In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle reviews John M. Bowers’ fascinating book about Tolkien’s Chaucerian links If we think of J. R. R. Tolkien’s associations with medieval poetry, it tends to be the great Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, or perhaps the Middle English narrative poem Sir […]
In a previous post, we offered five poems about writing poetry; now, it’s the turn of reading and books. Poets have often written about the act of reading books, so here are ten of the very best poems about books and reading. Anne Bradstreet, ‘The Author to Her Book’. ‘Thou […]
For Emily Dickinson, fame is a bee; William Shakespeare, in the opening words of Love’s Labour’s Lost, described it as the thing that ‘all hunt after in their lives’. Poets have often written about celebrity and being famous, so here are 10 of the best poems about fame, glory, and […]