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...
Category: Excellence in Literature: The Curriculum
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,...
Guide to the classics: Homer’s Iliad
The Greeks defend their ships from the Trojans in Alfred Churchill’s Story of the Iliad, 1911. Wikimedia Guide to the classics: Homer’s Iliad Chris Mackie, La Trobe University Homer’s Iliad is usually thought of...
The Renaissance
by John Addington Symonds The Renaissance RENAISSANCE—The “Renaissance” or “Renascence” is a term used to indicate a well-known but indefinite space of time and a certain phase in the development of Europe. On the...
To a Little Invisible Being by Anna Laetitia Barbauld
In this lovely poem by English poet Anna Laetitia Barbauld, an expectant mother speaks to her unborn baby, that “little invisible being” soon expected. To a Little Invisible Being Who is Expected Soon to Become...
Epistle to William Wilberforce by Anna Letitia Barbauld
Poem by Mrs. Anna Letitia Barbauld, 1743-1825. London: Printed for J. Johnson, No. 72, St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1791. Epistle To William Wilberforce, Esq. on the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade...
Lorraine Murphy on Austen and other literature
Dr. Lorraine Murphy has studied Jane Austen’s works extensively and teaches about them online and in person. You can learn from her insights at the links which follow. “‘At its heart, Pride and Prejudice...
Ovid to his Wife by Anna Laetitia Barbauld
In this imaginative farewell poem from Roman poet Ovid to his wife, English poet Anna Laetitia Barbauld writes of aging. OVID to his WIFE: Imitated from different Parts of his Tristia. Jam mea cygneas...
Dorothy Wordsworth Poetry
He Said He Had Been a Soldier by Dorothy Wordsworth He said he had been a soldier, That his wife and children Had died in Jamaica. He had a begger’s wallet over his shoulders,...
The Revenge by Tennyson
The Revenge: A Ballad of the Fleet by Alfred, Lord Tennyson At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay, And a pinnace, like a flutter’d bird, came flying from far away. ‘Spanish ships...
The Reticence of Lady Anne by Saki
The Reticence of Lady Anne By Saki (aka H. H. Munro) Egbert came into the large, dimly lit drawing-room with the air of a man who is not certain whether he is entering a...
King Arthur Legends
Hetta Howes tracks the many appearances of King Arthur, from a 9th-century history to a Hollywood blockbuster, via the works of Chrétien de Troyes, Thomas Malory and the author of Sir Gawain and the...
Chaucer Biography
GEOFFREY CHAUCER (? 1340–1400), English poet, is most famous for his great work “The Canterbury Tales.” His own age delighted in stories, and he gave it the stories it demanded invested with a humanity,...
William Shakespeare Biography
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564–1616), English poet, player and playwright, was baptized in the parish church of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire on the 26th of April 1564. The exact date of his birth is not known. Birth...
Lewis Carroll Biography
Best known by his pseudonym Lewis Carroll, the author and mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodson (1832–1898), was born at Daresbury, near Warrington, in England on the 27th of January 1832. He was the eldest son...
Amy Lowell Biography
Biography of Amy Lowell BY RACHEL JIRKA Amy Lowell was born on February 9, 1874, to a wealthy and influential family in Brookline, Massachusetts. She was the youngest of five children born to Augustus...
Helen Hunt Jackson Biography
Helen Maria Hunt Jackson (1831-1885) was an American poet and novelist and advocate for improved treatment of Native Americans by the United States government. She is best known for Ramona, a novel about the plight...
Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf
Kew Gardens (1921) by Virginia Woolf FROM THE OVAL-SHAPED flower-bed there rose perhaps a hundred stalks spreading into heart-shaped or tongue-shaped leaves half way up and unfurling at the tip red or blue or...
Francis Thompson Biography
FRANCIS THOMPSON (1859–1907), poet and prose-writer, was born on 18 Dec. 1859 at 7 Winckley Street, in Preston, England. His father, Charles Thompson (1824–1896), a native of Oakham, Rutland, practiced homoeopathy at Preston and...
John Ruskin Biography
John Ruskin (1819 – 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic, and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as architecture, literature, education, myth, ornithology, botany, geology, and political...
September Poems
One of the first poems I remember hearing as a recitation is Helen Hunt Jackson‘s “September.” It is part of her monthly almanac poem series, and does a lovely job of evoking the crisp,...
The Other Side of the Hedge
In “The Other Side of the Hedge,” English author E. M. Forster seems to take a critical look at the modern quest to make progress without bothering to experience life. The Other Side of...
William Cullen Bryant Biography
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794-1878), American poet and journalist, was born at Cummington, a farming village in the Hampshire hills of western Massachusetts, on the 3rd of November 1794. He was the second son of...
