In a writers essay, one can cover a specific piece of literature or the entire creation of a given writer. In such essays, students identify themes, motifs, symbols, key messages, stylistic devices, describe or compare characters, their traits and personal conflicts, reveal personal reactions, their interpretation and attitude towards the ...Read More
In a writers essay, one can cover a specific piece of literature or the entire creation of a given writer. In such essays, students identify themes, motifs, symbols, key messages, stylistic devices, describe or compare characters, their traits and personal conflicts, reveal personal reactions, their interpretation and attitude towards the written piece. When focusing on the entire creation of chosen writers, the typical characteristics of their style are uncovered along with the unique and original elements that set it apart. Additionally, the sources of inspiration, the influences, the evolution in time are analyzed. Review the essay samples below on certain writers and their works – pay attention to the topics, content organization, approaches to writing, etc.
In “The Weary Blues”, Langston Hughes uses negative language to create a generally discouraging atmosphere. The relentless dark imagery makes the reader overlook an underlying message, as the poem actually encourages its readers to push against any obstacles in their way. Rather than being beaten...
Why do we mourn humans, but not unrealized dreams? ‘Harlem’, a poem by Langston Hughes, is a lament for the lost dreams of African Americans living in the United States in the first half of the 20th century. Literally, the poem focuses on the decaying...
In four of Shakespeare’s plays, he introduces a character who is illegitimate. Philip Faulconbridge, Don John, Thersites, and Edmund are all children who were born out of wedlock. Also, all four characters were antagonists, if not the main antagonists, of the plays. In Much Ado...
The main characters in Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Julius Caesar have distorted self-perception, showing throughout the play that they see themselves as actors in a great historical play rather than actual people (Van Laan 139). Brutus, Antony, Cassius, and Caesar all overact in a sense and...
“For who so firm that cannot be seduced?” (1.2.312). Cassius’ muttered soliloquy in William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar immediately calls attention to his goal of manipulating people. A man well versed in rhetoric, he puts to good use his knowledge of persuading and...
The title of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is often criticized, argued that it should be titled Brutus, as Marcus Brutus is the tragic hero. However, the title is appropriate, as Julius Caesar, though insignificant as an actor in the play since he dies in Act 3...
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar opens with the concurrent celebrations of Caesar’s defeat of Pompey and the annual fertility festival of Lupercal. The coupling of the two historically separate events each celebrating distinct gender roles dramatically highlights the importance of gender characterization. Rome’s patriarchal society demands a...
Introduction In The Tragedy of Julius Caesar speech plays an important role in the plot. The people in play are easily persuaded into opposing viewpoints though both Anthony’s and Brutus’s speeches. In Brutus’s speech he says “Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I...
Shakespeare’s Caesar in “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar” is often mistaken as being a tyrant. This view comes from the characterization of Caesar through Cassius and Brutus’ eyes. Caesar’s qualities that make him a martyr instead of a tyrant are often overshadowed by Cassius’ accusing...
A comparative study of two texts reveals context as the primary influence upon the interplay between pragmatism and personality morality in an individual’s pursuit and consolidation of power. Driven by an overarching contextual desire for stable government, Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince (1513) and William Shakespeare’s...
Act 2 scene 1 of Julius Caesar, from lines 1-69, is terribly important as it marks a turning point in the play. The two characters appearing are Brutus and his servant, Lucius. Brutus, having had the notion of murdering Caesar planted in his mind by...
We meet the character of Mark Antony three times before Julius Caesar’s death, though he speaks little and we do not get much of an indication of his character. Antony fully enters the play exactly halfway through, when he makes a gripping speech, and his...
Although the characters of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar can not be easily classified because of their emotional depth and mental complexity, one can draw certain conclusions about them based on the attributes that they possess. Shakespeare uses the intricacy of the characters’ personalities to...
The critic Joe Nutt writes that ‘it takes a bold man to taunt death’[1]. This observation was made in reference to John Donne’s Holy Sonnet X, ‘Death be not proud’, and accurately portrays both the tone and subject of the poem. Throughout the sonnet, Donne...
In his perhaps most famous poem, “No Man Is An Island,” John Donne explores the theme of interconnectedness to show the invisible ties between people and their effect on us. In this short poem, the writer adopts a range of literary devices to enhance this...
The speaker in John Donne’s “The Funeral” appears to have reasoned through the problem of death. He writes that “Whoever comes to shroud” him after he passes should not disturb “That subtle wreath of hair” which adorns his arm; he attests that the mystical bracelet,...
This poem chiefly concerns the lack of constancy in women. The tone taken is one of gentle cynicism, and mocking. Donne asks the reader to do the impossible, which he compares with finding a constant woman, thus insinuating that such a woman does not exist....
In many of the metaphysical poems in John Donne’s literary canon, the poet assumes a voice that, as John Carey describes “…communicates itself through the dictatorial attitudes [he] adopts, through the unrelenting argumentativeness of his manner, and through the manipulation and violent combination of the...
Their love is like a virtuous man at death. Their love is like the planets in their orbits, not earthquakes. Their love is like a sheet of flattened gold. Their love is like a compass used in math class. These sentiments as they stand would...