Newest Literature Essays

Psalm 142, verse 2: “No man cared...” This Biblical verse applies perfectly to “In Tenbris”, a poem written out of despair for the society Hardy in which lived. He expresses his pity and contempt for the materialist citizens and power hungry...

Published in the early years of the Great Depression, Pearl Buck’s novel The Good Earth brought hope and encouragement to many people struggling economically. The main character, Wang Lung, rises from a Chinese farmer to a landowner and...

Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions and Nadine Gordimer Burger's Daughter, two examples of the female bildungsroman, do not share many of the same stylistic features. Burger's Daughter is characterized by imaginary confessions, interior...

The poem 'Canonization' by John Donne, with its witty analogies and inventive use of conceits, exemplifies metaphysical poetry. The poem begins abruptly in typical Donne fashion. The speaker is addressing someone who seems to disapprove of his...

In order to truly appreciate life, or recognize its value, one must be able to comprehend the powerful finality that accompanies death. Furthermore, there also must be comprehension of this topic when seeking to destroy and inflict death on...

Integrity is a quality frequently sought after but rarely achieved; once achieved; it is even more rarely maintained. It is an elusive gem with the potential to inspire and transform a person. Unfortunately, it is often compromised – a valuable...

Travel literature became, after the novel, the most famous literary genre in the eighteenth century. Thanks to the geographical discoveries made by important navigators of that time, enlightened people finally could explore with their imagination...

Both romance and anti-romance hold connotations of triviality and low-brow culture, reducing women to simplistic figures in which to indulge. Yet, for all their critical analyses, it seems inconclusive as to which genre is more sexist. This...

Jane Tompkins writes on how nineteenth century domestic novels characterise ‘a monumental effort to reorganize culture from the woman's point of view…in certain cases, it offers a critique of American society far more devastating than any...

The gothic phenomena, although short-lived, left an indisputably heavy influence on literary practices in the late 1700’s, particularly that of the ‘feminist’ literary space. Jane Austen’s questionable heroine, Catherine Morland, is both the...

Sharon D. Welch, in ““Lush Life”: Foucault’s Analytics of Power and a Jazz Aesthetic,” states:

What is seen through a jazz aesthetic is what is seen now by many: conflict, difference, failure, mistakes, suffering, meaning, beauty, commitment to...

Michel Foucault, in his seminal essay, What Is An Author?, considers the relationship between author, text, and reader: “…the quibbling and confrontations that a writer generates between himself and his text cancel out the signs of his particular...

Thomas Richards, in his 1990 exposition on cultural theory, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England: Advertising and Spectacle, 1851-1914 states: “In the mid-nineteenth century the commodity became the living letter of the law of supply and...

After witnessing the development of the young, unsophisticated Stephen Dedalus into the skeptical and scrupulous artist that concludes James Joyce’s antecedent novel, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, his reappearance in Ulysses suggests that...

In an interview conducted by Marilyn Mehaffy and AnaLouise Keating, Octavia Butler was prompted to discuss the importance of bodily inscription in writing, to which she replies that the body is “all we really know that we have…all we really know...

Throughout the span of the comedies, Shakespeare allows his female characters to establish a greater amount of independence and freedom than they would have actually been allowed for the time period. This freedom is not necessarily a feminist...

Rick, a kindhearted man with a strong moral compass, is far from the most detestable of the characters in Casablanca. While he demonstrates some qualities and actions that could lead to the assumption that he is loathsome, he is not to be confused...

To its original audience, experiencing political change as the new rule of James led to the expansion of the British Empire, Antony and Cleopatra resonates with the “infinite variety” they were experiencing and the vast changeability of the modern...

In her 1995 article "The Women of Beowulf: A Context for Interpretation," Gillian R. Overing argues that "[t]he women in Beowulf, whether illegitimate monsters or pedigreed peaceweaving queens, are all marginal, excluded figures…"(Overing, 335)...

In Bernard F. Huppe’s critical exposition, “The “Wanderer”: Theme and Structure”, he speaks collectively for scholarship associated with the elegiac poem, The Wanderer, stating that “the purpose of the poem is entirely Christian, its general theme...

In Book II of Troilus and Criseyde, the character Pandarus states: “Wommen are born to thraldom and penance, /and to been under mannes governance.”(Chaucer, line 286-7) Extracted from an exchange between the maiden Criseyde and her uncle,...

Thomas Richards, in his 1990 critical exposition, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England: Advertising and Spectacle, 1851-1914, states: “In the mid-nineteenth century the commodity became the living letter of the law of supply and demand. It...

Liminality pervades Angela Carter’s short story collection, entitled The Bloody Chamber, in her characters, physical settings and even her narrative voice. The bloody chamber, as a physical ‘chamber’ can refer to a room where violence and...

Although optimism does not lie on the surface of Rawi Hage’s Cockroach and Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, the texts are existential discussions of the validity associated with the ‘hope for humanity’. Hage’s unnamed narrator, a suicidal...