Essays on Literary Genres

3763

From Objectified to Deified: an Exploration of Self in "Goblin Market"

3 pages / 1437 words

A torrid lesbian love affair. An acerbic commentary on the commercialization of sex. A dire struggle between physical temptation and spiritual good. A child's nursery rhyme. "Goblin Market" encompasses a wealth of interpretations, some of which smoothly blending together, others remaining diametrically opposed. It symbolizes...

Christina Rossetti Poetry

3764

Christina Rossetti's Attitudes Towards Death in "Song" and "Remember"

3 pages / 1318 words

In both ‘Song’ and ‘Remember’, Rossetti articulates several different attitudes towards death, avoiding any one set approach. In ‘Song’, she uses techniques involving the structure and tone of the poem to communicate that she is in fact happy to be out of the relationship. However,...

Christina Rossetti Literature Review Poetry

3765

Body as Commodity: Gendered Markets in Rossetti’s "Goblin Market"

7 pages / 2958 words

Thomas Richards, in his 1990 critical exposition, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England: Advertising and Spectacle, 1851-1914, states: “In the mid-nineteenth century the commodity became the living letter of the law of supply and demand. It literally came alive.”(Richards, 2) The “commodity” adopts a corporeal...

Christina Rossetti Poetry

3766

Discussion of Rossetti’s Poetry: ‘remember’, ‘a Birthday’, and ‘amor Mundi’

2 pages / 878 words

Christina Rossetti’s poetry is a profound exploration of human emotions, particularly through the themes of loss, joy, and the complexities of temptation. This essay delves into three of her notable works: “Remember,” “A Birthday,” and “Amor Mundi.” Each poem presents a unique perspective on the...

Birthday Christina Rossetti Poetry

3767

Explicating Longfellow’s "Christmas Bells"

2 pages / 1051 words

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a committed abolitionist who viewed slavery as an abomination and the Civil War as a just cause for the Union, as long as it resulted in an end to slavery and subsequent reconciliation between the North and South. “Christmas Bells” references...

Christmas Poetry

3768

The Poet and The Narrator in Christopher Marlowe’s Hero and Leander

4 pages / 1811 words

In Christopher Marlowe’s narrative poem Hero and Leander, a major obstacle confronts the reader in the form of attempting to separate the narrative voice of the poet Marlowe from that which W.L. Godshalk calls “the sensibility of a dramatized narrator. . . who stands between...

Poetry

3769

The ‘ideal’ in Campion and Marlowe

2 pages / 777 words

Thomas Campion and Christopher Marlowe have explored the concept of ‘the ideal’ in ‘A Man of Life Upright’ and ‘Come Live with me, and be my Love,’ respectively. Campion delves into the idea that a man may be more content in life by upholding strong...

Poetry

3770

Central Themes of The Passionate Shepherd to His Love and The Nymph’s Reply

2 pages / 952 words

‘The Passionate Shepherd to His Love’ is a kind of peaceful lyric created by Christopher Marlowe in the late sixteenth century. This sonnet involves shepherds and country life. This ballad was written in a shepherd’s field or settings. The data given is about the speaker...

Poetry

3771

Erotic Undertones in "Goblin Market"

4 pages / 1676 words

Christina Rossetti grew up among a family of skilled writers and artists whose muses had to do with contemporary life and past scholarship, yet they were strictly evangelical Christians. Christina Rossetti strictly followed the expectations of this ideal (Everett). There has been much conjecture that...

Christina Rossetti Poetry

3772

Sexuality and Mortality in "The Round Tower at Jhansi," "A Birthday," and Other Poems

4 pages / 1663 words

Most of Rossetti’s poetry has links to the concerns of love and passion, with some displaying it as enjoyable if not exciting. However, on the other hand much of her writing condemns passion, making links to religious texts such as in “Soeur Louise de la...

Birthday Christina Rossetti Poetry

3773

Subverting Romance and Sexuality in "Goblin Market" and "No, Thank You, John"

4 pages / 1719 words

In Literary Theory: The Basics, H. Bertens asserts that even in the works of culturally and sexually liberal male writers such as D.H Lawrence and Henry Miller, male characters are “denigrating, exploitative, and repressive in their relations with women.” In the poems Goblin Market and...

Christina Rossetti Poetry

3774

An Understanding of Rossetti’s Methods and Concerns in "Promises Like Piecrust"

3 pages / 1587 words

First Impressions When I first read Christina Rossetti’s “Promises Like Piecrust,” I was struck by how she uses such a simple metaphor – comparing promises to pie crust – to talk about something way deeper. Like, we all know pie crust breaks easily, right? That’s...

Christina Rossetti Poetry

3775

The Humbling of Humanity Through Extraterrestrial Intervention: an Unlikely Utopia in "Childhood’s End"

2 pages / 958 words

When the Overlords in Arthur C. Clarke’s novel Childhood’s End descend over mankind, humanity is immediately awestruck and completely humbled by their scientific and technological prowess. As the Overlords become more active in human society and affairs, their intelligence and pure ability to easily accomplish...

Science Fiction Utopia

3776

The Human Body as a Site of Traumatic Narrative in Ambrose Bierce and Stephen Crane’s Civil War Stories

6 pages / 2546 words

One of the more impactful means by which the experience of war is recreated for a civilian audience is through the illustration of the human body, with lived experience and relevant literature illustrating war as an entity so powerful that it physically brands trauma onto...

Civil War Short Story The Red Badge of Courage

3777

Freud in The Goblin’s Glen

5 pages / 2151 words

Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market beautifully illustrates sin and sacrifice in the lives of twin sisters Lizzie and Laura. These sisters are so alike and separate they can be likened to the ying and yang. It has been argued that they are one person split in...

Christina Rossetti Poetry

3778

Shifting The Binaries in "A Joke" by Anton Chekhov

3 pages / 1577 words

The Anton Chekhov short story titled “A Joke” is an interesting read for the inquisitive readers. Very carefully written, the story allows the readers a chance to dive deeper into the unconscious of the characters and dig out layers of meaning behind the apparently normal...

Literature Review Short Story

3779

Chekhov's Visions of Transcendent Humanity in His Short Stories

4 pages / 1813 words

Anton Chekhov might look like a hedgehog when he returns time and again to the theme of universal humanity and its future path. But Chekhov as ‘the humanist writer’ does not really work towards a unified concept of mankind’s ultimate fate. Rather, the thinking men...

Humanity Literature Review Short Story

3780

Chaucer’s Dream Poetry in Context

2 pages / 1007 words

In Chaucer’s three dream poems, “The Book of the Duchess“, “The Parliament of Fowles” and the unfinished “House of Fame”, universal issues such as love are explored by a narrator recounting a dream. Writing that incorporated dreams was popular in Medieval England as it allowed...

Geoffrey Chaucer Poetry

3781

Baudelaire’s "The Albatross" and The Changing Role of The Poet

3 pages / 1249 words

Charles Baudelaire is often considered a late Romantic poet. Even Baudelaire sought to equate himself with archetypal Romantic figures like Byron, Hugo, and Gautier; the latter once claimed that Baudelaire had “found a way to inject new life into Romanticism” with the publication of his...

Poetry