Guides

Keats's odes: where to start? Begin with Ode to a Nightingale, then Ode on a Grecian Urn, then To Autumn. Those three are the most famous and most taught. Then read Ode on Melancholy and Ode to Psyche. John Keats wrote all of them in 1819, when he was twenty-three, and together they are among the most admired poems in English. Poetry Catalog has all of these John Keats poems, … [Read more...] about Keats’s Odes: Where to Start

Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience is a book of short poems in two halves. Songs of Innocence (1789) sees the world through a child's trusting eyes; Songs of Experience (1794) sees the same world after that trust has been broken by poverty, cruelty and power. William Blake later bound them together as Songs of Innocence and of Experience, subtitled Shewing the Two … [Read more...] about Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience: A Guide

Shakespeare's Sonnets: where to start? Begin with the five most famous, Sonnets 18, 116, 130, 29 and 73, then follow the story groups that run through the sequence: the early sonnets urging a young man to marry, the sonnets about time and poetry, and the darker sonnets about the woman readers call the Dark Lady. Poetry Catalog has all 154 of Shakespeare's sonnets, and this … [Read more...] about Shakespeare’s Sonnets: Where to Start

Where to start with Emily Dickinson? Begin with a handful of her most famous short poems: Because I Could Not Stop for Death, Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, I'm Nobody! Who Are You? and I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died. They take a minute each to read, and together they show everything that makes her unique: hymn rhythms, slant rhyme, sudden images and a fearless way of looking … [Read more...] about Where to Start with Emily Dickinson

What is On First Looking into Chapman's Homer about? John Keats's sonnet is about the thrill of discovering a great book. Keats had read widely in poetry, but he had never truly experienced Homer until he read George Chapman's translation. The poem compares that moment to an astronomer spotting a new planet, or an explorer seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time and falling … [Read more...] about What Is On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer About?