By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
What is a portmanteau word, or a portmanteau? A one-sentence definition is easy enough: a portmanteau word is, in summary, a word that has been formed by blending two existing words together. So, for instance, a motel is from motor + hotel, brunch is from Âbreakfast + lunch, and smog is from smoke + fog.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
What is enjambment? Or, if you prefer, what is ‘enjambement’, or, if you prefer another, what is a ‘run-on line’? These three terms – enjambment, enjambement, and run-on lines – are all used to refer to the same thing, which is when a poet carries over a sentence from one line of verse to the next, rather than pausing at the end of the verse line.
The best way to understand enjambment and why it is useful for poetry is to examine a few examples, so that’s what this introduction to the term will do. But before we go any further, here’s a question for you that’s fraught with peril, which the great critic Sir Christopher Ricks likes to ask: what’s the opening line of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land? We’ll return to this question at the end of this article.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Here’s a pub quiz question for you. Who came up with the idea of the ‘unconscious’? Perhaps, lest anyone fears a trap, we should make it a little easier. Which German came up with the idea of the unconscious mind? Not Sigmund Freud, of course, who was Austrian rather than German.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
What is metaphysical poetry? And who were the metaphysical poets? In this post about metaphysical poetry we’re going to take a closer look at the origins of the term and some examples of this curious and enigmatic school of early modern poetry.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
What is the superego? Previously, we’ve introduced the id and the concept of the ego as Freud formulated them in psychoanalysis. But the superego is a little different from both. How we can best define the superego and its function is something that becomes easier if we first summarise or recap what the id and the ego are.