The Cool Web Analysis

Now, we know what you're thinking. Iambic pent-whometer? Stick with us, Shmoopers. We'll break all down for your. To start off with, it helps to know just what iambic pentameter is. Basically, that...

The speaker of this poem seems to have a pretty good grasp on classic poetry stuff like iambic pentameter and heroic couplets, meaning that he or she probably knows a fair bit about… classic poet...

Okay, so we're going to cheat a bit and bring in some biography here. As soon as we hear about the "summer roses" or the "soldiers drumming by," we know that Graves is positioning us somewhere in E...

At first, the lack of rhyme and meditative style make this poem sound pretty modern, as we find in the first line, "Children are dumb to say how hot the day is." But it's not long before we can fee...

So we all know the web—the Internet-y web—is a pretty cool thing, right? Well that's not what Robert Graves is talking about in this poem. Instead, he's talking about the metaphorical "cool web...

One thing that Robert Graves is really well-known for is the way that he continues to use poetic forms and devices that many other poets of his time would have considered outdated or even tacky. Th...

Apart from the word "volubility" in line 12, there shouldn't be too many words or images in this poem that people don't recognize. What might be tough to figure out at first, though, is the concept...

When Robert Graves was young, he didn't get along very well with the other boys in his school. So he decided to spend his time becoming the school's middle weight and welterweight boxing champion....

The poem has its share of roses and war, but not a single trace of sex. Graves doesn't even so much as hint at the idea of sex in this thing. If anything, he says that language dulls our passions a...

World War One (4, 17)