lit and context

MacBeth Shakespeare

Duncan; Banquo; Macbeth; Lady Macbeth; The King; The Witches; Fleance; Donalbain; MacDuff

Howard's End E.M. Forster 1910

Howards End, which Forster published in 1910, is sometimes viewed as the last of the great nineteenth century condition of England novels. Forster spreads his plot over a wide range of social classes and conditions, and demonstrates the fact that they're all inextricably connected, and that the strictly hierarchical social system of the now-dead Victorian period no longer applies. Forster's take on Edwardian society (the period that followed the Victorian) is critical but also hopeful, and proposes a possible future in which people do find ways to connect with each other despite their differences. Forster's novel, however, idealistically suggests a solution that we can all strive for: basically, this all boils down to Margaret Schlegel's fervent desire to "Only connect!" The novel yearns for a world in which we all reach out and connect with each other, not only as representatives of our countries or our religions, but as members of the human race. Two families: The odd family is the Schlegels, three orphaned siblings - Margaret, Helen, and Tibby - of an academic, quirky, and liberal background. The ordinary family is the Wilcoxes, represented by Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox and their three children, Charles, Paul, and Evie. The Wilcoxes are wealthy and industrious, while the Schlegels inherited their money and spend most of their time talking about art, politics, and literature. The two families encounter each other at various points, but things get awkward after Helen and Paul embarrassingly fall in and out of love over the span of 24 hours. However, Margaret and Mrs. Wilcox strike up an odd friendship, despite the awkwardness between the two clans, and before Mrs. Wilcox dies rather suddenly, she changes her will and leaves her beloved family home, Howards End, to Margaret. This upsets the Wilcoxes, who don't think that Margaret, a stranger, has any right to the house, so they ignore the change and go about their business. Meanwhile, the Schlegels befriend a lower-middle class young man, Leonard Bast, who has ambitions of intellectualism, but is held back by his lack of funds. Through a rather complicated turn of events, Leonard loses his job as a clerk, and falls into even worse circumstances; this was caused by advice that Henry Wilcox gave the Schlegels, which they passed on to Leonard. Helen sees their young friend's fall as Henry's fault. Against all odds, Henry and Margaret become friends - and then more than friends. They get married, despite the differences between the two of them. It later scandalously emerges that Leonard's lowbrow wife, Jacky, used to be Henry's mistress, and that he abandoned her abroad (contributing to her bottom-of-the-barrel social position), and Henry and Margaret have to work through the issues produced by this revelation. Helen and Margaret drift further and further apart as Margaret is absorbed into the Wilcox clan. Their relationship hits a low when Helen tries to get Henry to financially help the Basts . Helen, caught up in her sympathy for Leonard, has an affair with him, the result of which is pregnancy. She flees to Germany, trying to hide her pregnancy from her family and friends, but ultimately is forced to return to England. There, Henry and Margaret ambush her at Howards End, where they discover the truth; Margaret forces Henry to forgive her sister for her scandalous affair, since she herself has forgiven him his (with Jacky). Charles, Henry's hot-headed son, accidentally kills Leonard with a sword for bringing shame upon the family, and is sentenced to prison for manslaughter. It seems that everything is falling apart for the Wilcoxes and Schlegels - but, in fact, it's the beginning of a new life for them. Henry finally begins to sympathize and truly connect with other people, as Margaret's been encouraging him to do all along. In the end, the two of them, along with Helen and her baby, form a kind of new, unified family, out of the fragments of the old ones. We end up at Howards End, which Henry bequeaths to Margaret and her nephew, as a beautiful summer arrives, along with a tentative new hope for England.

Jude the Obsucre Thomas Hardy 1895

Its protagonist, Jude Fawley, is a working-class young man, a stonemason, who dreams of becoming a scholar. The other main character is his cousin, Sue Bridehead, who is also his central love interest. The novel is concerned in particular with issues of class, education, religion and marriage. The novel explores several social problems in Victorian England, especially those relating to the institutions of marriage, the Church, and education. These themes are developed in particular through Hardy's use of contrast. For example, at the beginning of their relationship, Jude's Christian faith contrasts with Sue's religious scepticism, a contrast which is heightened even further by their later role-reversal. Although the central characters represent both perspectives, the novel as a whole is firmly critical of Christianity and social institutions in general. By tracking Jude's trajectory throughout the novel, the reader is enlightened to Hardy's bleak, anachronistic view on the then-current state of organized religion. Jude, from his origins in Marygreen, always found religion to be the end game of an otherwise troublesome and uninteresting life. But, as seen through his systematic exclusion from the educational organization of Christminster, Jude's dream of entering the church would prove to be unattainable, leaving him to pursue other, less fulfilling interests. A similar track can be seen in Hardy's treatment of the traditional institution of marriage. From the original pairing of Arabella and Jude to their eventual reunion, Hardy depicts marriage as a crushing force which, although a social necessity, finds little home other than to propel the character's downward spiral into unhappiness. Organized religion, as Hardy argues, is a system which actively complicates and obstructs the ambitions of our protagonists.

Endymion John Keats 1818

Keats's first long poem appeared, when he was 21. It told in 4000 lines of the love of the moon goddess Cynthia for the young shepherd Endymion. Written in heroic couplets (rhymed lines of iambic pentameter). A THING of beauty if a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing

L'Allegro John Milton 1645

L'Allegro (which means "the happy man" in Italian) is invariably paired with the contrasting pastoral poem, Il Penseroso ("the melancholy man"), which depicts a similar day spent in contemplation and thought. In Heav'n yclept Euphrosyne, And by men, heart-easing Mirth, Whom lovely Venus at a birth With two sister Graces more To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore (lines 13-16) Whilst the landscape round it measures, Russet lawns, and fallows grey, Where the nibbling flocks do stray ... Meadows trim with daisies pied, Shallow brooks, and rivers wide (lines 70-72, 75-76)

Beowulf Anon

Old English alliterative epic set in scandanavia. Beowulf, hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, king of the Danes, to defeat a monster known as Grendel. Beowulf slays him and then wins the subsequent battle with Grendel's Mother. After a period of 50 years has passed, Beowulf defeats a dragon but is fatally wounnded in the battle. An Old English poem such as Beowulf is very different from modern poetry. Anglo-Saxon poets typically used alliterative verse, a form of verse in which the first half of the line (the a-verse) is linked to the second half (the b-verse) through similarity in initial sound. In addition, the two halves are divided by a caesura: "Oft Scyld Scefing \\ sceaþena þreatum" (l. 4). This verse form maps stressed and unstressed syllables onto abstract entities known as metrical positions. There is no fixed number of beats per line: the first one cited has three (Oft SCYLD SCEFING, with ictus on the suffix -ING) whereas the second has two (SCEAþena ÞREATum).

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1798

The mariner's tale begins with his ship departing on its journey. Despite initial good fortune, the ship is driven south by a storm and eventually reaches Antarctic waters. An albatross appears and leads them out of the ice jam where they are stuck, but even as the albatross is praised by the ship's crew, the mariner shoots the bird The crew is angry with the mariner, believing the albatross brought the south wind that led them out of the Antarctic. However, the sailors change their minds when the weather becomes warmer and the mist disappears: Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, That bring the fog and mist. However, they made a grave mistake in supporting this crime, as it arouses the wrath of spirits who then pursue the ship "from the land of mist and snow"; the south wind that had initially led them from the land of ice now sends the ship into uncharted waters near the equator, where it is becalmed. Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean. Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink. The very deep did rot - Oh Christ! That ever this should be. Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs, Upon the slimy sea. The sailors change their minds again and blame the mariner for the torment of their thirst. In anger, the crew forces the mariner to wear the dead albatross about his neck, perhaps to illustrate the burden he must suffer from killing it, or perhaps as a sign of regret: Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks Had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the albatross About my neck was hung. Eventually, the ship encounters a ghostly hulk. On board are Death (a skeleton) and the "Night-mare Life-in-Death",a deathly-pale woman, who are playing dice for the souls of the crew. Death wins the lives of the crew members and Life-in-Death the life of the mariner. Her name is a clue to the mariner's fate: he will endure a fate worse than death as punishment for his killing of the albatross. One by one, all of the crew members die, but the mariner lives on, seeing for seven days and nights the curse in the eyes of the crew's corpses, whose last expressions remain upon their faces., the albatross falls from his neck and his guilt is partially expiated. The bodies of the crew, possessed by good spirits, rise again and help steer the ship. In a trance, the mariner hears two spirits discussing his voyage and penance, and learns that the ship is being powered preternaturally Eventually the mariner comes in sight of his homeland, but is initially uncertain as to whether or not he is hallucinating. Oh! Dream of joy! Is this indeed The light-house top I see? Is this the hill? Is this the kirk? Is this mine own countree? We drifted o'er the harbour-bar, And I with sobs did pray— O let me be awake, my God! Or let me sleep alway. The rotten remains of the ship sink in a whirlpool, leaving only the mariner behind. A hermit on the mainland had seen the approaching ship and had come to meet it with a pilot and his boy, in a boat. When they pull him from the water, they think he is dead, but when he opens his mouth, the pilot has a fit. The hermit prays, and the mariner picks up the oars to row. ". As penance for shooting the albatross, the mariner, driven by guilt, is forced to wander the earth, telling his story over and over, and teaching a lesson to those he meets: He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all. After relaying the story, the mariner leaves, and the wedding guest returns home, and wakes the next morning "a sadder and a wiser man"..

Native Son Richard Wright 1940

1940 novel that tells of 20-year old Bigger Thomas, a Black american youth living in poverty in a poor area of Chicago's South Side. Bigger is in a gang that robs primarily black owned businesses. He takes a job working for a rich white landlord, Mr. Dalton, a flawed philanthropis (see: White Saviour). Bigger accidentally murders Dalton's daughter, Mary, which gives him a sense of power; he also rapes and murders his girlfriend Bessie. He is eventually caught and sentenced to death.

Great Expectations Charles Dickens 1861

A six-year-old boy named Pip lives on the English marshes with his sister (Mrs. Joe Gargery) and his sister's husband (Mr. Joe Gargery). His sister is not great but his brother in law is. One Christmas Eve, Pip meets an escaped convict in a churchyard. Pip steals food from Mrs. Joe so that the convict won't starve. Soon after, in apparently unrelated events, Pip gets asked to play at Miss Havisham's, the creepy lady who lives down the street. The only good thing about the mansion is Estella, Miss Havisham's adopted daughter. Estella is cold, snobby, and beautiful. Pip keeps getting invited back to play with her, and he develops quite the little crush on her. When Pip is old enough to be put to work he starts an apprenticeship at his brother-in-law's smithy, thanks to Miss Havisham's financial support. He comes into fortune by means of a mysterious and undisclosed benefactor, says goodbye to his family, and heads to London to become a gentleman. Mr. Jaggers, Pip's caretaker and a lawyer and his new friend, Herbert Pocket, the son of Miss Havisham's cousin. Herbert shows Pip around town, and they have a busy city life: dinner parties in castles with moats, encounters with strange housekeepers, trips to the theater, etc. Pip spends a lot of money. On his 21st birthday, Jaggers gives Pip a huge 500-pound annual allowance, which he uses to help Herbert get a job. This goes on for a couple of years—Pip is a man about town; Estella keeps rejecting him—until, on his 23rd birthday, a stranger shows up. The stranger is Pip's benefactor, the convict that Pip helped when he was only six years old! The con's name is Abel Magwitch Provis. The courts exiled him to New South Wales under strict orders never, ever to return to England, Pip decides that he's got to get Magwitch out of the country, but not before Pip rescues Miss Havisham from a fire that burns down her house and eventually kills her.Pip devises a plan to get Magwitch out of the country and Estella goes and marries Pip's nemesis and Pip is almost thrown into a limekiln by a hometown bully who claims to know about Magwitch. And then the two are ratted out by Magwitch's nemesis Compeyson, who is, coincidentally, Miss Havisham's ex-lover. Magwitch is thrown in jail and dies, but not before Pip tells him the shocking truth: Estella is his daughter. After these traumatic events, Pip gets really sick, and Joe comes to the rescue. As soon as Pip recovers, however, Joe leaves him in the middle of the night, having paid off all of Pip's debts. Obviously, Pip follows him home, intending to ask for Joe's forgiveness and to propose marriage to his childhood friend, Biddy. Upon arriving home, however, he finds that Joe and Biddy have just married For eleven years, Pip works at Herbert's shipping company in Cairo, sending money back to Joe and Biddy. He finally returns to England, and then has one of two different fates, depending on whether you read the original ending or the revised ending: Original ending: Pip is hanging out in London a few years later with Joe and Biddy's son, baby Pip, when he runs into Estella. She's had a hard life: her husband was abusive, and when he died she married a poor doctor.

Utopia Thomas Moore 1516

Book 1: Dialogue of Counsel The work begins with written correspondence between Thomas More and several people he had met on the continent: Peter Gilles, town clerk of Antwerp, and Hieronymus van Busleyden, counselor to Charles V. More chose these letters, which are communications between actual people, to further the plausibility of his fictional land. In the same spirit, these letters also include a specimen of the Utopian alphabet and its poetry. The letters also explain the lack of widespread travel to Utopia; during the first mention of the land, someone had coughed during announcement of the exact longitude and latitude. The first book tells of the traveller Raphael Hythlodaeus, to whom More is introduced in Antwerp, and it also explores the subject of how best to counsel a prince, a popular topic at the time. The first discussions with Raphael allow him to discuss some of the modern ills affecting Europe such as the tendency of kings to start wars and the subsequent loss of money on fruitless endeavours. He also criticises the use of execution to punish theft, saying thieves might as well murder whom they rob, to remove witnesses, if the punishment is going to be the same. He lays most of the problems of theft on the practice of enclosure—the enclosing of common land—and the subsequent poverty and starvation of people who are denied access to land because of sheep farming. Book 2: Discourse on Utopia Utopia is placed in the New World and More links Raphael's travels in with Amerigo Vespucci's real life voyages of discovery. He suggests that Raphael is one of the 24 men Vespucci, in his Four Voyages of 1507, says he left for six months at Cabo Frio, Brazil. Raphael then travels further and finds the island of Utopia, where he spends five years observing the customs of the natives. Each city has 6000 households, consisting of between 10 and 16 adults. Thirty households are grouped together and elect a Syphograntus (whom More says is now called a phylarchus). Every ten Syphogranti have an elected Traniborus (more recently called a protophylarchus) ruling over them. The 200 Syphogranti of a city elect a Prince in a secret ballot. The Prince stays for life unless he is deposed or removed for suspicion of tyranny. People are re-distributed around the households and towns to keep numbers even. If the island suffers from overpopulation, colonies are set up on the mainland. Alternatively, the natives of the mainland are invited to be part of these Utopian colonies, but if they dislike it and no longer wish to stay they may return. In the case of under population the colonists are re-called. There is no private property on Utopia, with goods being stored in warehouses and people requesting what they need. There are also no locks on the doors of the houses, which are rotated between the citizens every ten years. Agriculture is the most important job on the island. Every person is taught it and must live in the countryside, farming for two years at a time, with women doing the same work as men. Parallel to this, every citizen must learn at least one of the other essential trades: weaving (mainly done by the women), carpentry, metalsmithing and masonry.

Sister Carrie Theodore Drieser 1900

Dissatisfied with life in her rural Wisconsin home, 18-year-old Caroline "Sister Carrie" Meeber takes the train to Chicago, where her older sister Minnie, and Minnie's husband, Sven Hanson, have agreed to take her in. On the train, Carrie meets Charles Drouet, a traveling salesman, who is attracted to her because of her simple beauty and unspoiled manner. They exchange contact information, but upon discovering the "steady round of toil" and somber atmosphere at her sister's flat, she writes to Drouet and discourages him from calling on her there. Carrie soon embarks on a quest for work to pay rent to her sister and her husband, and takes a job running a machine in a shoe factory. Before long, however, she is shocked by the coarse manners of both the male and female factory workers, and the physical demands of the job, as well as the squalid factory conditions, begin to take their toll. She also senses Minnie and Sven's disapproval of her interest in Chicago's recreational opportunities, particularly the theatre. One day, after an illness that costs her job, she encounters Drouet on a downtown street. Once again taken by her beauty, and moved by her poverty, he encourages her to dine with him, where, over sirloin and asparagus, he persuades her to leave her sister and move in with him. To press his case, he slips Carrie two ten dollar bills, opening a vista of material possibilities to her. The next day, he rebuffs her feeble attempts to return the money, taking her shopping at a Chicago department store and securing a jacket she covets and some shoes. That night, she writes a good-bye note to Minnie and moves in with Drouet. Drouet installs her in a much larger apartment, and their relationship intensifies as Minnie dreams about her sister's fall from innocence. She acquires a sophisticated wardrobe and, through his offhand comments about attractive women, sheds her provincial mannerisms, even as she struggles with the moral implications of being a kept woman. By the time Drouet introduces Carrie to George Hurstwood, the manager of Fitzgerald and Moy's her material appearance has improved considerably. Married Hurstwood instantly becomes infatuated with Carrie's youth and beauty, and before long they start an affair, communicating and meeting secretly in the expanding, anonymous city. One night, Drouet casually agrees to find an actress to play a key role in an amateur theatrical presentation of Augustin Daly's melodrama, "Under the Gaslight," for his local chapter of the Elks. Upon returning home to Carrie, he encourages her to take the part of the heroine and she is good at it. The next day, the affair is uncovered: Drouet discovers he has been cuckolded, Carrie learns that Hurstwood is married, and Hurstwood's wife, Julia, learns from acquaintances that Hurstwood has been out driving with another woman and deliberately excluded her from the Elks theatre night. Hurstwood stumbles upon a large amount of cash in the unlocked safe in Fitzgerald and Moy's offices which he embezzles. Inventing a false pretext of Drouet's sudden illness, he lures Carrie onto a train and escapes with her to Canada. He does return the money. Hurstwood mollifies Carrie by agreeing to marry her, and the couple move to New York City. In New York, Hurstwood and Carrie rent a flat where they live as George and Carrie Wheeler. The couple grow distant, however, as Hurstwood abandons any pretense of fine manners toward Carrie, and she realizes that Hurstwood no longer is the suave, powerful manager of his Chicago days.. Hurstwood falls on hard time business wise and goes broke nad carrie is not happy about this and eventually leaves him with his blessing. Hurstwood ultimately joins the homeless of New York,and Carrie becomes a Star but is not happy

Middlemarch George Eliot 1874

Dorothea Brooke appears set for a comfortable and idle life as the wife of neighbouring landowner Sir James Chettam, but to the dismay of her sister Celia and her uncle Mr Brooke, she marries The Reverend Edward Casaubon. Dorothea forms a warm friendship with a young cousin of Casaubon's, Will Ladislaw, but her husband's antipathy towards him is clear and he is forbidden to visit. In poor health, Casaubon attempts to extract from Dorothea a promise that, should he die, she will "avoid doing what I should deprecate and apply yourself to do what I desire". He dies before she is able to reply, and she later learns of a provision to his will that, if she marries Ladislaw, she will lose her inheritance. The young doctor Tertius Lydgate arrives in Middlemarch. Through his voluntary hospital work he meets the town's financier, Mr. Bulstrode, and through him Bulstrode's niece, the mayor's beautiful daughter Rosamond Vincy; Rosamond is attracted to Lydgate, particularly by what she believes to be his aristocratic connections. They marry, and in Lydgate's efforts to please Rosamond is soon deeply in debt and forced to seek help from Bulstrode. He is partly sustained through this by his friendship with Camden Farebrother. Meanwhile, Rosamond's brother, Fred, is reluctantly destined for the Church. He is in love with his childhood sweetheart, Mary Garth, who will not accept him until he abandons the Church and settles on a more suitable career. Mary refuses and begs Featherstone to wait until the morning when a new legal will can be drawn up, but he dies before being able to. In debt, Fred is forced to take out a loan guaranteed by Mary's father, Caleb Garth. Then, when Fred cannot pay the loan, Caleb Garth's finances become compromised. This humiliation shocks Fred into reassessing his life, and he re¬¬solves to train as a land agent under the forgiving Caleb. John Raffles, who knows o Bulstrode's terror of public exposure as a hypocrite leads him to hasten the death of the mortally-sick Raffles, though word has already spread. Bulstrode's disgrace engulfs Lydgate, as knowledge of the financier's loan to the doctor becomes known, and he is assumed to be complicit with Bulstrode. Only Dorothea and Farebrother maintain faith in him, but nonetheless Lydgate and Rosamund are encouraged by the general opprobrium to leave Middlemarch. The disgraced and reviled Bulstrode's only consolation is that his wife stands by him as he too faces exile. The peculiar nature of Casaubon's will leads to suspicion that Ladislaw and Dorothea are lovers, creating an awkwardness between the two. Ladislaw is secretly in love with Dorothea, but keeps that to himself, having no desire to involve her in scandal or to cause her disinheritance. He remains in Middlemarch, working as a newspaper editor for Mr Brooke; when Brooke's election campaign collapses, he decides to leave the town and visits Dorothea to make his farewell. But Dorothea has also fallen in love with Ladislaw, whom she had previously seen only as her husband's unfortunate relative. However, the peculiar nature of Casaubon's will led her to begin to see him in a new light. Renouncing Casaubon's fortune, she shocks her family again by announcing that she will marry Ladislaw. At the same time, Fred, who has been successful in his career, marries Mary. The "Finale" details the eventual fortunes of the main characters. Fred and Mary marry and live contently with their three sons. Lydgate operates a practice outside of Middlemarch but never finds fulfilment and dies aged fifty; after he dies, Rosamond marries a wealthy physician. Ladislaw engages in public reform and Dorothea proves to be contented as a wife and mother; their son inherits Arthur Brooke's estate

Doctor Faustus Christopher Marlowe 1592

Form: Blank verse (for main plot), unrhymed iambic pentameter, set in 13 scenes with a prologue, three internal choruses, and an epilogue (the "A text" published in 1604) or five acts, composed of 4, 3, 3, 7, and 3 scenes, and all but the last scene begins with a "Chorus" delivering a transitional epilogue (the significantly longer "B text" published in 1616, and probably contributed to by later poets). Subplot passages involving Wagner, the Clown, the Horse Courser etc. usually are in prose and use colloquial diction to comic effect, though Faustus becomes involved with the subplot in the end. Characters: Major characters include Faustus, a German professor at Wittenberg who has turned magician, his servant Wagner, Mephistopholisthe tempting demon and Lucifer, his lord, and a host of minor characters (three scholars who hope to learn from Faustus, a troop of "clowns" or country bumpkins whose quest for silly powers parodies Faustus' own desires, a set of high status characters including the pope and the emperor, and a set of allegorical characters including Faustus' good and bad angels, and the Seven Deadly Sins (a stock favorite of medieval moralities--Everyman transformed them into social types). Summary: The scholar seeks the ultimate wisdom, and with it, the ultimate power, but becomes obsessed with power to the neglect of his spirit. A demon, summoned, tempts him to surrender his soul for a brief period of exotic earthly powers. His servant and a gang of comic characters, in a subplot, mirror Faustus' search for earthly power but with markedly less success (and, hence, less risk to their souls!). Faustus trades his spirit for illusions like his vision of Helen, a "dumbshow" (silent play) or metadrama that occurs within his own life's play and mocks his ambitions. Unlike Goethe's Faust, Marlowe's Faustus remains confident in his own damnation until the end, and therefore he is correct, though also morally wrong. Marlowe's own view of Faustus' career remains much more complex, however, since he shares many qualities with the necromancer.

Hamlet Shakespeare

Hamlet; Ophelia; Polonius, Claudius, Laertes; Horatio; Gertrude; Fortinbras;

Coriolanus Shakespeare

Menenius Agrippa; Caius Martius; Sicinius Velutus; Junius Brutus; Tullus Aufidius; Rome is in a mutinous mood. The citizens are protesting about their rulers' incompetence and the shortage of food. A popular senator, Menenius Agrippa, has just managed to calm them when the arrogant and fiery young general, Caius Martius, arouses their emotions again by confronting them. He tells them that tribunes, including Sicinius Velutus and Junius Brutus, have been appointed to speak on their behalf. Martius leads the Roman army against the Volscian forces, led by Tullus Aufidius, which are threatening Rome. Martius defeats the Volscians in their own city, Corioli, with great personal valour, and is given the title of 'Coriolanus'. When he returns to Rome the senate elect him to succeed Cominius as Consul. He accepts the honour but refuses to subject himself to the endorsement of the common people in the market place. He finally very reluctantly agrees to it but although he achieves the people's approval, it is not a ringing endorsement. Urged on by the tribunes, Sicinius and Brutus, they reverse their endorsement. Coriolanus shows his contempt for them by denying their right to corn. His mother, Volumnia, and some senators, do everything they can to smoothe matters between him and the people but they are unsuccessful. He is expelled from Rome. He goes to to the Volscian city of Antium in disguise and is welcomed by his former enemy, Aufidius. The Roman tribunes celebrate Coriolanus' departure until the news arrives that he has joined forces with Aufidius to challenge the city. All diplomatic attempts to stop him fail until his mother, his wife, Virgilia, and his young son, approach him. He is unable to resist their entreaties and agrees to make peace. Aufidius, filled with a sense of betrayal, kills Coriolanus.

The Tempest Shakespeare

Miranda; Caliban; Alonso; Antonio; Gonzalo; Sycorax; Prospero; Ferdinand

Othello Shakespeare

Othello; Iago; Emilia; Desdemonda; Cassio; The Duke; Rodirigo; Bianca

Vanity Fair Thackery 1848

Rebecca Sharp ("Becky") is a strong-willed, cunning, moneyless, young woman determined to make her way in society. After leaving school, Becky stays with Amelia Sedley ("Emmy"), who is a good-natured, simple-minded young girl, of a wealthy City family. There, Becky meets the dashing and self-obsessed Captain George Osborne (Amelia's betrothed) and Amelia's brother Joseph ("Jos") Sedley, a clumsy and vainglorious but rich civil servant home from the East India Company. Hoping to marry Sedley, the richest young man she has met, Becky entices him, but she fails. George Osborne's friend Captain William Dobbin loves Amelia, but only wishes her happiness, which is centred on George. Becky Sharp says farewell to the Sedley family and enters the service of the crude and profligate baronet Sir Pitt Crawley, who has engaged her as a governess to his daughters. Her behaviour at Sir Pitt's house gains his favour, and after the premature death of his second wife, he proposes marriage to her. However he finds that she has secretly married his second son, Captain Rawdon Crawley. Sir Pitt's elder half sister, the spinster Miss Crawley, is very rich, having inherited her mother's fortune, and the whole Crawley family compete for her favour so she will bequeath them her wealth. Initially her favourite is Rawdon Crawley. But his marriage with Becky enrages her. First she favours the family of Sir Pitt's brother, but when she dies, she has left her money to Sir Pitt's oldest son, also called Pitt. Amelia's father, John Sedley, becomes bankrupt. George's rich father forbids George to marry Amelia, who is now poor. Dobbin persuades George to marry Amelia, and George is consequently disinherited. News arrives that Napoleon has escaped from Elba, so George Osborne, William Dobbin and Rawdon Crawley are deployed to Brussels, accompanied by Amelia and Becky, and Amelia's bother, Jos. George is embarrassed by the vulgarity of Mrs. Major O'Dowd, the wife of the head of the regiment. Already, the newly wedded Osborne is growing tired of Amelia, and he becomes increasingly attracted to Becky, which makes Amelia jealous and unhappy. He is also losing money to Rawdon at cards and billiards. At a ball in Brussels, George gives Becky a note inviting her to run away with him. But then the army have marching orders to the Battle of Waterloo, and George spends a tender night with Amelia and leaves. The noise of battle horrifies Amelia, and she is comforted by the brisk but kind Mrs. O'Dowd. Becky is indifferent and makes plans for the outcome. She also makes a profit selling her carriage and horses at inflated prices to Jos, seeking to flee Brussels. George Osborne dies at Waterloo, while Dobbin and Rawdon survive. Amelia bears George a posthumous son, also named George. She returns to live in genteel poverty with her parents, spending her life in memory of her husband and care of her son. Dobbin pays for a small annuity for Amelia and expresses his love for her by small kindnesses toward her and her son. She is too much in love with her husband's memory to return Dobbin's love. Saddened, he goes with his regiment to India for many years. Becky also has a son, named Rawdon after his father. Becky is a cold, distant mother, although Rawdon loves his son. Becky continues her ascent first in post-war Paris and then in London where she is patronised by the rich and powerful Marquis of Steyne. She is eventually presented at court to the Prince Regent. During this time, the elderly Sir Pitt Crawley dies, and is succeeded by his son Pitt, who had married Lady Jane Sheepshanks, Lord Southdown's third daughter. Becky is on good terms with Pitt and Jane originally, but Jane is disgusted by Becky's attitude to her son, and jealous of Becky's relationship with Pitt. Becky and Rawdon appear to be financially successful, but they have no money and live on credit, even if this ruins those who trust them such as their landlord, an old servant of the Crawley family. The Marquis of Steyne gives Becky money, as well as other gifts. At the summit of their social success, Rawdon is arrested for debt. Becky does not bail him out, so he applies to his brother's wife, Lady Jane. When he returns home, he finds Becky and Steyne there, and assumes (perhaps rightly) that they are having an affair. He also finds the money that Steyne has given her. He leaves Becky, and expects Steyne to challenge him to a duel. Instead Steyne arranges for Rawdon to be made Governor of Coventry Island, a pest-ridden location. Becky, having lost both husband and credibility, leaves England and wanders the continent, leaving her son in the care of Pitt Crawley and Lady Jane. As Amelia's adored son George grows up, his grandfather Mr Osborne relents towards him (though not towards Amelia) and takes him from his impoverished mother, who knows the rich old man will give him a better start in life than she could manage. After twelve years abroad, both Joseph Sedley and Dobbin return. Dobbin professes his unchanged love to Amelia. Amelia is affectionate, but she cannot forget the memory of her dead husband. Dobbin mediates a reconciliation between Amelia and her father-in-law, who dies soon after. He had amended his will, bequeathing young George half his large fortune and Amelia a generous annuity. After the death of Mr Osborne, Amelia, Jos, George and Dobbin go to Germany, where they encounter the destitute Becky. Becky has fallen in life. She is drinking heavily, gambles, and spends time with card sharps and con artists. Becky enchants Jos Sedley all over again, and Amelia is persuaded to let Becky join them. Dobbin forbids this, and reminds Amelia of her jealousy of Becky with her husband. Amelia feels that this dishonours the memory of her dead and revered husband, and this leads to a complete breach between her and Dobbin. Dobbin leaves the group and rejoins his regiment, while Becky remains with the group. However, Becky has decided that Amelia should marry Dobbin, even though she knows Dobbin is her enemy. Becky shows Amelia George's note, kept all this time from the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, and Amelia finally realises that George was not the perfect man she always thought, and that she has rejected a better man, Dobbin. Amelia and Dobbin are reconciled and return to England. Becky and Jos stay in Europe. Jos dies, possibly suspiciously, after signing a portion of his money to Becky as life insurance, setting her up with an income. She returns to England, and manages a respectable life, although all her previous friends refuse to acknowledge her.

A Doll's House Ibsen 1879

Set during the turn of the century between Torvald Helmer and his wife Nora. He treats her as if she was an animal, constantly calling her my little lark and any number of difference animals. He treats her as a doll or a small child. What he does not realize is that she has struck a bargain with Nils Krogstad for money when Torvald was sick. She must pay Krogstad back or he will reveal her deception. Her friend, Mrs. Linde, attempts to intervene, but to no avail. At the end of the play, Nora realizes that she has been living like a doll and leaves Torvald. Is that my little lark twittering out there? Our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll wife, just as at home I was Papa's doll child; and here the children have been my dolls. [...] that is what our marriage has been.

Portrait of a Lady Henry James 1881

The Portrait of a Lady is the story of a spirited young American woman, Isabel Archer, who in "affronting her destiny", finds it overwhelming. She inherits a large amount of money and subsequently becomes the victim of Machiavellian scheming by two American expatriates. Like many of James's novels, it is set in Europe, mostly England and Italy. Generally regarded as the masterpiece of James's early period,this novel reflects James's continuing interest in the differences between the New World and the Old, often to the detriment of the former. It also treats in a profound way the themes of personal freedom, responsibility, and betrayal. James's first idea for The Portrait of a Lady was simple: a young American woman affronting her destiny, whatever it might be. Only then did he begin to form a plot to bring out the character of his central figure. This was the uncompromising story of the free-spirited Isabel losing her freedom—despite (or because of) suddenly coming into a great deal of money—and getting "ground in the very mill of the conventional".It is a rather existentialist novel, as Isabel is very committed to living with the consequences of her choice with integrity but also a sort of stubbornness.

Titus Andronicus Shakespeare

Titus; Lucius; Alarbus; Tamora; Bassianus; Demetrius; Chiron; Lavinia; Saturninus; Aaron; Marcus The Roman general, Titus Andronicus returns to a hero's welcome after defeating the Goths in a ten-year campaign. Among his captives are the queen of the Goths, Tamora, and her three sons, Alarbus, Demetrius and Chiron. Also accompanying her is herlover Aaron, a Moor. Titus has lost many sons in the war. To give them a fitting funeral, Lucius, one of Titus's three surviving sons, suggests a human sacrifice. Titus singles out Alarbus, Tamora's eldest son and although she pleads for her son's life Titus is unrelenting. Lucius seizes Alarbus. And he and his men hew his limbs and make a sacrifice of him. The emperor dies and the crown is available. When it is offered to Titus, he declines and recommends Saturninus, the oldest son of the dead emperor. He suggests that Saturninus take his beautiful daughter Lavinia as his wife and empress. After Saturninus is crowned, he frees Tamora and her sons. Bassianus, Saturninus' brother objects, to the proposed marriage of Saturninus and Lavinia because Lavinia is already betrothed to him. With the help of Lavinia's brothers, he steals her away. Titus is angered and he kills his son Mucius when he tries to prevent Titus from pursuing thelovers. Later, Saturninus decides that he prefers Tamora to Lavinia, then marries Tamora and makes her empress. Tamora begins plotting revenge against Titus for allowing the slaughter of her son. Before the palace, Tamora's lover, Aaron, exalts Tamora and predicts that she will bring ruin to Rome . Tamora's sons Demetrius and Chiron have both fallen in love with Lavinia and they quarrel over her. Her. Each claims the right to take her from Bassianus. After failing to dissuade them from pursuing her, Aaron suggests that they share the lovely Lavinia by taking turns raping her in the seclusion of a forest. The occasion will come during a hunt in the woods for game. Emperor Saturninus, Queen Tamora, and many others are to take part in the hunt. On the day of the hunt, Aaron and Tamora rendezvous in the woods. Aaron gives her a letter to present to Saturninus. Its contents will aid Tamora's desire to bring down Titus. When Bassianus and Lavinia discover Aaron and Tamora together, Tamora fears that the intruders will tell the emperor. S he calls out for her sons. When they arrive, Tamora pretends Bassianus has threatened her. The sons kill Bassianusand throw him in a pit, then drag Lavinia off to rape her. Not only do they rape her, they also mutilate her, cutting off her hands and tearing out her tongue. Aaron leads Titus's sons Quintus and Martius toward the pit where Bassianus lies dead. Martius falls in. While Aaron goes to fetch Saturninus, Quintus falls in, too, trying to rescue Martius. Saturninus arrives with Aaron. With them are Titus, Lucius, and attendants. Martius, who has discovered the body, informs Saturninus that his brother, Bassianus, is dead. Tamora then presents Aaron's letter to Saturninus. It falsely implicates Martius and Quintus in the murder of Bassianus. Saturninus imprisons them and the court later sentences them to death in spite of Titus's pleas on their behalf. Laviniacannot testify in their favor, for she has no tongue. When Titus, Lucius, and Titus's brother Marcus discuss their options, the evil Aaron arrives and tells them that Saturninus will free the sons of Titus if Marcus, Lucius, or Titus cuts off his hand and sends it to the emperor. It is Titus, though, who allows Aaron to cut off his hand and take it to Saturninus. Within a half hour, however, the emperor returns the hand, together with the heads of Titus's imprisoned sons, in a show of scorn and contempt. Titus orders his son Lucius to flee the city and enlist an army of Goths to overthrow Saturninus. The loss of his sons takes a severe toll on Titus. He begins to go mad. Then Lavinia informs Titus and others about her rape and mutilation by writing in sand with a stick held in her mouth. Meanwhile, Tamora has a baby. It is obviously Aaron's because it has the dark complexion of a Moor. Worried that the emperor will find out about it, Tamora wants it killed. Aaron has other plans. First, he kills the baby's midwife and nurse to keep secret the baby's existence. Next, he substitutes a white baby for his own, then leaves with his child to go to the Goths to have them raise it. ....... By this time, Lucius is marching on Rome with his army of Goths. Aaron and his baby, who have been captured, appear. Aaron agrees to tell all he knows if his child is allowed to live. Titus cuts the throats of Tamora's sons Demetrius and Chiron, then has a pie prepared of their flesh and serves it to Saturninus and Tamora. He kills Lavinia to put her out of her misery, then kills Tamora. Saturninus kills Titus in retaliation, and Lucius kills Saturninus. Lucius takes command of Rome as the new emperor. Lucius orders Aaron to be buried up to his chest and starved to death.

The Man of Mode George Etherege 1676

a Restoration comedy (1676 ) set in Restoration London, and follows the libertine Dorimant as he tries to win over the young heiress Harriet, and to disengage himself from his previous affair with Mrs. Loveit. Despite the subtitle, the fop Sir Fopling is only one of several marginal characters; the rake Dorimant is the protagonist. The character of Dorimant may have been based on John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, though there is no concrete evidence of this. Chars include: Mr Dorimant; Mr Medley; Old Bellair; Young Bellair; Lady Townley; Emilia; Mrs Loveit; Bellinda; Lady Woodvill; Harriet; Pert; Bust; Mr Smirk; Handy

Hesperides Herrick 1648

a book of poetry published in 1648 by English Cavalier poet Robert Herrick. This collection of 1200 of his lyrical poems, his magnum opus was published under his direction, establishing his reputation. It is replete with carpe diem sentiments. It includes "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time", which features the famous lines: Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today, To-morrow will be dying. It also includes "Corinna's Going a-Maying".,which includes the lines: Come, let us goe, while we are in our prime; And take the harmlesse follie of the time. We shall grow old apace, and die Before we know our liberty. Our life is short; and our dayes run As fast away as do's the Sunne: And as a vapour, or a drop of raine Once lost, can ne'r be found againe.

Emma Jane Austen 1815

a novel about youthful hubris and the perils of misconstrued romance. The novel was first published in December 1815. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian-Regency England; she also creates a lively comedy of manners among her characters. Before she began the novel, Austen wrote, "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." In the first sentence she introduces the title character as "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich." Emma is spoiled, headstrong, and self-satisfied; she greatly overestimates her own matchmaking abilities; she is blind to the dangers of meddling in other people's lives; and her imagination and perceptions often lead her astray. Emma Woodhouse has just attended the wedding of Miss Taylor, her best friend and former governess, to Mr Weston. Against her own wishes, Harriet rejects Mr Martin. Mr Elton, a social climber, thinks Emma is in love with him and proposes to her after a Christmas visit to the Westons. Emma, shocked, tells Mr Elton that she had thought him attached to Harriet. Elton is outraged at this notion. After Emma rejects him, he leaves for a sojourn in Bath, and Harriet feels heartbroken. Emma feels dreadful about misleading Harriet. Mr Elton soon returns with a pretentious, nouveau-riche wife, as Mr Knightley expected. Frank Churchill, Mr Weston's son, promises to visit his father soon. Mr Knightley suggests to Emma that while Frank is clever and engaging, he is also a shallow character. Jane Fairfax comes home to see her aunt, Miss Bates, and grandmother, Mrs Bates, for a few months, before she must go out on her own as a governess. She is the same age as Emma, but Emma has not been as friendly with her as she might. Emma envies Jane's talent. At age nine, Jane joined the family of Colonel Campbell, a friend of her late father, where she became fast friends with his daughter and received her education. Miss Campbell has married Mr Dixon. Emma is annoyed to find all, including Mrs Weston and Mr Knightley, praising Jane. The patronising Mrs Elton takes Jane under her wing and announces that she will find her the ideal governess post before it is wanted. Emma begins to feel some sympathy for Jane's predicament. Emma decides that Jane and Mr Dixon were mutually attracted, and that is why she has come home. She shares her suspicions with Frank, who met Jane and the Campbells at a vacation spot a year earlier, and he apparently agrees with her. Suspicions are further fueled when a piano, sent by an anonymous benefactor, arrives for Jane. Emma feels herself falling in love with Frank, but it does not last to his second visit. The Eltons treat Harriet badly, culminating with Mr Elton publicly snubbing Harriet at the ball given by the Westons in May. Mr Knightley, who had long refrained from dancing, gallantly steps in to dance with Harriet. The day after the ball, Frank brings Harriet to Hartfield, she having fainted after a rough encounter with local gypsies. Harriet is grateful, and Emma thinks this is love, not gratitude. Meanwhile, Mrs Weston wonders if Mr Knightley has taken a fancy to Jane. Emma dismisses that idea and as she does not want Mr Knightley to marry, because her nephew Henry must inherit Donwell, the Knightley property. When Mr Knightley mentions the links he sees between Jane and Frank, Emma denies them, relying on Frank's words. Frank appears to be courting Emma. They flirt and banter together openly. He arrives late to the gathering at Donwell in June, while Jane leaves early. The next day at Box Hill, a local beauty spot, Frank and Emma continue the banter. Emma insults Miss Bates at that outing. Mr Knightley scolds her for the insult to Miss Bates. Emma is ashamed and tries to atone with a morning visit to Miss Bates, which impresses Mr Knightley. He leaves to visit his brother in London. On the visit, Emma learns that Jane accepted the governess position from one of Mrs Elton's friends after the outing. Jane becomes ill, and refuses to see Emma or accept her gifts. Frank visits his aunt in Richmond. His aunt dies soon after he arrives. Ten days later, Frank learns what Jane has done; he and Jane reveal to the Westons that they have been secretly engaged since the fall. Frank knew his aunt would disapprove. The strain of the secrecy was great on the conscientious Jane; the two had quarreled outside Donwell and Jane ended the engagement. Frank's uncle readily gives his blessing to the match. The engagement becomes public and Emma is chagrined to discover that she has been so wrong. Emma is certain that Frank's engagement will devastate Harriet, but Harriet says no. Harriet loves Mr Knightley, but knows the match is too unequal. Emma is startled, and then she faces her feelings. She realizes in a flash that she is the one to marry Mr Knightley. Mr Knightley returns, walking to Hartfield's gardens to learn Emma's reaction to the engagement. When he learns, he is overcome with his own feelings for her. He proposes and she accepts. After a long visit with Isabella, Harriet accepts Robert Martin's second proposal, and they are the first couple to marry. Mrs Weston gives birth to a baby girl, after which event, Emma tells her father of her plans with Mr Knightley, and their living with him at Hartfield. Jane and Emma reconcile, and Frank and Jane visit the Westons. Jane rejoins the Campbells. Once the period of deep mourning ends, they will marry, settle at Enscombe. Before the end of November, Emma and Mr Knightley marry. They seem all set for a union of "perfect happiness".

Ozymandius Percy Bysshe Shelley 1818

a sonnet written in loose iambic pentameter but with an atypical rhyme scheme. First published in the 11 January 1818 issue of The Examiner in London, it was included the following year in Shelley's collection Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue; with Other Poems (1819) "Ozymandias" is regarded as one of Shelley's most famous works and is frequently anthologised. In antiquity, Ozymandias was a Greek name for the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II. Shelley began writing his poem in 1817, soon after the announcement of the British Museum's acquisition of a large fragment of a statue of Ramesses II from the thirteenth century BC, leading some scholars to believe that Shelley was inspired by this. Shelley wrote the poem in friendly competition with his friend and fellow poet Horace Smith (1779-1849), who also wrote a sonnet on the same topic with the very same title. Smith's poem would be first published in The Examiner a few weeks after Shelley's sonnet. Both poems explore the fate of history and the ravages of time—that all prominent figures and the empires they build are impermanent and their legacies fated to decay and oblivion. The central theme of "Ozymandias" is contrasting the inevitable decline of all leaders and of the empires they build with their pretensions to greatness. "Ozymandias" represents a transliteration into Greek of a part of Ramesses' throne name, User-maat-re Setep-en-re. The sonnet paraphrases the inscription on the base of the statue, given by Diodorus Siculus in his Bibliotheca historica, as "King of Kings am I, Osymandias. If anyone would know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpass one of my worksThe verb, "to mock," used in the poem to describe the actions of the sculptor, had two senses. The older sense, "to fashion an imitation of reality" (as in "a mock-up"), existed for several centuries before the poem was written. The irony was not lost to Shelley however, as by his day the second sense, "to ridicule" (especially by mimicking) had come to the fore

Clarissa Samuel Richardson 1748

epistolary novel. It tells the tragic story of a heroine whose quest for virtue is continually thwarted by her family, and is regarded as the longest novel in the English language (based on estimated word count). Chars include: Clarissa Harlowe (and family); Robert Lovelace (the badguy); Polly Horton; a bunch of libertines/friends of lovelace

Endgame Beckett 1957

one act play, theatre of the absurd. THe characters are Hamm, Clov, Nagg, and Nell. The main character, Hamm, behaves badly, in a manner seemingly guaranteed to ensure that no audience member would like him or care about what happened to him. He succeeds. At the end, he is alone in an apparently depopulated world, his parents Nell and Nagg dead on stage in their garbage bins, and abandoned by his long-suffering servant, Clov. He is doomed to starve to death. He had shown no emotion when Nell died and Nagg, in mourning, cried before dying, presumably of a broken heart.

Hedda Gabler Ibsen 1891

realism-19th cent theatre: Hedda is married to George Teman but isn't into it and also used to bone George's academic rival, Eilert. Eilert dies in a brothel, more things happen and Hedda shoots herself in the head.

Catch 22 Joseph Heller 1961

satirical novel by the American author Joseph Heller. He began writing it in 1953; the novel was first published in 1961. It is frequently cited as one of the greatest literary works of the twentieth century. It uses a distinctive non-chronological third-person omniscient narration, describing events from the points of view of different characters. The separate storylines are out of sequence so that the timeline develops along with the plot. The novel is set during World War II, from 1942 to 1944. It mainly follows the life of Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier. Most of the events in the book occur while the fictional 256th Squadron is based on the island of Pianosa, in the Mediterranean Sea, west of Italy. The novel looks into the experiences of Yossarian and the other airmen in the camp, who attempt to maintain their sanity while fulfilling their service requirements so that they may return home. The novel's title refers to a plot device that is repeatedly invoked in the story. Catch-22 starts as a set of paradoxical requirements whereby airmen mentally unfit to fly did not have to, but could not actually be excused. By the end of the novel it is invoked as the explanation for many unreasonable restrictions. The phrase "Catch-22" has since entered the English language, referring to a type of unsolvable logic puzzle sometimes called a double bind. According to the novel, people who were crazy were not obliged to fly missions; but anyone who applied to stop flying was showing a rational concern for their safety, and was sane.

The House of Mirth Edith Wharton 1905

the story of Lily Bart, a well-born, but penniless woman of the high society of New York City, who was raised and educated to become wife to a rich man, a hothouse flower for conspicuous consumption. As an unmarried woman with gambling debts and an uncertain future, Lily is destroyed by the society who created her Written in the style of a novel of manners, The House of Mirth was the fourth novel by Edith Wharton (1862-1937), which tells the story of Lily Bart against the background of the high-society of upper class New York City of the 1890s; as a genre novel, The House of Mirth (1905) is an example of American literary naturalism

An Essay on Criticism Alexander Pope 1711

written in heroic couplets. The poem first appeared in 1711. It was written in 1709, and it is clear from Pope's correspondence that many of the poem's ideas had existed in prose form since at least 1706. It is a verse essay written in the Horatian mode and is primarily concerned with how writers and critics behave in the new literary commerce of Pope's contemporary age. The poem covers a range of good criticism and advice, and represents many of the chief literary ideals of Pope's age. Pope contends in the poem's opening couplets that bad criticism does greater harm than bad writing: 'Tis hard to say, if greater Want of Skill Appear in Writing or in Judging ill, But, of the two, less dang'rous is th' Offence, To tire our Patience, than mis-lead our Sense Some few in that, but Numbers err in this, Ten Censure wrong for one who Writes amiss; A Fool might once himself alone expose, Now One in Verse makes many more in Prose. ... (1-8) Despite the harmful effects of bad criticism, literature requires worthy criticism. Pope delineates common faults of poets, e.g., settling for easy and cliché rhymes: And ten low words oft creep in one dull line: While they ring round the same unvaried chimes, With sure returns of still expected rhymes; Wher'er you find "the cooling western breeze", In the next line, it "whispers through the trees"; If crystal streams "with pleasing murmurs creep", The reader's threatened (not in vain) with "sleep" . . . (347-353) Throughout the poem, Pope refers to ancient writers such as Virgil, Homer, Aristotle, Horace and Longinus. This is a testament to his belief that the "Imitation of the ancients" is the ultimate standard for taste. Pope also says, "True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,As those move easiest who have learned to dance" (362-363), meaning poets are made, not born.

Waiting for Godot Beckett 1963

absurdist play in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly for someone named Godot who never arrives. Other characters include Pozzo and Lucky and a boy who acts as a messenger telling the two that Godot is not coming.

Tradition and the Individual Talent T.S. Eliot 1921

an essay written by poet and literary critic T. S. Eliot. The essay was first published in The Egoist (1919) and later in Eliot's first book of criticism, "The Sacred Wood" (1920).[1] The essay is also available in Eliot's "Selected Prose" and "Selected Essays". This essay is divided into three parts that are: part one: The Concept of "Tradition". part two: The Theory of Impersonal Poetry. part three: The Conclusion or Summing up. Eliot presents his conception of tradition and the definition of the poet and poetry in relation to it. He wishes to correct the fact that, as he perceives it, "in English writing we seldom speak of tradition, though we occasionally apply its name in deploring its absence." Eliot posits that, though the English tradition generally upholds the belief that art progresses through change - a separation from tradition, literary advancements are instead recognised only when they conform to the tradition. Eliot, a classicist, felt that the true incorporation of tradition into literature was unrecognised, that tradition, a word that "seldom... appear[s] except in a phrase of censure," was actually a thus-far unrealised element of literary criticism. For Eliot, the term "tradition" is imbued with a special and complex character. It represents a "simultaneous order," by which Eliot means a historical timelessness - a fusion of past and present - and, at the same time, a sense of present temporality. A poet must embody "the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer," while, simultaneously, expressing his contemporary environment. Eliot challenges the common perception that a poet's greatness and individuality lie in his departure from his predecessors; he argues that "the most individual parts of his (the poet) work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously." Eliot claims that this "historical sense" is not only a resemblance to traditional works but an awareness and understanding of their relation to his poetry. Great works do not express the personal emotion of the poet. The poet does not reveal his own unique and novel emotions, but rather, by drawing on ordinary ones and channelling them through the intensity of poetry, he expresses feelings that surpass, altogether, experienced emotion. This is what Eliot intends when he discusses poetry as an "escape from emotion." Since successful poetry is impersonal and, therefore, exists independent of its poet, it outlives the poet and can incorporate into the timeless "ideal order" of the "living" literary tradition. The implications here separate Eliot's idea of talent from the conventional definition (just as his idea of Tradition is separate from the conventional definition), one so far from it, perhaps, that he chooses never to directly label it as talent. Whereas the conventional definition of talent, especially in the arts, is a genius that one is born with. Not so for Eliot. Instead, talent is acquired through a careful study of poetry, claiming that Tradition, "cannot be inherited, and if you want it, you must obtain it by great labour." Unwittingly, Eliot inspired and informed the movement of New Criticism. This is somewhat ironic, since he later criticised their intensely detailed analysis of texts as unnecessarily tedious. Yet, he does share with them the same focus on the aesthetic and stylistic qualities of poetry, rather than on its ideological content. The New Critics resemble Eliot in their close analysis of particular passages and poems.

The Cantos Ezra Pound Between 1916-1962

incomplete poem in 120 sections, each of which is a canto. It is a book-length work, widely considered to present formidable difficulties to the reader. The Cantos is generally considered one of the most significant works of modernist poetry in the 20th century. As in Pound's prose writing, the themes of economics, governance and culture are integral to the work's content. The most striking feature of the text, to a casual browser, is the inclusion of Chinese characters as well as quotations in European languages other than English. Recourse to scholarly commentaries is almost inevitable for a close reader. The range of allusion to historical events is very broad, and abrupt changes occur with little transition. There is also wide geographical reference; Pound added to his earlier interests in the classical Mediterranean culture and East Asia selective topics from medieval and early modern Italy and Provence, the beginnings of the United States, England of the 17th century, and details from Africa he had obtained from Leo Frobenius. References without explanation abound. Pound initially believed that he possessed poetic and rhetorical techniques which would themselves generate significance, but as time passed he became more concerned with the messages he wished to convey.

The Faerie Queene Spenser 1590

one of the longest poems in the English language and the origin of a verse form that came to be known as Spenserian stanza.[1] It is an allegorical work, and can be read (as Spenser presumably intended) on several levels of allegory, including as praise of Queen Elizabeth I. In a completely allegorical context, the poem follows several knights in an examination of several virtues. In Spenser's "Letter of the Authors," he states that the entire epic poem is "cloudily enwrapped in allegorical devices," and that the aim of publishing The Faerie Queene was to "fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline." Book I is centered on the virtue of Holiness as embodied in the Redcrosse Knight Book II is centered on the virtue of Temperance as embodied in Sir Guyon, who is tempted by the fleeing Archimago into nearly attacking the Redcrosse Knight. Book III is centered on the virtue of Chastity as embodied in Sir Britomart, a lady knight. Book IV is centered on the virtue of Friendship as embodied in Sir Cambell and Sir Triamond. Book V is centered on the virtue of Justice as embodied in Sir Artegal. Book VI is centered on the virtue of Courtesy as embodied in Sir Calidore.

A Passage to India E.M. Forster 1924

(1924) is a novel by English author E. M. Forster set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. The novel is based on Forster's experiences in India, borrowing the title from Walt Whitman's 1870 poem in Leaves of Grass. The story revolves around four characters: Dr. Aziz, his British friend Mr. Cyril Fielding, Mrs. Moore, and Miss Adela Quested. During a trip to the Marabar Caves (modelled on the Barabar Caves of Bihar),Adela thinks she finds herself alone with Dr. Aziz in one of the caves (when in fact he is in an entirely different cave), and subsequently panics and flees; it is assumed that Dr. Aziz has attempted to assault her. Aziz's trial, and its run-up and aftermath, bring to a boil the common racial tensions and prejudices between indigenous Indians and the British who rule India.

The Pilgrim's Progress John Bunyan 1678

Christian, an everyman character, is the protagonist of the allegory, which centres itself in his journey from his hometown, the "City of Destruction" ("this world"), to the "Celestial City" ("that which is to come": Heaven) atop Mount Zion. Christian is weighed down by a great burden—the knowledge of his sin—which he believed came from his reading "the book in his hand" (the Bible). This burden, which would cause him to sink into Hell, is so unbearable that Christian must seek deliverance

King Lear Shakespeare

Edmund; Lear; Gloucester; Cordelia; Edgar; The Earl of Gloucester introduces his illegitimate son, Edmund, to the Earl of Kent at court. Lear, King of Britain, enters. Now that he is old Lear has decided to abdicate, retire, and divide his kingdom between his three daughters. Each will receive a portion of the kingdom according to how much they love him. Goneril, Duchess of Albany, the oldest, and Regan, Duchess of Cornwall, the second, both speak eloquently and receive their portion but Cordelia, the youngest, can say nothing. Her declaration that she loves him according to a daughter's duty to a father enrages him and she is disowned. One of Cordelia's suitors, the Duke of Burgundy, rejects her once she is dowerless but the King of France understands her declaration and takes her as his wife, while the Earl of Kent is banished for taking Cordelia's part against the King. The kingdom is shared between Goneril and Regan. Lear tells them that he intends to live alternately with each of them. Meanwhile, Edmund is determined to be recognised as a rightful son of Gloucester and persuades his father that his legitimate brother, Edgar, is plotting against Gloucester's life, using a deceitful device. Edmund warns Edgar that his life is in danger. Edgar flees and disguises himself as a beggar. Goneril becomes increasingly exasperated by the behaviour of Lear's hundred followers, who are disturbing life at Albany's castle. Kent has returned in disguise and gains a place as a servant to Lear, supporting the King against Goneril's ambitious servant, Oswald. Lear eventually curses Goneril and leaves to move in with Regan. Edmund acts as a messenger between the sisters and is courted by each in turn. He persuades Cornwall that Gloucester is an enemy because, through loyalty to his King, Gloucester assists Lear and his devoted companion, the Fool, when they are turned away by Regan and told to return to Goneril's household. Despairing of his daughters and regretting his rejection of Cordelia, Lear goes out into the wilderness during a fierce storm. He goes mad. Gloucester takes them into a hut for shelter and seeks the aid of Kent to get them away to the coast, where Cordelia has landed with a French army to fight for her father against her sisters and their husbands. Edgar, pretending to be mad, has also taken refuge in the shelter and the Fool, the mad king and the beggar are companions until Edgar finds his father wandering and in pain. Gloucester has been blinded by Regan and Cornwall for his traitorous act in helping Lear. Cornwall has been killed by a servant after blinding Gloucester but Regan continues to rule with Edmund's help. Not recognised by his father, Edgar leads him to the coast and helps him, during the journey, to come to an acceptance of his life. Gloucester meets the mad Lear on Dover beach, near Cordelia's camp and, with Kent's aid, Lear is rescued and re-united with Cordelia. Gloucester, although reconciled with Edgar, dies alone. The French forces are defeated by Albany's army led by Edmund, and Lear and Cordelia are captured. Goneril has poisoned Regan in jealous rivalry for Edmund's attention but Edgar, disguised now as a loyal knight, challenges Edmund to a duel and wounds him mortally. Seeing no way out, Goneril kills herself. The dying Edmund confesses his crimes, but it is too late to save Cordelia from the hangman. Lear's heart breaks as he carries the body of his beloved daughter in his arms, and Albany and Edgar are left to re-organise the kingdom.

Elegy Written in a Church Courtyard Thomas Gray 1751

Gray was the 5th and only surviving child of 12 children. Escaped an unhappy childhood (abusive father) when his uncle took him to Eton. Friends with Horace Walpole (wrote the first Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto ) and Richard West. Let us not forgot the amazing poem, "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes". Alfred Lord Tennyson, a century later, spoke of Elegy's "divine truisms that make us weep." It went through four editions in two months, and eleven in a short time, besides being imitated, satirized, translated into many languages, and constantly pirated. (4line stanzas abab)

Tartuffe Moliere 1664

In Orgon's house, Madame Pernelle (his mother) decides to leave as she finds his behavious immoral and decadent. He grandchildren, Damis and Mariane are bratty and fragile. Tartuffe has been invited to stay in the house due to his seeming piety though the rest of the family believe him to be a fraud and a liar. Orgon decides Mariane will marry Tartuffe despite her love of Valere; she is too obedient to disregard this however. Tartuffe then reveals himself to be a lecher, and Damis reveals this truth to Orogon who banished Damis. Everyone tried to reveal Tartuffe to Orogon but fails; eventually the Exempt, a police officer for the king, arrests him.

Tristam Shandy Laurence Sterne 1759

It purports to be a biography of the eponymous character. Its style is marked by digression, double entendre, and striking graphic devices. Sterne had read widely, which is reflected in Tristram Shandy. Many of his similes, for instance, are reminiscent of the works of the metaphysical poets of the 17th century, and the novel as a whole, with its focus on the problems of language, has constant reference to John Locke's theories in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Arthur Schopenhauer cited Tristram Shandy as one of the greatest novels ever written. As its title suggests, the book is ostensibly Tristram's narration of his life story. But it is one of the central jokes of the novel that he cannot explain anything simply, that he must make explanatory diversions to add context and colour to his tale, to the extent that Tristram's own birth is not even reached until Volume III. Consequently, apart from Tristram as narrator, the most familiar and important characters in the book are his father Walter, his mother, his Uncle Toby, Toby's servant Trim, and a supporting cast of popular minor characters, including the chambermaid, Susannah, Doctor Slop, and the parson, Yorick, who later became Sterne's favourite nom de plume and a very successful publicity stunt. Yorick is also the protagonist of Sterne's second work of fiction A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy.

A Modest Proposal Jonathan Swift 1729

Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. Swift suggests that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies.[This satirical hyperbole mocks heartless attitudes towards the poor, as well as Irish policy in general. In English writing, the phrase "a modest proposal" is now conventionally an allusion to this style of straight-faced satire.

The Way of the World Congreve 1700

Act 1 is set in a chocolate house where Mirabell and Fainall have just finished playing cards. A footman comes and tells Mirabell that Waitwell (Mirabell's male servant) and Foible (Lady Wishfort's female servant) were married that morning. Mirabell tells Fainall about his love of Millamant and is encouraged to marry her. Witwoud and Petulant appear and Mirabell is informed that should Lady Wishfort marry, he will lose £6000 of Millamant's inheritance.He will only get this money if he can make Lady Wishfort consent to his and Millamant's marriage. Act 2 is set in St. James' Park. Mrs. Fainall and Mrs. Marwood are discussing their hatred of men. Fainall appears and accuses Mrs. Marwood (with whom he is having an affair) of loving Mirabell (which she does). Meanwhile, Mrs. Fainall (Mirabell's former lover) tells Mirabell that she hates her husband, and they begin to plot to deceive Lady Wishfort into giving her consent to the marriage. Millamant appears in the park and, angry about the previous night (when Mirabell was confronted by Lady Wishfort), she tells Mirabell of her displeasure in his plan, which she only has a vague idea about. After she leaves, the newly wed servants appear and Mirabell reminds them of their roles in the plan. Acts 3, 4 and 5 are all set in the home of Lady Wishfort. We are introduced to Lady Wishfort who is encouraged by Foible to marry the supposed Sir Rowland - Mirabell's supposed uncle - so that Mirabell will lose his inheritance. Sir Rowland is, however, Waitwell in disguise, and the plan is to entangle Lady Wishfort in a marriage which cannot go ahead, because it would be bigamy, not to mention a social disgrace (Waitwell is only a serving man, Lady Wishfort an aristocrat). Mirabell will offer to help her out of the embarrassing situation if she consents to his marriage. Later, Mrs. Fainall discusses this plan with Foible, but this is overheard by Mrs. Marwood. She later tells the plan to Fainall, who decides that he will take his wife's money and go away with Mrs. Marwood. By Act 5, Lady Wishfort has found out the plot, and Fainall has had Waitwell arrested. Mrs. Fainall tells Foible that her previous affair with Mirabell is now public knowledge. Lady Wishfort appears with Mrs. Marwood, whom she thanks for unveiling the plot. Fainall then appears and uses the information of Mrs. Fainall's previous affair with Mirabell and Millamant's contract to marry him to blackmail Lady Wishfort, telling that she should never marry and that she is to transfer her fortune to him. Lady Wishfort offers Mirabell her consent to the marriage if he can save her fortune and honour. Mirabell calls on Waitwell who brings a contract from the time before the marriage of the Fainalls in which Mrs. Fainall gives all her property to Mirabell. This neutralises the blackmail attempts, after which Mirabell restores Mrs. Fainall's property to her possession and then is free to marry Millamant with the full £6000 inheritance

Troilus and Cressida Shakespeare

Agamemnon; Menelaus; Achilles; Patroclus; Cassandra; Priam; Hector; Cressida; Pandarus; Diomedes; The Greek king, Agamemnon, and his brother Menelaus, together with their counsellors, Ulysses and the aged Nestor, are camped outside the Trojan walls. The problem is that the great military hero, Achilles, is sulking in his tent, refusing to fight, and talking only to his friend, Patroclus. In Troy itself, King Priam and his sons, the general, Hector and his brother Paris, whose theft of Menelaus' wife, Helen, had started the war seven years before, are arguing. Their priestess sister, Cassandra, prophesies destruction for all while their younger brother Troilus is not paying attention to the conflict as he has met and fallen in love with Cressida, whose father, Calchas, has defected to the Greek camp. Cressida's uncle, Pandarus, assists the lovers to consummate their union but on the same night there is an exchange of prisoners and despite her protests Cressida is sent to join her father in the Greek camp, swearing eternal loyalty to Troilus. A challenge from Hector is answered by the Greek hero, Ajax, but Hector withdraws as Ajax is related to his family. In the Greek camp Cressida is pursued by Diomedes. She is confused by what has happened and believes that she'll never see Troilus again. Not knowing that Troilus has secretly left Troy to seek her, she responds to Diomedes. Troilus and Ulysses overhear their encounter and Troilus realises that his love has turned against her vows of faithfulness, and he returns to the city to fight more determinedly against the Greeks. In the final battle Hector kills Patroclus and Achilles is finally provoked by this death to join the fighting. At first overcome briefly by Hector, but spared, Achilles succeeds in trapping the great champion and Hector, unarmed, is slaughtered by Achilles' troop of thuggish soldiers, the Myrmidons. Troilus swears revenge for his brother's death, and mourns the end of his innocence with the loss of his beloved Cressida

Amoretti Spenser 1500s sometime

Amoretti is a sonnet cycle that describes his courtship and eventual marriage to Elizabeth Boyle. The sonnets of Amoretti draw heavily on authors of the Petrarchan tradition, most obviously Torquato Tasso and Petrarch himself. "In Amoretti, Spenser often uses the established topoi, for his sequence imitates in its own way the traditions of Petrarchan courtship and its associated Neo-Platonic conceits".Apart from the general neo-platonic conceit of spiritual love in opposition to physical love, he borrows specific images and metaphors, including those that portray the beloved or love itself as cruel tormenter. Many critics, in light of what they see as his overworking of old themes, view Spenser as being a less original and important sonneteer than contemporaries such as Shakespeare and Sir Philip Sidney. From the third sonnet through the sixty-second sonnet, the speaker is in an almost constant state of emotional turmoil and frustrated hopes. His beloved refuses to look favorably upon his suit, so his reaction ranges from desparing self-deprecation to angry tirade against her stubbornness. Most often the speaker dwells upon his beloved's beauty, both inner and outer, and the overpowering effects this beauty has upon him. He uses a variety of motifs to explicate his feelings and thoughts toward the subject of his ardour: predator and prey, wartime victor and captive, fire and ice, and hard substances that eventually soften over long periods of time. Each of these is intended to convey some aspect of his beloved's character or his own fears and apprehensions. In Sonnet 63, the Amoretti undergoes a drastic change in tone. The long-sought beloved has acceded to the speaker's request, making her his fiancée. Several sonnets of rejoicing occur, followed by several expressing the speaker's impatience at the lengthy engagement prior to the wedding day. Here, too, the speaker turns his attention from his earlier aspects of the beloved's physical beauty--her eyes and her hair in particular--and begins to be more familiar with her, to the point of describing in detail the scent of her breasts. From Sonnet 63 through Sonnet 85, the speaker revisits many of his earlier motifs, changing them to suit the new relationship between himself and his beloved. Now he is the hunter and she is the game; he is the victor, and she the vanquished. His earlier criticisms of her pride and stubbornness also change to become admiration for her constancy and strength of mind.

Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877

Anna Karenina is the tragic story of a married aristocratsocialite and her affair with the affluent Count Vronsky. The story starts when she arrives in the midst of a family broken up by her brother's unbridled womanizing—something that prefigures her own later situation, though she would experience less tolerance by others. A bachelor, Vronsky is eager to marry her if she would agree to leave her husband Karenin, a senior government official, but she is vulnerable to the pressures of Russian social norms, the moral laws of the Russian Orthodox Church, her own insecurities, and Karenin's indecision. Although Vronsky and Anna go to Italy, where they can be together, they have trouble making friends. Back in Russia, she is shunned, becoming further isolated and anxious, while Vronsky pursues his social life. Despite Vronsky's reassurances, she grows increasingly possessive and paranoid about his imagined infidelity, fearing loss of control. A parallel story within the novel is that of Konstantin Levin, a wealthy country landowner who wants to marry Princess Kitty, sister to Dolly and sister-in-law to Anna's brother Oblonsky. Konstantin has to propose twice before Kitty accepts. The novel details Konstantin's difficulties managing his estate, his eventual marriage, and his personal issues, until the birth of his first child. The novel explores a diverse range of topics throughout its approximately thousand pages. Some of these topics include an evaluation of the feudal system that existed in Russia at the time—politics, not only in the Russian government but also at the level of the individual characters and families, religion, morality, gender and social class.

Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1856

Charles Bovary is a country physician who, after an unhappy first marriage, marries the daughter of a patient. Emma is eager to leave her father's dirty farm but finds marriage to be less romantic and satisfying than she expected. Charles is not a prince, but a bumbling, aging man. Even when at work he performs more like a veterinarian than a skilled surgeon. Indeed, when he and the local chemist attempt a new procedure on a clubfoot, the patient gets gangrene and loses his leg. Disgusted, Emma develops a relationship with Leon Dupuis, a young lawyer. She refuses to sleep with him but regrets it after he leaves town. She then meets Rodolphe Boulanger, a wealthy landowner who seduces Emma to pass the time. They have a brief if passionate affair. When Boulanger abandons her, Emma returns to Leon, this time giving in to their mutual passion. Her affair has an air of desperation. She soon exhausts her limited funds on trips to visit her lover and love gifts. Knowing that her husband will discover her affair when their financial situation is revealed, Emma overdoses on arsenic and dies miserably.

The Wasteland T.S. Eliot 1922

Eliot's poem loosely follows the legend of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King combined with vignettes of contemporary British society. Eliot employs many literary and cultural allusions from the Western canon, Buddhism and the Hindu Upanishads. Because of this, critics and scholars regard the poem as obscure. The poem shifts between voices of satire and prophecy featuring abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location, and time and conjuring of a vast and dissonant range of cultures and literatures. The poem's structure is divided into five sections. The first section, The Burial of the Dead, introduces the diverse themes of disillusionment and despair. The second, A Game of Chess, employs vignettes of several characters—alternating narrations—that address those themes experientially. The Fire Sermon, the third section, offers a philosophical meditation in relation to the imagery of death and views of self-denial in juxtaposition influenced by Augustine of Hippo and eastern religions. After a fourth section that includes a brief lyrical petition, the culminating fifth section, What the Thunder Said, concludes with an image of judgment. The style of the poem overall is marked by the hundreds of allusions and quotations from other texts (classic and obscure; "highbrow" and "lowbrow") that Eliot peppered throughout the poem. In addition to the many "highbrow" references and or quotes from poets like Baudelaire, Shakespeare, Ovid, and Homer, Eliot also included a couple of references to "lowbrow" genres. A good example of this is Eliot's quote from the 1912 popular song "The Shakespearian Rag" by lyricists Herman Ruby and Gene Buck There were also a number of lowbrow references in the opening section of Eliot's original manuscript (when the poem was entitled "He Do The Police in Different Voices"), but they were removed from the final draft after Eliot cut this original opening section. he Waste Land is notable for its seemingly disjointed structure, indicative of the Modernist style of James Joyce's Ulysses (which Eliot cited as an influence and which he read the same year that he was writing The Waste Land) In the Modernist style, Eliot jumps from one voice or image to another without clearly delineating these shifts for the reader. He also includes phrases from multiple foreign languages (Latin, Greek, Italian, German, French and Sanskrit), indicative of Pound's influence.

Astrophil and Stella Sidney 1591

English sonnet sequence containing 108 sonnets and 11 songs. The name derives from the two Greek words, 'aster' (star) and 'phil' (lover), and the Latin word 'stella' meaning star. Thus Astrophil is the star lover, and Stella is his star. Sidney partly nativized the key features of his Italian model Petrarch, including an ongoing but partly obscure narrative, the philosophical trappings of the poet in relation to love and desire, and musings on the art of poetic creation. Sidney also adopts the Petrarchan rhyme scheme, though he uses it with such freedom that fifteen variants are employed Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That the dear She might take some pleasure of my pain: Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain, I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain: Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burned brain. But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay, Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows, And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way. Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite, 'Fool' said my Muse to me, 'look in thy heart and write.'

The Divine Comedy Dante 1472

Epic poem in terza rima (tercets or groups of three lines with interlocking rhymes: aba, bcb, cdc, etc.). Italian original. A trilogy: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso. Each volume divided into sections called Cantos. Dante sets himself as the narrator and main character of this epic poem. The Inferno is an account of Dante's own journey, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil, through the nine levels of hell. During this journey Dante encounters and holds conversations with the souls of the damned. At the end of the journey, at the bottom of hell, Dante must face Satan and confront the problem of how to escape from the underworld. Beatrice serves as Dante's muse and inspiration. In The Divine Comedy it is Beatrice who, out of love for the poet, initiates Dante's journey because she believes that he has strayed from a righteous path and she thinks that this divine journey will save him from himself. Thus, she leaves her seat in Heaven to descend to Hell where she asks Virgil to serve as Dante's guide. Beatrice meets Dante in Earthly Paradise (Purgatorio) and acts as his guide through Heaven.

Everyman Anon (premiered 1510)

Everyman uses allegorical characters to examine the question of Christian salvation and what Man must do to attain it. The premise is that the good and evil deeds of one's life will be tallied by God after death, as in a ledger book. The play is the allegorical accounting of the life of Everyman, who represents all mankind. In the course of the action, Everyman tries to convince other characters to accompany him in the hope of improving his account. All the characters are also allegorical, each personifying an abstract idea such as Fellowship, (material) Goods, and Knowledge. The conflict between good and evil is dramatised by the interactions between characters. Everyman is being singled out because it is difficult for him to find characters to accompany him on his pilgrimage. Everyman eventually realizes through this pilgrimage that he is essentially alone, despite all the personified characters that were supposed necessities and friends to him. Everyman learns that when you are brought to death and placed before God all you are left with is your own good deeds.

Volpone Ben Jonson 1605-6

In Volpone, Ben Jonson celebrates the joy of a good trick. He emphasizes the fun and the humor of deceit, but he does not overlook its nastiness, and in the end he punishes the deceivers. The play centers around the wealthy Volpone, who, having no wife or children, pretends to be dying and, with the help of his wily servant Mosca, eggs on several greedy characters, each of whom hopes to be made Volpone's sole heir. Jonson's ardent love of language reveals itself throughout the play, but especially in the words of Mosca and Volpone, who relish the deceptive powers of language. Volpone himself pursues his schemes partly out of greed, but partly out of his passionate love of getting the best of people. He cannot resist the temptation to outsmart those around him, particularly when fate delivers him such perfect gulls as the lawyer Voltore, the merchant Corvino, the doddering old Corbaccio, and the foolish English travelers Sir Politic and Lady Would-Be. Mosca too revels in his ability to beguile others, remarking "I fear I shall begin to grow in love With my dear self," so thrilled is he with his own manipulations. His self-love, however, proves his undoing, as it does for Volpone. Both characters become so entranced by their own elaborate fictions that they cannot bring themselves to stop their scheming before they betray themselves.

Lycidas John Milton 1637

In this Monody the author bewails a learned friend, unfortunately drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, and by occasion foretells the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their height. pastoral elegy: The pastoral tradition in English literature, the tradition of dealing with characters under the guise of poetic shepherds in an idyllic environment, has its roots in classical literature; Vergil and Theocritus are two of the most notable poets who wrote in the pastoral vein. All nature helps out to mourn the loss. YET once more, O ye Laurels, and once more Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never-sear, I com to pluck your Berries harsh and crude, And with forc'd fingers rude, Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear, Compels me to disturb your season due: For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer: Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.

Self Reliance Ralph Waldo Emerson 1837 ish

It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes, the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his or her own instincts and ideas. It is the source of one of Emerson's most famous quotations: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."This essay is an analysis into the nature of the "aboriginal self on which a universal reliance may be grounded n the first section, Emerson argues that inside of each person is genius. He writes: "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,— that is genius." The remainder of this section is spent exploring this concept. He says that only a man who is self-reliant will be successful and any outside influences would take away from personal satisfaction.Emerson claims that examples of people who trusted themselves above all else include Moses, Plato, and John Milton. He then goes on to highlight the value of individual expression. Emerson writes that a man should follow what he thinks in order to discover his own path in life. When a person follows another person's path instead of his own, he feels dispirited and small. An example that he states is a person hears some idea they had thought in their mind said by another person. Throughout this essay, Emerson argues against conformity with the world. He argues how people should not conform to what other people in society think, but instead he should transform society with his thoughts.He gives an archetype for his own transcendental beliefs, but also argues for his slogan "trust thyself". To follow Emerson's self-reliant credo fully, one must learn to hear and obey what is most true within one's heart, and both think and act independent of popular opinion and social pressure, in order to bring satisfaction to one's self.

The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929

It employs a number of narrative styles, including the technique known as stream of consciousness, pioneered by 20th-century European novelists such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. The Sound and the Fury is set in Jefferson, Mississippi. The novel centers on the Compson family, former Southern aristocrats who are struggling to deal with the dissolution of their family and its reputation. Over the course of the 30 years or so related in the novel, the family falls into financial ruin, loses its religious faith and the respect of the town of Jefferson, and many of them die tragically. The novel is separated into four distinct sections. The first, April 7th, 1928, is written from the perspective of Benjamin "Benjy" Compson, a cognitively disabled 33-year-old man. The characteristics of his disease are not clear, but it is hinted that he suffers from a developmental disability. Benjy's section is characterized by a highly disjointed narrative style with frequent chronological leaps. The second section, June 2, 1910, focuses on Quentin Compson, Benjy's older brother, and the events leading up to his suicide. In the third section, April 6, 1928, Faulkner writes from the point of view of Jason, Quentin's cynical younger brother. In the fourth and final section, set a day after the first, on April 8, 1928, Faulkner introduces a third person omniscient point of view. The last section primarily focuses on Dilsey, one of the Compsons' black servants. Jason is also a focus in the section, but Faulkner presents glimpses of the thoughts and deeds of everyone in the family.

Lycidas John Milton 1637

It first appeared in a 1638 collection of elegies, entitled Justa Edouardo King Naufrago, dedicated to the memory of Edward King, a collegemate of Milton's atCambridge who drowned when his ship sank in the Irish Sea off the coast of Wales in August 1637. The poem is 193 lines in length, and is irregularly rhymed. While many of the other poems in the compilation are in Greek and Latin, "Lycidas" is one of the poems written in English. Milton republished the poem in 1645. By naming Edward King "Lycidas," Milton follows "the tradition of memorializing a loved one through Pastoral poetry, a practice that may be traced from ancient Greek Sicily through Roman culture and into the Christian Middle Ages and early Renaissance."Milton describes King as "selfless," even though he was of the clergy - a statement both bold and, at the time, controversial among lay people: "Through allegory, the speaker accuses God of unjustly punishing the young, selfless King, whose premature death ended a career that would have unfolded in stark contrast to the majority of the ministers and bishops of the Church of England, whom the speaker condemns as depraved, materialistic, and selfish."

A House for Mr. Biswas V.S. Naipaul 1961

It is the story of Mohun Biswas, an Indo-Trinidadian who continually strives for success and mostly fails, who marries into the Tulsi family only to find himself dominated by it, and who finally sets the goal of owning his own house. Drawing some elements from the life of Naipaul's father,[1][2] the work is primarily a sharply drawn look at life that uses postcolonial perspectives to view a vanished colonial world.

The Preface to Shakespeare Samuel Johnson 1769

Johnson makes his Shakespearian criticism the foundation for general statements about man, nature, and literature. He is a true neo-classicist in his concern with the universal rather than with the particular; the highest praise he can bestow upon Shakespeare is to say that his plays are "just representations of general nature." The dramatist has relied upon his knowledge of human nature, rather than on bizarre effects, for his success. "The pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and the mind can only repose on the stability of truth," Johnson concludes. It is for this reason that Shakespeare has outlived his century and reached the point at which his works can be judged solely on their own merits, without the interference of personal interests and prejudices that make criticism of one's contemporaries difficult. Keywords: universal, natural. One of Johnson's most stringent objections to Shakespeare's work arises from his strong conviction that literature is essentially didactic. He is disturbed by Shakespeare's disregard of "poetic justice." Johnson was convinced that the writer should show the virtuous rewarded and the evil punished, and he finds that Shakespeare, by ignoring this premis, "sacrifices virtue to convenience." The fact that in life evil often triumphs over good is no excuse in Johnson's eyes: "It is always a writer's duty to make the world better."' Shakespeare's careless plotting and his "disregard for distinctions of time and place" are also noted as flaws. Although Johnson dislikes Shakespeare's bawdry, he is willing to concede that that fault, at least, might have rested with the indelicacy of the ladies and gentlemen at the courts of Elizabeth I and James I, rather than with the playwright. These minor "errors" are far less irritating to Johnson than Shakespeare's use of puns: "A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it."

Julius Caesar Shakespeare

Marullus; Flavius; Mark Antony; Caesar; Cassius; Marcu Brutus; Casca; Calphurnia; The tribunes, Marullus and Flavius, break up a gathering of Roman citizens who seek to celebrate Julius Caesar's triumphant return from war. The victory is marked by public games in which Caesar's friend, Mark Antony, takes part. On his way to the arena Caesar is stopped by a stranger who warns that he should 'Beware the Ides (15th) of March.' Fellow senators, Caius Cassius and Marcus Brutus, are suspicious of Caesar's reactions to the power he holds in the Republic. They fear he will accept offers to become Emperor. Cassius, a successful general himself, is jealous, while Brutus has a more balanced view of the political position. Cassius, Casca, and their allies, visit Brutus at night to persuade him of their views, and they plan Caesar's death. Brutus is troubled but will not confide in his devoted wife, Portia. On the 15th March Caesar is urged not to go to the Senate by his wife, Calphurnia, who has had dreamsthat he will be murdered, and she fears the portents of the overnight storms. He is nevertheless persuaded by flattery to go and as petitioners surround him Caesar is stabbed and dies as Brutus gives the final blow. Against Cassius's advice Mark Antony is allowed by Brutus to speak a funeral oration in the market place after Brutus has addressed the people of Rome to explain the conspirators' reasons and their fears for Caesar's ambition. Brutus calms the crowd but Antony's speech stirs them to rioting and the conspirators are forced to flee from the city. Brutus and Cassius gather an army in Northern Greece and prepare to fight the forces led by Mark Antony, who has joined with Caesar's great-nephew, Octavius, and with Lepidus. Away from Rome, Brutus and Cassius are filled with doubts about the future and they quarrel bitterly over funds for their soldiers' pay. They make up the argument and despite the misgivings of Cassius over the site they prepare to engage Antony's army at Philippi. Brutus stoically receives news of his wife's suicide in Rome, but he sees Caesar's ghost as he rests, unable to sleep on the eve of the conflict. In the battle the Republicans at first appear to be winning but when his messenger's horse seems to be overtaken by the enemy Cassius fears the worst and gets his servant, Pindarus, to help him to a quick death. Brutus, finding Cassius's body, commits suicide as the only honourable action left to him. Antony, triumphant on the battlefield, praises Brutus as 'the noblest Roman of them all', and orders a formal funeral before he and Octavius return to rule in Rome.

Areopagitca John Milton 1644

Miltion's response to Henry VIII's Licensing Order that outlawed printing without author's consent - kinda like modern copyrights. KEYWORD: cloistered virtue - Milton considered this ironic because of free choice. The Four Major Arguments Who are the inventors of licensing? The Catholic church. What is to be thought of reading? It is a necessary acquisition of knowledge of good and evil in a fallen world. This Order is ineffectual in suppressing "scandalous, seditious, and libelous books." This Order will discourage learning and the pursuit of truth. They, who to states and governors of the Commonwealth direct their speech, High Court of Parliament, or, wanting such access in a private condition, write that which they foresee may advance the public good; I suppose them, as at the beginning of no mean endeavour, not a little altered and moved inwardly in their minds: some with doubt of what will be the success, others with fear of what will be the censure; some with hope, others with confidence of what they have to speak.

The Awakening Kate Chopin 1899

Set in New Orleans and on the Louisiana Gulf coast at the end of the 19th century, the plot centers on Edna Pontellier and her struggle to reconcile her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century American South. It is one of the earliest American novels that focuses on women's issues without condescension. It is also widely seen as a landmark work of early feminism, generating a mixed reaction from contemporary readers and critics. The novel's blend of realistic narrative, incisive social commentary, and psychological complexity makes The Awakening a precursor of American modernist literature; it prefigures the works of American novelists such as William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway and echoes the works of contemporaries such as Edith Wharton and Henry James. It can also be considered among the first Southern works in a tradition that would culminate with the modern masterpieces of Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter, and Tennessee Williams.

Twelfth Night Shakespeare

Orsino, Olivia, Viola; Cesario Maria; Sir Tony Belch; Malvolio; Sebastian Orsino, the Duke of lllyria, is in love with his neighbour, the Countess Olivia. She has sworn to avoid men's company for seven years while she mourns the death of her brother, so rejects him. Nearby a group of sailors arrive on shore with a young woman, Viola, who has survived a shipwreck in a storm at sea. Viola mourns the loss of her twin brother but decides to dress as a boy to get work as a page to Duke Orsino. Despite his rejection Orsino sends his new page Cesario (Viola in disguise) to woo Olivia on his behalf. Viola goes unwillingly as she has already fallen in love at first sight with the duke. Olivia is attracted by the 'boy' and she sends her pompous steward, Malvolio, after him with a ring. Olivia's uncle, Sir Toby Belch, her servant Maria, and Sir Toby's friend, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, who is also hoping to woo Olivia, and is being led on by Sir Toby, who is trying to fleece him of his money, all plot to expose the self-love of Malvolio. By means of a false letter they trick him into thinking his mistress Olivia loves him. Malvolio appears in yellow stockings and cross-garters, smiling as they have told him to in the letter. Unaware of the trick the Countess is horrified and has Malvolio shut up in the dark as a madman. Meanwhile Viola's twin brother, Sebastian, who has also survived the shipwreck, comes to Illyria. His sea-captain friend, Antonio, is a wanted man for piracy against Orsino. The resemblance between Cesario and Sebastian leads the jealous Sir Andrew to challenge Cesario to a duel. Antonio intervenes to defend Cesario whom he thinks is his friend Sebastian, and is arrested. Olivia has in the meantime met and become betrothed to Sebastian. Cesario is accused of deserting both Antonio and Olivia when the real Sebastianarrives to apologise for fighting Sir Toby. Seeing both twins together, all is revealed to Olivia. Orsino's fool, Feste, brings a letter from Malvolio and on his release the conspirators confess to having written the false letter. Malvolio departs promising revenge. Maria and Sir Toby have married in celebration of the success of their device against the steward. The play ends as Orsino welcomes Olivia and Sebastian and, realising his own attraction to Cesario, he promises that once she is dressed as a woman again they, too, will be married.

Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer 1475

Pilgrims include: A Knight; A Miller; The Reeve; The Cook; The Sergeant at Law; The Wife of Bath; The Summoner; The Clerk; The Merchant; The Squire; The Franklin; The Physician; The Pardoner; The Sea Captain; The Prioress; Sir Topas; The Monk; The Nun; The Second Nun; The Canon Yeoman; The Manciple; The Parson. Chaucer uses the same meter throughout almost all of his tales, with the exception of Sir Thopas and his prose tales. It is a decasyllable line, probably borrowed from French and Italian forms, with riding rhyme and, occasionally, a caesura in the middle of a line. His meter would later develop into the heroic meter of the 15th and 16th centuries and is an ancestor of iambic pentameter. He avoids allowing couplets to become too prominent in the poem, and four of the tales (the Man of Law's, Clerk's, Prioress', and Second Nun's) use rhyme royale

The Duchess of Malfi John Wesbter 1614

Published: 1623 Webster's story of the Duchess of Malfi may be an Elizabethan tragedy, but it is also a psychological horror story as well told as any modern novel in the genre. The Duchess inherits her realm as a widow, and is urged by her broothers Ferdinand Duke of Calabria and the Cardinal to marry again. Although at first she vows never to remarry, she eventually falls for her steward, Antonio Bologna. Because he is her servant and not noble, they hide their marriage until she becomes obviously pregnant and is delivered of a son. When her brothers discover this, they assume that the child has been born out of wedlock. Ferdinand eventually discovers the truth, and the duchess realises that he and the cardinal will not be willing for her land to descend to her children by Antonio. They attack her lands and take her prisoner, then torture her by showing her signs as though Antonio and the children are dead. It is the captivity of the duchess which is the greatest part of the play. The attempts by her brothers to drive her insane are treated in a way guaranteed to move even the most heartless; the proceedings themselves move her jailor, steeped in crime though he is. This justly ranks as one of the best known non-Shakespearean plays of the period.

Crime and Punishment Dostoevsky 1866

Raskolnikov, a conflicted former student, lives in a tiny, rented room in Saint Petersburg. He refuses all help, even from his friend Razumikhin, and devises a plan to murder and to rob an unpleasant elderly pawn-broker and money-lender, Alyona Ivanovna. His motivation comes from the overwhelming sense that he is predetermined to kill the old woman by some power outside of himself. While still considering the plan, Raskolnikov makes the acquaintance of Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov, a drunkard who recently squandered his family's little wealth. Raskolnikov also receives a letter from his sister and mother, speaking of their coming visit to Saint Petersburg, and his sister's sudden marriage plans which they plan to discuss upon their arrival. After much deliberation, Raskolnikov sneaks into Alyona Ivanovna's apartment, where he murders her with an axe. He also kills her half-sister, Lizaveta, who happens to stumble upon the scene of the crime. Shaken by his actions, Raskolnikov manages to steal only a handful of items and a small purse, leaving much of the pawn-broker's wealth untouched. Raskolnikov then flees and, due to a series of coincidences, manages to leave unseen and undetected. After the bungled murder, Raskolnikov falls into a feverish state and begins to worry obsessively over the murder. He hides the stolen items and purse under a rock, and tries desperately to clean his clothing of any blood or evidence. He falls into a fever later that day, though not before calling briefly on his old friend Razumikhin. As the fever comes and goes in the following days, Raskolnikov behaves as though he wishes to betray himself. he sees Marmeladov, who has been struck mortally by a carriage in the streets. Rushing to help him, Raskolnikov gives the remainder of his money to the man's family, which includes his teenage daughter, Sonya, who has been forced to become a prostitute to support her family. More murders more drama more Siberia in the end

The Defense of Poesy Phillip Sidney 1595

Sidney clearly had been contemplating the problem of the poet's role in society for a long time, perhaps since his earliest education in which he would have encountered Plato's famous banishment of poets from the ideal Republic on the grounds that they could lead the Guardians and citizens to immorality. It long has been argued that he may have been responding to Stephen Gosson, a Puritain pamphleteer whose "School of Abuse" blamed playwrights and the theatre, in particular, and poets in general, for leading English society astray. Gosson dedicated the pamphlet to Sidney without asking permission, and some poets at the time suspected Sidney would reply in some fashion. In the "Defense," Sidney argues that poets were the first philosophers, that they first brought learning to humanity, and that they have the power to conceive new worlds of being and to populate them with new creatures. According to Sidney, their "golden" world of possibility is superior to the "brazen" one of historians who must be content with the mere truth of happenstance. He then defines what he belives to be the essential formal characteristics of the various genres of poetry, and defends poetry against the charge that it is composed of lies and leads one to sin. Golden world poets are the true philosophers

Walden Thoreau 1854

Since Walden is the autobiographical, non-fiction recounting of Henry David Thoreau's stay at Walden Pond, every event in the text is essentially factual rather than imagined or created. The action is simply comprised of the events that happen to Thoreau during the two years that he spends in the woods. The narrator feels that society has strayed too far from the pursuit of excellence and purity. He claims that mankind has become too ambitious and greedy, enslaved by his own desire to own and possess. People have strayed away from simple lives offered by Nature's example. The narrator decides to move to the woods, where he builds a small cabin. He plants a garden and lives off of what he can produce or capture. He is isolated from other people for the most part, though he does have occasional visitors. He spends his time observing nature, wildlife, and the seasons and contemplating the nature of man and the universe. He also reflects on the differences and similarities between society and nature. At the end of two years, he returns to society. He writes down the factual story of his time in the woods, along with his interpretation of the events that occurred. He offers his work as encouragement and motivation in the hope that society will purify itself. "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

The Courtier Castiglione 1528

The Book of the Courtier (Italian: Il Cortegiano [il korteˈdʒaːno]) is a courtesy book. It was written by Baldassare Castiglione over the course of many years, beginning in 1508, and published in 1528 by the Aldine Press in Venice just before his death; an English edition was published in 1561. It addresses the constitution of a perfect courtier, and in its last installment, a perfect lady. The Book of the Courtier is an example of the Renaissance dialogue, a literary form that incorporated elements of drama, conversation, philosophy, and essay. Considered the definitive account of Renaissance court life, it is cited frequently along with Stefano Guazzo's The civil conversation (1574) and Giovanni Della Casa's Galateo (1558). They are among the most important Renaissance works of the Italian Renaissance

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers 1940

The book begins with a focus on the relationship between two close friends, John Singer and Spiros Antonapoulous. The two are described as deaf-mutes who have lived together for several years. There are homosexual overtones to their intimate friendship, though there is nothing overt. Antonopoulous becomes mentally ill, misbehaves, and despite attempts at intervention from Singer, is eventually put into an insane asylum in away from town. Now alone, Singer moves into a new room. The remainder of the narrative centers on the struggles of four of John Singer's acquaintances: Mick Kelly, a tomboyish girl who loves music and dreams of buying a piano; Jake Blount, an alcoholic labor agitator; Biff Brannon, the observant owner of a diner; and Dr. Benedict Mady Copeland, an idealistic black physician.

Dover Beach Matthew Arnold 1851

The most poignant image is the sea. The sea includes the visual imagery, used to express illusion, as well as the auditory imagery, used to express reality. A vivid description of the calm sea in the first eight lines allows a picture of the sea to unfold. However, the next six lines call upon auditory qualities, especially the words "Listen," "grating roar," and "eternal note of sadness." The distinction between the sight and sound imagery continues into the third stanza. Sophocles can hear the Aegean Sea, but cannot see it. He hears the purposelessness "of human misery," but cannot see it because of the "turbid ebb and flow" of the sea. The allusion of Sophocles and the past disappears abruptly, replaced by the auditory image, "But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar Retreating to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world" (Lines 24-28). The image is intensely drawn by Arnold to vividly see the faith disappearing from the speaker's world. The image of darkness pervades the speaker's life just like the night wind pushes the clouds in to change a bright, calm sea into dark, "naked shingles." In the final stanza, the speaker makes his last attempt to hold on to illusion, yet is forced to face reality. John Ciardi affirms, "Love, on the other hand, tries to imagine a land of dreams and certitude" (196). Humanitarian sympathy becomes distinct in the spiritual image of love, even though the love which the speaker refers to is the unseen second person to which he communes.

Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1937

The novel narrates main character Janie Crawford's "ripening from a vibrant, but voiceless, teenage girl into a woman with her finger on the trigger of her own destiny." Set in central and southern Florida in the early 20th century, the novel was initially poorly received for its rejection of racial uplift literary prescriptions. The main character Janie Crawford, an African-American woman in her early forties, tells the story of her life via an extended flashback to her best friend, Pheoby Watson. Pheoby tells Janie's story to the nosy community on her behalf. Her life has three major periods corresponding to her marriages to three very different men.

The Cherry Orchard Chekhov 1904

The play concerns an aristocratic Russian woman and her family as they return to their family estate (which includes a large and well-known cherry orchard) just before it is auctioned to pay the mortgage. While presented with options to save the estate, the family essentially does nothing and the play ends with the sale of the estate to the son of a former serf; the family leaves to the sound of the cherry orchard being cut down. The story presents themes of cultural futility - both the futile attempts of the aristocracy to maintain its status and of the bourgeoisie to find meaning in its newfound materialism. In reflecting the socio-economic forces at work in Russia at the turn of the 20th century, including the rise of the middle class after the abolition of serfdom in the mid-19th century and the sinking of the aristocracy, the play reflects forces at work around the globe in that period. Characters: Madame Ranevskaya; Peter Trofimov; Boris Pishchik; Anya; Leonid Gayev; Yermolai Lopakhin; Yepikhogov; Yasha; Firs

Kubla Khan Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1797

The poem is different in style and form from other poems composed by Coleridge. While incomplete and subtitled a "fragment", its language is highly stylised with a strong emphasis on sound devices that change between the poem's original two stanzas. The first stanza of the poem describes Khan's pleasure dome built alongside a sacred river fed by a powerful fountain. The second stanza of the poem is the narrator's response to the power and effects of an Abyssinian maid's song, which enraptures him but leaves him unable to act on her inspiration unless he could hear her once again. Together, they form a comparison of creative power that does not work with nature and creative power that is harmonious with nature. **Xanadu ***

My Last Duchess Robert Browning 1842

The poem is set during the late Italian Renaissance. The speaker (presumably the Duke of Ferrara) is giving the emissary of the family of his prospective new wife (presumably a third or fourth since Browning could have easily written 'second' but did not do so) a tour of the artworks in his home. He draws a curtain to reveal a painting of a woman, explaining that it is a portrait of his late wife; he invites his guest to sit and look at the painting. As they look at the portrait of the late Duchess, the Duke describes her happy, cheerful and flirtatious nature, which had displeased him. He says, "She had a heart - how shall I say? - too soon made glad..." He goes on to say that his complaint of her was that "'twas not her husband's presence only" that made her happy. Eventually, "I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together." This could be interpreted as either the Duke had given commands to the Duchess to stop smiling or commands for her to be killed. He now keeps her painting hidden behind a curtain that only he is allowed to draw back, meaning that now she only smiles for him. The Duke then resumes an earlier conversation regarding wedding arrangements, and in passing points out another work of art, a bronze statue of Neptune taming a sea-horse by Claus of Innsbruck, so making his late wife but just another work of art. That's my Last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will't please you sit and look at her? I said "Frà Pandolf" by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)

Piers Plowman William Langland 1370-90

The poem—part theological allegory, part social satire—concerns the narrator's intense quest for the true Christian life, from the perspective of medieval Catholicism. This quest entails a series of dream-visions and an examination into the lives of three allegorical characters, Dowel ("Do-Well"), Dobet ("Do-Better"), and Dobest ("Do-Best"). The following summary is based on the B-version of the poem--the most widely edited and translated. The poem is divided into passus ('steps') he poem begins in the Malvern Hills between Worcestershire and Herefordshire. A man named Will (which can be understood simply as a personal name or as an allegory for a person's will, in the sense of 'desire, intention') falls asleep and has a vision of a tower set upon a hill and a fortress (donjon) in a deep valley; between these symbols of heaven and hell is a "fair field full of folk", representing the world of mankind. A satirical account of different sections of society follows, along with a dream-like fable representing the King as a cat and his people as rodents

Adam Bede George Eliot 1859

The story's plot follows four characters' rural lives in the fictional community of Hayslope—a rural, pastoral and close-knit community in 1799. The novel revolves around a love "rectangle" among beautiful but self-absorbed Hetty Sorrel; Captain Arthur Donnithorne, the young squire who seduces her; Adam Bede, her unacknowledged suitor; and Dinah Morris, Hetty's cousin, a fervent, virtuous and beautiful Methodist lay preacher. Adam is a local carpenter much admired for his integrity and intelligence, in love with Hetty. She is attracted to Arthur, the charming local squire's grandson and heir, and falls in love with him. When Adam interrupts a tryst between them, Adam and Arthur fight. Arthur agrees to give up Hetty and leaves Hayslope to return to his militia. After he leaves, Hetty Sorrel agrees to marry Adam but shortly before their marriage, discovers she is pregnant. In desperation, she leaves in search of Arthur but she cannot find him. Unwilling to return to the village on account of the shame and ostracism she would have to endure, she delivers her baby with the assistance of a friendly woman she encounters. She subsequently abandons the infant in a field but not being able to bear the child's cries, she tries to retrieve the infant. However, she is too late, the infant having already died of exposure. Hetty is caught and tried for child murder. She is found guilty and sentenced to hang. Dinah enters the prison and pledges to stay with Hetty until the end. Her compassion brings about Hetty's contrite confession. When Arthur Donnithorne, on leave from the militia for his grandfather's funeral, hears of her impending execution, he races to the court and has the sentence commuted to transportation. Ultimately, Adam and Dinah, who gradually become aware of their mutual love, marry and live peacefully with his family.

Hudibras Samuel Butler 1663-on

The work is a satirical polemic upon Roundheads, Puritans, Presbyterians and many of the other factions involved in the English Civil War. The epic tells the story of Sir Hudibras, a knight errant who is described dramatically and with laudatory praise that is so thickly applied as to be absurd, and the conceited and arrogant person is visible beneath. He is praised for his knowledge of logic despite appearing stupid throughout, but it is his religious fervour which is mainly attacked: For his Religion, it was fit To match his learning and his wit; 'Twas Presbyterian true blue; For he was of that stubborn crew Of errant saints, whom all men grant To be the true Church Militant; Such as do build their faith upon The holy text of pike and gun; Decide all controversies by Infallible artillery; And prove their doctrine orthodox By apostolic blows and knocks; Call fire and sword and desolation, A godly thorough reformation, Which always must be carried on, And still be doing, never done; As if religion were intended For nothing else but to be mended. His squire, Ralpho, is of a similar stamp but makes no claim to great learning, knowing all there is to know from his religion or "new-light", as he calls it. Butler satirises the competing factions at the time of the protectorship by the constant bickering of these two principal characters whose religious opinions should unite them.

Death in Venice Thomas Mann 1912

The work presents a great writer suffering writer's block who visits Venice and is liberated, uplifted, and then increasingly obsessed, by the sight of a stunningly beautiful youth. Though he never speaks to the boy, much less touches him, the writer finds himself drawn deep into ruinous inward passion; meanwhile, Venice, and finally, the writer himself, succumb to a cholera plague. The novella is powerfully intertextual, with the chief sources being first the connection of erotic love to philosophical wisdom traced in Plato's Symposium and Phaedrus, and second the Nietzschean contrast between the god of restraint and shaping form, Apollo, and the god of excess and passion, Dionysus. The boy in the story (Tadzio) is based on a boy (Władzio or Tadzio, nicknames for the Polish name Władysław or Tadeusz respectively)

Midsummer Night's Dream Shakespeare

Theseus; Hermia; Hippolyta; Puck; Titania; Demetrius; Lysander; Quince; Oberon Theseus, the Duke of Athens, is preparing for his marriage to Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, A courtier seeks the Duke's intervention because his daughter, Hermia, will not agree to his choice of Demetrius as a husband: she's in love with Lysander. The Duke tells Hermia to obey her father, or either die or accept a life as a nun in Diana's temple. Lysander and Hermia plan to elope, and they tell Helena, who is in love with Demetrius, but he hates her and loves Hermia. The lovers run away from Athens but get lost in the woods. They are followed by Demetrius, and then by Helena, who has told him of their intentions. Oberon, king of the fairies, who lives in the woods, has quarrelled with his queen, Titania, over an Indian boy she refuses to give him. Oberon overhears Helena and Demetrius arguing and sends his mischievous servant, Puck, to get a flower whose juice has the power to make people fall in love with the first creature they see when the juice is placed on their eyelids while asleep. He instructs Puck to put some drops on Demetrius' eyes. Mistaking the Athenian he seeks, Puck puts the flower juice on the eyes of the sleeping Lysander so that when he is woken by Helena he immediately falls in love with her and rejects Hermia. Some artisans are rehearsing a play about the tragic love-story of Pyramus and Thisbe to present before Theseus on his wedding day. Bottom, the weaver, is to play the lover, Pyramus, while Flute, the bellows-mender, is to play Thisbe. The others play the parts of the Moon, the Wall and the Lion and they are directed by Quince, the carpenter. Puck overhears their rehearsals in the wood and he plays a trick on them by giving Bottom an ass's head which frightens the others away. Bottom is lured towards the sleeping Titania whom Oberon has treated with the flower juice. On waking, she falls in love with the ass and entertains him with her fairies, but when Bottom falls asleep beside her, Oberon restores Titania's sight and wakes her. She is appalled at the sight of what she has been in love with and is reunited with Oberon. Puck removes the ass's head and Bottom returns to Athens and rejoins his friends as they prepare to perform their play. Meanwhile the lovers' arguments tire them out as they chase one another through the woods and when Demetrius rests, Oberon puts magic juice on his eyes so that both he and Lysander pursue Helena until the fourlovers fall asleep, exhausted. Puck puts juice on Lysander's eyes before the lovers are woken by Theseus and Hippolyta and their dawn hunting party. Happily reunited to each other, Lysander with Hermia, Demetrius with Helena, they agree to share the Duke's wedding day. The rustics perform the play of Pyramus and Thisbe before the wedding guests. As the three couples retire Puck and the fairies return to bless the palace and its people.

Absalom and Achitopel John Dryden 1681

This poem by John Dryden is an allegory, using Biblical characters and environment in place of England in Dryden's time. Here is the 'cast' of equivalent characters: Charles spent so much time with his lovers that he didn't have a legitimate heir so his Catholic brother James became successor to the throne In pious times, e'r Priest-craft did begin, Before Polygamy was made a sin; When man, on many, multiply'd his kind, E'r one to one was, cursedly, confind: When Nature prompted, and no law deny'd Promiscuous use of Concubine and Bride; Then, Israel's monarch, after Heaven's own heart, His vigorous warmth did, variously, impart To Wives and Slaves; And, wide as his Command, Scatter'd his Maker's Image through the Land.

To His Coy Mistress Andrew Marvell 1650s

To His Coy Mistress is a poem of two halves: the first splendidly flatters by setting out what would be proper lengths of time in which to adore her, if there was sufficient time. But having set her up, he follows on by telling her that there just isn't the time for all that "And your quaint honour turn to dust" and so they should "tear our pleasures with rough strife". Human nature hasn't changed too much over the last three hundred years but I bet few young ladies receive requests to dispense with their virginity in such a form today! The final couplet seems to confuse many. (Poem is 46 lines long in heroic couplets.) Had we but world enough, and time, 1. This coyness Lady were no crime. We would sit down and think which way To walk, and pass our long love's day. Thou by the Indian Ganges' side Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews

The Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams 1945

four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams which premiered in 1944 and catapulted Williams from obscurity to fame. The play has strong autobiographical elements, featuring characters based on Williams himself, his histrionic mother, and his mentally fragile sister Rose. In writing the play, Williams drew on an earlier short story, as well as a screenplay he had written under the title of The Gentleman Caller. Chars: Tom Wingfield; Laura Wingfield; Mr. Wingfield: Jim O'Connor

Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift 1726

Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, commonly known as Gulliver's Travels (1726, amended 1735), is a prose satire[1][2] by Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre. It is Swift's best known full-length work, and a classic of English literature. The book became popular as soon as it was published. John Gay wrote in a 1726 letter to Swift that "It is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery."[3] Since then, it has never been out of print. Gulliver's Travels has been the recipient of several designations: from Menippean satire to a children's story, from proto-Science Fiction to a forerunner of the modern novel. Published seven years after Daniel Defoe's wildly successful Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels may be read as a systematic rebuttal of Defoe's optimistic account of human capability. In The Unthinkable Swift: The Spontaneous Philosophy of a Church of England Man, Warren Montag argues that Swift was concerned to refute the notion that the individual precedes society, as Defoe's novel seems to suggest. Swift regarded such thought as a dangerous endorsement of Thomas Hobbes' radical political philosophy and for this reason Gulliver repeatedly encounters established societies rather than desolate islands. The captain who invites Gulliver to serve as a surgeon aboard his ship on the disastrous third voyage is named Robinson.

The Anatomy of the World John Donne 1600ish

When that rich soul which to her heaven is gone, Whom all do celebrate, who know they have one (For who is sure he hath a soul, unless It see, and judge, and follow worthiness, And by deeds praise it? He who doth not this, May lodge an inmate soul, but 'tis not his) When that queen ended here her progress time, And, as t'her standing house, to heaven did climb, Where loath to make the saints attend her long, She's now a part both of the choir, and song; This world, in that great earthquake languished; For in a common bath of tears it bled, Which drew the strongest vital spirits out; But succour'd then with a perplexed doubt, Whether the world did lose, or gain in this, (Because since now no other way there is, But goodness, to see her, whom all would see, All must endeavour to be good as she) This great consumption to a fever turn'd, And so the world had fits; it joy'd, it mourn'd;

All for Love John Dryden 1677

With "Absalom and Achitophel," (poem) a satire on the Whig leader, Shaftesbury, Dryden entered a new phase, and achieved what is regarded as "the finest of all political satires." This was followed by "The Medal," again directed against the Whigs, and this by "Mac Flecknoe," a fierce attack on his enemy and rival Shadwell. The Government rewarded his services by a lucrative appointment.

The Republic Plato 380 BC

a Socratic dialogue, written by Plato around 380 BCE, concerning the definition of justice (δικαιοσύνη), the order and character of the just city-state and the just man—for this reason, ancient readers used the name On Justice as an alternative title (not to be confused with the spurious dialogue also titled On Justice). The dramatic date of the dialogue has been much debated and though it might have taken place some time during the Peloponnesian War, "there would be jarring anachronisms if any of the candidate specific dates between 432 and 404 were assigned". Plato's best-known work, it has proven to be one of the world's most influential works of philosophy and political theory, both intellectually and historically. In it, Socrates along with various Athenians and foreigners discuss the meaning of justice and examine whether or not the just man is happier than the unjust man by considering a series of different cities coming into existence "in speech", culminating in a city called Kallipolis (Καλλίπολις), which is ruled by philosopher-kings; and by examining the nature of existing regimes. The participants also discuss the theory of forms, the immortality of the soul, and the roles of the philosopher and of poetry in society

An Essay on Criticism Alexander Pope 1711

didactic poem in heroic couplets, begun, perhaps, as early as 1705, and published, anonymously, in 1711. It is his response to an ongoing critical debate, which centered on the question of whether poetry should be "natural" or written according to predetermined "artificial" rules inherited from the classical past. The poem commences with a discussion of the rules of taste which ought to govern poetry, and which enable a critic to make sound critical judgements. In it Pope comments, too, upon the authority which ought properly to be accorded to the classical authors who dealt with the subject; and concludes that the rules of the ancients are in fact identical with the rules of Nature: poetry and painting, that is, like religion and morality, actually reflect natural law. Pope then proceeds to discuss the laws by which a critic should be guided--insisting, as any good poet would, that critics exist to serve poets, not to attack them. He then provides, by way of example, instances of critics who had erred in one fashion or another. What, in Pope's opinion (here as elsewhere in his work) is the deadliest critical sin--a sin which is itself a reflection of a greater sin? All of his erring critics, each in their own way, betray the same fatal flaw. The final section of the poem discusses the moral qualities and virtues inherent in the ideal critic, who is also the ideal man--and who, Pope laments, no longer exists in the degenerate world of the early eighteenth century.

Paradise Lost John Milton 1667

epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608-1674). The first version, published in 1667, consisted of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into twelve books (in the manner of Virgil's Aeneid) with minor revisions throughout and a note on the versification. It is considered by critics to be Milton's major work, and it helped solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of his time The poem concerns the Biblical story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton's purpose, stated in Book I, is to "justify the ways of God to men". The writer and critic Samuel Johnson wrote that Paradise Lost shows off "[Milton's] peculiar power to astonish" and that "[Milton] seems to have been well acquainted with his own genius, and to know what it was that Nature had bestowed upon him more bountifully than upon others: the power of displaying the vast, illuminating the splendid, enforcing the awful, darkening the gloomy, and aggravating the dreadful.

An Essay on Man Alexander Pope 1734

essay-poem from 1734 concerned with the natuarl order God has decreed for man; it suggests that man cannot complain about the Great Chain of Being and must accept Whatever IS, is RIGHT which is a theme satifized in Candide. the work popularised optimistic philosophy throughout Europe. It is written in Heroic Couplets, comprising 4 epistles. Know then thyself, presume not God to scan The proper study of Mankind is Man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A Being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little, or too much; Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus'd

The Prince Machiavelli 1532

is a 16th-century political treatise by the Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. Although it was written as if it were a traditional work in the mirrors for princes style, it is generally agreed that it was especially innovative. This is only partly because it was written in the vernacular Italian rather than Latin, a practice which had become increasingly popular since the publication of Dante's Divine Comedy and other works of Renaissance literature The Prince is sometimes claimed to be one of the first works of modern philosophy, especially modern political philosophy, in which the effective truth is taken to be more important than any abstract ideal. It was also in direct conflict with the dominant Catholic and scholastic doctrines of the time concerning how to consider politics and ethics Although it is relatively short, the treatise is the most remembered of Machiavelli's works and the one most responsible for bringing the word "Machiavellian" into usage as a pejorative. It also helped make "Old Nick" an English term for the devil, and even contributed to the modern negative connotations of the words "politics" and "politician" in western countries. In terms of subject matter it overlaps with the much longer Discourses on Livy, which was written a few years later. The descriptions within The Prince have the general theme of accepting that the aims of princes—such as glory and survival—can justify the use of immoral means to achieve those ends: He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation

Biographia Literaria Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1817

propounded the organic principle as the constitutive definition of the poem: the whole is in every part, and every part can be found in the whole. The poem is that species of composition characterized, unlike works of science, by the immediate purpose of pleasure, and also by special metric and phonetic arrangements; it produces delight as a whole and this delight is compatible with the distinct gratification generated by each component part, which harmonizes with the other elements. T. S. Hulme, a 20th century English thinker, elucidated Coleridge's concept quite graphically in his Speculations: Essays on Humanism and the Philosophy of Art: unlike mechanical complexity, vital or organic is that kind of complexity "in which the parts cannot be said to be elements as each one is modified by the other's presence, and each one to a certain extent is the whole. The leg of a chair by itself is still a leg. My leg by itself wouldn't be." In Coleridge's view, expounded in Biographia Literaria, a great poem is the product of both the primary imagination. "The secondary imagination" dissolves, disperses, scatters, in order to re-create the material of the primary imagination; it represents creation as against vision. Another important principle which the New Critics borrowed from Coleridge's poetic is contextualism. The English poet viewed the poem as a product of the form-creating man; it had an independent existence, within the organic system of mutual relationships among the terms that made up the context of the poem. Thus the poem was regarded outside any and all non-poetic contexts.

Don Juan Lord Byron 1819

satiric poem ]by Lord Byron, based on the legend of Don Juan, which Byron reverses, portraying Juan not as a womaniser but as someone easily seduced by women. It is a variation on the epic form. Byron himself called it an "Epic Satire" (Don Juan, c. xiv, st. 99). Byron completed 16 cantos, leaving an unfinished 17th canto before his death in 1824. Byron claimed he had no ideas in his mind as to what would happen in subsequent cantos as he wrote his wok. When the first two cantos were published anonymously in 1819, the poem was criticised for its "immoral content", though it was also immensely popular. The story, told in seventeen cantos, begins with the birth of Don Juan. As a young man he is precocious sexually, and has an affair with a friend of his mother. The husband finds out, and Don Juan is sent away to Cadiz. On the way, he is shipwrecked, survives, and meets the daughter of a pirate, whose men sell Don Juan as a slave. A young woman who is a member of a Sultan's harem, sees that this slave is purchased. She disguises him as a girl and sneaks him into her chambers. Don Juan escapes, joins the Russian army, and rescues a Muslim girl named Leila. Don Juan meets Catherine the Great, who asks him to join her court. Don Juan becomes sick, is sent to England, where he finds someone to watch over the young girl, Leila. Next, a few adventures involving the artistocracy of Britain ensue. The poem ends with Canto XVII.