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...
Creativity and Kant's theory of genius
Essay - 2 pages - Philosophy
This document outlines the essence of the 46th and 47th paragraphs of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment, the philosopher addresses the issue of the ontology of genius. He claims that genius is natural and is the only producer of fine arts. Moreover, since "genius is the talent which gives...
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...
Late modern institutions and collective action
Essay - 8 pages - Philosophy
There is no phenomenon more central or germane to the future of collective action than the conflict ridden process of institutionalization. This leads to an inquiry into a number of approaches in this contribution. Where does the institutionalization process begin, as it weaves itself deeper and...
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 commentary - 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 commentary - 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...
Out of the garden: Examining the true origins of Genesis
Book review - 6 pages - Literature
“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Genesis 2:7 (Holy Bible, King James Version). Ever since that first breathe, man has been questioning the ways of the Lord. Laws, teachings, and...
Racial stereotypes and their role in the concept of Manifest Destiny by Justin Herndon
Book review - 6 pages - Literature
The modern connotations of the concept of “Manifest Destiny” are generally of two diverging camps; One is a romanticized image of devout pilgrims, such as the Mormons, who left the crowded and sinful cities of the East for the freedom of the West, hoping to find a new promised land, or...
Just vengeance or righteous follies; which Hamlet did you see?
Essay - 8 pages - Literature
William Richardson describes Hamlet's character as one “moved by finer principles, by an exquisite sense of virtue, of moral beauty and turpitude.” (Hoy 147) Richardson goes on to say that a man like Hamlet “will find [his sense of moral excellence] a source of pleasure and of pain...
William Blake's "Wall of words" on circular reasoning
Essay - 10 pages - Literature
“And the salt ocean rolled englob'd.” (Blake Pl. 28.23) The previous line comes from one of Blake's prophetic works, “The First Book of Urizen,” and is very typical of a Blake ending. More than a century before Stanley Kunitz was born, Blake had mastered the technique...
Orwell & controversy
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
I am going to talk about one of the best-known authors of the 20th century, George Orwell. '1984' and 'Animal Farm' are considered as major pieces of anti-totalitarianism literacy, and above all as masterpieces in the British literature. It's quite interesting to look into...
How Kate Chopin's 'The Awakening' contributed to the evolution of feminism
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
Kate Chopin was an integral part of the evolution of feminism, providing early 20th century readers with feminist literature that is still highly respected and studied today. Although it is easy to approach her work, and all such work, work with textual evidence supporting a claim of the author's...
Heaven and hell: Aldous Huxley opens the doors of perception
Book review - 9 pages - Literature
Unlike any other mammal on earth, man possesses the unique ability to traverse various levels of the mind in order to alter and create his own perceptions of reality. Unlike any author in modern literature, Aldous Huxley charts man's explorations into the realms of the mind in his books The...
The logic of justifying utilitarianism actions in Koestler's "Darkness at Last"
Book review - 7 pages - Literature
Arthur Koestler in Darkness At Noon, explores the utility of totalitarianism through the fictional life of Nicholas Rubashov, a lifelong, loyal member of The Party who has recently been hauled into jail under dubious charges. Rubashov has spent his entire life promoting the Utilitarian and...
On Grace: A study of Aquinas and Luther's philosophies of grace
Essay - 5 pages - Philosophy
The theology of grace is one of the most widely argued topics in all of Christian doctrine. So heavily debated is it that nearly all of the great theologians and philosophers of Christianity have at some point argued their case regarding grace. Two of the leading thinkers of the Christian Faith,...
The Road by Cormac MacCarthy
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
The novel titled 'The Road' was written by Cormac McCarthy in 2006. Before studying the book, we have to learn more about his author. He was born in 1933 in Rhodes Island and he is now considered as one of the four major American novelists, along with Thomas Pynchon, Philip Roth and Don...
Establish a Chicano identity: Casares' Brownsville Stories
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
Casares's Brownsville Stories is not just a novel. Instead of following one protagonist through a long series of events, the text presents the reader with a series of vignettes about multiple protagonists. Casares situates all of his anecdotes in the small Texas town of Brownsville, yet the...
Class and gender in the context of race in Toomer's Cane and Larsen's Quicksand
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
A poem by Langston Hughes precedes the body of Larsen's text, 'Quicksand', which asks: 'My old man died in a fine big house/ My ma died in a shack/ I wonder where I'm going to die/ Being neither white nor black?'. This poem suggests the reading frame of the rest of the...
Transnationalism in Darkwater : using the global perspective to help redefine issues in the homeland
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Du Bois', 'Darkwater' compiles varied genres of writing, discussing the standing of the African Americans in the early 20th century in the US society. Initially published in 1920, the issues of World War I backdrop a discussion of the American government in relation to the...
American Jews and politics in the selected works of Philip Roth and Joseph Heller
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
The works of Joseph Heller and Philip Roth are frequently inhabited by American-born Jews. In The Counterlife Roth discusses the association between the American born “Diaspora Jew” to the State of Israel. In Plot Against America it is the reaction of a Jewish family to governmental...
