Celebrating Deterioration
Literature is a tool. It is used to convey a large range of feeling and emotion. Literature and writing are perhaps some of the oldest communication methods used. There are four major literary time periods, the values of each of these, and their authors will be discussed. The first time period is authors who rejoiced in the basic joys of life. The next period saw authors realizing that life is short and must be enjoyed to the fullest. The third period influenced authors to begin taking new roads and creating literature that had never before existed. The fourth and final period in the discussion, men began to realize the destructive power of love and its capabilities for great evil, or great good. Each of these time frames have something different to offer a reader. If a reader can turn and look introspectively, he can pull a new meaning from the work with each reading.
The first period of literature to be examined is one in which the authors encouraged that living and loving the earth are simple pleasures to be enjoyed by all. This idea is exemplified by Christopher Marlowe in his poem "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" when he says "Come live with me, and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills and fields, Woods, or steepy mountain yields." (Marlowe 1-4). This time of literature saw poets and writers becoming very aware of the natural beauty surrounding them. Marlowe became known as a ladies man and would often be found drinking. Even the more uncultured writers became able to put on paper the beauty of the world. Another poet and explorer at the time by the name of Sir Walter Raleigh penned a reply to Marlowe titled "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd". The resp...
... middle of paper ...
... poems, and quotes.. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.
Lord Tennyson, Alfred. "The Princess: Tears, Idle Tears : The Poetry Foundation." Poetry Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.
Marlowe, Christopher. "5. Passionate Shepherd to His Love. C. Marlowe. The Golden Treasury." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and hundreds more. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
Marvell, Andrew. "To His Coy Mistress : The Poetry Foundation." Poetry Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.
Raleigh, Sir Walter. "The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd by Sir Walter Ralegh : The Poetry Foundation." Poetry Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "To a Skylark : The Poetry Foundation." Poetry Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.
Wordsworth, William. "London, 1802 : The Poetry Foundation." Poetry Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.
Marchino, Lois A. "My Last Duchess." Masterplots II: Poetry Series. Ed. Frank N. Magill. Vol. 4. Pasadena: Salem, 1992. 1443-1445.
Everett, Nicholas From The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century Poetry in English. Ed. Ian Hamiltong. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Copyright 1994 by Oxford University Press.
Ellmann, Richard and Robert O’Clair, eds. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1988.
Allison, Barrows, Blake, et al. eds. The Norton Anthology Of Poetry . 3rd Shorter ed. New York: Norton, 1983. 211.
“The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale.” Poetry Criticism. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 58.
Mays, Kelly. "Poems for Further Study." Norton Introduction to Literature. Eleventh Edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company Inc., 2013. 771-772. Print.
What exactly is evil? Is it a tangible object or just an unperceivable idea? There are many theories to these two simple questions anywhere from a physical evil presence to one’s personal concept of what is evil to them. In literature, evil can take many different forms, including physical evil, inner evil, and a combination of the two. No matter what mode it takes though, the presence of evil in literature has always been influential in the plot and always has the same ending: death.
Tennyson, Alfred Lord. “Maud; A Monodrama.” Tennyson’s Poetry. Ed. Robert W. Hill New York: W. W. Norton, 1971. 214-215.
Famous poets and poems. “Emily Bronte Poems” famouspoetsandpoems.com. Famous Poets and Poems. 2006-2010. Web. 4 Dec. 2011.
Ellmann, Richard and O'Clair, Robert, ed. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, Second Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1988.
Meinke, Peter. “Untitled” Poetry: An Introduction. Ed. Michael Meyer. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s 2010. 89. Print
Mellow, James R. “Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times.” Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2001. Bloom’s Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. 27 January, 2011.
Literature has had a major impact on society, and, also our history. Literature has reformed and shaped civilizations, changed political systems, and has exposed injustices (3). Our literature has changed and developed as we have, keeping up with our society. “...literature is crucial for the advancement of society (3).” With literary works, we can convince others to view things a certain way, share our opinions, and more. Literature is greatly intertwined with our society and everyday lives, and they would not be the same without it. Literature plays an irreplaceable role in our
In William Wordsworth’s poems, the role of nature plays a more reassuring and pivotal r ole within them. To Wordsworth’s poetry, interacting with nature represents the forces of the natural world. Throughout the three poems, Resolution and Independence, Tintern Abbey, and Michael, which will be discussed in this essay, nature is seen prominently as an everlasting- individual figure, which gives his audience as well as Wordsworth, himself, a sense of console. In all three poems, Wordsworth views nature and human beings as complementary elements of a sum of a whole, recognizing that humans are a sum of nature. Therefore, looking at the world as a soothing being of which he is a part of, Wordsworth looks at nature and sees the benevolence of the divinity aspects behind them. For Wordsworth, the world itself, in all its glory, can be a place of suffering, which surely occurs within the world; Wordsworth is still comforted with the belief that all things happen by the hands of the divinity and the just and divine order of nature, itself.
William Wordsworth. “Lucy Gray.” English Romantic Poetry .Ed. Stanley Appelbaum. New York: Dover Publications, 1996. 33 – 4.