Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Study Guide for Mary Oliver's "The Black Snake"
    A Study Guide for Mary Oliver's "The Black Snake"
    A Study Guide for Mary Oliver's "The Black Snake"
    Ebook31 pages21 minutes

    A Study Guide for Mary Oliver's "The Black Snake"

    By Gale and Cengage

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Mary Oliver's "The Black Snake," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateSep 2, 2016
    ISBN9781535835404
    A Study Guide for Mary Oliver's "The Black Snake"

    Read more from Gale

    Related to A Study Guide for Mary Oliver's "The Black Snake"

    Related ebooks

    Literary Criticism For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: September 2019

      Sep 5, 2019

      Eight new and notable collections you want on your nightstand this month, including work by a lost Catalan master and the latest from our new poet laureate. The post Must-Read Poetry: September 2019 appeared first on The Millions.

      7 min read

    • Article

      How to Belong

      Aug 1, 2019

      How to Belong
      2 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      May 1, 2023

      At the end of the world, I sat in the dark waiting for you,but you didn’t come. You didn’t save me. At the end we are always alone, candles slowlyburning out, losing the flame for lack of oxygen. You didn’t tell me it would be like this. All of itcam

      2 min read

    • Article

      Where To Start With Louise Glück, Winner Of The 2020 Nobel Prize In Literature

      Oct 14, 2020

      The Swedish Academy has awarded this year's Nobel Prize in literature to Louise Gluck, a former U.S. poet laureate. The 16th woman to win the prestigious prize and the first American woman since Toni Morrison in 1993, Gluck is the author of 12 poetry

      3 min read

    • Article

      Upcoming Contests And Submission Windows

      Oct 11, 2023

      INSPIRED to submit your manuscript to a small press? These twelve university presses, nonprofits, and other extraordinary indies have general reading periods or contest deadlines this autumn and winter. Count on these presses to boast enthusiastic st

      5 min read

    • Article

      Dread Poets

      Jun 4, 2021

      ‘ All writers go through a Thomas Bernhard phase, sooner or later,” said Geoff Dyer. His authority was offhand but absolute, like the pope telling you where to get the best cannoli. A Thomas Bernhard phase is not hard to spot. First, no paragraphs (o

      1 min read

    • Article

      Ready Player Two

      Dec 30, 2020

      Ready Player Two
      2 min read

    • Article

      Mountain Time

      Jan 1, 2021

      In the air you don’t know who you are or where My own self feels it is in wind being born These are currents a man made one eighth of smokeless fire fears but chooses A path south from Anchorage to a Mountain House Ungovern the northern land to pass

      10 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: November 2020

      Nov 5, 2020

      Stop obsessively refreshing the New York Times's elections page, and check out these new books of poetry by Alice Quinn, Margaret Atwood, Yi Lei, Karina Borowicz, Valzhyna Mort, and Paul Celan. The post Must-Read Poetry: November 2020 appeared first

      6 min read

    • Article

      Reenvisioning theWriters Group

      Feb 16, 2022

      IF YOU’RE like me, the only thing more difficult than struggling to revise a draft that’s stalled is struggling to revise someone else’s draft that’s stalled. Let’s face it: Reading other people’s writing for the sole purpose of giving them feedback

      7 min read

    • Article

      Reconsidering Pablo Neruda in Light of ‘The Poet’s Calling’

      Jun 4, 2018

      When Pablo Neruda was expelled from France in 1952, he wrote this to his beloved countrymen in Chile: “The future of humanity may be endangered in the hands of a few evil men, but it does not belong to them. The future of man is ours, because we are

      4 min read

    • Article

      YA Novel 'The Poet X' Is An Elegiac Meditation On Poesy And Religion

      Mar 23, 2018

      Young poet-protagonist Xiomara must dig deep to reclaim her identity and her voice, in spite of her rough circumstances.

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Study Guide for Mary Oliver's "The Black Snake"

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Mary Oliver's "The Black Snake" - Gale

      09

      The Black Snake

      Mary Oliver

      1979

      Introduction

      Although Mary Oliver has earned a reputation as a nature poet, her work extends beyond simple descriptions of natural beauty to venture into larger philosophical questions about life. In The Black Snake, Oliver contemplates the connectedness of all creatures, the inevitability of death, and the optimism of life for itself. This poem first appeared in Oliver's 1979 collection Twelve Moons, a volume that firmly established her poetic voice. According to Anthony Manousos, writing in American Poets since World War II, in Twelve Moons Oliver explores natural cycles and processes, equating them with what is deepest and most enduring in human experience. As in many of her other volumes, the poems of Twelve Moons often feature an individual animal who moves Oliver to a meditation on some aspect of human life.

      Oliver clearly continued to value The Black Snake in the years following its initial publication, as she included the poem, along with several others from Twelve Moons, in her 1992 book New and Selected Poems. The poem has been widely anthologized and is well known among those familiar with Oliver's work. For readers approaching Oliver for the first time, The Black Snake offers an excellent introduction to this important poet's views on life, death, and the connectedness of all living things.

      Author Biography

      Mary Jane Oliver was born in Maple Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, on September 10, 1935. Her father was Edward William Oliver, and her mother was Helen M. Vlasak Oliver. Raised in Ohio, Oliver spent considerable time as a young woman at the home of the recently deceased poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, working as a personal assistant to Millay's sister. She first met the woman who would become her life partner

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1