Newest Literature Essays

The Battle of Actium is one of the more pivotal moments in Antony and Cleopatra. Mark Antony, having lost the battle, undergoes a period of self-reflection and emotional trauma which changes our perception of the character. The analysis of the...

Expressionism was key in many of Williams’s plays – so much so that it was he who came up with the term ‘Plastic Theatre’. Throughout his plays, and particularly in A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams uses expressionism to show emotions or themes...

"As a species, we are most animated when our days and nights on Earth are touched by the natural world" - Richard Louv

Plath and Hughes seem to have different relationships with nature; in The Long Tunnel Ceiling Hughes, Hughes seems to gain a...

The miracle stories narrated by each of the four evangelists arguably form one of the most famed aspects of the story of the life of Jesus Christ, and it is clear that for the writers of the Gospels, as well as for the earliest Christians, the...

Throughout the Gospel of Mark, and more prominently in this Gospel than in any other, we are presented with numerous points at which the identity and activity of Jesus is attempted be kept secret. Since the publication of Wrede's 'epoch-making[1]'...

Bram Stoker’s revolutionary novel Dracula gave way to the splendor of modernism. Displaying many ground breaking modernist techniques, Dracula is especially reliant on the use of a meta-textual narrative. Stoker introduces his novel with a...

In the emerging technical age the idea of science without ethics has turned into a center stage issue. Throughout Margaret Atwood’s novel Oryx and Crake, science without ethics is explored through two dystopian worlds engineered by Atwood all from...

The Evangelist's depiction of Jesus throughout the fourth Gospel has been subject to ample scholarly scrutiny since antiquity and, to this day, questions regarding the interpretation of Jesus' personhood still prompt debate amongst Biblical...

The social construct of gender has been challenged more than ever in the recent century, but long before this age of partial freedom, Shakespeare was placing ideas of rebellion from it into the minds of his consumers. The rigid ideas of the time...

T.S. Eliot’s 1922 poem The Waste Land is widely considered the most influential work of the twentieth century. Composed of five compelling parts, Eliot’s genius work forms an intricate collage of modern society. Many scholars view The Waste Land ...

Throughout the ages, the theme of impossible love in literature has prevailed. Impossible love is an overall broad theme; generally speaking, it is a love that is forbidden, unrequired, or unable to flourish. Somewhere between 29 and 19 B.C. the...

Since the publication of The Discourse on the Method, Renes Descartes appears to have become the poster boy for the position of mind/body dualism. Throughout the Discourse and his later works, Descartes postulates several arguments for the...

Don DeLillo’s modern classic, White Noise, examines a so-called normal family in 1980s America to demonstrate the pervasive nature of technology in contemporary society. Technology and media have become a staple in the everyday life of the average...

Heralded as an early pioneer of the Harlem Renaissance, Claude McKay (1889-1948) is often included in the African American literary cannon. On the surface, his poetry, with its focus on issues of racism and exclusion, appears to fit neatly into...

Destruction. It’s a powerful word, encapsulating a Pandora’s box of emotions. It implies damage beyond a state of repair, or even, at times, beyond a state of existence. Destruction plays an important role in Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. What is...

In Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, he defines man to be made in the image of God, man’s end to be perfect happiness, which may only be attained by seeing God, and asserts the Divine law’s role in the attainment of perfect happiness. Much like...

In both Porphyria’s Lover and Andrea del Sarto, Robert Browning explores the notions of love and its capacity to corrupt an individual’s character and potential through his signature diegetic form; the dramatic monologue. While the form of these...

In both My Last Duchess and Andrea del Sarto, Robert Browning explores the notions of love and its capacity to corrupt an individual’s character and potential through his signature diegetic form; the dramatic monologue. While the form of these two...

Robert Browning ubiquitous examination of religious authority and its shortcomings becomes apparent within the very title of The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church. The religious reference to Saint Praxed carries ironic connotations,...

Despite the adaptation of a text to film benefiting from the opportunities and abilities bestowed to a director through the visual aspect of the medium, narrative complexity and depth of literary themes almost inevitably suffer a condensation....

The play Inherit the Wind is one that exhibits contrasting characterisations of its major, influential individuals. Yet, within this contrast of personalities, each separate role is portrayed to the audience in a slightly ambiguous manner, and as...

In our modern American society, oppression is something that still exists and has been detrimental to people, hurting their lives. The process of fishing can symbolize how regular people fair versus the clutches of oppression they cannot...

As a Romantic, Keats maintained a tragic concern with the importance of dramatic irony - or, as noted by Schlegel, the ‘secret irony’ in which the audience is aware of the protagonist’s situation and his own ignorance of it. In ‘Lamia’, this...

Hannah Kent’s award winning Australian novel Burial Rites illustrates the remaining days of the last woman executed in Iceland; Agnes Magnúsdóttir. In an interview conducted by the Guardian, Kent stated that she first learnt of Agnes’ story...