Newest Literature Essays

In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the author presents the main character of Hamlet as a man who is obsessed with death. Shakespeare uses this obsession to explore both Hamlet's desire for revenge and his need for certainty. In the...

Central to the plot and the themes developed in Shakespeare's Hamlet, are the varying elements of corruption which occur during the play. This is echoed in Marcellus' famous comment of 'Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,' when Hamlet is...

Hamlet begins at the open mouth of the Void. Barnardo and Francisco call out to each other and into darkness; they stand atop a guard platform that is naked to the open air and to the night. Every character's entrance is marked by a series of...

"If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,

And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,

Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.

Who does it then? His madness. If't be so,

Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd;

His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy."

...

If imagination is the lifeblood of literature, then each new scientific advance which extends our scope of the universe is as fruitful to the poet as to the astronomer. External and environmental change stimulates internal and personal tropes for...

When Hamlet sees Fortinbras' army headed for combat in Poland he is moved to deliver a striking monologue about the battle raging in his soul. Passion and anger drive Hamlet to avenge his father's murder at any cost, while logic and reason turn...

19th century critic William Hazlitt praised Hamlet by saying that, "The whole play is an exact transcript of what might be supposed to have taken pace at the court of Denmark, at the remote period of the time fixed upon." (Hazlitt 164-169) Though...

J.R.R. Tolkein once said "not all who wander are lost." It is to be assumed, then, he was not talking about Capt. Lemuel Gulliver. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift is a narrative of the identity crisis. Capt. Gulliver is indeed lost, both...

In Book IV of Gulliver's Travels, Swift presents a narrative that aims to continually change his audience's opinion by offering an array of perpetually shifting standpoints. From the start of the journey we see the tale unfold in the same manner...

Jonathan Swift, an author whose life straddled the turn of the 17th century, is widely considered to be the greatest satirist in British literary history. Although he is well-versed in poetry and has written a prolific amount of private...

It is human nature to strive for paradise, but is it actually attainable? There have been countless attempts to establish utopian societies, yet ultimately, all have failed. In his work, Gulliver's Travels, Swift recounts the journeys of Gulliver...

Throughout the four parts of Gulliver's Travels, Swift employs the eight types of satire - parody, understatement, invective, irony, hyperbole, sarcasm, inversion/reversal, and wit - to add historical and thematic depth to Lemuel Gulliver's...

"But the chief end I propose to my self in all my labors is to vex the world"

Jonathan Swift

In most ironic works there are two voices. Ellen Winner and Howard Gardner explain that in irony, "what the speaker says is intentionally at odds with the...

During the early 18th century, an explosion of satire swept through British literature. This period, often called the "Age of Reason," was highly influenced by a group of the elite of society, who called themselves the Augustans and were...

Of all the institutions satirized in Jonathon Swift's "Gulliver's Travels," one that has perhaps been less scrutinized is the destruction of the English language. Throughout the travels, language is the key obstacle in Gulliver's "understanding"...

Once kick the world, and the world and you will live together at a reasonably good understanding.

Jonathan Swift

When Gulliver's Travels was first published in 1726, Swift instantly became history's most famous misanthrope. Thackeray was not alone...

Andromache, one of the few female characters in the Iliad, is part of perhaps one of the tenderest sections of Iliad. Along with Helen, she is the only other mortal woman to have any substantial speaking lines in the entire epic. Unlike women in...

Social class plays a dominant role in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. In fact the title character is living proof that the American dream really exists. Readers recognize the importance Fitzgerald places on social class throughout the...

Throughout literature, there are countless characters whose only positive attributes seem to be the fact that they are utterly detestable - the reader loves to hate them. From Shakespeare's conniving Iago to Dickens' endlessly cruel Estella, these...

In his book The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald explores the psychology of love's fantasies and realities through the character of Jay Gatsby. During their five-year separation, Gatsby pines for his love, Daisy Buchanan, rearranging his entire...

Throughout history, the eye has always been an emblem of the deities. In the Egyptian pantheon, there is Horus, god of light, who is signified by his famous Eye; in the Roman pantheon, there is Juno, associated with the many-eyed peacock; and in...

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a shining example of the principle that the most powerful messages are not told but rather shown. Although the novel is written in the form of largely impartial narration by Nick Carraway, Fitzgerald's...

The figurative as well as literal death of Jay Gatsby in the novel The Great Gatsby symbolizes a conclusion to the principal theme of the novel. With the end of the life of Jay Gatsby comes the end of what Fitzgerald views as the ultimate American...

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is regarded as a brilliant piece of literature that offers a vivid peek into American life in the 1920's. The central characteristics of the "Lost Generation" of the 1920's society are shown through the decay...