Newest Literature Essays

As the titles Bleak House and Hard Times suggest, there is an abundance in both of imagery, metaphor, and overarching plot that is unpleasant, rendered in such relishing detail as to suggest that Charles Dickens had, in the words of John Forster,...

In Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, death appears in many forms. Posthumus wishes death on Imogen, and, as a consequence, himself; Imogen rejects death by her own hand in favor of Pisanio’s; later, Imogen assumes the appearance of death; murder is both...

In Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, Criseyde’s character is something of a paradox, for while the reader is able to see a great deal of her thoughts, her character itself remain somewhat ambiguous, capable of being interpreted in multiple...

Much of Robert Browning’s poetry establishes voice through his use of a narrator within the poem, as in the case of Porphyria’s Lover, and through use of dramatic monologue, such as in The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church and Fra...

Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess is a poem largely about what poetry can and cannot do. Poetry, as literature, is inherently removed from life; the written word, for all its power to conjure image and emotion, can never quite be that image or...

William Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’ deals with falsity on multiple levels, primarily as incurred by love, and inherent within women. As women are false, and love makes one act in a way that is false, love itself is feminized, linked...

In Goethe’s Faust, Faust’s perception of women is a representation of his own inadequacies, while the portrayal of women - the witch’s relationship with magic, and Gretchen’s clear-sightedness - highlight Faust’s own inability to see himself as he...

Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poetry usually includes romantic themes typical for his writing period, such as imagination, love, or beauty. However, he is also famous for his poems concerning political issues, and many of his works include radicalism and...

Babylon Revisited by F Scott Fitzgerald tells the story of father Charlie Wales trying to regain custody of his daughter, Honoria, seven years after the death of his wife. He has spent that time working to be a better man for himself, for his late...

When does redemption cross the lines between righteousness and damnation? When does the end truly justify the means? Sometimes, it can be hard to discern when it is acceptable to right a wrong with another wrong. However, in the cases of the...

Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid is a story about transformation both physically and narratively, enacted upon Cresseid as a punishment – physically – and – narratively – to make a moral point. The reader first learns that her lover, Diomeid, has...

Othello’s final speech explores his guilt over murdering Desdemona, as well as Othello’s own struggle with identity as a black Muslim in Venice. Before delivering his speech, Othello becomes convinced by Iago that Desdemona has been unfaithful to...

Religion is often an important feature in Gothic literature. Authors use religion in a number of ways throughout these texts, and it is interesting to consider how their representation of religion impacts the stories that they create. One of the...

Both Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale and Cymbeline are about persuasion in one form or another. Key features of the plot hinge on the characters’ varying level of success in convincing others to do or believe something. If Paulina had persuaded...

Dystopian speculations of the future reveal the ill-kept promises of capitalism, and apprise the responders of repercussions of social manipulation that jeopardize human welfare. This notion is evinced within Fritz Lang’s German expressionist film...

Paul Gilroy’s The Black Atlantic examines the critical relationships between race, culture, and nationality. Throughout history, national rhetoric has been racially exclusive. White culture has been the basis of western national identity. Many...

Maintaining her style, Toni Morrison goes over the struggles of class differences in her essay, "The Work You Do, the Person You Are." She produces a reflective piece that puts in evidence the strong mentality and craving she had for mattering, of...

Sappho’s poetry in ‘If Not, Winter,’ is autobiographical firstly in the sense that anything anyone writes is autobiographical, as one’s narrative inclinations are very telling of that person’s focus and preoccupations; secondly in the sense that...

The term American Dream has undergone several interpretations since its coinage by James Truslow Adams in his book Epic of America, he defines American Dream as a means that promises an individual, regardless of their birth and social stature,...

In Sir Orfeo, ‘a once-achieved but subsequently lost partner is rescued from a dominant and possessive rival by an act of supreme generosity’ (Shippey, 83). Dominant and possessive are words one might associate with an overbearing, abusive lover,...

Bianca appears sparsely in Othello: a grand total of three times. However, she is subject to lashing from both men and women, and she is a complete outsider to any society. Through Shakespeare's depiction of her, she ultimately becomes a microcosm...

“A hero. You want to be one of those rare human beings who make history, rather than merely watch it flow around them like water around a rock.” - Dan Simmons

Both the novel Stardust by Neil Gaiman and the film adaption Stardust (Dir. Matthew...

"No Coward Soul is Mine" portrays Emily Bronte's spiritual faith. The world is a sphere troubled by storms. Here storms metaphorically stand for the adversities of life. The persona says her soul is courageous enough to march bravely through those...

In The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, McCullers uses the juxtaposition of two characters with very different lifestyles to question the importance of teaching and its connection to communication. Thus, she leaves the reader with the notion that there...