Monthly Archives: October 2013
Midsummer Night’s Dream – Love, Irrationally
I want to look back a second to my earlier blog post on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 . I mentioned that part of what Shakespeare is doing in his sonnet is challenging the poetic form of the blazon , that of … Continue reading
How to read a Shakespeare Play
Why is reading a Shakespeare so difficult? First and foremost, one of the reasons why reading a Shakespearean play challenges students is because these texts were not really meant to be read – they were meant to be performed. Unlike … Continue reading
William Blake’s “The Lamb” and “The Tyger”
In my first blog post on Blake’s poem sequence, The Songs of Innocence and The Songs of Experience, I discussed the structure of the work that Blake had in mind. Each half of the poem sequence presents two contrary states … Continue reading
Understanding the Sonnet: Edna St. Vincent Millay and Modernism
When discussing the sonnet in the 20th century, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s name has to appear in the conversation. Not only did Millay find value in the sonnet when other poets were vociferously rejecting it, she also used this traditionally … Continue reading
The Mad Literature Professor 