Interesting Literature

A Short Analysis of William Wordsworth’s ‘A slumber did my spirit seal’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘A slumber did my spirit seal’, as this wonderful little poem by William Wordsworth (1770-1850) is known (its first line providing its unofficial title), is one of Wordsworth’s best-known short poems. It’s a lyric, an elegy, and a nature poem all in one. Here is the poem, along with some words of analysis. (We’ve offered more tips for the close reading of poetry here.)

A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

A Short Analysis of T. S. Eliot’s ‘Journey of the Magi’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Journey of the Magi’ by T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) was the first of a series of poems written by the poet for his employer, the publisher Faber and Faber, composed for special booklets or greetings cards which were issued in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Eliot claimed he wrote ‘Journey of the Magi’ in 1927, on a single day, one Sunday after church.

A Summary and Analysis of Wallace Stevens’s ‘The Snow Man’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Snow Man’ by Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) was first published in 1921 in the magazine Poetry, and was reprinted in Stevens’s first collection Harmonium in 1923. It is one of Stevens’s most popular short poems. But what does it mean? In this post, we attempt to get to grips with ‘The Snow Man’, who he is, and how he should be analysed.

10 of the Best Sonnets by Female Poets

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The first named writer in world history was a woman, Enheduanna. The sonnet form was Italian in origin, of course, but a host of English poets have made it their own: Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, Auden, and many besides. But what is often overlooked is what female poets have done with the form.

Indeed, the first ever sonnet sequence written in English was by a woman (see below). In this post we’ve gathered together ten of the greatest sonnets by female English poets.

A Short Analysis of Christina Rossetti’s ‘Winter: My Secret’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Christina Rossetti (1830-94) originally gave her poem ‘Winter: My Secret’ the rather less appealing title ‘Nonsense’. She renamed it with its more exciting title when it was published in Goblin Market and Other Poems in 1862. The new title immediately piques our interest. ‘Winter: My Secret’. But what secret? In this post, we offer some notes towards a summary and analysis of Rossetti’s poem.