English Literature And Theory This blog contains the explanation of various critical theories that provide a new insight to view literature and interpretation of various literary texts.

The poem, "When Icicles Hang by the Wall " is taken from Shakespeare's play "Love's Labour Lost". It is a song to criticize the winter season but poem doesn't present the direct and strong criticism. Poet is able to manage modest criticism to select the objective words. In the poem, the poet very cleverly to shows his dislikeness towards winter season.

According to the poem, when winter comes it brings several influences, the walls are covered with ice, everything including human's life get influenced by the cold and due to extreme cold, each phenomena come to freeze. To prevent excessive cold, Dick blows his nail and Tom Carries fire logs into the house. Milk freezes as soon as it is poured into the pail. The blood of living creatures comes to freeze. The snow has covered the way and made it muddy. The staring owl sings at night while Joan is keeling kitchen pots. Priests is unable to deliver his preaching due to his old age and coldness. Birds sit for brooding into their nests to skip away from the cold and due to heavy cold Marian's nose becomes red and raw. These all are the symptoms of winter season mentioned in the poem that shows the arrival of winter season. All people used to sit around the fire-place and the sounds of the roasted crabs could be heard. They ate and drank to prevent the coldness of winter season. Through all these images, we can notice winter is not pleasant in England.

"Dover Beach" is one of the representative poem of Arnold. He tries to show the lack of faith and certitude in a world which is materially expanding wide. It begins with an objective description of the ebb and flow of the wave in the sea. He recalls Sophocles who used to hear same kind of song tuned into human misery. He comes to the present and says that human misery due to lack of faith has not decreased but increased many-fold.

In the past, the sea of faith had encircled the earth and there was no melancholy, no sadness and no misery. But there is no more sea of faith now. Therefore, the world has become more like dream world and their is neither love nor joy, nor light, nor certitude etc. Everywhere there is confusion, struggles and fights among each other. Man is like a soldier fighting with an unknown enemy in the darkness, without any purpose of fighting. The only compensation in such a situation is "love". So he request his lover to be true to one another.

The poem can be divided into two parts. On the first part he talks of the resounding of waves on the pebbled beach. It is just the background which later leads to real consequence. In the later part he expresses his deep feeling about the real situation in the world that is changing rapidly with the growth of science and technology. The world has changed to be strangely unreal. It has many varieties in it, it has become more beautiful and fresher but it lacks all positive virtues like love, faith, peace, certitude etc.

"Lady Clare" is a narrative poem that deals with the theme of love. It embodies a dramatic way of precaution where action unfolds through dialogue and characters are recognized through what they say. The dramatic presentation is concerned with the theme of pure and unselfish love. It shows how lovers can rise above social and economic status and are able to remain faithful and honest to each other.

Lord Ronald love Lady Clare and she also love him equally. They were about to get married. She believed that he loved her true worth rather than her birth or land. In the mean time she was informed by an old nurse named Alice that she was not Lady Clare but her own daughter. After the death of the daughter of an old Earl, she placed her daughter in her place. Lady Clare was now sure that Lord Ronald would not marry her. In spite of nurse's advice, she went to Ronald in a dress of typical village girl and told her everything about her origin that she knew from Alice. After Ronald came to know the reality about his beloved, he declared that he would marry her even if she was not his cousin and she was poor.

This poem thus presents face of real love irrespective of social and economic status. Love is something different which has nothing to do with the birth or origin and social status of either partner. It is holy thing that binds two souls in such a way that it is impossible to unbind them.

It is a ballad written in simple language. the dramatic structure of the poem is appropriate to unfold the truth mostly through the dialogue of the characters and their action.

"She was a Phantom of Delight" is a portrait of William Wordsworth's wife, Mary Hutchinson. He shows how the perception goes on changing from first sight to marriage. It presents a very clear picture of changing perception in different situation and different times. In the first sight he finds her exceptionally beautiful just sent from heaven to delight him. Her presence is monetary but remains in his mind in such a way that he can not help remembering her. In her absence also he is haunted, startled and waylaid by her angelic and delightful image.

The relationship grows stronger and they become nearer to each other and he studies her household motions and every step in family life. She is a perfect woman in family life with the countenance full of sweet promises. She is a moderate woman for the transient sorrows, love, kisses and tears. She is neither too good nor too bad, rather she is practical woman, pleasant companion and a perfect housewife.

Finally she is very intellectual and moral being who is capable of guiding him. She is very conscious in every step of life with the firm reason, temperate will, endurance, foresight. strength and skill. Her quality is like that of the angel of god, all virtuous, to direct and guide him to move forward.

Thus, beginning with a distant view that offers an illusion, he closes up to a more realistic and spiritual view of life. The linear movement from the first sight to her encouraging and inspiring quality shows that he is a perfect woman created by the creator with grand design.

"Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day" is a Shakespearean sonnet that develops one dominant idea. Shakespeare compares a lady with a beautiful summer day in this poem. He finds her beautiful and immortal like his own sonnet. This poem has three quatrains and a couplet. It follows the rhyming pattern abab, cdcd, efef, gg. The poet develops the ideas in the three quatrains and the conclusion of the poem is embedded in a couplet.

The poet compares a lady, probably his beloved, to a summer's day which is all pleasant. The summer's day is lovely and pleasant but she is more than that. The poet also accepts the transience of pleasure and beauty of the natural things and season. The buds of May are not free of wind's touch. Similarly summer's lease is very short.

The sun is sometimes very hot and its golden complexion becomes dim. The beauty of every beautiful thing decreases and is ultimately spoiled naturally or accidentally. But the external summer's beauty he finds in her beauty will never disappear nor will she lose the beauty she has. The death will not be proud of taking her because she has been immortalized in the lines of his verse. She may die physically, but her beauty will remain alive in the lines of verse.

As long as the human race remain on earth and people can read lines of the poems, she will be remembered and will be immortal. Thus, the main concern of the poem is immortalizing beauty through the work of art, especially poem.

"To The Moon" is very short and interesting poem. It is a one sentenced poem that describes the moon in detail. The moon is the symbol of mother Goddess and it is believed that she imparts the peace and prosperity to the people of the world. But the poet evaluates the moon from different angles. He finds the moon joyless that does not find anything constant on the earth. The moon has her own course and she is always in motion. She is alone in the sky amongst the stars which are not the moons. The moon is changing like the joyless eyes that finds no constant object. Everything in this universe is inconstant and is separate entity. Everyone, though among friends, is alone and wandering here and there and of course is in quest of constancy.

The moon is personified in the poem. He finds that the moon is not energetic but pale due to weariness of climbing up the heaven and looking down the earth continuously. The journey of the moon is endless and it is certain that it is a repetitive journey and there is no progress or forward movement. On the other hand the moon has the pang of being changed continuously. The moon is alone in the sky because the stars are of low origin, nobility and birth. Nothing equals to the moon on the sky. She is noble and elegantly born but she is also not perfect. She is in quest of constancy.

So, presenting the problem of the moon, the poet is telling us that nothing is constant and perfect in itself but is always in process of becoming something different