“Birches” is one of the most celebrated and widely anthologized poems by Robert Frost. First published in 1915 in the collection Mountain Interval, the poem beautifully combines observation of nature with philosophical reflection.
“Two Tramps in Mud Time” is one of the best – known poems of “A Further Range”, a volume of poems, first published in 1936.
Theme: Forgiveness and Freedom Introduction: “The Tempest” is a romance. It is a separate category of plays in which the dramatist shows the rare greatness of forgiveness. The hero suffers but does not take revenge in a traditional way that believes in “tit for tat”. In such plays the nobility of virtue is … Read more
Introduction of the Poem: “Hawk Roosting” is one of the Hughes’ simplest poems. It has been written in the form of monologue. It was first published in Lupercal in 1960. This poem is written in the first person i.e., the hawk is itself narrating something from its own mouth. It is a predatory bird … Read more
We shall have to look back a little and trace the intellectual history of Shelley before we can understand why he is a revolutionary. Rationalism of the eighteenth century was an important factor. The eighteenth century was an age of prose, social – mindedness and reason—the age of Voltaire, Newton, Adam Smith, Swift, Fielding, Lessing, … Read more
Introduction of the Poem: According to M.K. Naik, “Mahapatra’s poetry is redolent of the Orissa scene and the Jagannath temple at Puri figures quite often in it.” Dawn at Puri depicts the early morning scene on the sandy sea beach at Puri, known for its famous Jagannath Temple. The annual festival held to honour the … Read more
Introduction of the Poem: This poem may be classified as a dramatic monologue, that is, a poem in which somebody is speaking to somebody else, with the latter remaining silent throughout. Here the speaker is obviously a man who is speaking to a woman with whom he is in love. Of course, we are ourselves … Read more
Introduction of the Poem: This is a very short extract from a much longer poem the title of which has been given above. The poet is here writing ironically about the twenty fifth anniversary of the establishment of the republic of India. The country achieved its independence in 1947; but it became a republic (with … Read more
Critical Summary: Here we have an extract from Mahapatra’s long poem Relationship. The poem consists of many sections of which only one has here been supplied by the anthologist. Mahapatra intended this long poem to be a kind of epic based on the ancient history of Orissa to which he belongs by birth, by breeding, … Read more
Critical Summary: This poem too depicts a scene. The use of the word “Again” in the title shows that the poet or the protagonist has already had an experience of the kind which he describes in this poem. As in an Imagist poem, here also we get a series of pictures though at the end … Read more