Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot': Between Modernism and Postmodernism
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Samuel Beckett's most famous play Waiting for Godot was first written in French in 1948 and translated in English in 1952, that is to say shortly after the end of World War II. At that time, the threat of the Cold War, the recent horror of the concentration camps and the invention of the...
Literature review and qualitative analysis - publié le 13/01/2009
Dissertation - 6 pages - Literature
When doing my project, I will first have to gather information about the chosen topic from different resources. Books, articles, periodic literature, Internet, university publications will all together define my knowledge about the topic and give an idea of the previous research that has been...
Works of literature often contain a secret which is eventually revealed with great dramatic effect - publié le 13/01/2009
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Henrik Ibsen in his drama A Doll's House vividly shocked his contemporary audiences of 1879, unaccustomed to the radical and novel insights on the relationship between husband and wife he displayed through his heroines' emancipation, from her role of a self content wife in a superficial marriage...
Black and white imagery in Blood Wedding by Federico Garcia Lorca - publié le 13/01/2009
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
When analysing Lorca's use of black and white imagery in Blood Wedding, a first observation would tend to show that the colour white is much more present throughout the play than black, the white being used, not essentially in the characters' clothing as black is used, but also in totally...
"The Tempest", William Shakespearean - Prospero's relationship with the natives - publié le 13/01/2009
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
In Shakespeare's play The Tempest, Prospero is presented as the colonizer, and Ariel and Caliban are seen as his «colonized subjects ». These two Natives had to accept this newcomer twelve years ago, and we rapidly learn that both didn't react the same way. Ariel feels grateful towards Prospero...
Function of the Requiem in "Death of a Salesman" - publié le 12/01/2009
Dissertation - 9 pages - Literature
Arthur Miller (1915 - 2005) once revealed as regards his writing of Death of a Salesman that he “wished to create a form which, in itself as a form, would literally be the process of Willy Loman's way of mind”, and in this respect, the setting of the whole play actually stands for a...
The Wood-Pile - publié le 12/01/2009
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
Frost presents to us here a rather enigmatic poem. Upon a first contemplation the reader may experience the feeling that he has read a poem about nothing, and may read and re-read it, endeavoring to discover some hidden meaning. And indeed “The Wood-Pile” is virtually about nothing, a...
Terror and Horror in the Fantastic Novels: Walpole's The Castle Of Otranto, Shelley's Frankenstein and Stoker's Dracula - publié le 12/01/2009
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
The concepts of terror and horror are key factors in the Fantastic and Gothic novel. This literary genre appeared with Walpole's The Castle of Otranto in 1765 and then flourished until 1830; it mainly developed during the historical period of the Enlightenment and can be seen as an alternative to...
Cleopatra: Shakespeare's analysis of women's alienation - publié le 12/01/2009
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
According to Yves Bonnefoy Shakespeare wanted to do with Antony and Cleopatra more than a political analysis of Rome. Indeed, Shakespeare analysed in this play the place of women in the Roman society, in order to make a comparison with their role in his own society. At the beginning of the XVIIth...
Excess in Blake's poetry
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
The usage of excess is a seducing and appealing concept, and therefore has to be studied cautiously. Essentially, the term ?excess' is used to describe amounts that are greater than needed, allowed or usual. It can also be associated with a behavior that is unacceptable because it is...
Blanche as the centre of A Streetcar Named Desire (Tennessee Williams)
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
The works of Tennessee Williams is very complex because it aims at reaching the inmost depths of humanity. To that end, Williams usually works on topics like evolution or maybe degeneration of a character in a specific atmosphere and environment, among people and institutions that is hostile most...
Wilfred Owen: Anthem for Doomed Youth, 1917 - publié le 09/01/2009
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
The text to be commented upon is a poem written by Wilfred Owen in 1917 entitled Anthem for doomed youth. It is a petrarchan sonnet, a sort of diptych with two different parts which hinges upon lines 9 and 10. The title is a key for the interpretation of the sonnet which is an ideological poem, a...
Artaud's theatrical principles - publié le 09/01/2009
Dissertation - 4 pages - Literature
Artaud stated that ‘theatre is first ritualistic and magical, in other words bound to powers, […] and whose effectiveness is conveyed through gesture, directly linked to the rites of theatre which is the very practice and the expression of a hunger for magical and spiritual...
Structure and texture in the "Good Soldier" by Ford Madox Ford - published: 09/01/2009
Essay - 10 pages - Literature
The Good Soldier is a novel written in 1914 by Ford Madox Ford and published in March 1915. This novel is considered as the best book of pre-war period. It is also considered as a modernist work, and in fact, many modernist innovations, as well as impressionist ones, are present throughout the...
Analysis of Samson Occom through 'A Grammar of the Hebrew Tongue'
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
The book A Grammar of the Hebrew Tongue is an aid to learning the Hebrew language, bettering one's ability to speak, read, and write. As the first book he owned, A Grammar of the Hebrew Tongue was especially significant to the Mohegan Samson Occom. Occom purchased the book on a trip to Boston in...
Vision in the prologue and battle royal scene of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
Book review - 8 pages - Literature
The most predominant theme in a noel full of them—Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man—is that of vision. More specifically, in Ellison's novel, how characters in the novel see the world reflect the prejudices and inaccurate perceptions of the society in which the protagonist lives. The...
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Book review - 6 pages - Literature
After reading disappointing reviews on The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, nobody would be tempted to read it. On the contrary, it would be a missed chance to learn more about life and its superficiality and about the power of manipulation and its negative influences. It may be possible...
Transformations of literature: Augustine's 'Confessions' and Virgil's 'Aeneid'
Essay - 4 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...
The theme of isolation in Kafka's 'The Metamorphosis'
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
Franz Kafka's novella The Metamorphosis concerns a traveling salesmen named Gregor Samsa who “[awakens] from unsettling dreams one morning” and “[finds] himself transformed into a monstrous vermin” (Kafka 7). Gregor is late for work, and he gripes about his joyless job; he...
Unity and divergence: The literary philosophy of Samuel Taylor Coleridge in opposition to the English romantics
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
Many of the words used by S.T. Coleridge to express his critical philosophy of literature are familiar. He writes of metaphysics as well as aesthetics, beauty and pleasure, and above all, unity. His definitions of these terms, however popular the terms were, are in many ways remarkably different...
Reasonably wrong: The underground man's inferiority complex
Book review - 7 pages - Literature
In Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground, desire is shown to be a more important force of human nature than reason by observing how the Underground Man makes decisions. Understanding that he suffers from an extreme case of inferiority complex is instrumental in being able to decipher the...
The effects of knowledge on happiness and freedom
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
Upon reading The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Oedipus the King, The Crying of Lot 49, and Dostoevski's “The Grand Inquisitor on the Nature of Man”, I find that a common theme links their ideas together. As the four stories progress, the main characters all receive...
Frankenstein and King Lear: A look into religion, politics and literature
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
Religion has foundation in our lives whether we choose to identify it or not. By recognizing the literary works of Mary Shelley and Shakespeare, we can intellectually inherit the limitations of our power as human beings and the important role the Judeo-Christian God plays in our political, social...
Common reading proposal 'Tell them who I am: The lives of homeless women' by Elliot Liebow
Book review - 8 pages - Literature
Many colleges and universities have implemented common reading programs for college freshmen. Many times, it is up to the libraries discretion as to what book is chosen for this program. Sometimes libraries themselves initiated the common reading program, other times it was a joint effort to...
The Last Leaf
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
Henry O is the pseudonym of William Sydney Porter. He was born in 1862 in North Carolina and died in 1910 of cirrhosis because he was an alcoholic. In his youth, W. S. Porter exercised a lot of jobs and in 1898, he went to jail because a few years before, when he had worked as a bank clerk in...
In Affection and Esteem
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
Mary Webb was born in 1881 at Leighton. She grew up in a large house in Much Wenlock. Mary Webb was the eldest of six children and began writing stories and plays for her brothers and sisters. At the age of twenty, she fell ill because she had thyroid disorder. During her convalescence, she...
Comment by the end of Chapter 12 of "Jacob's Room" by Virginia Woolf ("The Clock Struck The Quarter" to "The church clock, however, strikes twelve.")
Text analysis - 2 pages - Literature
Time has always been an irresistible fascination in literature. The great authors who wrote about time, such as Yourcenar, Proust, Joyce or Woolf have all offered their unique perception of time. For some, it was a way to self-introspect, for others, a tool to describe the world in which they...
"Answers to a questionnaire" by James Graham Ballard - publié le 02/12/2008
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
Answers to a Questionnaire' is a short story which was written by James Graham Ballard, and published for the first time in the English literary magazine 'Ambit', in 1985. Ballard's style of writing is highly important to understand his works, he is a member of the 'New...
Poem "The Wanderer" by W. H. Auden
Text analysis - 3 pages - Literature
What could a layman think about such a poem? When one tries to understand a poem, it is in fact a whole work that must be understood; a whole thought that has to be reached. Whether we are studying a poem by W. H. Auden, E. Bishop, W. B. Yeats, or A. Sexton, it is impossible to understand it...
Jihad vs. McWorld: The new world disorder
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
Jihad vs. McWorld was written by Rutgers University Political Science professor Benjamin R. Barber. The author is widely regarded one of the nation's foremost scholars on democracy. He has written Strong Democracy, in which he explains that economic liberalism is the basis for and cause of...
