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Poetry Guide
A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London
by Dylan Thomas
"A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London" mourns a young victim of Germany's air raids on London during World War II. One of Dylan Thomas's best-known war poems, its "Refusal" i...
Lit Guide
The Faerie Queene
by Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene is broken into six books (with surviving fragments of a seventh book). Although the books share a narrator and some other recurring characters, for the most part, each book tells ...
Poetry Guide
The Dong with a Luminous Nose
by Edward Lear
"The Dong with a Luminous Nose" is one of Edward Lear's melancholy nonsense poems. It tells the tale of how a lonely fellow known as the Dong came to construct his famous nose, a huge bright-red pr...
Poetry Guide
A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London
by Dylan Thomas
"A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London" mourns a young victim of Germany's air raids on London during World War II. One of Dylan Thomas's best-known war poems, its "Refusal" i...
Lit Guide
The Faerie Queene
by Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene is broken into six books (with surviving fragments of a seventh book). Although the books share a narrator and some other recurring characters, for the most part, each book tells ...
Poetry Guide
The Dong with a Luminous Nose
by Edward Lear
"The Dong with a Luminous Nose" is one of Edward Lear's melancholy nonsense poems. It tells the tale of how a lonely fellow known as the Dong came to construct his famous nose, a huge bright-red pr...
Lit Guide
The Return of the King
by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Return of the King, the final novel in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, picks up immediately where the previous installment, The Two Towers, left off. Frodo and Sam, two hobbits from th...
Poetry Guide
A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London
by Dylan Thomas
"A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London" mourns a young victim of Germany's air raids on London during World War II. One of Dylan Thomas's best-known war poems, its "Refusal" i...
Lit Guide
The Faerie Queene
by Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene is broken into six books (with surviving fragments of a seventh book). Although the books share a narrator and some other recurring characters, for the most part, each book tells ...
Poetry Guide
The Dong with a Luminous Nose
by Edward Lear
"The Dong with a Luminous Nose" is one of Edward Lear's melancholy nonsense poems. It tells the tale of how a lonely fellow known as the Dong came to construct his famous nose, a huge bright-red pr...
Lit Guide
The Return of the King
by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Return of the King, the final novel in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, picks up immediately where the previous installment, The Two Towers, left off. Frodo and Sam, two hobbits from th...
Lit Guide
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
by Mark Twain
A narrator identified as “M.T.” (pointing to the book’s author, Mark Twain) encounters a strange tourist (Hank Morgan) at Warwick Castle in England. It turns out that both men are at the same hotel...
Poetry Guide
Recuerdo
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Recuerdo" is a joyful celebration of life's simple pleasures. The poem describes two friends (or, perhaps, lovers) having a wonderful time riding a ferry back and forth, ...
Lit Guide
Firekeeper’s Daughter
by Angeline Boulley
Eighteen-year-old Daunis feels like her world is falling apart. In April, her Uncle David died, and, six weeks later, her grandmother, GrandMary, suffered a stroke. Daunis’s Anishinaabe nokomis, Gr...
Lit Guide
Sizwe Bansi Is Dead
by Athol Fugard
In apartheid South Africa, in a township of the city Port Elizabeth, a young Black photographer named Styles enters his studio and begins reading aloud newspaper headlines. When he reaches a headli...
Poetry Guide
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
by Edward Lear
Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat" is a classic children's poem, originally published in Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets (1871). Its heroes, an owl and a cat, fall madly in lov...
Poetry Guide
The Death of the Hired Man
by Robert Frost
Robert Frost's "The Death of the Hired Man" details a tense conversation between a farmer and his wife, who are debating whether or not to let their old farmhand, Silas, return to the farm after br...
Lit Guide
B. Wordsworth
by V. S. Naipaul
The narrator of “B. Wordsworth,” an unnamed boy, meets an unusual man, B. Wordsworth, who comes to the boy’s house one afternoon and asks to watch the bees that populate the palm trees in the boy’s...
Poetry Guide
Nettles
by Vernon Scannell
In "Nettles," by British poet Vernon Scannell, the speaker's son gets hurt after stumbling into a patch of stinging plants. Horrified at seeing the boy in pain, the speaker charges into the yard wi...
Lit Guide
The Dumb Waiter
by Harold Pinter
Hitmen Ben and Gus wait in a dreary, windowless basement room in Birmingham for their target to arrive. The room contains two beds positioned against the back wall; between the beds, built into the...
Lit Guide
At Hiruharama
by Penelope Fitzgerald
Mr. Tanner and his family are leaving New Zealand, and so he tries to explain (to an unseen character) how they ended up with a lawyer in the family who will take care of the legal necessities that...
Poetry Guide
Absence
by Elizabeth Jennings
"Absence" was written by British poet Elizabeth Jennings and first appeared in her 1958 collection A Sense of the World. The poem explores the pain of losing someone when the rest of the world does...
Lit Guide
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
by Mark Twain
A narrator identified as “M.T.” (pointing to the book’s author, Mark Twain) encounters a strange tourist (Hank Morgan) at Warwick Castle in England. It turns out that both men are at the same hotel...
Poetry Guide
Recuerdo
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Recuerdo" is a joyful celebration of life's simple pleasures. The poem describes two friends (or, perhaps, lovers) having a wonderful time riding a ferry back and forth, ...
Lit Guide
Firekeeper’s Daughter
by Angeline Boulley
Eighteen-year-old Daunis feels like her world is falling apart. In April, her Uncle David died, and, six weeks later, her grandmother, GrandMary, suffered a stroke. Daunis’s Anishinaabe nokomis, Gr...
Lit Guide
Sizwe Bansi Is Dead
by Athol Fugard
In apartheid South Africa, in a township of the city Port Elizabeth, a young Black photographer named Styles enters his studio and begins reading aloud newspaper headlines. When he reaches a headli...
Poetry Guide
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
by Edward Lear
Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat" is a classic children's poem, originally published in Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets (1871). Its heroes, an owl and a cat, fall madly in lov...
Poetry Guide
The Death of the Hired Man
by Robert Frost
Robert Frost's "The Death of the Hired Man" details a tense conversation between a farmer and his wife, who are debating whether or not to let their old farmhand, Silas, return to the farm after br...
Lit Guide
B. Wordsworth
by V. S. Naipaul
The narrator of “B. Wordsworth,” an unnamed boy, meets an unusual man, B. Wordsworth, who comes to the boy’s house one afternoon and asks to watch the bees that populate the palm trees in the boy’s...
Poetry Guide
Nettles
by Vernon Scannell
In "Nettles," by British poet Vernon Scannell, the speaker's son gets hurt after stumbling into a patch of stinging plants. Horrified at seeing the boy in pain, the speaker charges into the yard wi...
Lit Guide
The Dumb Waiter
by Harold Pinter
Hitmen Ben and Gus wait in a dreary, windowless basement room in Birmingham for their target to arrive. The room contains two beds positioned against the back wall; between the beds, built into the...
Lit Guide
At Hiruharama
by Penelope Fitzgerald
Mr. Tanner and his family are leaving New Zealand, and so he tries to explain (to an unseen character) how they ended up with a lawyer in the family who will take care of the legal necessities that...
Poetry Guide
Absence
by Elizabeth Jennings
"Absence" was written by British poet Elizabeth Jennings and first appeared in her 1958 collection A Sense of the World. The poem explores the pain of losing someone when the rest of the world does...
Lit Guide
The Return of the King
by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Return of the King, the final novel in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, picks up immediately where the previous installment, The Two Towers, left off. Frodo and Sam, two hobbits from th...
Lit Guide
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
by Mark Twain
A narrator identified as “M.T.” (pointing to the book’s author, Mark Twain) encounters a strange tourist (Hank Morgan) at Warwick Castle in England. It turns out that both men are at the same hotel...
Poetry Guide
Recuerdo
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Recuerdo" is a joyful celebration of life's simple pleasures. The poem describes two friends (or, perhaps, lovers) having a wonderful time riding a ferry back and forth, ...
Lit Guide
Firekeeper’s Daughter
by Angeline Boulley
Eighteen-year-old Daunis feels like her world is falling apart. In April, her Uncle David died, and, six weeks later, her grandmother, GrandMary, suffered a stroke. Daunis’s Anishinaabe nokomis, Gr...
Lit Guide
Sizwe Bansi Is Dead
by Athol Fugard
In apartheid South Africa, in a township of the city Port Elizabeth, a young Black photographer named Styles enters his studio and begins reading aloud newspaper headlines. When he reaches a headli...
Poetry Guide
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
by Edward Lear
Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat" is a classic children's poem, originally published in Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets (1871). Its heroes, an owl and a cat, fall madly in lov...
Poetry Guide
The Death of the Hired Man
by Robert Frost
Robert Frost's "The Death of the Hired Man" details a tense conversation between a farmer and his wife, who are debating whether or not to let their old farmhand, Silas, return to the farm after br...
Lit Guide
B. Wordsworth
by V. S. Naipaul
The narrator of “B. Wordsworth,” an unnamed boy, meets an unusual man, B. Wordsworth, who comes to the boy’s house one afternoon and asks to watch the bees that populate the palm trees in the boy’s...
Poetry Guide
Nettles
by Vernon Scannell
In "Nettles," by British poet Vernon Scannell, the speaker's son gets hurt after stumbling into a patch of stinging plants. Horrified at seeing the boy in pain, the speaker charges into the yard wi...
Lit Guide
The Dumb Waiter
by Harold Pinter
Hitmen Ben and Gus wait in a dreary, windowless basement room in Birmingham for their target to arrive. The room contains two beds positioned against the back wall; between the beds, built into the...
Lit Guide
At Hiruharama
by Penelope Fitzgerald
Mr. Tanner and his family are leaving New Zealand, and so he tries to explain (to an unseen character) how they ended up with a lawyer in the family who will take care of the legal necessities that...
Poetry Guide
Absence
by Elizabeth Jennings
"Absence" was written by British poet Elizabeth Jennings and first appeared in her 1958 collection A Sense of the World. The poem explores the pain of losing someone when the rest of the world does...
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