Literature

Summary The narrator and protagonist of Camus’s novel is named Meursault, a young man living in Algiers. The novel opens as he receives news that his mother has died. He goes to Marengo to the old persons’ home where his mother lived. After sleeping through nearly the entire bus ride, Meursault speaks to the director of the home. The Director...

From: Literature Guides

Introduction Written by Kate Chopin, The Awakening was the second and final novel to be published by the feminist, controversial writer. Published in 1899 during the first wave of feminism, the novel was extremely ahead of its time in its criticism of the patriarchal society and prevailing gender roles in the late 19th and early 20th century. The novel is centered upon the...

From: Literature Guides

Complete title: Heart of Darkness Written By: Joseph Conrad Genre: Symbolism, adventure tale, colonial literature Time and Place of writing: England in 1899 Date of first publication: Blackwood’s Magazine, 1899. Later published in the volume Youth: A Narrative; and Two Other Stories in 1902 Major Conflict: Marlow and Kurtz face conflict between their views of themselves as civilized men and...

From: Literature Guides

Summary Addie Bundren, the wife and matriarch of an impoverished southern family, has fallen deathly ill. Her family believes that she is soon to pass. Her eldest son, Cash, begins to use his impressive carpentry skill to build a coffin for his mother right outside her bedroom window. Despite their mothers declining health, Darl and Jewel make plans to leave...

From: Literature Guides

CONTENTS Jack Gladney The protagonist and narrator, Jack is the chair of the department of Hitler Studies and the College-on-the-Hill. Sharing a home with his wife Babette and their four children from different marriages, Jack is struck with self-doubt and constantly questions his own abilities as a scholar. He relies on appearance far more than substance, even his own field...

From: Literature Guides

Quotations and Analysis “Prof Nemur said but why did you want to lern to reed and spell in the frist place. I tolld him because all my life I wantid to be smart and not dumb and my mom always tolld me to try and lern just like Miss Kinnian tells me but its very hard to be smart” 3d...

From: Literature Guides

Considered one of the writer’s most famous works, ‘The Raven’ is also Poe’s most favorite piece, who has stated it to be the greatest poem ever written. The poem follows a bereaved lover’s encounter with a raven whose repeated reply at every question of his reminds him of the pain of losing his beloved. The Raven BY EDGAR ALLAN POE...

From: Poem Examples

Introduction Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe remains a controversial personality of the Renaissance era. Despite having obtained both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from Cambridge University, Marlowe was anything but a reclusive scholar. On the contrary, he was enthusiastically engaged in a number of political, religious and scientific debate. He was also an accomplished lyricist, a well-known dramatist, a...

From: Literature Guides

Constructed as if written in the format of an actual handbook, ‘The New Poetry Handbook’ is Mark Strand’s list of rules on reading and writing poetry. Indeed, each stanza is numbered, keeping in accordance with the overall instructional theme of the poem. But there is more to it than that. The New Poetry Handbook BY MARK STRAND 1 If a...

From: Poem Examples

Allen Ginsberg was a modern American poet and one of the most important writers of the so-called Beat Generation and the counterculture which soon appeared in the 1950s. Ginsberg is mostly known to the audience for his 1955 epic poem “Howl,” in which he describes the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the US as he understood them. Howl...

From: Poem Examples