Essays on Poems

742

Christian Obligation and Religious Uncertainty in The Song of Roland and The Canterbury Tales

6 pages / 2957 words

The Middle Ages were marked by religious upheaval in Europe. Two new major world religions were coming to power: Islam and Christianity. The rapid success of Christianity led the Roman Catholic Church to become the dominant religious force in most of the western world, and...

Geoffrey Chaucer The Canterbury Tales The Song of Roland

743

Final Analysis of The Wanderer

6 pages / 2560 words

The Wanderer is a poem that laments both the temporality of human life and the material world, posing existential questions that only appear to be answered in the comparatively short conclusion though appeal to the Christian God. In part because of this structural oddity, critical...

Poetry The Wanderer

744

Depicting The Time Gone by in The Seafarer and The Wanderer

5 pages / 2072 words

The poems The Seafarer and The Wanderer are both elegiac in nature: each speaker delivers a reflective monologue about their journey from the past they have lost to the solitary present they face, although there are limitations to the past’s disappearance, as it clearly lingers...

Poetry The Seafarer The Wanderer

745

The Importance of "The Wanderer"

2 pages / 768 words

The Wanderer is a staple of Anglo-Saxon storytelling and has been recited over countless centuries to new audiences. The poem follows the story of a former warrior who is currently living a life of solitude. After the loss of his lord and kinsmen, the warrior...

Poetry The Wanderer

746

The Wanderer: Analyzing The Weather as a Symbol

2 pages / 793 words

The weather in “The Wanderer” is reflective of the author’s view of the world following his exile. Throughout the poem, weather is utilized in an effort to paint a picture as wretched and sorrowful as the persona’s view of life. As I read through the...

Poetry The Wanderer

747

The Seafarer: How to Preserve The Initial Sense While Translating

4 pages / 1825 words

Beginning at the time of early settlements in the 5th century and spanning until 1150 A.D., the English language and that spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons during this time is referred to as Old English or simply, Anglo-Saxon. The influence of Christianity on Anglo-Saxon...

Poetry The Seafarer

748

"Ulysses" and "The Seafarer": Erasing The Edge Between Life and Fiction

4 pages / 1650 words

Both Lord Alfred Tennyson’s dramatic monologue, “Ulysses,” and Ezra Pound’s 1912 translation of the Old English dramatic monologue “The Seafarer” depict a man’s musings about seaward journeys. Tennyson wrote “Ulysses” in the wake of his best friend Arthur Henry Hallam’s death. “The Seafarer” has traditionally...

Poetry The Seafarer Ulysses

749

Boethian Ideas in "The Wanderer"

3 pages / 1458 words

Boethius’s The Consolation of Philosophy and the Old English poem “The Wanderer” are both testament to the enduring quality of literature. Writing in the sixth century A.D., Boethius discusses such varied topics as happiness, the existence of evil, and the path to God while locked...

Poetry The Wanderer

750

Acceptance and Delicate Life History in "The Raven"

3 pages / 1243 words

As the account of his life goes, Edgar Allan Poe was a notoriously dark and depressed man who was always in search of love. When he finally found a marital relationship with his first cousin, she passed away, making his life even more tragic and...

Edgar Allan Poe The Raven

751

Main Theme of "The Rime of The Ancient Mariner" and "Stanzas Written in Dejection, Near Naples"

4 pages / 1667 words

Amongst the ideas presented in the poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples, the theme of isolation is prominent. Although Coleridge’s poem departs from Romantic stylistic tendencies, it exemplifies many of the ideas which defined the era, while...

Percy Bysshe Shelley Poetry The Rime of The Ancient Mariner

752

Values of Feudalism in "The Song of Roland"

3 pages / 1443 words

The French epic The Song of Roland (ca. 1100) loudly echoes the feudal values of its time. As it describes the transformation of France into a Christian nation united by loyalties to the king and country, the epic embodies the spirit of loyalty between a...

Song The Song of Roland

753

Manipulation in "The Song of Roland"

4 pages / 1697 words

The First Crusade took place from the year 1096 to 1099. According to Robert the Monk’s retelling of Pope Urban II’s speech at the Council of Clermont, the Pope describes the enemy as, “…a race from the kingdom of the Persians, an accursed race, a...

Literature Review The Song of Roland

754

Analysis of Roland's Death

2 pages / 896 words

In the Song of Roland, the protagonist, Roland, faces his death as the end consequence of his self-conceited and prideful actions. In the beginning of the poem Oliver indicated the consistent prideful behavior of Roland in the past. Roland then proves Oliver’s point by fighting...

The Song of Roland

755

Main Ideas in "The Song of Roland"

4 pages / 1982 words

In Song of Rowland, the author tells the story of Charlemagne’s attempted takeover of Saragossa, a land controlled by the Muslim king, Marsilla. The poem covers the feud between Rowland and his stepfather Ganelon, as well as the disastrous consequences that come from that feud,...

Book Review The Song of Roland

756

Good and Evil in "The Song of Roland"

3 pages / 1467 words

Lines from the first laisse of the epic, The Song of Roland express the focus of the poem: the demise of paganism and the victory of the superior, Christianity through the will of God. “Saragossa . . .held by King Marsiliun who does not love...

Literature Review The Song of Roland

757

The Concept of Evil in Islamic and Western European Cultures

4 pages / 1802 words

In our modern world, the frequency of terrorist activity and the ubiquitous threat of attack has greatly affected the way Western culture has come to regard the religion of Islam. Skewed by the media, society’s perceptions have reverted to the views of its European predecessors....

The Song of Roland

758

Parenting and Poetic Technique in "My Father’s Song" and "Those Winter Sundays"

2 pages / 901 words

The poem “My Father’s Song” is based on the wisdom and values, as well as traditions passed from old generation to new one. The speaker uses his life experience between him and his father to depict the variation of values and traditions between the old...

Poetry Those Winter Sundays

759

Joyce's "The Dead" and Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" Comparison

7 pages / 3320 words

Though James Joyce’s realist short story “The Dead” and T.S. Eliot’s mock-epic poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” both describe a climate of self-conscious emotional inarticulacy and division, the protagonists of each work deny themselves the pleasures of the present by their refusal...

Dubliners Song The Dead The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

760

A Poetic Call-and-response: The Discordant Intertextuality of Wordsworth’s "The World is Too Much with Us" and Levertov’s "O Taste and See"

5 pages / 2114 words

Literature is not a static, fixed entity, confined to the parameters of its initial creation. Literary pieces are forever evolving, adapting to new cultural, historical and social contexts through the processes of revision and reinterpretation. The grand scheme of literature is best represented as a...

Poetry The World Is Too Much With Us