Essays on Literary Genres

2775

Literary Realism: Edith Wharton’s "Roman Fever"

2 pages / 936 words

In the short story, “Roman Fever,” Edith Wharton portrays a daily life situation between two wealthy middle-aged women talking in Rome. The morals and struggle of upper-class women to succeed and stand out at that time period are revealed in the story. This story fits...

Short Story

2776

Narrative Perspective in Emma Donoghue’s ‘room’

2 pages / 1299 words

Telling a story through the eyes of a child is by no means a new literary technique. Fantastical novels such as Rowling’s Harry Potter and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little Cabin in the Big Woods use the younger generation for their central points of view. This...

Emma Novel

2777

An Old Regret: Analyzing "Those Winter Sundays

1 page / 755 words

Robert Hayden described the relationship between his father and younger self in his poem “Those Winter Sundays.” Robert Hayden grew up in a poor neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan. Since his parents left him with family friends, he grew up with that family and didn’t know...

Poetry Those Winter Sundays

2778

A Look at Point-of-view and Reader Placement in "I, Too" and "Douglass"

2 pages / 1231 words

During the Civil Rights Movement, Langston Hughes and Robert Hayden each wrote poems addressing the future of the movement. Two of these poems, which expressed their hope for the future and for the equality of black Americans, were “I, too” by Hughes, and “Douglass” by...

Poetry

2779

Lust and Resignation in Robert Herrick’s "The Vine"

3 pages / 1674 words

Love is one of the most prolific topics in all of literature. From the perverse to the overly romantic, poets and authors from around the world continue to settle on love as a vehicle for relaying their innermost thoughts, feelings, and perspectives. “The Vine,” written...

Poetry

2780

Fallen Nests: an Exploration of Personal and Political Realities in Fall 1961

3 pages / 1423 words

Robert Lowell’s Fall 1961 crystallizes in words the sense of nuclear paranoia that lurked in both private and public spheres of the United States during the Cold War. From a dark, personal perspective the poem takes an unsettling look into the unease of the individual...

Poetry

2781

Discussion of The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church, Soliloquy of The Spanish Cloister and Confessions

1 page / 840 words

Religious Authority and Hypocrisy in Browning’s Works Robert Browning’s ubiquitous examination of religious authority and its shortcomings becomes apparent within the very title of The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church. The religious reference to Saint Praxed carries ironic connotations, as while Saint...

Poetry Robert Browning

2782

Hatred in Robert Browning’s Soliloquy of The Spanish Cloister

3 pages / 1455 words

Poetry can often be described as “painting with words.” It is a poet’s attempt to give linguistic form to thoughts and emotions, to create vivid imagery with only a minimum of language, achieved by any number of creative methods. In the lyric poem “Soliloquy of...

Poetry Robert Browning

2783

Exploring Love and Its Corruption: My Last Duchess, Andrea Del Sarto & Two in The Campagna

2 pages / 1059 words

In both My Last Duchess and Andrea del Sarto, Robert Browning explores the notions of love and its capacity to corrupt an individual’s character and potential through his signature diegetic form; the dramatic monologue. While the form of these two poems is based around an...

My Last Duchess Poetry Robert Browning

2784

An Idea of Life for Love in Browning’s Poetry

2 pages / 1207 words

Robert Browning wrote his poetry during the British Industrial Revolution, a tumultuous time in which society was going through major cultural and lifestyle changes. The modernization of England led to the distribution of newspapers and other literature that thrived on the scandals of others. This...

Poetry Robert Browning

2785

Aberrance in Two Poems by Robert Browning

1 page / 765 words

As scholars often note, the Victorian Period was known for its didacticism, especially the struggle between faith and moral decrepitude. Whereas the Romantics idealized their world, the Victorians questioned their surroundings, choosing to politicize their literature so as to be reactionary against the societal norm....

Poetry Robert Browning

2786

Discovery and Reassessment in The Poetry of Robert Gray

3 pages / 1437 words

Through the discovery of new values and places, individuals may reject socially construed ideas as they come to new perceptions of their broader society. However, some individuals may remain indifferent. It is these individuals that pose the biggest risk to society, as they are unaware...

Poetry

2787

Rovert Gray's Critique of Society in His Poems

1 page / 769 words

Introduction Whilst some discoveries allow an individual to further confirm their views on their world and themselves, others may lead to moral questioning or re-evaluation evoked by their newfound perspective. These discoveries, in particular, gain value through their ability to facilitate change within their societies,...

Morality Poetry

2788

Theme of Discovery in Robert Gray’s and Katherine Mansfield’s Poetry

2 pages / 1110 words

Discoveries that challenge what one does in their everyday lives and what one sees as acceptable allows them to reassess their place in the world and forces greater understanding of it. Through viewing the world through fresh eyes, one offers themselves insight into something that...

Poetry The Garden Party

2789

The Insanity of Blindness: The Narrators in Browning’s "Porphyria’s Lover" and "Soliloquy of The Spanish Cloister"

2 pages / 1055 words

With “Porphyria’s Lover” and “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister,” Browning provides two dramatic monologues of madmen in which the narrator’s sheer ignorance of his own insanity is a basic premise integral to the work. Throughout both these poems, the narrator is consistently unaware of the...

Poetry Robert Browning

2790

An Unreliable Narrator in Porphyria's Lover by Robert Browning

2 pages / 1273 words

In Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue, “Porphyria’s Lover,” the love-stricken frustrations of a nameless speaker end in a passionate, annihilating response to society’s scrutiny towards human sensuality. Cleverly juxtaposing Porphyria’s innocent femininity and her sexual transgression, Browning succeeds in displaying society’s contradictory embrace of morality next...

Poetry Robert Browning

2791

God as The Quiet in "Caliban Upon Setebos"

4 pages / 1958 words

The nature of God has been a controversial subject for writers throughout the centuries. In the poem “Caliban upon Setebos,” Robert Browning explores the relationship between deities and their subjects through the voice of Caliban, a brutish monster-servant adopted from Shakespeare’s Tempest. Though the cruel...

Poetry Robert Browning

2792

Love and Its Corruption: Never The Time and The Place, Porphyria’s Lover and Andrea Del Sarto

2 pages / 1130 words

In both Porphyria’s Lover and Andrea del Sarto, Robert Browning explores the notions of love and its capacity to corrupt an individual’s character and potential through his signature diegetic form; the dramatic monologue. While the form of these two poems is based around an implied...

Poetry Robert Browning

2793

Tortured Knights: Eliot, Byron, and Browning

7 pages / 3541 words

Though they come from the shores of different eras and the minds of different authors, the protagonists of Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” Browning’s “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,” and T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” are all knights in their...

Poetry Robert Browning