The World of Ideas
Plato divides the universe into the physical world of things, and the spiritual or intellectual world of ideas. He used metaphors of shining light and the sun to talk about this higher world. Hass...
The Pastoral World
"Pastoral" poems frequently depict cliché images of nature: fuzzy lambs, lush grass, cascading waterfalls, thatched-roof houses, and beautiful maidens. But, the images in this poem are very sp...
Language
Language isn’t just some flighty, abstract idea in this poem. It’s as real as a juicy blackberry or a "clown-faced woodpecker." For the Platonic philosophers, language is the means to a...
The Woman
We know little about the woman, except for brief snippets of information about her small shoulders, her dreams, and her family history. More important, at least for the speaker, is how she brings t...