Definition of Pastoral Elegy:
The pastoral elegy is a special type rooted in classical literary tradition. The term "pastoral" comes from the Greek word pastor, meaning "shepherd." In this poetic form, the poet often adopts the voice of a shepherd mourning the death of another shepherd, creating an idealized rural setting to express grief. This form…
Definition of Elegy:
An elegy is a special kind of lyrics. A lyric expresses the poet's emotions, and the elegy expresses sorrow, woe, or despair. In short, the elegy is a lament, a lyric of mourning, or an utterance of personal bereavement and grief, and, therefore, it should be characterized by absolute sincerity of emotion and…
Anglo-Saxon poetry extends over a large field and covers numerous poetical forms, such as epics, heroic poetry, lyrics, elegies, riddles, and so on. It is potent and varied, and it also possesses certain distinctive features. Those features form its essence and give it a specific character.
Social and Historical Content
In the first place, Anglo-Saxon…
It is a series of street protests that began in many universities in Paris but rapidly spread to incorporate a broad cross-section of French society. Some historians estimate that as many as 10 million people participated in the mass strikes over several weeks. Known by a variety of different epithets such as ‘the events of…
Ronald David Laing (1927–1989) was a British psychiatrist and a leading figure in the anti-psychiatry movement of the 1960s and 70s. He was born in Glasgow. Laing studied medicine at the University of Glasgow and served as a psychiatrist in the Royal Army Medical Corps, despite struggling with poor health. Following his military service, he…
Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998) was a German sociologist and systems theorist. Luhmann is renowned for his attempt to develop a sociological model capable of accounting for every aspect of contemporary society. His work is enormously influential, particularly in Germany, where it rivals Jurgen Habermas’ dominance of the social sciences.
Luhmann was born in Luneberg in northern Germany.…
A dystopian novel is a subgenre of speculative fiction that portrays an oppressive and dehumanising society in the near or distant future. These novels often explore themes of totalitarianism, social control, technology, and the potential consequences of human actions. They contrast sharply with the ideals of a utopian society, highlighting the negative aspects of human…
“The Idiot Boy ” is a poem by William Wordsworth, first published in Lyrical Ballads (1798). This poem is mainly about the idiot son of a poor countrywoman, Betty Foy. Betty’s friend and neighbor, Susan Galen, seems to be gravely ill and thus is in great need of a doctor. Betty’s husband, however, is not at…
Yarrow Unvisited, along with Yarrow Visited, is one of the most popular and successful poems of William Wordsworth. It is, of course, not given a very high place among Wordsworthian great poems by a good many critics. Nevertheless, Yarrow Unvisited is a fine and delightful poem. It brings out many of the characteristic marks of Wordsworth as…
‘Lucy poems’ refer to a group of five poems by William Wordsworth, most of which were written in Germany in the exceptionally cold winter of 1798-9. This group includes ‘She dwelt among the untrodden ways’, ‘Strange fits of passion have I known’, ‘A slumber did my spirit seal’, ‘Three years she grew in sun and…