Questions tagged [poetry]
This tag should be used on questions about poetry in general or about any specific poem. Please use this tag with the appropriate author tag, and, if applicable, the language tag (such as [french-literature].
285
questions
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25 views
What is the relevance of Tennyson's 'Coming of Arthur' and 'Passing of Arthur' to Modern Life? [duplicate]
Alfred Tennyson's 'The Coming of Arthur' and 'The Passing of Arthur' are two of the most important idylls in Tennyson's Idylls of the King but how are the past and present represented in these two ...
-2
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0answers
80 views
What is the relevance of Tennyson's 'Coming of Arthur' and 'Passing of Arthur' to Modern Life
Alfred Tennyson's 'The Coming of Arthur' and 'The Passing of Arthur' are two of the most important idylls in Tennyson's Idylls of the King but how are the past and present represented in these two ...
5
votes
1answer
28 views
Meaning of “every dewdrop paints a bow” from In Memoriam, Section CXXII by Alfred lord Tennyson
And every dewdrop paints a bow
A line by Alfred Lord Tennyson, from section CXXII of his poem In Memoriam. What is the poet actually trying to convey with this line?
The verse in context:
And all ...
4
votes
1answer
43 views
Why the capitalization of “Heavens” in Rudyard Kipling's “The Secret of the Machines”?
In Rudyard Kipling's poem The Secret of the Machines the last stanza goes as follows:
Though our smoke may hide the Heavens from your eyes,
It will vanish and the stars will shine again,
...
4
votes
1answer
41 views
What is the text Ivan refers to in the preface to the Grand Inquisitor
Before declaming the Grand Inquisitor in the Brothers Karamazov, Ivan refers to a poem with the virgin Marie visiting Hell and begging God for mercy for its inhabitants.
Is this a real poem? If so, ...
4
votes
0answers
35 views
Is there some cultural significance in the “chhanna” or metal bowl?
The Punjabi poem "Chhanna, the Metal Bowl" is about a "flat-bottom metal bowl" which is apparently some kind of family heirloom, "filled with memories". What's so special about a metal bowl? Is it ...
2
votes
0answers
62 views
Source of “Immortalised in Prose, A God Among the Pages”
I'm pretty sure this comes from an English poem, referring a woman's beauty. The author suggests that roses fade and wither, and that by describing her in written word keeps her alive forever.
That ...
2
votes
1answer
60 views
Why “all should cry, Beware! Beware!” in Coleridge's “Kubla Khan”?
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's incomplete poem "Kubla Khan" ends with a vision of a poet in an ecstatic state with "flashing eyes" and "floating hair". He is beyond the realm of mere mortals for he has ...
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0answers
28 views
Who is Pound's Hugh Selwyn Mauberley?
Who is Pound's Hugh Selwyn Mauberley?
I get that he's a failure, but not if the modernist Pound thought that Mauberley was "wrong from the start". Should he, Mauberley or people like him, not have ...
2
votes
1answer
68 views
Who is “Luna” in Byron's “To Mary, On Receiving Her Picture”?
Here are the fourth and fifth stanzas of "To Mary, On Receiving Her Picture" by Lord Byron:
Here, I behold its beauteous hue;
But where's the beam so sweetly straying,
Which gave a lustre ...
4
votes
3answers
131 views
Looking for poem in which sleep is as great an equalizer as death
There was a poem on the 2015 AP English Literature and Composition exam multiple choice section that I only barely remember. The topic was along the lines of "sleep is as great an equalizer as death" ...
3
votes
1answer
74 views
What is the metre of this poem by Emily Bronte?
I really like the following poem by E. Bronte:
High waving heather 'neath stormy blasts bending,
Midnight and moonlight and bright shining stars,
Darkness and glory rejoicingly blending,
...
5
votes
0answers
46 views
What do you call a break in rhyming in the middle of a book / poem for dramatic effect
Here's what I'm trying to say.
I'm creating a children's book for a school project. I've been tasked to identify some literary devices used throughout the book.
There is a section of the book which ...
4
votes
1answer
72 views
Poem with A's and T's representing Ford model A's and T's in traffic
I'm looking for an English poem, in fact I think it was at least two poems, that consisted of capital A's, representing the Ford Model A, moving as if in traffic, and another that had both A's and T's....
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0answers
17 views
Thomas McElwain as Ali Haydar?
On this website of translated Turkish poetry, a traditional hymn of sacrifice from a Turkish Alevi village is included in its English translation, with a note at the top signed "Ali Haydar", although ...
6
votes
2answers
514 views
What did Alexander Pope mean by “Expletives their feeble Aid do join”?
Alexander Pope's 'An Essay on Criticism', lines 337–349:
But most by Numbers judge a Poet's Song,
And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong;
In the bright Muse tho' thousand Charms ...
2
votes
0answers
59 views
What is the difference between emotions and feelings in Eliot's essay Tradition and the Individual Talent?
In his most famous essay, "Traditional and the Individual Talent", T. S. Eliot appears to make a distinction between emotions and feelings. Read especially the following passage (emphasis mine):
...
3
votes
1answer
161 views
What did Gray mean by “where ignorance is bliss,'tis folly to be wise”?
Here's the last stanza of Thomas Gray's 1742 poem, 'Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College':
To each his suff'rings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan,
The tender for another's ...
4
votes
0answers
22 views
Is there a name for poems where each verse is a time period?
I'm having a hard time finding examples of this, but I found one by a man named Darryl Davis, called Almanac of a man, that goes like this:
When I was five,
I was supreme ruler
of a boundless ...
3
votes
2answers
117 views
What does it mean to peer from a dewball?
In Ted Hughes' "Crow and the Birds", the lines before the ending read:
While the bullfinch plumped in the apple bud
And the goldfinch bulbed in the sun
And the wryneck crooked in the ...
2
votes
1answer
207 views
What does Browning's cloistered soliloquist mean by ‘Hy, Zy, Hine’?
Here’s the last stanza of Robert Browning’s ‘Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister’, first published in Dramatic Lyrics (1842):
Or, there’s Satan!—one might venture
Pledge one’s soul to him, yet ...
3
votes
1answer
140 views
E E Cummings: [may i feel said he] What may parentheses signify?
In the poem [may i feel said he] by e.e. cummings, it is suggested to be a dialogue between a male and a female. My interpretation (an obvious one) is the dialogue spans for a period of time, and ...
4
votes
1answer
243 views
Confused about the meter and rhythm of Ulysses by Tennyson
Ulysses is written in iambic pentameter. There are a few spondees and trochees thrown in for good measure, but I'm confused in some places, like here:
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life ...
5
votes
0answers
86 views
Who wrote the poem that begins, “The Yeti, experts will attest . . .”
The Yeti, experts will attest, is physically unkempt at best.
And due to this may go for weeks, alone amidst the snowy steeps.
(Goes on to tell how he is looking for his "yet unmet counterpart".)
2
votes
0answers
38 views
Poem Identification from a stanza(?) containing “the midnight train” repeatedly
And in the midnight train
A cold wind blows through the rain
A child laughs an adults cry
Leads to pain and sacrifice
Toward the tracks of the unknown
The icy river icy cold flows
Trapped ...
2
votes
1answer
209 views
What is the meaning of the poem “Praxis” by Wendy Xu?
This poem caught my eye a few days ago. I was strangely unable to find a single analysis piece, however.
What is the meaning of Praxis by Wendy Xu?
3
votes
1answer
211 views
In “Passing by” by Robert Herrick, how does Cupid “range her country” and change the narrator's heart?
I'm looking for an explanation of the first two lines of the third verse (see below) of the poem "Passing by" by Robert Herrick.
I assume that "Cupid is winged" means that Cupid has wings, but what ...
3
votes
4answers
785 views
Who is the falcon, and who the falconer?
In Yeats' greatest of poems, he writes that "the falcon cannot hear the falconer."
Who is the falcon and who is the falconer?
Why might Yeats have chosen this metaphor?
The Second Coming
...
3
votes
1answer
328 views
Who inspired Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem “Mother and Poet”?
"Mother and Poet" is an emotional and moving poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning about a woman poet who loses both her sons in battles in Italy. The emotions seem so raw that one might assume it ...
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0answers
59 views
Significance of the name Annabel Lee?
"Annabel Lee" is one of many pieces of writing by Edgar Allan Poe which explore the theme of a beloved woman who died young. As with other such works, most famously "The Raven", critics have ...
4
votes
1answer
91 views
Paradise Lost pagan gods
In Paradise Lost, Milton depicts the Greek and Egyptian "gods" as among the fallen angels. It does not seem to matter whether the individual god had an evil or good character in its original myths. As ...
3
votes
1answer
127 views
In what literature does Rumi say “You are the Soul of the Soul of the Universe. And your name is Love?”
In what literature does Rumi say, "You are the Soul of the Soul of the Universe. And your name is Love?"
Any slight modification of the verse, e.g. "The soul of the soul of the universe is love" can ...
2
votes
0answers
85 views
What is the metrical style of Hungarian poetry?
While reading about Hungarian poetry, I came across the claim that:
pure syllabic/quantitative metre is very rare = Hungarian, Greco-Roman ‘időmértékes’ metre
I don't know what "pure syllabic/...
6
votes
2answers
199 views
What does “toby” mean, in London slang of Orwell's time?
In the George Orwell poem "A Dressed Man and a Naked Man", two men are haggling for the clothes of one of them (the other is naked). After a little research into the pounds/shillings/pence system for ...
4
votes
1answer
46 views
Calvert curricular poem
Many moons ago, I used the Calvert curriculum for something like 3rd-8th grade. I remember reading a poem about two brothers who had very different philosophies about how to accomplish their goals; ...
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0answers
84 views
Meaning in Margaret Atwood's “My mother dwindles”
The second stanza of Margaret Atwood's "My mother dwindles", in which there is a boat metaphor, has gotten me a bit confused as I analyze this poem.
If she were a boat, you’d say
the moon shines ...
8
votes
0answers
170 views
Why did iambic pentameter become so 'standard' in classical English poetry?
Iambic pentameter is probably the most prevailing and widely used meter in classical English poetry, and it's the 'standard' form of verse in many forms of poetry such as sonnets. From Wikipedia (...
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vote
1answer
54 views
What is the meaning of Georgian
I found this book titled, "The Book of Georgian Verse", by William Braithwaite. What is the meaning of Georgian? Search engine results provided nothing of use. Here is a link to the e-book on Google ...
1
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1answer
316 views
Opening lines of Gwendolyn Brooks' poem “Riot”
Please explain the following opening lines of Gwendolyn Brooks's poem "Riot":
John Cabot, out of Wilma, once a Wycliffe,
all whitebluerose below his golden hair,
wrapped richly in right linen ...
1
vote
1answer
93 views
Significance of rising/falling meter
If I am analyzing a poem and I realize that it has rising meter, what does that say about the poem. Like do happy tone poems have rising meters whereas sad poems have falling meter?
5
votes
1answer
79 views
Why did Avicenna write his medical textbook in verse?
Avicenna (980-1037) was a Persian writer and scientist who is regarded as one of the founders of modern medicine. I found it interesting to discover that his textbook on medicine was written in the ...
1
vote
2answers
217 views
The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm by Wallace Stevens quote interpretation
I'll give the whole poem for context, but I'm having trouble making complete sense of a line in the poem.
What exactly does Stevens mean by the phrase "wanted much most to be / The scholar to whom ...
7
votes
1answer
121 views
Poem about bedtime story for witch's child
I read this poem in the 5th or 6th grade or so, so that'd be 2012-2014 (somewhere in there). It was out of some packet copied out of a book for this language arts extension thing (I remember the book ...
2
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0answers
42 views
What does Lorca mean by ‘the oppressed reds’ and ‘garnet violence’ in his poem ‘The King of Harlem’?
I've already asked one question on this poem and I did think to include this question along with it but decided against it as the poem is quite long, though of course not as long as some ancient epics ...
7
votes
1answer
185 views
What did Lorca mean by ‘crocodiles’ in his poem ‘The King of Harlem’?
The poet Federico García Lorca, when he was studying at Colombia University visited Harlem with a friend of his, Nella Larsen, a black novelist. It made a tremendous impression upon him and its ...
3
votes
0answers
58 views
Help finding poem about a red tide coming in which mentions “memory”
I'm trying to find a poem. I thought it was a Mary Oliver poem, but I can't find it when searching the few words I know along with her name.
The poem talks about a red tide coming in. There is a part ...
2
votes
1answer
133 views
What is the effect of using “silver” to describe the “horn” in “Madman's Song” by Elinor Wylie?
Here is the poem "Madman's Song" by Elinor Wylie (from The Prose and Poetry of Elinor Wylie , by William Rose Benét):
Better to see your cheek grown hollow,
Better to see your temple
worn,
...
3
votes
2answers
151 views
What do these lines mean in Tennyson's poem “Northern Farmer - Old Style”?
What does
But summun ’ull come ater meä mayhap wi’ ’is kittle o’ steam
Huzzin’ an’ maäzin’ the blessed feälds wi’ the Divil’s oaän teäm.
mean in modern English?
2
votes
1answer
46 views
Symbolism in “The Jewel of the Secret Treasury”?
The poem "The Jewel of the Secret Treasury" by the famous Persian poet Hafez reads very much like a love poem, but I'm failing to pick up on the precise details of the metaphor:
The jewel of the ...
2
votes
1answer
68 views
Writing/Poetry technique - Requiring reader to have prior knowledge
In the poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams, for the reader to infer the context of the poem - why so much depends on the red wheelbarrow, the reader has to know that William Carlos ...
