An Epic of Women, and Other Poems

: "An Epic of Women, and Other Poems" by Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy is a compilation of poetry from the late 1800s that investigates love, desire, and the tangled nature of being a woman, using strong images and musical language to show different sides of womanhood. Often, mythological and symbolic elements appear in the poems, looking at how human lives connect to spiritual ideas. With the poem "Exile," the collection starts by having the speaker think about their inner self and the contrast between how they look on the outside and the deep emotions they hide. This person moves among regular people but wants to share a more profound, unspoken love that they keep secret. The poems that follow keep exploring this idea of clashing realities, suggesting that the poet wants to reveal how rich and complicated women's lives are—their pain, love, beauty, and the hidden inner worlds that often go unnoticed, creating an atmosphere for a moving look into femininity throughout the book.