Interesting Literature

A Short Analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 7: ‘Lo, in the orient’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 7 uses the image of the sun rising and then falling in the sky as a metaphor for the Fair Youth’s own life, beginning ‘Lo, in the orient when the gracious light / Lifts up his burning head’ in reference to the sunrise. Below is Sonnet 7, along with our analysis of the poem’s meaning and imagery, and a brief paraphrase and summary of it.

Lo, in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage:

A Very Short Biography of Robert Browning

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Robert Browning (1812-89) is, along with Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the most famous and widely studied poet of the Victorian era. Yet for the first two decades that he was writing, he was virtually ignored by the public. In this post we offer a very short biography of Browning, a brief introduction to his life and work, touching upon the most curious and interesting aspects.

Robert Browning was born in London in 1812. Aged 14, he wrote a poem, ‘The Dance of Death’, in which Ague, Consumption, Fever, Madness, and Pestilence compete for the title of man’s worst foe; this early poem features many of the macabre hallmarks of his later poetry, dealing with death, murder, and ugliness (physical and moral) as it so often does.

A Short Analysis of A. E. Housman’s ‘Into my heart an air that kills’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

A. E. Housman (1859-1936) was one of the greatest classicists of his age, and was also, following the success of his (self-published) first volume of poems, A Shropshire Lad (1896), a hugely popular poet.

Five Fascinating Facts about Christopher Marlowe

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

1. Christopher Marlowe was a pioneer of the Elizabethan theatre.

He influenced Shakespeare, and Shakespeare’s biographer Jonathan Bate has even suggested that Marlowe and Shakespeare became locked in a competition, where each influenced the other. Marlowe was just two months older than Shakespeare: he was born in Canterbury in February 1564, the son of a shoemaker. Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great (part one of a two-parter) is thought to be one of the first English plays written in blank verse – that is, unrhymed iambic pentameter.

A Short Analysis of George Herbert’s ‘The Pearl’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

George Herbert (1593-1633) is widely regarded as one of the greatest religious poets in all of English literature. His work is also associated with the Metaphysical Poets. ‘The Pearl’ is a tricky poem to decipher and analyse, but the effort is worth it. What follows, then, is a brief summary and analysis of ‘The Pearl’ in terms of its language and meaning.

The Pearl

Matth. 13. 45

I know the wayes of Learning; both the head
And pipes that feed the presse, and make it runne;
What reason hath from nature borrowed,
Or of itself, like a good huswife, spunne
In laws and policie; what the starres conspire,
What willing nature speaks, what forc’d by fire;
Both th’ old discoveries and the new-found seas,
The stock and surplus, cause and historie;
All these stand open, or I have the keyes:
Yet I love thee.