British Poetry

The Metaphysical Poets lived and wrote in time of great upheaval and change. As poets they lived through some of the most momentous events in England's history

Nov 20, 2009 - Steven Pink

Britain's landscape poets have done more to preserve its countryside than any environmental or ecological conservancy has.

Nov 15, 2009 - Duncan McGibbon

Rochester's "Allusion to Horace" and "Imperfect Enjoyment" exemplify the harsh, honest language and explicitly sexual imagery that have earned him both notoriety and fame

Nov 14, 2009 - Angela Zito

Laurence Binyon was a figure of the literary establishment . He wrote the Ode to Remembrance with no experience of warfare and no idea of how great the toll was to be.

Nov 14, 2009 - Duncan McGibbon

In W.B. Yeats' poem "The Folly of Being Comforted," a passionate lover's heart engages in a dialog with an "ever kind" friend - the lover's own intellect.

Nov 3, 2009 - Lucille Lever

Though notorious for his debauched behavior and lascivious language, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester was nevertheless one of Restoration London's most celebrated poets.

Oct 26, 2009 - Angela Zito

This poem uses the deterioration of an Edenic garden to represent the corrupting effect of organised religion upon our internal state of being.

Oct 23, 2009 - Joshua Feldman

The White Man's Burden is a layered poem in many ways; it represents numerous elements of late Victorian sensation and hints at the future of the empire.

Oct 22, 2009 - Bailey Shoemaker Richards

This brief poem encapsulates the fall that is detailed in the 'Songs of Innocence and Experience' with a multi-faceted symbolic premise.

Oct 20, 2009 - Joshua Feldman

This compact poem symbolically presents a dichotomy between selfish and unselfish love.

Oct 15, 2009 - Joshua Feldman

'London' is a viciously provocative poem that urges its readership to release themselves from the "mind-forg'd manacles" that are strangling the city.

Oct 14, 2009 - Joshua Feldman

This new edition of The Merry Muses of Caledonia offers a scholarly context for these famous/infamous bawdy Scottish folk songs traditionally attributed to Robert Burns.

Oct 11, 2009 - Maggie Craig

At the beginning of the 18th century, writers of prose and poetry were adhering to rigid rules and forms later described as feeble correctness.

Oct 8, 2009 - Kathleen Airdrie

Published eight years after Sylvia Plath's suicide, Ted Hughes's book of poetry Crow can now be read in light of the suicide of Hughes and Plath's son, Nicholas.

Oct 7, 2009 - Douglas Nordfors

Alfred Lord Tennyson died at age 83 on October 6, 1892. His long life ended via a quiet but insistent strain of influenza. His legacy continues more than a century later.

Oct 6, 2009 - Jillian Bost

Throughout his prolific career, Wystan Hugh Auden defied conventions in literature.

Oct 4, 2009 - Paul-John Ramos

The Canterbury Tales was not just a loose satirical mockery of the many levels of Medieval English society, Chaucer had some extremely important points to make.

Sep 28, 2009 - George Julian

One can infer a variety of faith perspectives from reading this classic poem, perhaps due to the heterogeneity of the poem's development through oral tradition.

Sep 19, 2009 - Jeffrey Donaldson

This delightful, illuminating and entertaining book brings together for the first time in one volume the collected love poems of Robert Louis Stevenson.

Sep 16, 2009 - Maggie Craig

A quintessentially modernist poem, "The Waste Land" is noted for its length, frequent use of allusion, foreign language phrases, and fragmented style.

Sep 6, 2009 - Rebecca Ann Anderson

The question of the dating of Beowulf has given rise to a variety of scholarly opinions about when the famous Anglo-Saxon epic was composed.

Aug 28, 2009 - Bonnie Fox

Unlike many twentieth century authors who insulated their work from politics, W. H. Auden tackled the subject head-on.

Aug 23, 2009 - Paul-John Ramos

While a moving tribute to the late Irish poet, 'In Memory of W. B. Yeats' is also a chilling reflection on the turmoil that plunged Europe into World War II.

Aug 20, 2009 - Paul-John Ramos

In section five of In Memoriam, Tennyson says language is imperfect to describe his grief. Writing barely touches on the depth of his sorrow, only vaguely tracing it.

Aug 17, 2009 - Jillian Bost

In section four of In Memoriam, Tennyson focuses on the soothing but deadened comfort that sleep gives, and how grief can dull the mind and heart, threatening one's will.

Aug 10, 2009 - Jillian Bost