Shirine Benarab

The poem expresses one of the core metaphysical issues at the heart of the human experience—reckoning with finality and anger at the inevitability of death. It is written in plain, poignant...

First of all, let us define the so-called supernatural machinery. Here is a helpful quote from a letter Alexander Pope added to the second edition of the poem: The Machinery, Madam, is a term...

Rachel's mother, Nella, pushed Rachel's young brother, Robbie, from the rooftop of their ninth-story building. Rachel managed to back away, and Nella jumped with her baby daughter in her arms. In a...

"Leda and the Swan" is a difficult poem on a difficult topic. First of all, to read it productively, you should familiarize yourself with the ancient Greek myth it is inspired by and what events it...

The main device used throughout the poem is repetition, which is characteristic of the traditional form the poem takes: the ballad. Ballads pertain to the oral tradition and are designed to be told...

The world Rossetti writes about is to be understood in a Biblical context: it is what obscures the real heavenly truth, what makes one stray from redemption. Yet, especially in the Romantic...

Many academics and poets would argue that rhythm is the foremost defining device of poetry as a literary genre. Rhythm runs underneath the literal meaning of the poem and can make a strong...