A Crash Course in 1000 Years of English Poetry

1. CRASH COURSE IN 1000
YEARS OF ENGLISH
POETRY
ETS 4U

2. Old English Poetry

3. Old English Poetry
 Compared to our current forms of speech, “Old
English” pretty much seems like a foreign
language:HWÆT, WE GAR-DEna in
geardagum,
þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!
oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum meodosetla
ofteah,
egsode eorlas, syððanærest wearð
feasceaft funden; he þæs frofre
gebad,
weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum
þah,
oð þæt him æghwylc ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
LO, praise of the prowess of people-kings
of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,
we have heard, and what honor the athelings
won!
Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,
from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,
awing the earls. Since erst he lay
friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him:
for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve,
till before him the folk, both far and near,
who house by the whale-path, heard his
mandate,
gave him gifts: a good king he!

4. The Evolution of the English
Language
 500 B.C.: Celts settled in England from France
 43 AD: Romans invaded, and pushed Celtic language back with
Latin; Latin became the written language, but Celtic remained
spoken
 410: Romans left
 450: Angles & Saxons invaded and replaced Celtic with Anglo-
Saxon
 597: Christianity was brought back to England
 800: Vikings (Danes, Swedes, Norweigians) invaded the coasts,
and ransacked the cities
 1066: the French invaded, and pushed Anglo-Saxon back with
French
 1336: 100 years war
 1350: English was established
 1476: William Caxton introduced the printing press to England,
and is thus credited with standardising the English language

5. The Influence of the Church
 Throughout all of this time, Latin remained the
primary written language, because it was the
language of the Church, but most stories were
passed down orally among generations by a scop
(harp-playing medieval bard). For this reason,
Old English poetry is filled with alliteration,
making it easier to remember.
 The church was an overwhelming factor in their
lives, so the most common topics of literature
were religion and history (wars).
 Some of the most common types were epics and
romances, very long works that followed one
person’s travels.

6. Beowulf
 Beowulf is the oldest long poem written in
English
 Scholars believe it may have been composed
as early as the first half of the 8th C. - 700–750
AD, but the events took place in 500-600 AD.
 The first transcript was written down in 1100-
1200, but was burned during the 18th Century.
 The first printed edition was in 1851.
 Therefore, there is a mix of Christian and
Pagan values.

7. Beowulf – Pagan and Christian
Values
 Heroic Code: will do something that will result in
death (i.e. fight Grendel bare-handed) to preserve
a sense of pride, dignity
 What you accomplish while you are alive is important
– your glory will ensure that you are remembered
 Beowulf’s life itself does not matter
 Christianity: glory is found in Heaven, not in
events performed on Earth
 Everything goes back to God, so life does matter
 When Beowulf dies, he says “I died so you
might live” – parallel with Christ

8. Epic Poetry
 Beowulf follows the tradition of epic poetry –
a poem that tells a story, usually following one
hero’s travels. These are also referred to as
“romances”.
 E.g.: The Odyssey, The Iliad
 The main plot follows the hero, Beowulf, in his
battle against Grendel (a monster who has
been plaguing the Danes), Grendel’s mother
(as she avenges her son), and a dragon (who
eventually kills Beowulf).
 Along with the three battles, the story also
includes three funerals.

9. Medieval Poetry

10. Dante
 One of the most famous works of world
literature is Dante Alighieri’s The Divine
Comedy. Although Dante was Italian, he had
such a significant influence on literature that
we study him in “English Literature” as well.
 The poem is an allegory, wherein he travels
through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio),
and Heaven (Paradiso). This journey
represents the soul’s journey toward God.

12. Dante’s The Divine Comedy
 The poem consists of 14,000 lines, and the
structure is quite complex; it is often studied
mathematically.
 The rhyme scheme is terza rima, meaning that
the stanzas interlock with a rhyme scheme of:
A-B-A B-C-B C-D-C D-E-D …
 The Divine Comedy includes reference to
many Greek and Roman myths, and has in
turn served as inspiration for countless
references in popular culture.

14. Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight
 Sir Gawain was a knight at King Arthur’s
Round Table.
 He accepts a challenge from a mysterious
“Green Knight” that has unexpected
consequences, and during the resulting
adventures he demonstrates the knightly
virtues of chivalry and loyalty.
 This poem is another example of the
“romance” genre (following one hero’s
journey), and is notable for its use of
symbolism.

15. Geoffrey Chaucer
 Geoffrey Chaucer is sometimes referred to as
the “father of English Literature” because he
wrote in English at a time when English was
not considered a suitable language for poetry.
 Remember – due to the influence of the Church,
most poets were writing in Latin, or possible
French.
 He is notable for his humour and attention to
detail, which is evidenced in his character
development.

16. Canterbury Cathedral

17. The Canterbury Tales
 The Canterbury Tales begins with a “General
Prologue”, introducing the audience to a
group of travelers who engage in a story-
telling contest while making a pilgrimage to
Canterbury Cathedral.
 After the General Prologue, each pilgrim gets
his/her own Prologue and tells a Tale.
 There is a great deal of variety in the tales,
which are juxtaposed to highlight the contrast,
and they paint a very satirical picture of
English society.

18. The Canterbury Tales
 For example:
 The Knight tells a courtly romance about the rivalry of
two noble lovers for a lady.
 The Miller tells the story of an old carpenter’s wife
who is seduced by a younger man.
 This offends the Reeve, who takes the figure of the
cuckolded carpenter as being directed at himself, so
he retaliates with a story about an arrogant miller who
is much like the pilgrim Miller.
 The descriptions of the pilgrims themselves also
contain a great deal of satire.
 For example, the clergy are generally made out to be
fairly corrupt.

19. Petrarchan Sonnets
Renaissance Poetry

20. Petrarch
 Although he did not actually invent the sonnet form
(we don’t know who did), Francesco Petrarca (1304-
1374), an Italian poet, is credited with writing the first
sonnet sequence, entitled Rime sparse (“scattered
rhymes”).
 He wrote a series of 366 sonnets to a woman named
Laura, who was never specifically identified. (In fact,
some people question whether she even really
existed.)
 Each poem in the sequence can stand on its own, but
together, they weave a story.
 Petrarch was inspired by feelings of unrequited love
and desperation, and although he does incorporate
some other ideas as well, these feelings are really the
basis for his poems. In particular, he focuses on the
conventions of courtly love (more on that later...).

21. Petrarch
 In addition to writing the first sonnet sequence, Petrarch also
standardized the Italian sonnet form, now known as a
Petrarchan sonnet.
 In this form, sonnets are divided into two main parts: an
octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines). Between
these two sections is a slight turn of thought, known as a
volta. The octave develops one main idea, and then the
sestet presents another side of the idea, or at least an
extension of it.
 The octave must adhere to the following rhyme scheme:
a b b a a b b a
 The sestet can take several different forms, though it should
never end in a rhyming couplet. Two common choices are:
c d c d c d or c d e c d e

22. Courtly Love
 Men are struck by love at first sight.
 It is an illicit, secret love, because the woman is
usually married.
 The women rarely reciprocate the love, leaving
the men to become their emotional slaves, but
the love goes on indefinitely. (Case in point:
Petrarch pined away for Laura for over 40
years...)
 Women have a finer moral nature than men, so
loving the woman ennobles the man – either
because it makes him want to be a better person,
or because his suffering purifies him.

23. Sonnet Sequences
 In general, sonnet sequences follow the same
pattern, marking the stages of a love
relationship.
 They start with the lover’s attraction to his
object of desire, and follow various trials,
sufferings, conflicts, and occasional
encouragements. In the end, nothing is ever
really resolved – the love is unrequited.
 The goal was to cover the whole range of
emotions.
 They also employ “conceits” or comparisons

24. In England
Renaissance Poetry

25. Philip Sidney
 Eventually, this form of poetry
became very popular, and the sonnet
form spread to England. Although
many poets attempted to make this
form their own, it was Sir Philip
Sidney (1554-1586) who wrote the
first true sonnet sequence in English,
entitled Astrophil and Stella. Many people consider this to be the most important
sonnet sequence in English, but Sidney never really
developed a new sonnet form, and he was later
overshadowed by Shakespeare, so there is no sonnet
form named after him. 
 He is also known for the prose work The Defence of
Poetry, which actually defends all imaginative
literature and praises the moral value of poetry.

26. Astrophil and Stella
 The title means “Star-lover and Star”, and the
poems seem to be extremely biographical – he
is Astrophil, and Stella is Penelope Devereux.
Once again, the focus of the poems is his
bitter, unrequited love.
 Sidney follows many of the sonnet
conventions, but also dramatizes Astrophil’s
state of mind through the use of a great deal of
dialogue, colloquial speech, and self-analysis.
 In this case, the conceit is that he is a “slave”
to love.

27. Edmund Spenser
 Edmund Spenser (1552-1599) is most famous for The Faerie Queene, a
HUGE epic poem about knights, faeries, wizards, dragons, etc.
 He originally intended to write 12 books, but he only made it through 6,
each of which consists of 12 cantos, with roughly 50 stanzas in each. To
put it in perspective, he planned 12 books, with 12 cantos in each, and
approximately 50 9-line stanzas per canto: over 64,000 lines of poetry,
each of which employs a specific form and rhyme scheme, while also
weaving an intricate story that fuses together the literary genres of epic
and romance. It’s no wonder he was never able to finish it!
 Through The Faerie Queene, Spenser left us with another sonnet form.
Although the poems in the sequence are each only nine lines long, Spenser
extended the form to create a form for a 14-line sonnet. This form consists
of three 4-line groups (quatrains) and a couplet, with a rhyme scheme
as follows:
a b a b b c b c c d c d e e
 This rhyme scheme is particularly difficult, as each set of rhymes
“interlocks” with the next. There are generally three distinct but closely
related ideas in the quatrains, with a commentary in the couplet. Thus, the
volta comes at the couplet, instead of after the 8th line.

28. The Faerie Queene
 The subjects of Faerie Land are called Faeries
or elves, but they are human beings who
undergo the trials and tribulations that people
undergo in ordinary life.
 The Land is also inhabited by knights and
ladies who are Britons – Redcrosse Knight,
Prince Arthur, etc.
 The bad creatures, people, and monsters
represent various vices, evils, and temptations.
 In this way, the poem is an allegory.

29. William Shakespeare
 Finally, the English poets evolved the sonnet form even further, to
create what is now known as an English sonnet, or a
Shakespearean sonnet, after William Shakespeare (1564-1616),
the man who made it famous. This form has the simplest and
most flexible rhyme pattern, which is as follows:
a b a b c d c d e f e f g g
 Once again, this form involves three quatrains, but in this case, the
ideas are more closely related to one another (almost repetitions of
the same statement). In a Shakespearean sonnet, the volta can
be placed in various locations.
 Shakespeare’s sonnet sequence also focused on love, but the
sonnets are not addressed to the traditional “fair maiden”. Instead,
there is one group of sonnets addressed to a young man, and
another group addressed to a “dark lady”. In both cases,
Shakespeare defies the conventions of courtly love poetry.

30. Queen Elizabeth
 In addition to being a remarkable leader,
Queen Elizabeth (1533-1603) was also the
dominant cultural force of her time – so much
so that we refer to it as the Elizabethan Era.
 She was very well-educated, and delivered a
number of memorable speeches.
 Although we do not often read poetry
from women writers of this era, they
certainly existed!

31. Sir Walter Raleigh
 Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) was an
extremely versatile man – a soldier, courtier,
philosopher, explorer and colonist.
 He was also known for his
dramatic temper,
extravagant clothing,
religious skepticism, and…
his great favour with
Queen Elizabeth, which
was interrupted when he
seduced then married one of
her ladies-in-waiting!

32. John Donne
 John Donne (1572-1631) was a poet and
preacher whose writing displayed a great deal
of variety – sonnets, love poetry, elegies,
satires and sermons.
 He liked to twist and distort traditional
images and ideas, and also poetic forms.
 His early poetry was known for being quite
erotic, while his later poems were much more
somber (likely as a result of many of life’s
hardships).

33. John Milton
 John Milton (1608-1674) was a
prodigious reader, and very well-
educated.
 Paradise Lost was written in
blank verse, which, at the time,
was rare outside of drama.
 The poem is an epic, which can
be compared to the works of
Homer and Virgil.
 It was written at the end of his
life, when he was blind and
poor, but it became a supreme
achievement.

34. Paradise Lost
 Although the subject matter is technically biblical,
the poem encompasses all aspects of human life:
domestic, political, religious, social, and artistic.
 The poem depicts an idealized relationship
between Adam and Eve.
 At the beginning, Satan comes across as a
glamorous underdog, but this does not mean
that Milton is siding with him. When we eventually
meet Adam and Eve and are introduced to
Paradise, we realize how dangerous Satan
actually is, and he loses in the end.

35. Restoration & 18th Century
Poetry

36. John Wilmot, Second Earl of
Rochester
 Wilmot (1647-1680) graduated from Oxford at
age 13 and was given his MA the next year.
 He went on to become one of the rowdiest
members of King Charles II’s court – “he
drank, whored, vandalized, and publicly
appeared both naked and in full disguise”.
 Many readers admire his poetry because it
represents “the glories of what the world calls
immoral behaviour” – but it is pretty
scandalous!

37. Jonathan Swift
 Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) is an Irish writer
who was heavily involved in politics and
religion.
 He is most well-known for his prose works of
satire:
 Gulliver’s Travels, “A Modest Proposal”, A Tale of
a Tub…
 However, he also wrote a number of poems,
which are known for being “unpoetic” – he
often mocks beauty, romantic love, and other
poetic notions.

38. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
 Montagu (1689-1762) was mainly known for her
letters, but also wrote a great deal of poetry.
 As a teen, she secretly taught herself Latin – a
sign of the independent thinking that would
characterize her as an adult.
 She was unlike the typical women of her time in
that she married for love – she was unwilling to
follow the life of a “dutiful aristocratic daughter”.
 Her poems (known for their sexual candor and
wit) suggest that women do not always need to
defer to the wishes and opinions of men.

39. Alexander Pope
 Alexander Pope (1688-1744) was the most
popular and influential poet of his time.
 Because he was a Roman Catholic, he was
not allowed to attend university, vote, or hold
public office, and thus had to make himself
known through his work. However, because
he was so successful, he also made many
enemies in jealous writers.
 He is praised for the attention he put into
crafting his poetry, his mastery of poetic
forms, and his witty satire.

40. The Rape of the Lock
 The Rape of the Lock is a mock-epic: it is a twist on
the form of Paradise Lost, applying the heroic
structure to an event of everyday life.
 It is written in heroic couplets, a strict metrical form.
 The story is based in a real event that occurred
between two prominent families, in which a man
lusting after a woman steals a lock of her hair. It is
turned into an epic struggle, on the level of the gods.
 The theft of the lock is like the abduction of Helen of Troy.
 Pope was asked to write the poem in the hope that a
little levity might soothe the situation. It is meant to be
humorous, but also points out the fact that women
were mainly valued based on their looks...so the loss
of the lock was a big deal!

41. Romantic Poetry

42. William Blake
 William Blake (1757-1827) is
recognized not only for his poetry, but
also for his visual art.
 Although he was considered mad in
his own time, we now praise him for
his creativity.
 He developed a method that he referred to as
“illuminated printing” – he would write the text in
reverse on a copper plate using an acid-resist
medium, then etch the plate in acid to eat away at
the untreated copper and leave the design intact.
He used these plates to make prints, which were
colored by hand.

43. Songs of Innocence and
Experience
 These are two companion volumes of poetry,
which depict contrasting views of the world.
 Songs of Innocence celebrates nature and a
close relationship with God.
 Songs of Experience deals with the loss of
innocence, and focuses on sin.
 Many of the poems are paired, so that there is
a different view of the same subject in each
work.

44. William Wordsworth
 William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was an
important figure in the Romantic era,
which focused on emotions and
nature, rather than on science (i.e. it
was a reaction against the
Enlightenment).
 He referred to poetry as the
“spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings”. However, he still believed
that a great deal of attention must be
paid to the composition.
 He is the chief author of Lyrical Ballads,
but Coleridge also contributed several
poems.

45. Lyrical Ballads
 “Lyrical” means a poem about emotions,
rather than one that tells a story (like an epic
or narrative).
 These poems use everyday language, so as
to be more accessible to the average person.
 The focus of most of the poems is also on
simple, uneducated country people, rather
than the members of court and aristocracy
who held centre stage during the Renaissance
and Restoration.

46. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-
1834) grew up in the City
(London), but eventually settled
in the Lake District near his
friends the Wordsworths.
 As a result of physical ailments,
he was prescribed laudanum,
which led to a severe opium
addiction.
 Writing poetry took a great deal
of effort, but his achievements
were nonetheless remarkable.

47. The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner
 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a poem
about a wedding guest who encounters… an
ancient mariner. This man tells the story of a
terrible time at sea wherein he shot an
albatross (like a giant seagull) that represents
a Christian soul. As punishment, he is forced
to wear it around his neck.
 Eventually, all of the crew members die and he
is forced to wander the earth forever, telling his
sad tale to teach others a lesson.

48. Robert Burns
 Robert “Rabbie” Burns (1759-
1796) is a famous Scottish poet
and lyricist.
 Much of his poetry is written in
“Scots”, a northern dialect of
English.
 He is best remembered for his
use of folk culture, and the fact
that he wrote in the language of
the people, which is most evident
in his songs.
 He is the author of “Auld Lang
Syne”, which is sung at New

49. George Gordon, Lord Byron
 Unlike many of his
contemporaries, Byron (1788-
1824) was popular in Europe
during his own lifetime, but his
is not always considered as
important as they are.
 His most important legacy is
that he created the “Byronic
hero”, a moody, passionate
wanderer who suffers from guilt,
but is unrepentant.

50. Don Juan
 Don Juan is Byron’s greatest masterpiece, a
satirical poem that he wrote without a plan.
 The hero is a Spanish libertine who was an
“homme fatal”, but in Byron’s version he is
more acted upon than active… (Byron has
satirized the legendary womanizer.)
 The poem is unfinished, but is still one of the
longest poems in English.

51. Percy Bysshe Shelley
 Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-
1822) was a radical
nonconformist.
 Mary Shelley, the author of
Frankenstein, was his second
wife.
 His most famous work was the
poem “Ozymandias”, a sonnet
about the idea that all leaders
will eventually decline, no
matter how powerful they were
in their own lifetimes.

52. John Keats
 John Keats (1795-1821) came from a
very difficult background, and
originally began a study in Medicine,
but eventually went on to write some
of the most lasting poems in English
literature during a publishing career of
only four years. He is most famous for his six odes, which were the
result of his attempt to find a new poetic form to
replace the sonnet.
 In “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, he examines it as an
object that tells a story, and also as one that does
not change.

53. Victorian Poetry

54. Victorian Issues
 Evolution
 Charles Darwin’s theory
of Natural Selection
 Industrialism
 Progress or decline?
 The Woman Question
 Suffrage, property
rights, marriage, etc.

55. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 During her lifetime, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(1806-1861) was England’s most famous female
poet.
 She began to write at an early age, but as she
became more adept at writing, her personal life
became more difficult, due mainly to her father’s
oppression. That is…until Robert Browning
came along! He admired her poetry and wrote
her to say, “I do as I say, love these books with all
my heart – and I love you too.” Eventually, they
ran off to Italy for a secret wedding.
 Her poetry is praised for its emotional strength,
but she was also concerned with political and

56. The Works of E.B. Browning
 In Aurora Leigh, Elizabeth
Barrett Browning writes an epic
poem about contemporary
issues, which was a unusual
during the time period.
 She is also famous for a sonnet
sequence entitled “Sonnets
from the Portuguese”, which
were written for her husband
while they lived in Italy. The title
refers to the guise that the
poems were translations from
Portuguese poetry, but she
actually wrote them herself.

57. Robert Browning
 Robert Browning (1812-1889)
was overshadowed by his wife
during his own lifetime because his
poems were often misunderstood,
but is now considered a great poet
of the Victorian era.
 He often uses the style of a dramatic
monologue, wherein the reader must work
through the words of the speaker to discern their
true meaning.
 For example, the real story in “My Last
Duchess” is quite different from the one that
the Duke thinks he is telling…

58. Alfred, Lord Tennyson
 Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-
1892) is often considered the
greatest Victorian poet, although
in the period immediately
following his lifetime he was
much criticized.
 His early years were difficult, but
once he became successful he
had a comfortable life.
 His poetry is known for its excellent
mastery of rhythm and meter.

59. Tennyson’s Poetry
 A lot of Tennyson’s poetry deals with Classical
mythology (such as in “Ulysses”) or Medieval
legends (such as in “The Lady of Shalott” and
“Idylls of the King”, which are about Arthurian
legends).
 In the poem “In Memoriam” , the first to make
Tennyson famous, he coined the phrase “'Tis
better to have loved and lost, Than never to
have loved at all”.

60. Matthew Arnold
 Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
believed that poetry must bring
joy in order to make life
bearable.
 The most recurring theme in his works of both
prose and poetry was the question of how to
live an enjoyable life in modern industrial
society.
 He was known for his social criticism, and
provides a record of “a sick individual in a sick
society”.

61. Dante Gabriel Rossetti
 Dante Gabriel Rossetti
(1828-1882), the son of an
Italian patriot who was
exiled to England, is
known for both his poetry
and his visual art.
 His is known for his distinct depiction of
women, which displays a combination of
heavenly beauty and earthly ecstasy.
 One example can be found in “The Blessed
Damozel”, which depicts a woman in Heaven
yearning for her loved one on Earth.

62. Christina Rossetti
 Christina Rossetti ( 1830-
1894) was considered an
“odd woman” in her time
because she chose not to
marry.
 Her most famous poem, “Goblin Market”, is
supposedly a moral fable for children, and gives a
complex depiction of temptation and sin.
 However, the temptation in question does not
come from the Tree of Knowledge, like in
Genesis, but from sensual delights, and the poem
contains a great deal of sexual imagery.

63. Edward Lear
 Although we think of it as a
solemn age, some poets of
the Victorian era also
produced “light verse”.
 One such poet was Edward Lear (1812-1888),
who published The Book of Nonsense, a
collection of limericks for children.
 Although he referred to his own work as
“nonsense pure and absolute”, his poems are
delightful, and show his appreciation for the
sounds of words, both real and imaginary.

64. Lewis Carroll
 Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
(1832-1898) – a.k.a. Lewis
Carroll – was an Anglican
deacon and a Math professor
at Oxford.
 Most of his published work was about
Mathematics, but he is more famous for his
children’s books Alice in Wonderland and
Through the Looking Glass.
 The poem Jabberwocky shows a combination
of his mathematician’s fondness for puzzles
and his literary enjoyment of word games.

65. British and American
Modern Poetry

66. Modern Literature
 The term “modern” or “modernist” refers
to literature written during the early 20th
Century.
 The mood is often pessimistic, a
reaction against the emotional quality of
Victorian poetry.
 Poets began to use more irony in their
work as well, which also reflected a
darker outlook.
 Works that were written after WWII are
generally considered Post-Modern, while
we refer to more recent literature as
Contemporary.

67. Walt Whitman
 Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was
an American poet and journalist.
 Although he technically falls a
little before the onset of the
Modern era, he had a significant
influence on other American
writers.
 His poetry does not follow a specific rhyme or
structure, and as such he is often referred to as the
“father of free verse”.
 His most famous work is a collection of poetry entitled
“Leaves of Grass”, which focuses on the material
world rather than on symbolism or spiritual matters.

68. Emily Dickinson
 Emily Dickinson (1830-
1866) is an American poet
known for being a rather
eccentric recluse.
 She wrote nearly 1800
poems, but most were not
discovered until after her
death. She was seldom published during her own lifetime
because she rarely followed conventions.
 The main themes of her poetry are death and
loneliness or isolation.

69. W.B. Yeats
 William Butler Yeats (1865-
1939) was an important
figure in the Irish literary
movement, and received the
Nobel Prize for Literature in
1925.
 He uses a great deal of symbolism in his
work, but it is still written in a way that anyone
can understand.
 His later poetry became increasingly more
realistic.
 His poems tend to follow traditional forms,
rather than free verse.

70. Robert Frost
 Robert Frost (1874-1963) was
a popular American poet who
received four Pulitzer prizes for
poetry.
 Most of his poems are set in New England,
and often he focuses on rural life.
 His poetry explores universal themes, and
uses colloquial language, meaning
language as it is actually spoken.

71. William Carlos Williams
 William Carlos Williams
(1883-1963) was both a
doctor and a poet.
 He attempted to modernize poetry by giving it
a fresh, new form that he felt was strictly
American, and his poems do not follow a
traditional meter.
 The subject matter of his poetry is centered on
everyday life and common people.

72. Musée des Beaux Arts

73. T.S. Eliot
 Thomas Sterns Eliot (1888-
1965) was born in America,
but became a British citizen.
 He won the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1948.
 “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is written in a
stream-of-consciousness style, and depicts a
middle-aged man who cannot express his feelings.
 “The Waste Land” is arguably Eliot’s most famous
poem. It includes many references to the Fisher
King myth from Arthurian legend, as well as many,
many, MANY allusions to other works.

74. Dorothy Parker
 Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) was
an American writer best known for
her sharp wit.
 She worked at Vogue magazine,
then at Vanity Fair, before moving
on to become a founding editor of
The New Yorker.
 She was also one of the founding members of
the Algonquin Round Table, a gathering of
writers in New York City who called themselves
“The Vicious Circle”.
 As for her personal life, she had three
troublesome marriages (two to the same man),

75. ee cummings
 Edward Estlin Cummings
(1894-1962) was an American
poet, playwright, and painter.
 Many of his poems are very
unique in their typographical
style (i.e. the way that they
are printed on the page).
 He is known for his radical experimentation with
punctuation, spelling, and syntax – and his
poetry certainly does not follow typical forms.
 Many of his poems deal with themes of love and
nature.

76. W.H. Auden
 Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-
1973) was born in England,
but later moved all around
America.
 He is known for his mastery
of technical forms.
 His poetry includes popular culture and current
events, but also draws upon many references
from literature, art, politics, social issues, etc.

77. Musée des Beaux Arts

78. Dylan Thomas
 Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
was a Welsh poet.
 He is famous the musical
quality of his poems, which is
the result of his love for the
English language.
 He was inspired by nursery rhymes and ballads,
such as those of Mother Goose and Edgar Allan Poe.
 His most famous poem is “Do not go gentle into that
good night”, although this poem does not necessarily
reflect his typical style.
 His subject matter is closer to that of the Romantic
poets.

79. Langston Hughes
 James Mercer Langston
Hughes (1902-1967) was an
American poet who was a
central figure in the Harlem
Renaissance.
 He is known for his insightful portrayal of
working-class African-American life from
the 1920s to 1960s.

80. The Harlem Renaissance
 The Harlem Renaissance came about in the 1920s because African-Americans
no longer wanted black culture to be appropriated by white people – up until this
point, their culture had been used for entertainment, in minstrel shows, etc. Even
their music (jazz) was being appropriated by white culture.
 White people had developed an interest in primitivism – a focus on earlier periods
of human history – and they associated this with African culture, which they
considered uncivilized. White people felt that this allowed them to “hang out” and
let loose, but it was constraining for black people, because it was a mask – this
wasn’t their true culture.
 In this way, white people were controlling how black people were being
represented, so they became “othered”.
 At the same time, there were many political issues surrounding this topic. Many
believed that African-American people should be “separate but equal”, meaning
that they would have the same rights as other citizens, but would continue to be
segregated.
 African-American writers were faced with an important decision regarding
language: should they show white people that they could use their language
properly (in order to gain respect), or should they use their own language?
Unfortunately, at this time, there was still no black voice, and because anything
written by a black writer was considered minority literature, it took on a collective

81. Canadian Poetry

82. Canadian Poetry
From:
An
Anthology of
Canadian
Literature in
English
(Brown,
Bennett, &
Cook)
 In general, Canadian Literature can
be divided into four movements:
 The first stirrings of a literary culture
before Canada became its own nation
 The emergence of a national
literature
 The evolution of literary modernism in
Canada
 The fragmented aesthetics that
emerged in the last thirty or forty
years

83. Canadian Poetry
 Most Canadian literature is
realistic, and focuses on the need
for developing a self-identity.
 Early poetry was written for a
European audience, and there is
often also an influence from First
Nations cultures.
 Our poetry reflects our country’s
mix of wilderness, rural, agrarian,
and urban landscapes.

84. Pauline Johnson
 Pauline Johnson (1861-
1913) had a Mohawk father
and an English mother, and
her education reflected a mix
of these two cultures.
 Much of her poetry is based on Mohawk
heritage, but she uses English verse forms.
 As a poet performer, she toured under the
name “Mohawk Princess”.

85. F. R. Scott
 Francis Reginald Scott
(1899-1985) was strongly
influenced by the Great
Depression, and was an
influential factor in the
Canadian socialist movement. His poetry reflects his social consciousness
(see: “All the Spikes But the Last”).
 It is able to “unite the mythic nature of the land
with the reality of personal experience”.

86. Al Purdy
 Al Purdy (1918- 2000) was
born near “The Country North
of Belleville”– which is the title
of his most famous poem – in
the small town of Wooler, ON.
 He travelled a great deal, and thus his poetry often
reflects on various landscapes and the meaning
of place.
 He believes that the past “is a living thing, carried
with us all” and sees its influence in the present.
 When we lose sight of the past, we must recover
and respond to it.

87. Alden Nowlan
 Alden Nowlan (1933-1983)
grew up in a very poor area
of Nova Scotia, and thus
often writes about victims of
poverty.
 He refers to himself as a “witness” of the
rural Maritime way of life, which he
chronicles in his poems and stories.
 Although he does write about landscapes, the
depictions are commonplace, not picturesque.

88. Margaret Atwood
 Margaret Atwood (1939- ) is
internationally famous for her
poetry, fiction, and literary
criticism.
 She is also quite involved in the
world of publishing.
 Her early writing is stark and unemotional,
meant to “startle readers…into new ways of
perceiving.”
 Her later writing is more lyrical and satirical.
 Throughout her poetry, we often see themes of
alienation and a distrust of the everyday world.
 In particular, she often writes about feminist issues.

89. Gwendolyn MacEwen
 Gwendolyn MacEwen (1941-
1987) published her first poem
at the age of 17, and was
commercially published by 22.
 She pieces together various sources (from
the commonplace, to the ancient past, to
legends) to create “paired oppositions”.
 Her work contains a great deal of magic and
mythology.

90. Michael Ondaatje
 Michael Ondaatje (1943- )
was born in Ceylon but
moved to England at age ten
for schooling, and then to
Canada in 1962.
 His poems and his prose focus on narrative form.
 His felt a sense of otherness and his work often
reflects a contrast between a cold feeling of
distance from his environment and the warmth of
domestic life.
 In Ondaatje’s writing, “destruction is as
commonplace as creation and hate is as available
as love”.

91. Bronwen Wallace
 Bronwen Wallace (1945-
1989) was a poet and
women’s rights activist from
Kingston, ON.
 A common subject matter in her work is the
relationship between the individual and the
community.
 Her poems are generally narrative and use
colloquial speech, so that the reader feels
he or she is “being addressed directly by the
narrators of her poems”.