Shylock and Lear: society's outcasts
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Shakespeare's use of the outsider, one excluded from society especially through the removal of his identity, serves to portray the cruel and selfish aspects of humanity. In The Merchant of Venice and in King Lear, the substandard treatment and lack of sympathy Shylock and Lear encounter,...
Postmodernism in literature
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Linda Hutcheon considers the term postmodernism as one of the 'most over and under-defined' in her poetics of postmodernism. Some consider the so-called postmodern movement as too heterogeneous to be even called a coherent system of thought, others define anything that is contemporary as...
The maze-like South African township
Essay - 13 pages - Literature
At a time when black South Africans did not have enough time and money to enjoy leisure pursuits, music and dancing appeared to be their only glimmer of hope. In the townships and slum yards, music developed and became synonymous with life and entertainment. A very good example is the presence of...
Celtic imaginary: the birth of desire
Essay - 12 pages - Literature
Comparative study of Ellys et Thanatos of André Suarès, The Shadowy Waters and The Land of Heart's Desire of William Butler Yeats. "Le rêve ondule sur la mer. Qu?est-ce que tout cela ? La pensée d?un mort, qui médite la vie ? Ou la vie qui s?adore elle-même, dans la langueur ? Ou? On...
Parenthood as a Theme in English Literature
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
"Parenthood" has been defined as a process of bearing or adoption, and rearing of children. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the concept as "the state of one that begets or brings forth children". According to contemporary standards, "parenthood" involves a number of daily responsibilities,...
Childhood as a Theme in English Literature
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
In 1960, French medievalist and historian Philippe Ariès advanced the hypothesis that the idea of childhood was practically inexistent before the early modern period. The controversy about the existence or absence of the idea prior to that time in history gave rise to a host of studies on...
Jean- Paul Sartre, "Huis clos", Lecture plurielle - publié le 07/05/2009
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Basing your essay on specific extracts from the play, would you say that, according to Shakespeare, fate determines man's action, or that man is always free to choose his own course of action? According to masters of literary theory, a tragedy draws the destiny of extraordinary people fallen...
American writers in Paris: Anaïs Nin - Houseboat - ; James Baldwin - Equal in Paris - - publié le 07/05/2009
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
“Houseboat” is the initial short story in a collection entitled Under a Glass Bell, published in 1944 by Anaïs Nin. It presents us with the complex relationship the artist carries on with Paris - a relationship made of both attraction and repulsion. It also gives us an insight into the...
The role of Barthes and Foucault in either New Criticism, Russian Formalism or Structuralism
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Structuralism defends the irreducibility of literary texts, which cannot be criticized through biographical or sociological context. In his essay, "The Death of the Author", Roland Barthes argues against incorporating the intentions and biographical context of an author in the interpretation of...
Eugenio Montale - Ossi di sepia, Le occasioni, La bufera e altro and Satura
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Eugenio Montale is a very important Italian poet of the 20th century who acquired fame within literary circles. Being as talented as he was, he was awarded the Nobel Prize of literature. Between 1925 and 1982, he published eight collections of poetry, one of which was posthumous. In this essay, I...
Essay: "Ink-stained tears on game day"
Essay - 1 pages - Literature
There it sat in its position of honor, and, breathing a sigh of admiration, Eric Wilson once again sat down on his leather recliner to watch ESPN while intermittently eying his most prized possession. The players on the TV screen often faded into unimportance when Eric compared the intangible...
Witches in Popular Children's Fiction: A look at the portrayal of witches and witchcraft in select works of fiction since the 17th century
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
Witches are very interesting group of people to read about. They have been at odds or different from the main-stream culture, and their practices and doings have been shrouded in secrecy and mystery, and evil-doing. For these reasons, witches make interesting characters in fictional stories, and...
Critical analysis of 'A Lesson before Dying'
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
Ernest J. Gaines wrote the novel, 'A Lesson before Dying' in which he highlighted the problems faced by the blacks during the 1940's in the South. However, the contextual time for the novel covers a whole century into until 1964. He writes about the complete devastation faced by the...
Ideological Ephemera: Why Zines will survive the internet ?
Essay - 7 pages - Literature
According to some arguments of literary analysis, Zines should have ceased to exist, or at least should be well on their way to a doomed demise, some years ago. The availability and accessibility of blogs, web journals and social networking sites ostensibly offer ample outlets for the immediate...
The novel "Charlotte Temple" as an example of a popular novel
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
The novel Charlotte Temple is an example of what I believe to be a "popular novel". Charlotte Temple's appeal was born out of its solicitous plea to a generation of women who held a particular station in society. It warned them of dangers while morally evangelizing and re-emphasizing basic...
The myth of the contented slave
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
The definition of contentment is to feel or manifest satisfaction with one's possessions, status or situation. Leslie Howard Owens holds to the opinion that the "contented slave" is a "myth". In his book, "This Species of Property" the personality and attitudes of southern slaves is shown...
Fear: The deconstruction of normality
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
In all honesty and truthfulness, post-war, American authors have produced quite a frightening element in this country's literary discourse. Frightening, because they amass self-critical observations that have ultimately led to paranoia regarding the reliability of life's constructs and realities....
What were the origins, the aspect, and the outcomes of the War of the Roses? - publié le 21/01/2009
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
“And here I prophesy: this brawl today, Grown to this faction in the Temple garden, Shall send, between the Red Rose and the White, A thousand souls to death and deadly night.”: this is how the Earl of Warwick announces the War of the Roses in Shakespeare's Henry VI. Indeed, from 1455...
The theme of "incomprehension" in The Secret River, by Kate Grenville - publié le 19/01/2009
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
According to one review, The Secret River “invites us to examine flawed human lives and to reflect on a tragedy of mutual incomprehension.” Discuss how this theme of “incomprehension” is explored in the novel. One of the main themes of The Secret River, a historical novel...
Spanish literature: The Celestina and Lazarillo de Tormes
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
The Celestina and Lazarillo de Tormes, books written at the outset of Spain's golden age, are extremely important works. The Celestina is a love story, while Lazarillo de Tormes is one of the first picaresque novels. Despite this major difference, they are similar in that they are both critiques...
The Russian novel: the narrator's role in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
“Death”(Part 5, chapter 20) is the only chapter of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina with a title. It is not the only death in the book; Anna's suicide at the end of the novel is arguably the story's most important death. Although the death of Nikolai Levin by no means drastically alters the...
Shakespeare's plays illustrated by Blake and Fuseli: The artists as critics - publié le 16/01/2009
Essay - 11 pages - Literature
It has judiciously been pointed out that “pictures from Shakespeare account[ed] for about one fifth -some 2 300!- of the total number of literary paintings recorded between 1760 and 1900” (R. Altick). As a matter of fact, the renewed interest in nineteenth century British art in the...
Literature review on virtual tour technology - publié le 15/01/2009
Essay - 9 pages - Literature
Numerous developments in virtual technologies show up in modern world creating for people more and more comforts and possibilities. Different kinds of visions that we may see with the help of virtual tour technology, have elevated the status of virtual environment to the level of pop...
King Lear, by William Shakespeare: My experience of reading Shakespeare - published: 15/01/2009
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Reading in Original version a Shakespeare play was in my mind a kind of challenge. I read quite a few of Shakespeare's plays in the past, but they were translated in French. I had heard so much about Shakespeare's wonderful style, the beautiful English language he used that I wanted to...
The emotional and psychological reader's response in "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "The Blue Hotel" - publié le 15/01/2009
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
"The Yellow Wall-paper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "The Blue Hotel" by Stephen Crane are two short stories which, beyond the colour references in the title, try to develop certain psychological responses within the reader. I will attempt to show how through two different points of view for...
Discuss the portrayal of city life in a group of works - published: 15/01/2009
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
In this essay, we will look at how artists portray city life, how they make the most common things in our lives becoming special and how they transform reality into art. Indeed, everyday, ordinary life often becomes special under their brushes. Some of them like Degas or Toulouse-Lautrec liked...
Antony and Cleopatra: Shakespeare's criticism of the XVIIth century's anti-feminism - publié le 15/01/2009
Essay - 10 pages - Literature
like in his other Roman plays like Julius Caesar, Shakespeare used in Antony and Cleopatra the description of the Roman society to describe his own society. But in this play the main point of analysis was not politics but the place of women in the society. During the XVIth and XVIIth centuries,...
Symbolism of geography in Thomas More's "Utopia" - publié le 15/01/2009
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
Thomas More was born in 1478 at a time when England was in transition between Feudalism and the early Renaissance. More was a lawyer, a historian, a philosopher and became Henry VIII's chancellor in 1529. When Thomas More refused to convert himself to Protestantism, he was accused of being a...
Holocaust in American life by Peter Novick 1999 - publié le 15/01/2009
Essay - 9 pages - Literature
Peter Novick is a professor of History in the University of Chicago. After "The Noble Dream : The "objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession" in 1988, in which he criticizes the idea of an ideal objective and neutral historical work, he published "The Holocaust in the American...
How is the traditional notion of subject challenged in "Boating for Beginners?" (Jeanette Winterson)? - publié le 15/01/2009
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
Boating for Beginners is the second novel published by Jeanette Winterson in 1985. It deals with the growing up of Gloria Munde, who seeks her way in the world. The resemblance between Gloria Munde and Jeanette Winterson is striking and some elements of Gloria's life echo Jeanette's: both...
