Essays on Literary Genres

2642

Imagery in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

4 pages / 2064 words

Introduction When it came to modernist poetry, imagery was important to flesh out the lavish artistic style said poets loved to express, which in turn allowed them to declare themes and concepts clearer. T.S. Eliot, consider among the great poetic modernists, masterfully utilizes imagery through...

Poetry The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

2643

A Refreshing Analysis of T.s. Eliot’s "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

2 pages / 1082 words

To say that “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is a typical romantic ode to the wonders of love, as the title may suggest, is quite far from the truth. To the contrary, this poem enters the straggling mind of J. Alfred Prufrock, a...

Poetry T.S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

2644

Analyzing The Character of The White Witch in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

5 pages / 2184 words

When it comes to works of fiction, it is always most interesting to see where the author draws inspiration for the major characters from and what the underlying message of the story at hand. Disillusioned from faith as a child, C. S. Lewis would find...

Character Fantasy

2645

Fear and Insanity Gothic Literature: Why ‘the Haunting of Hill House’ and ‘the Little Stranger Are not Your Typical Scary Stories

7 pages / 997 words

Over the last thirty years, horror and suspense films have consistently ranked among the highest-grossing movies, both in ticket sales and production volume. Dr. Glenn Walters, in a 2004 article published in the Journal of Media Psychology, identifies three key factors that contribute to the...

Gothic Literature The Haunting of Hill House

2646

The Paradox of Consciousness in The Late Mattia Pascal

6 pages / 2635 words

Near the conclusion of The Late Mattia Pascal, after Mattia has returned from his two-year absence and reclaimed his name, he wonders what the point of his extraordinary life was. Mattia’s fellow librarian, Don Eligo, contends, “it proves that outside of the law, and without...

Novel

2647

Gotcha Last: Context and Analysis of "The Little School" by Alicia Partnoy

4 pages / 1699 words

A literary tour de force, Alicia Partnoy’s memoir The Little School is more than a memoir. It is an act of public and permanent revenge against not just the individuals who imprisoned, tortured, and humiliated her but against all the perpetrators of the Dirty War...

Novel

2648

The Intricacies of The Court and Lanval’s Desire to Escape

4 pages / 1618 words

In the Anglo- Norman lay Lanval, an eloquent and intricate account of the Arthurian courts, Marie de France develops an array of issues that include the hypocrisies and virtues of the court, the desire for escape, as well sex and gender. In this essay, I...

Poetry Renaissance

2649

The Use of Allegory in D.h. Lawrence’s ‘the Man Who Loved Islands’

3 pages / 1140 words

In D.H. Lawrence’s ‘The Man who Loved Islands’, the plot is used as a vehicle for an allegory about different ideals in life – ‘community, marriage and independence’ (Franks 121), as represented by the three islands. Through the use of an allegory, Lawrence delivers a...

Short Story

2650

Before It All Goes Wrong: Thematic Analysis of "Shooter"

2 pages / 905 words

One boy. One gun. That was all it took for the tragic events of April twenty- second. Author Walter Dean Myers explains all of the details leading up to the shooting incident in the novel Shooter. The story is made from mostly interviews with teenagers...

Novel

2651

Oppression and Isolation in Land of Green Plums

2 pages / 1020 words

The Land of Green Plums, by Herta Müller, is a novel arguably as defined by its language as its content. There are many interpretations of Müller’s literary style, and one of the most cogent is that it serves to show the reader how indirect, and...

Novel Totalitarianism

2652

Fathers and Father Figures in Women’s Confessional Poetry

5 pages / 2412 words

In his preface to Lyrical Ballads,William Wordsworth describes good poetry as being “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (6). The style of confessional poetry seems especially fitting to this description; to think that confessional poets merely transcribe powerful emotions onto paper is, however, a misconception....

Poetry

2653

The Portrait of a Lady and The Author of Beltraffio: an Exploration of The Aesthetic in Literature

5 pages / 2208 words

Book analysis Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady presents the reader with a novel that uses literary form in an attempt to frame the life of its female protagonist; the very title – ‘Portrait’ – expresses a double meaning, referring both to the representation...

Fiction

2654

Similarities and Differences of Jonson’s "To Penshurst" and Marvell’s "Upon Appleton House"

9 pages / 4068 words

Andrew Marvell’s “Upon Appleton House” and Ben Jonson’s “To Penshurst” share similarities characteristic of the English “Country House” poem, but they also contain notable differences from each other. Both “To Penshurst” and “Upon Appleton House” describe the respective estates and family life of the poets’...

Poetry

2655

The Artist’s Quest: Real Truth Beyond Real Life

2 pages / 1095 words

The Real Thing was written by Henry James in 1891. According to his notebook entry on February 22, 1891, the idea for the story came in the form of an actual incident divulged by his friend George du Maurier. James juxtaposes an upper-class couple, who...

Fiction

2656

Preserving The Vitality of Love: Analyzing "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart"

2 pages / 899 words

Almost everyone, at some point in their life, deals with heartbreak and loneliness from a broken relationship. In “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,” Kevin Young utilizes literary devices to depict the cruelty of a past relationship. The poem successfully demonstrates the speaker’s story...

Poetry

2657

Narration and Perspective in The Secret Sharer

2 pages / 788 words

Joseph Conrad’s story The Secret Sharer is a first-person account written in two parts from the perspective of an untried sea captain. The separation of the two segments almost perfectly coincides with a distinction in the narrative voice. In the first part of The Secret...

Short Story

2658

An Examination of "Intimate Revenge" in Seamus Heaney’s "Punishment"

3 pages / 1365 words

The poem “Punishment” by Seamus Heaney was written in 1975 as a part of the anthology North. It is a part of Heaney’s bog series, in which he describes the Irish bogland, and the different artifacts and remains that have been found within the Northern...

Poetry Revenge Seamus Heaney

2659

Admiration in Duffy’s "Before You Were Mine" and Heaney’s "Follower"

3 pages / 1330 words

Introduction Both ‘Before you were mine’ by Carol Anne Duffy and ‘Follower’ by Seamus Heaney present the theme of admiration through their poems. As they both capture the parent-child relationship through the child’s perspective showcasing how they each viewed their parent as a role model...

Carol Ann Duffy Poetry Seamus Heaney

2660

The Harmony of Realism and Idealism in Heaney’s Poetry

3 pages / 1216 words

The universal image of childhood that is ‘rang[ing]’ frogspawn on ‘window-sills’, ‘wait[ing] and watch[ing]’, with a fervent curiosity and admiration, until the ‘fattening dots’ dynamically metamorphose into ‘nimble swimming tadpoles’ is one, very relatable and nostalgic aspect of Heaney’s poetry that extols the carefree innocence...

Harmony Poetry Seamus Heaney