Literary Appreciation

 Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now: put out everyone; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good. About the author: Wystan Hugh Auden was an English born man of letters who achieved early fame in the 1930s as a hero of the left during the Great Depression. He was the leader of the so-called Auden Group, a group of writers with left wing sympathies that included Stephen...

 The World is Too much with Us                - William Wordsworth The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. —Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn. About the author: William Wordsworth (1770- 1850) was born and raised in the Lake District in England. The beauty of his birthplace had a significant impact on his attitude to poetry and the world at large. He delighted in the sights and sounds of nature and believed that they...

  Distinguishing Features It is derived from Greek word meaning "a little picture". The term was associated with a).relative brevity and b). pictorial effect. The poet presents a picture in a few words or a series of pictures composing a longer poem.  The pictorial effect is achieved by graphic description, as colour is used in a painting.  Every Idyll must aim at a vivid visual presentation of its theme. Often it give a concrete image of an abstract idea. Milton's L'Allegro is a picture of the happy life, subdivided into a number of smaller pictures, each of which is an Idyll in itself and all of which together make a complete image of the poet's idea of human happiness.  Wordsworth's Lines Written in March depict a spring scene in England after "the rain is over and gone".  The pastoral scenes in Shakespeare's As you like it form an Idyll of country life. Tennyson used the term for the short and pleasing narratives in his English Idylls  Browni...

  Literary Terms