Newest Literature Essays

In his comprehensive introduction to Gothic Tales Baldick outlines the vital role that Edgar Alan Poe, and in particular his first Gothic tale 'The Fall of the House of Usher', played in redefining the genre: 'Poe ensured that whereas before him...

Chapter Twenty-Five is central to John Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath. Besides containing the title of the book, this chapter clearly, forcefully, and elegantly drives home Steinbecks central messagethe injustice of life in the Depression-era...

It is, arguably, a fallacy to use the word 'influence' when considering how Poe developed the Gothic genre in his own literature in light of his predecessors. The overtones of 'derivation' in the word risk unfairly discrediting the influence that...

Spenser's Faerie Queene evinces the New Testament religious doctrine that God shows infinite mercy toward man, and by "heauenly grace doth...vphold" (VIII.1.3) him despite his weaknesses. This philosophy, shown in The Faerie Queene through...

In many ways The Faerie Queene presents a unique challenge to the English reader. It can be described as epic, romance or fantasy and covers a wide range of topics religious and romantic, political and spiritual, Christian and Pagan. It is also...

The consequence that Spenser faces in casting the Redcrosse knight as the obvious hero of The Faerie Queene is that all who oppose him throughout the poem are immediately branded as inherently evil figures. Such is the case with Despaire, whose...

SpenserÃÂÂs Faerie Queene fights against reduction; there is no one-to-one correspondence of thing to meaning. Spenser recasts figures and images throughout the poem, allowing meanings to be changed and complicated through the course of reading....

The work of art is a central image in The Faerie Queene, though it rarely appears as a neutral force. On the contrary: art often seems to act as a tool of the post-lapsarian world, dragging once-pure characters into earthly knowledge and moral...

The role of the magic mirror in Britomart's encounter with Arthegall extends beyond the fact that it drives her quest to find him. It is also the center point of Spenser's theme of reflection and representation and its influence on his use of...

A wife overdoses on medication, much to the distress of her husband; a woman watches as the room in which she stands is doused in kerosene before she takes it upon herself to strike the first match; a Fire Captain hands a flame-thrower to one of...

Set in a world without literary wisdom, Fahrenheit 451 by legendary science-fiction author Ray Bradbury is the story of those who would dare to break free from the chains of censorship and intellectual repression. Against a climate of intense...

The central argument in Euthyphro implies that the concept of 'good' must be independent of the concept of 'God' such that "God must love that which is good because it is good." Grube argues that the implication of this is that God has no choice...

In numerous instances of mythology, an initial, primordial female power is supplanted or in some way altered by a male figure. In Hesiod's Theogony, Gaea's original supremacy is eventually usurped by Zeus, while in Aeschylus' Eumenides, the primal...

Alexander Pushkin's novel, Eugene Onegin, gives the reader an excellent insight into his thoughts and beliefs regarding different types of human behavior. Throughout the novel Pushkin illustrates many of his own characteristics via the two main...

It is under the most repressive limitations that the strength of one's character and one's ability to defy and transcend such limits can truly be measured. This idea is confirmed in Edith Wharton's novel, Ethan Frome, the story of a young man...

Human nature has always been tempted by the irresistible emotion of desire, and as perfectly said by Benedict de Spinoza, "Desire is the very essence of man". Although various degrees of desire can be achieved in our society, there are still many...

Patterns of imagery, symbol and metaphor inform a reading of the novel as much as character or plot. Discuss with close reference to The English Patient.

Whilst the four main characters of The English Patient are extremely powerful, and important...

At first glimpse, Samuel Beckett's Endgame has absolutely nothing in common with the model provided in Aristotle's Poetics. Where Aristotle claims the most important element of any tragedy is plot, Endgame seems to have no plot. Where Aristotle...

During a time of the utmost rationality, when the serious nature of man was exposed in its most raw form, Samuel Beckett-- author of Endgame --- tackled subject matters that stepped out from under the issue of war and the tangible problems of his...

Endgame, as the very title suggests, is about ends or an end. Its opening words, 'Finished, it's finished...' pervade the action, or perhaps rather inaction, that follows, and throughout the play Beckett, like Shakespeare in King Lear, employs a...

"The exploration of different kinds of selfishness gives Emma considerable depth of meaning beneath it's [sic] comic surface," and also contributes to that comedy. Jane Austen's characters inhabit a hyper-polite society, where admirable displays...

Jane Austen's classic is not merely a story of Emma Woodhouse's journey of self discovery, nor is it just a tale of country romance, but rather, Emma chronicles the anxiety of its time: the destabilization of the classes. As the Industrial...

"Emma herself is never to be taken seriously, and it is only those who have not realised this who will be 'put off' by her absurdities, her snobberies, her misdirected mischievous ingenuities" Do you agree?

In Jane Austen's Emma the eponymous...

Over the past few decades, a considerable number of comments have been made on the idea of eternity in Emily Dickinson's poetry. The following are several examples: Robert Weisbuch's Emily Dickinson's Poetry (1975), Jane Donahue Eberwein's...