A Short Analysis of W, B. Yeats’s ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’

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By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The poetry of Yeats often touches upon the idea of chucking it all away and heading off somewhere. In ‘Sailing to Byzantium’, one of his most popular poems, the ageing poet takes himself off to the Turkish city in search of spiritual fulfilment and retraining. But one of Yeats’s other best-known poems about moving on to another place is ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’, a poem which first appeared in Yeats’s 1893 collection The Rose, when Yeats was still a young man in his late twenties. What follows is the poem, along with some notes towards an analysis of its meaning the language.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

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A Summary and Analysis of D. H. Lawrence’s ‘The Rocking-Horse Winner’

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By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Rocking-Horse Winner’ is a short story by D. H. Lawrence, which was first published in 1926. It’s a story about luck, money, and success, and the dangers of chasing after these and investing too much in them. But how we should analyse and interpret the story remains unclear. In this post we’re going to offer some notes towards an analysis of this classic D. H. Lawrence story. You can read ‘The Rocking-Horse Winner’ here.

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A Short Analysis of Philip Larkin’s ‘Sunny Prestatyn’

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By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Philip Larkin wrote ‘Sunny Prestatyn’ in 1962, and the poem was published two years later in his collection The Whitsun Weddings. One of a series of poems from that volume which treat the world of advertising and consumerism – see also ‘Essential Beauty’ and ‘The Large Cool Store’ – ‘Sunny Prestatyn’ uses the example of the holiday poster to explore and analyse our attitudes to advertising. You can read ‘Sunny Prestatyn’ here; below is our analysis of this comically dark, and darkly comic, poem.

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Six of the Best Matthew Arnold Poems

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By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Matthew Arnold (1822-88) is largely remembered for one great Victorian poem: ‘Dover Beach’. But he wrote a number of other classic poems beside this. What are the best half-dozen of Matthew Arnold’s poems? We offer our recommendations below. ‘Dover Beach’ is there, as are a few other more famous titles, but we also include a couple which, although not as celebrated as the others, are, we believe, among Arnold’s best poetry.

‘Below the surface-stream, shallow and light’.

This poem is almost like a fragment of blank verse, its five unrhymed iambic pentameter lines appearing to offer a brief insight into the speaker’s mind, though this thought isn’t taken anywhere or developed into some grand psychodrama or narrative. In a curious way, the poem reads like a Victorian precursor to the Imagist poetry of the early twentieth century. If you want a nice short introduction to Arnold’s poetry, this is the perfect place to start.

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