Poetry: Animal Symbolism

In the Poetry: Animal Symbolism Collection, we've gathered a selection of poems that represent abstract ideas using animals. For hundreds of years, poets have turned to the animal kingdom and natural world for inspiration. This Collection highlights the many ways poets have used mammals, fish, birds, and other creatures to represent themes such as love, grief, and mortality.

The Darkling Thrush

by Thomas Hardy

Publication year 1900

Genre Poem, Fiction

Themes Natural World: Animals

Tags Animals, History: World, Classic Fiction

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The Lamb

by William Blake

Publication year 1789

Genre Poem, Fiction

Tags Lyric Poem, Romanticism / Romantic Period, Animals

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The Raven

by Edgar Allan Poe

Publication year 1845

Genre Poem, Fiction

Themes Emotions/Behavior: Memory

Tags Horror / Thriller / Suspense Fiction, Narrative / Epic Poem, Classic Fiction, Animals, Grief / Death

Influenced by the English Romantic poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Lord” George Gordon Byron, and Percy Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe represents one of the essential American Romantic poets of the nineteenth century. Romanticism here refers to a literary movement of the late 1700s and 1800s which focused on the emotional life of the individual and curiosity about the self. This movement complemented a larger geopolitical and ideological shift in the United States. As a young nation... Read The Raven Summary

The Song of the Jellicles

by T. S. Eliot

Publication year 1939

Genre Poem, Fiction

Themes Natural World: Animals

Tags Lyric Poem, Animals

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The Tyger

by William Blake

Publication year 1794

Genre Poem, Fiction

Themes Values/Ideas: Religion & Spirituality, Values/Ideas: Good & Evil

Tags Lyric Poem, Science / Nature, Romanticism / Romantic Period, Mythology, Animals, Education, Education, British Literature, History: World, Classic Fiction

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The Windhover

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Publication year 1918

Genre Poem, Fiction

Themes Values/Ideas: Religion & Spirituality, Natural World: Nurture v. Nature, Natural World: Animals

Tags Lyric Poem, Religion / Spirituality, Animals, Victorian Period, Classic Fiction

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Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

by Wallace Stevens

Publication year 1917

Genre Poem, Fiction

Themes Natural World: Appearance & Reality, Natural World: Animals, Values/Ideas: Religion & Spirituality, Natural World: Environment

Tags Animals, Science / Nature, Lyric Poem, American Literature, Education, Education, Classic Fiction

Wallace Stevens is the author of “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” and he first published the poem in 1917 as a part of the literary anthology Others: An Anthology of New Verse. In 1923, he included the poem in his first collection of poetry, Harmonium, which features many of Stevens’s most well-known poems—poems that continue to appear in anthologies—like “The Snow Man“ and “The Emperor of Ice-Cream.” Stevens was born in Pennsylvania and... Read Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird Summary