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"To Marguerite: Continued" is a poem by Matthew Arnold. It was first published in Empedocles on Etna (1852), with the title, "To Marguerite, in Returning a Volume of the Letters of Ortis". In the 1857 edition, the poem is printed as a sequel to the poem "Isolation: To Marguerite." There, it first adopted the simplified title.
A metaphor is set up in the first stanza comparing humans to islands surrounded by life and the world around them, the sea. In one of his most famous lines "we mortal millions live alone" (where alone was originally italicized by the author) he bluntly states perhaps his largest complaint about dealing with community in the modern Victorian world. He wishes for a realistic connection as he speaks to someone that background implies he feels romantically for, but the tone of the poem, as well as the dark descriptions of a life lacking control, give the unresolved sentiment that this may never be possible. The metaphor looks to science in referencing an imagined land mass that once comprised all of the earth on the planet. By including science, Arnold expertly leads into his bitter complaint that the God of his modern world does not provide the same kind of faith and hope that he once did when facts and teleological reasoning weren't so important. While he attempts to reconcile the gap between human desires for community and love with a world that has left the individual very much to his own devices, the poem finds no resolution, but instead, looks to capture the feeling of sadness, lack of control, and isolation that accompanies this lack of conclusion.
Alternatively, it could be inferred that Arnold is the one thing left to depend on when orphaned by death in response to John Donne's "no man is an island." When a person is orphaned completely by surrounding deaths, there is, bitter as it may be, a God involved in this orchestration. The conclusion to be drawn is left up to the reader. It is a metaphor filled with the philosophical Problem of Evil. If God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving, how could He? Nevertheless, Arnold concludes He is there.
Empedocles was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a native citizen of Akragas, a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for originating the cosmogonic theory of the four classical elements. He also proposed forces he called Love and Strife which would mix and separate the elements, respectively.
Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as Early Greek Philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of these early philosophers spanned the workings of the natural world as well as human society, ethics, and religion. They sought explanations based on natural law rather than the actions of gods. Their work and writing has been almost entirely lost. Knowledge of their views comes from testimonia, i.e. later authors' discussions of the work of pre-Socratics. Philosophy found fertile ground in the ancient Greek world because of the close ties with neighboring civilizations and the rise of autonomous civil entities, poleis.
Matthew Arnold was an English poet and cultural critic. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator. He has been characterised as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues. He was also an inspector of schools for thirty-five years, and supported the concept of state-regulated secondary education.
"Dover Beach" is a lyric poem by the English poet Matthew Arnold. It was first published in 1867 in the collection New Poems; however, surviving notes indicate its composition may have begun as early as 1849. The most likely date is 1851.
Xenophanes of Colophon was a Greek philosopher, theologian, poet, and critic of Homer from Ionia who travelled throughout the Greek-speaking world in early Classical Antiquity.
Arthur Hugh Clough was an English poet, an educationalist, and the devoted assistant to Florence Nightingale. He was the brother of suffragist Anne Clough and father of Blanche Athena Clough, who both became principals of Newnham College, Cambridge.
A lament or lamentation is a passionate expression of grief, often in music, poetry, or song form. The grief is most often born of regret, or mourning. Laments can also be expressed in a verbal manner in which participants lament about something that they regret or someone that they have lost, and they are usually accompanied by wailing, moaning and/or crying. Laments constitute some of the oldest forms of writing, and examples exist across human cultures.
Moses ben Jacob ibn Ezra, known as Ha-Sallaḥ was an Andalusi Jewish rabbi, philosopher, linguist, and poet. He was born in Granada about 1055–1060, and died after 1138. Ibn Ezra is considered to have had great influence in the Arabic literary world. He is considered one of Spain's greatest poets and was considered ahead of his time in his theories on the nature of poetry. One of the more revolutionary aspects of Ibn Ezra's poetry that has been debated is his definition of poetry as metaphor and how his poetry illuminates Aristotle's early ideas. The importance of ibn Ezra's philosophical works was minor compared to his poetry. They address his concept of the relationship between God and man.
Meekness is an attribute of human nature and behavior that has been defined as an amalgam of righteousness, inner humility, and patience.
"To a Waterfowl" is a poem by American poet William Cullen Bryant, first published in 1818.
"Darkness" is a poem written by Lord Byron in July 1816 on the theme of an apocalyptic end of the world which was published as part of the 1816 The Prisoner of Chillon collection.
"Prayer Before Birth" is a poem written by the Irish poet Louis MacNeice (1907–1963) at the height of the Second World War. Written from the perspective of an unborn child, the poem expresses the author's fear at what the world's tyranny can do to the innocence of a child and blames the human race for the destruction that was gripping the world at the time.
The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective is a book by Old Testament scholar Terence E. Fretheim. In 1984 it appeared as number 14 in the Overtures to Biblical Theology series published by Fortress Press.
The Cassandra metaphor relates to a person whose valid warnings or concerns are disbelieved by others.
The Testament of Cresseid is a narrative poem of 616 lines in Middle Scots, written by the 15th-century Scottish makar Robert Henryson. It is his best known poem. It imagines a tragic fate for Cressida in the medieval story of Troilus and Criseyde which was left untold in Geoffrey Chaucer's version. Henryson's cogent psychological drama, in which he consciously resists and confronts the routine depiction of Cressida (Cresseid) as simply 'false', is one of the features that has given the poem enduring interest for modern readers and it is one of the most admired works of Northern Renaissance literature. A modern English translation by Seamus Heaney, which also included seven of Henryson's fables from The Morall Fabillis, was published in 2009.
Tristram and Iseult, published in 1852 by Matthew Arnold, is a narrative poem containing strong romantic and tragic themes. This poem draws upon the Tristan and Iseult legends which were popular with contemporary readers.
A Note to a Certain Old Friend is the title of the suicide note left by the famed Japanese short story writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. This was the last thing Akutagawa wrote before he committed suicide at the age of 35 in 1927. The letter was addressed to his close friend and fellow writer Masao Kume.
Christ On the Mount of Olives is an 1889 painting by French artist Paul Gauguin. It is both a self-portrait and a representation of Jesus about to be taken by the soldiers.
The Italian school of pre-Socratic philosophy refers to Ancient Greek philosophers in Italy or Magna Graecia in the 6th and 5th century BC. Contemporary scholarship disputes the Italian school as a historical school rather than simply a geographical one.
Empedocles on Etna is a dramatic poem or closet drama in two acts written by the Victorian poet-critic Matthew Arnold and first published, anonymously, in 1852. The poem describes the philosophic contemplations and suicidal ravings of the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles and his legendary death in the fires of Mount Etna on Sicily.
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