An analysis of Hamlet’s To Be or Not to Be soliloquy, focusing on its ethical arguments about revenge, mortality, and the paralysis of indecision.
A playlist exploring the opening chapter of Genesis as a work of literature, examining its narrative structure, imagery, and the literary qualities of the King James Bible translation.
An overview of women’s lives and literary culture in 17th-century England, with particular attention to writers including Mary Wroth and Aphra Behn and their place in the early modern literary tradition.
The second part of an analysis of Milton’s Lycidas, exploring its themes of fame, religious consolation, and the place of the poem in Milton’s development as a poet.
The first part of an analysis of Milton’s Lycidas, examining the poem’s pastoral conventions, its elegiac structure, and Milton’s meditation on the death of a fellow poet.
A reading of Milton’s Lycidas, one of the great elegies in English literature, mourning the death of Edward King and meditating on fame, grief, and religious faith.
A reading of Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress, one of the finest carpe diem poems in English, urging the beloved to seize the pleasures of life before time runs out.
A combined reading and analysis of Donne’s The Sun Rising, exploring its witty metaphysical conceit, themes of love and the transcendence of time, and its characteristically bold opening.