By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Survival is a recurring theme in poetry through the ages, whether it’s the survival of love, the survival of the individual, or the survival of hope. In the following poems, a range of poets explore and reflect the spirit of determination and perseverance that is needed to survive. We hope you enjoy these classical poems of survival.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
John Milton (1608-74) is one of the most important poets of the seventeenth century – indeed, one of the most important and influential poets in all of English literature. He’s rightly celebrated for writing the definitive English epic in his long narrative poem Paradise Lost, but John Milton wrote a great deal more besides. Below, we pick, and introduce, ten of Milton’s greatest poems.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) wrote ‘Base Details’ in 1917; it appeared in his diary entry for 4 March. It’s one of his best short poems satirising the older generation who sent so many younger men to their deaths in the First World War. You can read Sassoon’s ‘Base Details’ here before reading on to our summary and analysis below.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The great American comic poet Ogden Nash (1902-71) wrote a great number of short poems, though they were not all classics. However, at his finest, Nash is a comic genius who can achieve that rare thing: to evince audible laughter from the reader.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
There is a special term to describe literary depictions of visual works of art: ekphrasis. Poems about pictures or paintings are, then, ekphrastic poems. But what are the greatest ekphrastic poems in English literature? Here are ten of the very best examples of ekphrasis from the last couple of centuries.