Religio Laici, Or a Layman's Faith Literary Elements

The action in the poem is told from the perspective of a first-person subjective point of view.

The poem is written in an epic form.

The light is used in the poem as a metaphor used in the poem to represent the true faith and the true religion that is accepted by God.

We have an alliteration in the line "unmade, unmov’d; yet making, moving Al".

One of the most ironic elements in the poem is the way in which the narrator looks down on his former religion even though he was an avid believer before he discovered Catholicism.

Narrative poem.

There is no fixed setting where the action takes place. It is implied that the narrator is inside his own room and that the action takes place during the present time.

The tone used in the poem is a highly religious one.

The protagonist is the Christian faith and the antagonist is Deism.

The major conflict is an internal one and is caused by the narrator's desire to convert to Catholicism.

The poem reaches its climax when the narrator argues the reason why he believes Christianity to be the superior faith.

The title of the poem foreshadows the religious subject of the poem.

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The main allusion which the narrator makes in the poem is the idea that the Anglican Church is superior to the type of religious faith promoted by Rome. While the narrator refuses to make this accusation directly, from the way the Anglican Church is described we can deduct that the narrator was more inclined to believe in the newly established church.

The term book is used as a general term to make reference to the Holy Bible and other religious writings used by Christianity.

We have a personification in the line "whose Lamp shone brighter and brought forth light in their minds".

We have a hyperbole in the line "To lonely, weary, wandring Travellers".

We have an onomatopoeia in the line "and his cries could be heard from miles away".