“VILLAGE, THE”
Crabbe posits an alternative view to the traditional one that rural life is idyllic and free from danger. While admitting that city life has its violence and crime, Crabbe suggests that the beauty offered by unspoiled nature is also a place of failed crops, bad weather and dead wildlife. These influences can potentially kill those who choose to live away from the city.
“INEBRIETY”
A poem outlining the demon that is alcohol and the evil that comes from not controlling one’s desire for its consumption.
“THE BOROUGH”
A poem consisting of 24 letters utilized to reveal what life is like in a typical country town, albeit one based on the village of Aldeburgh in this particular case.
“SIR EUSTACE GREY”
An insane asylum is the setting for this narrative verse. The titular character describes to a doctor and a visitor both how he killed the lover of his adulterous wife, and the subsequent series of bizarre hallucinations that accompany his guilt.
“PROCRASTINATION”
A very complex narrative involving a man named Rupert and a beloved named Dinah. The narrative addresses the high cost of waiting too long to reunite with Dinah, who has welcomed greed into her life during the interim.
“THE LOVER’S JOURNEY”
The concern of the lover while on his journey is that his absence is driving his lover into the arms of another.
“PETER GRIMES”
A particularly unsavory narrative in verse. The title character is nothing less than a sadistic psychopath who gets young boys from the workhouse and essentially abuses them until they die.
“DELAY HAS DANGER”
The hero, Henry, is already more or less betrothed to one woman. Yet rather than absence making the heart grow fonder, absence has led him to fall for Fanny, whose aunt and uncle are setting a calculated trap for the rather dense young lover.
