Chit-chat-lit

Syllepsis   - JS.N (22/03/2024) Syllepsis is a rhetorical method in which one word, applied differently to each word, governs or modifies two or more other words in a sentence. This creates a kind of semantic ambiguity that can be used for humorous or rhetorical effect. Syllepsis, as a figure of speech, is a type of zeugma, which specifically refers to cases where the word is used in a way that creates semantic ambiguity, meaning that it applies differently to each of the words it modifies. In other words, syllepsis is a technique for using a single word to create a double meaning or pun, in which the term implies one thing when applied to one word in the phrase and something else when used to another. This can be used to create a comic effect with a deeper and layered meaning in a statement. For example, consider the sentence: "She lost her ring and her temper at the party."  Here, the word "lost" is used sylleptically, because it applies differently to "ring&

  Sonnet Sequences in English Literature - JS.N (19/03/2024) " Astrophil and Stella, 108 " by Sir Philip Sidney (1591, Elizabethan period) " Delia, 50 " by Samuel Daniel (1592, Elizabethan period) " Amoretti, 89 " by Edmund Spenser (1595, Elizabethan period) " Idea, " by Michael Drayton (1594, Elizabethan period) " Diana " by Henry Constable (1594, Elizabethan period) " Holy Sonnets, 19 " by John Donne (1635-9, Jacobean period) " Emblems of Love " by Francis Quarles (1635, Jacobean period) " Cynthia, with Certain Sonnets " by Richard Barnfield (1595, Elizabethan period) " Fidessa " by William Drummond (1616, Jacobean period) " The Forest of Love " by Thomas Watson (1570, Elizabethan period) " The Shepherd's Pipe " by Nicholas Breton (1595, Elizabethan period) " The House of Life, 101 " by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1881, Victorian period) " Monna Innominata, 14

Iambic Pentameter - JS.N (19/03/2024) Definition of Iambic Pentameter: Iambic pentameter is a type of poetic metre that consists of five iambic feet per line. An iambic foot is a unit of unstressed and stressed syllables, with the stress falling on the second syllable. This creates a da-DUM da-DUM rhythm that can sound like a heartbeat or a drumbeat. Example of Iambic Pentameter: One famous example of iambic pentameter comes from Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night": Each line of this passage is written in iambic pentameter, meaning it consists of five iambs. Each pair of syllables forms an iambic foot, with the stress falling on the second syllable. This creates a pattern of five iambic feet, or iambic pentameter. Explanation of Iambic Pentameter: "If MU-sic BE the FOOD of LOVE, play ON," This line consists of 10 syllables, with the stress falling on every other syllable, creating a pattern of five iambic feet. This rhythm creates a musical quality that is pleasing to

The Road Not Taken: Summary - JS.N (04/12/2022) Robert Lee Frost is an American poet who was much admired for his depictions of the rural life of New England, and his realistic verse portraying ordinary people in everyday situations. The Road Not Taken is one of Robert Frost’s most familiar and most popular poems. Frost wrote the poem in the first person, which raises the question of whether the speaker is the poet himself or a character created by him. According to Lawrance Thompson’s biography on Robert Frost, Frost would often introduce the poem in public readings by saying that the speaker of the poem was based on his Welsh friend ‘Edward Thomas’. The poem is about his friend Edward Thomas who had gone off to war.  The first stanza sets the scene for the extended metaphor of choices in the form of two roads which the speaker faces.  “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both” The road splitting in the woods is a metaphor for choice. Wherever

On Killing a Tree: Summary - JS. N (04/12/2022) Gieve Patel the author of the poem On Killing a Tree is a Poet, Playwright and Painter by passion and a Doctor by profession. He had published three books of poetry as Poems (1966), How do you withstand, Body (1976) and Mirrored Mirroring (1991). The poem ‘On Killing a Tree’ is one of the poems from his poetry collection named ‘Poems’. This collection was launched by Nissim Ezekiel. Being a part of “Green Movement”, he entitled himself to protect the environment. As a result of this he had exhibited his concern through poetry. Most of Patel’s poems centre on exposing man’s cruelty towards nature and his concern towards it. ‘On Killing a Tree,’ too, is one such poem. The poem is set on a visual plane. The descriptions are vivid, and the mood is sad, expressing the pain felt by the trees, as imagined by Patel. The poem tries to convey the fact that trees have life and cutting down a tree is an actual process of killing it. The poet makes s

Digging by Seamus Heaney: Poem Summary JS.N  (2/09/2019) Digging Digging by Seamus Heaney was first published in 1966 in his poetry collection, Death of a Naturalist. He deals with the themes of root consciousness and respect to the ancestors in this poem. At the beginning of the poem, the speaker is sitting at his desk with a pen that is resting in his hand. He compares the pen to the gun with the use of simile.  “Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests as snug as gun." The speaker implies that he has been digging with the pen which is as powerful as the gun. Suddenly he is diverted by the continuous sound of digging outside by his father. His father is digging potato field with the help of spades. He travels back to his past, as he digs into his memories, he finds the tradition of digging in both his father and grandfather. Ultimately, the speaker comes back to the present being ready for the writing. He proudly declares that his father was the d

The Looking Glass -Kamala Das  A review by JS N. (31/01/2019)  The Looking Glass is a poem from Kamala Das’s collections of poem entitled “The Descendants”. It is her second volume of poetry which deals with the Nihilism or Pessimism: “We are not going to be ever redeemed or made new ”. The Looking Glass is also included under the term nihilism. For she produced the poem in a sarcastic tone, mocking the cruelty of man towards his counterpart . The Looking Glass is a short lyrical poem of twenty four lines. It is spontaneously produced, that it contains no break in lines and there is no specified rhyme scheme or rhythm in these linked lines. However she introduced some simile and metaphor to draw the attention of her readers especially females .                          On getting into the title of the poem, “The Looking Glass” literally means “mirror”. But an analytical view of the title would recognize the word “glass” in itself means “mirror”, coming from its root