Each study guide includes essays, an in-depth chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quiz. Study guides are available in PDF format.
Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times tells the story of Chaplin's iconic Little Tramp as he struggles to survive in a newly modernized world. The Tramp starts out working at a factory on an assembly line, but the new technology and oppressive...
A Marvel superhero movie produced and distributed by Walt Disney Motion Pictures, Black Panther was written and directed by Ryan Coogler. The film, released on February 16, 2018, was an instant hit with viewers, raking in over a billion dollars at...
Francois Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 was is the first adaption of Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel of the same name, released to critical acclaim. Truffaut, surprisingly didn't care for science fiction, but after a friend showed him Bradbury's...
Imagine being so passionate about dinosaurs that you want to bring them back to life, study them and share your obsession with the rest of the world. Jurassic Park, the 1993 science-fiction and adventure movie directed by Steven Spielberg, shows...
After series creator George Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney in October 2012, Disney fast-tracked a new Skywalker trilogy and stand-alone films for release starting in 2015. Disney wished for the first film produced under its banner to be a trilogy...
In the post-9/11 media landscape, Crash’s backstory has garnered nearly as much attention as the plot itself. After personally experiencing a carjacking in 1991, television writer Paul Haggis was inspired to pen this story about social and racial...
“To His Mistress Going to Bed” is one of Donne’s elegies written published after his death as a part of his collection of metaphysical poetry. The term “elegy” is used to refer to a poem which is written to mourn the dead or the death itself....
“Holy Sonnets: At the round earth's imagin'd corners, blow” is one of the poems from the collection of poems that are concerned with themes of religion, mortality, self-awareness, and the need for closeness with the divine. It is a one-stanza...
The poem "A Valediction: Of Weeping" was published two years after the poet’s death, and it was believed to be written as a dedication to his wife Anne. Some argue that the poem’s ambiguity and metaphysical contemplation speak against the claim...
Extinction was published in 1986 and was the last novel published by Thomas Bernhard before his death in 1989.
Bernhard was born out of wedlock in the Netherlands in 1931. He was left to live with his grandparents for six years until his mother,...
A comedic 1991 play by Paul Rudnick, I Hate Hamlet tells the tale of an actor who wrestles with taking on the role of Hamlet, while attempting to deal with life's problems as well. It premiered on Broadway later in 1991, and enjoyed moderate...
Douglas Dunn was born in Scotland in 1942. Graduating with an English degree from Hull University in 1969. Dunn has since received three honorary doctorates, two Literature doctorates from the University of Hull and the University of St Andrews,...
The Collected Stories of Frank O'Connor is, from its name, a collection of short stories written by the Irish author Frank O'Connor. It was first published on 1981. Today, O'Connor is best known for his memoirs and short stories.
This book is a...
"The Use of Force" is a story first published in 1938 as part of a compilation of work by William Carlos Williams. It tells the story of a doctor who is summoned to make a house-call to a family whom he has never met before, and who finds the...
In the 1940s and 50s, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, known collectively as "The Archers," wrote, directed, and produced a litany of films that are now considered classics. Contrary to the typical Hollywood studio arrangement at the time,...
Studying Callihroe is less of a literary enterprise and more of an archaeological one; scholars need to rely on complex techniques in order to find out more about the time in which this novel was written, and also to learn more about the...
Iginio Ugo Tarchetti was an Italian poet, author, and journalist of the 19th century. He was born in San Salvatore Monferrato and started his career in the military, a tall, blue-eyed, handsome man. But he later ceased to continue his service...
Wu Ch’eng-en, a Confucian scholar and well-respected literary poet, wrote Monkey during the Ming dynasty. This makes it all the more surprising that Monkey was written in the vernacular -- plain, simple language -- during a time period that...
The Glass Menagerie was written in 1944, based on reworked material from one of Williams' short stories, "Portrait of a Girl in Glass," and his screenplay, The Gentleman Caller. In the weeks leading up to opening night (December 26, 1944 in...
Paul Celan is a survivor of the Holocaust and his experiences at the hands of the Nazis inform all of his poetry. His poems belong in a group of poems that are great, informative, and absolutely terrifying all at the same time, and he is mentioned...
Alice Oswald is an English poet born in 1966. Throughout high school, she never considered anything but writing as a future career. Thus, she continued her studies at New College, Oxford where she majored in classics. She has since won numerous...
Poor Sir Walter Raleigh. A gifted poet, masterful networker, adventurer, sailor and empire builder, he is most famous for gallantly spreading his cloak over a puddle on the ground for Queen Elizabeth to walk across, thereby saving her from wet...
"Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of a Eurasion" is a short autobiographical memoir by Edith Maude Eaton, who published work under the name Sui Sin Far. To call herself "Eurasian" is really to simplify Far's racial heritage; she was a...
Toronto, Mississippi is a play written by the Canadian author and playwright Joan MacLeod. Written in 1987, the play follows the story of a young woman, Jhana, who tries to form stronger relations with her family but feels that she cannot do this...
