In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle steps into the yellow wood of a famous American poem Robert Frost’s two best-known poems both involve a speaker stopping in, or by, a wood: one takes place at the end of the day, in winter (his ‘Stopping by […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle explores the symbolism of that perennially popular flower, the rose Roses are sometimes known as the queen of flowers, and they are perhaps the richest in symbolism, whether in Christianity, classical myth, or modern (especially romantic) literature. But the […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle ponders the meaning of Auden’s famous statement ‘Poetry makes nothing happen.’ This statement, made by W. H. Auden in his 1939 poem ‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’, has provoked plenty of commentary since Auden’s poem was published. But […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle explores the meaning of a well-known expression Here’s a question for you: who first wrote the line, ‘good fences make good neighbours’? Although it was the American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963) who first used that particular wording, the sentiment, […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle explores the origins of a famous expression in a classic work of children’s literature The more I return to Lewis Carroll, the more convinced I become that he, not Dickens, has perhaps the strongest claim to being the key […]
