Showing results by narrator "Denis Daly" in All Categories

Unlike the other verse novels of C. J. Dennis, this collection of 13 poems is focused on political satire. The action is set in the society of an arboreal race, known as Glugs, and described by the author "stupid race of docile folk". Among the targets of Dennis's mocking scrutiny are free trade, social conformity, and extravagant bureaucracy.

This lyrical ballad is one of Tennyson's most famous poems. The subject, the tragic passing of a reclusive noblewoman, was suggested by a 13th-century Italian romance, the Donna di Scalotta.

Rosmersholm is a play surrounding the deep and intense political and cultural change in Norway in the middle of the 1880s, a period during which the traditional ruling class were forced to relinquish their right to impose their ideals on the rest of society. We follow Johannes Rosmer, a pastor who has resigned from his position; Rebecca West, a woman who sees Rosmer's potential and believes she can help him to realize his dream of creating a world of "happy, noble people"; and Headmaster Kroll, Rosmer's former best friend.

Shakespeare's dominance during the Elizabethan era has overshadowed the works of many of his truly gifted contemporaries. This collection features poems covering a wide range of subjects, including love songs, wedding songs, and meditations on death, presented in a variety of forms.

In this entertaining pamphlet, the author, who was an expert on the artistic traditions of China and Japan, examines the effect of Zen Buddhism on popular culture. He provides a perceptive thumbnail view of the development of Buddhism in the Far East, and engaging portraits of its luminary figures.

William Wordsworth belonged to a chosen band of poets for whom poetry was a priesthood, displayed in his unerring devotion to his art. He nourished his unique poetic gift by daily intimacy with Nature. It is Wordworth’s peculiar achievement to reveal the impulses at work behind the outward beauty of Nature, and to manifest its sustaining influence upon the spirit of man.

This collection contains several of Tennyson’s best-known poems and shows his mastery of both lyricism and epic narrative.

Lady Susan Vernon, middle-aged and recently widowed, has retained her looks and appealing vivacity. She makes use of her bereavement and her loss of wealth by imposing herself on the hospitality of relatives, and by amusing herself in flirtation with the various men who fall under her spell. Lady Susan has a daughter, Frederica, who is bashful and innocent—in stark contrast to her unfeeling and manipulative mother. Her mother is anxious to marry Frederica off to a spouse of appropriate wealth and social standing, and also, perhaps, to capture a new mate for herself.

This collection of 36 short poems was published in 1907. The title is alleged to be an ironic pun referring cryptically to the sound of urine striking the sides of a chamber pot. However, the poems have no touch of vulgarity or bawdiness.

While the issues of the day that consumed the attention of scholar, accomplished linguist, politician and severe Puritan, John Milton (1608-1674) are now largely of historical interest, the verse which they inspired remains a staple of English literature.

During his long internment in the Tower of London Elizabethan adventurer and statesman Sir Walter Raleigh (1552 - 1618) took time to compose this thoughtful homily to his son.

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552 - 1618) was one of the most prominent political figures in the Elizabethan era. He was also a soldier, explorer, and prolific author. Although, like John Donne, Raleigh did not primarily consider himself a poet, he left a small collection of verse, notable for its pithiness and mordant wit. This collection includes 21 of the most popular poems attributed to Raleigh.

Little is known of the life of Zen master Huang-Po (Obaku in Japanese). He was born in Fuzhou, China, and died about 850 AD. His main teacher was Pai Chang (Hyakujo) (720 - 814). The main source for Huang-Po's teaching is the Treatise of the Essentials of the Transmission of the Mind, compiled by his student, Pei Xiu. Huang-Po's teaching is focused on the concept of Mind, the essence of intrinsic Buddahood. According to the master, the search for enlightenment was a useless distraction, as seeking for something inevitably separates the seeker from what is being sought.

Andrea Del Sarto (1836 - 1530) was a Florentine painter whose career flourished during the High Renaissance. In this dramatic monologue, "the faultless painter" (Andrea Senza Errori, as he was surnamed by the Italians) is the speaker. He addresses his unsympathetic wife, Lucrezia, upon whom he dotes, and for whom he has broken faith with his royal patron, Francis I of France so that he can meet the expenses of her indulgent lifestyle. He laments that he has not realized the possibilities of his genius, partly blaming and partly excusing the woman who has failed to support his high ideals.

This book on memory is not a catalogue of mnemonic techniques but rather a survey of its whole structure and operation. In the first chapter, Atkinson writes: "We see that the cultivation of memory is far more than the cultivation and development of a single mental faculty—it is the cultivation and development of our entire mental being—the development of our selves."

The Romantic Epistle was published in 1717 and aroused considerable interest because of its mildly suggestive content. It portrays an incident in which Héloïse d'Argenteuil, now immured in a convent chances on a letter from her former lover and later, husband, the brilliant philosopher Peter Abelard.

Gitanjali (song offerings) is a collection of 103 devotional poems written originally in Bengali and first published in 1910. In 1912 a translation into English by the author was published in 1912, and led to his being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.

Jelalu-'d-Din, today know simply as Rumi, was the greatest mystical poet of the golden age of classical Persian literature. In later years, he renounced the world and founded a famous order of Dervishes called the Maulavis. He was born at Balkh in 1207, and died in Konya in 1273.

This dramatic romance, first published in 1845, ostensibly relates the story of the escape of a love-lorn young woman from the rigours of life with a stern and uncaring husband. Several commentators have seen the poem as an oblique reference to Browning's own current life situation, in which he enabled his future wife, Elizabeth Barrett, to escape from the confines of a patriarchal household to Italy, a country that forms the backdrop to many of his poems.

The story concerns the young and vivacious Emma Watson, one of six children of a widowed clergyman. Emma has spent most of her life under the care of a wealthy aunt of liberal views, and has received a good education. However, when her aunt enters into a second marriage, Emma is forced to return to the family home, where she is affronted by the crass hunting for husbands undertaken her sisters, Penelope and Margaret.