The conflict between the Trojan hero and leader Aeneas, and the Rutulian Prince and the leader Turnus, of all Italian forces against the invaders, carries an epic conclusion. It is, therefore, very much significant in the whole scheme of the epic. The Aeneid is not a personal epic about Aeneas, but a national epic, a … Read more
Virgil has described Aeneas’ visit to the underworld in Book VI of The Aeneid. It has been considered the most outstanding achievement of Virgil’s imaginative and poetic prowess. The episode is the keystone of the whole of The Aeneid. Without this episode, the poem would break apart into two separate incomplete and incoherent short epics. In fact, … Read more
A dramatic monologue is essentially a narrative spoken by a single character and unlike the soliloquy, it implies the presence of some other characters listening and reacting. According to Cuddon’s Dictionary of the Literary Terms, dramatic monologue is “a poem in which there is one imaginary speaker addressing an imaginary audience” as in Browning’s “Andrea … Read more
The Anglo-Saxon poem “The Dream of the Rood” is one of the prominent poetry in English literature till date. It is totally preserved in three different forms – inscribed by hand in stone, on the skin, and in silver. “The Dream of the Rood” is the most famous of all English religious and devotional poems. … Read more
Anglo-Saxon poetry depicts a primitive world where life lies in the fight— man has to wage war against the hostile Nature. The precarious existence of man in the face of natural forces and calamities has been the subject of much great literature throughout the ages, and Anglo-Saxon poetry was no different from that convention. As society … Read more
The Anglo-Saxon invaders, who came to Britain in the latter part of the 5th century A.D and eventually established their kingdom there, were the founders of English culture and English literature. The surviving Anglo-Saxon literature consists of two features of writing; heroic poetry which bears the pictures of the pre-Christian heroic society of the continental … Read more
“The whole poem represents the passage from youth to maturity— from feelings of self-pity to compassion of all mankind.” Robert L. Cox, The Explicator, University Of South Carolina, Volume 19, Issue 6, March 1961. William Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” portrays his sheer intimacy with nature since his early childhood, … Read more
