Upgrade to LitCharts A+
Instant downloads of all 1686 LitChart PDFs.
LitCharts Teacher Editions. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does.
Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts.
The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of every Shakespeare play.
From the creators of SparkNotes, something better.
Literature
Guides Poetry
Guides Literary
Terms Shakespeare
Translations Citation
Generator
Literature Poetry Lit Terms Shakescleare
Everything you need for everything you read.
Use our guides to learn or teach any of the 2672 titles and topics we cover.
Browse Our Guides
Literature
Poetry
Literary Terms
Shakescleare
Recently added
Poetry Guide
A Memory
by Ted Hughes
"A Memory" describes a farmer shearing a sheep. The speaker admires the farmer's combination of strength, tenderness, and dexterity as he wrestles with the impatient animal. The poem presents this ...
Poetry Guide
The Walrus and the Carpenter
by Lewis Carroll
"The Walrus and the Carpenter" originally appeared in Lewis Carroll's 1871 book Through the Looking-Glass, in which the twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee recite the poem to Carroll's protagonist, Ali...
Poetry Guide
Sow
by Sylvia Plath
"Sow" is an early poem by Sylvia Plath, written in 1957 and collected in The Colossus (1960). It describes a male farmer's female pig in wonder-struck terms, elevating her to the status of a mythic...
Poetry Guide
A Memory
by Ted Hughes
"A Memory" describes a farmer shearing a sheep. The speaker admires the farmer's combination of strength, tenderness, and dexterity as he wrestles with the impatient animal. The poem presents this ...
Poetry Guide
The Walrus and the Carpenter
by Lewis Carroll
"The Walrus and the Carpenter" originally appeared in Lewis Carroll's 1871 book Through the Looking-Glass, in which the twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee recite the poem to Carroll's protagonist, Ali...
Poetry Guide
Sow
by Sylvia Plath
"Sow" is an early poem by Sylvia Plath, written in 1957 and collected in The Colossus (1960). It describes a male farmer's female pig in wonder-struck terms, elevating her to the status of a mythic...
Lit Guide
The Virgin Suicides
by Jeffrey Eugenides
A group of neighborhood boys from a wealthy suburb of Detroit narrate the story of the five Lisbon sisters and how, within the course of a single year, they all take their own lives. Cecilia Lisbon...
Poetry Guide
A Memory
by Ted Hughes
"A Memory" describes a farmer shearing a sheep. The speaker admires the farmer's combination of strength, tenderness, and dexterity as he wrestles with the impatient animal. The poem presents this ...
Poetry Guide
The Walrus and the Carpenter
by Lewis Carroll
"The Walrus and the Carpenter" originally appeared in Lewis Carroll's 1871 book Through the Looking-Glass, in which the twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee recite the poem to Carroll's protagonist, Ali...
Poetry Guide
Sow
by Sylvia Plath
"Sow" is an early poem by Sylvia Plath, written in 1957 and collected in The Colossus (1960). It describes a male farmer's female pig in wonder-struck terms, elevating her to the status of a mythic...
Lit Guide
The Virgin Suicides
by Jeffrey Eugenides
A group of neighborhood boys from a wealthy suburb of Detroit narrate the story of the five Lisbon sisters and how, within the course of a single year, they all take their own lives. Cecilia Lisbon...
Poetry Guide
Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower
by William Wordsworth
"Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower" is one of Romantic poet William Wordsworth's mysterious "Lucy poems," a sequence in which an anonymous speaker mourns the woman he loved. Here, the speaker ...
Poetry Guide
The Man-Moth
by Elizabeth Bishop
"The Man-Moth" tells the story of an elusive, city-dwelling creature who lives underground and only emerges at night. The Man-Moth climbs buildings in an attempt to reach the moon, which he thinks ...
Poetry Guide
Spring Offensive
by Wilfred Owen
"Spring Offensive" (1918) describes the German Spring Offensive of 1918, a bloody series of battles near the close of World War I. It focuses on the experience of a particular army in a particular ...
Poetry Guide
Stabat Mater
by Sam Hunt
In "Stabat Mater," New Zealand poet Sam Hunt reflects on the shifting dynamic between his parents over the years. As a young woman, his mother was so shy around her much older husband that she call...
Lit Guide
The Custom of the Country
by Edith Wharton
Undine Spragg lives with her parents, Mr. Spragg and Mrs. Spragg, at a hotel in New York City called the Stentorian. It has a view of Fifth Avenue, but it isn’t quite part of that fashionable area....
Lit Guide
Deacon King Kong
by James McBride
In the Causeway Projects, an impoverished section of late-1960s Brooklyn, Sportcoat, an elderly deacon, shoots Deems Clemens, a young man and vicious drug dealer. Seemingly, the act is unprovoked, ...
Poetry Guide
A Toccata of Galuppi's
by Robert Browning
"A Toccata of Galuppi's," a dramatic monologue by the Victorian poet Robert Browning, tells a tale of music's transporting power. As he listens to a performance of a toccata (a virtuosic solo compo...
Poetry Guide
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
by Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas's "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower" explores the relationship between time, creation, and destruction. The poem's speaker uses various metaphors to illustrate h...
Lit Guide
The Boy Behind the Curtain
by Tim Winton
The Boy Behind the Curtain is a collection of essays that presents a collage of author Tim Winton’s life. It presents a particular focus on Winton’s childhood, his connection to the Australian land...
Lit Guide
Arc of Justice
by Kevin Boyle
On the morning of September 8, 1925, Dr. Ossian Sweet and his wife, Gladys, move into their new house on Garland Avenue in a working-class Detroit neighborhood. They are the first Black family to m...
Poetry Guide
Love (III)
by George Herbert
As its title suggests, "Love (III)" is the third and final of a sequence of poems on love—more particularly, God's love—by Welsh poet George Herbert (1593-1633). These poems appeared in Herbert's g...
Poetry Guide
Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower
by William Wordsworth
"Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower" is one of Romantic poet William Wordsworth's mysterious "Lucy poems," a sequence in which an anonymous speaker mourns the woman he loved. Here, the speaker ...
Poetry Guide
The Man-Moth
by Elizabeth Bishop
"The Man-Moth" tells the story of an elusive, city-dwelling creature who lives underground and only emerges at night. The Man-Moth climbs buildings in an attempt to reach the moon, which he thinks ...
Poetry Guide
Spring Offensive
by Wilfred Owen
"Spring Offensive" (1918) describes the German Spring Offensive of 1918, a bloody series of battles near the close of World War I. It focuses on the experience of a particular army in a particular ...
Poetry Guide
Stabat Mater
by Sam Hunt
In "Stabat Mater," New Zealand poet Sam Hunt reflects on the shifting dynamic between his parents over the years. As a young woman, his mother was so shy around her much older husband that she call...
Lit Guide
The Custom of the Country
by Edith Wharton
Undine Spragg lives with her parents, Mr. Spragg and Mrs. Spragg, at a hotel in New York City called the Stentorian. It has a view of Fifth Avenue, but it isn’t quite part of that fashionable area....
Lit Guide
Deacon King Kong
by James McBride
In the Causeway Projects, an impoverished section of late-1960s Brooklyn, Sportcoat, an elderly deacon, shoots Deems Clemens, a young man and vicious drug dealer. Seemingly, the act is unprovoked, ...
Poetry Guide
A Toccata of Galuppi's
by Robert Browning
"A Toccata of Galuppi's," a dramatic monologue by the Victorian poet Robert Browning, tells a tale of music's transporting power. As he listens to a performance of a toccata (a virtuosic solo compo...
Poetry Guide
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
by Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas's "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower" explores the relationship between time, creation, and destruction. The poem's speaker uses various metaphors to illustrate h...
Lit Guide
The Boy Behind the Curtain
by Tim Winton
The Boy Behind the Curtain is a collection of essays that presents a collage of author Tim Winton’s life. It presents a particular focus on Winton’s childhood, his connection to the Australian land...
Lit Guide
Arc of Justice
by Kevin Boyle
On the morning of September 8, 1925, Dr. Ossian Sweet and his wife, Gladys, move into their new house on Garland Avenue in a working-class Detroit neighborhood. They are the first Black family to m...
Poetry Guide
Love (III)
by George Herbert
As its title suggests, "Love (III)" is the third and final of a sequence of poems on love—more particularly, God's love—by Welsh poet George Herbert (1593-1633). These poems appeared in Herbert's g...
Lit Guide
The Virgin Suicides
by Jeffrey Eugenides
A group of neighborhood boys from a wealthy suburb of Detroit narrate the story of the five Lisbon sisters and how, within the course of a single year, they all take their own lives. Cecilia Lisbon...
Poetry Guide
Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower
by William Wordsworth
"Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower" is one of Romantic poet William Wordsworth's mysterious "Lucy poems," a sequence in which an anonymous speaker mourns the woman he loved. Here, the speaker ...
Poetry Guide
The Man-Moth
by Elizabeth Bishop
"The Man-Moth" tells the story of an elusive, city-dwelling creature who lives underground and only emerges at night. The Man-Moth climbs buildings in an attempt to reach the moon, which he thinks ...
Poetry Guide
Spring Offensive
by Wilfred Owen
"Spring Offensive" (1918) describes the German Spring Offensive of 1918, a bloody series of battles near the close of World War I. It focuses on the experience of a particular army in a particular ...
Poetry Guide
Stabat Mater
by Sam Hunt
In "Stabat Mater," New Zealand poet Sam Hunt reflects on the shifting dynamic between his parents over the years. As a young woman, his mother was so shy around her much older husband that she call...
Lit Guide
The Custom of the Country
by Edith Wharton
Undine Spragg lives with her parents, Mr. Spragg and Mrs. Spragg, at a hotel in New York City called the Stentorian. It has a view of Fifth Avenue, but it isn’t quite part of that fashionable area....
Lit Guide
Deacon King Kong
by James McBride
In the Causeway Projects, an impoverished section of late-1960s Brooklyn, Sportcoat, an elderly deacon, shoots Deems Clemens, a young man and vicious drug dealer. Seemingly, the act is unprovoked, ...
Poetry Guide
A Toccata of Galuppi's
by Robert Browning
"A Toccata of Galuppi's," a dramatic monologue by the Victorian poet Robert Browning, tells a tale of music's transporting power. As he listens to a performance of a toccata (a virtuosic solo compo...
Poetry Guide
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
by Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas's "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower" explores the relationship between time, creation, and destruction. The poem's speaker uses various metaphors to illustrate h...
Lit Guide
The Boy Behind the Curtain
by Tim Winton
The Boy Behind the Curtain is a collection of essays that presents a collage of author Tim Winton’s life. It presents a particular focus on Winton’s childhood, his connection to the Australian land...
Lit Guide
Arc of Justice
by Kevin Boyle
On the morning of September 8, 1925, Dr. Ossian Sweet and his wife, Gladys, move into their new house on Garland Avenue in a working-class Detroit neighborhood. They are the first Black family to m...
Poetry Guide
Love (III)
by George Herbert
As its title suggests, "Love (III)" is the third and final of a sequence of poems on love—more particularly, God's love—by Welsh poet George Herbert (1593-1633). These poems appeared in Herbert's g...
Literature, Explained Better
A more helpful approach
Our guides use color and the interactivity of the web to make it easier to learn and teach literature.
Every title you need
Far beyond just the classics, LitCharts covers over 2000 texts read and studied worldwide, from Judy Blume to Nietzsche.
For every reader
Our approach makes literature accessible to everyone, from students at every level to teachers and book club readers.
More than 50 million students, teachers, parents, and readers use LitCharts.
1686
Literature guides
809
Poetry guides
136
Terms & devices guides
All 41
Shakespeare translations
Upgrade to LitCharts
Get LitCharts
Join over 150,000 LitCharts readers who have upgraded and get unlimited access to all content including:
Learn about A+
Home About Blog Contact Help
Copyright © 2023 All Rights Reserved
Terms Privacy GDPR