Written by English author J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion is a collection of mythopoeic tales and legends of the fictional universe Eä. It was posthumously edited and published in 1977 by his son, Christopher Tolkien, with aid from fiction...

The Book of Job in the Bible addresses the sufferings and eventual contentment of a man named Job. The story’s structure is set in form of a prose prologue and prose epilogue. The story revolves around Job, a blessed and wealthy man. Satan is not...

Daniel Handler is an American writer who goes under the pen name Lemony Snicket. “A Series of Unfortunate Events” is a series of several children-novels following the three siblings who became orphaned and have to struggle to survive in a world...

Psalm 23: Background Analysis

Although there is disagreement over the precise origin of Psalm 23, it is typically credited to King David of Israel and Judah, who is believed to have lived circa 1000 BCE. David, who was raised as a shepherd, is...

Shakespearean Tragedy by A.C. Bradley was first published in 1904 and has been reprinted several times since then. It encompasses Bradley’s lectures on Shakespearean criticism as a professor at Oxford University from 1901 up to the time of...

Artemis is a science fiction novel written by Andrew Weir and was first published on November 14, 2017, by Crown Publishing. The audiobook is narrated by Rosario Dawson. The novel was extremely well-received by the public and won the 2017 best...

Although English poet Wilfred Owen wrote this poem in 1918, it was not published until 1920, almost two full years after his death. Like most of his poems, it deals with the trauma that soldiers continue to deal with after they have left the...

"Mother" is Vietnamese-Australian author Vuong Pham's poem about his mother. Published in 2013 as a part of his mini-collection Refugee Prayer, "Mother" examines the relationship between Vuong and his mother. Together, the two immigrated to...

Thomas Hardy is one of the most influential figures of English literature. Both a novelist and a poet, he created work that is highly concerned with the Victorian era criticism and deals with themes of social and psychological struggle.

“Channel...

Thomas Hardy is a Victorian-era English author best known for novels like Far From the Madding Crowd and Tess of d'Urbervilles. However, Hardy was also a prolific poet. His poems, including "The Man He Killed," written and published in 1902, were...

Although Victorian-era English author Thomas Hardy was best known for novels like Far From the Madding Crowd, he wrote countless poems which are well-respected and still read throughout the world to this day.

Among his most famous poems is "The...

Ted Hughes was an English poet who was known for his themes of nature and animals in his poetry. He was born in 1930 in Yorkshire, England, and served in the Royal Air Force before studying English literature at Cambridge University. He was...

Ted Hughes was an English poet and children’s literature writer who is often deemed one of the greatest poet of his generation. His work is most often concerned with themes of nature and animal world.

“Hawk Roosting” is one such example, where an...

“Not Waving but Drowning” is a poem by Stevie Smith and was first published as part of a collection with the same title in 1957. The poem has been linked to Smith’s personal life with the account interpreted as her struggle with psychological...

"The Scrutiny" is a poem written by Richard Lovelace, a 17th Century English poet. Lovelace was a cavalier poet who is well-known for his poems "To Lucasta, Going to the Warres," and "To Althea, from Prison." Unlike these poems, "The Scrutiny" is...

Philip Larkin was born in 1922 and went onto become one of England's best-known writers. Before his success as an author, Larkin worked as a librarian, writing in his spare time.

Larkin has often been praised for his realistic and rather bleak...

homage to my hips is a poem written by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Lucille Clifton. The poem is a message of empowerment, celebrating both the female body and mind.

Clifton used the poem to draw upon the physical attributes of black women,...

Prometheus is a poem written by English Romantic poet Lord Byron and was published in 1816. The poem is based upon the story of the Greek heroic figure, Prometheus, and his sacrifice in stealing fire from the Gods to give to humans.

The poem is a...

The Lammas Hireling is a contemporary poem written by British poet Ian Duhig. The poem is a dramatic monologue and employs the perspective of an Irish farmer during the Lammas Harvest (celebrating the harvesting of wheat).

The poem begins with an...

In Praise of Creation is a poem written by Elizabeth Jennings and was first published in 1987.

In the poem, Jennings describes the natural world through use of animal imagery as well as that of the skies and stars. There are heavy religious themes...

The Ballad of Birmingham is a poem written by Dudley Randall in 1965.

In the poem, a young girl joins a protest on the streets to fight for racial equality. However, her mother stresses that white police brutality makes it unsafe for her to...