L’ Allegro & IL’ Pensoroso: By John Milton

(Combined Background)
 L’ allegro is the poem about a happy man which is written as a counterpart of
the poem Il’ pensoroso which is the poem about the melancholy man who spent
the similar day in contemplation and thought
 If L’ allegro is the happy man who spends his day in the country and evening in
festivities of the city then Il’ pensoroso is a thoughtful man who spends his
night by meditative walking in the forest and study in the lonely tower
 Not sure what time were these composed because they do not appear in John
Milton’s trinity college manuscript of poems
 By the setting of the poem, it can be inferred that they were written
immediately after Milton left Cambridge
 Both these poems were published in his 1645 collection of poems
 In the collection the poems complement each other and contain images that
describe each dialogue well
 Not only do they complement each other well, they also give balance to his
Latin poems Elegy 1 and Elegy 6
 Some critics have said that it is impossible to understand L’ allegro without
reading its companion poem Il’ pensoroso.
(L’ Allegro analysis)
 First 10 lines are the prelude in which the speaker talks against melancholy and
disease by associating them with hell and darkness
 He invokes Mirth the daughter of Venus (love) and Bacchus (wine and revelry)
by using a traditional hymn model.
 Mirth is the sister of brightness and bloom but as per the poets alternative
genealogy she is the daughter of Zephyr (west wind) and Aurora (dawn).
 Mirth is the representation of the time of the day that the poem celebrates and
talks about the may rituals and flowers. She is feminine and gentle.
 The speaker asks her to bring her friends, jest, jollity, youth, sports and
laughter along with the mountain nymph liberty and freedom.
 We have the description of Mirth and liberty pushing back darkness and
brining in the sun. The crowing cock scatters the darkness.
 We also have the picture of the speaker walking by the ploughman, milkmaid,
mower shepherd either working or going to work.
 The speaker also introduces us to new eye pleasures like landscapes,
mountains, brooks, rivers, towers etc. There is also a scene of the shepherds
meeting for lunch.
 Then there is a scene of the local village where there is dancing and singing.
The scene changes again bringing us to the city pleasures of social life, people,
ladies, beauty and city marriages, feasts etc.
  There is also a reference to the theatre of Jonson, Shakespeare and music
married to verse.
 Lastly the speaker concludes by saying that if Mirth can give all these joys,
then the speaker would join her.

(IL’ Pensoroso analysis)

 The poem is based on the theme of Melancholy. The speaker thinks about the
poetic inspiration that can happen if the goddess of melancholy was his muse.
 As a prelude to the thought of melancholy, he dismisses joy from his
imagination. Soon after he invokes the goddess of melancholy who has a black
veil.
 She is linked to holy, divine, saintly wisdom in devotional colors. She claims
her heritage with the Roman pantheon. Her parents are Saturn and Vesta who
are also linked to secrecy, shades and twilight.
 The speaker also imagines her ideal personification and invites her
companions, peace, quiet, fast, leisure and retirement. The main companion
being contemplation and the favorite bird being the nightingale with her sweet
and sad music.
 The poet’s vision of melancholy is also imagined by the poet as the speaker
walks under the moon. He hears the curfew bell over the roar of waves hitting
on a rocky beach in distance.
 Because of the weather he moves indoors and sits beside the fireside to study,
just like John Milton did in his youth.
 The speaker is fond of reading ancient mystic texts of renaissance which are
thought to be ancient Egyptian but is in late Greek. His love for study is also
reinforced in the further lines
 The poem then provides us the morning scene which is somber, rainy and
windy while he walks to the woods which is quiet, ancient, dark and deep. He
at times pauses, sleeps and contemplates.

(Combined analysis)
 Both the poems were very popular during the 18th century and were widely
imitated by the poets.
 Opinion of the critics on the merit and significance varies.
 There have been a variety of responses with regard to their classification in
different traditions and genre.
 L’ Allegro celebrates grace Euphrosyne through the traditional theocratican
pastoral mode. It is of a playful nature, set in a pastoral scene that allows the
speaker to connect with the folk stories and fairy tales along with comedic
plays and performances.
  L’ Allegro invokes Mirth and other allegorical figures of joy and laughter and
portrays a cheerful life with spending the day in the countryside.
 IL’ penseroso on the other hand celebrates melancholy through the traditional
theocritican pastoral mode.
 It has a setting of a gothic scene in contrary to the cheerful and happy scene of
L’ allegro and emphasizes on the scholarly life
 The speaker invokes a melancholic mood with which he wanders in the urban
environment and describes a medieval setting.
 He devotes his time to philosophy, allegory, tragedy and classical hymns that
cause him to be filled with a vision
 In the poem, melancholy comes from the Saturn and vesta who are connected
to science and focus on heavens. Here melancholy is connected by using the
heavenly muse Urania the goddess of inspiring epics through her focus and
relationship with Saturn
 It is common to view both the poems as companions.
 The poems are graceful, urbane, evocatively descriptive and technically virtual
and have exerted an enormous influence on the later English poetry.

On the late massacre in piedmont: By John Milton

(Background of the poem)
 This poem is a sonnet (14 line poem) and is inspired by the massacre of
waldensians in piedmont by Charles emmanual 2, duke of savoy in April 1655.
 Piedmont is a place in Italy which was strongly catholic at that time.
 Annoyed with the people’s opinion against Catholicism, the troops launched a
massive campaign of loot, torture, rape and murder.
 Killed around 2000 people and converted another 2000 to catholic faith. The
news spread quickly and efforts were made to bring back the survivors to
safety.
 Hence this massacre inspired John Milton to write this sonnet.
 The Waldensians were the protestants who had lived in piedmont for a long
time in the territories of roman catholic rulers and had a simple scriptural faith.
 They used to live in the mountain valleys and gradually entered the plains.
Once pushed back into the mountains, they were massacred by the piedmontese
soldiers.
 After morland returned with his report after a year, Milton wrote this sonnet
which was then published in Poems in 1674
 The theme of the sonnet is religion with a view towards justice. The other
theme is the movement from the old testament to the new testament,
 It compares the theme of vengeance from the old testament to the regeneration
in the new testament.
 (Appreciation of the poem)
 The poem is a sonnet based on the theme of good and pious people trapped
in a dark world.
 The poet calls on God to avenge the death of the martyrs of piedmont. The
people are martyrs because they have been killed for their protestant faith.
 Milton invokes the images of nature to set a grim tone in the beginning of
the poem by describing the Alpines as a rigid mountain range that is
covered in snow. The bones are scattered on the cold mountains and this
creates a tone of a dark world.
 The beginning of the poem talks about the slaughtering of the pious people
as a tragic act.
 The reference to Babylonian woe is significant as the Christian faith holds
that a persons body is a temple, sacred and to be well kept and many
protestants identified the catholic church with Babylon and the whore of
Babylon in the book of revelation.
 The entire theme is basically the sorrow for the victims and anger for the
forces that are responsible for this massacre.
 The poet blames the god for such an occurrence as only god allows such a
thing to happen and has a direct intervention in it.
 Milton’s sonnet does not follow the Shakespearean sonnet form. Instead it
follows ABBA, ABBA, CDCDCD rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme
changes in the third quatrain and reveals the forces behind this massacre-
the triple tyrant.

When the assault was intended on the city: By John Milton

(Background and appreciation)
 This poem is John Milton’s 8th sonnet and was written in 1642 as a serious
joke.
 In the sonnet Milton imagines himself at his home in London during a
period when it was attacked by King Charles 1 and his army.
 The poem was originally untitled but then gained this title. At one point it
even had a different title- ‘On his door when the city expected an assault’
and was changed to the current title by Milton. The date was also added
but was then blotted out
 The poet appeals to the readers imagination and invites them to imagine
how the poet pins this sonnet to his door to protect his property during the
military attack just like alexander the great who spared the house of the
poet Pindar during his invasion of Thebes.
  One question that arises is that why should he be spared and not someone
else? It may be said that the poet is a talented person who might act as a
valuable resource for the invader.
 The structure of this sonnet is quite straightforward. It is written in a
conventional iambic pentameter and follows the rhyme scheme of abba
abba dedede.

The sun rising: By John Donne

(Discussion)
 In the poem, the speaker and his beloved are still in bed when the sun rays
fall on the windows and curtains. This provokes the speakers anger and in
a sharp rebuke he says to the sun that it has no business to disturb the
lovers as love is not the slave of time and season.
 The world’s time keeper, the sun has therefore crossed a line by trying to
awaken the lovers.
 The poem gives us a mocking tone of the speaker on the crime of the sun.
The following lines make us sure that the speaker is quite knowledgeable
and knows about the privileges of the lovers.
 The speaker asks the sun to mind its business and regulate the conduct of
late school boys, mechanics, hunters and village farmers who should be
following the regulations of time.
 The school going boy must get ready for school in the morning, a
mechanic should make preparations for his everyday work and the hunter
should get ready to accompany the king and equip himself with arms and
village farmers must do their agricultural work all according to the season.
These are the activities referred to by the speaker that cannot go on in the
absence of the sun. Hence it is logical to ask the sun to supervise these
activities instead of disturbing the lovers.
 The speaker also says that he can eclipse the sun by closing one eye but he
doesn’t want to lose the sight of his beloved by doing so.
 He says that all the riches of the world are there in his bedroom and finally
asks the sun to mind his old age and take rest by not travelling from east to
west every day.

(appreciation)
 The poet’s tone is quite informal and deliberately irreverential. The sun
and the stars are the subjects of study and not worship but the poem states
otherwise.
  The poet calls the sun a busy old fool by brushing aside the relevance that
the scientific facts state.
 Words and phrases like, thy center, thy sphere, motions, India’s spices
and mine, all states, alchemy have been taken from astronomy and
politics. These words give a new orientation to the poem.
 Hyperbolic expressions are quite abundantly used. Hence the defiant
mood of the lovers is established.
 The theme of the lovers in the bedroom is quite contrary to the theme of
Elizabethan sonnets where the lover begged for a glimpse of his beloved.
 Hence the poem proves that the bedroom is the center of the world. The
slow lyrics have also been substituted by fast tempo.

The anniversary: By John Donne

(Discussion)
 The main theme of the poem is the celebration of the first anniversary of
falling in love on the occasion of which, the speaker turns quite
philosophical.
 He talks about how he has passed a year in love and had the opportunity
to follow the movement of time in the realm of love. This is the subject
of the speakers reflection
 He talks about the important political milestones that have been
completed this year like the fortune of the princes and kings and finds
that all of them suffered a change. Even the sun has become older by a
year.
 He then talks about his personal phenomenon, the act of falling in love.
He figures out how there has not been any loss, disfigurement or change
as compared to the decaying of the other things. For him love has been
above all changes. For him love has been constant. Once it occurred it
continued to be.
 The thought of death in between all this theme is quite in contrast and out
of tune. But it being the part of the poem’s strategy, brings intentionally
all the doubts in last as the speaker says that we must leave at last in
death.
 The speaker talks about how the real grave is the body from which the
soul quickly releases at the moment of death.

(Appreciation)
 In the poem, the solar movement and the political scenario has been
cleverly juxtaposed against love’s constancy.
  The poet’s interest in science and politics is not exactly existent.
However, the readers can still enjoy the elements of political references
in the poem.
 The poem also makes use of the unconventional situation and the
attitude to death also forms a part of the poem.
 In John Donne’s poems, there is always something unexpected and
sparkling forcing the readers to be watchful and alert. The conclusions
are simple yet quite hilarious and complex

The relic: By John Donne

(Discussion)
 This poem gives us an insight into the unconventional ways of thinking
of John Donne
 The main idea of the poem is centered around him imagining the
discovery of a long bright hair around the bone of the speakers corpse
while digging his grave.
 The hair is pictured as a braclet like an ornament which is priceless and
indestructible. Hence the entire thing is a brilliant imaginative exercise.
 The discovery further leads to the speculation that the single grave
accommodated a lover couple.
 The poem also talks about how on the judgement day when the men
would be resurrected, the hair will unite the speaker and his beloved
 The speaker also thinks that his beloved is Magdalene and he is an evil
cast out from her body
 The poem is also a pun on the miracle. Miracle being a phenomenon
beyond the common laws of nature and science, says that the love affair
was not a common miracle but an earthly phenomenon. He even talks
about his affair from the beginning.
 Hence no wonder the hair is on his bone.

(Appreciation)
 This poem is quite popular as compared to John Donne’s other poems.
Unlike his other poems with an argumentative tone, this poem has a
touch of sentiment by the depiction of the bright hair on his bone.
 Something tender and passionate enter into the picture as the love is
something very pure that transcends the time and death.
 A study of John Donne’s sonnets shows that there is no break between
his love poems and religious poems.
Thoughts in a garden: By Andrew Marvell
(Discussion)
 The title of the poem is self-revelatory as it describes the thoughts of
the speaker while sitting in the garden.
 The speaker is shown enjoying the quietness of mind as there is the
scene of natural beauty around him.
 New enchanting thoughts start coming to his mind because of this as he
realizes that there is no point in trying to find peace anywhere else
when it can be found in abundance while sitting here in the garden.
 Peace cannot be found in the company of men; it can be found in this
beautiful garden in the most charming form.
 The poet visualizes peace as a beautiful maiden, good looking and
inducing a state of calm.
 In the poem the garden lies in front of the poet as a vast expanse of
green. Green not being a color of romanticism yet arouses romantic
ecstasy in him as he sees the names of lovers inscribed on the barks of
the trees and his eyes can catch the relics of lover’s activities in the
garden.
 The speakers expresses that the pleasure is not just of the eyes, it is the
saturation of all senses as there is fragrance and reaching of the ripe
fruits and vines into the mouth of the speaker.
 All this makes the speaker realize the creative power of mind as his
thoughts transcend into power of making a new world and
concentrating his attention in one place. He calls this a green thought in
a green shade.
 A new feeling is expressed as the speaker feels like his soul has flown
out of his body like a bird freed from the cage and has taken a seat
amongst the branches of the tree in the garden.
 The soul is symbolized as the bird singing the songs of freedom. The
speaker also realizes that the garden in the change of time and season
can also be felt through the increasing fragrance and wholesomeness of
the herbs and flowers.

(Appreciation)
 Symbolism is at the forefront in this poem as it makes use of several
symbols like garden, green, ocean, bird and flight etc. This comes to
the forefront by its repetitive use and the context in which they have
been used in.
 The speakers becomes aware of the value associated with the garden
gradually in stages of clear apprehensions, feelings and thoughts.
  In the first stage there is a sense of peace, quietness and solitude, a
state when the mind is quiet to the point that it can appreciate the
beauty of the garden.
 In the second stage there is a sense of fulfillment as the juice of the
ripe fruits and vines are going into the mouth of the speaker instilling
in him a new energy.
 There is also an interplay of spirituality and sensuousness. The speaker
is in the state of solitude being alone in pleasant thoughts and in the
surrounding of a garden with fruits, vines, herbs and flowers, this can
become a thing of taste. Hence only with the senses man can rise
above his limitations and aspire for spiritual elevation.

To his coy mistress: By Andrew Marvell

(Discussion)
 The poem is a clever presentation of the carpe diem philosophy with a
view that the days of youth are short and limited and should be spent
in the enjoyment and pleasures of love.
 The speaker presents these points in front of his lover to persuade her
to accept his proposal without delay as their days are numbered and
the end of youth is imminent and without the youth there is no
pleasure.
 The satirical tone is relevant here with the reference to two continents
and two rivers, the Ganges and the Humber flowing and maintaining
the division of the world. The lovers could have spent their entire life
sitting by the banks of these rivers and passed time waiting only if
they had the privilege of control over time. This is also the beginning
of a tedious argument.
 He talks about how if he had the time at his disposal then he would
have spent a hundred years to look at her beautiful face, two hundred
to gaze at her breasts and a hundred more to adore her heart. All this is
in a hyperbolic mode.
 Making the second stanza downright realistic, the speakers turns to the
vision of old age and death and says how the marble body of his lover
would decay and they could unite only in the moment of death, dust or
ashes.
 The third and the final stanza restores the brilliance of the scene with
which the poem began as the speaker refers to the glowing skin of his
lover and the fires burning in the body cells and says that the time they
have should be spent making love and is the only means to defeat
time.
(Appreciation)
 While thoughts in a garden celebrate the peace, solitude and
spirituality of mind, in to his coy mistress, the poet celebrates youth
and beauty in erotic terms.
 The poet contrasts the amplitude of time and slow growth of
civilization with short days of youth. Compared to the historical
developments, the days of youth are short and numbered and should
be lived in the realms of love.
 Time is a non-stop flying chariot depicting the lack of a man’s control
over time.

Mac flecknoe: By John Dryden

(Background)
 The poem is a scathing personal attack on his former friend Thomas
Shadwell who had replied to Dryden’s the medal in a poem with
scurrilous abuse.
 Richard flecknoe who died in 1678 was an Irish priest and a poetaster
who wrote a little good and a great deal of bad. He was a stock subject
for satire and even Andrew Marvell wrote against him.
 This is thus suggested as the reason for Dryden’s choice of flecknoe
as he noticed the connection between a bad poet and Flecknoe.
 In the poem flecknoe finds his true heir in his son Shadwell a Celtic
bard, irrepressible and irresponsible.
 The poem is constructed in a mock-heroic framework with the
solemnity and grandeur in the Homeric style. The scheme being
highly ingenious.
 It is the best force of the satirical expression of Dryden as he displays
all the classical form of power.
 The poem is quite well thought out and the construction of the
framework is quite architectural. It has all the features of a mock-
heroic poetry.

(Explanation)
 The first stanza is about how flecknoe emerges as a fatuous Augustus.
He is a prince amongst the fake poetasters and realizes that he has
ruled for too long and the decay is the only order of the day and the
call of fate cannot be ignored. He then debates about his succession
 and comes to think of which of his son is fit to reign and wage a war
on his behalf with immortal wit.
 Shadwell thus comes to his mind as the right choice for the succession
because he described as mature in dullness from his tender years and
is full of stupidity. Here Dryden’s personal satire against Shadwell
can be noticed clearly and directly
 Then in the third stanza, Shadwell’s coronation is depicted which is
being done in the disreputable quarter of London. Here the place
chosen for coronation is also presented with a sarcastic venom and
delights the readers as this disreputable quarters of London is only a
wretched nursery- a training center for actors where only stupid
dramas are the usual favorites.
 In the fourth stanza the hoary prince is flecknoe and his throne is
made up of his own books. Here the reference to Ascanius is made
and the comparison is what Shadwell is to flecknoe is exactly what
Ascanius is to Aeneas.
 Flecknoe then invokes god’s blessings upon his son and visualizes a
bright future for him in a prophetic mood. However, the blessing
given upon him is of new impudence and new ignorance.
 The poem ends with flecknoe disappearing suddenly putting an abrupt
end to the entire procedure.
 Thus, flecknoe can be regarded as a highly entertaining though
abusive attack on Shadwell, light in weight and concentrated in its
venom hitting by the means of satire. Hence rightfully a mock-heroic
literature

An essay on Man: By Alexander Pope

(Background)
 In this poem the poet, Alexander Pope turns philosophical in an
attempt that this might crown his poetic career. He published this
poem anonymously so as to wrong foot his enemies who would be
confused if they should criticize it as Pope’s work or appreciate it
like something Pope could have never achieved.
 In this four-heroic couplet, the poet addresses the tory politician lord
Bolingbroke with a cheerful optimism to explain the ways of god to
man and says that whatever is, is right.
 He mixes the medieval and renaissance philosophy full of theology,
natural philosophy with the modern empirical science of Sir Isaac
Newton.
  This poem has been popular in Europe and been extensively
translated.

(Explanation)
 In the first stanza the poet suggests how god’s ways can be
apprehended not through scriptures but through the nature. He
introduces the man as a might maze but not without a plan. He
places the god above and the man below and argues that our
knowledge is only based on reasoning but the god can see beyond
the numberless worlds and hence a strong relationship is already
established between the man and god.
 In the second stanza he denounces the man as presumptuous and
complaining about his being made as small and weak. Here the poet
argues by saying that the man should ask himself why has he not
been made even more weaker and smaller? Just like the Huge tree is
supposed to give shade and protection to small shrubs and has been
made that way for a reason, the man has also been made the way he
is made for a reason and should be happy that he is not worse.
 He also says that whatever we may call wrong must be right and
relative to everything else.
 Man is perfect just the way he is and he is not imperfect. He’s been
made perfect as per certain spheres of life and once he has achieved
success it doesn’t matter if he achieved it sooner or later.
 He also explains that god sees everyone with equal eyes. For him a
hero dying and a sparrow falling are equal just like the bursting of
clouds for rain and bursting of a bubble.
 The poem asks the man to be hopeful with humility. He does not
know what the future holds for him. Hence, hope is the only blessing
which springs forever in his body and blessings are only waiting to
be showered on him.
 He concludes the poem by giving a brilliant poetic expression to the
mood of enlightened confidence and optimistic philosophy. Man
should try to have a self-realization and submit to the divine and
accept that whatever is, is right.

The vanity of human wishes: By Samuel Johnson

(Background)
  The Vanity of Human Wishes" is one ambitious poem. In it, the speaker
surveys all of mankind, and examines the way in which all kinds of dreams and
wishes and ambitions come to nothing.

 The poem is loosely divided up into sections which deal with different kinds of
power and ambition. There are sections that deal with political power, financial
power, intellectual power, and even sexual power. The speaker's aim is to show
how all of these kinds of power are pointless and don't bring us any
satisfaction.

 In order to convince us of his point of view, the speaker refers to various

historical figures, citing their fates as examples of why the pursuit of wealth
and power is ultimately futile. There's no point in running after money or
status. They're not going to bring us happiness or peace. On the contrary: they'll
only bring us lots of trouble.

 The ultimate conclusion of the poem is that the only chance at a happy life we
have is through God. It's only through our faith in God that we can hope to find
peace and contentment. So we'd better pull out our prayer books and start
praying.

Elegy written in a country churchyard: By Thomas Gray

(Background)

 This poem has been considered the most enduring, famous, fluent and
diversified of all graveyard poems. The term elegy here has been defined in
the exact same way of its meaning i.e., the poetic meditation of the occasion
of death.

 This poem talks about the destinies of the unknown villagers buried in the
country churchyard who could have achieved greatness had they been given
the opportunity.

 The speaker is hanging out in a churchyard just after the sun goes down. It's
dark and a bit spooky. He looks at the dimly lit gravestones, but none of the
grave markers are all that impressive—most of the people buried here are
poor folks from the village, so their tombstones are just simple, roughly
carved stones.

 The speaker starts to imagine the kinds of lives these dead guys probably led.
Then he shakes his finger at the reader, and tells us not to get all snobby
about the rough monuments these dead guys have on their tombs, since,
 really, it doesn't matter what kind of a tomb you have when you're dead,
anyway. And guys, the speaker reminds us, we're all going to die someday.

 But that gets the speaker thinking about his own inevitable death, and he gets
a little freaked out. He imagines that someday in the future, some random guy
(a "kindred spirit") might pass through this same graveyard, just as he was
doing today. And that guy might see the speaker's tombstone, and ask a local
villager about it. And then he imagines what the villager might say about
him.

 At the end, he imagines that the villager points out the epitaph engraved on
the tombstone, and invites the passerby to read it for himself. So basically,
Thomas Gray writes his own epitaph at the end of this poem. 

(Explanation)

 In the first stanza the curfew mournfully tolling the end of the day, the
lowing herd winding slowly over the lea and the tired ploughman plodding
his way home all build up a dark and dismal mood that prepares the readers
for the dark thoughts that are about to come in the elegy.

 He mentions that when it comes to darkness, the dusk is being overtaken by

the darkness of night and he introduces himself right in the opening quatrain
as apart of the natural landscape.

 In the second stanza he talks about how there are rugged elms and yew
tree’s providing shade and the churchyard near it has tombs of local
villagers and rude ancestors with various objects of nature. The forefathers
are described respectfully as sleeping in their narrow cells.

 In the 3rd stanza he talks about the pleasant life of the peasants whose past
life was full of energetic activities. Their sickles yielded harvests, the
furrows had often broken the stubborn earth and the woods had surrendered
easily to the powerful strokes and how they used to be so happy in moving
over to their lands with their teams.

 In the 4th stanza, the poet wants that the ambitious people should not mock
the useful actions of the farmers that had been performed well as per their
obscure destiny. The elegy now finally begins to talk about the unknown
and unsung heroes of the village.

 In the 5th stanza the poet brings out the rude forefathers who could have
achieved greatness had they been given the opportunity to do so. Poverty
 took over these geniuses and the poet hence laments that at a very neglected
spot lies someone who could have achieved greatness.

 So, in the country churchyard the buried villagers are sleeping who might
have been great if they got the opportunity.

 In the 6th stanza the curfew tolling the end of the day in the opening quatrain
is now replaced with the peep of dawn and the hoary headed swain
mentioning the poet being seen at the peep of dawn and breathing with hasty
steps to meet the sun. The dusk has been replaced by dawn but the theme of
mourning remains.

 In the end the poet imagines himself lying next to those rude forefathers and
the funeral song being carried out. The elegy hence ends with an epitaph
and sums up the entire mood.

Intimations of Immortality: By William Wordsworth

(Background)

 The full title of the poem is Ode: intimations of immortality from the
recollection of early childhood. The poem is in 11 stanzas containing 204
lines written in 1802 and partly in 1804. It is one of the noblest poems of
William Wordsworth.

 He was facing a spiritual crisis around 1802. The visionary experiences that
he used to have during his childhood and as a young man were gradually
losing its shine and vigour as he grew old. They were the source of his
deepest illumination. Hence this poem gives us an account of his spiritual
crisis and how he lost the glory and an answer to his problems.

(Explanation)

 The poem is reminiscing the days of the poets childhood by talking about
the immortal nature of human spirit as known to the child and almost
forgotten by him when he grows up. However it still remains in the
tranquility of his heart and mind.

 He considered the child as a superior to the grown up man in the context

of spiritual perception of divinity. However it is the joy in our mature age
that we can recollect these past experiences and thoughts that happened
during our childhood.
 The poet explains that the joy of him recollecting these past memories
and experiences comes from the fact that he asked those obstinate
questions and outward things and not because of those blessings that he
should be grateful for.

 He says how our maturity forces us to question the very existence of

things around us and the vague intimations of the the existence of the
world of spirit. During his childhood he had doubts about all of this. The
materials things seemed to move away from him but now as a grown up
he feels like a guilty person as his life is devoid of the former loftiness.

 However the poet is grateful to the period of innocence and vague

remembrance of previous existence in heaven which have been a source
of joy for him. Ultimately these are the source of knowledge and joy and
the recollection of these memories inspire us.

 He says how these memories support us, sustain us and have to power to
convert noisy and fury of our life into an eternal calm and serenity.

 In other words in our innocent imagination we can have a vision of our

eternal home.

 In this excerpt the poet picturises the childhood with the help of apt
images. The first one being the fire slowly dying out and leaving ashes
behind. The vision of childhood slowly dies out but the spark remains.

 Another image is that of a bird which flutters its new fledged wings and
the third is the affection used to describe innocent experiences.

Tintern Abbey: By William Wordsworth.

(Background)

 The sub title of the poem Tintern abbey is lines composed a few miles
above tintern abbey. The poem was composed in 1798 five years after
his first visit to the banks of the river wye for the lyrical ballads he
published in 1798.

 His first visit in 1793 was the year following his return from France
when he was in a state of disillusionment and emotional turmoil.

 In the year 1798 his main cause of distress was the French revolution
and the war between England and France. He had lost faith in man
and even in god.
  He found a sense of solace in the lap of nature by visiting tintern
abbey and felt like a completely renewed person. He no longer cried
and longed for dizzy raptures but looked for deeper meanings in the
nature.

 He realized that the man had a lot to learn from nature as it was the
man’s prime teacher.

(Explanation)

 He begins the poem with a personal experience and memory that he

felt five years ago. In those five years he had been distressed and
suffered with despondence.

 The cause of his distress was his love affair with Annette Vallon who
also bore him a daughter and the war between his motherland England
and France, a place where he wanted to settle down.

 He gives us a vivid account of his visit to the river wye in tintern

abbey where he has come again after 5 years. He again hears the soft
murmur of the water rolling in from the mountains.

 He feels extremely elated and joyous in the lap of the nature and feels
like he has become chastised.

 He gives us a description of the high mountains, thick sycamore trees,

cottage ground, orchard with ripe fruits and the hedge row as he
remembers and recalls his experience.

 This sight has been a source of sweet soothing and healing sensation
from 1793 to 1798 when he had been living in London and the war
crisis had crushed his soul.

 The revisit to tintern abbey again after 5 years gives him the same
sense of calmness, solitude and restores his peace of mind. They also
inspired him to perform the ordinary deeds of love and kindess done in
daily life which are often forgotten and ignored.

 The poet always looked towards nature for peace and comfort of his
sorrows during the time of weariness in the hustle and bustle of the
city life. He feels like the nature has a presence of an unseen power.

 The metre here is blank verse unrhymed ten syllabic iambic lines.
  The excerpt is a lyrical meditation on the theme of nature and its
effects on a troubled mind.

Kubla khan: By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

(Discussion)

 This poem describes Xanadu, the palace of Kubla Khan, a Mongol emperor and
the grandson of Genghis Khan. The poem's speaker starts by describing the
setting of Emperor's palace, which he calls a "pleasure dome." He tells us about
a river alph that runs across the land and then flows through some underground
caves and into the sea. He also tells us about the fertile land that surrounds the
palace. The nearby area is covered in streams, sweet-smelling trees, and
beautiful forests.
 Then the speaker gets excited about the river again and tells us about the
canyon through which it flows. He makes it into a spooky, haunted place,
where you might find a "woman wailing for her demon lover." He describes
how the river leaps and smashes through the canyon, first exploding up into a
noisy fountain and then finally sinking down and flowing through those
underground caves into the ocean far away.
 The speaker then goes on to describe Kubla Khan himself, who is listening to
this noisy river and thinking about war and how his ancestors are preparing
themselves to go for a war. All of a sudden, the speaker moves away from this
landscape and tells us about another vision he had, where he saw a woman
playing an instrument and singing. The memory of her song fills him with
longing, and he imagines himself singing his own song, using it to create a
vision of Xanadu.
 Toward the end, the poem becomes more personal and mysterious, as the
speaker describes past visions he has had.
 He even draws a picture of a poet inspired. When a poet’s eyes are flashing, his
hair floating and seem to be withdrawn from the material world, the
listners/readers ought to be beware of him and feel awed but not fearful for he
has fed on honey dew and drunk the milk of paradise.
 This brings him to a final image of a terrifying figure with flashing eyes. This
person, Kubla Khan, is a powerful being who seems almost godlike: "For he on
honey-dew hath fed/And drunk the milk of paradise" (53-54).
Roll on thou deep and dark blue ocean: By Lord Byron

(Discussion)
 This poem is an extract from Canto IV of childe harold’s pilgrimage. The
poem childe harold’s pilgrimage describes the journey of childe Harold
whose experiences were in correspondence with those of Lord Byron.
 Lord Byron left his home in England with a Cambridge friend John Cam
Hobhouse, his servent fletcher and his little page Robert Rushton. They
 reached Lisbon on 6th July 1809. The first 2 cantos describe the
pilgrimage in reference to his past like of sin and pleasure.
 Byron then returned to his home in Newstead, England in 1811 and the
first 2 cantos were then published. It was applauded by the London
society and launched byron’s career as a poet.
 He finally left his home in England for good and went to Geneva in
Switzerland where he met PB Shelly and completed the third canto of
childe harolds pilgrimage and published it in the same year.
 It described his pilgrim travels to Belgium, The Rhine, The Alps and Jura.
 In October he left Geneva for Venice with Hobhouse. In the fourth canto
he speaks directly about his experience in Italy, his meditations and
history on venice and Petrarch, Florence and bocaccio.
 This extract is a meditation on the symbol of the sea.

(Explanation)
 This poem is a ceremonial song in praise of the sea. It is an anthem of
the ocean by Lord Byron. It portrays the classic voice of the poet not in
the apollonian manner but Dionysian manner.
 There is a clarity of neatness, and beauty of form with enthusiasm,
exuberance and joy of youth. The poet has romantic elements in
splendour.
 The English romantic poets were the lovers of nature. Hence this poem
based on oceam chastises the vain man, melts his armadas and
transforms into the yeast of its waves. From its slime the monsters of the
sea are born.
 This poem is a hymn to the sea because it is almighty’s glorious mirror
and his throne. The sea expresses god’s grandeur in varied aspects like
the calm and violent breeze, gale, storm and frigid polar regions and
dark equatorials.
 In this poem the sea has been apostrophized and addresses the sea as an
expression of the rapture of communion with the universe.
 Byron was the poet of the mountain peaks and the sea just as
wordsworth of the child and the meanest flower and keats of the beauty
of nature and the ripeness of fruits.
 He says how the sea has a complete control over the monarch and is the
empire builder. For the sea, the ships are an object to play with.
 He says that the sea scorns the emperor, spurns the conqueror and lays
waste civilizations in a reference to the man’s greed. While they decay
the sea remains as young as it was in the first dawn of creations. Hence
the sea symbolises eternity.
 The poem remains unforgettable as it visualises the actual image of how
it would feel like to stand in front of the vast expanse of the sea. This
poem is a product of byrons catholic temper, his love for sea and above
all an abiding faith in the man’s capacity to improve himself in the face
of adversity.
George the third: By Lord Byron

(Discussion)
 This poem is a parody of Robert Southey’s original poem a vision of
judgement. Southey’s was meant to be based on George III who died in
1820 whereas byron’s poem is a satire on both Southey and George III.
 In Southey’s poem he sees George III in a trance as he rises from his
grave and reaches the gates of heaven. In this poem Southey made a
direct attack on byron’s work and referred to him as the leader of the
satanic school of poetry.
 In response to this, Byron wrote this parody in which Southey is being
swept up by one of the devils from the lake district where he offers to
write Satan’s biography.
 The extract here is mainly based on the satire on George III. In this
however Byron praises George’s domestic virtues. His family life was
free from the characteristic vice of his predecessors. He opposed
catholic emacipation, the American war and the French revolution. He
suffered from fits of insanity and finally became insane in 1811. His
eldest son was appointed regent until his father’s death in 1820.

(Explanation)
 This poem is an extract from byron’s the vision of judgement. At the
foreground the scene is that of George III funeral and ascent of George
III to heaven.
 The first stanza sets the background of the event. It announces the death
of George III and sets the comic satirical tone of the poem.
 He also mentions and talks about the 1820 struggle for Greek
independence. George died in the same year.
 Furthermore the poet also tells us about George’s good qualities like he
was no tyrant, he was a good farmer and some bad ones as well that he
protected the tyrants, left his kingdom undone and that he was blind etc.
 The poet not only points out the king’s flaws, he also points out the
british people’s shortcomings.
 He points out that George left his subjects, one half as mad and other no
less blind.
 The second and the third stanza describe the melodramatic nature of the
funeral as there was everything in plenty, velvet, gilding, brass, elegies,
torches, cloacks, banners and heralds and dearth of only one thing-
genuine sorrow for the deceased.
 From the 4th and the 7th stanza there are the words of the devil who has
come to claim George from Michael at the heaven gate.
 The last two lines make a transition to the main subject of the eight,
recounting george’s virtues his household abstinence.
Ode to the west wind: By PB Shelly (Percy Bysshey Shelly)
(Discussion)
 Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote "Ode to the West Wind" in 1819 while
living in Florence, Italy.
 he claimed in a footnote to have written "Ode to the West Wind" while
sitting in the woods near the Arno River on a windy day in October.
 although he loved Italy, he was feeling depressed about being detached
from the political and social scene back in his native England. Many
critics have suggested that this poem relates to that sense of
powerlessness.
 As a political, religious, and literary radical, Shelley was heavily
invested in his own ability to influence society. Some poets need
solitude and privacy and a retreat in the woods to do their best work, but
Shelley needed stimulating arguments and social action. "Ode to the
West Wind" is one of the poems in which he considers the role and
power of the poet or philosopher to spread new ideas and effect change.
 Its brevity, smooth tone, and straightforward use of natural imagery
present his abstract ideas about philosophy and poetry in a compact way.

(Explanation)
 The poet invokes the west wind of autumn which scatters the dead
leaves and spreads the seeds to that they may be nurtured by the spring
and asks the wind a destroyer and preserver to hear him
 He calls the wind the dirge of the dying year and how it stirs up violent
storms. In this regard he refers to the Mediterranean from his summer
dreams and the Atlantic.
 The second section of the poem deals with the sky where the withered
leaves, loose clouds fall from the unseen forests of the heaven into the
river of the west wind.
 Here the imagery of leaves, clouds and west wind is transformed into
human as the clouds are now the hair of a huge giant and the west wind
is a mournful tune. Furthermore the encroaching night become the
dome of an extensive sepulchre canopied by the powerful west wind.
 The third section presents the effect of the wind on the sea. The vast
Mediterranean is personified as asleep, dreaming of old palaces and
towers. The west wind then drives away such thoughts of the sea.
 The last section of the poem deals with the identification between the
poet and the west wind. The poet desires to become a mouth piece of
the west wind as the forest the lyre on which it plays the rustling tune.
 He asks the west wind to drive away all his old thoughts and dead ideas
to bring in the blossoming of a new conceptions.
 Hence the poet invokes the wind and describing its powers magically as
both a destroyer and a preserver.
 In the fifth section, the poet takes a remarkable turn by transforming the
wind into a metaphor for his own art.
  Each part of the poem contains five stanzas, four-three line stanzas and
two line couplet all metered in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme
in each part follows a pattern known as terza rima, the three line rhyme
scheme employed by dante in his divine comedy. The final couplet
rhymes with the middle line of the last three line stanzas. Thus each part
of the poem follows the rhyme scheme of ABA, BCB, CDC, DED, EE.

To a skylark: By PB Shelly
(Discussion)
 The poem is packed with joy and sorrow and sounds and sights and all
the things that make life beautiful and challenging and wonderful. It's
about nature, for sure, and like the title says, it has a lot to say about a
particular bird. But really it's about what it's like to be a human being
on this amazing planet
 The sources and influences which stimulated sheylly’s imagination
when he composed the skylark are not merely significant in themselves
but also essential in understanding its meaning.
 It was on a beautiful summer evening when he was walking on a lane
when he heard the caroling of the skylark which inspired his most
beautiful poems.
 In the poem, he addresses the bird skylark that soars up at greta heights
and sings very sweetly that it enchants and bewitches the world.
 The skylark symbolizes high imagination, eternal happiness and
harbinger of peace and progress, thus a spirit. It profuses sweetness
even tho its unseen.
 Here the skylark stands for idealism and newly built society free from
pollution, corruption and economic slavery.
 The poet is quiet impressed and says that the skylark is a superior thing
in the sky leaving behind the clouds, the stars, the sun and the moon by
its excellent tune and soothing voice.
 The poet himself doesn’t know what the skylark actually is and the
mystery is there. But he is sure that he can learn a message of welfare
from it and spread it in the world for its recreation. Hence imaginative
quality and extraordinary talent is displayed here.
 He even compares the beauty and sweetness of the skylark with a
highly born beautiful girl who lives in her tower like palatial buildings
and sings sweet love songs.
 He even brings out its comparison with a a golden glow worm among
the flowers and the rose having a soothing scent.
 The poet is so confident about the beauty of the skylark that he says
that even the rainbow clouds do not spread such bright drops like the
presence of the skylark spreads a rain of melody. In short the music of
skylark surpasses the nature.
 The poet also wishes to get messages from the skylark and asks it to
teach him sweet thoughts.
  The skylark gets rid of the nasty habits of the earth and stands for bliss,
joy and prosperity of the world.
 As per some critics PB Shelly’s skylark flew higher and higher and did
not come to the earth like the skylark of wordsowrth.
 This poem is however pb shelly’s one of the best lyrics. The flow, the
art, the similies, the flight of imagination and lyrical quality make this
poem unparalleled in romantic poetry.

Ode on a Grecian urn: By John Keats

(Background)
 Keats was a romantic poet and where most of his poem find the solace
of romance, in this poem he has changed it to the solace of art.
 The theme of the poem is on a Grecian urn to escape the complexities
of time and escape into the world of unchanging heart.
 It considers the arresting of time and life by art as both profit and loss.\
 The unravished bride remains forever between the wedding ceremony
and the bridal bed as it were. Beauty and permanence remain with the
figures on the urn.

(Explanation)
 The poem is based on a Grecian urn and the poet is talking both to the
urn by referring it as a bride whose pictures are also drawn on the urn.
 He calls the urn the bride of quietness and the child of silence and slow
time as if it wedded quietness. It is also unchangeable as it is a
permanent piece of art. So the bride is still unravished. Th poet believes
that the pictures on the urn are frozen in time and will never change.
 In the first stanza the poet stands before an ancient Grecian urn and
addresses it. He describes the urn as a slyvian historian who can tell a
story in a better way than a poet.
 He wonders about the figures on the side of urn and imagines where
and what could be happening. The picture seems to show a group of
men chasing a group of women in forest.
 Looking at another picture the speaker talks about a young man playing
the pipe laying with his lover beneath a tree. The speaker calls the
music unheard melody as he cannot hear through the picture. However
he believes that the music will be sweet as it is unaffected by the time.
 He tells the youth that though he can never kiss his lover because he is
frozen in time he should not grieve because her beauty will never fade
just like the trees wont shed their leaves and it will always be spring.
 The poet also talks about the happy surroundings. The trees never
shedding the leaves, the songs of the piper being forever new and the
love of the girl and the boy lasting forever. Therefore the picture is
happy because there is no fear of losing. Nothing would fade away.
 The speaker examines another picture on the urn where a group of
villagers are leading a heifer to be sacrified. Perhaps an animal
 sacrifice. He imagines a little town emptied of inhabitants as they will
never return because the pictures are static in time.
 Through the poets imagination, the urn is able to preserve a temporary
and happy condition in permanence but cannot do the same for poet
and their generation. He thinks that when this generation will be lost in
time the urn will tell the future generation its story.
 He believes that beauty is truth and truth beauty. This is the only thing
that urn knows and needs to know

Ode to a nightingale: By John Keats

(Background)
 Ode to a nightingale is generally admired for its rich and slow moving
verse and for its expression of what is considered to be emotions
propoer to romantic poetry.
 Here the nightinagle’s song is symbolised as timeless and escaping the
world from change and decay.
 There is a relation between art, death and life which is the true theme
of the poem ode on a Grecian urn. This poem also portrays keat’s
speakers engagement with fluid expressiveness of music and a flavour
of romanticism.

(Explanation)
 The poem starts with the speaker declaring his own heartache. He feels
uneasy as if he is drunk. His condition is not so because he is jealous
of the nightingale and her happiness whom he hears singing but rather
from sharing the experience wholly.
 The happiness is from the nightingale’s singing from somewhere in
the green trees and shadows in the forest.
 The song of the nightingale has paralysed the poet’s mind and he
wants to give up on his senses and be with the bird for which he longs
for a drop of alcohol so that he can experience the feeling completely
and escape reality.
 The poet longs for the nightingale’s wings as it would help him see the
world with a different perspective. He wants to get rid of all the
troubles unknown to the nightingale like the pains of human life, the
truth that everything is mortal and that beauty and youth fade away
with time.
 In the 4th stanza the poet wants the nightingale to fly away and says
that he will fly with her not with the alcohol but instead his poetry will
give him his wings. He also sees the glimmer of the moon and stars
because he has been lifted above the trees along with the nightingale.
 In the 5th stanza however he loses sight but can sense life into
everything as he can smell, taste and hear a new world around him as
if he has entered a new paradise.
  In the 6th stanza he confesses that he is half in love with the idea of
dying and believes that death is soft. He wants an easy death and
wants to enter a new world with the nightingale. He wants to
experience that richness.
 In the following lines he tells the nightingale that it is immortal as the
people from the historian times have also heard the nightingale’s songs
just like the people do in the present and will continue to do so in the
future.
 Finally the speaker comes back to his reality as his imaginery world is
shattered and he realizes that his imagination came from his sleep. He
realizes that what he is thinking is not possible and he should come
back to his senses.
 Thus the main theme of the poem is where he is conflicting between
the reality and the ideal. John Keats has allowed thoughts to have
wings and be free and get rid of the frustration from life. One truth
leads to another but finally he comes back to reality and realizes the
truth of life.

The splendour falls: By Alfred Lord Tennyson

(Background)
 The poem the splendour falls and Tears, Idle Tears are both extracts
from the poet’s the princess poem that the poet wrote in his mature
years when british political and social issues began to interest him.
 It is said that the princess poem covers a no. of prominent issues
related to women’s status, their field of action, their educational and
political rights, legal rights of marriage, property etc. The protagonist
being Ida, a princess who hold extreme feminist values. She has even
started an academy for training women.
 The poets characterization of Ida gives an idea of his view towards
women who is independent minded but has a zeal in her temper that
makes her unfit for reforms that she wishes to carry.
 Both the lyrics are a supreme work of the poet and can be enjoyed
independently.
 The first lyrics the splendour falls is the song that occurs after the
narrator and the others have had a magnificient view of the palace that
the princess has shown them. The narrator is charmed by the view.
 The second lyric tears, idle tears is sung by the maid who is ordered to
entertain by the princess.

(Explanation)
 The lyric is an essay in landscape painting. The scene is that of a
sunset, transforming the castle and its surrounding. The speakers
notices the fall of sunlight but also a fall of splendour, of glorious hue
on the walls of the castle. This perception also causes an ecstasy.
  Each moment that proceeds brings a bright vision of everything
around. The bright light also makes the snowy towers of the castle
shine gloriously and then travels to the lake as well.
 It shakes the water of the lake which makes the speaker happy and
there is a sense of enjoyment along with the synchronization of the
light and sound.
 The light not only enhances the beauty of the castle but also make the
surrounding cheerful and stirs the speaker for further activity.
 In the second stanza there is a sound of the blowing horns that can be
heard in the field across. There is a setting of twilight, the light is still
there but just like the sound it is also dying taking leave of the world.
 The identity of the listener is then revealed in the third stanza, the
speaker is addressing his beloved. He asks her to enjoy the faintly
sound of the echoes and asks her to observe how the echoes move not
only from field to river but also from soul to soul.
 In the poem Tennyson captures the essence of the world of nature in
the poem quite beautifully. His lyrics are a good example of pathetic
fallacy.
 The light and the sound is not static.

Tears, Idle Tears: By Alfred Lord Tennyson

(Background)
 Same as the splendour falls
 The popularity of this lyric is proof of its contents value.
 This poem is in a dramatic context sung by the maid as a daily duty
however it talks about a man’s loss which is the cause of the flow of
the tears.
 Tears express a spontaneous feeling and emerge from a supressed
emotion. Any touching sight can however bring it to the surface and
make us cry.
 This maid’s song is occasioned by the enchanting view of the palace
and creates a feeling of awe and wonder in the maid as well. Instead
of bursting into a song to express her delight, she turns to a mournful
song.
 The simplicity not only touches the listeners but makes them think of
suffering as a vital fact of life.

(Explanation)
 This poem has a number of similies like, fresh as the first beam
glittering on a sail, sad as the last which reddens over one, sad and
strange as in dark dawns, dear as remembered kisses after death.
 The most arresting phrase in this poem is divine despair which is a
paradoxical expression. Normally despair cannot be linked with
divine as it refers to the human limitations. Infact the tears that
 spring from the eyes refer to the fact that the happy days cannot be
bought back.
 Sadness became a part of tennyson’s life after the death of Arthur
hallam but Tennyson was a reflective poet in nature who took
interest in philosophy and science hence every emotion to him was
not just a feeling but of study also.
 The happy days are the essence of richness and abundance that have
slipped away. Happiness is locked only in memory now lingering as
a permanent feeling over which time has no control.
 After setting the tone the speakers elaborates on the happy days
which she is remembering. They appear to be as fresh as the first ray
of sun falling on a ship. Like a freshness of the morning scene it also
like an overwhelming sadness when the moment is recaptured.
 There is also an abrupt change in the scene in the last two stanzas
where the speaker alters the persona from a living person to someone
awaiting death. As this dying perspective continues in the end the
speaker is not only thinking about the lost days but also of the
beloved whose kisses token of love and fancies have become
painfully sweet. This is what death in life is- the condition of
hopeless separation.
 being in a state of the tears is quite normal the person when he is
separated from love and when the separation is caused by death it is
difficult to speak consolation Tennyson takes of this situation and
combines inconsolable and incurable happiness words like the
autumn fields glittering on a sail Institute the immediate word of the
speaker they provoke the feeling of loss and stimulate memory

 Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Background

Ulysses is also known as odysseus. he was a king of ithaca and he pa
rticipated in a Greek war against Troy. after the war he was returning 
home along with a number of soldiers on his ship but he had angered 
posedien who caused many obstructions that forced him to wander e
verywhere.

  his wife and his son Penelope and Telemachus were anxiously waiti
ng for his arrival. in fact his son has already left home in search of hi
s father the poem tells us that ulysses was close to ithaca. not happy. 

 his voyage has been quite fruitful and knowledgeable as he met a lot 
of people he has a feeling that he should continue travelling to gain 
more knowledge. For him homely life is boring. he is also worried a
bout his subjects who only care for material things. 
  He hopes that his son can be taught to handle the subjects well so
that it gives him more time to travel.

 This love for knowledge in a king who has suffered a lot not only
makes the character of Ulysses distinguishable it also gives a
philosophical edge to the poem and highlights the glorious aspects of
Greek civilization. His grandeur for the quest of knowledge touches
us.

(Explanation)
 The poem begins with an early introduction to Ulysses as he nears
Ithaca thinking about his wife, country and his people much more
clearly. He thinks of his wife as an old woman. Even his own country
is not as flourishing as it was before.
 He is quite unhappy with his subjects as they are only bothered about
the physical and material pleasures.
 He does not wish to be a part of such a life anymore has he has
travelled a lot and many people have now inspired him to keep on
travelling and gain more knowledge.
 He has learnt so much that it has transformed him from a mere king
to a man who wishes to understand the forces of the creation. Having
met all the classes of beings his experience has enriched him.
 His personality seems to be shaped and moulded by all these
experiences as he cannot lead a mundane life now.
 He feels like he has seen all but is also convinced that the universe
does not allow to see all and there is a part of the world always
hidden to a man’s view.
 Furthermore, he visualises his ideas in a form of similes and
metaphor that all experience is an arch like a sinking star as he hints
that the small view is not the full view.
 The sinking star is Ulysses himself who is battered by war, age and
sundry worries of the world. This nobility sets Ulysses apart from the
other kings who are just worries about more territorial conquests.
 All his imagination is not just a mere wish but is instead backed up
by determination as he has made up his mind to hand over the rule to
his son so that he himself can go on travelling.
 He hopes that his son Telemachus who is full of confidence can
subdue his subjects and his energies could be channelised in the right
direction. He is also certain that his son would perform all the
religious duties after he dies.
 Finally he addresses the mariners who have given their best to all his
undertakings and exhorts them to seek a new world. He wants them
to be satisfied with a dull domestic life but also explore the world
simultaneously. He believes that it is better to end the life in the
pursuit of knowledge than of material happiness.
  The poet hence makes a historial speaker touch upon a contemporary
issue as Ulysses is a legendary wanderer who is adventurous, fearless
and forced by circumstances to go and meet new people.
 The poet sees in him the prototype of a modern researches or
explorer for whom the scientific developments were of great interest
as it expanded his vast knowledge.
 The poem has a dramatic structure, the development of the speech of
Ulysses is entirely guided by his thoughts and his journey. First point
is the coming of the landmarks of Ithaca which stirs his memory,
then the second point is the rise of a conflict in his mind between his
kingly duties and his appetite for knowledge and thirdly comes up his
decision in the fulfilment of which he seeks cooperation of mariners.
 The command is blank verse being an important feature. It helps
Tennyson follow every movement of the feelings and thoughts of
Ulysses in a dramatic manner.

Andrea del Sarto: By Robert Browning

(Discussion)
 The poem Andrea Del Sarto called the faultless painter for his
technical perfection was a court painter of the King Francis of France
in 16th century.
 The king sent him with large amount of money to go buy famous
paintings in Italy, however he betrayed Francis and never returned to
France. Although Michael Angelo and Raphael were legendary
painters of that time, Andrea Del Sarto earned his distinction for his
minute attention to details hence the faultless painter.
 The long poem is a dramatic monologue when one evening Andrea is
with his wife Lucrezia and thinks of his career and how he betrayed
Francis and a serious drawback of this was that it did not let him have
higher inspiration.
 He concludes that his mercenary outlook and his anxiety to keep his
wife satisfied are the reasons behind his being at this low level in the
world of art.
 He further requests his wife to come closer to him so that he could
watch Fiesole from the window of his house in a posture of intimacy
and wake up cheerful next day and finish the painting.
 While art has been a means of livelihood for many, Andrea built up his
career by fraud and used the money to construct a house for himself
and meet his wife’s needs.
 The feeling of guilt has bought no perceptible change in Andrea’s
outlook and he has become a slavish of his wife.
 He looks out the window and hears the church bell and feels the chilly
autumn winds referring to the fact that like in autumn everything
decays like power and creativity.
  He sees his work as a twilight piece devoid of brightness and
splendour. He has been living with a sense of failure all his life but
realizes it just now.
 He never forgets the supreme paintings of Michelangelo, Raphael,
Leonardo da vinci for the reason that their work were inspired from
inner soul. That source has dried up for Sarto. He can carefully see
something and draw it accurately but the production of great work of
art is out of his grasp and he cannot overcome it.
 Additionally, his wife’s infidelity is there as well and Andrea doesn’t
want to confront her openly. He may now take satisfaction in being a
faultless painter but his life is in shambles.

(Appreciation)
 As a poet Robert Browning possessed a keen insight in every aspect
of art and the devotion towards a moral outlook. Without this his
work would have lacked vitality and purpose.
 His association with poets, painters and musicians in Italy gave him a
knowledge about the shady side of this business. He must have
realized with pain how an artist can perform for sheer mercenary
motives by gaining success over monetary terms and in the process
destroying himself. This moral failure of the artist is central to the
poem.
 The poem is a confession on the part of Andrea Del Sarto who had a
great artistic promise but was ruined by one basic flaw of deceiving
the king for money. He compromised his integrity for a woman to
whom money and pleasure was above all.
 He admits to have sold himself to Lucrezia to satistfy her, however
she also betrays him in the end. He has forgotton art to lose himself in
materialistic pursuit and moved towards death.
 This poem is comical, ironical, light hearted and a vindication of this
doctrine of art.

The scholar gypsey: By Matthew Arnold

(Background)
 The scholar gypsy is based on a story about a scholar who
abandoned academic life to join a band of gypsies. There are various
places and landmarks mentioned in the poem are actual ones located
around Oxford.
 This is one of best and most well known poem of Arnold where a
poor oxford student is a protagonist who left his studies to pursue
about the supernatural powers of the Gypsy people.
 Arnold begins the poem in a pastoral mode talking about unnamed
shepherd and describing a beautiful rural scene with oxford in the
distance.
  The word moon acts like a symbol for the power of imagination and
the word quest appears to be a very loaded term for the rustic job of
a shepherd. The pastoralism leads to various themes. It represents
the intolerable world of court and affairs.
 He then says that the gypsy was seen from time and time by
shepherd, young boys and country girls and even by himself.
 The poet thinks of him as a shadowy figure who can be seen from
time to time in the Berkshire and Oxford shire countryside.
 He romanticizes Oxford Shire as his happiest days. This Pastoral
elegy has been written in a ten-line stanzaic pattern constituting a
total of 250 lines.
 The poet wasn’t sure if the scholar gypsy was still alive after 2
centuries but ruled out the thought of an ordinary death. He cannot
have died like a natural man. He renounced having such a life and
hence free from sick fatigue or the languid doubt.
 As a poet Arnold gives a reference of sick society in his poems. This
poem is also one of them, The attitude of the poet towards scholar
gypsy is similar to the attitude of an adult towards a child. Arnold
realizes that he can not return to the stage of innocence. The gypsy
similarly was the manifestation of a good that was lost.
 At the end it can be said that the scholar gypsy is a great modern
melancholy and widened and spiritualized into a spirit of mystery
and dream.

Pied beauty: By Gerard Manley Hopkins

(Background)
 Beauty is of all sorts. Some may see beauty in the curve of a lady’s
brow in the innocence of a baby’s face in the red rose that blooms
on a thorny plant in a placid lake or a mountain slope. Hopkins sees
beauty in spots, speckles, dots and blotches. In a world where we try
to get rid of spots and blotches, Hopkins praises them and helps us
see beauty even in motley.
 He wrote this poem in 1877 the year he was ordained as a jesus
priest. It is a curtal sonnet with 11 lines. As for the rhyming scheme,
the octave is of 6 lines instead of 8 and the sestet is shortened from
6 lines to quatrain.

(Explanation)
 Pied beauty which is one of Hopkins happy poems is a hymn of
creations that praises the creator by praising the created world. It
glorifies all the earthly things as pied and spotted. He thinks that it
is the manifestation of god’s creativity. With the eye of the painter
he creatively sketches in a kaleidoscopic variety of all objects and
patterns that provide this kind of beauty.
  Hopkins starts with a eulogy of the lord the creator. This is
followed by an inventory of things which are dappled or spotted.
He includes in the list the sky that is dappled at dawn with blotches
of blue colour and splashed against pale white a contrast described
as couple colour by Hopkins.
 It reminds him of brinded cow or brindled and piebald cow whose
hide is again a contrast of brown against white. He then describes
the trout swimming with the body painted in rose coloured moles.
 The next image is that of a meaty chestnut glowing as it splits and
falls.
 He also described the tiny birds. Hopkins places man in his context
as only a part of the natural world and even human achievements
are a part of the larger scheme.
 In the final five lines he goes beyond the physical characteristic of
the things that he has described and delves into their natural and
moral qualities.

No Second troy: By William Butler Yeats

(Background)
 The poem no second troy was published in the collection of the
green helmet and other poems. The subject of the poem is
unrequited love of the poet for Maud gonne the beautiful Irish
nationalist frebrand who he met in 1889 and instantly fell in love.
She was yeats friend and collaborated with him as an actor but
never reciprocated his love.
 Yeats remained fascinated by her beauty and personality all his
life. She was married to John MacBride who dies in 1916 when
Yeats again proposed to Gonne who again turned down his
proposal.
 He then pursued her daughter but was turned down again. In this
poem his work admits his infatuation for gonne while successfully
blaming her for causing him misery by refusing his love.
 He also compares her beauty with that of Helen of Troy the most
beautiful and controversial women who caused the Trojan war in
Homer’s Iliad.
 The poet also goes beyond his romantic attraction towards gonne.
He says that the age itself does not deserve Maud Gonne who is so
much like the Helen of Troy.

(Explanation)
 The poem is structured by 4 rhetorical questions grouped into 2
sections of 5 lines each followed by 2 lines. In the first 5 lines
using the first rhetoric question the poet absolves Maud Gonne
from blame of being the cause of his misery as well as exciting
the unworthy men to chaotic violence.
  In the 2nd group of 5 lines the poet ironically states that the middle
class irish people had no moral strength to equal their desire of a
free Ireland and wonder how such a beautiful women of tranquil
mind and exceptional character could find peace in such an age.
 In the last 2 lines containing third and fourth rhetoric question he
makes an explicit comparison of hers with the Helen of Troy.
 The poem comes across as the poet’s attempt to reconcile with
the rejection by Maud Gonne by overcoming the consternation
caused by his unrequited love to blame her.
 The poet disliked MacBride and even in this poem easter of 1916
he wrote on the uprising and could not hide is jealousy and
dislike.
 The poet also employs 2 similes to suggest the nobility of
Gonne’s mind and her beauty.
 Her mind is as pure as fire and her physical beauty is like a
tightened bow that gives her a superiority over a crowd. This
causes a mix of austerity, passion and violence.
 The poem is in the form of a sonnet with 12 lines and not 14
lines. The rhyme scheme structures the poem into 3 quatrains of 4
lines each abab, cdcd, efef. The metre employed is iambic
pentameter with 5 stressed syllables each followed by an
unstressed syllable.

The raven: By Edgar Allen Poe

(Background)
 It's late at night, and late in the year (after midnight on a December evening, to
be precise). A man is sitting in his room, half reading, half falling asleep, and
trying to forget his lost love, Lenore. Suddenly, he hears someone (or
something) knocking at the door.

He calls out, apologizing to the "visitor" he imagines must be outside. Then he

opens the door and finds…nothing. This freaks him out a little, and he
reassures himself that it is just the wind against the window. So he goes and
opens the window, and in flies (you guessed it) a raven.


The Raven settles in on a statue above the door, and for some reason, our
speaker's first instinct is to talk to it. He asks for its name, just like you usually
do with strange birds that fly into your house, right? Amazingly enough,
though, the Raven answers back, with a single word: "Nevermore."

Understandably surprised, the man asks more questions. The bird's vocabulary
turns out to be pretty limited, though; all it says is "Nevermore." Our narrator
catches on to this rather slowly and asks more and more questions, which get
more painful and personal. The Raven, though, doesn't change his story, and
the poor speaker starts to lose his sanity.
(Explanation)
 The raven is the poet’s most famous poem. It first appeared in January 29
1845 issue of the New York evening mirror. It reprinted a month later in
American Whig review. Many critics have tried to recreate the instance
behind the poem that bought fame to the poet.
 A few have suggested that the poet earlier thought of having a parrot or
an owl before finalizing the raven. Poe himself wrote an essay a year later
mentioning the parrot as the predecessor of the raven.
 The poet wanted to give the readers a unity effect and a reading
experience that could be completed in a single sitting.
 In the poem the bird undergoes transformation in keeping with the
demands of the theme.
 The thematic focus of the raven is the loss of a loved one and the
interminable sorrow that follows. Poe had experienced death in his family
of his mother, brother and wife. Even his childhood sweetheart was lost
to marriage. His wife Virginia succumbed to tuberculosis. Loss and
mourning became and integral part of his life and this is exactly what the
poem stands for.
 The poem begins with a fairy tale opening. This is further specified in the
bleak December second stanza and plunges directly into the experience of
the narrator in that melancholy December midnight.
 The language and the atmosphere bring the essence of exoticness and
mysteriousness.
 The plotline is simple and clear and revolves around a common literary
theme of death of a beloved and the gloom surrounding it. The success of
the poem lies in provoking a paranormal feeling and outlook.

Damayanti to Nala in the hour of exile

(Background)
 The poem is based on the mythological story of Damayanti and Nala
from Mahabharata. It is about the love of Damayanti the princess of
Vidarbha and King Nala. Damayanti chose Nala as her husband at her
swayamvara. In her swayamvara gods like Indra, Varun, Agni also
participated but she chose Nala.
 After the marriage they faced many hardships and Nala lost his kingdom
in gambling, they both were exiled into a forest and then Nala abandons
his sleeping wife in the forest and later on after many ups and downs
they are united. In the end the story becomes happy as he wins his
kingdom back
 This poem presents Damayanti trying to remind Nala of his greatness.

(Explanation)
 As the title says these are the words spoken by Damayanti to nala who
has lost his kingdom and they are in an exile in the forest and she is
trying to inspire him who is feeling dejected.
  There are questions in the first three sentences but they are rhetoric
questions that don’t necessarily need an answer. This is to suggest that
Damayanti is speaking with great emotion.
 She says that Nala whose head was never bent in the sorrow of defeat
cannot be overcome by adversity that the fate has thrown at them. Here
his prowess as a warrior is portrayed. He has shattered armies and
stamped empires dead. He is the husband of a queen and will always
remain a king. No one can unking him.
 The poem provides a contrast between the glory of the earth and the
divine glory of Nala. All the earthly glories fade away but Nala’s glory
stays forever. Here hyperbole is used.
 Damayanti says that the winds, planets, and sun everything will obey
nala’s commands. Wherever his radiance falls it spreads dawn. Similarly
the sun will raise a purple and red canopy for him.
 His kingly garment will be made up of velvet with starry gold just like
the night sky has bright golden stars the garment will be made up of
golden threads. Hence there is no distinction between natural and
supernatural. Hence all this suggest that Nala is very mighty and will
win his kingdom back
 His image as a king continues in the further lines. Damayanti says that
her hair in braid will be like a crown of sapphire for him. This portrays
her kissing him. Her hair will fall on his face when she does so and her
kisses will bring him peace just like the music of sitar does to listeners.
In the morning the sun will pay homage to him and hence all this
suggests that Damayanti will always be with Nala in the days of his
adversity.
 In conclusion lines as well rhetoric questions are there and the speaker is
speaking with great passion.
 In the end she used kingdom in a different sense that Nala always has
the kingdom of her love and her love protects him and arms him with
the sword of hope that is always victorious.
 The poem was written only about a100 years ago however still uses a
very old English poem tone.
 The poem has a declamatory style and this language is mostly seen in an
orator. An inspiring tone hence has been used.
 Hyperbole is also extensively used.

Authors
John Milton (L’Allegro, IL Pensoroso, On the late massacre in Piedmont, When the
assault was intended on the city)

1. Born in London, 9 Dec 1608, Well to do family

 2. Father: John Milton Sr, man of culture, classical scholar, musician of no mean
ability.
3. Admitted to Christ college, Cambridge in 1625. Hardworking student but
argumentative and against injustice.
4. Got suspended in 1626 after a dispute with his tutor William Chappell.
5. Suspension proved as a blessing in disguise. Temporary return to London.
Attended plays, began first forays into poetry.
6. Received M.A cum laude at Cambridge in 1642. Return to London home in
Horton Buckinghamshire.
7. Devoted time to private study and literary composition. Composed L’Allegro
and IL Pensoroso around this time.
8. In Nov wrote a beautiful elegy Lycidas in his friends memory.
9. Lost his sight in 1652 that made him introspect his talent and wrote when I
consider how my light is spent known as on his blindness.
10. Childhood was both of renaissance and reformation. Spent childhood
witnessing puritanism and old age marked the consummation of puritan ideals.

John Donne (the sun rising, the anniversary, the relic)

1. Most influential poet of the metaphysical school a name given by Dr Johnson
in the 18th century
2. Succeeded Shakespeare and Ben Johnson, wrote poetry of love breaking from
the Elizabethan courtly and pastoral tradition.
3. Studied in Cambridge then at Lincoln’s Inn
4. Poems were not published during his lifetime. Writings could have had a mass
circulation and publicity as everyone imitated his writing style in 17th century.
5. Major characteristic of the writing was colloquialism, closeness with the
spoken language of London of its time.
6. Also wrote religious poems with evident non conformism. Expressed his
doubts and apprehensions openly.
7. Curious fact about his influence on TS Eliot who credited him for uniting a
feeling with thought.
8. Should not be seen as an innovative poet but as a poet who corrected the course
of poetry.
9. His influence on the modern age is prevalent
10. Exercised great intellectual appeal. Awarded an honorary degree in Cambridge
in 1615.

Andrew Marvel (thoughts in a garden, to his coy mistress)

1. Led a distinguished civil life as a teacher, political activist and an associate of
John Milton.
2. Born on March 31, 1621. Father was a clergyman later a lecturer at Holy
Trinity Church.
3. Graduated from Cambridge university, served as a tutor to the daughter of Lord
General Thomas Fairfax.
 4. Had the opportunity to spend time in rural countryside that shaped his poetic
interest. Observed natural phenomenon, life of birds, trees and plants. Written
about these things in his poem.
5. Influenced by the poetry of Donne. Liked its candour, bold romanticism and
playfulness of language. Wrote about love quite frankly under his influence.
6. Third element in his poetry is spiritual experience.
7. Elected as a member of parliament.
8. Travelled in continents in a state of retirement
9. Important prose are the rehersal transprosed, an account of the growth of
popery, divine in mode etc.
10. Major works: Horatian ode, to his coy mistress, last instruction to a painter.

John Dryden (Mac Flecknoe)

1. Born in Aldwinkle, all saints, Northamptonshire in 1631.
2. First attempt at composition dates from this period. Proceeded to Cambridge,
left the uni after 4 years in 1657, settled in London same year.
3. In London devoted himself to politics and literature.
4. Death of Cromwell gave him the first chance to appear in limelight.
5. Everything that he wrote was automatically suggested by events in his
contemporary life.
6. Dryden’s odes and lyrical poems of the last 15 years form the last outstanding
groups.
7. In his 67th years devoted himself to classical literature inspired him to
undertake translations from the Latin juvenal, perseus and virgil.
8. Literary achievements were enormous, every verse was improved in next gen.
Satirical and didactic poems can be regarded has his successful attempts.
9. Various essays, prefaces, epistles, prologues touch the doctrine of classicism in
the opening stage.

Alexander pope (An essay on man)

1. Born in London 1688 in the year of revolution and of John Bunyan’s death.
2. Was excluded from public schools and uni’s. Picked up most of his knowledge
in a haphazard way. Although he read widely he never became an accurate
scholar.
3. Sound of learning almost creeped in his work
4. Poetic career falls into three periods. Early period of original work divided by a
period of translation.
5. In this period his mock heroic poem the rape of the lock was published as a
masterpiece.
6. Translation of Homer’s Iliad and the odyssey represents his labour of 2nd
period.
7. Principal works of the 3rd period are four moral essays, the Dunciad, an essay
on man and epistle to dr. Arbuthnot.
8. Critically evaluated as the embodiment of kind intelligence which was
currently known as wit and the classical age cultivated and admired.
9. Regarded as a marvelously clever and adroit literary craftsman.
 10. His perfect model was followed by other poets till early 19th century

Samuel Johnson (The vanity of human wishes)

1. He was a critic, poet, lexicographer, essayist. Born in 1709 at Lichifield to
elderly parents and his childhood was marred by a tubercular infection which
affected his sight and hearing. Face was scarred by scrofula and popularly
called as king’s evil.
2. Educated at lichifield grammer school in 1728 went to pembroke college in
oxford.
3. After a brief period as a schoolmaster, moved to Birmingham and contrinuted
articles.
4. Married Elizabeth porter in 1735 and attempted to start a school at edial near
his home town.
5. Lack of uni degree hindered him from pursuing a profession and he made his
living by writing.
6. In 1738 published his poem London. Revealed his literary abilities.
Approached lord chesterfield with a plan. However lord gave him a snub that
bought out to the light of decline of the patronage system.
7. Turned to melancholy and depression after his wife’s death.
8. Contributed to the periodicals and in 1755 the dictionary of the English
language was published bringing him wide acclaim.
9. In 1765 his spirits were lifted as he made an acquaintance of thrales and over
the time spent his year at their home in streatham.

Thomas gray (Elegy written in a country churchyard)

1. Sole survivor of 12 children, a man of poor physique himself. Born in Cornhill,
London in 1716, Father was a scrivener and mentally unbalanced. Bought up
by his mother who sent him to eton where he made friends with Horace
Walpole.
2. Went to Peterhouse Cambridge and gained a high reputation for his latin
poetry. Failed to take a degree.
3. Turned to the study of law, began writing tragedy, remained unfinished.
4. Death of his friend in 1742 precipitated a period of poetic activity.
5. Wrote elegy in a country churchyard in 1742 while staying with his mother and
aunt at their retirement home in stoke pages.
6. The poem was carefully revised over the time and published by Dodsley in
1751. Achieved instant recognition as a masterpiece.
7. Great changes appear in his poem in terms of nature, fidelity and sympathy.
8. There is also a churchyard scene, Twilight atmosphere, brooding melancholy,
distinctive romantic mood.
9. Appointed as the professor of modern history at Cambridge in 1768.
10. Can be rightfully considered a scholar who produced little but precious English
poetry.

William wordsworth (Intimations of immortality, tintern abbey)

 1. He along with Coleridge and Southey belonged to the first gen of romantic
poets.
2. Born on April 7, 1770 at cockermouth on the Derwent in the Cumberland
highlands of lake district.
3. Became an orphan by the age of 14
4. His uni days are well documented in the prelude
5. Obtained his BA degree in 1791, went to live in London for a while where
multitudes of the huge city bought him a vision of totality.
6. In 1791 went to France to learn French in order to fulfil his cherished idea of
becoming a touring tutor.
7. Enthusiastic about the revolution of 1798 and the revolutionaries.
8. Compelled to return to England because his guardians threatened to cut off his
allowances.
9. Every critic says that he is the greatest nature poet of England.
10. He discarded the abstract and frigid style of the 18th century poetry in order to
find a suitable language for the new poetic movement.

Lord Byron (roll on thou deep and dark blue ocean, George the third)
1. Eldest of the 2nd gen of the romantic poets. Wordsworth, Coleridge and
Southey are all first gen.
2. Born in London on 22nd jan 1788 while his mother was on her way to
Aberdeen. Born in poverty and of a club foot.
3. Son of captain jack Byron known as the mad jack.
4. Attened the grammer school at Aberdeen in Scotland. Later went to harrow and
trinity college in Cambridge.
5. Had always been a rebel. Became a member of the whig club along with John
hobhouse.
6. Lived a considerable part of his live in continency. Of all the british poets he
was the most European in outlook.
7. His life imitated literature and his poetry makes its primary impact as a
historical and biographical document.
8. His last poetic act was his death on the island of Missolonghi while he was
working for Greek independence from the turks.

PB Shelley (Percy bysshey Shelly) (ode to the west wind, to a skylark)

1. Greatest romantic poet of the early 19th century. Uncompromising rebel.
Continued his struggle for the cause of liberty, social justice and peace.
2. Wished to bring social reform by his inspiring and courageous works of
literature. Dreamt of an ideal society in which there should be no slavery and
no exploitation.
3. Born on 4th August 1792 at field place, Broadbridge health near Horsham west
sussex England. Eldest legitimate son of Sir Timothy Shelly.
4. Received his early education at home tutored by reverend evan Edwards of
nearby Warnham.
5. Eloped to Scotland with the sixteen year old Harriot westbrook. Heartbroken
after the failure of his romance with his cousin harriet grove cut off his mother
and sisters and made harriet westbrook his beneficiary.
6. He also pursued Elizabeth hitchener who became his muse and soul mate in the
writing of his philosophical poem queen mab.
7. Completed Prometheus unbound in rome and spent mid 1819 writing a tragedy.
8. Also wrote the philosophical view of reform in this time.
9. Most remarkable poems are Ozymandias, ode to the west wind, to a skylark,
when soft voices die, queen mab etc.