ABSTRACT

D orothy Parker is remembered as the irreverent wit of the Al-gonquin Round Table. She wrote short stories, plays, and poetry, all of which are imprinted with her unique and cynical worldview. Although she wrote poetry in a variety of forms, including the lyric, ballad, and sonnet, it is her light verse that garnered the most attention among her contemporaries and that continues to draw praise and admiration from modern-day readers. When Enough Rope was published in 1926, it soon became a best-seller, and her second collection, Sunset Gun (1928), was equally popular. Her third collection came in 1931 and was an extremely pessimistic volume titled Death and Taxes. By the time she published her fourth volume of poetry, Not So Deep as a Well, in 1936, she had almost stopped writing poetry altogether.