He is the author of, among others, The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers’ Journey Through Curiosities of History and The Great War, The Waste Land and the Modernist Long Poem.Music is a great motivator.
The author of this article, Dr Oliver Tearle, is a literary critic and lecturer in English at Loughborough University. We also recommend The Oxford Book of English Verse – perhaps the best poetry anthology on the market (we offer our pick of the best poetry anthologies here). This wonderfully self-assertive poem about picking yourself up and striving to achieve, even in the face of adversity, was used for an advertising campaign by the UNCF in the US, but its message of selfhood and determination – and hope that one can succeed – is a message that should be heard by all.ĭiscover more classic poetry with these birthday poems, short poems about death, and these classic war poems. Published in Sandburg’s 1936 collection The People, which features poems all about America, ‘Hope is a Tattered Flag’ takes up Emily Dickinson’s idea of trying to find the perfect metaphor for hope (‘Hope is …’), with Sandburg offering not one but many possible images which sum up America. Carl Sandburg, ‘ Hope is a Tattered Flag’. ‘Spring Morning’ keeps in balance the sense of promise and new hope which both springtime and the dawning of a new day bring: although as we grow older our sense of boundless optimism becomes a little less unbounded, there are pleasures enough remaining to make it worth our while to go on making the best we can of living.ĩ. It’s a perfectly crafted poem, with the sting in the final two lines neatly judged, held off amidst the hope of a more upbeat ending, until the arrival of that deadly ‘Though’ puts paid to such hopes. Spring is a time of hope and new beginnings, and Housman – not exactly the most optimistic of poets – here offers a tender plea that this link between springtime and hope will be honoured. The use of repeated rhymes in each stanza reinforces the lyric quality, and the short lines give it an upbeat, jaunty feel, in keeping with its subject. ‘Song of Hope’ lives up to its title: one can imagine a crowd of men in an alehouse in rural Dorset shaking their tankards to it, like something straight out of one of Hardy’s novels. Yet here, in this songlike poem, Hardy looks to a brighter tomorrow than today has proved to be: Indeed, he famously coined the word ‘unhope’ in his despairing poem ‘In Tenebris’ to reflect his lack of this feeling. Hardy (1840-1928) is not known for his hopeful poems. Indeed, hope is sweetest of all when the ‘Gale’ is busy raging: during turbulent or troubled times, hope is there for us. In other words, hope does not communicate by ‘speaking’ to us in a conventional sense: it is a feeling that we get, not always a rational one, that cheers us even in dark times of despair. Hope, for Dickinson, sings its wordless tune and never stops singing it: nothing can faze it. Emily Dickinson, ‘ “Hope” is the Thing with Feathers’.Īs with many of her poems, Emily Dickinson takes an abstract feeling or idea and likens it to something physical, visible, and tangible. Shut away from the world, perhaps because unable to face the world without hope, Emily Brontë’s speaker is at her lowest ebb, and Hope – a poor friend – fails to provide her with the comfort or solace she needs.Ħ.
The image of the ‘den’ – not quite a prison, although with its bars or grates it’s certainly meant to resemble one – suggests mental confinement (or even someone who has chosen to lock themselves away) as much as physical imprisonment for some crime or transgression. Unlike Keats’s poem, then, Emily Brontë reflects the idea that hope is so hard to find when we are at our lowest ebb, and this is precisely when we most need it. In this poem, the author of Wuthering Heights, like Keats above, personifies Hope, but here she is a false friend, who only seems to be interested in being with the poet if her ‘fate’ is a good one. He likens this to morning ‘frightening’ away the night: bright hope sees off dark despair. Whenever Despondency, Disappointment, and Despair threaten to assail the poet, he calls upon Hope – personified here with a capital letter – to chase them away, like an angel chasing off demons.
#Songs about optimism trial
‘To Hope’ might be regarded as a trial run for Keats’s later, great odes of 1819, on the topics of Melancholy, Psyche, and other topics.
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