Transformations of literature: augustine's 'confessions' and virgil's 'aeneid' - published: 07/07/2009
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
Both St. Augustine's Confessions and Virgil's epic The Aeneid marked a new direction in literature for the West. Each one was inspired by the works of previous authors, but was willing to forge a new literature for their times. In the Aeneid, Virgil established Rome as indebted to the Greek...
The empowered woman in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale
Book review - 7 pages - Literature
Speaking of his king's command to “stay [his wife's] tongue,” (The Winter's Tale, 2.3.110) Antigonus very succinctly states the theme of female empowerment in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. Throughout the play, Shakespeare employs various strategies to communicate this idea. One...
A review of T.H. White's book The Once and Future King
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
An epic historical fantasy with a point that transcends the genre, T.H. White's classic four-part novel is a time telescope with a mirror at the end in place of a lens. As with most classical literature, White's tale contains a higher intention hidden beneath the folds of his satirical prose,...
Success and its pressures as depicted in The Great Gatsby and Things Fall Apart
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
Analysis of today's society reveals a deep-rooted desire for success. Indeed, it is human nature to strive to achieve, and it is encouraged to the point where ambition and competition become a way of living. For some, this translates into a life of blind devotion to a cause that is increasingly...
John Marshall and Mercy Otis Warren
Thesis - 12 pages - Literature
Though John Marshall and Mercy Otis Warren shared little ideological ground when it came to politics, they did come together in their respective revolutionary histories to condemn the treason of Benedict Arnold. During the war, the treason stirred up a good deal of emotionalism; the United...
Allegorical styles of writing
Thesis - 18 pages - Literature
Imagine you are standing at the edge of a rift. On this side of the rift lie life, reality, and the simplicity of the literary tale. On the other side of the rift is a world of mystery and ideals where morals and greater meanings are waiting to be discovered. Strung across the rift are a series...
A review of The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
In “The Closing of the American Mind”, Allan Bloom argued about what he believes is the failure of contemporary American universities and colleges. The very first thing he mentioned in his book was that “almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes,...
Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger's importance in the Harry Potter series
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
Many different events and characters contributed to the success which Harry achieved during the entire seven-book series in his goal of defeating Lord Voldemort, and saving the wizarding world from the despair it was experiencing. The one thing which helped him the most throughout the series were...
Saul Williams
Thesis - 4 pages - Literature
Sometimes it is by sheer coincidence that things are discovered. This chance is sometimes called serendipity, fate, luck, providence and many other words. Christopher Columbus was looking for a new way to get to India in 1492, and he accidentally wound up landing in The Americas. It was another...
Francesco Petrarca
Thesis - 4 pages - Literature
Francesco Petrarca, more commonly known as Petrarch, was an Italian man who wrote poetry in the 14th century. He was born in Arezzo, a town in central Italy, but did not spend much time there. During his childhood, his family followed the pope in a literal fashion, moving from Arezzo to Avignon...
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley - The reality of totalitarism
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
This book lets us share the author's view of the future. Aldous Huxley is indeed convinced that this story may be translated into reality very soon, considering that totalitarianism systems already exist in certain countries. In this document, we will analyze the different themes tackled in...
Review of the Rabbits who caused all the trouble by James Thurber in Fables of your times - publié le 19/06/2009
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
The text we are going to study is entitled “The Rabbits who caused all the trouble”. It is an extract from “Fables of your times” written by James Thurber in 1940. The main characters of this text are the rabbits and the wolves. However, there are other animals involved in the...
Book review: 'About a boy' writed by Nick Hornby
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
"About a boy" written by Nick Hornby is a really good and realistic novel. It deals with the problems of families having single parents and loneliness, which are common problems today. The novelist alternates his writing with humor and also touchy parts, which is very pleasant for the reader. The...
Mimetic rivalry in 'Envy' and 'Safe conduct'
Thesis - 8 pages - Literature
Mimetic desire is the desire of an object, not because of a rational choice to fulfill one's own needs, but instead because that object fulfills the needs of a rival subject. It is meta-desire, desire of someone else's desire. Mimetic desire develops out of an attempt to imitate the rival...
J.M.W. Turner: Incendiary change
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
The late eighteenth century through the first half of the nineteenth century witnessed vast transformations in Europe, as the notions of a voice for every citizen and the power of the common people became powerful stimuli for change. Although the move away from unchecked monarchical power was...
Evil: Destroying from within
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
American literature in the nineteenth century was a journey in exploration of previously hidden aspects of the human psyche and this involved surpassing the boundaries of regular fiction to mystery and fantasy. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe were pioneers in the subgenre of dark...
Dialectical inquiry and the divided line
Thesis - 4 pages - Literature
In Republic, Plato (using Socrates as a literary mouthpiece) examines the nature of justice and describes the ideal city as being ruled by philosopher-kings. In Books VI and VII, the philosophers engage in a discussion of the qualities of true philosophers and the process through which these...
Sufficient to have stood: Temptation in Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Perelandra
Thesis - 7 pages - Literature
Original sin has a curious, irresolute connection to human freedom. God?s fundamental gifts to His children?reason, imagination, free will?are the very things that give men the desire to sin as well as the ability to resist. This combination makes the Fall of Man a paradoxical event, one that...
Pay a ticket, value life: Theories of drama in our town
Thesis - 4 pages - Literature
Thorton Wilder's Our Town remains a classic work of existential ideas and American theater because of its universality. While the play does take place specifically in Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, this specific small-town life is a metaphor not even for our own towns; rather, Thorton Wilder's...
A review of Tom Perrotta's The Abstinence Teacher
Book review - 11 pages - Literature
Tom Perrotta, the reigning bard of American suburbia, can inspire compassion for the most unlikely of subjects. In Election, he humanizes heartless, bitchy Tracy; in Little Children, he measures out kindnesses to Larry the violent racist as well as Ronald the convicted sex offender. But in his...
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...
The Garden Party, de Katherine Mansfield
Text commentary - 1 pages - Literature
The Garden Party is considered as Katherine Mansfield's most frequently anthologized short story. In this fiction story which was published in 1922, Mansfield draws the contrasted painting of childhood and adulthood, its innocence and experience, the upper and lower classes which was...
First scene of Doris Lessing's "The Fifth Child"
Text commentary - 3 pages - Literature
This extract is the first scene of Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child, a book published in 1988 which deals with Ben a monster-like child whose birth deeply alters his parent's life. This first scene introduces us to the main characters i.e. David and Harriet and sets the general tone of the...
Fitzgerald and Borges: The desire for the absolute
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
F. Scott Fitzgerald?s The Great Gatsby and Jorge Luis Borges?s ?El Aleph? can be said to share a structural framework or paradigm which takes the form of a paradox. This paradox concerns the fact that desire is at once finite, because it becomes substantialized in an object, and infinite, because...
Phallocracy in Alan Moore's "From Hell"
Book review - 8 pages - Literature
Alan Moore offers a diagnosis of reality that portrays misogyny, homophobia, racism, classism, and governmental tyranny as demonic forces. Moore uses the graphic narrative medium as a means to communicate the demonic nature of these systems of power. In Moore's work on Swamp Thing, he created...
Imagination and Self-Transformation in Puig's El beso del la mujer araña
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
One of the first things to strike a reader of Mañuel Puig's El beso de la mujer araña is its narrative, or rather, textual structure. The novel is composed of numerous different discourses, including film narrations, footnotes, surveillance evidence, dialogue, subjective thoughts, etc. Most of...
Victorian Gothic literature
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
All was dark and silent, the black shadows thrown by the moonlight seeming full of a silent mystery of their own. Not a thing seemed to be stirring, but all to be grim and fixed as death or fate; so that a thin streak of white mist, that crept with almost imperceptible slowness across the grass...
Mary Magdalene in alternative Christian texts
Thesis - 9 pages - Literature
The most common portrayal of Mary Magdalene has been as a prostitute, though even the Roman Catholic Church, which invented that story, has conceded that it is not true. The second most common portrayal of her has been as the woman who was present at the crucifixion and went to the tomb....
The making of a saint: the early life of Mother Teresa
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
Of all the modern people canonized as saints by the Roman Catholic Church, Mother Teresa was the most famous. She was widely admired for her dedication and her charity and almost as widely criticized for her doctrinaire approach to religion. This paper will examine her life before she began...
More than they bargained for
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
The process of maturation from childhood to adulthood, or “coming-of-age,” is a unique experience that often shapes the way that an adult will conduct his or her life in the future. In literature, a Bildungsroman outlines the transformational experiences of a young person as they...
