Newest Literature Essays

The plays Medea and Lysistrata both portray title characters that are women in Ancient Greece. In each of these plays the title characters feel they must confront the patriarchal society in which they live. The men of Ancient Greece see the women...

Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus depicts a clash between the values of the medieval world and the emerging humanism of the Renaissance. During the Middle Ages in Europe, God is the center of intellectual life, and in art and literature, the...

The Inferno by Dante is not only a catalogue of evil, it also serves as Dante’s outlet for his political frustrations. Dante creates a Hell where the punishments fit the nature and level of evil of the sin. In cataloguing the punishments this way,...

William Cuthbert Falkner started his life on September 25, 1897, in Mississippi. He was born into a prominent family, who owned banks and a railroad. Mammy Callie, his childhood nurse, was a major contributor to his works. The stories she would...

In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou uses the settings and people of her childhood to illustrate the development of her moral and social outlook on life. During this time in her life, she is moved from place to place and from family to...

In many respects, T. S. Eliot’s poems “articulated the disillusionment of a younger post-World-War-I generation with the values and conventions—both literary and social—of the Victorian era” (American National). Eliot used The Waste Land and The...

In accordance with the increasing influence of Modernist thought affecting American literature during the twentieth century, William Faulkner was willing to exercise more experimental narrative techniques and styles. His novel that came from this...

Anyone who fails to enjoy the 1942 Warners Brothers classic Casablanca on the level of a love story may likely also fail to apprehend why the movie consistently ranks at or near the top of critical assessments of the best Hollywood movies of all...

The desires of discovering the secrets of the universe and becoming famous have always been human vices, but these quests mainly lead to ruin. In some people, these basic human drives escalate to dangerous proportions. Mary Shelly uses...

During the time Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales, men viewed women as the lesser of the two sexes. In writing about the wife of Bath, Chaucer draws upon much of the antifeminist sentiment of the time to satirize the idea that women are less than...

Beowulf: Written Oral Literature

Beowulf, transcribed by Christian monks around the eighth century, is originally an oral piece of literature meant to be performed. To keep the listener interested in the piece and to make it easier to remember and...

Following the tumult and terror brought upon by the First World War, the so-called “Lost Generation” was hopelessly scattered across Europe and often characterized by lost, aimless souls who were dissatisfied with hedonistic lives lacking in...

“A picture is worth a thousand words.” This timeless saying embodies the ability of imagery to convey multiple messages and themes in an overarching structure. Through detailed nuance, the playwright Tennessee Williams utilizes the imagery found...

Although written in the late nineteen century, “The Diamond Necklace” translates effortlessly to modern day with relatable life lessons supporting the deceptiveness of appearance. Through irony and symbolism, Guy de Maupassant’s story shows how...

Both Briony Tallis, of Atonement, and Leo Colston, of The Go-Between, spend significant periods of their adolescence in large country homes, both of which are surrounded by large estates. Hartley and McEwan use the landscapes which are present...

The new sensibility that characterizes Romantic literature often leads to the recurrence of melancholy as a powerful and recurrent motif, especially in poetry. Romantic poets recur to their poems to express personal feelings and anxieties and in...

The protagonist of A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche Dubois, is a fallen southern Belle whose troubled life results in the deterioration of her mental health. She has just returned from a date with Mitch and their conversation turns to her past....

Throughout ‘The Wife of Bath’s Prologue’, Chaucer uses imagery to enhance our understanding of the Wife’s character and principles. Chaucer makes use of simple yet powerful metaphors such as fire and nature to augment our understanding of the Wife...

F. Scott Fitzgerald uses a range of techniques in The Great Gatsby to explore the idea that it is often the most unlikely people who display acts of heroism. Many of the characters in the novel show stereotypical characteristics, but act contrary...

Prejudice is a pre-judgement formed about something or someone - but it is more than this as well? This complex idea is highlighted in the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee and the picture book Goin’ Someplace Special by Patricia...

Following the near apocalyptic end of the Second World War, an overwhelming state of fear and confusion would go on to cause a major shift in the artistic expression of the day. Nothing remained sacred as doubt replaced any virtue of knowledge,...

The Gilded Age of the late 19th century saw the rise of extravagant hats, hairstyles, and high society. Subsequently, the Gilded Age was also host to an increasingly treacherous gap between the rich and the poor and stifling social restrictions...

Of John Keats’ “Great Odes,” “To Autumn” is a poem which rests on a precipice. In other words, autumn lies directly between the life breath of spring and summer and the impending death of winter. Much to his advantage, Keats knowingly embraces...