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1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_years_in_poetry
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Samuel_Taylor_கோலேரிட்கே
௩ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/15859/All-for-Love
௪ Ode: Intimations of Immortality
William Wordsworth
"Ode: Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood" is a long ode in eleven sections by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth. It is a deeply philosophical work, with themes ranging from the Platonic belief in pre-existence, to Wordsworth's belief that children have an instinctive wisdom that adults lack. Composed at Grasmere, in the English Lake District, between 1802 and 1804, "Intimations of Immortality" was first published in Poems, in Two Volumes (1807). Arranged in eleven stanzas of anywhere from eight to forty lines each, the poem is written in anisometric verse, with lines of varied iambic stresses.
Wordsworth applies memories of his early childhood to his adult philosophy of life. According to the author's prose introduction, "Intimations of Immortality" was inspired in part by Platonic philosophy. Plato taught pre-existence, meaning that the soul dwelled in an ideal alternate state prior to its present occupation of the body, and the soul will return to that ideal previous state after the body's death. The immortality the title refers to is the immortality of the soul, which Wordsworth maintains is felt or intimated during early childhood. Hence Wordsworth's famous line: "The Child is Father of the Man."
"Intimations of Immortality" begins with the speaker recalling how nature and "every common sight" once seemed divine to him. In Stanza II, he reminds himself that rainbows and the like are still "beautiful and fair" to him, but nevertheless he feels "there hath past [passed] away a glory from the earth." In Stanza III, he feels that no private grief can diminish the joyous quality of nature. He feels nature's joy in the fourth stanza, but the feeling quickly fades.
In Stanza V, Wordsworth begins to philosophize in earnest. "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting," he says, for our souls originate in a purer, more glorious realm: heaven itself. Small children retain some memory of paradise, which glorifies their experiences on earth, but youths begin to lose it, and adults, distracted by earthly concerns, entirely forget it (Stanza VI).
Next, the speaker observes a six-year-old boy mimicking adult behavior in his play, "as if his whole vocation / Were endless imitation." In Stanza VIII, the speaker addresses the child, wondering why he, "thou best Philosopher" and "Mighty Prophet," imitates adult behavior as though he were eager to hasten "the inevitable yoke" of earthly cares and customs ("freight").
In the ninth stanza, the speaker rejoices that his memories of childhood ("those shadowy recollections" that "are yet a master light of all our seeing") remain to inspire him. In the tenth stanza, he calls on the birds to sing and the lambs to bound, to share his joy. Instead of mourning the loss of childhood innocence and wisdom, the speaker vows to "find / Strength in what remains behind" and to develop a mature "philosophic mind", 'which stems from a consciousness of mortality, as opposed to the child's feeling of immortality.'
Wordsworth sums up his philosophy in the final stanza (XI). His mature mind, he says, 'enables him to love nature and natural beauty all the more, for each of nature's objects can stir him to thought, and even the simplest flower blowing in the wind can raise in him "thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."'
Stirringly written with 'linguistic strategies [that] are extraordinarily sophisticated and complex', "Intimations of Immortality" is Wordsworth's 'mature masterpiece' reflecting his belief that 'life on earth is a dim shadow of an earlier, purer existence, dimly recalled in childhood and then forgotten in the process of growing up.'
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Emma:
Emma, by Jane Austen, is a comic novel about the perils of misconstrued romance. The novel was first published in December 1815. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian-Regency England; she also creates a lively 'comedy of manners' among her characters.
Before she began the novel, Austen wrote, "I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like." In the very first sentence she introduces the title character as "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich." Emma, however, is also rather spoiled; she greatly overestimates her own matchmaking abilities; and she is blind to the dangers of meddling in other people's lives and is often mistaken about the meanings of others' actions.
Contents:
1 Plot summary
2 Principal characters
3 Criticism and themes

Plot summary:
Emma Woodhouse, aged 20 at the start of the novel, is a young, beautiful, witty, and privileged woman in Regency England. She lives on the fictional estate of Hartfield in Surrey in the village of Highbury with her elderly widowed father, a hypochondriac who is excessively concerned for the health and safety of his loved ones. Emma's friend and only critic is the gentlemanly George Knightley, her neighbour from the adjacent estate of Donwell, and the brother of her elder sister Isabella's husband. As the novel opens, Emma has just attended the wedding of Miss Taylor, her best friend and former governess. Having introduced Miss Taylor to her future husband, Mr Weston, Emma takes credit for their marriage, and decides that she rather likes matchmaking.
Against Mr Knightley's advice, Emma forges ahead with her new interest, and tries to match her new friend Harriet Smith, a sweet but none-too-bright parlour boarder of seventeen —described as "the natural daughter of somebody"— to Mr Elton, the local vicar. Emma becomes convinced that Mr Elton's constant attentions are a result of his attraction and growing love for Harriet.
But before events can unfold as she plans, Emma must first persuade Harriet to refuse an advantageous marriage proposal. Her suitor is a respectable young gentleman farmer, Mr Martin, but Emma wrongly and snobbily decides he isn't good enough for Harriet. Against her own wishes, the easily-influenced Harriet rejects Mr Martin.
Emma's schemes go awry when Mr Elton, a social climber, proposes to Emma herself. Emma's friends had understood that Mr Elton's attentions were the result of his attraction to Emma and his ambition in marrying her, although she had not. Emma, rather shocked, tells Mr Elton that she had thought him attached to Harriet; however Elton is outraged at the very idea of marrying the socially inferior Harriet. After Emma rejects Mr Elton, he leaves for a while for a sojourn in Bath, and Harriet fancies herself heartbroken. Emma now tries to convince Harriet that Mr Elton is beneath her after all.
An interesting development is the arrival in the neighbourhood of Frank Churchill, Mr Weston's son who had been given to his deceased wife's relatives to bring up. Frank is of course also Mrs Weston's stepson, and Emma has never met him, but she has a long-standing interest in doing so.
Mr Elton, as Emma's misconceptions of his character melt away, reveals himself to be more and more arrogant and pompous; he had snubbed Harriet at a dance. He soon returns from Bath with another newcomer, a vulgar but rich wife who becomes part of Emma's social circle, though the two women soon loathe each other.
A third new character is the orphaned Jane Fairfax, the reserved but beautiful and elegant niece of Emma's impoverished neighbour, the talkative Miss Bates who lives with her deaf, widowed mother. Miss Bates is an ageing spinster, well-meaning but increasingly poor; Emma strives to be polite and kind to her, but is irritated by her dull and incessant chattering. Jane, very accomplished musically, is Miss Bates' pride and joy; Emma envies her talent and initially dislikes her for her apparent coldness and reserve. Jane had lived with Miss Bates until she was nine, but Colonel Campbell, a friend indebted to her father for seeing him through a life-threatening illness, welcomed her into his own home where she became fast friends with his unfortunately plain daughter and received a first-rate education. On the marriage of Miss Campbell, Jane returned to her Bates relations, ostensibly to regain her health and prepare to earn her living as a governess.
In her eagerness to find some sort of fault with Jane — and also to find something to amuse her in her pleasant but dull village — Emma indulges in the fantasy, apparently shared by Frank, that Jane was an object of admiration for Miss Campbell's husband, Mr Dixon, and that it is for this reason she has returned home instead of going to Ireland to visit them. This suspicion is further fueled by the arrival of a piano for Jane from a mysterious anonymous benefactor.
Emma tries to make herself fall in love with Frank largely because everyone says they make a handsome couple. Frank seems to everyone to have Emma as his object, and the two flirt together in public, at the evening piano and on a day-trip to Box Hill, a local beauty spot. Emma ultimately decides, however, that Frank would suit Harriet better after an episode where Frank 'saves' Harriet from a band of Gypsies. At this time, Mrs Weston wonders if Emma's old friend Mr Knightley might have taken a fancy to Jane. Emma promptly decides that she does not want Mr Knightley to marry anyone, but rather than further explore these feelings, she claims that this is because she wants her little nephew Henry to inherit the family property.
When Mr Knightley scolds her for a thoughtless insult to Miss Bates, Emma is privately ashamed and tries to atone by going to visit Miss Bates. Mr Knightley is surprised but deeply impressed by Emma's recognition of her wrongdoing and attempt to make amends; this leads to a more meaningful affection for Emma. Meanwhile, Jane reportedly becomes ill, but refuses to see Emma or accept her gifts. Emma thinks Jane's behaviour stems from Emma's previous neglect of and coldness towards Jane. Jane also suddenly accepts an offer for a governess position from a friend of Mrs Elton's.
Soon thereafter, Emma learns why Jane had behaved strangely: it's because Jane and Frank have been secretly engaged for almost a year! Why Frank pretended to admire Emma was to disguise his clandestine relationship with Jane. Jane's distress had been because she and Frank had quarrelled over his behaviour with Emma and his unguarded behaviour towards herself, something Jane believes could put them at risk of discovery. Then Frank's overbearing aunt, whose opposition to the engagement Frank had feared, dies, and so Frank's and Jane's engagement becomes public.
When Harriet confides that she thinks Mr Knightley is in love with her, jealousy makes Emma realize she loves him herself. Mr Knightley has been in love with Emma all along, and after the engagement of Jane and Frank is revealed, he proposes to her, and she joyfully accepts.
Shortly thereafter, Harriet reconciles with her young farmer, Mr Martin, and they marry. Jane and Emma reconcile before Jane and Frank go to live in Yorkshire. Finally, Emma and Mr Knightley decide that after their marriage they will spare Emma's father loneliness and distress by living with him at Hartfield, instead of settling at the Knightley estate, Donwell.
Principal characters:

Gwyneth Paltrow as Emma Woodhouse in the 1996 film adaptation of Jane Austen's 1816 novel, Emma
Emma Woodhouse, the protagonist of the story, is a beautiful, high-spirited, intellectual, and 'slightly' spoiled woman of 21. Her mother died when she was very young, and she has been mistress of the house ever since, certainly since her older sister got married. While she is in many ways mature for her age, Emma makes some serious mistakes, mainly due to her conviction that she is always right and her lack of real world experience. Although she has vowed she will never ever marry, she delights in making matches for others. She seems unable to fall in love, until jealousy makes her realize that she has loved Mr Knightley all along.
Mr George Knightley, is about 37 or 38. He is a close friend of Emma, and her only critic, though he cares deeply for her. Mr Knightley is the owner of the neighbouring estate of Donwell, which includes extensive grounds and a farm. He is the elder brother of Mr John Knightley – the husband of Emma's elder sister Isabella. Mr Knightley is very annoyed with Emma for persuading Harriet to turn down Mr Martin, thinking that the advantage is all on Harriet's side; he also warns Emma against matchmaking Harriet with Mr Elton, correctly guessing that Mr Elton has a much higher opinion of himself. He is suspicious of Frank Churchill and his motives; although his suspicion turns out to be based mainly on jealousy of the younger man, his instincts are proven correct by the revelation that Frank Churchill is not all that he seems.
Mr Frank Churchill, Mr Weston's son by his previous marriage, an amiable young man who manages to be liked by everyone except for Mr Knightley, who considers him quite immature, although this partially results from his jealously of Frank's supposed 'pursuit' of Emma. After his mother's death he was raised by his wealthy aunt and uncle, whose last name he took. Frank thoroughly enjoys dancing and music and likes to live life to the fullest. Frank may be viewed as a careless but less villainous version of characters from other Austen novels, such as Mr Wickham from Pride and Prejudice or Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility.
Jane Fairfax, an orphan whose only family consists of an aunt, Miss Bates, and a grandmother, Mrs Bates. She is regarded as a very beautiful, clever, and elegant woman, with the best of manners, and is also very well-educated and exceptionally talented at singing and playing the piano; in fact, she is the sole person that Emma envies. She has little fortune, however, and seems destined to become a governess – a prospect she dislikes.
Harriet Smith, a young friend of Emma's, is a very pretty but unsophisticated girl who is too easily led by others, especially Emma; she has been educated at a nearby school. The illegitimate daughter of initially unknown parents, she is revealed in the last chapter to be the daughter of a fairly rich and decent tradesman, although not a "gentleman". Emma takes Harriet under her wing early in the novel, and she becomes the subject of some of Emma's misguided matchmaking attempts. Harriet initially rebuffs a marriage proposal from farmer Robert Martin because of Emma's belief that he is beneath her, despite Harriet's own doubtful origins. She then develops a passion for Mr Knightley, which is the catalyst for Emma realising her own feelings. Ultimately, Harriet and Mr Martin are wed, despite Emma's meddling.
Philip Elton is a good-looking, well mannered and ambitious young vicar. Emma wants him to marry Harriet; he wants to marry Emma. Mr Elton displays his mercenary nature by quickly marrying another woman of means after Emma's rejection.
Augusta Elton, formerly Miss Hawkins, is Mr Elton's moneyed but obnoxious wife. She is a boasting, domineering, pretentious woman who likes to be the centre of attention and is generally disliked by Emma and her circle. She patronizes Jane, which earns Jane the sympathy of others.
Mrs Weston, formerly Miss Taylor, was Emma's governess for sixteen years and remains her closest friend and confidante after she marries Mr Weston in the opening chapter. She is a sensible woman who adores Emma. Mrs Weston acts as a surrogate mother to her former charge and, occasionally, as a voice of moderation and reason.
Mr Weston, a recently wealthy man living in the vicinity of Hartfield. He marries Emma's former governess, Miss Taylor, and by his first marriage is father to Frank Churchill, who was adopted and raised by his late wife's brother and sister-in-law. Mr Weston is a sanguine, optimistic man, who enjoys socializing.
Miss Bates, a friendly, garrulous spinster whose mother, Mrs Bates, is a friend of Mr Woodhouse. Her accomplished niece, Jane Fairfax, is the light of her life. One day, Emma humiliates her on a day out in the country, when she pointedly alludes to her tiresome prolixity. Afterward, Mr Knightley sternly rebukes her and Emma, shamed, tries to make amends.
Henry Woodhouse, Emma's father, is always concerned for his own health and that of his friends, to the point of trying to deny his visitors foods he thinks too rich. He laments that "poor Isabella" and "poor Miss Taylor" shouldn't have married and been taken away from him.
Criticism and themes:
Emma Woodhouse is the first Austen heroine with no financial concerns, which, she declares to the naïve Miss Smith, is the reason that she has no inducement to marry. This is a great departure from Austen's other novels, in which the quest for marriage and financial security are two of several themes in the stories. Emma's ample financial resources are one of the factors that make this novel much lighter than Austen's earlier works, such as Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. Jane Fairfax's prospects, in contrast, are bleak.
Emma also proves surprisingly immune to romantic attraction and sexual desire. In contrast to Austen heroine Marianne Dashwood, who is attracted to the wrong man before she settles on the right one, Emma shows no romantic interest in the men she meets. She is genuinely surprised and somewhat disgusted when Mr Elton declares his love for her much like the way Elizabeth Bennet reacts upon Mr Collins' proposal. Her fancy for Frank Churchill represents more of a longing for a little drama in her life than a longing for romantic love. Notably, too, Emma utterly fails to understand Harriet Smith and Robert Martin's budding affection for each other; she interprets the prospective match solely in terms of financial settlements and social ambition. Only after Harriet Smith reveals her interest in Mr Knightley does Emma realize her own feelings for him. Although never outright stated as such, it may be postulated that the reason for Emma's inability to fall in love with another man is that she has been unconsciously in love with Mr Knightley for years.
While Emma differs strikingly from Austen's other heroines in these two respects, she resembles Elizabeth Bennet and Anne Elliot, among others, in another way: she is an intelligent young woman with too little to do and no ability to change her location or everyday routine. Though her family is loving and her economic circumstances comfortable, her everyday life is dull indeed, and she has few companions of her own age when the novel begins. Emma's determined and inept matchmaking may represent a muted protest against the narrow scope of a wealthy woman's life, especially that of a woman who is single and childless.
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Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
by Thomas Gray


Poem Summary:
Lines 1-4:
In the first stanza, the speaker observes the signs of a country day drawing to a close: a curfew bell ringing, a herd of cattle moving across the pasture, and a farm laborer returning home. The speaker is then left alone to contemplate the isolated rural scene. The first line of the poem sets a distinctly somber tone: the curfew bell does not simply ring; it "knells"—a term usually applied to bells rung at a death or funeral. From the start, then, Gray reminds us of human mortality.
Lines 5-8:
The second stanza sustains the somber tone of the first: the speaker is not mournful, but pensive, as he describes the peaceful landscape that surrounds him. Even the air is characterized as having a "solemn stillness." ……..
Themes:
Death
Gray's "Elegy" is one of the best-known poems about death in all of European literature. The poem presents the reflections of an observer who, passing by a churchyard that is out in the country, stops for a moment to think about the significance of the strangers buried there. Scholars of medieval times sometimes kept human skulls on their desktops, to keep themselves conscious of the fact that someday they, like the skulls' former occupants, would die: from this practice we get the phrase memento mori, which we say to this day to describe any token one uses to keep one's mortality in mind. In this poem, the graveyard acts as a memento mori, reminding the narrator to not place too much value on this life because someday he too will be dead and buried......




“Summary of “The Philosophy of Composition”
by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Philosophy of Composition” was published in 1846. In this essay, Poe analyses how effect, length, province, tone and refrain contributes to the construction of a good poem. He examines his poem “The Raven” and establishes what is important in poetry.
Poe disagrees with some authors that consider a poem as accident or product of frenzy. He affirms that a poem is a result of hard work in which the author has to advance step by step. A poem is as complex as a “mathematical problem”.
The first thing to be determined about a poem is the effect. Keeping originality in view, the author must choose an effect that touches “the heart, the intellect and the soul”. It can be constructed by incident, tone or a combination of events.
The second essential point to poetry is length. Poe declares that a good work has to be short enough to be read in one sitting. If it requires two sittings, the unity of impression is damaged. According to Poe, brevity is linked to the intensity of the effect. Consequently, a long poem can produce no effect at all – it’s only “a succession of brief poetical effects”. The author established a good length for his poems: one hundred lines (“The Raven” has a hundred and eight lines).
Another important object in poetry is the real province of the poem. Poe considers beauty as the heart of poetry. According to the author, the most intense pleasure is “found in the contemplation of the beautiful”. Other objects, such as truth and passion are completely opponent to beauty because they require a certain extent in poetry, damaging the essence of poetry.
The fourth point answered by Poe is about the tone. According the writer, the most genuine of all the poetical tones is melancholy. Combined with beauty, it “invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears”.
The next important point in poetry is the refrain. As the author says, it is not limited to lyric verse, but it depends on the force of monotone (words pronounced with the same volume and tone). Repetition combined with monotone creates a sense of identity to the poem. In the case of “The Raven, Poe chose the sonority of the vowel “o” in connection with the consonant “r”. Once he selected a sonorous sound, he should find a word that embodies this sound. He decided to pick up the word “nevermore” to be part of the refrain of his composition. However, the repetition of “nevermore” by a person would seem tedious in the poem. Thus, Poe had the idea “of a non-reasoning creature capable of speech” to repeat the word. Finally, he chose a raven, “a bird of ill-omen” to say “nevermore” at the end of each stanza of his composition.
In order to achieve perfection, Poe looked for a melancholy topic. He realized that death is the most melancholy topic, and the death of a beautiful woman, “the most poetical topic in the world”, is related to that concept of beauty he mentioned before. The author imagined the Raven pronouncing the word “nevermore” to answer the questions of the lover, who is self-torturing himself by insisting to ask the Raven. To bring the lover and the bird together, Poe thought about the lover’s chamber, a place in which all memories of the lover would take place. The author introduced the bird flapping its wings against the shutter inducing the lover to think someone is tapping at his door. The bird sat on the bust of Pallas (the bust was chosen because of the sonority of the word “Pallas” and because the author wanted to reinforce the scholarship of the lover) and started answering the queries of the lover.
In conclusion, Poe affirms that “some amount of complexity, or more properly, adaptation” and “some amount of suggestiveness of meaning” are required to an artist. According to him, the biggest objective is originality. This is not a matter of impulse or intuition; it is a result of hard work. He pretended not to be original in rhythm or metre in “The Raven”, but he combined novel effects and the principles of rhyme and alliteration in each stanza to find originality.





















John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo (born April 6, 1935) is a Nigerian poet and playwright who originally published under the name of J.P. Clark.
Life
Born to Ijaw parents, Clark received his early education at the Native Administration School and the prestigious Government College in Ughelli, and his BA degree in English at the University of Ibadan, where he edited various magazines, including the Beacon and The Horn. Upon graduation from Ibadan in 1960, he worked as an information officer in the Ministry of Information, in the old Western Region of Nigeria, as features editor of the Daily Express, and as a research fellow at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan. He served for several years as a professor of English at the University of Lagos, a position from which he retired in 1980. In 1982, along with his wife Ebun Odutola (a professor and former director of the Centre for Cultural Studies at the University of Lagos), he founded the Pec Repertory Theatre in Lagos. A widely travelled man, JP Clark has, since his retirement, held visiting professorial appointments at several institutions of higher learning, including Yale and Wesleyan University in the United States.
Poetry
Clark is most remembered for his poetry, including:
Poems (1961), a group of forty lyrics that treat heterogeneous themes;
A Reed in the Tide (1965), occasional poems that focus on the Clark's indigenous African background and his travel experience in America and other places;
Casualties: Poems 1966-68 (1970), which illustrate the horrendous events of the Nigeria-Biafra war;
A Decade of Tongues (1981), a collection of seventy-four poems, all of which apart from "Epilogue to Casualties" (dedicated to Michael Echeruo) were previously published in earlier volumes;
State of the Union (1981), which highlights his apprehension concerning the sociopolitical events in Nigeria as a developing nation;
Mandela and Other Poems (1988), which deals with the perennial problem of aging and death.
Critics have noted three main stages in Clark's poetic career: the apprenticeship stage of trial and experimentation, exemplified by such juvenilia as "Darkness and Light" and "Iddo Bridge"; the imitative stage, in which he appropriates such Western poetic conventions as the couplet measure and the sonnet sequence, exemplified in such lyrics as "To a Fallen Soldier" and "Of Faith"; and the individualized stage, in which he attains the maturity and originality of form of such poems as "Night Rain", "Out of the Tower", and "Song".
Throughout his work, certain themes recur:
Violence and protest, as in Casualties;
Institutional corruption, as in State of the Union;
The beauty of nature and the landscape, as in A Reed in the Tide;
European colonialism as in, for example, "Ivbie" in the Poems collection;
The inhumanity of the human race as in Mandela and Other Poems.
Clark frequently dealt with these themes through a complex interweaving of indigenous African imagery and that of the Western literary tradition.