Introduction to middle age

The Middle Ages was the period in European history from the collapse of Roman civilization in
the 5th century CE to the period of the Renaissance (variously interpreted as beginning in the
13th, 14th, or 15th century, depending on the region of Europe and other factors).

The 'Middle Ages' are called this because it is the time between the fall of Imperial Rome and
the beginning of Early modern Europe. ... The Dark Ages are given this name because Europe
was in disarray in comparison to the orderliness of classical antiquity and life was short and
poor.

The key difference between the renaissance and reformation is that the renaissance was a
cultural movement that began in Italy and spread across Europe while the reformation was the
Northern European Christian movement.

As mentioned above, renaissance and reformation are two distinct phenomena. Renaissance
paved the way for the advancement in art and architecture while reformation paved the way for
religious fragmentation, establishing Protestantism.

Gawain is a pinnacle of humility, piety, integrity, loyalty, and honesty. His only flaw proves to be
that he loves his own life so much that he will lie to protect himself. Gawain leaves the Green
Chapel penitent and changed.

Thus, Gawain is considered a hero for his massive courage and determination to meet the
Knight's challenge. His journey to the meeting point was made amidst hunger, cold, and
desperation. Any other person could have contemplated giving up but Gawain kept to his
course. Apr 5, 2021

The main themes in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight include the relationship between chivalry,
courtesy, and Christianity, sinful nature, and the importance of truth.

Social satire is the major theme of The Canterbury Tales. The medieval society was set on three
foundations: the nobility, the church, and the peasantry. Chaucer's satire targets all segments of
medieval social issues, human immortality, and depraved heart.

The purpose of the prologue is to give readers a general overview of the characters that are
present, why they are present there, and what they will be doing. The narrator begins by telling
us how it is the season in which people are getting ready to make a pilgrimage to Canterbury.

Piers Plowman is the human representation of moral and charitable Christianity on earth.
Throughout the story, Piers continues to labor for good—tending Truth's fields or caring for the
Tree of Charity. He is called Christ at one point in the story, and he can pardon people by God's
grace
Piers Plowman uses a series of dream visions, which are allegorical stories that unfold in a
character's dreams, to illustrate the corruption that William Langland sees as having poisoned
religious, political, and social life in fourteenth-century England.

Book Summary. Le Morte d'Arthur tells the story of King Arthur and his Knights at the Round
Table. Arthur, who is the son of King Uther Pendragon but was raised by another family, takes
his rightful place as king when, as a boy, he can pull the sword called Excalibur from the stone.

The main idea of the book is King Arthur's creation of the ideal kingdom of Camelot ruled with
the advice of the knights of the round table, after their rivals accepting his lineage and destiny
as the rightful king.

Who killed King Arthur in Morte d Arthur?

One of Arthur's knights, his son Mordred, wanted to become king and encouraged King Arthur
to battle Lancelot. Mordred convinced everyone that King Arthur died in battle and Mordred
overtook the throne. When King Arthur discovered his son's betrayal, he went home to reclaim
his throne.

What are the main features of a ballad?

13 Characteristics of a Ballad
It is a song that tells a story.
The beginning is often surprising.
Its language is simple.
It concentrates on a single episode.
The theme is often tragic & sad.
The story is told through dialogue & action.
It lacks specific detail.
It has a surprising ending.

What are the main features of a ballad?

13 Characteristics of a Ballad
It is a song that tells a story.
The beginning is often surprising.
Its language is simple.
It concentrates on a single episode.
The theme is often tragic & sad.
The story is told through dialogue & action.
It lacks specific detail.
It has a surprising ending.

10. Three main types of ballad<br /><ul><li>There are three main types of ballads – the
traditional ballads, the broadside ballad, and what is called the literary ballad.
Definition of ballads :
Ballads are a form of narrative verse that can be either poetic or musical; not all ballads are
songs. Many ballads tell stories, but this is not a mandatory attribute of the form. Many musical
ballads are slow and emotionally evocative.

a What is the 16th-century era called?

The period of European history extending from about 500 to 1400–1500 ce is traditionally
known as the Middle Ages. The term was first used by 15th-century scholars to designate the
period between their own time and the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

The 16th century is regarded by historians as the century in which the rise of Western
civilization and the Age of the Islamic Gunpowders occurred. The Renaissance in Italy and
Europe saw the emergence of important artists, authors, and scientists, and led to the
foundation of important subjects which include accounting and political science. Copernicus
proposed the heliocentric universe, which was met with strong resistance, and Tycho Brahe
refuted the theory of celestial spheres through observational measurement of the 1572
appearance of a Milky Way supernova. These events directly challenged the long-held notion of
an immutable universe supported by Ptolemy and Aristotle, and led to major revolutions in
astronomy and science. Galileo Galilei became a champion of the new sciences, invented the
first thermometer, and made substantial contributions in the fields of physics and astronomy,
becoming a major figure in the Scientific Revolution.

Spain and Portugal colonized large parts of Central and South America, followed by France and
England in northern America and the lesser Antilles. The Portuguese became the masters of
trade between Brazil, the coasts of Africa, their possessions in the Indies, and the Moluccas in
Oceania, whereas the Spanish came to dominate the Greater Antilles, Mexico, Peru, and
opened trade across the Pacific Ocean, linking the Americas with the Indies. English and
French corsairs began to practice persistent theft of Spanish and Portuguese treasures. This
era of colonialism established mercantilism as the leading school of economic thought, where
the economic system was viewed as a zero-sum game in which any gain by one party required
a loss by another. The mercantilist doctrine encouraged the many intra-European wars of the
period and arguably fueled European expansion and imperialism throughout the world until the
19th century or early 20th century.

The Protestant Reformation in central and northern Europe gave a major blow to the authority of
the papacy and the Catholic Church. In England, the British-Italian Alberico Gentili wrote the first
book on public international law and divided secularism from canon law and Catholic theology.
European politics became dominated by religious conflicts, with the groundwork for the epochal
Thirty Years' War being laid towards the end of the century.

In the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire continued to expand, with the Sultan taking the title of
Caliph, while dealing with a resurgent Persia. Iran and Iraq were caught by a major popularity of
the Shiite sect of Islam under the rule of the Safavid dynasty of warrior-mystics, providing
grounds for a Persia independent of the majority-Sunni Muslim world.
In the Indian subcontinent, following the defeat of the Delhi Sultanate empire and the
Vijayanagara Empire, new powers emerged, the Suri Empire founded by Sher Shah Suri, the
Deccan sultanates, and the Mughal Empire[2] by Emperor Babur of Mughal Dynasty, a direct
descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan.[3] His successors Humayun and Akbar, enlarged the
empire to include most of South Asia. The empire developed a strong and stable economy in
the world, leading to commercial expansion and greater patronage of culture, which significantly
influenced the course of Indian history.

Japan suffered a severe civil war at this time, known as the Sengoku period, and emerged from
it as a unified nation. China was ruled by the Ming dynasty and came into conflict with Japan
and Japanese piracy over the control of Korea.

The main aim of the work Utopia was to reform the society. More has realistically depicted the
condition of England of that time and has provided the solutions to improve it. CHANGE IN
APPROACH: The period of the Renaissance is also characterized by a change in approach.

Thomas More's Utopia is in many respects a typical product of Renaissance humanism. ...
Utopia bears all the signs of a humanist interest in the classical languages and forms and like
Erasmus' The Praise of Folly and Valla's On the True and False Good was preoccupied with
ancient philosophical views on ethical values.Nov 30,

A utopia is an ideal place that does not exist in reality. ... The term utopia derives from Utopia
(1515-1516), a book written in Latin by the Renaissance humanist Sir Thomas More which
describes a perfect commonwealth. More formed his title by conflating the Greek words
“eutopia” and “utopia”.

Long love by sir Thomas Wyatt

Ultimately, this is a poem about a lover who is in love with a woman, but whose fundamental
allegiance is to love itself. In the first four lines of this poem, Love is personified as a lonely
knight who takes shelter in the speaker's thoughts and keeps his home in the speaker's heart.
Jun 11, 202

the center of “Love Poem” is the idea that no person is perfect and that love accepts and
overcomes that fact. Whatever faults the person one loves may have been made up for by the
qualities in him or her that one loves and respects.

I find no peace

Thomas Wyatt writes this poem to express his ambivalent feelings about love. ... He compares
love to a prison, but then notes that he stays in love's prison willingly. Love makes him want to
die, and yet it makes him yearn to have good health. It makes him love another and hate
himself.
The Shepheardes Calender, series of poems by Edmund Spenser, was published in 1579 and
considered to mark the beginning of the English Renaissance in literature.

Following the example of Virgil and others, Spenser began his career with a group of eclogues
(short poems usually cast as pastoral dialogues), in which various characters, in the guise of
innocent and simple shepherds, discuss life and love, formulating weighty—and often
satirical—opinions on questions of the day. The Calendar consists of 12 eclogues, one for each
month, employing a variety of meters and including archaic vocabulary, Spenser borrowed from
earlier poetry (particularly that of Geoffrey Chaucer). The first and last of the eclogues, each
presenting a “complaint” by the shepherd boy Colin Clout (Spenser), frame the remaining 10
rustic dialogues. The latter deploy the full complement of pastoral poetic conventions, including
the singing contest, the encomium (a panegyric to Elisa [Elizabeth I]), the hymn to Pan, and the
dirge.

What is Sonnet 1 by Edmund Spenser about?

A poem of praise and devotion, Sonnet #1 begins the cycle of little love gifts that make up the
larger work. The first quatrain is saying that he envies leaves (I think he's using it in the sense of
pages) that his love holds lovingly in her hands -- hands which hold his life (because he loves
her so much.

The first quatrain is saying that he envies leaves (I think he's using it in the sense of pages) that
his love holds lovingly in her hands -- hands which hold his life (because he loves her so much.
The second quatrain is saying that the lines he writes should be happy because his love will
look at them. Even if she's crying for his death, at least the lines should be happy because
she's looking at them.
The third quatrain is saying his rhymes should also be happy because she's looking at them.
And he's saying that she is his muse -- Mt. Helicon is where the muses were supposed to be
from.
The couplet says that all those things should only care about pleasing her because he doesn't
care about anything else.

Sonnet 75 by Edmund Spencer

In 'Sonnet 75,' Edmund Spenser engages with themes of immortality and love. He spends the
poem depicting his efforts to immortalize his true love. As hard as he works, he can't seem to
accomplish what he's striving for. Spenser uses the image of the sand and waves to depict the
inevitability of death.
Christopher Marlowe, also known as Kit Marlowe, was an English playwright, poet, and
translator of the Elizabethan era.

Sonnet 55 is all about the endurance of love, preserved within the words of the sonnet itself. ...
This is because the poem will always be a 'living record', the memory of love will stay alive
within the sonnet, come what may. The effects of time, the destructive forces of war - they count
for nothing. Jan 8, 2020

The main theme of William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73" is how a person is affected by growing
older. In this sonnet, Shakespeare compares old age to the seasonal shift of autumn to winter,
the passing of day to night, and how a fire burns itself out when it is done burning. Feb 13,

In Sonnet 130, the theme "Women and Femininity" is connected to the idea of appearances.
This poem is all about female beauty and our expectations and stereotypes about the way
women ought to look.

In the early seventeenth century,

What happened in the early 17th century?

1640–1668: The Portuguese Restoration War led to the end of the Iberian Union. ... 1642:
Beginning of the English Civil War, the conflict will end in 1649 with the execution of King
Charles I, abolishment of the monarchy, and the establishment of the supremacy of Parliament
over the king. 1643: Louis XIV is crowned King of France.

The 17th century was a period of unceasing disturbance and violent storms, no less in literature
than in politics and society. The Renaissance had prepared a receptive environment essential to
the dissemination of the ideas of the new science and philosophy.

Who ruled England in the 17th century?

In 1603 King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England. He began a new dynasty
– the Stuarts. James, I never had the same charisma as Elizabeth I and never enjoyed the
same popularity.

By John duo simplest poems

Major Themes in “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”: Love, separation, and acceptance are
the significant themes given in the poem. The poem is primarily concerned with the love of the
speaker with his significant other. Though they are going to part due to circumstances, yet their
love will remain pure and true.

Andrew Marvell was an English metaphysical poet, satirist, and politician who sat in the House
of Commons at various times between 1659 and 1678. During the Commonwealth period, he
was a colleague and friend of John Milton.
Love's Philosophy” presents love as honest and divine as “To His Coy Mistress” presents love
as a lustful sentiment. ... [they] would sit down, and think which way To walk, and pass [they're]
long love's day” (Marvell 1-4); meaning that if there were enough time, he would be patient in
loving her.

The main theme of To his Coy Mistress is The Transience of Life, expressed through a sense of
time pursuing us and propelling us into the grave before we have achieved fulfillment. Marvell's
tempo and language become more and more urgent as the poem proceeds.

Paradise Lost is a poetic rewriting of the book of Genesis. It tells the story of the fall of Satan
and his compatriots, the creation of man, and, most significantly, of man's act of disobedience
and its consequences: paradise was lost for us

The main theme of Paradise Lost by poet John Milton is the rejection of God's Laws. This epic
work deals with Satan's rejection of God's Law and Satan's subsequent expulsion to earth
where he seeks to ruin Man. Satan is expelled with a third of the angels (now demons) who
chose to follow him rather than God.

The restoration and eighteenth century

What is the theme of Alexander's Feast?

Themes and Meanings

Alexander's Feast is about the power of music to raise, quell, and shift emotions. It illustrates
emotion through the effective use of sound and rhythm as well as through content. What it does
not do is express the emotion in a way that truly involves either the author or the reader. May 5,
2015

The main idea of Gulliver's Travels is to not judge people based on appearances. When Gulliver
meets the Lilliputians, they fear him at first. However, they come to see him as a friend and
welcome him into their society, underscoring that people should not judge based on initial
perceptions.

a critical essay is a form of academic writing that analyzes, interprets, and/or evaluates a text. In
a critical essay, an author claims how particular ideas or themes are conveyed in a text, then
supports that claim with evidence from primary and/or secondary sources.

Romantic period
Originally the word was applied to the Latin or Roman dialects used in the Roman provinces,
especially France, and to the stories written in these dialects. Romantic is a derivative of
romant, which was borrowed from the French romaunt in the sixteenth century.

Any list of particular characteristics of the literature of romanticism includes subjectivity and an
emphasis on individualism; spontaneity; freedom from rules; solitary life rather than life in
society; the beliefs that imagination is superior to reason and devotion to beauty; love of and
worship of nature; and …

Summary and main theme of Ode to the West Wind

• Popularity of “Ode to the West Wind”: Percy Bysshe Shelley,
a famous romantic poet, wrote ‘Ode to the West Wind’. It was first published in 1820. The poem
illustrates the most powerful impact of a specific wind. Also, it exhibits the poet’s desire to utilize
the mighty West Wind as a medium to make people realize the importance of this natural
blessing.
• “Ode to the West Wind” As a Representative of Power: The poem manifests two important
points; the power of the west wind and the power of poetry. He calls the wind preserver,
destructor, wild, musician and an agent of change and appeals to the west wind to make him as
mighty as itself so that he can spread his ripe ideas and words across the globe. He also asks
the wind to transform him into a musical instrument so that he can play the tune of his thoughts
and ideas to make the world aware of his presence. He adds, the powerful west wind also
brings winter with it that symbolizes death. But, he is hopeful about the spring that will bring new
life after winter.
• Major themes in “Ode to the West Wind”: Power, human limitations and the natural world are
the major themes of this poem. The poet adores the power and grandeur of the west wind, and
also wishes that revolutionary ideas could reach every corner of the universe.
Ode on a Grecian Urn” Theme Mortality
“Ode on a Grecian Urn” is a complex meditation on mortality. Death preoccupies the speaker,
who responds by seeming to both celebrate and dread the fleeting nature of life. The scenes on
the urn depict a Classical world that has long since passed—and yet, in being fixed on the urn
itself, these scenes also evoke a sense of immortality. The urn is therefore a contradiction—its
scenes speak of vibrant humanity and, because they are frozen in time, seem to represent a
kind of eternal life. At the same time, everything and everyone in the urn’s world is no more.
Sensing this contradiction, the poem can be read as a process of response, in which the
speaker tries to make sense of mortality—both that of others and their own— without ever
coming to a comfortable resolution.
Importantly, one of the main purposes served by an urn was to hold the ashes of the dead.
Though it can’t be said definitively that this is the sort of urn

Keats had in mind when writing this poem, he would no doubt have been aware of this as a
possible interpretation. The urn is the sole object of contemplation in the poem, and accordingly
death—and the fleeting nature of human life—is present from the beginning.
The speaker projects their anxiously shifting thoughts about mortality onto the urn, which seems
to stand for both life and death at the same time. At points in the poem, the pictures on the urn
seem to come alive for the speaker. Stanzas 2 and 3 are full of praise for the scenes at hand, in
which the urn’s figures appear blissful and carefree. Lovers at play, pipe-playing musicians, and
bountiful nature all create a “happy, happy” feeling in the speaker. Here, then, the speaker
celebrates life, and the scenes frozen on the urn represent a kind of victory of life over death.
Indeed, the speaker praises the lovers on the urn as “For ever panting, and for ever young,” and
notes that the tree beneath which they sit will never “be bare.”
But the pictures on the urn are ultimately just that—pictures. All the lives depicted by the
urn—and the maker of the urn itself—are long gone. They only seem alive because they are
rendered so well, performing actions that speak of vitality and humanity yet are not themselves
full of life. What’s more, though the maiden depicted “cannot fade,” neither can her lover have
“thy bliss”—that is, he can never kiss her in his frozen state. This complicates anxiety about the
inevitable march of time, given that to stop time essentially stops not just death, but life as well.
Mortality is thus presented not simply as an end to but also a distinct part of life.
This realization dawns on the speaker through the course of the poem. Arguably, this is marked
when the speaker introduces their own mortality in line 8 of stanza 3: “All breathing human
passion far above.” This moment brings to mind the speaker’s own breath settling on the object
of contemplation. To breathe is to be alive—and to be reminded, in this case, of inevitable
death.
From this point onwards, the poem becomes less celebratory and more anxious. The busy
scenes on the urn seem to speak of an emptiness

intimately linked to mortality. In stanza 4, for example, the speaker is vexed by the fact that the
people depicted on the urn can never return to their “desolate” hometown.
By the poem’s close, the urn becomes “cold” to the speaker—that is, its inanimate quality offers
no lasting comfort to the speaker’s contemplation of mortality. Ultimately, the speaker turns this
realization on their own generation, which will be laid to “waste” by “old age.” The speaker, then,
grapples with the question of mortality throughout the poem. At first, the beauty of the urn
seems to bring its characters back to life, as the stillness of the images makes their lives
immortal. Eventually, though, reality sets in, and the urn makes mortality all the more present
and undeniable.
John Keats
John Keats was a British poet who was one of the most prominent pioneers of sensual lyric
poetry in Britain at the beginning of the eighteenth century. He presented many wonderful
poems, which he collected in three huge volumes, and sold more than 200 copies of them
during his lifetime.
Although he studied medicine, he did not practice it as a profession, and did not abandon his
passion for poetry and literature. He formed many relationships with the poets of that period and
was active with them against the pioneers of the traditional poetic movement.
His friends sought after his death to preserve his poetic heritage from loss and to work as much
as possible to spread it among the people.John Keats was born in London - Britain, on October
31, 1795. He was the eldest brother of five children, his father, Thomas Kate, a treasury keeper,
and his mother, Frances Kate.
John lost his parents at a young age; When he was eight years old, his father died after being
trampled by a horse in 1804. His mother died after her second marriage and divorce as a result
of tuberculosis in 1810.
John's mother had lost a large part of her fortune after her second divorce, and entrusted the
raising of her children to their grandmother.
Shortly before his father's death, John attended Enfield School and found art and literature a
haven. Known as a voracious reader, John became close to Principal John Clark, who
compensated John for the loss of his father and encouraged him to continue his interest in
literature and poetry.
In 1810, John left Enfield to study medicine. He joined Guy's Hospital in London and obtained a
pharmacy license from it in 1816.
John Keats' achievements

John Keats did not practice medicine and his studies did not prevent him from practicing
literature and writing poetry, and during his medical studies he met through his friend Cadon
Clark, son of the principal of the Enfield School, the publisher Lee Hunt.
Lee Hunt was known for his radicalism and stinging styluses, which led to his imprisonment for
defaming the Prince of England, Regent, in 1813. Hunt had an interest in emerging talents and
was a staunch supporter of John Keats and a supporter of his poetry and later a publisher of his
poetry. He succeeded in introducing John Keats into the world of politics, and John became one
of the well-known faces in Britain.
It was around this time that Keats wrote his first sonnet, "Written on the Day that Mr. Liegh Hunt
Left Prison," in honor of Lee Hunt's release from prison.
Lee Hunt opened the door to relationships for John Keats, introducing him to a group of
well-known poets at the time, such as Percy Bysshe Shelley and Williams Wordsworth.
In 1817 John Keats profited from the relationships he had formed and published his first volume
of poetry, Poems by John Keats. In 1818 John published a four-thousand-line poem entitled
"Endymion", which was based on a Greek legend of the same name. John began writing this
poem in the summer of 1817, at a rate of 40 lines each day, and finished working on it at the
end of 1817 and it was published in April 1818. .
After John published his poem, he was subjected to severe criticism from the most famous and
powerful magazines in Britain, such as "Blackwood's Magazine" and "Quarterly Review", whose
criticism came as an extension of the criticisms she had directed against the publisher Lee Hunt
and the group of young poets loyal to him. These criticisms caused fear and anxiety for John
Keats.
Keats overcame the ordeal of his poem "Endymion" before its publication and began at the end
of 1817 to write lengthy letters to his friends in which he spoke about the role of poetry in society
and expressed his view that poetry should derive from the real experience of man in life rather
than quoting it from ancient mythical stories.
In the summer of 1818 John Keats toured northern England and Scotland on foot. But he
returned home after a while to provide medical attention to his brother Tom, who has
tuberculosis. It was during this period that he fell in love with Faye Brown and was unable to
marry her, so he continued his poetic writings, which resulted in his first Shakespearean sonnet,
"When I have fears that may cease to be," which he published in 1818. Two months later, Keats
published a new poem entitled: Isabella", which talks about a woman who loves a man below
her social level, and his story was in fact him. John based his poem on the story of the Italian
poet Giovanni Boccaccio.
John stopped writing after the death of his brother Tom, but returned to his poetic activity at the
end of 1819, rewriting the poem "The Fall of Hyperion", which was not published until three
decades after Keats' death.
In the year 1820 John Keats published a beautiful poem entitled "To Autumn", which was a
beautiful description of nature and the fresh fruits in it, as well as the sleeping uncles and the
shining sun. John also wrote another poem, "Hyperion," which was inspired by the Greek myth
of the Olympian goddess.
During his short life, John Keats published three volumes of poetry that included all his poetry
and sold nearly 200 copies of his works during his life, which ended in 1821
In the year 1819 symptoms of tuberculosis began to appear on John Keats; He traveled to Italy
to get treatment and stay in a warm weather in the winter. He improved for a while, but soon
returned to the sick bed.
His doctor in Italy put him on a strict diet with the aim of blocking blood flow to his stomach, but
it left him with a lack of oxygen and a severe eating disorder.

Then John died in the Italian city of Rome on February 23, 1821.
• Major Themes in “The Lady of Shalott”: Isolation, detachment, and the supernatural elements
are the major themes of this poem. The text revolves around the mystery of the Lady of Shalott,
who is trapped. She accepts it as her fate and is emotionally and physically detached from the
real world. She sees the world only through the mirror. Ironically, she dies when she gets out of
that building and when the mirror breaks.
Summary of The Lady of Shalott
• Popularity of “The Lady of Shalott”: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, a great British poet, wrote ‘The
Lady of Shalott’, a ballad known for
its themes of melancholy and death. It was first published in 1833. The poemunfolds the story of
a lady who is mysteriously imprisoned in a tall building of Camelot. It then illustrates how magic
plays a significant role in one’s life.
• “The Lady of Shalott” As a Representative of Death: The poem narrates the tragic story of a
lady who is imprisoned on an island. No one can see her except the farmers who listen to her
song while working in their fields. Everything around her is gloomy and colorless. She is not
allowed to look outside through the window. Rather, she sees the outside world through a mirror.
To her, the reality is confined to the images she perceives through that mirror. The poem also
provides a detailed description of the place around her and the movement of the people in
Camelot. One day, she sees a knight coming from the fields of Barley. He grabs her attention,
and she sees the Camelot through the window. As a punishment, she writes her name on the
boat, signs her last song, and dies.
• Major Themes in “My Last Duchess”: Jealousy, hatred, and power are the major themes of this
poem. Browning has presented the character of a duke who wants to rule his woman with an
iron fist. He talks about his late wife and details the reasons why he did not like her. He could
not tolerate the idea that his wife was easily attracted toward the strangers and responded them
happily. It is due to this behavior his wife is not alive. That is why he seems to be a psychopath,
jealous and self-centered man who not only wishes to control his kingdom but also wants to
govern the lives of his near and dear ones.
Summary of My Last Duchess
• Popularity of “My Last Duchess”: Robert Browning,
a famous English poet, and playwright, wrote ‘My Last Duchess’, a

famous dramatic monologue of a duke about a heinous act of killing his former wife. It was first
published in Browning’s Dramatic Lyrics in 1842. The poemcomprises the sentiment of the
speakerwhose mistress could not survive his severity. It also provides an insight into the
psychological state of the speaker. However, its popularity lies in the presentation of a realistic
picture of the Victorian era.
• “My Last Duchess” As a Representative of Jealousy: The poem presents a monologue of a
duke who is telling about the demise of his last duchess. At the outset, he displays the painting
of his late wife and talks about her character traits. First, he acknowledges the mastery of the
painter for painting a lifelike picture of his mistress. Then, accuses his mistress of having a heart
that was “too soon made glad” and “too easily impressed.” He did not like her soft, impartial and
polite manners. Therefore, he blames her for being so gentle and kind. Although her death is
suspicious, the duke gets away with her murder on account of his status and power. Thus, the
poem exhibits the vicious, psychotic and controlling mind of the duke, who hated his wife due to
her positive nature.
• Dover Beach Theme Religious Uncertainty
The poem represents a particular sense of dissatisfaction and confusion which arose during the
Victorian period, as science and the Enlightenment began to diminish the Christian faith which
had previously been almost universal in the nation. The speaker laments the loss of the “Sea of
Faith” which once wrapped around the nation and protected it, metaphorically, from the “clash”
which now seems to be the result of human uncertainty and ignorance. The “ignorant armies” at
the end of the poem represent people who no longer have the “certitude” they once had: they
are arguing with each other, but have no real guidance. They are simply fighting with each other
with no real aims in the metaphorical dark.
• Major Themes in “Sailing to Byzantium”:Man versus nature and eternity are the major themes
of this poem. The poem presents two things: the transience of life and the permanence of
nature. The speaker wants to escape from the world where wise people are neglected. The
young generation is so much caught up with life that they fail to understand what the natural
world offers to them. Being wise, he knows that man can find solace and satisfaction in the lap
of nature. Hence, he prefers leaving his country and happily sailing to Byzantium, which offers
him immense pleasure and fruits of eternity.

Summary of Sailing to Byzantium

• Popularity of “Sailing to Byzantium”:William Butler Yeats, a great Irish poet, wrote this poem. It
is a narrative poem about nature. It was first published in 1928. The poem speaks about the
journey of an old man who is traveling to a new country. It illustrates how he seeks spiritual
guidance and discovers the sublime work of art and aging.
• “Sailing to Byzantium” As a Representative of Nature: This poem is about a man escaping
from his country to a place where he can revive his soul with glorious work of art. As a speaker
of the poem, he declares he does not belong to his country as it is full of young people. To him,
the young generation lives in the present moment and do not think about death. They are
absorbed in gaining worldly pleasures, which never allows them to understand the cyclical
nature of life. Therefore, they not only neglect the old men that are wiser than them but also
neglect the art that neither dies nor grows old. The old speaker feels helpless and decides to
move on. This is how he imaginatively sails to Byzantium to illuminate his soul with glorious
works of art. He wishes to get transformed into a golden bird so that he could become an
eternal piece of art. What, however, stays in the minds of the readers is that he does not give up
on life and struggles to elevate his soul to the level of eternity.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” Theme
Anxiety, Indecision, and Inaction
The speaker in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is paralyzed by indecision. The poem’s
momentum is continuously frustrated by digressions— the speaker's thoughts trailing off in
seemingly unrelated directions—and by the speaker’s sense of his own inadequacy. By
depicting the speaker’s intense struggle with indecision, the poem suggests that excessive
preoccupation with doing the right thing—whether when expressing yourself, forming
relationships with others, or simply deciding how to style your hair or what to eat—can actually
stop a person from ever venturing forth into the world or, in fact, doing much of anything at all.
From the beginning, the poem sets up a juxtaposition between action and inaction. The first line
states “let us go,” implying that the poem will move forward in time and space—in other words,
that it will go somewhere. But that momentum is quickly stalled. These streets “follow like a
tedious argument of insidious intent,” suggesting that the various paths they offer up feel both

boring and threatening—that there is no clearly good path to take. And though the speaker says
that the streets “lead you to an overwhelming question,” the speaker doesn't actually pose that
question. Instead, he explicitly says not to inquire further: “Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’” Maybe
the question is just which direction is best to walk in or, indeed, where they're going in the first
place— simple queries that become hurdles in the speaker's mind.
In any case, the speaker’s habitual procrastination seems to be rooted in social anxiety, since,
paralyzed with fear about making the wrong choice, he appears to find even basic decisions
about what to eat or how to dress overwhelming. In fact, the speaker admits that he finds time
for “a hundred indecisions, / And for a hundred visions and revisions,” all before sitting down his
afternoon tea! He imagines “descending the stair” and greeting people, but in reality he is too
timid to do so because he imagines that people will laugh at his bald spot and shabby clothing
(which, in turn, suggest that the speaker is getting older—and that he has been wasting his time
with all this indecision).
What’s more, it’s not just that the speaker can’t follow through on his planned actions. He
doesn’t even seem to know how to begin to ask “the overwhelming question.” Instead he asks
“how should I begin?” and “how should I presume?”—suggesting that he feels incapable of
overcoming the first hurdle to taking action. He repeats those phrases at the end of two different
stanzas, giving the impression of a stuttering or repeated failed start.
For the speaker, trying to make the best choice repeatedly results in no choice at all. He is also
paralyzed by a feeling of his own inadequacy, as implied by his reluctance to “presume” and his
repetition of the phrase “Do I dare?” He doesn’t take action, in other words, because he doesn’t
feel that he has the right to do so. Overcoming indecision requires agency, but the speaker
remains trapped in his repeating patterns because he feels that he can’t “dare” to do anything.
There are times when the speaker does seem close to doing something, but the poem
ultimately indicates that wanting to act isn’t enough. Taking meaningful action, it suggests,
requires that an individual “dare” to make a

choice without being certain that it’s the best choice—a risk that the speaker can’t bring himself
to take. And while the speaker thinks he'll have plenty of time to do things, this seems like
wishful thinking. Given his propensity to waffle about every little decision, he'll likely continue to
agonize over his choices until there's no time left—his indecision having stopped him from living
a full life.
• See where this theme is active in the poem. •
•
• Musée des Beaux Arts
••
• The theme of the poem is that
• universal apathy to human suffering
causes tragedy and pain. Auden attempts to showcase the consequences of such unfeeling
behavior through
the imagery of his poem. Written in a innocent, simple style, Auden’s poem is much more
accessible than many of the other major poems of the modern period. Blunt and direct, this style
highlights the indifference of humanity all the more. Readers of poetry are, by definition,
attentive. For any reader appalled by widespread failure of attention, “Musée des Beaux Arts” is,
like the plop of young Icarus into the green water, indelibly etched in the mind.
• Throughout, Auden observes how individual suffering is ignored by the rest of the world. Most
people continue with their everyday lives without paying any attention to extraordinary events
going on, the kind that poets and painters usually depict. In particular, Bruegel shows the bizarre
tragedy of Icarus falling from the sky as if it were utterly inconsequential to anything else.
Oblivious to what is happening to Icarus, no one is distracted from proceeding with business as
usual.
Not Waving but Drowning
• Major Themes in “Not Waving but Drowning”: Death, misunderstanding, and loneliness are the
major themes of the poem. The poem explains the grief of a man who died because no one
heard his pleas for help. Instead, they misinterpret it as a friendly gesture.

The poem presents a satire of the society stating that a person is not valued when alive. But,
after his death, many come with fake grief.
Summary of Not Waving but Drowning
• Popularity of “Not Waving but Drowning”: Stevie Smith, a great English poet, and novelist
wrote ‘Not Waving but Drowning’. It is a famousnarrative poem about a dead man recalling the
reason for losing his life. It was first published in 1957. The poem presents an account of a
drowning man whose gesture for help was perhaps mistaken for waving. It provides society’s
absolute indifferent stance toward victims.
• “Not Waving but Drowning” as criticism on the Society: The poem exhibits two things, a
haunting glimpse of a drowning man and society’s cold response toward such incidents. The
poem is written from the perspective of a dead man who is moaning after his death while giving
a clue to his miserable plight. When he was drowning, no one could decipher his call for help.
Rather, people mistook his drowning gesture as waving. On the surface, the poem only presents
the picture of a drowning man whose call for help was not answered. As we understand the
poem in depth, it presents the dilemma of the dead man’s sufferings and the people around him
who did not notice problems.

Shahlaa 🧕