Literature
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- Newspaper Article For Brother Man
Assignment: Pretend you witnessed the beating of Brother Man. Write a letter to the editor of a newspaper in your country and express your feelings about the attack and your feelings on Rastafarianism on a hold. ...
- Summary Of My Parents By Stephen Spender
Stephen Spender (1909-1995) mixed with a number of left wing poets while at oxford including W.H Auden, and joined the fight against Fran coin the Spanish Civil war. Always interested in human and social concerns, he questioned how poetry could address...
- Summary Of The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost
One day, the poet Robert Frost, travelling all alone, reaches a point where the road forks into two. He faces a dilemma as to which road to take to continue his journey. He is unable to decide which road to follow. He pauses for a long time. He gives...
- One Art By Elizabeth Bishop Summary
One ArtBorn in 1911, Elizabeth Bishop had a turbulent childhood, her father dying in her first year of life, while her mother suffered from mental illness and was committed to an institution when Elizabeth was five. She was never...
- Praise Songs For My Mother Summary
Praise Songs for my Mother Grace Nichols was born in 1950 in Georgetown, Guyana, and grew up in a small coastal village...
Literature
Summary of The Trees by Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin (1922-1985) is a poet whose work is very popular, despite his reputation for being a pessimistic, death-obsessed and darkly humorous observer of humanity.
In this poem, Larkin takes a familiar natural image of optimism and new life, the fresh leaves of spring, but characteristically undermines that optimism. Though the poem ends with apparent optimism, as life begins 'afresh, afresh, afresh', its three short, regular stanzas have already established that the cycle of the seasons always ends with death. The leaves 'looking new' is only a 'trick', as 'they die too', which undercuts even the 'greenness' of the spring leaves, making it 'a kind of grief'.
Note the way Larkin combines the regular conventionally of the poem's form with a straightforward, almost chatty diction. The only exception to this is the metaphor of the 'unresting castles' at the start of the stanza three - what is the effect of this?
In this poem, Larkin takes a familiar natural image of optimism and new life, the fresh leaves of spring, but characteristically undermines that optimism. Though the poem ends with apparent optimism, as life begins 'afresh, afresh, afresh', its three short, regular stanzas have already established that the cycle of the seasons always ends with death. The leaves 'looking new' is only a 'trick', as 'they die too', which undercuts even the 'greenness' of the spring leaves, making it 'a kind of grief'.
Note the way Larkin combines the regular conventionally of the poem's form with a straightforward, almost chatty diction. The only exception to this is the metaphor of the 'unresting castles' at the start of the stanza three - what is the effect of this?
-by Philip Larkin
- Newspaper Article For Brother Man
Assignment: Pretend you witnessed the beating of Brother Man. Write a letter to the editor of a newspaper in your country and express your feelings about the attack and your feelings on Rastafarianism on a hold. ...
- Summary Of My Parents By Stephen Spender
Stephen Spender (1909-1995) mixed with a number of left wing poets while at oxford including W.H Auden, and joined the fight against Fran coin the Spanish Civil war. Always interested in human and social concerns, he questioned how poetry could address...
- Summary Of The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost
One day, the poet Robert Frost, travelling all alone, reaches a point where the road forks into two. He faces a dilemma as to which road to take to continue his journey. He is unable to decide which road to follow. He pauses for a long time. He gives...
- One Art By Elizabeth Bishop Summary
One ArtBorn in 1911, Elizabeth Bishop had a turbulent childhood, her father dying in her first year of life, while her mother suffered from mental illness and was committed to an institution when Elizabeth was five. She was never...
- Praise Songs For My Mother Summary
Praise Songs for my Mother Grace Nichols was born in 1950 in Georgetown, Guyana, and grew up in a small coastal village...