Literary Genre essays

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Comparative Analysis: “I Am not Your Negro” vs “Chisholm ‘72”

4 Pages 1608 Words
1. Compare and contrast, evaluate and critique, the use and effect of archival footage in the nonfiction films we have studied across weeks 9-14. “I am not your Negro” vs. “Chisholm ‘72” Beyond the presentation of archival documentaries, it has fallen into two unfortunate groups. There’s the conventional variety of “archival doc” that consists of basic talking head interviews intercut...

The Influence of Documentaries

2 Pages 837 Words
Introduction Documentaries have long served as powerful tools for education, awareness, and social change. By capturing real-life events, people, and situations, they offer viewers a unique lens through which to view the world, often prompting reflection and discussion. The impact of documentaries is profound, as they not only present information but also evoke emotions and inspire action. This essay critically...

“Follower”, a Poem by Seamus Heaney: Critical Analysis of Poetry

2 Pages 1004 Words
The undertaking of a transition from one phase of life to another can prove difficult and there may be obstacles to overcome along the way. To transcend adversity, an individual will often need to maintain diligence and perseverance to seek new beneficial opportunities and the development of self-belief. This attitude towards self-development can also allow and individual to gain support...

Critical analysis of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath's poetry

2 Pages 993 Words
The inconsistent points of view presented that form Hughes’ roles as both a composer and persona in Birthday Letters, are revealed in the interaction with memory and hindsight. In “Fulbright Scholars” this interaction is displayed in the tension that is produced in the opening of the poem from the repetition of the juxtaposition of rhetorical questions which he writes answers...

Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath: A Comparative Analysis

2 Pages 1004 Words
Textual conversations between conflicting texts highlight both the parallels between the composer’s ideologies as well as their conflicting attitudes, underscoring the contrasting outlooks from both parties. Resonating and reaffirming this idea is the contradictory interplay between Sylvia Plath’s poetry collection of ‘Ariel’, authored during an era of gender digression, where women were stereotypically branded as housewives,; and Ted Hughes’ attempts...

Critical Analysis of White Noise: Short Review of Plot

2 Pages 1003 Words
His son Heinrich as they are driving to school in the rain. Heinrich told his dad that, in spite of what looks like rain on the windshield, the radio said it wasn’t going to rain until that night. His dad is frustrated. “Just because it’s on the radio doesn’t mean we have to suspend belief in the evidence of our...

Realism, Poetry, and Naturalism: Analytical Essay

3 Pages 1375 Words
1. Introduction Literature is most valuable for what it helps us understand about the world and to help us come to realizations about ourselves as we learn and grow. Although time and culture evolve, human nature does not, which is why humans often still read and connect with pieces written at different points in history. Literature that has no personal...

Education and Religion in Thomas More’s Utopia: Analytical Essay

5 Pages 2471 Words
Introduction Thomas More’s Utopia is one of the important elements in Europe society, especially in England. Sir Thomas More was an English lawyer, writer, and statesman. He wrote the famous first formal Utopia. He imagined a complex, self-contained world set on an island, in which communities shared a common culture and way of life. Thomas More was a noted Renaissance...

Analyzing Courtly Love in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

4 Pages 1753 Words
Within Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, “The Knight’s Tale,” and “The Miller’s Tale” each give a different account of a specific view of love and marriage. Each tale in The Canterbury Tales is a narrative on a specific human personality type. In “The Knight’s Tale,” and “The Miller’s Tale” particularly, each narrative concerns a specific level of virtue and morality that...

Thomas More's Social Commentary on 16th Century England in Utopia

2 Pages 1027 Words
Utopias are imagined in the mind of humans, seeking to fix the flaws that riddle their contemporary societies. During the Renaissance, a period of elevated thought and social progress, Thomas More wrote Utopia to provide social commentary on the flaws of 16th century England, protected under a veil of satire and verisimilitude. More utilizes Raphael Hytholodeus to voice his concerns...

Ideal Society in Thomas More’s Utopia: Critical Analysis

3 Pages 1562 Words
Thomas More was an English lawyer, author, and humanist who had been active in English politics during the early 16th century before he resigned due to disagreeing with King Henry VIII’s choice to make the king hold authority in the making of church law. Afterward, he wrote the fictional book Utopia which tells about a country without the social and...

The Landscape of Hero and Leander in Courtly Love: Analytical Essay

6 Pages 2573 Words
Write about landscape and/or architecture. The landscape of Hero and Leander is integral to driving the action of the story; without the vast expanse of sea, there would be no illusion of courtly love, no heroic bravery of the tumultuous sea, and no reason for this narrative to exist. This essay aims to examine the significance of the Hellespontine expanse...

Analysis of Johnson's 'London' Sonnet by Alexander Pope

1 Page 490 Words
English essayist Samuel Johnson's sonnet 'London' was distributed in 1738, contains 263 lines, and gives recognition to Juvenal's Third Satire. The sonnet is viewed as a neoclassical work. Neoclassicism was the predominant development of Johnson's time, and its scholars -Johnson, Jonathan Swift, and Alexander Pope - attempted to resuscitate traditional Greco-Roman styles of writing along these lines as Horace, Virgil,...

Witchcraft among the Bantu Tribes of South Africa: Analytical Essay

3 Pages 1520 Words
In diverse societies, witchcraft is used differently, and its level of importance varies due to this. Our definition of witchcraft is: “the manipulation of powerful substances or words (via magic) to cause harm (only occasionally good)… It can also frequently be an unconscious activity, which means that the “witch” often does not know he/she is bewitching anyone” (McGarry 2016). The...

Protagonist's Journey: Analysis of Campbell's Theory

3 Pages 1325 Words
All narratives have standard structural elements of stages, a universal characteristic of all myths, legends, and even movies. The Protagonist’s Journey or the monomyth is a pattern in storytelling as studied by anthropologists and mythologists such as Otto Rank and Joseph Campbell. It is a standard stencil of a wide group of tales that involve an adventurous protagonist in a...

The Relevance of Matthew Arnold's Views on Poetry

2 Pages 1030 Words
Introduction Matthew Arnold, a prominent 19th-century poet and cultural critic, famously asserted that poetry is "a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty." This quotation encapsulates Arnold's belief in the vital role of poetry as a medium through which the complexities of human existence can be explored...

Description and Comparison of Witchcraft in Two Contemporary Societies

4 Pages 1702 Words
Witchcraft, derived from the old English noun ‘Wicca’ and ‘wiccian’ and is often referred to as the practices of magical skills and abilities such as spell casting, conjuring the dead, demonology, etc., has played an important role in historical developments, distinct cultural meaning systems, and language variations in societies across the world1. These practices of rituals or ‘black magic’ were...

Changes in Protagonist in "Jump" and "Homage" by Gordimer

3 Pages 1278 Words
People will have a lot of identities in their life. Those identities may relate to their power in many aspects. In “Jump”, Nadine Gordimer describes a conflicted experience of a white person but lives with black people for a long time. In “Homage”, which is also created by Gordimer, she describes the struggling life of a murderer who kills the...

The Invisible Man Book Report: Critical Analysis of Protagonist

4 Pages 2020 Words
The Invisible Man book report The title of this piece of literature is The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. I believe the title means that the main character is truly invisible or the acts he commits may look like it was done by an unseeable entity. The genres of this story consist of social commentary, African American literature, and Bildungsroman....

Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: Thought-provoking Satire

4 Pages 1924 Words
Literature’s ability to combine intense analysis alongside escapist humor is often a solid indicator of timeless literature; this principle holds true even for a poem written in the fourteenth century. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer provides a thought-provoking satire on Medieval life planted within a cast of lively and often laughable characters, all while presenting its readers with an...

The Roots of Witchcraft Accusations

2 Pages 978 Words
Introduction The phenomenon of witchcraft accusations has been a persistent and complex aspect of human societies, often reflecting deeper social, economic, and psychological undercurrents. Historically, these accusations have led to social ostracism, legal trials, and even execution, as seen during the infamous Salem Witch Trials of 1692. The causes behind such accusations are multifaceted, ranging from societal tensions to psychological...

Critical Analysis of Protagonist in Stories by Ng Kim Chew

3 Pages 1518 Words
“Revolution always requires that people shed blood” (Kim Chew Ng 123). This is the grim fact that the protagonist and his comrades had agreed upon prior to following a path of revolution. And after him and his comrades are convicted of conspiracy and treason, plenty of blood was shed, as his comrades were shot to death by a firing squad...

Critical Analysis of Eddie Carbone in ‘A View from the Bridge’

6 Pages 2601 Words
Coursework English literature Miller constructs protagonists who are destroyed by their obsessive need to defend their masculine self-image. How far do you agree this applies to both Willy Loman and Eddie Carbone? The 1950s, in the USA, was a period of radical change for men in the workplace, as academic attributes became increasingly appreciated and the white collar and corporate...

Critical Analysis of the Study of Popular Magic and Witchcraft

3 Pages 1452 Words
'Witch-hunting... helped to unite men – by demonstrating the ultimate evil was female, not male.' The study of popular magic and witchcraft tells us that early-modern European society was a wholly misogynistic one that demonized and persecuted women. The patterns of popular magic and witchcraft can be traced throughout most of Europe from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. The idea...

Aksenty Poprishchin in “Diary of a Madman”

3 Pages 1496 Words
The protagonist, Ivanovich Poprishchin is a titular councilor who has noted his sentiments in a diary. From the onset of the diary, it appears that the protagonist is unsatisfied with the way he is treated at his job, stating that the chief has been unpleasant to him and he has been informed he often “rush about as though he was...

Critical Analysis of “Porphyria’s Lover” by Robert Browning

3 Pages 1326 Words
The short poem, “Porphyria’s Lover” by Robert Browning is one of his finest works that portrays the motions of love and hate, as well as passion and control. The thrilling love story is about a man who is greatly obsessed with his lover named Porphyria and all he really wants his to keep her all to himself. But the only...

Toxic Masculinity: Shakespeare and Browning's Perspectives

2 Pages 840 Words
Introduction The concept of toxic masculinity, defined as cultural norms that can be harmful to men, women, and society, manifests in various forms of literature. William Shakespeare and Robert Browning, two monumental figures in English literature, provide profound insights into this phenomenon through their poetic works. Shakespeare's plays and sonnets often depict the destructive nature of rigid masculine ideals, while...

Analysis of themes, forms, and techniques in three poems

3 Pages 1407 Words
Intro: Why does poetry speak to us in a way that grasps our attention and makes us want to discover more? Edmund Spenser’s ‘Sonnet LXVII’ (1595) offers an insight into a huntsman who is in pursuit of a lover, William Blake’s ‘A Poison Tree’ (1794) teaches us of the underlining conflict between a friend and a foe and William Butler...

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