicism to Romanticism
● Focuses on emotion, nature, and the individual
● Influenced poets like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley
🧾 Purpose
● To commemorate the forgotten dead
● To reflect on life’s impermanence and the dignity of all humans
● To question how one ought to be remembered
 Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey by Wordsworth
Five years have past; five summers, with the If this Of eye, and ear,—both what they half
length Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft— create,
Of five long winters! and again I hear In darkness and amid the many shapes And what perceive; well pleased to
These waters, rolling from their mountain- Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir recognise
springs Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, In nature and the language of the sense
With a soft inland murmur.—Once again Have hung upon the beatings of my heart— The anchor of my purest thoughts, the
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, nurse,
That on a wild secluded scene impress O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the The guide, the guardian of my heart, and
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and woods, soul
connect How often has my spirit turned to thee! Of all my moral being.
The landscape with the quiet of the sky. And now, with gleams of half-extinguished Nor perchance,
The day is come when I again repose thought, If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view With many recognitions dim and faint, Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
These plots of cottage-ground, these And somewhat of a sad perplexity, For thou art with me here upon the banks
orchard-tufts, The picture of the mind revives again: Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, While here I stand, not only with the sense My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I
Are clad in one green hue, and lose Of present pleasure, but with pleasing catch
themselves thoughts The language of my former heart, and read
'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see That in this moment there is life and food My former pleasures in the shooting lights
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little For future years. And so I dare to hope, Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
lines Though changed, no doubt, from what I was May I behold in thee what I was once,
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral when first My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
farms, I came among these hills; when like a roe Knowing that Nature never did betray
Green to the very door; and wreaths of I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
smoke Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, Through all the years of this our life, to lead
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees! Wherever nature led: more like a man From joy to joy: for she can so inform
With some uncertain notice, as might seem Flying from something that he dreads, than The mind that is within us, so impress
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, one With quietness and beauty, and so feed
Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire Who sought the thing he loved. For nature With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
The Hermit sits alone. then Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days men,
These beauteous And their glad animal movements all gone Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
forms, by) The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Through a long absence, have not been to To me was all in all.—I cannot paint Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
me What then I was. The sounding cataract Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din The mountain, and the deep and gloomy Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, wood, And let the misty mountain-winds be free
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Their colours and their forms, were then to To blow against thee: and, in after years,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; me When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
And passing even into my purer mind An appetite; a feeling and a love, Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
With tranquil restoration:—feelings too That had no need of a remoter charm, Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, By thought supplied, nor any interest Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
As have no slight or trivial influence Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh!
On that best portion of a good man's life, past, then,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts And all its aching joys are now no more, If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Should be thy portion, with what healing
To them I may have owed another gift, Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts thoughts
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, Have followed; for such loss, I would Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
In which the burthen of the mystery, believe, And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance
In which the heavy and the weary weight Abundant recompense. For I have learned —
Of all this unintelligible world, To look on nature, not as in the hour If I should be where I no more can hear
Is lightened:—that serene and blessed Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes
mood, The still sad music of humanity, these gleams
In which the affections gently lead us on,— Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample Of past existence—wilt thou then forget
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame power That on the banks of this delightful stream
And even the motion of our human blood To chasten and subdue.—And I have felt We stood together; and that I, so long
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep A presence that disturbs me with the joy A worshipper of Nature, hither came
In body, and become a living soul: Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Unwearied in that service: rather say
While with an eye made quiet by the power Of something far more deeply interfused, With warmer love—oh! with far deeper zeal
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
We see into the life of things. And the round ocean and the living air, That after many wanderings, many years
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: Of absence, these steep woods and lofty
A motion and a spirit, that impels cliffs,
All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And this green pastoral landscape, were to
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I me
still More dear, both for themselves and for thy
A lover of the meadows and the woods sake!
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
 Form & Structure: Blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter), Lyrical meditation, Part of Lyrical Ballads (1798),
A conversation poem addressed to his sister Dorothy
Date of Composition: 13 July 1798, during a walking tour, Revisiting the Wye Valley after 5 years
🌄 Setting: Nature of the Wye Valley, near Tintern Abbey, South Wales
Peaceful, rural landscape
🎯 Major Themes
● Memory and time – how past visits live on in memory
● Nature as a moral guide – “the nurse, the guide, the guardian of my heart”
● Growth of perception – from physical pleasure to spiritual insight
● Healing power of nature
● Sibling bond – shared vision with Dorothy
🔁 Structure of Thought
1. Recollection of Nature’s Beauty
2. Effects of Nature on the Mind
3. Contrast: Past vs Present Perception
4. Hope for Dorothy’s spiritual nourishment through Nature
🧠 Literary Devices
Personification – Nature as a nurse/teacher Alliteration – “steep and lofty cliffs”
Enjambment – free-flowing, meditative tone Imagery – visual (cliffs, cottages, smoke), auditory (murmurs)
🌼 Philosophical Core: Nature provides solace, moral elevation, and spiritual connection, Moves from
sensory delight (youth) to reflective wisdom (maturity), Suggests a pantheistic
view
– Nature as divine presence
📜 Contextual Importance
● Represents Wordsworth’s Romantic ideals: emotion, memory, and nature
● Emphasizes subjective experience over rational analysis
● Often considered the manifesto of Romantic nature poetry

The World Is Too Much with Us by Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon, It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;— A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
Little we see in Nature that is ours; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
The winds that will be howling at all hours, Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
Form & Structure: Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet, 14 lines: octave (8) + sestet (6), Rhyme scheme: ABBAABBA |
CDCDCD, Written in iambic pentameter
Published: 1807, in Poems, in Two Volumes
🎯 Theme
● Critique of materialism and industrialization, Loss of connection with Nature
● Longing for a return to spiritual harmony with the natural world
🧠 Key Ideas
● Humans are “out of tune” with nature, We have “given our hearts away” to materialism
● Wordsworth expresses a wish to be a pagan, so he could believe in gods like Proteus and Triton, who
symbolize deeper ties with nature.
🌊 Symbols & Imagery
● Nature – sea, winds, flowers, moon (ignored by man)
● Mythology – Proteus (shape-shifter), Triton (sea god with a horn)
● Materialism – “getting and spending”
🧠 Tone & Mood: Critical, mournful, yet ends with a passionate yearning, Romantic protest against modern
detachment from Nature
🧾 Purpose: To awaken readers to the spiritual barrenness of materialistic life, Reaffirm the Romantic belief in
nature’s beauty, power, and emotional value
📌 Contextual Notes: A Romantic sonnet reacting to the Industrial Revolution, Emphasizes emotion,
individualism, and nature-worship, Rejects Enlightenment rationalism and urbanization

Ode to the West Wind by P. B. Shelley

I III
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
Each like a corpse within its grave, until So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
With living hues and odours plain and hill: The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear! And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear!

II IV
Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion, If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread The impulse of thy strength, only less free
On the blue surface of thine aëry surge, Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head I were as in my boyhood, and could be

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
Of the horizon to the zenith's height, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge Scarce seem'd a vision; I would ne'er have striven

Of the dying year, to which this closing night As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
Vaulted with all thy congregated might I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear! One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
● Ode written in terza rima (ABA BCB CDC...) V
● Written in iambic pentameter Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
● Written in 1819, published 1820 What if my leaves are falling like its own!
● Inspired during a walk in the Cascine woods, The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Florence Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
● Addressed to the West Wind – a powerful force Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
of change, destruction, and renewal My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
● Shelley pleads with the wind to revive his spirit
and spread his ideas Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
● Power of nature – wind as destroyer and Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth!
preserver And, by the incantation of this verse,
● Revolution & transformation
● Art and inspiration – poet’s longing to be an Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
instrument of change Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth
● Cycle of death and rebirth (autumn → spring)
● Personal despair and political hope The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Wind in the sky – scattering dead leaves and clouds Symbolism
Wind on the sea – awakening ocean and waves West Wind – power of nature, change, revolution
Wind on the vegetation – bringing storm and winter Leaves – old ideas or dying systems
Personal plea – poet’s loss of strength and desire for Lyre – the poet himself, passive but resonant
upliftment
Winter/Spring – decay and hope
Poet as lyre – wants to become the wind’s voice,
spreading his message
 ● Passionate, pleading, and prophetic Context
● Combines personal emotion with ● Shelley was a Radical Romantic – believed in liberty,
universal vision change, and poetic power
● Rich in apostrophe, personification, ● Written after personal struggles and political
alliteration, simile, and imagery disappointment
To a Skylark by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Like a Poet hidden What objects are the fountains
Bird thou never wert, In the light of thought, Of thy happy strain?
That from Heaven, or near it, Singing hymns unbidden, What fields, or waves, or mountains?
Pourest thy full heart Till the world is wrought What shapes of sky or plain?
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. To sympathy with hopes and fears it What love of thine own kind? what
Higher still and higher heeded not: ignorance of pain?
From the earth thou springest Like a high-born maiden With thy clear keen joyance
Like a cloud of fire; In a palace-tower, Languor cannot be:
The blue deep thou wingest, Soothing her love-laden Shadow of annoyance
And singing still dost soar, and soaring Soul in secret hour Never came near thee:
ever singest. With music sweet as love, which overflows Thou lovest: but ne'er knew love's sad
In the golden lightning her bower: satiety.
Of the sunken sun, Like a glow-worm golden Waking or asleep,
O'er which clouds are bright'ning, In a dell of dew, Thou of death must deem
Thou dost float and run; Scattering unbeholden Things more true and deep
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just Its aëreal hue Than we mortals dream,
begun. Among the flowers and grass, which Or how could thy notes flow in such a
The pale purple even screen it from the view: crystal stream?
Melts around thy flight; Like a rose embower'd We look before and after,
Like a star of Heaven, In its own green leaves, And pine for what is not:
In the broad day-light By warm winds deflower'd, Our sincerest laughter
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill Till the scent it gives With some pain is fraught;
delight, Makes faint with too much sweet those Our sweetest songs are those that tell of
Keen as are the arrows heavy-winged thieves: saddest thought.
Of that silver sphere, Sound of vernal showers Yet if we could scorn
Whose intense lamp narrows On the twinkling grass, Hate, and pride, and fear;
In the white dawn clear Rain-awaken'd flowers, If we were things born
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is All that ever was Not to shed a tear,
there. Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music I know not how thy joy we ever should
All the earth and air doth surpass. come near.
With thy voice is loud, Teach us, Sprite or Bird, Better than all measures
As, when night is bare, What sweet thoughts are thine: Of delightful sound,
From one lonely cloud I have never heard Better than all treasures
The moon rains out her beams, and Praise of love or wine That in books are found,
Heaven is overflow'd. That panted forth a flood of rapture so Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the
What thou art we know not; divine. ground!
What is most like thee? Chorus Hymeneal, Teach me half the gladness
From rainbow clouds there flow not Or triumphal chant, That thy brain must know,
Drops so bright to see Match'd with thine would be all Such harmonious madness
As from thy presence showers a rain of But an empty vaunt, From my lips would flow
melody. A thing wherein we feel there is some The world should listen then, as I am
hidden want. listening now.
Form & Structure: Lyric poem, 115 lines - 21 stanzas, each of 5 lines (quintains)
● Rhyme scheme: ABABB - Written in iambic metre (varied)
Written: June 1820, inspired by a skylark near Leghorn (Livorno), Italy
🐦 Subject: An address to a real skylark, seen not as a bird but as a spirit, symbol, and song. The poet compares the skylark’s
joy and purity to human sorrow and imperfection
🎯 Themes: Pure joy of Nature, Contrast: bird’s perfection vs human pain, Imagination, inspiration, and poetic creativity,
Desire for ideal expression, Nature as a teacher
🧠 Tone & Mood: Ecstatic, worshipful, then reflective. Moves from awe to self-awareness of human limitations
🌈 Symbolism & Imagery
● Skylark – symbol of divine inspiration, pure joy, freedom, and ideal art
● Compared to: [ Poet – hidden, creating beauty Maiden – singing in love Glow-worm – illuminating without being seen
Rose – spreading fragrance unknowingly]
🔧 Devices & Features
Apostrophe – direct address to the skylark Similes – 11 rich comparisons (e.g., "like a star", "like a glow-worm")
Alliteration, personification, imagery, metaphor Spontaneous lyricism typical of Shelley’s Romantic style
📜 Philosophical Core
● Human beings are weighed down by regret, fear, and imperfection
 ● The skylark sings with unmixed joy – a state humans long for but rarely attain
● Shelley wants to learn from the bird how to sing purely and joyfully
🧾 Purpose
● To elevate the skylark as a symbol of ideal poetic expression
● To highlight the limitation of human experience and desire for transcendence through art
Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; brede
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express And, happy melodist, unwearied, Of marble men and maidens
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: For ever piping songs for ever new; overwrought,
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape More happy love! more happy, happy love! With forest branches and the trodden
Of deities or mortals, or of both, For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, weed;
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? For ever panting, and for ever young; Thou, silent form, dost tease us
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? All breathing human passion far above, out of thought
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? cloy'd, When old age shall this
A burning forehead, and a parching generation waste,
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard tongue. Thou shalt remain, in midst
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; of other woe
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Who are these coming to the sacrifice? Than ours, a friend to man, to whom
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: To what green altar, O mysterious priest, thou say'st,
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? that is all
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, What little town by river or sea shore, Ye know on earth, and all
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve; Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, ye need to know."
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

Form & Structure

● Ode in 5 stanzas, each with 10 lines
● Iambic pentameter
● Rhyme scheme: ABABCDECDE (varied slightly per stanza)
Published: 1819 (written), published 1820 in Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems
🌄 Subject
● Poet addresses an ancient Grecian urn, admiring the frozen scenes of life on its surface
● Reflects on art, beauty, time, and permanence
🎯 Themes
● Art vs Life – art is eternal; life is fleeting
● Frozen time – beauty preserved forever, but without fulfillment
● Truth and beauty – interlinked ideals
● Desire and frustration – lovers forever chasing, never embracing
Scenes on the Urn
1. Lovers beneath trees – moment of desire frozen forever
2. Youth playing pipes – unheard music more perfect
3. Religious procession to sacrifice – town left empty forever
4. Overall effect – timeless perfection vs human incompleteness
🧠 Tone & Mood
● Reflective, awe-struck, philosophical, then ambiguous
● Oscillates between admiration and questioning
🔧 Literary Devices
● Apostrophe – direct address to the urn
● Imagery – pastoral, musical, romantic
● Paradox – static scenes filled with life
● Personification – urn as “bride,” “historian”
● Chiasmus – “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”
🧾 Purpose
● To explore the role of art as timeless truth
● To contrast eternal art with transient human experience
● Ends with a cryptic epigram inviting interpretation
📌 Context
● Part of Keats’s Great Odes (1819)
● Keats, facing illness and death, was obsessed with immortality through art
 ● Ode reflects Romantic ideals: imagination, beauty, and emotional truth

La Belle Dame sans Merci by John Keats

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, I made a garland for her head, And there she lullèd me asleep,
Alone and palely loitering? And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!
The sedge has withered from the lake, She looked at me as she did love, —
And no birds sing. And made sweet moan The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, I set her on my pacing steed,
So haggard and so woe-begone? And nothing else saw all day long, I saw pale kings and princes too,
The squirrel’s granary is full, For sidelong would she bend, and sing Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
And the harvest’s done. A faery’s song. They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
Thee hath in thrall!’
I see a lily on thy brow, She found me roots of relish sweet,
With anguish moist and fever-dew, And honey wild, and manna-dew, I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose And sure in language strange she said— With horrid warning gapèd wide,
Fast withereth too. ‘I love thee true’. And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.
I met a lady in the meads, She took me to her Elfin grot,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child, And there she wept and sighed full And this is why I sojourn here,
Her hair was long, her foot was light, sore, Alone and palely loitering,
And her eyes were wild. And there I shut her wild wild eyes Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
With kisses four. And no birds sing.

Form & Structure

● Ballad form
● 12 quatrains (4-line stanzas)
● Rhyme scheme: ABCB
● Iambic tetrameter (3rd line shorter) – creates a haunting, broken rhythm
Written: 1819; published 1820. Title in French: “The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy”. Inspired by medieval romance &
folklore
🎯 Themes
● Fatal attraction / Femme fatale
● Love, illusion, and betrayal
● Romantic idealism vs harsh reality
● Obsession, entrapment, decay
🌿 Plot Summary
● A knight is found alone, pale, and dying
● He tells of meeting a mysterious, fairy-like lady
● She enchants him with love, takes him to her “elfin grot”
● He dreams of pale kings, princes, and warriors — all victims of her
● He wakes up abandoned and cursed to wander forever
🧠 Tone & Mood
● Melancholic, eerie, haunted
● A sense of doom, loss, and mystery pervades
💫 Symbolism
● The lady – embodiment of seductive but destructive beauty
● The dream – foreshadows doom; vision of past victims
● The knight – symbol of fragile masculinity, vulnerability
● Nature – lifeless, symbolic of emotional emptiness
🔧 Devices
● Ballad conventions – dialogue, repetition, supernatural
● Alliteration – “full beautiful — a faery’s child”
● Sensory imagery – sight, sound, touch
● Ambiguity – Is the lady real? A spirit? A metaphor?
📌 Context
● Reflects Keats’s Romantic style: beauty, mystery, emotional depth
● Written after personal loss and growing awareness of mortality
● Draws on medievalism, folklore, and dream visions
🧾 Purpose
● To warn against idealized, obsessive love
● To portray emotional ruin caused by enchantment
● To explore the fine line between beauty and danger
Break, Break, Break” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
Form & Structure
● Short lyric poem
● 4 quatrains (16 lines total)
● Irregular meter, mostly iambic
● Rhyme scheme: ABCB / DEFE / GHGH / IJKJ
● Repetition of “Break, break, break” – mimics waves & grief
Written/Published
● Written: 1834, Published: 1842
● After the death of Arthur Henry Hallam, Tennyson’s close friend
🎯 Themes
● Grief and loss – mourning a dead friend
● Nature’s indifference – waves break on rocks, life goes on
● Longing for the past – deep sense of nostalgia
● Contrast between personal sorrow and public joy
🌊 Summary
● The speaker watches waves breaking on the shore
● He laments his inability to express his sorrow
● Contrasts his grief with happy children and busy fishermen
● Ends with a painful wish to see and touch his dead friend again
🧠 Tone & Mood
● Melancholic, mournful, quietly intense
● Emotionally restrained, yet deeply personal
💧 Imagery & Symbols
● Sea/waves – relentless, indifferent to human grief
● Stones – cold, lifeless permanence
● Children & ships – life and joy that continue despite sorrow
● Dead friend – symbol of irreplaceable personal loss
🔧 Poetic Devices
● Repetition – “Break, break, break” (both literal and emotional breaking)
● Alliteration – “cold gray stones”
● Contrast – speaker’s grief vs life’s continuity
● Enjambment & pauses – evoke choked-up emotion
📌 Context
● Hallam's death deeply influenced Tennyson’s work (esp. In Memoriam A.H.H.)
● This poem reflects early stages of mourning, before philosophical resolution
🧾 Purpose
● To express the speechlessness of grief
● To explore how nature and life ignore individual suffering
● A poetic elegy in miniature
Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king, This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags, To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
Unequal laws unto a savage race, This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those Of common duties, decent not to fail
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when In offices of tenderness, and pay
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Meet adoration to my household gods,
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
For always roaming with a hungry heart There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
Much have I seen and known; cities of men There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
And manners, climates, councils, governments, Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all; That ever with a frolic welcome took
And drunk delight of battle with my peers, The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
I am a part of all that I have met; Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
For ever and forever when I move. Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end, The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
Were all too little, and of one to me 'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Little remains: but every hour is saved Push off, and sitting well in order smite
From that eternal silence, something more, The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
A bringer of new things; and vile it were To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
For some three suns to store and hoard myself, Of all the western stars, until I die.
And this gray spirit yearning in desire It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
To follow knowledge like a sinking star, It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Form & Structure: Dramatic monologue written in Blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter)
● Single continuous speech by Ulysses (Odysseus)
Written/Published: Written: 1833, after the death of Hallam, Published: 1842
🎯 Themes: Restlessness & Wanderlust, Old age vs Unfinished ambition, Heroism, identity, and legacy,
Purpose in life – “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”
⚔️Speaker: Ulysses (Odysseus), the Greek hero, now old and returned to Ithaca, Feels discontent with
domestic life, Desires one last voyage of exploration before death
🧠 Tone & Mood: Reflective, determined, noble, and inspirational, Undercurrent of sadness and longing
💫 Symbolism
● Voyage – metaphor for life, learning, death
● Sinking star – unreachable goals, eternal pursuit
● Mariners – companions of shared glory
🔧 Devices
ᴥ Metaphor – life as journey ᴥ Allusion – classical references (Homer, Dante’s Inferno)
ᴥ Enjambment – flow of thought ᴥ Paradox – vitality in old age
📌 Context
● Inspired by Tennyson’s grief over Hallam
● Reflects Victorian values – duty, perseverance, heroic individualism
● Draws from Homer’s Odyssey and Dante’s Inferno (Ulysses in hell for reckless pursuit)
 🧾 Purpose
● A poetic exploration of identity, purpose, and mortality
● Asserts that even old age has meaning if one keeps striving
● Becomes an allegory of the poet’s own quest for meaning after loss
My Last Duchess by Robert Browning
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
Looking as if she were alive. I call My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
Worked busily a day, and there she stands. This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said In speech—which I have not—to make your will
“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this
Strangers like you that pictured countenance, Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance, Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let
But to myself they turned (since none puts by Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse—
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
How such a glance came there; so, not the first Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek; perhaps Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
Fra Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet
Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint The company below, then. I repeat,
Must never hope to reproduce the faint The Count your master’s known munificence
Half-flush that dies along her throat.” Such stuff Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
For calling up that spot of joy. She had Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad, At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast, Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace—all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men—good! but thanked
Form & Structure: Dramatic monologue written in Heroic couplets (rhymed iambic pentameter, AA BB...)
Published: 1842, in Dramatic Lyrics, Set in Renaissance Italy (Ferrara)
🧔 Speaker: Duke of Ferrara speaking to an envoy about his late wife’s portrait reveals his own arrogance and cruelty.
🎯 Themes
● Power and control
● Jealousy and pride
● Art as possession
● Objectification of women
● Appearance vs reality
🧠 Tone & Mood
● Polite and refined on the surface, but dark and chilling beneath
● Tension between elegance and menace
🎭 Characterization of the Duke
● Arrogant, possessive, cold, manipulative
● Obsessed with status, legacy, and obedience
● Treats art and people as objects
🔧 Devices
● Dramatic irony – Duke exposes himself without realizing it
● Enjambment – flowing speech masks disturbing thoughts
● Symbolism – portrait = power over memory; sea-horse = domination
● Irony – civil tone hides savage truths
📌 Context
● Victorian obsession with appearance, reputation, patriarchy
● Browning critiques tyranny, toxic masculinity, and elitist control
● Based loosely on historical figure: Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara
🧾 Purpose
 ● To expose the psychology of tyranny through subtle speech
● Demonstrates how power corrupts, even in art and love
● A masterclass in voice, irony, and control

Prospice by Robert Browning

Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat, I would hate that death bandaged my eyes and forbore,
The mist in my face, And bade me creep past.
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
I am nearing the place, The heroes of old,
The power of the night, the press of the storm, Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
The post of the foe; Of pain, darkness and cold.
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
Yet the strong man must go: The black minute's at end,
For the journey is done and the summit attained, And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
And the barriers fall, Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
The reward of it all. Then a light, then thy breast,
I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more, O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
The best and the last! And with God be the rest!

📅 Published: 1864, after the death of his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Form & Structure
● Single stanza, irregular line lengths
● Blank verse (mostly unrhymed iambic pentameter)
● Reflects emotional intensity and dramatic momentum
📌 Title Meaning
● Latin: "to look forward"
● The poem looks ahead to death with courage and hope
🧠 Themes
● Courage in facing death
● Spiritual reunion with a loved one
● Triumph over fear and mortality
● Afterlife and faith in eternity
🎯 Tone & Mood
● Defiant, bold, heroic
● Shifts to tender and hopeful in the final lines
● No fear, only resolve
🧍 Speaker’s Perspective
● A brave soul, likely Browning himself
● Faces death as a warrior would face battle
● Sees death not as an end, but a passage to reunion
🔍 Analysis
● Fog/mist = metaphor for death’s uncertainty
● Climbing a summit = life’s struggle and final victory
● Fighter imagery = bravery and resilience
● Reunion with “her” = Browning’s belief in afterlife with Elizabeth
Literary Devices
● Metaphor – death as battle, summit, mist
● Personification – death becomes a physical adversary
● Imagery – fog, struggle, battle evoke vivid intensity
● Alliteration – adds rhythmic strength to determination
📚 Context
● Written shortly after Elizabeth’s death
● Reflects Victorian ideals of heroic endurance and Christian faith
● Personal grief transformed into universal courage
🎓 Purpose
● To inspire courage in the face of mortality
● To affirm that love and spirit transcend death
● A poetic vow to meet death head-on and be reunited in eternity
 Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold
The sea is calm tonight. Sophocles long ago Ah, love, let us be true
The tide is full, the moon lies fair Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought To one another! for the world, which
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow seems
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Of human misery; we To lie before us like a land of dreams,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Find also in the sound a thought, So various, so beautiful, so new,
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Hearing it by this distant northern sea. Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Only, from the long line of spray The Sea of Faith Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s pain;
Listen! you hear the grating roar shore And we are here as on a darkling plain
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. Swept with confused alarms of struggle
At their return, up the high strand, But now I only hear and flight,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin, Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Where ignorant armies clash by night.
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring Retreating, to the breath
The eternal note of sadness in. Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Written: Around 1851 (during Arnold’s honeymoon). Published: 1867, in the collection New Poems.
Type: Dramatic monologue, lyric poem. Stanzas: 4 stanzas of unequal length.
Rhyme Scheme: No regular rhyme scheme (free verse). Meter: Iambic but irregular – varies throughout the poem.
Style: Combines personal reflection with philosophical tone.
Themes: Loss of Faith (Victorian Crisis of Faith)., Human Misery and Suffering., Appearance vs. Reality., Power of
Love as Solace., Decline of Religion ("Sea of Faith").
Tone: Calm and peaceful in the beginning, Shifts to melancholic and reflective, Ends - pessimistic and somber tone.
Sea: Represents constancy of nature and fading faith. "Sea of Faith": Symbolic of religion once strong, now retreating.
Light/Dark Imagery: Suggests hope fading into despair.
Memorial Verses by Matthew Arnold (W -1850, P -1852)
Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, He look'd on Europe's dying hour The hills were round us, and the breeze
Long since, saw Byron's struggle cease. Of fitful dream and feverish power; Went o'er the sun-lit fields again;
But one such death remain'd to come; His eye plunged down the weltering strife, Our foreheads felt the wind and rain.
The last poetic voice is dumb— The turmoil of expiring life— Our youth return'd; for there was shed
We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb. He said: The end is everywhere, On spirits that had long been dead,
Art still has truth, take refuge there! Spirits dried up and closely furl'd,
When Byron's eyes were shut in death, And he was happy, if to know The freshness of the early world.
We bow'd our head and held our breath. Causes of things, and far below
He taught us little; but our soul His feet to see the lurid flow Ah! since dark days still bring to light
Had felt him like the thunder's roll. Of terror, and insane distress, Man's prudence and man's fiery might,
With shivering heart the strife we saw And headlong fate, be happiness. Time may restore us in his course
Of passion with eternal law; And Wordsworth!—Ah, pale ghosts, rejoice! Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force;
And yet with reverential awe For never has such soothing voice But where will Europe's latter hour
We watch'd the fount of fiery life Been to your shadowy world convey'd, Again find Wordsworth's healing power?
Which served for that Titanic strife. Since erst, at morn, some wandering shade Others will teach us how to dare,
Heard the clear song of Orpheus come And against fear our breast to steel;
When Goethe's death was told, we said: Through Hades, and the mournful gloom. Others will strengthen us to bear—
Sunk, then, is Europe's sagest head. Wordsworth has gone from us—and ye, But who, ah! who, will make us feel?
Physician of the iron age, Ah, may ye feel his voice as we! The cloud of mortal destiny,
Goethe has done his pilgrimage. He too upon a wintry clime Others will front it fearlessly—
He took the suffering human race, Had fallen—on this iron time But who, like him, will put it by?
He read each wound, each weakness clear; Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears.
And struck his finger on the place, He found us when the age had bound Keep fresh the grass upon his grave,
And said: Thou ailest here, and here! Our souls in its benumbing round; O Rotha, with thy living wave!
He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears. Sing him thy best! for few or none
He laid us as we lay at birth Hears thy voice right, now he is gone.
On the cool flowery lap of earth,
Smiles broke from us and we had ease;
Occasion/Context: Written as a tribute after the death of William Wordsworth in April 1850, Also references two other poets:
Goethe and Byron, Reflects Arnold’s assessment of their contributions to poetry.
Type: Elegy / Memorial Poem, Stanzas: Continuous, no division into formal stanzas.
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB throughout (regular). Meter: Iambic tetrameter (mostly regular). Style: Formal and reflective tone.
Themes: Tribute to Great Poets: Compares Wordsworth, Goethe, and Byron, Role of the Poet: Focus on how poets address
the human soul’s needs. Loss and Mourning: Marks the end of an era with Wordsworth’s death.
Poetry as Spiritual Guidance: Wordsworth’s poetry offered healing to troubled minds.
Poet Contribution (According to Arnold)
Goethe Gave wisdom and understanding of life’s complexities.
Byron Represented passion, energy, and rebellion.
Wordsworth Offered moral and spiritual healing through simplicity and truth.
Tone: Reflective, Reverential, Mournful yet celebrating Wordsworth’s spiritual guidance.
 Symbolism: Nature: Represents purity and healing, linked to Wordsworth’s poetry. Spiritual Comfort: Wordsworth as a moral
teacher, soothing the soul.
Conclusion: Arnold regards Wordsworth as the poet who truly fulfilled the soul’s deepest needs, offering consolation and moral
guidance in contrast to Goethe's wisdom and Byron’s passion.
The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
The falcon cannot hear the falconer; A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The darkness drops again; but now I know
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; That twenty centuries of stony sleep
The best lack all conviction, while the worst Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
Are full of passionate intensity. And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Surely some revelation is at hand; Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
Written: 1919 Published: 1920, in the collection The Tower
Type: Symbolist and prophetic poem Stanzas: 2 stanzas Lines: 22 lines
Rhyme Scheme: No regular rhyme scheme (free verse) Meter: Roughly iambic pentameter, irregular
Style: Apocalyptic, visionary, symbolic
Context: Written after World War I, during political unrest and global instability. Influenced by Yeats’s belief in cyclical history
and his personal mystical philosophy (esp. in A Vision).
Themes: Chaos and Collapse of Civilization, Change of Eras / End of the Christian Age, Spiritual Confusion and
Moral Decay, Apocalypse and New Birth, Loss of Control and Order
Important Symbols:
 Falcon and Falconer: Loss of control between man and society/God and man.
 “The Centre cannot hold”: Collapse of tradition and stability.
 “Spiritus Mundi”: Collective soul or universal mind—source of visions.
 “Rough Beast”: New, inhuman force rising to dominate the next age.
Tone: Prophetic, Pessimistic, Foreboding, Visionary
Symbolism – Falcon, gyre, rough beast, Spiritus Mundi Imagery – Visual and terrifying (e.g., desert sphinx)
Allusion – Christian Second Coming, biblical images Irony – Monstrous "second coming" instead of redemptive
Sailing to Byzantium by W. B. Yeats
I III
That is no country for old men. The young O sages standing in God's holy fire
In one another's arms, birds in the trees, As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
—Those dying generations—at their song, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Consume my heart away; sick with desire
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. And fastened to a dying animal
Caught in that sensual music all neglect It knows not what it is; and gather me
Monuments of unageing intellect. Into the artifice of eternity.
II IV
An aged man is but a paltry thing, Once out of nature I shall never take
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless My bodily form from any natural thing,
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
For every tatter in its mortal dress, Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
Nor is there singing school but studying To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Monuments of its own magnificence; Or set upon a golden bough to sing
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To lords and ladies of Byzantium
To the holy city of Byzantium. Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
Written: 1926 Published: 1928, in the collection The Tower
Type: Philosophical and symbolic poem Stanzas: 4 stanzas Meter: Iambic pentameter
Lines per Stanza: 8 lines each (ottava rima) Rhyme Scheme: ABABABCC Style: Meditative, reflective, symbolic
Context: Written during Yeats’s later years, reflecting on old age and search for spiritual/artistic permanence.
Byzantium (modern-day Istanbul) symbolizes a timeless world of art and intellect.
Themes: Transience of Life and Youth, Old Age and Mortality, Quest for Immortality through Art, Contrast between
Physical and Spiritual Worlds, Art as Eternal and Unchanging
Important Symbols:
 Byzantium: Symbol of timeless art, spiritual purity, intellectual existence.
 Golden Bird: Eternal artifice, symbol of immortality through artistic creation.
 Tattered Coat upon a Stick: Physical decay and uselessness of old age.
 Sages in Byzantium: Spiritual and artistic mentors guiding to immortality.
 Tone: Reflective, Philosophical, Aspirational (longing for immortality)
Symbolism – Byzantium, golden bird, sages Metaphor – Aged man as “tattered coat upon a stick”
Imagery – Visual imagery of decay and eternal art Alliteration and Assonance
Conclusion: Byzantium as a metaphor for escaping mortal limitations and achieving immortality through art and intellect.
In Memory of W. B. Yeats by W. H. Auden
I II III
He disappeared in the dead of winter: You were silly like us; Earth, receive an honoured guest:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted, your gift survived it all: William Yeats is laid to rest.
And snow disfigured the public statues; The parish of rich women, Let the Irish vessel lie
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day. physical decay, Emptied of its poetry.
What instruments we have agree Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt
The day of his death was a dark cold day. you into poetry. In the nightmare of the dark
Far from his illness Now Ireland has her All the dogs of Europe bark,
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests, madness and her weather And the living nations wait,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays; still, Each sequestered in its hate;
By mourning tongues For poetry makes nothing
The death of the poet was kept from his poems. happen: it survives Intellectual disgrace
But for him it was his last afternoon as himself, In the valley of its making Stares from every human face,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours; where executives And the seas of pity lie
The provinces of his body revolted, Would never want to Locked and frozen in each eye.
The squares of his mind were empty, tamper, flows on south
Silence invaded the suburbs, From ranches of isolation
Follow, poet, follow right
The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers. and the busy griefs,
To the bottom of the night,
Now he is scattered among a hundred cities Raw towns that we
With your unconstraining voice
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections, believe and die in; it
Still persuade us to rejoice;
To find his happiness in another kind of wood survives,
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience. A way of happening, a
With the farming of a verse
The words of a dead man mouth.
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Are modified in the guts of the living.
Sing of human unsuccess
But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
In a rapture of distress;
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the
Bourse,
In the deserts of the heart
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly
Let the healing fountain start,
accustomed,
In the prison of his days
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his
Teach the free man how to praise.
freedom,
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly
unusual.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.

Written: January 1939, shortly after Yeats’s death Published: 1940, in the collection Another Time
Structure/Form:
 Type: Elegy / Modern Lyrical Tribute
 Meter and Rhyme Scheme: Varies across sections
Section I: Free verse
Section II: Regular 3-line stanzas (terza rima style)
Section III: Iambic tetrameter couplets
Context: Written as a modern elegy to mourn the death of W. B. Yeats (died 28 January 1939). Auden reflects on
Yeats’s poetry, influence, and the role of poets during times of crisis (notably just before World War II).
Themes:
 Death and Immortality of Art
 Power of Poetry
 Role of the Poet in Society
 Art vs. Political Turmoil
 Grief and Continuation
Tone: Elegiac, Reflective, Hopeful and inspirational (by the end)
Literary Devices:
 Elegiac Structure – Follows stages of mourning.
 Irony – “Poetry makes nothing happen” vs. poetry’s lasting power.
 Symbolism – “Healing fountain” = power of art to console.
 Allusion – Yeats’s life, Irish politics, world events.
  Personification – Poetry as a living force that survives the poet.
Conclusion:
 Though Yeats has died, his poetry transcends death and continues to live.
 Auden encourages future poets to persist with honesty and moral clarity despite chaos.
Crow Alights by Ted Hughes
Crow saw the herded mountains, steaming in the A playing place for the wind, in a waste of puddles.
morning. There was this coat, in the dark cupboard, in the silent
And he saw the sea room, in the silent house.
Dark-spined, with the whole earth in its coils. There was this face, smoking its cigarette between the
He saw the stars, fuming away into the black, mushrooms dusk window and the fire's embers.
of the nothing forest, clouding their spores, the virus of Near the face, this hand, motionless.
God. Near the hand, this cup.
And he shivered with the horror of Creation. Crow blinked.
In the hallucination of the horror He blinked.
He saw this shoe, with no sole, rain-sodden, Nothing faded.
Lying on a moor. He stared at the evidence.
And there was this garbage can, bottom rusted away, Nothing escaped him.
(Nothing could escape.)
Written: Late 1960s Published: 1970, in the collection Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow
Type: Allegorical, symbolic modern poem Stanzas: 6 stanzas Lines: Short, irregular lines
Rhyme Scheme: None (free verse) Style: Stark, minimalist, bleak imagery
Context:
 Part of the Crow sequence, representing dark, mythic, and existential themes.
 The Crow is a symbolic figure representing destructive forces, raw nature, or human cruelty.
 Hughes uses Crow to critique creation myths, religion, and human existence.
Themes: Fall of Man / Failed Creation, Violence and Brutality of Existence, Mockery of Religious Myths, Survival
Instinct over Moral Values, Absurdity and Darkness of Life
Important Symbols:
 Crow: Represents raw survival, darkness, anti-creation force.
 “Clumsiest dunker of Himself”: Suggests flawed creation or failure to evolve into perfection.
 Heaven/Hell References: Suggest rejection of religious morality.
Tone: Bleak, Darkly humorous, Satirical, Nihilistic
Literary Devices:
 Symbolism: Crow as mythic, anti-heroic figure.
 Irony: Life viewed as harsh and meaningless by Crow.
 Minimalist Imagery: Stark, abrupt descriptions of movements and world-view.
 Allusion: Biblical references inverted or mocked.
Conclusion: Crow Alights questions traditional religious beliefs and shows a world ruled by predatory survival
instincts. Hughes’s Crow is indifferent to human constructs like heaven or morality. Crow becomes a symbol of
existence stripped of illusion.
Wants by Philip Larkin
Beyond all this, the wish to be alone: Written: 1950s Published: 1974, in the
However the sky grows dark with invitation-cards collection Collected Poems
However we follow the printed directions of sex Type: Short reflective poem Stanzas: 2
However the family is photographed under the flag-staff - stanzas Lines: 12 lines in total
Beyond all this, the wish to be alone. Rhyme Scheme: None (free verse) Tone: Pessimistic,
philosophical
Beneath it all, the desire for oblivion runs:
Despite the artful tensions of the calendar,
The life insurance, the tabled fertility rites,
The costly aversion of the eyes from death -
Beneath it all, the desire for oblivion runs.
Themes: Inevitable Death: All human wants lead towards death. Futility of Desires: Human life driven by
superficial wants. Isolation and Emptiness: Desire for escape from society and obligations. Existential
Realization: Death as the ultimate fulfilment of all wants.
Tone: Bleak, Darkly reflective, Philosophical and resigned
Literary Devices:
Repetition: Use of “Wants” to emphasize human desire. Imagery: Societal life vs. solitary death.
Paradox: Wants leading to nothingness (death). Symbolism: Death as ultimate ‘want’ or destination.
Conclusion: In Wants, Larkin presents life as a process of desiring distractions while unconsciously longing for
death. The poem reflects Larkin's typical existential pessimism and minimalist style.

O Captain! My Captain! By Walt Whitman

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is Here Captain! dear father!
won, This arm beneath your head!
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, It is some dream that on the deck,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and You’ve fallen cold and dead.
daring;
But O heart! heart! heart! My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
O the bleeding drops of red, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
Where on the deck my Captain lies, The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and
Fallen cold and dead. done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills, But I with mournful tread,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores Walk the deck my Captain lies,
a-crowding, Fallen cold and dead.
Published: 1865 Genre: Elegy, Patriotic Poem
Form: Lyric poem with regular rhyme and meter (unusual for Whitman) Occasion: Death of Abraham Lincoln
Themes:
Loss and Mourning – Personal grief over Lincoln’s death. Patriotism and Leadership – Honors Lincoln as a national hero.
Victory and Sacrifice – Freedom won at the cost of a great leader’s life. Emotional Conflict – Joy of triumph vs pain of loss.
Symbols:
Captain – Abraham Lincoln. Ship – The United States. Voyage – The Civil War.
Port – Peace/restoration of the Union Fallen Captain – Lincoln's assassination.
Structure and Style: 3 stanzas, each with 8 lines.
Rhyme scheme: AABBCDED in each stanza.
 More traditional in form compared to Whitman's usual free verse.
 Repetition of “O Captain! My Captain!” shows emotional intensity.
Significance: One of Whitman's most famous and accessible poems. Captures the collective grief of a nation.
Blends personal sorrow with national history, turning Lincoln into a poetic legend.
Success is Counted Sweetest by Emily Dickinson
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host

Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of victory

As he defeated – dying –
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!
Written: Around 1859 Published: 1864, anonymously Type: Short lyric poem
Rhyme Scheme: ABCB Meter: Mainly iambic tri-meter and tetrameter Tone: Reflective, philosophical
Themes:
 Value of Success: True value of success is best understood by those who fail.
 Irony of Life: Victory is more appreciated by the defeated.
 Desire and Denial: Longing sharpens appreciation.
Important Symbols:
 Nectar: Represents success or victory.
 Dying Soldier: Symbol of unfulfilled desire who truly understands the worth of success.
 Victory Tune: Symbolizes triumph, but only the defeated comprehend its true meaning.
 Tone: Philosophical, Slightly ironic, Sympathetic towards the defeated
Literary Devices:
Paradox: Success understood best by the unsuccessful. Metaphor: Nectar as success.
Imagery: Dying soldier hearing victory sounds. Irony: Those who win value success less.
Conclusion: Dickinson’s poem delivers a universal message: only through longing and deprivation can one truly
appreciate success.
Birches by Robert Frost
When I see birches bend to left and right Until he took the stiffness out of them,
Across the lines of straighter darker trees, And not one but hung limp, not one was left
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them. For him to conquer. He learned all there was
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay To learn about not launching out too soon
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them And so not carrying the tree away
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
After a rain. They click upon themselves To the top branches, climbing carefully
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored With the same pains you use to fill a cup
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust— Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. And so I dream of going back to be.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed And life is too much like a pathless wood
So low for long, they never right themselves: Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
You may see their trunks arching in the woods Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair I’d like to get away from earth awhile
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. And then come back to it and begin over.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in May no fate willfully misunderstand me
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
I should prefer to have some boy bend them Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
As he went out and in to fetch the cows— I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
Whose only play was what he found himself, And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Summer or winter, and could play alone. Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
One by one he subdued his father’s trees But dipped its top and set me down again.
By riding them down over and over again That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
Written: Around 1913-1914 Published: 1916, in the collection Mountain Interval
Type: Narrative and reflective lyric Stanzas: Continuous (single long stanza divided into sections)
Lines: 59 lines Rhyme Scheme: Blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter)
Tone: Meditative, nostalgic, philosophical
Themes: Imagination vs. Reality, Innocence of Childhood, Escape from Harsh Reality, Connection with Nature,
Yearning for Simplicity and Peace
 Birches: Symbol of escapism, innocence, and connection to nature.
 Ice Storms: Harsh reality, destruction, life's difficulties.
 Swinging: Escape from reality, return to childhood freedom.
Imagery: Visual (ice-covered birches), kinesthetic (swinging). Alliteration and Assonance: Subtle use for musicality.
Symbolism: Birches as escapism and innocence. Contrast: Between imagination (boy swinging) and reality (ice).
 Metaphor: Life’s struggles vs. peaceful escape through nature.
Conclusion: Birches is both a celebration of childhood simplicity and a meditation on life’s burdens, showing Frost’s desire for
temporary retreat from reality through nature and imagination.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know. Published: 1923
His house is in the village though; Form: Lyric poem (narrative style)
He will not see me stopping here Structure: 4 stanzas, each with 4 lines (total 16
To watch his woods fill up with snow. lines)
My little horse must think it queer Rhyme Scheme: AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD
To stop without a farmhouse near (interlocking rhyme)
Between the woods and frozen lake 🌲 Major Themes:
The darkest evening of the year.  Beauty of nature
He gives his harness bells a shake  Peace vs. responsibility
To ask if there is some mistake.  Temptation of escape from worldly duties
The only other sound’s the sweep  Journey of life and death (philosophical
Of easy wind and downy flake. undertone)
 The woods are lovely, dark and deep, Written in iambic tetrameter
But I have promises to keep, Describes a winter evening scene in the woods
And miles to go before I sleep, The speaker is travelling on horseback
And miles to go before I sleep. Final stanza hints at duty, life, and death
Imagery: “Woods fill up with snow,” “frozen lake,” Personification: “My little horse must think it queer…”
Alliteration: “His harness bells,” “sound’s the sweep” Symbolism: Woods - mystery or death; the journey - life
Repetition: “And miles to go before I sleep.” – emphasizes duty, perhaps death Tone: Nostalgic, Reflective, Philosophical
Night of the Scorpion by Nissim Ezekiel
I remember the night my mother May he sit still, they said My father, sceptic, rationalist,
was stung by a scorpion. Ten hours May the sins of your previous birth trying every curse and blessing,
of steady rain had driven him be burned away tonight, they said. powder, mixture, herb and hybrid.
to crawl beneath a sack of rice. May your suffering decrease He even poured a little paraffin
the misfortunes of your next birth, they said. upon the bitten toe and put a match
Parting with his poison - flash May the sum of all evil to it.
of diabolic tail in the dark room - balanced in this unreal world I watched the flame feeding on my
he risked the rain again. mother.
against the sum of good I watched the holy man perform his
The peasants came like swarms of become diminished by your pain. rites to tame the poison with an
flies May the poison purify your flesh incantation.
and buzzed the name of God a After twenty hours
hundred times of desire, and your spirit of ambition, it lost its sting.
to paralyse the Evil One. they said, and they sat around
on the floor with my mother in the centre, My mother only said
With candles and with lanterns the peace of understanding on each face. Thank God the scorpion picked on
throwing giant scorpion shadows More candles, more lanterns, more me
on the mud-baked walls neighbours, And spared my children.
they searched for him: he was not more insects, and the endless rain.
found. My mother twisted through and through,
They clicked their tongues. groaning on a mat.
With every movement that the
scorpion made his poison moved in
Mother's blood, they said.
Published: 1965 Form: Narrative poem Style: Free verse (no rhyme scheme)
Lines: 47 lines Setting: A rural Indian village
🎯 Main Themes:
 Indian rural life and superstitions Contrast between superstition and science
 Mother’s selfless love Community reactions to pain and suffering
 Irony and realism
Imagery: “Ten hours of steady rain,” “giant scorpion,” Irony: Despite all efforts, the pain ends naturally
“buzzed the name of God”
Alliteration: “Parting with his poison,” “through and through” Symbolism: Scorpion = evil/suffering, mother = selfless love
Contrast: Superstitious villagers vs. rational father Enjambment: Lines flow into each other, mimicking chaos

Philosophy by Nissim Ezekiel

There is a place to which I often go, Published in: The Exact Name (1965)
Not by planning to, but by a flow Form: Lyric poem
Away from all existence, to a cold Structure: 3 stanzas of 6 lines each (total
Lucidity, whose will is uncontrolled. 18 lines)
Here, the mills of God are never slow.
Tone: Reflective and ironic
The landscape in its geological prime
Dissolves to show its quintessential slime. Style: Simple, conversational language with
A million stars are blotted out. I think philosophical depth
Of each historic passion as a blink 🧠 Theme:
That happened to the sad eye of Time. Limits of abstract thought: The poet questions
But residues of meaning still remain, the usefulness of philosophy in dealing with life’s
As darkest myths meander through the pain real experiences.
Towards a final formula of light.
I, too, reject this clarity of sight. Conflict between theory and reality:
What cannot be explained, do not explain. Intellectual theories can't explain the mysteries
The mundane language of the senses sings of emotions, love, or inner truths.
Its own interpretations. Common things
Become, by virtue of their commonness, Celebration of human experience: Poetry,
An argument against their nakedness imagination, and emotional understanding are
That dies of cold to find the truth it brings. shown to be superior to dry intellectualism.
Irony: Respects philosophy but points out its limitations Symbolism: “words” and “pages” symbolize philosophy;
“quiet peace” and “love” symbolize lived experience
Contrast: Between intellect (philosophy) and emotion (poetry) Alliteration: “philosophy and foolishness”
Free Verse: No regular rhyme or rhythm
 Ezekiel contrasts philosophy vs. personal truth
 Advocates for poetic intuition over abstract thinking
 Poem contains 18 lines in 3 stanzas
 Celebrates the value of love, silence, and imagination
An Introduction by Kamala Das
I don't know politics but I know the names Then … I wore a shirt and my
Of those in power, and can repeat them like Brother's trousers, cut my hair short and ignored
Days of week, or names of months, beginning with Nehru. My womanliness. Dress in sarees, be girl
I am Indian, very brown, born in Malabar, Be wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook,
I speak three languages, write in Be a quarreller with servants. Fit in. Oh,
Two, dream in one. Belong, cried the categorizers. Don't sit
Don't write in English, they said, English is On walls or peep in through our lace-draped windows.
Not your mother-tongue. Why not leave Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or, better
Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins, Still, be Madhavikutty. It is time to
Every one of you? Why not let me speak in Choose a name, a role. Don't play pretending games.
Any language I like? The language I speak, Don't play at schizophrenia or be a
Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernesses Nympho. Don't cry embarrassingly loud when
All mine, mine alone. Jilted in love … I met a man, loved him. Call
It is half English, half-Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest, Him not by any name, he is every man
It is as human as I am human, don't Who wants. a woman, just as I am every
You see? It voices my joys, my longings, my Woman who seeks love. In him... the hungry haste
Hopes, and it is useful to me as cawing Of rivers, in me... the oceans' tireless
Is to crows or roaring to the lions, it Waiting. Who are you, I ask each and everyone,
Is human speech, the speech of the mind that is The answer is, it is I. Anywhere and,
Here and not there, a mind that sees and hears and Everywhere, I see the one who calls himself I
Is aware. Not the deaf, blind speech In this world, he is tightly packed like the
Of trees in storm or of monsoon clouds or of rain or the Sword in its sheath. It is I who drink lonely
Incoherent mutterings of the blazing Drinks at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns,
Funeral pyre. I was child, and later they It is I who laugh, it is I who make love
Told me I grew, for I became tall, my limbs And then, feel shame, it is I who lie dying
Swelled and one or two places sprouted hair. With a rattle in my throat. I am sinner,
When I asked for love, not knowing what else to ask I am saint. I am the beloved and the
For, he drew a youth of sixteen into the Betrayed. I have no joys that are not yours, no
Bedroom and closed the door, He did not beat me Aches which are not yours. I too call myself I.
But my sad woman-body felt so beaten.
The weight of my breasts and womb crushed me.
I shrank Pitifully.

An Introduction – Kamala Das

Writing and Publishing Year: Written and published in 1965, in her debut poetry collection Summer in Calcutta.
✍️Form: The poem is a confessional lyric — a deeply personal, autobiographical poem written in free verse.
 The poem has no fixed rhyme scheme; it is written in free verse with irregular line lengths.
 This fragmented structure reflects the speaker’s inner turmoil, rebellion, and emotional flow.
💡 Theme:
 "An Introduction" explores female identity, individuality, and rebellion in a male-dominated society.
 It addresses gender roles, freedom of expression, and the struggle for selfhood.
 Kamala Das challenges patriarchal norms that restrict a woman’s language, sexuality, and freedom.
 The poem asserts a woman’s right to write, speak, love, and live on her own terms.

🎨 Literary Devices:
1. Enjambment: Thoughts flow into the next line without punctuation, conveying emotional outpouring and urgency.
2. Repetition: "I am Indian, very brown, born in Malabar..." emphasizes identity and self-declaration.
3. Allusion: Mentions political figures (Nehru, Krishna Menon) to question national identity and representation.
4. Irony: Ironic contrast between what society expects from women and what women feel.
5. Code-switching: Uses both English and Malayalam, asserting linguistic freedom and cultural duality.
6. Imagery: “The shirt and the pants, I cut my hair short” – visual imagery to challenge gender norms.
7. Symbolism: “Categorizers”, “I too call myself I” – symbols of identity assertion and defiance.
8. Anaphora: Repetitive “I” at the start of many lines asserts individual voice and autonomy.

Bold, confessional, rebellious, and assertive.

The poem’s tone shifts from personal to political, reflecting how the personal is political for women.
🧠 One-Liner: “An Introduction” by Kamala Das is a confessional free-verse poem asserting female identity,
individuality, and rebellion against patriarchal oppression.

Obituary by AK Ramanujan
Father, when he passed on, to pick gingerly who sell it in turn
left dust and throw as the priest to the small groceries
on a table of papers, said, facing east where I buy salt,
left debts and daughters, where three rivers met coriander,
a bedwetting grandson near the railway station; and jaggery
named by the toss no longstanding headstone in newspaper cones
of a coin after him, with his full name and two dates that I usually read

a house that leaned to holdin their parentheses for fun, and lately
slowly through our growing everything he didn't quite in the hope of finding
years on a bent coconut manage to do himself, these obituary lines.
tree in the yard. like his caesarian birth And he left us
Being the burning type, in a brahmin ghetto a changed mother
he burned properly and his death by heart- and more than
at the cremation failure in the fruit market. one annual ritual.

as before, easily But someone told me

and at both ends, he got two lines
left his eye coins in an inside column
in the ashes that didn't of a Madras newspaper
look one bit different, sold by the kilo
several spinal discs, rough, exactly four weeks later
some burned to coal, for sons to streethawkers

✍️About the Poet:

 Full name: Attipate Krishnaswami Ramanujan
 Indian poet, scholar, linguist, and translator
 Known for blending Indian culture with modern irony
 Focuses on themes of identity, family, memory, and tradition
📜 About the Poem:
 Poem Title: Obituary
 Lines: 45
 Form: Free verse
 Tone: Satirical, ironic, reflective
 Style: Colloquial, conversational language
🧠 Central Themes:
1. Death and Memory: The poet reflects on his father’s death with a mixture of detachment and irony.
2. Cultural Rituals: It critiques the traditional Indian rituals and customs associated with death.
3. Irony of Existence: The father leaves behind debts, a dusty table, unpaid bills—not wisdom or love.
4. Family and Emotional Distance: There's emotional detachment in the speaker’s relationship with his father.
5. Social Commentary: Highlights how society formalizes death through rituals and newspaper obituaries.
✒️Important Literary Devices:
 Irony: The title "Obituary" suggests honor, but the tone is critical and detached.
 Enjambment: Lines flow into each other, mimicking thought or memory.
 Satire: Indian death rituals and societal expectations are mocked.
 Imagery: Ashes swept off, table with dusty glasses, unpaid bills—all create a vivid picture of decay and
neglect.
 Allusion: References to traditional Hindu rituals like "pyre," "thirty days," "tenth or thirteenth day
ceremonies."
🧾 Exam Quick Facts:
 The poem critiques traditional Indian family and ritual practices.
 The tone is ironic, not emotional or sentimental.
 Free verse form adds to the conversational, reflective style.
 Themes include: death, family, cultural hypocrisy, and alienation.

A far cry from Africa by Derek Walcott

A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt Again brutish necessity wipes its hands
Of Africa. Kikuyu, quick as flies, Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again
Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt. A waste of our compassion, as with Spain,
Corpses are scattered through a paradise. The gorilla wrestles with the superman.
Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries: I who am poisoned with the blood of both,
"Waste no compassion on these separate dead!" Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
Statistics justify and scholars seize I who have cursed
The salients of colonial policy. The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
What is that to the white child hacked in bed? Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?
To savages, expendable as Jews? Betray them both, or give back what they give?
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break How can I turn from Africa and live?
In a white dust of ibises whose cries
Have wheeled since civilization's dawn
From the parched river or beast-teeming plain.
The violence of beast on beast is read
As natural law, but upright man
Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.
Delirious as these worried beasts, his wars
Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum,
While he calls courage still that native dread
Of the white peace contracted by the dead.
Nationality: Saint Lucian 🇱🇨 (Caribbean)
Genre: Postcolonial Poetry, Lyric Poem, Political Elegy
Publishing Year: 1962
🌍 Themes:
 Colonial Violence & Identity Conflict – The poem reflects Walcott’s torn identity as a man of both African
and European descent, observing the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya (1952–1960).
 Moral Ambiguity in History – Condemns violence on both sides—colonizers and rebels.
 Language and Legacy – Explores the paradox of writing in the language of oppressors while condemning
oppression.
 Belonging and Displacement – Highlights alienation from both African and European heritage.
🎭 Tone & Mood:
 Tone: Angry, conflicted, mournful, meditative
 Mood: Tense, reflective, sorrowful
Imagery & Symbols:
 Africa as a wounded landscape – Evokes bloodshed and natural beauty.
 The worm and corpse – Graphic image of violence and decay.
 Split self – The poet’s own mixed heritage becomes a battleground of loyalty.
 The lion, the colonizer, the warrior – Represent violent legacies of empire.
✍️Literary Devices:
 Oxymoron & Irony: “Savages, expendable as Jews” – startles by comparing colonial racial logic to Nazi
ideology.
 Juxtaposition: British “civilization” vs African “savagery” questioned and inverted.
 Symbolism:
o Africa – Ancestral homeland, culture, suffering.
o England – Language, power, and moral burden.
 Enjambment: Emphasizes confusion, emotional overflow.
  Alliteration/Assonance: Used to create rhythm and tension.
📜 Important Lines / Quotes:
1. “I who am poisoned with the blood of both, / Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?” – Central line expressing
personal and cultural conflict.
2. “How can I face such slaughter and be cool? / How can I turn from Africa and live?” – Ends with unresolved
anguish.
3. “The gorilla wrestles with the superman.” – Allegory of African brute strength vs European intellect, evoking
Nietzsche and racist imagery.
4. “The violence of beast on beast is read / As natural law.” – Critiques rationalizations of colonial brutality.

Leave this chanting by Rabindranath Tagore

Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads!
Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors
all shut?
Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!
He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground
and where the pathmaker is breaking stones.
He is with them in sun and in shower,
and his garment is covered with dust.
Put off thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil!
Deliverance?
Where is this deliverance to be found?
Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation;
he is bound with us all for ever.
Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense!
What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained?
Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.
✍️About the Poet:
 Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941)
 Nobel Laureate in Literature (1913)
 Poet, philosopher, reformer, and composer
 Known for blending spirituality with humanism

About the Poem:

 Included in Gitanjali (Song Offerings)
 Originally written in Bengali; translated into English by Tagore himself
 A devotional lyric in free verse
 Tone: Persuasive, spiritual, compassionate
 Theme: True worship lies in selfless work, not in rituals or isolation

🧠 Central Themes:
1. True Spirituality:
God is not found through rituals, prayers, or chanting in temples, but through honest labour and service
to humanity.
2. Condemnation of Hypocrisy:
Criticizes priests and ritualists who seek God in seclusion while ignoring the suffering of the world.
3. Dignity of Labour:
God is among the toiling masses, the poor, and the labourers who sweat in the sun and rain.
4. Universal Humanism:
Serving fellow humans is equal to serving God. Worship is not limited to religious practices but lies in acts of
compassion.
✒️Important Literary Devices:
 Apostrophe: The poem addresses the temple priest directly (“Leave this chanting and singing and telling of
beads”)
 Imagery: “God is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground,” evokes visual scenes of labour
 Symbolism:
o Temple and beads = ritualism
o Fields, labourers, sweat, dust = real-life spirituality
  Repetition: “Come out” – urges the seeker to leave rituals and embrace action
 Alliteration: “Chanting and singing and telling of beads”

🧾 Quick Exam Facts:

 Form: Free verse, devotional lyric
 Message: Work is worship; serve mankind to serve God
 Rejects: Superficial ritualism and temple-bound worship
 Promotes: Active engagement with the world, especially the poor and suffering

Twelfth Night By William Shakespeare

✍️Author: William Shakespeare
Written/Performed: c. 1601–1602, likely for the Twelfth Night festival (the evening of January 5th, celebrating
the end of Christmas season).

📚 Genre:
 Romantic Comedy
 Includes mistaken identity, cross-dressing, festive spirit, and love triangles

Setting: Illyria – a fictional, romantic, coastal land full of music, love, and laughter.

👥 Main Characters:
Character Description
Viola Shipwrecked heroine who disguises herself as Cesario
Sebastian Viola’s twin brother, presumed dead
Duke Orsino Lovesick nobleman in love with Olivia
Lady Olivia Noblewoman mourning her brother; later falls for Cesario (Viola)
Malvolio Olivia’s pompous steward, tricked by other characters
Sir Toby Belch Olivia’s drunkard uncle who loves mischief
Maria Olivia’s clever maid, plans Malvolio’s downfall
Sir Andrew Aguecheek A foolish knight who woos Olivia, encouraged by Toby
Feste The witty fool who comments wisely on the action
Antonio Sea captain who rescues Sebastian; devoted to him

📖 Summary of the Play:

Act I:
 Viola is shipwrecked, believes her twin Sebastian is dead.
 She disguises herself as Cesario and enters Duke Orsino’s service.
 Orsino sends Cesario to woo Olivia, but Olivia falls for Cesario.
Act II:
 Viola, as Cesario, starts falling in love with Orsino.
 Sebastian is alive and arrives in Illyria with Antonio.
 Maria, Sir Toby, and others plot against Malvolio, forging a love letter from Olivia.
Act III:
 Olivia continues to love Cesario (Viola).
 Cesario avoids fighting Sir Andrew.
 Sebastian is mistaken for Cesario and attacked by Sir Toby.
 Olivia meets Sebastian, thinks he is Cesario, and secretly marries him.
Act IV:
 More mistaken identities. Sebastian is confused by everyone’s attention and affection.
 Malvolio is locked in a dark room, treated as mad.
Act V:
 The twins are reunited; the confusion is cleared.
 Orsino proposes to Viola once she reveals her identity.
 Malvolio, angry at the prank, vows revenge.
 Festive marriages: Viola–Orsino, Sebastian–Olivia, Maria–Sir Toby.
💡 Major Themes:
1. Love and Desire:
 Love is irrational, passionate, and often unbalanced.
 Orsino loves Olivia → Olivia loves Cesario (Viola) → Viola loves Orsino.
 Different kinds of love: romantic, unrequited, loyal (Antonio), comic (Toby–Maria).
2. Gender and Identity:
 Viola’s disguise leads to confusion.
 Explores fluidity of gender and the complexity of attraction.
 Role reversal and disguise challenge social norms.
3. Foolery and Festivity:
 Feste’s wise foolishness contrasts with real fools (e.g., Sir Andrew).
 Subversion of order is allowed in festive settings like Twelfth Night.
4. Mistaken Identity:
 Key comic device; Sebastian and Viola’s likeness drives the plot.
 Leads to dramatic irony and humorous misunderstandings.
5. Revenge and Social Ambition:
 Malvolio’s pride and ambition make him a target.
 His punishment raises questions about cruelty and class.

💬 Important Quotes:
 “If music be the food of love, play on.” – Orsino (Act I, Scene I)
 “Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.” – Feste (Act I, Scene V)
 “Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness.” – Viola (Act II, Scene II)
 “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.” – Fake
letter to Malvolio (Act II, Scene V)
 “I am all the daughters of my father’s house, / And all the brothers too.” – Viola (Act II, Scene IV)

🧪 Literary Devices:
 Dramatic Irony: The audience knows Cesario is Viola; others don’t.
 Pun and Wordplay: Especially in the Fool’s dialogue.
 Symbolism: Disguise = identity confusion; yellow stockings = foolish ambition.
 Prose and Verse: Nobles speak in verse, comic characters in prose.
 Allusion: References to mythology and classical love stories.

🏁 Ending Significance:
 Viola’s identity is revealed; balance restored.
 All romantic confusions are resolved.
 Malvolio’s storyline adds a slightly dark note, contrasting the festive tone.
 The ending celebrates marriage, music, love, and reconciliation.

Why It Matters:
 One of Shakespeare’s most enduring comedies.
 Rich in language, wit, and cross-dressing confusion.
 Challenges Elizabethan gender roles and love norms.
 A celebration of love’s complexity and human folly.
 📘 The Merchant of Venice
✍️Author: William Shakespeare
Written around 1596–1599, during the Elizabethan era.
🎭 Genre:
 Romantic Comedy (with serious undertones)
 Elements of tragicomedy and courtroom drama

Setting:
 Venice – A commercial hub, legal centre, symbol of worldly wealth and order.
 Belmont – Portia’s estate; symbolizes love, music, harmony, and idealism.

👥 Main Characters:
 Antonio – A wealthy Venetian merchant, melancholic and generous, deeply loyal to Bassanio.
 Bassanio – Antonio’s friend, noble but financially careless; suitor to Portia.
 Portia – A wealthy, intelligent heiress from Belmont; disguises herself as a male lawyer to save Antonio.
 Shylock – A Jewish moneylender, bitter and vengeful due to discrimination; central antagonist.
 Jessica – Shylock’s daughter who elopes with Lorenzo.
 Lorenzo – A Christian, Jessica’s lover and friend of Bassanio.
 Gratiano, Nerissa, Salarino, Salanio – Supporting characters adding humour and moving subplots forward.
 Duke of Venice – Presides over the court.

📖 Plot Summary:
ACT I:
 Antonio is sad for reasons unknown.
 Bassanio wants to marry Portia but needs money.
 Antonio borrows 3,000 ducats from Shylock, who sets a bond: if unpaid, Antonio must give a pound of his
flesh.
ACT II:
 Portia’s suitors must choose between three caskets (gold, silver, lead).
 The Prince of Morocco and the Prince of Arragon fail.
 Jessica elopes with Lorenzo, stealing Shylock’s jewels and money.
ACT III:
 Bassanio chooses the lead casket and wins Portia.
 Antonio’s ships are lost at sea; he cannot repay Shylock.
 Shylock demands justice in court—refusing mercy.
ACT IV:
 Courtroom scene: Shylock insists on the bond.
 Portia, disguised as a young male lawyer, argues that Shylock may take flesh but not blood.
 Shylock is defeated, punished, and forced to convert to Christianity.
 Portia and Nerissa playfully trick their husbands into giving away rings they had sworn never to part with.
ACT V:
 Comic and romantic resolution in Belmont.
 All secrets revealed.
 Antonio learns his ships are safe.

🧠 Major Themes:
1. Justice vs. Mercy:
 Central tension: Shylock demands justice (the bond), Portia pleads for mercy.
  “The quality of mercy is not strained...” — Portia’s speech emphasizes that mercy is divine and freely given.
2. Prejudice and Intolerance:
 Anti-Semitism against Shylock reflects societal bigotry.
 Shylock’s hatred is partly a response to his mistreatment.
3. Appearance vs. Reality:
 The casket test shows that true worth lies beneath plain appearances.
 Portia's disguise explores gender roles and deception.
4. Wealth and Materialism:
 Characters are judged by how they handle money.
 Shylock is obsessed with wealth; Antonio is generous with it.
5. Friendship and Loyalty:
 Antonio’s deep bond with Bassanio is almost sacrificial.
 The ring episode tests romantic loyalty.

💬 Key Quotes:
 “Hath not a Jew eyes?” – Shylock (Act III, Scene I) – appeals for human equality.
 “The quality of mercy is not strained…” – Portia (Act IV, Scene I) – iconic speech on mercy.
 “All that glisters is not gold.” – Inscription on the gold casket.
 “I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions...?” – Shylock – Humanizes his pain and
suffering.
 “I never knew so young a body with so old a head.” – Duke about Portia disguised as a lawyer.

🧪 Literary Devices:
 Irony – Shylock, who demands justice, finds himself condemned by it.
 Symbolism – The caskets symbolize choices in life; the bond symbolizes harsh justice.
 Dramatic Irony – Audience knows Portia’s true identity during the courtroom scene.
 Disguise & Cross-Dressing – Common Shakespearean trope; Portia’s disguise gives her power.
 Pun and Wordplay – Especially by Gratiano and Portia.

🏁 Ending Significance:
 Justice is served, but with questionable mercy.
 Love is celebrated through Portia–Bassanio, Nerissa–Gratiano, and Jessica–Lorenzo.
 Antonio’s fortunes are restored.
 Shylock exits defeated — evoking mixed sympathy and judgment.

⚖️Critical Insights:
 Shylock is both villain and victim — making the play morally complex.
 Portia is a powerful female character who operates within a patriarchal society.
 The play reflects the tensions between Christians and Jews, law and equity, love and commerce.

🏆 Why It’s Important:

 Combines romance, wit, satire, and intense drama.
 Challenges the boundaries between comedy and tragedy.
 Offers timeless reflections on law, love, prejudice, and mercy.
 📘 Every Man in His Humour
✍️Author: Ben Jonson (1572–1637) – A major English dramatist and poet, contemporary of Shakespeare, known
for his satirical comedies and use of classical dramatic principles.
Published / First Performed: 1598 at the Curtain Theatre, London. Later revised in 1601 for publication.

🎭 Form & Genre:

 Comedy of Humours
 City Comedy
 Five-act play
 Written in prose and verse

⚙️Background & Concept of “Humours”:

 The title is based on the medieval physiological theory of the four humours (blood, phlegm, black bile,
yellow bile).

 Each humour was believed to influence a person’s temperament:

Humour Trait Dominant in...
Blood Sanguine – optimistic, sociable Edward Knowell, Wellbred
Phlegm Phlegmatic – calm, passive Brainworm (outwardly calm but cunning)
Yellow bile Choleric – irritable, aggressive Kitely, George Downright
Black bile Melancholic – gloomy, reserved Knowell Sr., Kitely (at times)

 Jonson uses this theory to show that people’s irrational behaviour comes from an excess of one of these
humours.

👥 Main Characters and Their Traits:

 Knowell (Old Knowell): A cautious father worried about his son’s morality.
 Edward Knowell: A young man, open to city pleasures but not morally lost.
 Brainworm: A servant and trickster who manipulates others for his amusement.
 George Downright: Honest and straightforward, detests affectation.
 Captain Bobadill: A boastful coward; ridiculed for his false claims.
 Wellbred: Edward’s friend, fashionable and mischievous, challenges social norms.
 Kitely: A merchant consumed by jealousy over his wife.
 Dame Kitely: Kitely’s loyal wife, falsely accused.
 Justice Clement: A fair but eccentric judge; moral centre of the play.

📖 Summary of the Play:

Act I:
 Knowell discovers a letter written by his son Edward, suggesting a life of indulgence.
 Decides to follow him to London, disguised, to protect him.
 Brainworm begins his manipulative games.
Act II–III:
 Wellbred plans to expose Bobadill’s pretentiousness.
 Kitely suspects his wife of having an affair with Wellbred or Knowell Jr.
 Brainworm disguises himself multiple times, spreading confusion.
Act IV:
 Misunderstandings peak.
  Bobadill is publicly disgraced.
 Kitely’s suspicions nearly ruin his marriage.
Act V:
 Justice Clement intervenes.
 Brainworm is caught but pardoned for his wit.
 Bobadill is exposed as a fraud.
 The young men are forgiven.
 Marriages are preserved.
 All characters return to their proper roles.

🔍 Major Themes:
1. Human Folly & Pretence:
o Characters blinded by one humour make fools of themselves.
o Bobadill’s false heroism, Kitely’s jealousy, etc.
2. City Life vs. Country Life:
o The lure of London as a place of temptation and corruption.
o Contrasted with the supposed honesty and plainness of rural characters.
3. Appearances vs. Reality:
o Disguises, deceptions, and mistaken identities show how easily truth is hidden.
4. Moral Correction:
o Justice Clement restores social and moral order.
o Those who are foolish are mocked but not cruelly punished.

💬 Important Quotes:
 "You are too wise, too wise; the time is not yet come that you should be so politic." – Wellbred (to
Knowell Sr.)
 "O manners! that this age should bring forth such creatures!" – George Downright
 "I will tell you what I would do, and what I will do." – Bobadill (typical of his boasting)

🧠 Literary Devices & Style:

 Satire: Mocks social types and moral failings.
 Characterization through humour: Every character is defined by a dominant trait.
 Irony: Especially dramatic irony where the audience knows more than the characters.
 Wit and Wordplay: Particularly in Brainworm’s scenes and court dialogues.
 Prose and Blank Verse: Prose used for lower-class or comic characters; verse for elevated moments.

🏁 Ending Significance:
The play concludes with poetic justice:
 Fools are unmasked, not destroyed.
 Characters learn (or are forced to accept) moderation, which is the remedy to humoural imbalance.
 Balance and harmony are restored, in line with classical comedic tradition.

🏆 Why This Play Matters:

 Introduced a new kind of realism in English comedy.
 Used London as a vibrant setting for social commentary.
 Helped shape the "comedy of manners" and "city comedy" traditions.
 Showcased Jonson’s classical influences, especially from Roman playwrights like Plautus and Terence.
 🎭 All for Love
✍️Author: John Dryden (1631–1700) – Leading poet, playwright, and literary critic of the Restoration period.

Written/Published: 1677
Dryden’s most famous tragedy; a reworking of Shakespeare’s Antony and
Cleopatra in a neoclassical style.

🧾 Genre:
 Heroic Tragedy
 Written in blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter)
 Subtitled: “The World Well Lost” (Love above all, even empire)

🌍 Setting:
Alexandria, Egypt – the last day in the lives of Mark Antony and Cleopatra.

⚔️Background:
Dryden simplifies Shakespeare’s vast Antony and Cleopatra by:
 Limiting the action to a single day and location (unity of time, place, action)
 Focusing on the emotional conflict: love vs. duty

👥 Main Characters:
Character Description
Mark Antony Roman general torn between his love for Cleopatra and his duty to Rome.
Cleopatra Queen of Egypt; passionate, possessive, fears losing Antony.
Ventidius Antony’s loyal Roman general; urges him to abandon Cleopatra.
Octavia Antony’s Roman wife; noble and dignified, offers reconciliation.
Dolabella Friend to Antony; secretly in love with Cleopatra.
Alexas Cleopatra’s cunning eunuch and advisor.
Serapion Egyptian priest who prophesies disaster.

📖 Summary of the Play (Five Acts):

Act I:
 Ventidius returns to urge Antony to abandon Cleopatra and return to Rome.
 Antony laments his lost honour and reputation.
 Cleopatra sends messages to regain his affection.
Act II:
 Ventidius offers Antony military support if he renounces Cleopatra.
 Cleopatra meets Antony, seduces him emotionally, and wins him back.
 Dolabella is sent away due to jealousy.
Act III:
 Octavia arrives with Antony’s children to reclaim him for Rome.
 Cleopatra reacts with jealousy and despair.
 Antony is torn but leans towards duty and Octavia.
Act IV:
 Cleopatra pretends to kill herself to test Antony's love.
 Believing her dead, Antony attempts suicide but only wounds himself.
  Cleopatra rushes in alive; they reunite.
Act V:
 Antony dies in Cleopatra’s arms.
 Cleopatra, learning Caesar (Octavius) intends to parade her in Rome, commits suicide using a poisonous
asp.
 Dolabella mourns them, calling their love tragic and eternal.

💡 Major Themes:
1. Love vs. Duty:
 Antony sacrifices duty, honour, and empire “all for love”.
 Conflict between Roman stoicism and Egyptian passion.
2. Tragic Heroism:
 Antony is noble but flawed – his downfall is caused by excess of love and indecision.
 Cleopatra is both seductive and loyal in her tragic end.
3. Honour and Reputation:
 Ventidius represents Roman honour.
 Antony’s inner turmoil is between his love and the expectations of a Roman hero.
4. Power and Politics:
 Octavius (off-stage) represents cold political power.
 Cleopatra’s court contrasts with Roman rigidity.
5. Fate and Prophecy:
 Serapion’s predictions cast a shadow of doom.
 The tragic outcome seems destined.

💬 Important Quotes:
 “All for love; and the world well lost.” – Antony (Theme encapsulated)
 “Kingdoms are clay; our dungy earth alike / Feeds beast as man.” – Antony
 “Nay, now another soul will not be lost / But I’ll be partner in the matchless crime.” – Cleopatra
 “You have conquered, and I yield.” – Antony to Cleopatra

🧪 Literary Features & Style:

 Neoclassical unities: Time, place, action observed strictly.
 Blank verse: Elevates the dignity and seriousness of the tragedy.
 Concentration on emotion: Less on politics, more on internal conflict.
 Heroic diction: Elevated, serious tone throughout.
 Simplification of plot: Makes the emotional journey clearer than in Shakespeare’s version.

🏁 Ending Significance:
 Antony and Cleopatra die, but their love triumphs over politics.
 Dryden presents their deaths not as defeat but as romantic transcendence.
 Their mutual suicides symbolize honour, love, and escape from Caesar’s control.

⚖️Comparison with Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra:

Dryden Shakespeare
Unity of time/place Expansive, spread across continents
Moral clarity: love vs. duty Ambiguity and psychological depth
Blank verse, formal Rich poetic variety
Idealised Cleopatra More complex, manipulative
Focus on emotional tragedy Focus on political and personal drama

🏆 Why All for Love is Important:

 Dryden’s greatest tragedy, reflects Restoration values of order and restraint.
 Humanises classical heroes, making them emotionally relatable.
 Explores universal conflicts between passion and responsibility.
 An excellent example of Restoration neoclassical tragedy.
 🎭 Arms and the Man
✍️Author: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Irish playwright known for his witty satire and social criticism.

Written / First Performed:

 Written: 1894
 First Performed: 21 April 1894 at the Avenue Theatre, London

📚 Genre:
 Romantic Comedy
 Satirical Drama / Anti-Romantic Comedy
 Problem Play – critiques conventional ideas about war and heroism

Setting:
 Time: November 1885, during the Serbo-Bulgarian War
 Place: Petkoff household in Bulgaria

👥 Main Characters:
Character Description
Raina Petkoff A romantic and idealistic young Bulgarian woman
Captain Bluntschli A practical and realistic Swiss mercenary fighting for the Serbs
Major Sergius Saranoff Raina’s fiancé; a dashing but foolish Bulgarian officer
Catherine Petkoff Raina’s mother, proud of her family’s “status”
Major Paul Petkoff Raina’s father, a comic military man
Louka A clever and ambitious maid in the Petkoff household
Nicola The older, obedient male servant, engaged to Louka (at first)

📖 Summary of the Play:

Act I:
 Raina dreams of heroic love and war.
 A soldier (Bluntschli) climbs into her bedroom to escape the enemy.
 He’s hungry and carries chocolates instead of bullets—shocking her romantic ideals.
 Raina hides him from Bulgarian soldiers, beginning her shift from fantasy to reality.
Act II:
 Peace is declared.
 Sergius returns as a “war hero” but behaves foolishly.
 Bluntschli visits the Petkoff house and surprises Raina.
 Louka flirts with Sergius and challenges class boundaries.
 Shaw contrasts romantic illusion with blunt truth through character interactions.
Act III:
 Bluntschli’s competence contrasts with the comic incompetence of the officers.
 Raina begins to fall for Bluntschli’s realism and maturity.
 Louka reveals Sergius’s hypocrisy.
 In the end:
o Raina chooses Bluntschli, abandoning romantic illusions.
o Sergius pairs with Louka, defying class expectations.
o Nicola steps aside gracefully.
o Catherine is forced to accept the new social order.
💡 Major Themes:
1. Reality vs. Illusion:
 War is not glorious; it is dirty and chaotic.
 Raina learns that love and bravery are not like in books.
2. Satire of War and Heroism:
 Sergius is mocked for his foolish cavalry charge.
 Bluntschli’s chocolates represent common sense over blind heroism.
3. Class and Social Ambition:
 Louka, a maid, challenges social boundaries by aspiring to marry an officer.
 Nicola adapts to his social role, but Louka rebels.
4. Love and Marriage:
 Raina matures from romantic fantasy to choosing a man she truly respects.
 True love is based on mutual respect, not status or fantasy.
5. Pragmatism vs. Idealism:
 Bluntschli (realist) vs. Sergius (idealist).
 Shaw favours reason, realism, and change over blind tradition.

💬 Important Quotes:
 “You want to be better than your father and mother. You want to raise yourself above your station.” –
Nicola to Louka (on social ambition)
 “What use are cartridges in battle? I always carry chocolate instead.” – Bluntschli (mocking romantic
war notions)
 “I am a Swiss, fighting merely as a professional soldier.” – Bluntschli (showing pragmatism)
 “My hero! My chocolate cream soldier!” – Raina (symbol of her changing ideals)
 “The world is not such an innocent place as we used to think.” – Raina (realising truth)

🧪 Literary Devices and Style:

 Satire and Irony – Mocking war, class, and romantic love
 Symbolism – Chocolates represent realism and practicality
 Wit and Dialogue – Sharp, clever exchanges drive character development
 Inversion of Roles – Bluntschli is unheroic but admirable; Sergius is brave but foolish
 Stage Directions – Shaw uses long, descriptive directions for comic effect and clarity

🏁 Ending Significance:
 Raina and Bluntschli unite: reasoned love replaces blind romance
 Louka and Sergius pair: class barriers are questioned
 War and heroism are exposed as absurd and outdated ideas
 True heroism lies in honesty, practicality, and kindness

🏆 Why Arms and the Man is Important:

 A brilliant anti-romantic comedy that exposes the myths of war and love
 One of Shaw’s earliest and most accessible plays
 Challenges traditional Victorian notions of class, gender, and heroism
 Advocates for a more realistic, rational worldview
 ⚖️Justice
✍️Author: John Galsworthy (1867–1933) – British novelist and playwright, awarded the Nobel Prize in
Literature in 1932. He was a committed social reformer and used drama to challenge unjust
institutions.

📅 Written/First Performed:
 Written: 1910
 First Performed: 1910 at the Duke of York’s Theatre, London
 Commissioned by the Independent Theatre Society (a progressive group)

📚 Genre:
 Problem Play / Social Realism
 Five-act drama
 Focuses on law, justice, crime, and institutional cruelty

🧾 Setting:
 Edwardian England, early 20th century
 Locations include a solicitor’s office, a courtroom, a prison cell, and an infirmary

👥 Main Characters:
Character Description
William Falder A young, sensitive clerk who forges a cheque to help a woman escape her abusive husband
Ruth Honeywill A working-class woman in distress; in love with Falder
Mr. James How Falder’s employer, a solicitor who reports the forgery
Walter How Mr. James How’s younger brother, more sympathetic and liberal
Harold Cleaver The prosecuting counsel
Cuthbertson The judge who delivers the sentence
Prison Governor Represents the rigid prison system
Crones A fellow prisoner who helps Falder later on
The Warders Prison staff, indifferent and strict

📖 Summary of the Play:

Act I: The Solicitor’s Office
 Falder alters a cheque to steal £90 to help Ruth Honeywill escape her abusive husband.
 The crime is discovered. Falder is arrested.
Act II: The Courtroom
 Falder’s trial is held.
 His motive was not greed, but desperation and love.
 Despite pleas for leniency, he is sentenced to three years in prison.
Act III: The Prison
 Falder undergoes emotional and physical suffering.
 The prison system is shown as cold, impersonal, and dehumanising.
 His mental state deteriorates.
Act IV: The Prison Infirmary
 Falder is released early but broken in spirit.
 Ruth meets him, hoping for a fresh start.
Act V: Back in the Office / Street
 Falder tries to reintegrate but is rejected by society.
  Police arrive due to a parole breach (minor mistake).
 Driven to despair, Falder commits suicide.

💡 Major Themes:
1. Justice vs. Law:
 Galsworthy exposes the gap between legal justice and moral justice.
 The law punishes intent, not just crime.
2. Injustice of the Penal System:
 The prison is shown as rigid, cruel, and destructive.
 Falder is reformed not by prison, but by love and desperation.
3. Compassion vs. Authority:
 Characters like Walter How and Ruth represent human empathy.
 Legal figures (judge, warders) symbolize cold authority.
4. Society and Reformation:
 Society fails to forgive or rehabilitate convicts.
 Falder’s suicide reflects systemic failure.
5. Mental Health and Desperation:
 Falder’s fragile mental state deteriorates.
 Galsworthy presents a psychological study of suffering.

💬 Important Quotes:
 “It’s the law, not justice, that we’re administering.” – Walter How
(Highlights the core conflict)
 “He had no business to feel like that.” – Judge Cuthbertson
(Shows the system’s indifference to human emotion)
 “I did it for her—for her!” – Falder
(Justification for his crime; driven by love, not greed)
 “We’re not allowed to think here.” – Warder
(Comment on the mechanical cruelty of the prison system)

🧪 Literary Devices & Style:

 Realism: Accurate portrayal of legal and prison procedures.
 Symbolism: Falder = common man; prison = social machinery.
 Irony: Law intends to reform but ends up destroying.
 Dramatic Tension: Built through the trial, imprisonment, and final tragedy.
 Stage Directions: Detailed to show emotion, physical settings, and silent suffering.

🏁 Ending Significance:
 Falder’s suicide is a tragic indictment of the justice system.
 His death is not just a personal tragedy but a social failure.
 The final message is a call for reform—legal systems must serve humanity, not just rules.

🏆 Why Justice is Important:

 Influenced British prison reforms after its release.
 A classic example of drama as social critique.
 Brings out the human cost of legal rigidity.
 A powerful blend of art and activism.
 🦍 The Hairy Ape
✍️Author: Eugene O’Neill (1888–1953)
 American playwright, Nobel Prize in Literature (1936)
 Known for serious, experimental plays
 The Hairy Ape (1922) is one of his earliest and most powerful expressionist dramas

📅 Written/First Performed:
 Written in 1921, First performed in 1922 at the Provincetown Playhouse, New York

📚 Genre:
 Expressionist Drama, Tragedy
 Mixes realism and symbolism
 Deals with alienation, industrialization, identity crisis

🧾 Setting:
 Aboard a transatlantic ocean liner and later in various urban locations like 5th Avenue, Manhattan

👤 Main Characters:
Character Description
Yank (Robert Central character – a strong stoker in a ship’s furnace room; proud of his physical power but
Smith) struggles with identity and rejection
Mildred Douglas Upper-class daughter of a steel tycoon; her reaction to Yank causes his emotional downfall
Paddy An old Irish stoker, nostalgic for the past when men were free
Long A fireman and socialist who criticizes the capitalist system
Secretary Of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), dismissive of Yank’s anger
Gorilla Symbolic creature Yank encounters in the zoo at the end

📖 Summary of the Play:

Scene 1–2: Furnace Room
 Yank is proud of his physical strength and sees himself as the force that moves the ship (and the world).
 Paddy and Long talk about the past and inequality.
Scene 3: Mildred’s Visit
 Mildred visits the stokehole in a white dress for adventure.
 She is horrified by Yank’s appearance and calls him a “filthy beast.”
 Yank is shaken—his sense of power and identity collapses.
Scene 4–5: Crisis
 Yank struggles to understand why Mildred insulted him.
 He feels lost, angry, and wants revenge on the upper class.
 He tries to attack the wealthy on Fifth Avenue but is mocked and arrested.
Scene 6–7: Jail & IWW Office
 In jail, Yank rants about class and power.
 At the IWW office, he is dismissed and ridiculed. He doesn’t fit into any system—neither capitalist nor radical.
Final Scene: The Zoo
 Yank visits the zoo and speaks to a gorilla, believing it might understand him.
 He opens the cage, but the gorilla kills him.
 The play ends with Yank’s death—physically strong, but crushed by society.

💡 Major Themes:
1. Alienation and Identity Crisis
 Yank’s pride in physical strength is shattered by society’s rejection.
  He doesn’t “belong” anywhere—class, place, or movement.
2. Class Struggle
 Stark contrast between the working class (stokers) and upper class (Mildred).
 The capitalist world sees laborers as inhuman.
3. Industrial Dehumanization
 Stokers work like machines; men are reduced to cogs.
 Yank is literally and metaphorically trapped in a furnace.
4. Existentialism
 Yank questions who he is and where he belongs.
 The gorilla represents a primal state—Yank regresses to it in the end.
5. Masculinity and Power
 Yank’s concept of masculinity is tied to brute force.
 His strength becomes useless in a world that values wealth and appearance.

💬 Important Quotes:
 “Sure, I’m part of de engines! Why the hell not!”
(Yank’s pride in being a working man)
 “She looked at me like I was some kind of a hairy ape.”
(Moment of identity crisis)
 “Where do I belong?”
(Core question of Yank’s existential crisis)
 “He’s up against the world—and he don’t know how to get out.”
(Paddy on Yank’s tragic entrapment)
 “Christ, where do I get off at? Where do I fit in?”
(Yank’s complete breakdown)

🧪 Style & Techniques:

 Expressionism:
Visual exaggeration, distorted settings, and intense language to show Yank’s inner turmoil.
 Symbolism:
o The Furnace Room = industrial hell
o Mildred’s white dress = class purity / judgment
o The Gorilla = primal identity / misunderstood self
 Monologues:
Reveal Yank’s psychological collapse and philosophical doubts.
 Irony:
Yank thinks he powers the world, but society sees him as less than human.

🏁 Ending & Message:

 Yank dies at the hands of a gorilla—misunderstood and rejected by all.
 The ending is a tragic allegory of modern man:
o Crushed by machinery
o Rejected by society
o Unable to return to nature
Moral: In an industrial capitalist world, power without purpose, identity, or belonging leads to spiritual destruction.

📌 Why It Matters:
 The Hairy Ape is a foundational text in modern drama.
 It speaks to the modern crisis of identity, relevant even today.
 Combines psychology, class critique, and theatrical innovation.
 🎭 All My Sons
✍️Author: Arthur Miller (1915–2005)
 Prominent American dramatist
 Known for exploring moral dilemmas, family conflicts, and societal hypocrisy
 All My Sons (1947) was his first major success

📅 Written / First Performed:

 Written in 1946, First performed in 1947
 Inspired by a true story of wartime corruption

📚 Genre:
 Realist Drama, Domestic Tragedy
 Mix of personal and social themes
 Critiques the American Dream

🏡 Setting:
 Backyard of the Keller family home, post-World War II America

👨‍👩‍👦 Main Characters:

Character Description
Factory owner; shipped defective airplane parts during WWII, causing 21 pilot
Joe Keller
deaths; tries to justify it for family
Kate Keller Joe’s wife; refuses to believe their missing son Larry is dead
Chris Keller Joe and Kate’s surviving son; idealistic, wants to marry Larry’s fiancée Ann
Ann Deever Larry’s former fiancée; daughter of Joe’s ex-partner Steve; wants to marry Chris
George Deever Ann’s brother; believes Joe is guilty and seeks justice
Steve Deever Joe’s former partner; jailed for the faulty parts incident
Neighbors (Frank, Lydia,
Support characters who reflect community values and tensions
Jim, Sue)

📖 Summary of the Plot:

Act I:
 Chris invites Ann to visit and plans to propose.
 Kate hopes Larry (missing for 3 years) is alive.
 Neighbors mention Joe was accused but exonerated in a war scandal—Steve took the blame.
 Tension arises when it's revealed George is coming to confront Joe.
Act II:
 George confirms Steve only followed Joe’s orders.
 Chris confronts Joe; Joe justifies it by saying he did it “for the family.”
 Chris is disillusioned, realizing his father is guilty.
Act III:
 Joe admits his guilt but still insists it was out of love for his family.
 Ann gives Kate a letter from Larry, saying he would kill himself if his father was guilty.
 Realizing the truth and overwhelmed by guilt, Joe Keller shoots himself.

💡 Major Themes:
1. Responsibility vs. Self-Interest
 Joe claims his duty is to family, not society.
 Miller suggests social responsibility is as important as familial duty.
2. The American Dream
 Joe believes success justifies any means.
 The play criticizes materialism and blind ambition.
3. Guilt and Denial
 Joe tries to bury the truth.
 Kate denies Larry’s death.
 Chris is caught between love and moral integrity.
4. War and Moral Consequences
 War profiteering and its human cost (21 dead pilots).
 Personal choices in war have lasting effects.
5. Family and Truth
 Family bonds are tested by truth and betrayal.
 Love alone cannot erase guilt.

💬 Important Quotes:
 “I’m his father and he’s my son, and if there’s something bigger than that I’ll put a bullet in my head.”
– Joe
 “You can be better! Once and for all you can know there’s a universe of people outside and you’re
responsible to it!” – Chris
 “Larry didn’t kill himself to make you and Dad sadder.” – Ann
 “They were all my sons.” – Joe (final realization that all soldiers were like his sons)

🎭 Structure and Style:

 Three-act structure – builds steadily from calm to confrontation and tragedy
 Realist setting – typical American home; dialogue-driven
 Flashbacks & Letter – used for emotional reveal (Larry’s suicide letter)

🏁 Ending & Moral:

 Joe’s suicide is a tragic admission of guilt
 Chris is left to carry the moral burden
 Miller's message: Personal survival is meaningless without ethical responsibility to society.

🧠 Why It Matters:
 Powerful critique of post-war American values
 Highlights conflict between idealism and practicality
 Questions how far we go for family—and at what cost?
 🎭 Hayavadana
✍️Author: Girish Karnad (1938–2019)
 Renowned Indian playwright, actor, and director
 Known for blending mythology, history, and modern themes
 Hayavadana (1971) is one of his most celebrated works
 Originally written in Kannada, later translated into English

📅 Written/First Performed:
 Written in 1970, first performed in 1971
 Inspired by a story from the Kathasaritsagara and Thomas Mann’s novel The Transposed Heads

📚 Genre:
 Modern Indian Drama
 Folk-Theatre Style (Yakshagana)
 Absurdist Elements, Mythical Allegory

Setting:
 An unspecified ancient Indian kingdom
 Uses minimal props and a traditional stage resembling folk performance styles

🎭 Dramatis Personae / Characters:

Character Description
Devadatta A learned Brahmin, poet, and thinker; physically weak but intellectually gifted
Kapila A wrestler and blacksmith; strong, loyal, and earthy; represents physical prowess
Padmini Wife of Devadatta; intelligent, curious, attracted to both intellect and strength
Hayavadana A man with a horse’s head seeking completeness; represents fragmented identity
Bhagavata Narrator and chorus figure; helps carry the folk style of the play
Child Son of Padmini and Devadatta
Ganesha The play begins and ends with an invocation to Lord Ganesha, remover of obstacles

📖 Plot Summary:
Prologue:
 The Bhagavata introduces the play with a traditional prayer to Lord Ganesha.
 Enters Hayavadana, a man with a horse’s head, seeking to become fully human.
Main Story:
 Devadatta and Kapila are best friends.
 Devadatta falls in love with Padmini and marries her, with Kapila helping.
 Over time, Padmini is attracted to Kapila’s masculinity, creating emotional tension.
 On a trip, Devadatta and Kapila quarrel. Both commit suicide in a temple out of guilt and conflict.
 Padmini, with Goddess Kali’s help, revives them—but accidentally switches their heads.
 Now Devadatta has Kapila’s body, and Kapila has Devadatta’s head.
 A conflict arises: Who is Padmini's real husband—the one with the original head (intellect) or the original
body (desire)?
Climax:
 A debate over identity and completeness ensues.
 Eventually, Kapila goes into the forest; Devadatta becomes more like Kapila physically.
 Padmini is torn between the two. Tragedy strikes again as both men die in a duel.
Conclusion:
 Padmini enters sati, leaving her child to the Bhagavata.
 Hayavadana, meanwhile, becomes completely a horse after seeking to become human.
  But now the horse sings like a man, indicating incomplete transformation.
 The child laughs, showing hope and continuity.

💡 Major Themes:
1. Identity and Incompleteness
 Hayavadana symbolizes fragmented self—neither fully man nor fully horse.
 The main plot explores mind-body dualism: Is the head (intellect) or body (emotion) the seat of identity?
2. The Search for Perfection
 All characters seek completeness: Hayavadana seeks a human body; Padmini desires a perfect man;
Devadatta and Kapila seek ideal love or self-image.
3. Fate vs. Free Will
 The characters are bound by destiny and divine will (intervention of Kali, Ganesha).
 Yet their choices drive the tragedy.
4. Duality of Human Nature
 Each character embodies conflicting traits:
o Devadatta (mind vs jealousy)
o Kapila (body vs sensitivity)
o Padmini (wife vs woman, love vs lust)
5. Myth and Modernity
 Karnad uses ancient myths to address modern issues of identity, gender roles, and self-definition.

🧩 Symbolism:
 Hayavadana: Human quest for wholeness; absurdity of perfection
 Switched Heads: Mind-body conflict, who we are vs what we appear
 Padmini: Embodiment of female desire, unfulfilled longing
 Laughing Child: Hope, continuity, future free from confusion

🎤 Style and Structure:

 Mixes folk theatre techniques (Yakshagana) with Western existential drama
 Use of chorus, songs, breaking the fourth wall
 Non-linear, episodic, rich in symbolism and meta-theatre

💬 Important Quotes:
 “Where lies identity? In the head or the body?” – Central question
 “Perfection is a myth. Wholeness is an illusion.” – Underlying message
 “You cannot have a man with the intelligence of one and the strength of another.” – Bhagavata on
human limits

🏁 Ending & Significance:

 The play ends with Hayavadana’s final transformation and the child's laughter, symbolizing acceptance of
incompleteness.
 Karnad leaves us with the thought that identity is fluid, and human beings are always searching for
fulfillment in a fragmented world.

🧠 Why It Matters:
 Hayavadana is a landmark play in Indian drama for fusing myth, folk forms, and psychological realism.
 It raises deep philosophical questions in a highly theatrical, engaging form.
 Continues to be relevant in discussions on gender, body politics, identity, and postcolonial hybridity.