12th Grade

Metropolis

Dystopian speculations of the future reveal the ill-kept promises of capitalism, and apprise the responders of repercussions of social manipulation that jeopardize human welfare. This notion is evinced within Fritz Lang’s German expressionist film...

College

Sappho: Poems and Fragments

Sappho’s poetry in ‘If Not, Winter,’ is autobiographical firstly in the sense that anything anyone writes is autobiographical, as one’s narrative inclinations are very telling of that person’s focus and preoccupations; secondly in the sense that...

College

Sir Orfeo

In Sir Orfeo, ‘a once-achieved but subsequently lost partner is rescued from a dominant and possessive rival by an act of supreme generosity’ (Shippey, 83). Dominant and possessive are words one might associate with an overbearing, abusive lover,...

College

Stardust

“A hero. You want to be one of those rare human beings who make history, rather than merely watch it flow around them like water around a rock.” - Dan Simmons

Both the novel Stardust by Neil Gaiman and the film adaption Stardust (Dir. Matthew...

College

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona is, if not a love story, then a story about love as represented through various characters, primarily Proteus, Valentine, and Julia. The reader sees their attitudes towards love change throughout the plot,...

College

The Two Noble Kinsmen

Shakespeare’s The Two Noble Kinsmen is a play, primarily, about reversal: reversal of circumstances, reversal of relationships, overwhelming emotion juxtaposed against a complete dearth of emotion. The plot is an interplay of these reversals from...

College

Measure for Measure

The language of the body in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure furthers one of the main tensions of the plot, namely, the manifold nature of having a body. First, that one’s state as a person is determined by one’s physicality, and vice versa. One’...

College

Pearl (Middle English)

A central focus of Pearl is perfection; ‘my precious pearl without a spot’ (1.4.48), ‘that gem so clean’ (1.4.47) – the titular pearl is rarely mentioned without some corresponding description of its flawlessness. The language describing the...

11th Grade

Chimerica

Lucy Kirkwood’s Chimerica is an emphatic piece of literature that explores the differences in the systems of government in China and America. The way in which images are presented are crucial to the development of the story, which begins and ends...