The Tennis Court Oath (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: John Ashbery
- First Published: 1962
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Voyages, Dreams, Violence, Painting or painters, Heroes or heroism, Consciousness, Thought or thinking
The Poem
“The Tennis Court Oath” is a poem in free verse, its forty-nine lines divided into six stanzas of varying length. The title has a double suggestiveness, only one aspect of which turns out to be relevant to the actual poem. The Tennis Court Oath was a key event of the French Revolution, an event in which the commoners (or Third Estate), having been locked out of a meeting of the Estates General, gathered in a nearby tennis court and vowed there to stand together until the Constitution could be reformed. John Ashbery’s poem in no way retells or even refers to this...
[The entire page is 1511 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
See Also
