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Written during 1861—the first year of what is considered one of her most creative periods—“I felt a Funeral, in my Brain…” is both one of Emily Dickinson’s more well-known poems, and reflective of the themes of death, pain, and psychic...

Beloved is Toni Morrison's fifth novel. Published in 1987 as Morrison was enjoying increasing popularity and success, Beloved became a best seller and received the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Its reception by critics was overwhelming, and the...

The Smell of Apples is a semi-autobiographical novel by Mark Behr set in South Africa in the 1970s. The story is narrated by eleven-year-old Marnus Erasmus. Marnus is the son of a well-respected military hero who is regarded as a future member of...

Saved is a play written by the British playwright Edward Bond, which had its premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, a well-established London theatre, in 1965. Featuring what is still one of the most shocking scenes in the history of British theatre...

Published in 2011 by the American novelist and screenwriter Ernest Cline, Ready Player One is a science fiction and dystopian novel. Drawing heavily from American culture in the 1980s, Ready Player One presents a near-future dystopia where an...

"Zlateh the Goat" is a short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer. The story was included in his collection of short stories, Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories (1966). "Zlateh the Goat," like most of Singer's stories, was written in Yiddish and...

George Herbert, born in 1593, was a busy man: he served two terms as a member of Parliament, held the post of public orator at Trinity College, was ordained as a deacon, and as canon of the Lincoln Cathedral, he worked to become a pious servant of...

Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight was released in 2008 to critical and financial acclaim, grossing over a billion dollars at the box office. Written by Christopher and his brother Jonathan, the film tells the story of the corruption of Gotham...

The Lorax is a 1971 children’s fiction book written by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel). Though it was first published in 1971 by Random House, several newer versions have been edited and re-published, including the most sold 1999 edition. The original...

Bryan Stevenson's memoir Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption covers the author's career as a public interest lawyer in the Deep South, focusing primarily on Walter McMillian's wrongful conviction and sentencing to death row. Though...

William Wordsworth’s “The Thorn” was written in 1789. Wordsworth's inspiration for the setting of the poem, a mountain, came from his own experience of seeing a hawthorn tree on Quantock Hill in Somersetshire. The poem was included in the first...

In 1645 Milton published “L’Allegro” in a collection of poetry alongside another poem entitled “Il Penseroso.” The poems take opposite sides in a debate about whether it is better to live a carefree life or a contemplative life. The speaker in “L’...

Dryden himself acknowledged that his 1667 play All for Love is an imitation of William Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra, which was written in the early 1600s). It is a heroic drama that follows many of the same story beats of Shakespeare's ...

The Three Musketeers was first published in 1844. It was serialized (published in monthly installments) in the newspaper Le Siecle between March and July 1844. Later that same year, the novel was published as a complete eight-volume set. Dumas had...

“The Collar” appears in George Herbert’s collection of poetry The Temple, published in 1633. The poem likely draws on Biblical sources including the parable of the prodigal son (Luke xv 11-32). It is unique among the poems in The Temple for its...

Pan's Labyrinth is a Mexican-Spanish fantasy film from 2006, written and directed by Guillermo del Toro. It stars Sergi Lopez, Maribel Verdu, Ivana Baquero, Doug Jones, and Ariadna Gil. It incorporates animatronics and CGI as a way of building its...

Fiela’s Child is a 1985 novel by the South African writer Dalene Matthee. It tells the story of Fiela Komoetie, a black woman in 19th-century South Africa who finds a white toddler at her doorstep. She takes him in, names him Benjamin, and raises...

In 1645, John Milton published “Il Penseroso” in a collection of poetry alongside another poem entitled “L’Allegro.” The poems take opposite sides in a debate about whether it is better to live a carefree life or a contemplative life. The speaker...

Plautus was a Roman comic playwright, living from approximately 254 BC to 184 BC, and The Brothers Menaechmus is frequently considered to be his greatest work. Plautus’ comedies are the earliest Latin works to have survived in their entirety, and...

“Love (III)” is the final poem in George Herbert’s 1633 volume The Temple, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations. In this volume, "Love (I)" discusses the difference between divine and mortal love, while "Love (II)" prays to God for the speaker to...

"Prayer (I)" is a sonnet from Hebert’s The Temple. “Prayer (I)” is a sonnet that can be viewed as a series of phrases describing and elaborating on the concept of Christian prayer. As a sonnet, it places itself in the tradition of love poetry. The...

Noli Me Tángere, known in English as Touch Me Not (a literal translation of the Latin title) or The Social Cancer, is often considered the greatest novel of the Philippines, along with its sequel, El filibusterismo. It was originally written in...

If I Stay is a young-adult novel narrated from the perspective of Mia, a seventeen-year-old girl whose mother, father and brother die in a car crash that puts Mia's body into a coma and her consciousness into an out-of-body state. Starting just...

Zoot Suit was written by Luis Valdez, a Mexican-American playwright and director who is widely known as the father of Chicano theater. It weaves together the story of the Sleepy Lagoon Murder Trials with the Zoot Suit riots, both of which took...