Literary Jewels

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4

Grave Diggers Scene in 'Hamlet'
2008-03-21 14:41:00
The Grave diggers scene (Act V, sc. i) in ‘Hamlet ’ has been frequently called as a definitive final scene in Hamlet’s journey. According to F.T. Prince, it is the scene in which Hamlet finds his way after stumbling through a jungle of emotions.The grave digger scene is divided into two parts; in the first part, Hamlet contemplates the morality of man as he watches the human skull being tossed from their sleepy graves by the grave diggers. The entry of Hamlet marks the second part of the scene. He exits his feigned madness when he is stared into the face by the reality of the death of Ophelia.Having escaped death at the hands of robbers and from the King’s conspiracy to eliminate him Hamlet comes back an enlightened man. Part of his enlightenment comes from the fact that Hamlet is not bothered about his delay any more. He has understood that time past and time future are but the manifestations of the time present. He has realized the ultimate meaning of his destiny. The scene...
More About: Scene

Shakespearean Jewels - Part I
2008-03-20 12:54:00
Shakespeare, since times immemorial, has been known for his witty, precise, pithy and meaningful statements. A few I would like to quote here:“Lord, what fools these mortals be!” (A Midsummer Night's Dream)“Such as we are made of, such we be.” (Twelfth Night)“Life's but a walking shadow, a poor playerThat struts and frets his hour upon the stageAnd then is heard no more: it is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing.” (The Tempest)This was only a drop from the ocean of exalting words from Shakespearean pen.
More About: Jewels , Part

Literary Jewels from Milton's ''Paradise Lost'
2008-03-18 16:09:00
The following are a few of the passages quoted from John Milton’s masterpiece, I would say, ‘Paradise Lost ’. They are a poet’s delight, something to be savoured by a lover of literature, a thing to be cherished by a person with an aesthetic sense and the one who feels elated by the sheer magic of poetry."Accuse not nature, she hath done her part;Do thou but thine, and be not diffidentOf wisdom, she deserts thee not, if thouDismiss not her, when most thou needest her nigh,By attributing overmuch to thingsLess excellent, as thou thyself perceivest.""Here at lastWe shall be free;the Almighty hath not builtHere for his envy, will not drive us hence:Here we may reign secure, and in my choiceTo reign is worth ambition though in Hell:Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.""When the waves are round me breaking,As I pace the deck alone,And my eye in vain is seekingSome green leaf to rest upon;What would not I give to wanderWhere my old companions dwell?Absence makes the heart...
More About: Jewels , Paradise Lost , Literary

Romantic Tradition and Shakespeare (with special reference to 'As You Like
2008-03-15 09:23:00
The play ‘As You Like It’ was adapted from a romance in prose called ‘Rosalynde’ by Thomas Lodge. The play was in the romance tradition and at the same departure from it.Disguise and mistaken identity were also the techniques that Shakespeare borrowed from the romantic literature. These techniques brought confusion in their wake and also resulted in humourous situations. They also enabled Shakespeare to focus attention on the theme that in this world appearances are often deceptive.Shakespearean comedy owes the concept of poetic justice to romance literature. Everything according to the satisfaction of everyone --- well-rounded conclusions with only an occasional dissatisfied human being left as if to suggest that life doesn’t lend itself to such cut and dried solutions and cannot be seen in water-tight compartments. For example, Malvalio in ‘Twelfth Night’, Jaques in ‘As You Like It’.The individual additions made by Shakespeare:INTRODUCTION OF SUB-PLOTThe sub-plo...
More About: Romantic , Tradition , Special , Reference

Importance of Opening Scene of 'Hamlet'
2008-03-11 16:50:00
As always, Shakespeare opens his tragedy with minor characters, who supply information about – the prevailing situation and the characters.It is revealed that the state of Denmark is in a state of chaos and disorder. This disorder has been prevailing due to the political event of the death of elder Hamlet and also the preparations that are going on in the state against Norway. Then there is a private event – the disturbed state of mind of the Prince because of political and personal reasons. This sets the stage for the unfolding of the events.The scene also brings the audience face to face with the supernatural. The audience gets curious to know about the ‘why’ of the ghost and reason for the political chaos.It becomes apparent that Horatio is deeply attached to the Prince and would go to any lengths to protect him. Horatio appears before us as a man who has been torn apart by the sorrow of the Prince.
More About: Opening , Scene

Wordsworth's 'The World is too much with us'
2008-03-04 16:51:00
THE World is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours;We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers,For this, for everything, we are out of tune;It moves us not.—Great God! I'd rather be A pagan suckled in a creed outworn,—So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn. In this sonnet ‘The World is too much with us’ Wordsworth deplores the extreme materialism and the consequent spiritual degradation of his time. Men are actuated only by economic motives. They have become too materialistic. People are too much engrossed in the pursuit of wealth and pleasure and waste their energies in so doing instead of turning them to better advantages...

Truth
2008-02-29 14:46:00
"If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people." Virginia Woolf How can we define truth? Being truthful is not easy. On the top of it, the most difficult task is confessing the truth to ourselves. We are afraid of accepting our defeat. We find excuses to cover our shortcomings. Human beings have a tendency to blame the other person for our wrong doings. We can report honestly and truthfully about others only if we are true about ourselves. It will tough initially, but slowly it’ll be an established fact. For instance any new discovery made by a scientist is hard to believe at first but gradually they are the solid facts of life.George Bernard Shaw has rightly said: “New opinions often appear first as jokes and fancies, then as blasphemies and treason, then as questions open to discussion, and finally as established truths.”
More About: Truth

Shakespeare Sonnet 106
2008-02-29 14:21:00
SONNET 106When in the chronicle of wasted timeI see descriptions of the fairest wights,And beauty making beautiful old rhymeIn praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,I see their antique pen would have express'dEven such a beauty as you master now.So all their praises are but propheciesOf this our time, all you prefiguring;And, for they look'd but with divining eyes,They had not skill enough your worth to sing:For we, which now behold these present days,Had eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. This sonnet addressed ‘to his dear friend’ is number 106 in sonnet sequence consisting of 154 sonnets. A number of his sonnets are addressed to ‘W.H.’ and others to a mysterious person, often referred to as the ‘dark lady’. W.H. has sometimes been identified with the Earl of Southampton, one of Shakespeare ’s closest friends and patrons, to whom this poem is addressed. In this sonnet, S...

Tagore and his 'Gitanjali'
2008-02-24 18:05:00
Rabindra Nath Tagore (1861 - 1941), the celebrated poet, story writer and dramatist was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 (in the words of the Nobel Prize Committee) “because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West". His most famous poem ‘Gitanjali’ was originally written in Bengali language. Tagore was born in Bengal in 1861. He writings tasted initial success as a writer in his native Bengal.‘Gitanjali’ (‘song offerings’), is a collection of 103 poems. Originally written in Bengali, they were translated in English by Tagore himself. The characteristic feature of the collection is that the Introduction to Gitanjali was written by W.B.Yeats. Tagore had translated these songs from Bengali into English before his visit to England in 1912. His poems were well received in England.‘Gitanjali’ begins with: ...

'Three Years She Grew...' by Wordsworth
2008-02-23 17:32:00
THREE years she grew in sun and shower, Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower On earth was never sown; This Child I to myself will take; She shall be mine, and I will make A Lady of my own. "Myself will to my darling be Both law and impulse: and with me The Girl, in rock and plain, In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, 10 Shall feel an overseeing power To kindle or restrain. "She shall be sportive as the fawn That wild with glee across the lawn, Or up the mountain springs; And her's shall be the breathing balm, And her's the silence and the calm Of mute insensate things. "The floating clouds their state shall lend To her; for her the willow bend; 20 Nor shall she fail to see Even in the motions of the Storm Grace that shall mould the Maide...
More About: Years , Wordsworth , Grew

Justice Delayed is Justice Denied
2008-02-22 17:09:00
What is justice? Is it definable? Let’s try. Is it impartiality? Or is it being fair? The concept of justice is actually a subjective one and also entails at the same time being objective in judgment. Justice according to some is getting a fair treatment, while for others it is getting justice being delivered in courts. But a question that arises here is: Do all the judgments delivered in courts mean justice? If you have any doubts read John Grisham’s ‘The Innocent Man’. It can be called an eye-opener, although we are already in the know of many loopholes of law.Meursault was awarded death sentence not because he murdered an Arab but because he didn’t cry at his mother’s funeral. It was he was ‘the outsider’ at his own hearings in the court.Shakespeare did see to it that justice was done to Lear in his play ‘King Lear’ but the time he was united with his beloved daughter, Cordelia; she died in his arms – the most pathetic scene of the tragedy.Was it justice wha...

Realism in 'Joseph Andrews'
2008-02-21 16:20:00
Henry Fielding was the pioneer of realism in English fiction. Both Fielding and Richardson were broadly speaking realists. Fielding also reacted against Richardson’s sentimentalism as a falsifying influence on the study of reality, although he does not reject sentimentalism altogether. “His desire”, says Cazamian, “is to give sentiment its right place; but also to integrate it in an organic series of tendencies where each contributes to maintain a mutual balance.”Fielding is one of the few writers who, despite the wideness of their scope are capable of observing the demands of reality with perpetual ease.His novels hold up to view a representative picture of his age. He is as authentic a chronicler of his day as Chaucer was of the later fourteenth century. Fielding’s truth is not the crude and bitter truth of Smollett’s. A.R. Humphreys observes: “fielding’s is the higher and more philosophical truth which epitomizes the spirit, the ethos, as well as the body, of th...
More About: Joseph , Realism , Andrews

'The Grapes of Wrath' - A Study in Detail (Part II)
2008-02-06 13:46:00
(Part I – see previous post) Steinbeck in this epoch-making novel ‘The Grapes of Wrath ’ has also described the concept of ‘oversoul’. Many philosophers and men of religion, not only in America but also in other parts of the world, have expressed their belief that there is an ‘oversoul’ of which all human beings are parts. In ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ this idea has been given a practical shape when the Joad family, after many deaths and separations, realizes that the only way of being happy in this world is to love others like oneself and help them as far as possible. Steinbeck has Casy rephrase Emerson’s concepts of the Oversoul and self-reliance. He helps unite the prisoners in California jail when they effectively protest against the sour food there and his death during the abortive strike at the Hooper ranch results in more determination on the part of those who survive him, including Tom.Emerson, a great American poet, had earlier expressed his belief in the exi...
More About: Study

'The Grapes of Wrath' - A Study in Detail (Part I)
2008-02-03 16:42:00
The Grapes of Wrath is a strongly sustained social and political narrative that provides and accurate and faithful description of a critical period in American history. The novel is a post-depression novel and the writer John Steinbeck’s epic masterpiece of social consciousness in its picture of helpless people crushed by drought and depression. The novel is usually described as a novel of social protest, for it exposes the desperate conditions under which one group of American workers, the migratory farm families, was forced to live during 1930s.In the depths of the greatest economic depression these people had to abandon their homes and their livelihoods. They were uprooted and set adrift because tractors were rapidly industrializing the Southern cotton fields and because erosion and drought were creating the Dust Bowl in wide areas of Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma. While many of the families moved only short distances, yet one hundred and fifty thousand moved...
More About: Study , Part

'Murder in the Cathedral' - An overview
2008-01-31 16:35:00
‘Murder in the Cathedral ’ was written for the Canterbury festival in 1935. The play follows the event in Canterbury after Becket’s return in 1170. A chorus of women laments the absence of their archbishop and the people’s helplessness. In the schism between the Church and the State, it is announced that Becket is returning, the news is welcome but all, save the second priest, are fearful of King Henry II’s reconciliation with Becket and wonder if it is to be trusted. Becket enters determined to resolve the crisis, though he knows that it may cost him his life. In the long scene, in the play, the Four Tempters illustrate the conflict. His decision provokes within himself, the temptation to seek martyrdom is powerful. Becket realizes that the only course he has to follow is to offer his life to the law of God above the law of man. The Christmas morning sermon of 1170 makes the position clear. Four days later, four knights of the King arrived and charged him with rebellion, h...
More About: Overview

Revival of Poetic Drama
2008-01-31 15:04:00
According to Francis Fergussan, a poetic drama is a drama in which you “feel” the characters are poetry and were poetry before they began to speak. Thus poetry and drama are inseparable. The playwright has to create a pattern to justify the poetic quality of the play and his poetry performs a double function. First, it is an action itself, so it must do what it says. Secondly, it makes explicit what is really happening. Eliot in his plays has solved the problem regarding language, content and versification.In the twentieth century, the inter-war period was an age suited to the poetic drama. There was a revival and some of the poets like W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot tried their hands in writing of poetic plays. This was a reaction against prose plays of G. B. Shaw, Galsworthy and others because these plays showed a certain lack of emotional touch with the moral issue of the age. W. B. Yeats did not like this harsh criticism of the liberal idea of the nineteenth century at the hand...
More About: Drama , Revival

Poetic Drama
2008-01-18 09:21:00
The term ‘poetic drama’ became popular during the middle of the twentieth century. It was T.S. Eliot who revived this drama/term as a reaction to the drama of ideas popularized by Galsworthy and G. B. Shaw under the influence of Ibsen. Even Shaw has written ‘The Quintessence of Ibsenism’, in which he gave his manifesto and showed the influence of Ibsen. As a critic T. S. Eliot has written essays like ‘Poetry and Drama ’ and ‘Possibility of Poetic Drama’ and so on. In ‘Poetry and Drama’ he points out that poetry and drama are inseparable from each other. Poetry mirrors the heart of the person which the reader cannot conceal. Poetic Drama, according to T. S. Eliot, has far reaching effects as it affects the emotions of person directly., as a practitioner of poetic drama, Eliot has written plays like ‘Murder in the Cathedral’, ‘The Cocktail Party’, ‘Elder Statesman’ etc. He has solved the problem of language, diction and dialogue. In ‘Murder in the Cat...

Lines from Wordsworth's Immortality Ode
2008-01-14 17:13:00
"The Clouds that gather round the setting sunDo take a sober colouring from an eyeThat hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;Another race hath been, and other palms are won.Thanks to the human heart by which we live,Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,To me the meanest flower that blows can giveThoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."(extract taken from ‘Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood )I consider these lines penned by Wordsworth as one of the most precious literary jewels. How beautifully he has summed up the whole thing! It seems as if he has described a lifetime, and at the same time the whole generation of mankind – he refers to the Sun as “that hath kept watch o'er man's mortality”.
More About: Lines

Ode: Intimations of Immortality by William Wordsworth
2008-01-13 14:11:00
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ELEMENTS IN THE IMMORTALITY ODEApart from its philosophical aspect, the great Ode on the Intimation of Immortality is also in the nature of a personal document. It was written on the eve of his happy marriage with Mary Hutchison, when he was still at the height of his powers. But the poet felt that a great change had come over his relations with nature. The familiar objects of the external world were still there as usual. He could still find joy in nature, but could no longer perceive her appareled in celestial light as before. The poet was terribly shaken by the loss of ‘vision’ and asks the poignant question:Whither is fled the visionary gleam?Where is now, the glory and the dream.The poem, in short, faithfully records a grave spiritual crisis and how it was overcome. The poet gradually realized that though he had lost one gift, “the divine vision”, other gifts had followed, which were sufficient compensation for the single loss. There was no cause for gri...
More About: William , Wordsworth

‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ - R. L. Stevenson
2008-01-06 15:13:00
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 –1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet and a travel writer. He wrote a novella ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ that was first published in 1886. The book was a very successful one – it was an instant success. The novel is about the duality of human nature. There is an animal hidden inside the man – the evil side of our self. The human soul has been portrayed as the battleground of the good and the evil. The novel is an insight into the working of the subconscious mind.The following is a paragraph quoted from the novel itself:“It was a fine ... day.... I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active goodwill with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at the very moment of that vainglor...

'Blow! Blow! Thou Winter Wind' - Shakespeare
2008-01-03 17:01:00
The poem 'Blow! Blow! Thou Winter Wind ' :Blow, blow, thou winter wind,Thou art not so unkindAs man's ingratitude;Thy tooth is not so keen,Because thou art not seen,Although thy breath be rudeHeigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly;Most friends is feigning, most loving mere folly:Then, heigh-ho, the holly! This life is most jolly.Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,That dost not bite so nighAs benefits forgot: Thou thou the waters warp,Thy sting is not so sharp As friend remembered not.(Shakespeare , As You Like It, Act III, sc. ii)The poem entitled ‘Blow! Blow! Thou Winter Wind’ is a song sung by the character named Amiens in the drama written by William Wordsworth. Amiens is one of the lords who have by their own choice come with Duke Senior, who had been banished by his brother. Amiens sings this song commenting upon the ways of the world, and human ingratitude which is more biting than the piercing cold winter wind.The poet in the very beginning addresses the winter wind...

'Fear No More' - from 'Cymbeline' by Shakespeare
2007-12-29 15:08:00
‘Fear No More’ Fear no more the heat o' the sun,Nor the furious winter's rages;Thou thy worldly task hast done,Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages;Golden lads and girls all must,As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.Fear no more the frown o' the great;Thou art past the tyrant's stroke:Care no more to clothe and eat;To thee the reed is as the oak:The sceptre, learning, physic, mustAll follow this, and come to dust.Fear no more the lightning-flash,Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;Fear not slander, censure rash;Thou hast finished joy and moan;All lovers young, all lovers mustConsign to thee, and come to dust. The poem ‘Fear No More’ appears as a song in Shakespeare ’s play ‘Cymbeline’. It is a song sung over the supposed death of Imogen, the central female character of the play. The central theme of the poem is that death overpowers all and that all men are mortal.The speaker in the poem says that the dead must not have any fear about the heat of the Sun and the chilling ...

New Year Resolutions
2007-12-29 05:19:00
The dawn of a new year is a time when we make new resolutions and have new dreams for the coming year. Often the resolutions are as easily broken as they were made.My resolutions for the year that is going to ring in:· Working hard towards making my blog a success· Earning signed cheques from my blog· Reading more and more about English literature to enrich my blogApart from the above mentioned blogging goals, I will strive to· Acquire more knowledge· Write more articles· Get a good score in my examsHave I not been too selfish? That is what the problem is with us humans. We only think about ourselves. We are so engrossed with the material things of life that life passes by us and we never notice; as W. H. Davies had rightly remarked: “we have no time to stand and stare”. Wordsworth too lamented over this worldliness in his sonnet ‘The World is too much with us’:“The world is too much with us; late and soon,Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:”What is requ...
More About: New Year , Year , Resolutions

Wordsworth's ‘Lines written in Early Spring’
2007-12-26 14:18:00
‘Lines written in Early Spring’ - the poemI heard a thousand blended notes,While in a grove I sate reclined,In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughtsBring sad thoughts to the mind.To her fair works did Nature linkThe human soul that through me ran;And much it grieved my heart to thinkWhat man has made of man.Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;And 'tis my faith that every flowerEnjoys the air it breathes.The birds around me hopped and played,Their thoughts I cannot measure:--But the least motion which they madeIt seemed a thrill of pleasure.The budding twigs spread out their fan,To catch the breezy air;And I must think, do all I can,That there was pleasure there.If this belief from heaven be sent,If such be Nature's holy plan,Have I not reason to lamentWhat man has made of man? All the poems of Wordsworth revolve around Nature. After he met Coleridge they jointly published a collection of poems entitled ‘Lyrical Ballads’, which ma...
More About: Written

'Human Folly' an extract from 'Essay on Man' by Alexander Pope
2007-12-25 17:09:00
'Human Folly' - the poemWhate'er the passions, knowledge, fame, or pelf,Not one will change is neighbour with himself.The learn'd is happy nature to explore,The fool is happy that he knows no more;The rich is happy in the plenty given,The poor contents him with the care of Heaven,See the blind beggar dance, the cripple singThe sot a hero, lunatic a king;The starving chemist in his golden viewsSupremely bless'd, the poet in his Muse.See some strange comfort ev'ry state attend,And Pride bestow'd on all, a common friend:See some fit passion every age supply;Hope travels thro', nor quits us when we die.Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law,Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw:Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight,A little louder, but as empty quite:Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper state,And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age:Pleas'd with this bauble still, as that before,Till tired he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er. ...
More About: Pope , Essay , Alexander , Extract

Robert Herrick's 'To Daffodils'
2007-12-24 13:24:00
Fair daffodils, we weep to seeYou haste away so soon;As yet the early-rising sunHas not attain’d his noon.Stay, stayUntil the hasting dayHas runBut to the evensong;And, having pray’d together, weWill go with you along.We have short time to stay, as you,We have as short a spring;As quick a growth to meet decay,As you, or anything.We dieAs your hours do, and dryAwayLike to the summer’s rain;Or as the pearls of morning’s dew,Ne’er to be found again.A constant theme of the songs written by Robert Herrick is the short-lived nature of life, the fleeting passage of time. We find a note of melancholy/sadness in his poem which arises out of the realization that beauty is not going to stay forever.In his poem ‘To Daffodils’, the poet Robert Herrick begins by saying that we grieve to see the beautiful daffodils being wasted away very quickly. The duration of their gloom is so short that it seems even the rising sun still hasn’t reached the noon-time. Thus, in the very beginning...

The All-Revealing Speech
2007-12-21 08:18:00
(WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE SHAKESPEAREAN FOOL) Next time someone calls you a fool, don’t take it as an insult. Just remember the Shakespearean fool. He was a master of words. Some of his sayings were worth in gold. Whether it was Feste from ‘Twelfth Night’ mouthing:Those wits that think they have thee, do very oft prove fools(meaning: those who take themselves to be quite intelligent are often proved to be fools) or the Fool of ‘King Lear’ profoundly remarking: Have more than thou showest,Speak less than thou knowest,Lend less than thou owestRide more than thou goest.(‘owest’ means ‘own’)they were all philosophical quite a few times. The Fools in Shakespearean plays are known to be the wisest of all characters. They have earned this place for themselves due to sheer jugglery of words.The comment of a famous man: “Speak so that I can see you”, is simply priceless. Speech is an indispensable part of our life; so much so that we speak many times more than we w...

'When I Consider Life' by John Dryden
2007-12-20 13:34:00
When I consider Life , 'tis all a cheat; Yet, fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit; Trust on, and think tomorrow will repay: Tomorrow's falser than the former day; Lies worse; and while it says, We shall be blest With some new joys, cuts off what we possest. Strange couzenage! none would live past years again, Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; And, from the dregs of Life, think to receive What the first sprightly running could not give. I'm tir'd with waiting for this Chymic Gold, Which fools us young, and beggars us when old.The poem ‘When I Consider Life’ is an extract from John Dryden’s ‘Aureng-Zebe’ (Act IV, Scene i). The poet laments the folly of human beings who do not see through the illusion of hope and go on hoping that better things would come their way. Although there is no hope for the things becoming better yet the mankind believe that there will be happiness.The poet writes that when he thinks about life he feels that human life is a deception....

Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening’
2007-12-16 12:17:00
Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening’Whose woods these are I think I know.His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping hereTo watch his woods fill up with snow.My little horse must think it queerTo stop without a farmhouse nearBetween the woods and frozen lakeThe darkest evening of the year.He gives his harness bells a shakeTo ask if there is some mistake.The only other sound's the sweepOf easy wind and downy flake.The woods are lovely, dark and deep.But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep.This poem has been undoubtedly my most favourite poem ever since I read it in my school days. The beauty of this poem lies in its simplicity. Frost wrote this poem in June 1922. He was inspired by the sight of a sunrise to write this poem, after spending the whole night writing a long poem. This is also one of Frost’s favourite among his own poems. In a letter to Lord Louis Untermeyer he called it "my bes...
More About: Robert

Rudyard Kipling's 'IF...'
2007-12-14 15:32:00
I present here a poem by Rudyard Kipling. The poem 'IF...' is one of my all time favourites. IF… IF you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you,If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,But make allowance for their doubting too;If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,Or being hated, don't give way to hating,And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same;If you can bear to hear the truth you've spokenTwisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:If you can make one heap of all your winningsAnd risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,And lose, and start again at your beginningsAnd never breathe a word about your loss...