Close Reading – Page 26 – Interesting Literature

A Summary and Analysis of T. S. Eliot’s ‘The Burial of the Dead’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Burial of the Dead’ is the first of five sections that make up The Waste Land (1922), T. S. Eliot’s landmark modernist poem. What follows is a short analysis of this opening section, with the most curious and interesting aspects of Eliot’s poem highlighted. You can read ‘The Burial of the Dead’ here. What we intend to do is provide a brief summary of what happens in ‘The Burial of the Dead’, but we’ll stop and analyse those features which are especially significant as we go, and point out the meaning of the most important allusions.

A Short Analysis of William Wordsworth’s ‘London, 1802’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour’. With this opening line, William Wordsworth (1770-1850) begins one of his most famous sonnets. Although he’s best-known in the popular consciousness as the poet who praised daffodils and wandered lonely as a cloud, ‘London, 1802’ shows a Wordsworth who is very critical of England and its people, and looking back nostalgically to a happier time in English (literary) history. Here is ‘London, 1802’ with some notes towards an analysis of the poem.

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
O raise us up, return to us again,
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power!

A Short Analysis of Emily Dickinson’s ‘The Heart asks Pleasure first’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Heart asks Pleasure – first’ is poem number 536 in Emily Dickinson’s Complete Poems. Its title was used by the composer Michael Nyman for his soundtrack to the 1993 film The Piano (even if you’re not familiar with Dickinson’s poem or with the film, you may recognise this piece of music). Below is ‘The Heart asks Pleasure first’ (as we may as well call it) along with a short analysis of this enigmatic little poem.

The Heart asks Pleasure – first –
And then – Excuse from Pain –
And then – those little Anodynes
That deaden suffering –

A Summary and Analysis of Philip Larkin’s ‘Talking in Bed’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Written in August 1960, ‘Talking in Bed’ is one of Philip Larkin’s best-loved poems. It was published in his 1964 volume The Whitsun Weddings. Like many of his poems, ‘Talking in Bed’ takes a recognisable and relatable setting – two lovers lying in bed together – and then draws out from this small, specific scene in order to meditate on bigger, more existential questions.

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: