By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Empires and imperialism have been popular themes for poets over the centuries. The tone has often been elegiac: the impermanence of empires, their inevitably decay, and the moral and political problems the very idea of colonialism and imperialism suggest, are all frequent themes of poems about empire. Here’s our pick of ten of the best.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Marianne Moore (1887-1972) was one of the most distinctive and accomplished modernist poets of the twentieth century. Along with William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens, she stands as the greatest American modernist – of those poets who remained in America (others, such as T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and H. D., left the States for Britain).
Indeed, Eliot himself called her work ‘part of the body of durable poetry written in our time’ and praises her ‘original sensibility’, ‘alert intelligence’, and ‘deep feeling’. Below, we introduce ten of Marianne Moore’s best poems.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Traditionally, a ballad was a song that was designed to be danced to, as the etymology of the word, Provençal balada meaning ‘dance, song to dance to’, ultimately from late Latin ballare. The great British ballads – and we say ‘British’ because many of them were Scottish rather than English in origin – date from around the fourteenth century onwards, and represent some of the best popular poetry written in English. Many of the Border ballads are narrative poems which tell a story, often tragic but sometimes lighter and happier. Below, we introduce ten of the best ballads from British history.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) was one of the most technically accomplished poets of the Victorian age. But as well as the sheer range of forms he mastered, there is the daring subject matter he sometimes wrote about. (He was also a colourful figure, known for his saucy private life as much as for his poetry, and tales of his naked sliding down banisters are well-known.) Below, we introduce ten of Swinburne’s greatest poems, showcasing the full range of his talents.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Poets, as Percy Shelley memorably said, are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. For W. H. Auden, poetry ‘makes nothing happen’. What role does the poet have on the political scene? Have poets engaged memorably with their own political moment?