The Knight, Death, and the Devil (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Randall Jarrell
- First Published: 1951
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
The Poem
“The Knight, Death, and the Devil” by Randall Jarrell is a carefully organized forty-line free-verse poem inspired by an engraving from the sixteenth century German artist Albrecht Dürer. The poem’s title is the same as the traditional title given to the engraving, but in German it is simply called “Der Reuter,” “The Rider,” making reference to the knight, its central figure.
In anthologies, the two works, one verbal, one visual, are often presented together. Thus the poem is an example of ekphrasis (Greek for “to speak out”), the verbal...
[The entire page is 1502 words long]
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