The Castle of Otranto, often called the first Gothic novel, was published in 1764. Its author, Horace Walpole, was a fascinating man (of whom more below), but so is his most enduring work of fiction. Below, we offer a summary and analysis of The Castle of Otranto, and debunk some […]
‘Under Ben Bulben’ was completed in 1938, just one year before W. B. Yeats’s death. This makes it one of his last great poems; indeed, he dictated the final revisions to the poems from his deathbed. Yeats dated ‘Under Ben Bulben’ to September 4th, 1938. The poem is perhaps best-known […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle revels in a classic cat poem written by a man in confinement Who invented ‘free verse’? Walt Whitman (1819-92) often gets the credit, although his decision to write in free verse – unrhymed poetry without a regular metre or […]