Newest Literature Essays

In “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains,” by Edgar Allen Poe, an unknown narrator recounts the circumstances that led to Augustus Bedloe’s mysterious death. The equally strange Dr. Templeton treats Bedloe, who suffers from neuralgia, using the practice...

In reading through the plays of Tennessee Williams, one may notice the “predominance of sex” as a theme throughout many different works, and more specifically, the theme of sexual rejection (Reid 431). In the interconnected systems of ethics...

In Either/Or, Søren Kierkegaard seeks to elucidate the contrasts and interrelationships between the aesthetical and the ethical modes of existence. Within the essay, Kierkegaard confronts the readers with a choice between two forms of existence:...

Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo is a shocking tale of love and obsession, and it is just as poignant now as it was nearly 60 years ago. Vertigo tells the story of how Scottie's taken in by appearances—how he's fooled by Madeleine's beauty and her...

In the early sixteen hundreds, England shifted from the Elizabethan Era to the Jacobean Era. This important power transfer largely influenced European politics and society, consequently affecting Renaissance art and literature. Widely popular...

The poetry of the Victorian novelist Thomas Hardy contains some progressive ideals which challenge negative stereotypes associated with women in the Victorian era; notable here are poems such as ‘A Sunday Morning Tragedy’ and ‘The Newcomer’s Wife’...

The poem “An Elegy Upon the Death of the Dean of Paul’s, Dr. John Donne” presents the monumental claim that John Donne was a class of poet far above his peers, positing that his mastery of language, originality of thought, and intellectual...

Bernard MacLaverty’s Cal explores the intense conflict between the Roman Catholic nationalist party and the Protestant British police forces of northern Ireland in the late 20th century. MacLaverty tells the story of Ireland’s most violent period...

It is undeniable that the theme of loss is weaved throughout much of Rossetti's poetry, often reflecting the emotional hardship of her own life. It stands out clearly in Shut Out as a key part of Rossetti's message and is arguably used as a...

Othello and Otello The act of adapting a work of art into a new medium is not simply revision of the original but is a creation of a new work of art. Giuseppe Verdi is one of the most famous Italian Opera composers of all time, and William...

Like every other form of systemic oppression, patriarchy has its roots spread across different cultures, places and time periods. There is no denying that women have been marginalized, both in fact and in fiction, well into the 20th century. In an...

In the Metamorphoses, Ovid discusses tales of transformations and reveals a system of justice within them. Generally, the gods either grant transformations in response to prayers, but for those transformed unwillingly, the change was normally cast...

It has been 24 years since the official release of Clueless, the 90's romantic comedy that is still loved by teenage girls now in 2018. In general, the action centers on best friends Cher and Dionne as they take new girl Tai under their wing. What...

Every culture has unique social tradition placed upon their ancestors for many generations. These social constraints force their people to adhere to the same set of boundaries because it is deemed as proper and acceptable. These constraints often...

There is no other prophet that portrays the compassion, yet suffering heart of God in all the Old Testament like the prophet Hosea. By use of marriage metaphors, laments and love notes, and ultimately idolatry and intimacy, this prophet uncovers...

In Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo, the whole of America is struck by an “anti-plague” called Jes Grew. This viral phenomenon, at its height in the 1920s, brings about an upswing in dancing, jazz music, and a general sense of personal freedom,...

The conflict between humanity and the natural world is one that spans back into an ancient past, perhaps beginning with the myth of Prometheus - punished for granting the gift of fire to mankind. Due to this, it is unsurprising that both modernist...

The Diviners by Margaret Laurence begins on a farm. This farm is the place of Morag's birth and her early childhood years. In the first "snapshot," (p.7) her parents are standing in front of a "farm gate" (p.7). Her mother is pregnant with the...

In ‘In a dream she meets him again’, Maura Dooley, through a third person narrator, attempts to reconstruct memories of a dream in which a female falls in love. The brief romance between the pair - through the bucolic countryside setting - is...

The Irish poet Trevor Joyce, distant cousin of James Joyce, achieved the fifty-year benchmark of his career just in 2017 and celebrated with the publication of Fastness, a new rendering of Edmund Spenser’s Mutabilitie Cantos. While Joyce is no...

What if the future of the human race were determined by a black, rectangular block? Though it may sound strange, that is exactly what happens in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). When a monolith is placed on Earth, the line between...

Despite the fact that William Shakespeare enjoyed prominence across the pond in the 16th and 17th centuries, his influence hadn’t made its way to the American stage until the late 18th. While the information surrounding the first Shakespearean...

Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones depicts the Batiste family, a poor, black family in southern Mississippi living in a crater in the earth called “The Pit.” Plagued with an invading red tint‒similar to that of hell‒and disarranged structure, The Pit...

At the beginning of Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven, Ruth says to Andrew, "There's a choice…You know that every time you head out like you do... With that boy” (5). Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven, written by Karen Salyer McElmurray, takes...