Question

Give a short summary of the poem past and present written by Thomas Hood.

Answer 1

Thomas Hood (23 May 1799 – 3 May 1845) was born in London. He became a humourist and a poet. His most famous poem The Song of the Shirtwas published in The Punch in 1843 which made him an overnight sensation. The series of the Comic Annual, dating from 1830, was a kind of publication popular at that time, which Hood undertook and continued almost unassisted for several years. Under that title he treated all the leading events of the day in caricature, without personal malice, and with an undercurrent of sympathy. Readers were also treated to an incessant use of puns, of which Hood had written in his own vindication, “However critics may take offence,/A double meaning has double sense”, but as he gained experience as a writer, his diction became simpler.