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Annotated Reading List

Baldwin, E., (2020, November 16). The Wife’s Lament by Anonymous. Poem Analysis.
Retrieved from https://poemanalysis.com/anonymous/the-wifes-lament/

‘The Wife’s Lament,’ like many of the best pieces of Anglo-Saxon poetry, comes from The
Exeter Book. It was written sometime during the 10th century AD in what is now England. It is
one of the most important poems of the period. Although the various translations of the poem are
far easier to read than the original Old English versions, there is still a great deal that scholars
disagree about within the text. There are several contested sections in this fifty-three-line poem. 

Throughout ‘The Wife’s Lament,’ the speaker focuses on themes of sorrow/depression and

loneliness/solitude. No matter what the wife is talking about in the fifty-three lines, she’s alone.
When she’s mourning her husband’s departure, she does so alone. When at the end she’s in her
hole in the ground, she wishes sorrow on her husband by herself. She states quite clearly in the
middle of the poem that there’s no one in her home to whom she can go to for comfort. She’s
completely alone. 

‘The Wife’s Lament’ by Anonymous is a 53-line poem contain within one stanza of text. It is
considered an elegy and written in what is known as the alliterative meter. Besides this, there is
no standard rhyme scheme or metrical pattern. A close reader might take note of the use
of trochees in ‘The Wife’s Lament,’  though. These are sets of two beats, the first of which is
stressed, and the second is unstressed. 

Alb, Miz. "The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer". Poem Analysis,
https://poemanalysis.com/geoffrey-chaucer/the-canterbury-tales-general-prologue/. Accessed 1
December 2021.

The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue’ is an interesting work of art by Geoffrey Chaucer,

popularly known as the father of English poetry. It serves as a framework for the poem and
depicts the life of Renaissance England. Chaucer modeled this after Boccaccio’s Decameron but
added more insight to the work by his genuine humor and humanism.
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Chaucer explores various social conditions of his period and the manners of people in ‘The
Canterbury Tales: General Prologue. The poem explores the ugly truth of life in all aspects of
society.  It is a satire on Social Status, Corruption in Church, Friendship and Companionship, for
all the classes of medieval society except the highest aristocracy and the lowest order of life.
‘The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue‘ is set on a spring evening at the Tabard Inn in
Southwark, a suburb at the southern end of London Bridge.

 ‘The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue’ is written in Middle English, a form of English
spoken from around the 12th to 15th centuries. It serves as an introductory note to the tale-tellers
and their host. Also, it explains the context in which the tales are being told. Chaucer wrote his
poem in rhyming couplets with every two lines rhyming with each other. Though they are
divided into stanzas, it is structured with the lines of iambic pentameter, with five pairs of
unstressed and stressed syllables. The narrator opens the General Prologue with a description of
the return of spring. The travelers were a diverse group who, like the narrator, were on their way
to Canterbury.

Baldwin, Emma. "On My First Daughter by Ben Jonson". Poem Analysis,

https://poemanalysis.com/ben-jonson/on-my-first-daughter/. Accessed 1 December 2021.

Jonson’s ‘On My First Daughter’ is an elegy or a poem written in memory of one who has
recently died. It was published in 1616. Scholars believe that the poem was a personal
representation of the poet’s own feelings and was based around the death of his first child, Mary.
Throughout the text, Jonson speaks on themes of loss, death, and religion. This poem can be
paired with another by Ben Jonson titled, ‘On My First Son‘. 

‘On My First Daughter’ by Ben Jonson is simple in meaning. There isn’t any complexity of
thoughts as the poet talks about the death of his only daughter Mary at a very young age. There is
a feeling of pain in the poem. When parents lose their only child at an early age, there remains
only “ruth” and coldness. It shivers deep inside one’s heart when he looks at the grave of his
little child. The poet knows he can’t get her back. Reality has made him harder and colder day by
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day after that incalculable loss. That’s why in the last two lines he says, “This grave partakes the
fleshy birth;/ Which cover lightly, gentle earth!” These lines reflect the poet’s sad and cold tone.

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2020, August 28). Don Quixote. Encyclopedia

Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Don-Quixote-novel

Published in two parts (part 1, 1605, and part 2, 1615) by Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes,
one of the most widely read classics of Western literature. Originally conceived as a parody of
the chivalric romances that had long been in literary vogue, it describes realistically what befalls
an aging knight who, his head bemused by reading such romances, sets out on his old
horse Rocinante, with his pragmatic squire, Sancho Panza, to seek adventure. Widely and
immediately translated (first English translation 1612), the novel was a great and continuing
success and is considered a prototype of the modern novel.

Cervantes’s strikingly modern narrative gives voice to a dazzling assortment of characters

with diverse beliefs and perspectives, and it exhibits nuanced irony, a humanistic outlook, and a
pronounced comic edge. The popularity of the first volume led to the publication in 1614 of a
spurious sequel by someone calling himself Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda, a circumstance
that Cervantes addressed in his own second volume.

Baldwin, E., (2017, December 8). A Woman to Her Lover by Christina Walsh. Poem Analysis.
Retrieved from https://poemanalysis.com/christina-walsh/a-woman-to-her-lover/

Written in the 18th century, A Woman to Her Lover, is the only known poem by the writer
Christina Walsh. The poem is only four stanzas with varying line numbers and lengths and
no rhyme scheme.

It  is a poem in which the speaker, a woman, is addressing her lover and telling him what she will
and will not tolerate. She refuses to be conquered or bent to his will, or be a “wingless angel who
can do no wrong.” She also informs him that she has her own desires apart from him and is
seeking a partnership between two friends and equals. Her body, and her life, are her own and
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not there for his enjoyment. This kind of love that she seeks she believes will lead the two of
them to the utmost joy and eventually to God.