I look up through a lens of greyAnd deeply sorrowful blue; See my rosy glasses on the floor —Shattered. I feel hot blood trickle down my face;Touch my nose. Bruised. Spatters of red across my white blouse.Funny, blood looks different from this view. I look different too. November 14, 2020
Shepherdess
“Just enough,” she says.“You are?” I say.“Just enough,” she says,And leads me to a tuft of grass.I sit on the cracked dry ground.A pool of stagnant water ahead.The sun begins its slow descent. February 10, 2021
A Sonnet on Love
If love is patient, why does it always rage,Against the wind, a pin-fall, or drop of rain?If love is kind, then why doesn’t it assuageThe burning sores, the endless, senseless pain? If love isn’t proud, then why does it assertItself above the low and stifled soul?If it isn’t rude, why does it not concernItself with…
Prudent Insects in Gulliver’s Travels
Nearly one hundred years prior to the release of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Francis Bacon published a work titled, The New Organon, or True Directions concerning the interpretation of Nature. Within it, he offered the public hundreds of aphorisms concerning his observations of human nature and the natural world. As a well-respected intellectual of his…
A Brief Exploration of Spencer’s The Faerie Queene, Book I
Among the many layers of allegorical content within Edmund Spencer’s The Faerie Queene, there is a particular and striking emphasis placed on the two stanzas describing the character of Una, the Redcrosse Knight’s companion. They are the fourth and fifth stanzas of the first book, possessing also a locational importance as they are a part…
A Short Exploration of Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath”
The character of the Wife of Bath in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales encompasses a longstanding feminine plight, present even in modernity. Her plight is founded on societal and traditionally religious opinions that men are superior to women in every sense of the term. Within the story, Chaucer’s claim about what women want most in…
Imagination and Reality in Blake’s “The Divine Image” and “The Human Abstract”
While thoroughly educated in the common Christian beliefs of eighteenth-century England, William Blake gradually developed his own system of faith over the course of his life, through personal observation of the human condition as well as an extensive study in art (Greenblatt 124). Though his studies led him to a Universalist Unitarian perspective on religion,…
A Short Exploration of Christian and Pagan Values in Beowulf
Christianity in the eleventh century Anglo-Saxon community was significantly influenced by the Pagan traditions and values of Celtic heritage. Many of these values revolved around a warrior spirit—a theme found in the majority of the texts throughout the era. The Anglo-Saxon poem, Beowulf, captures this influence by depicting a victorious warrior who rescues men from…
Romantic Perspective in Francisco de Goya’s “Seasons” Paintings
In the late years of the eighteenth century, Romantic ideology began to plant its questioning seeds in the minds of the many great artists and thinkers of the era. Its impact first and most intensely reached England, France, and Germany, infiltrating Enlightenment thought with its abstraction, uncertainty, and mystic perspective. Given the revolutionary effect of…
An Irrevocable Decision
Upon reading and re-reading Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” a particular light within the lines caught my eye as it never had before. Frost is a striking poet because his writing is enjoyable with or without deep contemplation. The rhyme schemes are simple but pleasing, and the diction fits perfectly in every line. As…