English Literature

John Donne was born in London in 1571 or 1572 and died there on 31 March 1631. He was a great poet. He is at the centre of the metaphysical school of poetry. This school is well known for its style. This style is marked by the use of conceits, wit, scholastic learning, arguments and elaboration of the poetic experience. It is also marked by passionate thinking. All these qualities of the metaphysical style are present in the poetry of Donne and his followers like Richard Crashaw, Henry Vaughan Thomas Carew, Andrew Marvell and Abraham Cowley. It is said that John Donne fell in love with Anne More. He eloped with her and married. He was imprisoned for his love. His experience of love made him a great love poet. Some of his very well known love poems are The Anniversarie, The Good Morrow, The Extasie and The Canonization. His love poems show his intense personal moods as a lover and analyst of his own experience.

Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove, That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods, or steepy mountain yields.   And we will sit upon the rocks, Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals.   And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;   A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we pull; Fair lined slippers for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold;   A belt of straw and Ivy buds, With coral clasps and amber studs: And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me, and be my love.   The Shepherds’ Swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May-morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me, and be my love.

WHEN I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced The rich proud cost of out-worn buried age; When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed, And brass eternal slave to mortal rage; When I have seen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, And the firm soil win of the watery main, Increasing store with loss and loss with store; When I have seen such interchange of state, Or state itself confounded to decay, Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate— That Time will come and take my Love away: -This thought is as a death, which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim:   Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, an...

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.   Who hath not seen Thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest th...

John Milton was a profound scholar. He was born in London on 09 December 1608 and died there on 08 November 1674. He was one of the greatest poets of England in the 17th century. He was not only a poet but a great pamphleteer and historian. He is considered the most significant author after William Shakespeare. He was well versed in the scriptures and the Classics. He fearlessly expressed his views on politics, religion, morality and governance. Milton's literary career can be divided into three periods. Most of his shorter poems Like L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Lycidas and Comus were composed during the first period from 1625 to 1637. A number of hymns, psalms and his English Sonnets were also composed during the same period. During the second period from 1635 to 1659, Milton deeply involved himself in the puritan reaction against Charles I. In this period he started his career as a pamphleteer and turned his attention from poetry to prose. He published his several tracts o...

When I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide; “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?” I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies: “God doth not need Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed And post o’er land and ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and wait.” Summary of On His Blindness (Sonnet 19) by John Milton On His Blindness is a beautiful sonnet by John Milton. It is one of the finest sonnets in English poetry. It has an autobiographical touch.   It deals with the poet’s blindness and his doubt and faith about God. The first part of the poem deals with the doubt of the poet about God. Milton’s eyesight began to fai...

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stol'n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year! My hasting days fly on with full career, But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth That I to manhood am arriv'd so near; And inward ripeness doth much less appear, That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th. Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, It shall be still in strictest measure ev'n To that same lot, however mean or high, Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heav'n: All is, if I have grace to use it so, As ever in my great Task-Master's eye. An Analysis of the Poem: How Soon Time Hath is a well-known sonnet by John Milton. John Milton was a profound scholar. When this poet was twenty-three years old, he composed the present poem in 1631. In fact, it is an autobiographical poem. It throws light on the poet's early life. How Soon Time Hath begins with t...

The little Love-god lying once asleep Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand The fairest votary took up that fire Which many legions of true hearts had warm’d; And so the General of hot desire Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarm’d. This brand she quenched in a cool well by, Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual, Growing a bath and healthful remedy For men diseased; but I, my mistress' thrall, Came there for cure; and this by that I prove, Love's fire heats water, water cools not love. About the Poet & Poem: William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon on 25 April 1564 and died on 23 April 1616. He was an English poet and playwright of the Renaissance in England. His poems are Venus and Adonis (1593), The Rape of Lucrece (1594), The Phoenix and the Turtle (1601) and the Sonnets (1593-1603). Shakespearean sonnets were published in the Quarto edit...

From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty’s rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory; But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel. Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament And only herald to the gaudy spring, Within thine own bud buriest thy content, And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding. Pity the world, or else this glutton be, To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.   Summary of the Poem: ‘From fairest creatures’ is an excellent poem. It has been composed by Shakespeare. This poem belongs to the poet's first group of sonnet. It deals with the metaphorical pictures of Time, Youth and Beauty. The present sonnet is addressed to a young man. He is a man of matchless beauty. He is the friend of the poet. The p...