Summary – Interesting Literature

A Summary and Analysis of the Story of Jonah and the Whale

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The Book of Jonah is one of the shorter, not to mention more hermeneutically challenging, books of the Old Testament: how should we analyse and interpret this strange tale of a prophet being swallowed by a whale? Was it even a whale? Could the whole Book of Jonah, in fact, be satire? In the latest in our series of Bible analysis posts, let’s take a closer look at the tale of the prophet Jonah and the three days he spent in the belly of a ‘whale’.

A Short Analysis of Cassius’ ‘The Fault, Dear Brutus’ Speech from Julius Caesar

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves’; ‘Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world / Like a Colossus’. In just over half a dozen lines, Cassius gives us two of the most famous lines from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. His ‘bestride the narrow world like a Colossus’ speech – or, if you prefer, his ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars’ speech – is a crucial one in the play.

A Summary and Analysis of Amanda Gorman’s ‘The Hill We Climb’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

In January 2021, the 22-year-old poet Amanda Gorman achieved a record: she became the youngest person ever to recite a poem at a US President’s inauguration, when Gorman read her poem ‘The Hill We Climb’ at the inauguration of President Joe Biden.

The poem is hopeful while being realistic about the struggles the United States faces – together – during a period of political and medical turmoil, not least because of the various events of 2020.

A Summary and Analysis of T. S. Eliot’s ‘The Metaphysical Poets’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

In his 1921 essay ‘The Metaphysical Poets’, T. S. Eliot made several of his most famous and important statements about poetry – including, by implication, his own poetry. It is in this essay that Eliot puts forward his well-known idea of the ‘dissociation of sensibility’, among other theories. You can read ‘The Metaphysical Poets’ here before proceeding to our summary and analysis below.

A Short Analysis of Tennyson’s ‘Dark House, by Which Once More I Stand’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Dark House, by Which Once More I Stand’ is one canto (the seventh) from a much longer work of poetry, In Memoriam A. H. H. by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92). The poem shows Tennyson revisiting the home of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam, whose untimely death in 1833 inspired the poem. Before we proceed to offer an analysis of this section of the poem, here’s a reminder of the ‘Dark house’ canto.