Poetry cheat sheet
Beowulf, author unknown- Ancient Icelandic epic featuring Beowulf, who comes to the aid of Hrotghar and slays Grendel, his mother, and a dragon.
The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer- First vernacular English book tells the story of 29 pilgrims on their way to Canterbury who meet in a tavern. Composed of individual “tales”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Frost at Midnight, The Nightingale, Kubla Khan. English c. 1800, went to Cambridge worked with Wordsworth on Lyrical Ballads. Wrote bizarre, unsettling stories that deal with flights of imagination, often uses narrators. Mariner recounts a ghastly tale about a sailor who kills an albatross and then has to wear it around his neck, and witness the death, etc the rest of the crew.
Emily Dickinson- A narrow fellow in the grass- One of the most important American (Mass) poets of the 19th century most of her 1776 poems were published posthumously by her sister. Many of her works were about her own feelings, using ABCB rhyme schemes.
John Donne- The Broken Heart, The Canonization, The Flea, The Sun Rising, Divine Meditations- English, c. 1600, also served as an Anglican minister and member of Parliament, many of his sermons are equally important as his poems, and contain many of his memorable lines such as “Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”; “No man is an island” and “Death be not proud”. His works regained popularity when early 20th century writers such as Eliot and Hemingway rediscovered them.
T.S. Eliot- The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Wasteland, and Four Quartets- American, attended Harvard then moved to England, where he became friends with Ezra Pound. Prufrock is a lengthy discourse by a sexually frustrated middle aged man, but it is unclear whether he is really addressing a woman or societal concerns. The Wasteland is a rambling, complicated poem that references many works of literature from across time and cultures. Four Quartets is made up of the poems of Burnt Norton, East Coker, The Dry Salvages, and Little Gidding, and has a more religious theme, combined with disillusionment from World War I.
The Faerie Queen- Edmund Spenser. Written during the Elizabethan era, this book explores the tension between Anglican England and Roman Catholicism, through Arthur, the son of the Faerie Queen (aka Gloriana, who represents Elizabeth). Each of the books follows a knight, such as Redcrosse or Britomart in an allegory that represents a Christian value.
The Flowers of Evil- Charles Baudelaire- Baudelaire is also recognized as a forefather of modern art, who rejected reality for a drug inspired fantasy world. He views the world as full of sin and decay, and dominated by Satan. He uses women symbolically to depict these ideals.
Robert Frost- Mowing, the Tuft of Flowers, Mending Wall, After Apple Picking, Home Burial, The Wood Pile, The Road Not Taken, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening- Probably the most popular American poet ever, he is recognized for his humor and subtle wit. Although he is associated with New England (esp. Mass), he was actually born in San Francisco in the late 1800s. Many of his poems deal with youth and/or nature, but became bleaker after WW I.
Gerarn Manley Hopkins- Spring and Fall, Binsey Poplars, Carrion Comfort- sonnets dealing with religion, nature and inner anguish, from late 19th century England.
The Iliad- Homer- Epic story of the Trojan War
The Inferno- Dante- The author encounters the ghost of Virgil, who offers to guide him through hell to heaven, where his beloved Beatrice lives. They travel through the eight circles of Hell, each home to a separate group of non-believer, and emerge in Heaven on Easter morning.
Keats’ Odes- On Indolence, To Psyche, To a Nightingale, On a Grecian Urn, on Melancholy- Early 1800s lower middle class Londoner, both parents die (mother of TB, which he dies of as well) while he was young. Inevitability of death is a major theme.
Paradise Lost- John Milton- Written in the 1650s, after he went blind and the English Revolution, which he supported. Religious work based on the story of Adam and Eve and Satan’s fall from grace.
Pilgrim’s Progress- John Bunyan- Bunyan was a devout Baptist and fought in the English Civil War on the side of the Puritans. He wrote an autobiography called Grace Abounding. PP is an allegory using transparent names such as Christian, Evangelist, Worldly Wiseman, Obstinate, and the like, it tells of Christian’s spiritual crisis and his journey to the celestial city.
The Rape of the Lock- Alexander Pope- c. 1700 Mock epic, in which the Baron, after a tense game of cards described in mock battle terms, carries out his plot to cut off a lock of Belinda’s hair. Seriously.
Robert Browning’s Poetry-Porphyria’s Lover, My Last Duchess, FraLippo Lippi, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, Memorabilia- 19th C, English poet, influenced by Shelley, married to Elizabeth Barrett. Wrote larely dramatic monologues as well as some plays.
Shakespeare’s sonnets-
Percy Bysshe Shelley-
Songs of innocence and Experience- William Blake-
Alfred Lord Tennyson-The Lotus Eaters, Locksley Hall, Ulysses, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Idylls of the King- 1800s English, succeeded Wordsworth and England’s poet Laureate in 1850. Wrote about affairs of the day (Charge), the conflict between religion and scientific advances (Locksley)as well as historical legends such as Arthur (Idylls) and Ullyses
Walt Whitman- Leaves of Grass- Father of Free verse, American, ant- slavery, but opposed to the radical abolitionist movement, Transcendentalist, wrote an epic called Franklin Evans. Leaves was criticized for being overtly sexual. He served as a nurse in the civil war.
William Wordsworth-Lyrical Ballads(w/ Coleridge), Lines composed a few Miles above Tintern Abbey, The Excursion, The Prelude, - English Romantic poet in C. 1800. Prelude is semi-autobiographical and considered his greatest work. Poet Laureate from 1843-1850.
William Butler Yeats- Byzantium, The Circus Animals’ Desertion, Irish, late 1800s, much of his poetry relates to his love for the Irish patriot Maud Gonne, who he never had a romantic relationship with.