Newest Literature Essays

Both Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise” (1978) and Solange’s song “Don’t Touch my Hair” (2016) illustrate different stages in the African-American struggle with otherization of their identity. “Still I Rise” iterates many examples of how...

The work Pedro Paramo, written by author Juan Rulfo, explores in an abundance the notion of confinement in relation to its physical, mental, and metaphorical manifestations. Through his use of temperature description, overwhelming sound imagery,...

Every choice a person makes, every action a person performs, every thought that crosses a person’s mind is influenced by emotion. The strength and intensity of feelings in the decision-making process makes emotional manipulation a powerful tool...

Celan’s Deathfugue is a haunting description of the day to day realities of a Jewish person being held prisoner inside a work camp during the Second World War. Having been one of those prisoners himself, this poem appears to serve as an outlet for...

Little kids often sit at their kitchen table, trying to connect the dots in the newspaper game section. They go from number to number, not knowing what the emerging picture will be until they reach the last one. As they slowly drag their pencil...

Most translations of Homer’s The Iliad keep the entire narrative of the story, incorporating Homer’s themes on the glory of war. Alice Oswald, however, chooses to deviate from this aspect of Homer’s epic in her Memorial: A Version of Homer’s...

Sir Walter Raleigh was an English Aristocrat and poet, who wrote a poem called “The Nymphs Reply to the Shepherd”. In that poem written in 1596, the nymph rejects the shepherd’s offer to become his love and explains why she cannot accept his...

As developed from the human’s historically survivalist quality, modern people tend to initially work for their own gain before considering or regarding others. People’s self-interest, whether a narcissistic trait or simply inherent one, is even...

William Carlos Williams’s poem titled “The Red Wheelbarrow” paints a picture of a wheelbarrow outside in the rain. It is composed of just sixteen words that are divided equally into four stanzas. At first glance, it may seem like a concise and...

In 1312, Dante Alighieri wrote a treatise called De Monarchia, in which he expressed his belief that society would operate best under a single authority - that is, a secular monarch. Dante, in his characteristic rabble-rousing way, argued that...

Although the postmodern classic The Crying of Lot 49 is known for its obscurity and lack of a single interpretation, it should not be seen as an experiment in a tortured narrative of curve-balls that destroys the reader’s assumptions without...

As a classic source of insight and wisdom in the Western heritage, the Bible has been studied, questioned, and alluded to for as long as it has captured the imagination of believers and novelists alike. As such, this perennial text lends itself...

Through the consistent allusion to fairy tales throughout both The Necklace and The Son’s Veto, de Maupassant and Hardy are able to present the vulnerability and suffering of the characters in an instantly recognisable template, portraying the...

The chorus was an integral feature of traditional Greek tragedy, which explains the high degree of importance placed on the chorus by Aeschylus in ‘The Persians’, used to reinforce the tragic elements of the plot, whilst also helping to create a...

Although established as nonhuman, poets often use animals, nature, and other objects to comment about the human condition in poetry. While in some cases this may lead to a clear distinction between human and non-human, William Carlos Williams’s ...

While Robinson Crusoe is undoubtedly a story of survival, it is first and foremost a story of religious and spiritual growth. Crusoe’s spiritual journey affects every single aspect of his life and draws him to reconsider many of his close-held...

George Eliot’s The Lifted Veil explores the nature of human sympathy from the perspective of a supernatural, clairvoyant character. The narrator of the story, Latimer, uses his power of clairvoyance to analyze the sympathies of others, which...

An extremely specific author, Tennessee Williams is known for his elaborate and in-depth descriptions of sets, costumes, sound, and general staging, often appearing to have the last detail written out in his seemingly endless supply of stage...

A number of Marvell’s poetry often centers around the soul and its qualities, notably in ‘A Dialogue, between the Resolved Soul and Created Pleasure’ and ‘On a Drop of Dew’. There is significant highlight of the soul’s spiritual and nature, along...

Monica Ali published her debut novel ‘Brick Lane’ in 2003 to much critical acclaim. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the novel tells the hardships faced by Nazneen, a young Bengali woman who is sent from her quiet rural village home to...

Shintoism is an ancient Japanese religion that initially focused on praying for good harvest with the start of Japan coinciding with the start of rice growing. Shinto followers believe in spirits that live in living things such as animals and...

Bernard Maclaverty’s Cal and Sindiwe Magona’s Mother to Mother both present the larger conflicts of a country through the voice of a single protagonist. The violence plaguing the lands of both Northern Ireland and South Africa in the late 1900’s...