Literature

"If Those I Loved Were Lost," written by one of America's greatest poets of the XIX century, Emily Dickinson, explores the possibility of eternal life. The speaker reflects on the fact that news of a death travels quickly and widely. Likewise, if people she loved were to rise from the dead, church bells would toll to tell the news. If...

From: Poem Examples

Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote his classical poem "Frost at Midnight" in 1798. This poem discusses Coleridge's early years in a negative way and highlights the need for growing up in the countryside. Coleridge hopes that his son will not have the same city life like him and that he will be raised in the countryside. Frost at Midnight...

From: Poem Examples

“Two in the Campagna” portrays the dilemma of love. Robert Browning, revered amongst Victorian period poets, depicts his thoughts on love and what it means to transcend love. Catching a thought, living in the moment and the feeling of the moment fleeting away is all to show that words are not enough to express love. Two In The Campagna BY...

From: Poem Examples

Themes and Symbols The Ephemerality of Existence and Identity: Addie Bundren’s death prompts several characters to explore existence and identity. Vardaman is confused and horrified by the transformation of a fish he has caught and cleaned into pieces of what is no longer a fish, and associates that image with the transformation of his mother from a person into something...

From: Literature Guides

Introduction The Things They Carried is a powerful look into the lives and experiences of foot soldiers during and after the Vietnam war. Written by Tim O’Brien, the work is concurrently an autobiographical account of the war, a memoir, and a collection of short, fictional stories. O’Brien chose to subtitle the book, “A Work of Fiction”, and successfully and intentionally blurs...

From: Literature Guides

"The Tyger" is a poem taken from William Blake’s Songs of Experience. The poem is organized in the form of a series of rhetorical questions regarding the main character, the tiger, itself. Here, the poet is equally amazed and intimidated by the presence of the creature, which he constantly compares to the domestic lamb. The Tyger BY WILLIAM BLAKE Tyger Tyger,...

From: Poem Examples

CONTENTS Introduction First published in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is now generally accepted as a masterpiece of American fiction. It is the tale of coming of age even as it presents us with a character who absolutely refuses to come of age. The character having the outsider status and disaffection as the protagonist and narrator,...

From: Literature Guides

CONTENTS Introduction The Tempest is widely recognized as the final play of William Shakespeare. It was first performed in early 1611 for King James the 1st, and later for the King’s daughter, Elizabeth, to celebrate her wedding to the Elector of Palatine, Frederick. Academics and historians alike believe the most relevant source material for The Tempest to has been the...

From: Literature Guides

CONTENTS Introduction Widely regarded as one of the greatest and most recognized French writers, Victor Hugo was the son of a general in Napoleon’s army. As such, he spent a significant portion of his childhood travelling Italy and Spain before joining his mother in Paris at the age of eleven. It was there that he developed his love affair with...

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Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, published in 1949, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play the same year. It premiered on Broadway in February of 1949 and ran for almost 800 performances. It is still considered one of the best examples of 20th Central American Drama. Death of a Salesman has been adapted into multiple films...

From: Literature Guides