Understand The Waste Land by Eliot
“The Waste Land” by T. S. Eliot can be a difficult poem. Here are some resources to help you understand it, starting with a video introduction by Dr. Timothy Bartel: The notes that follow...
Category: Excellence in Literature: The Curriculum
The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot
THE WASTE LAND By T. S. Eliot Contents I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD II. A GAME OF CHESS III. THE FIRE SERMON IV. DEATH BY WATER V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID “Nam Sibyllam...
Short Story Analysis – NDLA
How to Analyze a Short Story What is a Short Story? A short story is a work of short, narrative prose that is usually centered around one single event. It is limited in scope...
How to Write a Book Report – NDLA
Books reports can be fun if you know how. While reading, keep a notepad to write down notes and page numbers of content you might want to use. For example, write down scenes that...
Ernest Hemingway Biography
Brief Biography Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his...
The Language of Poetry – NDLA
The Language of Poetry Written by Carol Dwankowski The poet’s choice of words is extremely important because a lot needs to be said with few words. Language is the personal or private choice of...
Alfred Lord Tennyson Biography, 1911
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892), English poet, was born at Somersby, Lincolnshire, England, on the 6th of August 1809. He was the fourth of the twelve children of the Reverend George Clayton Tennyson (1778–1831) and...
Literary Genres – NDLA
The word genre is originally French and means kind or type. In this connection genre is used to classify literary forms. There are a number of genres and subgenres that will identify a literary...
Charlotte Mason Biography
Charlotte Maria Shaw Mason (1 January 1842 – 16 January 1923) was a British educator and reformer in England at the turn of the twentieth century. She proposed to base the education of children upon a wide...
Allegorical Elements in Pilgrim’s Progress
John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegory, meaning that each character, place, and event in the story represents something else. The allegorical elements in The Pilgrim’s Progress can be divided into two categories:...
Emily Dickinson Biography
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson...
Rudyard Kipling Biography
Rudyard Kipling, whose full name was Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936), was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much...
Poet’s Calendar by Longfellow
The Poet’s Calendar, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow JANUARY Janus am I; oldest of potentates; Forward I look, and backward, and below I count, as god of avenues and gates, The years that through my portals come and go. I block the roads, and drift the fields with snow; I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen; My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow, My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men. FEBRUARY I am lustration, and the sea is mine! I wash the sands and headlands with my tide; My brow is crowned with branches of the pine; Before my chariot-wheels the fishes glide. By me all things unclean are purified, By me the souls of men washed white again; E’en the unlovely tombs of those who died Without a dirge, I cleanse from every stain. MARCH I Martius am! Once first, and now the third! To lead the Year was my appointed place; A mortal dispossessed me by a word, And set there Janus with the double face. Hence I make war on all the human race; I shake the cities with my hurricanes; I flood the rivers and their banks efface, And drown the farms and hamlets with my rains....
F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography
Brief Bio Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of...
Walt Whitman Biography
Brief Biography: Walt Whitman, whose full name was Walter Whitman Jr. (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892), was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. He is considered one of the most influential poets...
Calendar of Sonnets by Helen Hunt Jackson
A Calendar of Sonnets, by Helen Hunt Jackson January O winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire, What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn...
Alexander Pope Biography
ALEXANDER POPE (1688–1744), English poet, was born in Lombard Street, London, on the 21st of May 1688. His father, Alexander Pope, a Roman Catholic, was a linen-draper who afterwards retired from business with a...
Virginia Woolf Biography
Brief Biography: Adeline Virginia Woolf (25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941) was an English writer. She is considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of...
Prayer for Deliverance from the Pestilence
Pestilence, plague, pandemic — whatever you call it, it’s nothing new. From Oedipus Rexby Sophocles CHORUSLORD of the Pythian treasure [1],What meaneth the word thou hast spoken?The strange and wondrous word,Which Thebes has heard,Oh!...
Poetry by the Month
Enjoy these poems with themes about a particular month of the year: January February March April May June July August September October November December *** New Year’s Poems *** More on Poetry: How to...
Edith Wharton Biography
Edith Wharton: Pulitzer-Prize winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer. Wharton combined her insider’s view of America’s privileged classes with a brilliant, natural wit to write humorous, incisive novels and short stories of...
Homer Biography
HOMER (Ὃμηρος), the great epic poet of Greece. Many of the works once attributed to him are lost; those which remain are the two great epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, thirty-three Hymns, a mock epic (the Battle of the...
How to Read Ash Wednesday by Eliot
“Ash Wednesday” is a poem by T. S. Eliot, first published in 1930. Listen to the author reading his own poem: Dr. Bartel helps us understand this complex work: “Ash Wednesday” is a...
Sophocles Biography
SOPHOCLES (495-406 B.C.), Greek tragic poet, was born at Colonus in the neighborhood of Athens. His father’s name was Sophillus; and the family burial-place, is said to have been about a mile and a...
Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant
Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness,...
To a Waterfowl by Bryant
by William Cullen Bryant To a Waterfowl Whither, ‘midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? Vainly the...
Mary Shelley Poetry
Stanzas by Mary Shelley Oh, come to me in dreams, my love! I will not ask a dearer bliss; Come with the starry beams, my love, And press mine eyelids with thy kiss. ’Twas...
Willa Cather Biography
A GREAT AMERICAN WRITER “Miss Cather is Nebraska’s foremost citizen,” wrote author and Nobel Prize-winner Sinclair Lewis. “The United States knows Nebraska because of Willa Cather’s books.” Today Willa Cather is one of the...
Leigh Hunt Biography
JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT (1784–1859), English essayist and miscellaneous writer, was born at Southgate, Middlesex, on the 19th of October 1784. His father, the son of a West Indian clergyman, had settled as a...
Ring Out Wild Bells
From “In Memoriam” by Alfred Lord Tennyson Ring Out, Wild Bells Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out,...
