Romanticism – Page 13 – Interesting Literature

A Short Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Alone’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) wrote ‘Alone’ when he was still very young – only 21 years of age. The poem remained unpublished until 1875, over a quarter of a century after Poe’s death. The sentiment is, indeed, something that many of us can relate to from our teenage years and youth: feeling all alone and that we are a misfit in the world around us, not just physically but emotionally alone. Here is Poe’s poem, followed by some words of analysis.

A Short Analysis of Percy Shelley’s ‘Stanzas Written in Dejection, Near Naples’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Stanzas Written in Dejection, Near Naples’ is one of Shelley’s finest poems, and, in many ways, one of his most emblematic Romantic poems, given its depiction of individual feeling against the backdrop of the natural world – here, the shores of the sea at the Bay of Naples. Before we proceed to a few words of analysis, here’s a reminder of Shelley’s poem.

‘Music, when soft voices die’: A Short Analysis of Percy Shelley’s ‘To—’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Music, when soft voices die, / Vibrates in the memory’: of all the lines Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote, these are among the most famous, even though they don’t come from one of his universally admired ‘great’ poems, such as ‘Ozymandias’ or ‘To a Skylark’.

A Short Analysis of John Keats’s ‘You Say You Love’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘O love me truly!’ as a poetic refrain is likely to inspire disgust at the poet’s desperation rather than sympathy, but then desperation can be dangerously close to despair, and John Keats (1795-1821) knew better than most what it felt like to experience the pain of hopeless love. In his short and little-known poem ‘You Say You Love’, Keats addresses a woman who doesn’t return his love.

You say you love; but with a voice
Chaster than a nun’s, who singeth
The soft Vespers to herself
While the chime-bell ringeth –
O love me truly!

II.

You say you love; but with a smile
Cold as sunrise in September,

A Short Analysis of William Blake’s ‘Never Seek to Tell Thy Love’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Is it always best to tell someone you have feelings for them? Is it sometimes better to withhold your true feelings, and not confess your love? Obviously this depends, but this underappreciated short poem by William Blake explains why sometimes it’s better to have loved and kept quiet than to have blabbed about the depth of your affections.