Newest Literature Essays

The year 1924 marked the beginning of the surrealist movement. Aimed at tapping into the subconscious, surrealism became a growing art form that still influences artists and writers to this day. According to Andr Breton, author of "The Surrealist...

Roy Disney explains that "It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are." This is an important theme for the characters of Stephen Dedalus from James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and of Frank McCourt from...

As a time that marked radical changes in the way that poetry was written, the Romantic period of English Literature produced many works still celebrated and studied today. It was during this period that Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote one of the...

In Kate Chopin's controversial novel "The Awakening", the protagonist, Mrs. Edna Pontellier, experiences a personal rebirth, becoming an independent, sexual, and feeling woman, shunning the restraints of the oppressive society in which she lives....

Ireland: for centuries, dreamers and tourists have associated it with rolling green hills, misty, cool fog, smiling, barefoot peasants, moss-covered castles built of stone, and haunting Celtic songs. This romantic picture may suit the foreigner,...

The characters of many poems, stories, and other works of art act as critics or representations of the author's society. American writers Benjamin Franklin and Herman Melville both commented on their respective eras using this method. Franklin...

In John Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale," a despairing speaker overhears a nightingale in the depths of a far away forest. The speaker yearns to leave behind his physical world and join the bird in its metaphysical world. The nightingale sings of a...

Appropriation, Politics and Theology in the Gospel of Mark

You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life;

and it is they who testify on my behalf

John 5.39

While it is impossible to ignore the theological weight of the...

Milton dedicated his life to the war of good and evil; this is apparent in his epic poem "Paradise Lost," but also in his political battles against the Royalists who abused the power of the monarchy and the Presbyterians who wanted to mandate...

"Paradise has been lost." Frank Henenlotter's 1990 film, a campy retooling of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein by the name of Frankenhooker (Wolf 344), tells the tale of a mad scientist who, in order to bring his wife back to life, decapitates,...

Euripides portrays his character, Medea, through a combination of sometimes contrasting traits. She is female in gender yet is largely responsible for the glory achieved by her husband and has achieved Kleos, an honor usually reserved for men. She...

Writing in Italy during the 14th century, Boccaccio is caught in the historical dichotomy between the blind adherence to the Church that permeated the Middle Ages and the emerging Humanism that characterized the Renaissance. It is clear that...

During the modernist era, artists gradually moved away from realism towards themes of illusion, consciousness, and imagination. In the visual arts, realism evolved into cubism and expressionism. This movement is paralleled in literature, as...

Allegorical literature is employed by many great philosophers to explain the basic tenets of their philosophies. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato used the famous cave allegory to explain how the human mind interprets the ideal material world....

The character of Sebastian in "Twelfth Night" represents the dynamic factor in an otherwise static equation. Illyria is an immutable place, and the people who live and visit the land become ensnared in a stasis. Shakespeare uses the device of...

Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Demons" (Besy, in Russian, variously translated as "The Possessed" and "Devils") is a fundamentally political and social novel. It draws directly on the true story of a murder committed in 1869 by Russian anarchist and...

While World War II rages in Europe, a different type of struggle affects the young students at an all-boys private boarding school. "A Separate Peace", by John Knowles, outlines the emotional struggle at Devon during the 1942 summer and winter...

In Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice", one of the main characters, Elizabeth boasts, of her ability and skill at discerning character. However, after only her first conversation with Wickham, Elizabeth has already misread Wickham's personality....

In Tennessee Williams' play The Glass Menagerie, the narrator conceives of art as a reprieve from the grim monotony of reality. Art, in this conception, is a medium that enables one to interpret reality. Tom, the narrator of the play, consciously...

"They are not fit to associate with me," says young Jane Eyre of her rude, spoiled cousins who consider themselves above her.(29) In this simple quote lies all the facets of the young Jane: she is angry, passionate, and subtly - but positively -...

Although Joseph is known for his coat of many colors, the true plurality of Joseph arises not from the appearance of his clothing, but from the multiplicity of roles that he assumes over the course of the biblical narrative. Joseph is both favored...

The world that we live in is governed by a certain reality: when events take place, the fact that they happened becomes an absolute truth. Human beings, however, have the freedom to skew that truth by lying. Why, and under what conditions, would...

"There is, at this time, no general woman, no one typical woman . . ." Helen Cixous (876)

Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles is, in its way, revolutionarily feminist. Unusual for its time in its address of premarital sexuality and unwed...

Niko's Kazantzaki's "Zorba the Greek" is a bittersweet portrayal of a romantic idealist that delves into the complex and oftentimes mysterious nature of the human psyche. The novel examines the interpersonal relationships between the two principal...