Previously we’ve offered ten great green poems. Now it’s the turn of the colour black. What are the greatest poems about blackness, about black America, about black things ranging from blacksmiths to blackberries? Here’s our selection. Anonymous, ‘The Blacksmiths’. We begin our rundown of the greatest poems about all things […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle ponders some of the best of the Anglo-Saxon riddles from the Exeter Book As I’ve remarked before, it’s a sobering thought that all of the Anglo-Saxon poetry that has survived is found in just four manuscripts which escaped the […]
Lady Macbeth is widely regarded as one of the most villainous female characters in all of English literature, and perhaps Shakespeare’s most cold-hearted female character. Not only does she urge her husband to murder their King for no other reason than heartless ambition, she also states that she would dash […]