Famous Literature 1 (revised)

A Raisin in the Sun (Lorraine Hansberry)

A play about the Youngers, a poor African-American family living on the South Side of Chicago. An opportunity to escape from poverty comes in the form of a $10,000 life insurance check that the matriarch of the family (Lena Younger or Mama) receives upon her husband's death. Lena's children, Walter and Beneatha, each have their plans for the money. The oldest son, Walter (a man of 35 with a wife and a young son), wishes to invest in a liquor store. The younger sister, Beneatha, currently a college student, wants to use the money for medical school. Lena has plans as well for the money: she wants to buy a house for the family and finance Beneatha's medical school.

At half-past three, a single bird (Emily Dickinson)

At Half past Three, a single Bird Unto a silent Sky Propounded but a single term Of cautious melody. At Half past Four, Experiment Had subjugated test And lo, Her silver Principle Supplanted all the rest. At Half past Seven, Element Nor Implement, be seen — And Place was where the Presence was Circumference between.

The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. (Christopher Marlowe)

an Elizabethan tragedy based on German stories about the title character Faust, a respected German scholar, is bored with the traditional types of knowledge available to him. He wants more than logic, medicine, law, and religion. He wants magic. His friends, Valdes and Cornelius, begin to teach him magic, which he uses to summon a devil named Mephistophilis.

Beowulf

an Old English epic poem consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. The story is set in Scandinavia. Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall in Heorot has been under attack by a monster known as Grendel. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother attacks the hall and is then also defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland (Götaland in modern Sweden) and later becomes king of the Geats. After a period of fifty years has passed, Beowulf defeats a dragon, but is mortally wounded in the battle. After his death, his attendants cremate his body and erect a tower on a headland in his memory.

Long Day's Journey Into Night (Eugene O'Neil)

The play takes place on a single day in August 1912, from around 8:30 a.m. to midnight. The setting is the seaside Connecticut home of the Tyrones' Monte Cristo Cottage. The four main characters are the semi-autobiographical representations of O'Neill himself, his older brother, and their parents. This play portrays a family in a ferociously negative light as the parents and two sons express accusations, blame, and resentments—qualities that are often paired with pathetic and self-defeating attempts at affection, encouragement, tenderness, and yearnings for things to be otherwise. The pain of this family is made worse by their depth of self-understanding and self-analysis, combined with a brutal honesty, as they see it, and an ability to boldly express themselves. The story deals with the mother's addiction to morphine, the family's addiction to whiskey, the father's miserliness, the older brother's licentiousness, and younger brother's illness. James Tyrone, Sr. - 65 Mary Cavan Tyrone - 55 James "Jamie", Jr. - 33 years old Edmund - 23 years old

Musee des Beaux Arts (Auden)

The poem which means 'Museum of Fine Arts' in French, is a poem the poet composed after he visited that museum in Paris. The poem is symbolic at places. The poet praises the painters, like Brueghel, who understood the nature of suffering and humanity's indifference to it.

In Memory of W.B. Yeats (Audens)

The poet's memorable elegy on the death of a public figure. Written in 1940, it commemorates the death of the poet in 1939. He died in winter: the brooks were frozen, airports were all but empty, and statues were covered in snow. The thermometer and other instruments told us the day he died "was a dark cold day." While nature followed its course elsewhere, mourners kept his poems alive without letting the poet's death interfere. Yet, for Yeats himself, mind and body failed, leaving no one to appreciate his life but his admirers. He lives through his poetry, scattered among cities and unfamiliar readers and critics, who modify his life and poetry through their own understandings. While the rest of civilization moves on, "a few thousand" will remember the day of his death as special.

Fra Lippo Lippi (Robert Browning)

. The subject, Brother Lippi, was a monk and painter of Renaissance Italy. He was one of the first painters in the naturalist school. He is here made to voice many of the poet's convictions about art and its relationship to reality and the Ideal; in fact, the poem expresses many of Browning's ideas about life and art, ideal and reality, religion and morality, and especially the function of art or the responsibility of the artist. Fra Lippo Lippi, which basically means "Brother" Lippo Lippi, is a monk who has been up to some rather un-monk-like activities. The guardsmen of the powerful (and don't forget rich) house of Medici catch him out, partying it up on the streets, and so they roughly interrogate him.

Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

1813 romantic novel. It charts the emotional development of the protagonist Elizabeth Bennet, who learns the error of making hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between the superficial and the essential. The comedy of the writing lies in the depiction of manners, education, marriage, and money during the Regency era in Britain.

Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

A 1813 romantic novel. It charts the emotional development of the protagonist Elizabeth Bennet, who learns the error of making hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between the superficial and the essential.

pied piper of hamelin (Robert Browning)

A Poem Of 303 Lines tive poem of 303 lines, published in 1842. The town of Hamelin are delightful and spend their money drinking to this victory. They forget to pay the Pied Piper for his work leaving the Pied Piper in a revengeful mood. He lures, just like he did with the rats, the children of the town to the top of a mountain where they miraculously disappear.

London (William Blake)

A poem published in 1794. The poem has a somber, morbid tone and reflects the poet's unhappiness and dissatisfaction with his life in London. He describes the troublesome socioeconomic and moral decay in London and residents' overwhelming sense of hopelessness. The poet's uses dark imagery and discordant diction in "London" to reveal the theme of oppression. The authority figures in the poem, the church, the soldier, the palace, do nothing to ease the suffering of the people within the poem, but rather reinforce the misery and the darkness of city life.

Dover Beach (Matthew Arnold)

A poem that tackles the pain and the uncertainty of living in the modern world, but does it in a way that leaves us feeling like poetry can still matter, even in our times.

To His Coy Mistress (Andrew Marvell)

Addresses a woman who has been slow to respond to his romantic advances, describes how he would pay court to her if he were to be unencumbered by the constraints of a normal lifespan. He could spend centuries admiring each part of her body and her resistance to his advances (i.e., coyness) would not discourage him. In the second stanza, he laments how short human life is. Once life is over, the speaker contends, the opportunity to enjoy one another is gone, as no one embraces in death. In the last stanza, the speaker urges the woman to requite his efforts, and argues that in loving one another with passion they will both make the most of the brief time they have to live.

Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)

An adored classic of four devoted sisters, was loosely based on the author's own life. Originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869. In fact, the author drew from her own personality to create a heroine unlike any seen before: Jo, willful, headstrong, and undoubtedly the backbone of the March family. Follow the sisters from innocent adolescence to sage adulthood, with all the joy and sorrow of life in between, and fall in love with them and this endearing story. Family and Marriage. The dominant theme of Little Women, as for girls in the nineteenth century, is family. ... Throughout the novel, Alcott emphasizes the importance of family as not only a practical or economic unit but also a deeply meaningful one.

"Old Ironsides" (OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES SR.)

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky; Beneath it rung the battle shout, And burst the cannon's roar;— The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds no more! Her deck, once red with heroes' blood Where knelt the vanquished foe, When winds were hurrying o'er the flood And waves were white below, No more shall feel the victor's tread, Or know the conquered knee;— The harpies of the shore shall pluck The eagle of the sea! O, better that her shattered hulk Should sink beneath the wave; Her thunders shook the mighty deep, And there should be her grave; Nail to the mast her holy flag, Set every thread-bare sail, And give her to the god of storms,— The lightning and the gale! a poem written on September 16, 1830, as a tribute to the eighteenth-century frigate USS Constitution. Thanks in part to the poem, it was saved from being decommissioned and is now the oldest commissioned ship in the world still afloat

Buffalo Bill (E.E Cummings)

Buffalo Bill 's defunct who used to ride a watersmooth-silver stallion and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat Jesus he was a handsome man and what i want to know is how do you like your blueeyed boy Mister Death

Because I could not stop for Death (Emily Dickinson)

Death becomes a carriage and a driver, or a driver and carriage, metaphor or personification, and arrives in taxi fashion to take the speaker on a supernatural journey beyond the grave. We can take it that the speaker has no fear of Death. Death is kind, drives with care and has a formal politeness about him. The most striking feature of this poem is the use of the dash (-) to temporarily pause a sentence or clause, where the reader takes a fleeting breath before continuing. Because I could not stop for Death - He kindly stopped for me - The Carriage held but just Ourselves - And Immortality. We slowly drove - He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility - We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess - in the Ring - We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain - We passed the Setting Sun - Or rather - He passed Us - The Dews drew quivering and Chill - For only Gossamer, my Gown - My Tippet - only Tulle - We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground - The Roof was scarcely visible - The Cornice - in the Ground - Since then - 'tis Centuries - and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity -

The Circular Ruins (Jorge Luis Borges)

in 1940 in the literary journal, Sur, which means South. The Spanish title of the story is Las Ruinas Circulares, and it was part of the 1941 collection titled The Garden of Forking Paths or El jardín de Senderos que se Bifurcan. In 1944, "The Circular Ruins" was included in the collection Ficciones (Fictions). Its first English publication was in View in 1946, translated by Paul Bowles. Themes present in "The Circular Ruins" include idealism, immortality, dreams and their meanings, and thoughts manifesting in the tangible world. These themes are also prevalent in Borges's other works, such as Tlön, Ugbar, Orbis, Tertius, and Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote. "The Circular Ruins" is an allegorical tale of creation. Wounded, a foreigner is traveling from the southern reaches of Persia, fleeing to the north to ancient circular ruins. When he arrives and rests there, his wounds are healed by magic, yet the traveler is not surprised by this. The author describes the ruins as having previously been the color of fire, but now the color of ash. There is a stone statue there, which Borges describes as possibly a horse, possibly a tiger. The traveler feels compelled to sleep, and so he does. Upon waking, he finds that the locals have left offerings nearby. He takes this to mean that they either want him to grant them favor, or they fear his magical ability and seek to earn his good will. Now healed, he begins to create, dreaming a man into the real world. To this end, he meditates, focusing all of his energy on creating through this dream state. At first, his dreams are chaotic. Then, they change so that he stands in an amphitheater, lecturing to students. His topics range through a number of academic disciplines, and as he questions his students, they try to answer to prove that they understand his lectures. His sleeping and waking hours are devoted to thinking about their answers—this is part of his creation process; he is seeking the soul that he will manifest into reality among those students. About ten nights pass in this fashion, and he decides that the students do not provide meaningful answers. Instead, they just regurgitate what he has told them. Their souls are not independent, so they are not ready to be manifested into reality. The traveler decides to take a new path, which is to work with and tutor those students who object to his lectures. Through this process, he selects one student from among the multitude. Now ready to create, he must undergo the trial of such an act. The stress of creating makes it impossible for him to sleep at first, so he has to take a month of rest without meditating. After that month has passed, he begins to dream the youth into existence, part by part, focusing first on the heart and organs. During this process, he almost accidentally destroys this creation, this manifestation. Borges points out that he should have, but the traveler pleads with the statue in the ruins. In reply to the traveler's pleas, the god Fire appears as a combination of a tiger, horse, bull, rose, and tempest. The god offers to bring the creation to life and only he and the traveler will know the other man was created—provided the traveler teaches the youth about the rites of fire. The traveler agrees, and the god brings the youth into existence. For two years, the traveler teaches the youth. One day, he sends him to train by himself at the ruins downstream. The traveler is feeling weak and fearful; he is afraid the youth will discover his nature—that he was created and did not always exist in the real world. At the end of the story, fire burns the ruins. But when it does not harm the traveler, he discovers that he, too, is the result of someone's dream, just like the youth. Jorge Luis Borges was born in 1921 in Argentina. In addition to being a writer and poet, he was also a philosopher, an editor, a critic, a translator, and a librarian. His most notable works include A Universal History of Infamy, Ficciones, El Aleph, and The Book of Sand. Borges felt that he should have received the Nobel Prize in Literature, but he never did—perhaps because of his conservative views on politics, or perhaps because he accepted an honor from Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator. The author's use of fantasy in his literary works is considered an influence on contemporary fantasy literature. The term, "Borgesian conundrum," a philosophical term named after the author, questions whether the writer writes a story or whether the story writes the writer. Originally, the author introduced this idea in his work, Kafka and His Precursors.

Ah, Wilderness! (Eugene O'Neill)

First performance: October 2, 1933. Setting: The Miller family home in small town Connecticut, July 4, 1906 Characters: Nat Miller, Muriel McComber, Essie Miller, Lily Miller, Sid Davis, Wint Selby, The play takes place on the Fourth of July1906 and focuses on the Miller family, presumably of New London, Connecticut. The main plot deals with the middle son, 16-year-old Richard, and his coming of age in turn-of-the-century America. "Perhaps the most atypical of the author's works, the play presents a sentimental tale of youthful indiscretion in a turn-of-the-century New England town." Richard, adolescent son of the local newspaper publisher, Nat Miller, exhibits the wayward tendencies of his maternal uncle, Sid Davis. Forbidden to court his neighbour Muriel by the girl's father, Richard goes on a bender and falls under the influence of Belle, whom he tries to impress but whose worldly ways frighten him. It is the dissolute Sid who handles the situation upon the prodigal's drunken return, and, with the aid of warmhearted Nat and the forgiving Muriel, everything is put to right. The role of Nat Miller was played by George M. Cohan on Broadway and by Will Rogers in the first traveling production, and the two actors had no small part in making the play a critical and popular success. It has since become a staple of the community-theatre repertoire.

Spleen (Charles Baudelaire)

I am like the king of a rainy land, Wealthy but powerless, both young and very old, Who contemns the fawning manners of his tutors And is bored with his dogs and other animals. Nothing can cheer him, neither the chase nor falcons, Nor his people dying before his balcony. The ludicrous ballads of his favorite clown No longer smooth the brow of this cruel invalid; His bed, adorned with fleurs-de-lis, becomes a grave; The lady's maids, to whom every prince is handsome, No longer can find gowns shameless enough To wring a smile from this young skeleton. The alchemist who makes his gold was never able To extract from him the tainted element, And in those baths of blood come down from Roman times, And which in their old age the powerful recall, He failed to warm this dazed cadaver in whose veins Flows the green water of Lethe in place of blood.

The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde)

Jack Worthing is a fashionable young man who lives in the country with his ward Cecily Cardew. He has invented a rakish brother named Ernest whose supposed exploits give Jack an excuse to travel to London periodically. Jack is in love with Gwendolen Fairfax, the cousin of his friend Algernon Moncrieff. Gwendolen, who thinks Jack's name is Ernest, returns his love, but her mother, Lady Bracknell, objects to their marriage because Jack is an orphan who was found in a handbag at Victoria Station. Jack discovers that Algernon has been impersonating Ernest in order to woo Cecily, who has always been in love with the imaginary Ernest. Ultimately it is revealed that Jack is really Lady Bracknell's nephew, that his real name is Ernest, and that Algernon is actually his brother. The play ends with both couples happily united.

"The Jewels" (Charles Baudelaire)

My sweetheart was naked, knowing my desire, she wore only her tinkling jewellery, whose splendour yields her the rich conquering fire of Moorish slave-girls in the days of their beauty. When, dancing, it gives out its sharp sound of mockery, that glistening world of metal and stone, I am ravished by ecstasy, love like fury those things where light mingles with sound. So she lay there, let herself be loved, and, from the tall bed, she smiled with delight on my love deep and sweet as the sea is moved, rising to her as toward a cliff's height. Like a tamed tigress, her eyes fixed on me with a vague dreamy air, she tried out her poses, so wantonly and so innocently, it gave a new charm to her metamorphoses: and her arm and her leg, and her back and her thigh, shining like oil, undulating like a swan's, passed in front of my calm, clairvoyant eye: and her belly and breasts, those vine-clustered ones, thrust out, more seductively than Angels of evil, to trouble the repose where my soul had its throne, and topple it from the crystal hill, where it was seated, calm and alone. I thought I saw Antiope's hips placed on a youth's bust, with a new design's grace, her pelvis accentuated so by her waist. The rouge was superb on that wild, tawny face! And the lamp resigning itself to dying, as only the fire in the hearth lit the chamber, each time it gave out a flame in sighing, it flooded with blood that skin of amber!

Epitaph of a Tyrant (Auden)

One of this poet's short masterpieces. In just six lines, the poet manages to say so much about the nature of tyranny.

The Unknown Citizen (Auden)

Poem written to highlight the role of the individual and the increasingly faceless bureaucracy that can arise in any country, with any type of government, be it left-wing or right-wing. The poem is a satire of standardization at the expense of individualism.

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers (Emily Dickinson)

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers - Untouched by Morning - and untouched by noon - Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection, Rafter of Satin and Roof of Stone - Grand go the Years, In the Crescent above them - Worlds scoop their Arcs - and Firmaments - row - Diadems - drop - And Doges surrender - Soundless as Dots, On a Disk of Snow.

There's a certain Slant of light (Emily Dickinson)

There's a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons - That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes - Heavenly Hurt, it gives us - We can find no scar, But internal difference - Where the Meanings, are - None may teach it - Any - 'Tis the seal Despair - An imperial affliction Sent us of the Air - When it comes, the Landscape listens - Shadows - hold their breath - When it goes, 'tis like the Distance On the look of Death -

The Lamb (William Blake)

This poem is part of Songs of Innocence. ... The poet compares the lamb to Jesus, the Lamb of God. He claims both are mild and meek, with a heavenly aspect about them. The poem ends in praise of the Lord Jesus Christ. This poem has clear implications of the poet's overall religious beliefs.

The Fish (Elizabeth Bishop)

This poet's poem displays her ecological awareness that leads her to accept a relationship of coexistence between human beings and nonhuman beings. This ecological awareness in the poem is reflected when she leaves the fish free. The speaker catches a huge fish while fishing in a little rented boat. ... She begins to respect the fish. The poem takes its final turn when the oil spillage in the boat makes a rainbow and the speaker, overcome with emotion by the fish and the scene, lets the fish go.

Winesburg, Ohio (Sherwood Anderson)

a 1919 short story cycle. The work is structured around the life of protagonist George Willard, from the time he was a child to his growing independence and ultimate abandonment of Winesburg as a young man. The book consists of twenty-two stories, with the first story, "The Book of the Grotesque", serving as an introduction. Each of the stories shares a specific character's past and present struggle to overcome the loneliness and isolation that seems to permeate the town. Stylistically, because of its emphasis on the psychological insights of characters over plot, and plain-spoken prose, known as one of the earliest works of Modernist literature.

Our Town (Thornton Wilder)

a 1938 metatheatrical three-actplay. It tells the story of the fictional American small town of Grover's Corners between 1901 and 1913 through the everyday lives of its citizens. opens with the Stage Manager's introduction to Grover's Corners, a fictional town based on Peterborough, New Hampshire where the author often spent his summers. The sparse and symbolic qualities of the set suggest Wilder's intention to make Grover's Corners represent all towns.1 The Stage Manager, played by Wilder himself for two weeks in the 1938 Broadway production, breaks the fourth wall by directly addressing the audience. The Stage Manager also assumes control over the onstage action through such unconventional, metatheatrical devices as prompting actors and cueing scene changes. Once the actors have been set in motion by the Stage Manager in Act I, entitled, "Daily Life," the allegorical world of Grover's Corners unfolds. The audience is introduced to the Gibbs and Webb families who symbolize "ordinary people who make the human race seem worth preserving and represent the universality of human existence."2 Wilder explores the families' inter-relationships, specifically between George Gibbs and Emily Webb. The audience watches George and Emily talk through their second story bedroom windows, represented by ladders: their simple actions complemented by the simple set. Act II, "Love and Marriage," takes place three years later on George and Emily's wedding day. After listening to Dr. and Mrs. Gibbs talk about their own wedding day, the Stage Manager transports the audience back to the days of George and Emily's high school courtship. In this scene, Emily expresses her disdain for George's conceited behavior. To make amends, George buys Emily an ice cream soda presented in an imaginary glass by Mr. Morgan, played by the Stage Manager. As this glimpse into George and Emily's past comes to an end, George decides not to go to agriculture school so he can remain in Grover's Corners, close to Emily. Then, the audience again finds itself at George and Emily's wedding. The Stage Manager, now playing a minister, focuses the audience's attention on the tearful and anxious families before George and Emily blissfully run up the aisle, ending Act II. In Act III, Wilder focuses on the end of the life cycle. Nine more years have gone by and Emily has died in childbirth. As the funeral procession crosses the stage, Emily, dressed in white, emerges from behind the mourners' umbrellas and sits next to the deceased Mrs. Gibbs in the graveyard. Emily begins to question what it means to live and die, and, although warned against it, chooses to relive her twelfth birthday. Deeply saddened by everything she failed to notice while alive, Emily asks the Stage Manager to take her back to her grave but hesitates a moment to say good-by to the world. As Emily accepts her death, George falls at her feet in grief. While watching George, Emily asks Mrs. Gibbs, "They don't understand, do they?" to which Mrs. Gibbs responds, "No, dear. They don't understand."3 As Emily settles in with the dead of Grover's Corners, the Stage Manager bids the audience a good night.

Arabian Nights

a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the Arabian Nights, from the first English-language edition, which rendered the title as The Arabian Nights' Entertainment.

Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe)

a novel first published on 25 April 1719. The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a travelogue of true incidents. Crusoe (the family name corrupted from the German name "Kreutznaer") set sail from Kingston upon Hull on a sea voyage in August 1651, against the wishes of his parents, who wanted him to pursue a career in law. After a tumultuous journey where his ship is wrecked in a storm, his lust for the sea remains so strong that he sets out to sea again. This journey, too, ends in disaster, as the ship is taken over by Salé pirates (the Salé Rovers) and Crusoe is enslaved by a Moor. Two years later, he escapes in a boat with a boy named Xury; a captain of a Portuguese ship off the west coast of Africa rescues him. The ship is en route to Brazil. Crusoe sells Xury to the captain. With the captain's help, Crusoe procures a plantation. Years later, Crusoe joins an expedition to bring slaves from Africa, but he is shipwrecked in a storm about forty miles out to sea on an island (which he calls the Island of Despair) near the mouth of the Orinoco river on 30 September 1659.[4] He observes the latitude as 9 degrees and 22 minutes north. He sees penguins and seals on his island. As for his arrival there, only he and three animals, the captain's dog and two cats, survive the shipwreck. Overcoming his despair, he fetches arms, tools and other supplies from the ship before it breaks apart and sinks. He builds a fenced-in habitat near a cave which he excavates. By making marks in a wooden cross, he creates a calendar. By using tools salvaged from the ship, and some which he makes himself, he hunts, grows barley and rice, dries grapes to make raisins, learns to make pottery and raises goats. He also adopts a small parrot. He reads the Bible and becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing but human society. More years pass and Crusoe discovers native cannibals, who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners. At first he plans to kill them for committing an abomination but later realizes he has no right to do so, as the cannibals do not knowingly commit a crime. He dreams of obtaining one or two servants by freeing some prisoners; when a prisoner escapes, Crusoe helps him, naming his new companion "Friday" after the day of the week he appeared. Crusoe then teaches him English and converts him to Christianity. After more natives arrive to partake in a cannibal feast, Crusoe and Friday kill most of the natives and save two prisoners. One is Friday's father and the other is a Spaniard, who informs Crusoe about other Spaniards shipwrecked on the mainland. A plan is devised wherein the Spaniard would return to the mainland with Friday's father and bring back the others, build a ship, and sail to a Spanish port. Before the Spaniards return, an English ship appears; mutineers have commandeered the vessel and intend to maroon their captain on the island. Crusoe and the ship's captain strike a deal in which Crusoe helps the captain and the loyal sailors retake the ship and leave the worst mutineers on the island. Before embarking for England, Crusoe shows the mutineers how he survived on the island and states that there will be more men coming. Crusoe leaves the island 19 December 1686 and arrives in England on 11 June 1687. He learns that his family believed him dead; as a result, he was left nothing in his father's will. Crusoe departs for Lisbon to reclaim the profits of his estate in Brazil, which has granted him much wealth. In conclusion, he transports his wealth overland to England from Portugal to avoid travelling by sea. Friday accompanies him and, en route, they endure one last adventure together as they fight off famished wolves while crossing the Pyrenees.

The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)

a novel published in 1931 that dramatizes family life in a Chinese village in the early 20th century. begins on Wang Lung's wedding day and follows the rise and fall of his fortunes. The House of Hwang, a family of wealthy landowners, lives in the nearby town, where Wang Lung's future wife, O-Lan, lives as a slave. However, the House of Hwang slowly declines due to opium use, frequent spending, uncontrolled borrowing and a general unwillingness to work. Meanwhile, Wang Lung, through his own hard work and the skill and hard work of his wife, O-Lan, slowly earns enough money to buy land from the Hwang family, piece by piece. O-Lan delivers three sons and three daughters; the first daughter becomes mentally handicapped as a result of severe malnutrition brought on by famine. Her father greatly pities her and calls her "Poor Fool," a name by which she is addressed throughout her life. O-Lan kills her second daughter at birth to spare her the misery of growing up in such hard times, and to give the remaining family a better chance to survive. During the devastating famine and drought, the family must flee to a large city in the south to find work. Wang Lung's malevolent uncle offers to buy his possessions and land, but for significantly less than their value. The family sells everything except the land and the house. Wang Lung then faces the long journey south, contemplating how the family will survive walking, when he discovers that the "firewagon" (the Chinese word for the newly built train) takes people south for a fee. In the city, O-Lan and the children beg while Wang Lung pulls a rickshaw. Wang Lung's father begs but does not earn any money, and sits looking at the city instead. They find themselves aliens among their more metropolitan countrymen who look different and speak in a fast accent. They no longer starve, due to the one-cent charitable meals of congee, but still live in abject poverty. Wang Lung longs to return to his land. When armies approach the city he can only work at night hauling merchandise out of fear of being conscripted. One time, his son brings home stolen meat. Furious, Wang Lung throws the meat on the ground, not wanting his sons to grow up as thieves. O-Lan, however, calmly picks up the meat and cooks it. When a food riot erupts, Wang Lung is swept up in a mob that is looting a rich man's house and corners the man himself, who fears for his life and gives Wang Lung all his money in order to buy his safety. Meanwhile, O-Lan finds jewels in a hiding place in another house and hides them between her breasts. Wang Lung uses this money to bring the family home, buy a new ox and farm tools, and hire servants to work the land for him. In time, the youngest children are born, a twin son and daughter. When he discovers the jewels that O-Lan looted, Wang Lung buys the House of Hwang's remaining land. He is eventually able to send his first two sons to school (also apprenticing the second one as a merchant) and retains the third one on the land. As Wang Lung becomes more prosperous, he buys a concubine named Lotus. O-Lan endures the betrayal of her husband when he takes the only jewels she had asked to keep for herself, the two pearls, so that he can make them into earrings to present to Lotus. O-Lan's morale suffers, and she eventually dies but not before witnessing her first son's wedding. Wang Lung finally appreciates her place in his life as he mourns her passing.

Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)

a novel published under the pen name "Currer Bell", on 16 October 1847. The main quest in Jane Eyre is Jane's search for family, for a sense of belonging and love. However, this search is constantly tempered by Jane's need for independence. She begins the novel as an unloved orphan who is almost obsessed with finding love as a way to establish her own identity and achieve happiness. Jane Eyre is a young orphan being raised by Mrs. Reed, her cruel, wealthy aunt. A servant named Bessie provides Jane with some of the few kindnesses she receives, telling her stories and singing songs to her. One day, as punishment for fighting with her bullying cousin John Reed, Jane's aunt imprisons Jane in the red-room, the room in which Jane's Uncle Reed died. While locked in, Jane, believing that she sees her uncle's ghost, screams and faints. She wakes to find herself in the care of Bessie and the kindly apothecary Mr. Lloyd, who suggests to Mrs. Reed that Jane be sent away to school. To Jane's delight, Mrs. Reed concurs. Once at the Lowood School, Jane finds that her life is far from idyllic. The school's headmaster is Mr. Brocklehurst, a cruel, hypocritical, and abusive man. Brocklehurst preaches a doctrine of poverty and privation to his students while using the school's funds to provide a wealthy and opulent lifestyle for his own family. At Lowood, Jane befriends a young girl named Helen Burns, whose strong, martyrlike attitude toward the school's miseries is both helpful and displeasing to Jane. A massive typhus epidemic sweeps Lowood, and Helen dies of consumption. The epidemic also results in the departure of Mr. Brocklehurst by attracting attention to the insalubrious conditions at Lowood. After a group of more sympathetic gentlemen takes Brocklehurst's place, Jane's life improves dramatically. She spends eight more years at Lowood, six as a student and two as a teacher. After teaching for two years, Jane yearns for new experiences. She accepts a governess position at a manor called Thornfield, where she teaches a lively French girl named Adèle. The distinguished housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax presides over the estate. Jane's employer at Thornfield is a dark, impassioned man named Rochester, with whom Jane finds herself falling secretly in love. She saves Rochester from a fire one night, which he claims was started by a drunken servant named Grace Poole. But because Grace Poole continues to work at Thornfield, Jane concludes that she has not been told the entire story. Jane sinks into despondency when Rochester brings home a beautiful but vicious woman named Blanche Ingram. Jane expects Rochester to propose to Blanche. But Rochester instead proposes to Jane, who accepts almost disbelievingly. The wedding day arrives, and as Jane and Mr. Rochester prepare to exchange their vows, the voice of Mr. Mason cries out that Rochester already has a wife. Mason introduces himself as the brother of that wife—a woman named Bertha. Mr. Mason testifies that Bertha, whom Rochester married when he was a young man in Jamaica, is still alive. Rochester does not deny Mason's claims, but he explains that Bertha has gone mad. He takes the wedding party back to Thornfield, where they witness the insane Bertha Mason scurrying around on all fours and growling like an animal. Rochester keeps Bertha hidden on the third story of Thornfield and pays Grace Poole to keep his wife under control. Bertha was the real cause of the mysterious fire earlier in the story. Knowing that it is impossible for her to be with Rochester, Jane flees Thornfield. Penniless and hungry, Jane is forced to sleep outdoors and beg for food. At last, three siblings who live in a manor alternatively called Marsh End and Moor House take her in. Their names are Mary, Diana, and St. John (pronounced "Sinjin") Rivers, and Jane quickly becomes friends with them. St. John is a clergyman, and he finds Jane a job teaching at a charity school in Morton. He surprises her one day by declaring that her uncle, John Eyre, has died and left her a large fortune: 20,000 pounds. When Jane asks how he received this news, he shocks her further by declaring that her uncle was also his uncle: Jane and the Riverses are cousins. Jane immediately decides to share her inheritance equally with her three newfound relatives. St. John decides to travel to India as a missionary, and he urges Jane to accompany him—as his wife. Jane agrees to go to India but refuses to marry her cousin because she does not love him. St. John pressures her to reconsider, and she nearly gives in. However, she realizes that she cannot abandon forever the man she truly loves when one night she hears Rochester's voice calling her name over the moors. Jane immediately hurries back to Thornfield and finds that it has been burned to the ground by Bertha Mason, who lost her life in the fire. Rochester saved the servants but lost his eyesight and one of his hands. Jane travels on to Rochester's new residence, Ferndean, where he lives with two servants named John and Mary. At Ferndean, Rochester and Jane rebuild their relationship and soon marry. At the end of her story, Jane writes that she has been married for ten blissful years and that she and Rochester enjoy perfect equality in their life together. She says that after two years of blindness, Rochester regained sight in one eye and was able to behold their first son at his birth.

Pygmalion (George Bernard Shaw)

a play named after a Greek mythological figure. In ancient Greek mythology, Pygmalion fell in love with one of his sculptures, which then came to life. The general idea of that myth was a popular subject for Victorian eraEnglish playwrights. Summary Two old gentlemen meet in the rain one night at Covent Garden. Professor Higgins is a scientist of phonetics, and Colonel Pickering is a linguist of Indian dialects. The first bets the other that he can, with his knowledge of phonetics, convince high London society that, in a matter of months, he will be able to transform the cockney speaking Covent Garden flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into a woman as poised and well-spoken as a duchess. The next morning, the girl appears at his laboratory on Wimpole Street to ask for speech lessons, offering to pay a shilling, so that she may speak properly enough to work in a flower shop. Higgins makes merciless fun of her, but is seduced by the idea of working his magic on her. Pickering goads him on by agreeing to cover the costs of the experiment if Higgins can pass Eliza off as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party. The challenge is taken, and Higgins starts by having his housekeeper bathe Eliza and give her new clothes. Then Eliza's father Alfred Doolittle comes to demand the return of his daughter, though his real intention is to hit Higgins up for some money. The professor, amused by Doolittle's unusual rhetoric, gives him five pounds. On his way out, the dustman fails to recognize the now clean, pretty flower girl as his daughter. For a number of months, Higgins trains Eliza to speak properly. Two trials for Eliza follow. The first occurs at Higgins' mother's home, where Eliza is introduced to the Eynsford Hills, a trio of mother, daughter, and son. The son Freddy is very attracted to her, and further taken with what he thinks is her affected "small talk" when she slips into cockney. Mrs. Higgins worries that the experiment will lead to problems once it is ended, but Higgins and Pickering are too absorbed in their game to take heed. A second trial, which takes place some months later at an ambassador's party (and which is not actually staged), is a resounding success. The wager is definitely won, but Higgins and Pickering are now bored with the project, which causes Eliza to be hurt. She throws Higgins' slippers at him in a rage because she does not know what is to become of her, thereby bewildering him. He suggests she marry somebody. She returns him the hired jewelry, and he accuses her of ingratitude. The following morning, Higgins rushes to his mother, in a panic because Eliza has run away. On his tail is Eliza's father, now unhappily rich from the trust of a deceased millionaire who took to heart Higgins' recommendation that Doolittle was England's "most original moralist." Mrs. Higgins, who has been hiding Eliza upstairs all along, chides the two of them for playing with the girl's affections. When she enters, Eliza thanks Pickering for always treating her like a lady, but threatens Higgins that she will go work with his rival phonetician, Nepommuck. The outraged Higgins cannot help but start to admire her. As Eliza leaves for her father's wedding, Higgins shouts out a few errands for her to run, assuming that she will return to him at Wimpole Street. Eliza, who has a lovelorn sweetheart in Freddy, and the wherewithal to pass as a duchess, never makes it clear whether she will or not.

Man and Superman (George Bernard Shaw)

written in 1903. Mr. Whitefield has recently died, and his willindicates that his daughter Ann should be left in the care of two men, Roebuck Ramsden and John Tanner. Ramsden, a venerable old man, distrusts John Tanner, an eloquent youth with revolutionary ideas, whom Shaw's stage directions describe as "prodigiously fluent of speech, restless, excitable (mark the snorting nostril and the restless blue eye, just the thirty-secondth of an inch too wide open), possibly a little mad".[3] In spite of what Ramsden says, Ann accepts Tanner as her guardian, though Tanner doesn't want the position at all. She also challenges Tanner's revolutionary beliefs with her own ideas. Despite Tanner's professed dedication to anarchy, he is unable to disarm Ann's charm, and she ultimately persuades him to marry her,[4] choosing him over her more persistent suitor, a young man, Tanner's friend, named Octavius Robinson. Beneath all its lofty philosophical statements and flights of Nietzschean theoretics, Man and Superman remains firmly cast within a recognizable mold of witty romantic comedy. Shaw's aim at couching his greater intentions within this standard mode is partly to take firm aim what had been a lifetime of witnessing rote acceptance of Victorian ideals that constructed upon a weak foundation of hypocrisy. Violet seems to serve quite nicely as the stereotypical woman whose stock has fallen in the light of a perceived failure of character on her part to conform to expected societal modes of convention. Such a state provides Tanner with the perfect opportunity to play out his part as the progressive figure who sees what society does not: that Violet is the victim of a flaw in society's character. In the hands of a lesser dramatist, this might well have been enough to set the two upon a journey eventually ending with their marriage and Violet's regaining of her social status based on the tacit consent of agreeing to conform in the future. Instead, quite early on, Violet shocks Tanner and everyone else with unexpected moral indignation at his liberal—perhaps even radical—rejection of Victorian conservatism. Ultimately, Violet becomes the agency by which Man and Superman reveals the inherently sexist hypocrisy displayed toward women from those on both sides of the political spectrum.

Library of Babel (Jorge Luis Borges)

1941. describes how his universe consists of an enormous expanse of adjacent hexagonal rooms, each of which contains the bare necessities for human survival—and four walls of bookshelves. Though the order and content of the books are random and apparently completely meaningless, the inhabitants believe that the books contain every possible ordering of just 25 basic characters (22 letters, the period, the comma, and space). Though the vast majority of the books in this universe are pure gibberish, the library also must contain, somewhere, every coherent book ever written, or that might ever be written, and every possible permutation or slightly erroneous version of every one of those books. The narrator notes that the library must contain all useful information, including predictions of the future, biographies of any person, and translations of every book in all languages. Conversely, for many of the texts, some language could be devised that would make it readable with any of a vast number of different contents. Despite—indeed, because of—this glut of information, all books are totally useless to the reader, leaving the librarians in a state of suicidal despair. This leads some librarians to superstitious and cult-like behaviors, such as the "Purifiers", who arbitrarily destroy books they deem nonsense as they scour through the library seeking the "Crimson Hexagon" and its illustrated, magical books. Others believe that since all books exist in the library, somewhere one of the books must be a perfect index of the library's contents; some even believe that a messianic figure known as the "Man of the Book" has read it, and they travel through the library seeking him.

The Stranger (Albert Camus)

1942 novel Through the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach, Camus explored what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd." The plot is simple. A young Algerian, Meursault, afflicted with a sort of aimless inertia, becomes embroiled in the petty intrigues of a local pimp and, somewhat inexplicably, ends up killing a man. Once he's imprisoned and eventually brought to trial, his crime, it becomes apparent, is not so much the arguably defensible murder he has committed as it is his deficient character. The trial's proceedings are absurd, a parsing of incidental trivialities--that Meursault, for instance, seemed unmoved by his own mother's death and then attended a comic movie the evening after her funeral are two ostensibly damning facts--so that the eventual sentence the jury issues is both ridiculous and inevitable. Meursault remains a cipher nearly to the story's end--dispassionate, clinical, disengaged from his own emotions. "She wanted to know if I loved her," he says of his girlfriend. "I answered the same way I had the last time, that it didn't mean anything but that I probably didn't." There's a latent ominousness in such observations, a sense that devotion is nothing more than self-delusion. It's undoubtedly true that Meursault exhibits an extreme of resignation; however, his confrontation with "the gentle indifference of the world" remains as compelling as it was when Camus first recounted it. --Ben Guterson

No Exit (Jean-Paul Sartre)

1944 existentialist French play. The original title is the French equivalent of the legal term in camera, referring to a private discussion behind closed doors. begins with a bellman ushering three recently deceased people into a room. They are Garcin, a revolutionary who betrayed his own cause and wants to be reassured that he is not a coward; Estelle, a nymphomaniac who has killed her illegitimate child; and Inez, a predatory lesbian. All the characters require another person for self-definition, yet each is most attracted to the person most likely to discomfit. Their inability to escape from each other guarantees their eternal torture.

Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night (Dylan Thomas)

1947 is a strong invocation for us to live boldly and to fight. It implores us to not just "go gentle into that good night," but to rage against it. Even at the end of life, when "grave men" are near death, the poem instructs us to burn with life. The poem's meaning is life affirming. Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

A Bird came down the Walk (Emily Dickinson)

A Bird, came down the Walk - He did not know I saw - He bit an Angle Worm in halves And ate the fellow, raw, And then, he drank a Dew From a convenient Grass - And then hopped sidewise to the Wall To let a Beetle pass - He glanced with rapid eyes, That hurried all abroad - They looked like frightened Beads, I thought, He stirred his Velvet Head. - Like one in danger, Cautious, I offered him a Crumb, And he unrolled his feathers, And rowed him softer Home - Than Oars divide the Ocean, Too silver for a seam, Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon, Leap, plashless as they swim. alone in her house at Amherst, Dickinson pondered her experience as fully, and felt it as acutely, as any poet who has ever lived. In this poem, the simple experience of watching a bird hop down a path allows her to exhibit her extraordinary poetic powers of observation and description.

The Tyger (William Blake)

A highly symbolic poem from the collection Songs of Experience, based on the poet's personal philosophy of spiritual and intellectual revolution by individuals. The speaker in the poem is puzzled at the sight of a tiger in the night, and he asks it a series of questions about its fierce appearance and about the creator who made it. Written much like a metaphysical conceit, has as its theme the mysteries of God's creations. It is a God who is inscrutable to man that has created such a being as a tiger, for in man's limited knowledge, God is all-good.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

A late 14th-century Middle English chivalric romance. It is one of the best known Arthurian stories, with its plot combining two types of folklore motifs, the beheading game and the exchange of winnings.

The Clouds (Aristophanes)

A play based in Athens, Greece, around 423 BCE, a middle-aged Athenian man named Strepsiades sleeps next to his teenage son, Pheidippides. Strepsiades wakes before dawn with worries about his debt. Pheidippides's expensive horse-racing hobby is costing him. Strepsiades wakes his son and tells Pheidippides to go next door to the Thinkery, a school run by the philosopher Socrates. He says Pheidippides will learn "how to win an argument on any cause, just or unjust" and hopefully argue his father's way out of debt. Pheidippides refuses. Strepsiades decides to attend the school himself.

Waiting for Godot (Samuel Beckett)

A play where two tramps are waiting by a sickly looking tree for the arrival of M. Godot. They quarrel, make up, contemplate suicide, try to sleep, eat a carrot and gnaw on some chicken bones. Two other characters appear, a master and a slave, who perform a grotesque scene in the middle of the play. A young boy arrives to say that M. Godot will not come today, but that he will come tomorrow. The play is a development of the title. The person they wait for does not come and the two tramps resume their vigil by the tree, which between the first and second day has sprouted a few leaves, the only symbol of a possible order in a thoroughly alienated world.

The Shield of Achilles (Auden)

A poem composed in 1955 where the poet represents the Homeric theme in a mock-heroic way making necessary changes. Thetis, the mother of Achilles, in Greek mythology, looks at the shield hung over the shoulder of her son. The shield was made by Hephaestus, the Greek blacksmith of gods, for Achilles during the Trojan War. She had expected to see olive trees and vines and marble cities and ships on windy seas carved on the shields but Hephaestus has made it quite different. He forged "an artificial wilderness" under a leaden sky. The plain is shown bare and brown, but a big mass of boots stand ready for war. There are depiction of the artificial and deserted life of the contemporary wasteland without anything to eat or a shelter. This is the modern wasteland, full of puppets like people who are unable to think for themselves, and unconsciously follow their leaders' and rulers. They are all hollow within. The speaker over the radio speaks in an impersonal voice proving statistics that their cause is just for the war, and so persuade them to go to the war. Thetis wanted to see the scenes of religious piety carved on her son's shield, but there is barbed wire encloses a military camp in "an arbitrary spot," and civilians watch from a distance some pale faced prisoners are being punished. The prisoners died before their bodies died. The crucifixion of the Christ was necessary for the regeneration and redemption of mankind. But the massacre of the innocent people in the name of war or any form of violence does not bear any significance. These acts of haphazard killings are signs of spiritual degeneration of the modern people. In the third stanza, Thetis looks for the people enjoying dance and music but she finds carvings of growing weeds where a poor child is alone throwing stones at birds, a girl being raped, boys killing each other. The children have never heard of love and harmony not even human sympathy. Modern life is shown so brutal and beasty that Thetis cries in horror at the end of the poem.

The Little Black Boy (William Blake)

A poem from Songs of Innocence where a black boy passes on this lesson to an English child, explaining that his white skin is likewise a cloud. He vows that when they are both free of their bodies and delighting in the presence of God, he will shade his white friend until he, too, learns to bear the heat of God's love.

The Chimney Sweeper (William Blake)

A poem from Songs of Innocence. The poem is set against the dark background of child labor that was prominent in England in the late 18th and19th century. The poem opens with a young boy explaining how he became a chimney sweeper. When he was very young his mother died and his father put him to work as a chimney sweep; a tough and dirty job where young boys climbed into chimneys to sweep out the soot. The focus shifts to another young sweeper, Tom Dacre, who had curly hair that was shaved. The narrator seeks to calm him saying that since his head is now shaved, the soot can no longer mess it up. Once calm, Tom goes to sleep and dreams that all of the sweepers are in coffins. In his dream, Tom sees an Angel who saves the boys free from death (or their sweeper lives). While the beginning of the poem is sad, this optimistic and positive tone shifts the reader, so that by the 5th stanza the boys are playing while the angel tells Tom that God wants him to be a good boy. When Tom wakes up the next morning the weather is dreary and cold, but he is happy because he knows that if they work hard they do not have to worry about the danger and will be rewarded.

My Last Duchess (Robert Browning)

A poem that is frequently anthologized as an example of the dramatic monologue. The poem is set in the 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 the poet 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 Bishop Orders His Tomb (Robert Browning)

A poem that is primarily about a materialistic Bishop on his death bed that comes across as arrogant and selfish. Reveals the deep-rooted fears and lack of belief in the heart of one of the church leaders. On his death bed, rather than hoping for the life to come or being thankful he had devoted his life to serving God, this bishop is filled with feelings of fear, regret, petty materialism, and even jealousy. This poem is ironic in its very nature as this man who, most of his life, was looked to as a religious authority figure, gloats in his sins including an affair and a love for material wealth. He mentions various possibilities of what might happen to him when he dies, but ultimately seems convinced that he will stay right there in his tomb for all of eternity. Every belief, feeling, and request that this bishop expresses reveals that in his heart, he believes exactly the opposite of what he has taught throughout his life.

Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister (Robert Browning)

A poem. A monk in a Spanish monastery sees a fellow monastic tending his flowers, the observing monk (the speaker)—envious of the other monk's diligence—begins to criticize him under his breath and says, "If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, / God's blood, would not mine kill you!" In mocking language, the speaker then describes (out of earshot of the other monk) what Lawrence is doing and at the end of the first stanza says, "Hell dry you up with its flames!" The speaker says that in the refectory (dining hall) he must sit next to Brother Lawrence and endure his conversation about the weather and the crops. Apparently, he is jealous that Lawrence is a good conversationalist. On one occasion, Lawrence inquires about the Latin name for parsley and the Greek name for "swine's snout" (dandelion), indicating that he is curious and willing to learn—both positive qualities that the speaker sneers at. But it is not only Brother Lawrence's table conversation that irks the speaker; it is also the care that Lawrence takes in cleaning and polishing his kitchen ware. The speaker seems to believe that such care is a sign that Lawrence thinks he is better than others.

Thanatopsis (William Cullen Bryant)

A popular poem which means "view on the death" in Greek. The author is trying to comfort others' fears of death. This poem speaks of the love of Nature, which comforts us in life and also in death.

Don Juan (Lord Byron)

A satiric poem based on the legend of Don Juan, which Byron reverses, portraying Juan not as a womanizer but as someone easily seduced by women. It is a variation on the epic form. The author called it an "Epic Satire".

Blood Wedding (Federico Garcia Lorca)

A tragedy focusing on a woman and the two men who love her. The play examines the societal norms that keep her from being with the man she loves. A young woman and two men fighting for her love. The Bride is in love with Leonardo, but their families do not get along, so Leonardo marries another woman. The Bride is also arranged to be married to another man, whom she doesn't love, but will marry to appease her family's wishes. Although Leonardo is married already, he confesses to the Bride that he is still in love with her. At first, she tells him to be silent, but then confesses that she still loves him, too. Despite these revelations, she goes on with her marriage to the other man, but on the night of her wedding reception, she elopes with Leonardo. When their disappearance is revealed, the Mother commands that everybody search for them. In the forest that the Bride and Leonardo have fled into, the play takes a surrealistic turn. The Moon and Death work together to encourage the Bridegroom and Leonardo to kill one another. Leonardo and the Bridegroom meet and kill each other in a knife fight. At the end of the play, the Bride returns to the church hoping the Bridegroom's Mother will kill her, but she doesn't. The play closes with both women reflecting on the deaths of the men. Before we move on, it should be noted that an alternate version of the play exists in which the Bride returns to town and is killed by the Mother to restore balance.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes (Emily Dickinson)

BY EMILY DICKINSON After great pain, a formal feeling comes - The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs - The stiff Heart questions 'was it He, that bore,' And 'Yesterday, or Centuries before'? The Feet, mechanical, go round - A Wooden way Of Ground, or Air, or Ought - Regardless grown, A Quartz contentment, like a stone - This is the Hour of Lead - Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow - First - Chill - then Stupor - then the letting go - This poem describes the fragile emotional equilibrium that settles heavily over a survivor of recent trauma or profound grief.

I dwell in Possibility (Emily Dickinson)

I dwell in Possibility - A fairer House than Prose - More numerous of Windows - Superior - for Doors - Of Chambers as the Cedars - Impregnable of eye - And for an everlasting Roof The Gambrels of the Sky - Of Visitors - the fairest - For Occupation - This - The spreading wide my narrow Hands To gather Paradise - we assume this house is a metaphor for poetry. The speaker goes on to describe her poetry-house with lots of nature imagery. It's got trees for rooms, the sky for a roof—cool stuff like that. She ends by telling us how awesome the visitors to the house (readers of her poetry) are. Then she tells us that writing poems—or the life of the mind—is the best way she knows to reach for the divine

I heard a Fly buzz—when I died (Emily Dickinson)

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died - The Stillness in the Room Was like the Stillness in the Air - Between the Heaves of Storm - The Eyes around - had wrung them dry - And Breaths were gathering firm For that last Onset - when the King Be witnessed - in the Room - I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away What portion of me be Assignable - and then it was There interposed a Fly - With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz - Between the light - and me - And then the Windows failed - and then I could not see to see - the narrator is on his or her deathbed, describing the progression of the narrator's death. ... In the poem, the image surrounding the corpse imitates that of a deathbed.

A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens)

In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, a novella. first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843. Recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come.

The Last of the Mohicans (James Fenimore Cooper)

So the Mohicans originally lived in an area that covered a lot of what is now New England—parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut were Mohican land. By the time The Last of the Mohicans takes place, during the French and Indian War, Mohican land was relegated to a small area in upstate New York. Cora and Alice Munro, daughters of Lieutenant Colonel Munro, are traveling with Major Duncan Heyward from Fort Edward to Fort William Henry, where Munro is in command and acquires another companion in David Gamut, a native singing teacher. They are guided through the forest by a native named Magua, who leads them through a shortcut unaccompanied by the British militia. Heyward is dissatisfied with Magua's shortcut, and the party roams unguided and finally join Natty Bumppo (known as Hawk-eye), a scout for the British, and his two Mohican friends, Chingachgook and his son Uncas. Heyward becomes suspicious of Magua, and Hawk-eye and the Mohicans agree with his suspicion, that Magua is a Huron scout secretly allied with the French. Upon discovery as such, Magua escapes, and in the (correct) belief that Magua will return with Huron reinforcements, Hawk-eye and the Mohicans lead their new companions to a hidden cave on an island in a river. They are attacked there by the Hurons, and when ammunition is exhausted, Hawk-eye and the Mohicans escape, with a promise to return for their companions. Magua and the Hurons capture Heyward, Gamut, and the Munro sisters, and Magua admits that he is seeking revenge against Cora's father Colonel Munro for turning him into an alcoholic with whiskey (causing him to be initially cast out of the Hurons) and then whipping him at a post for drunken behavior. He then offers to spare the party if Cora becomes his wife, but she refuses. Upon a second refusal, he sentences the prisoners to death. Hawk-eye and the Mohicans rescue all four and lead them to a dilapidated building that was involved with a battle between the Indians and the British some years ago. They are nearly attacked again, but the Hurons leave the area, rather than disturb the graves of their own fellow-countrymen. The next day, Hawk-eye leads the party to Fort Henry, past a siege by the French army. Munro sends Hawk-eye to Fort Edward for reinforcements; but he is captured by the French, who delivers him to Fort Henry without the letter. Heyward returns to Colonel Munro and announces his love for Alice, and Munro gives his permission for Heyward's courtship. The French general, Montcalm, invites Munro to a parley and shows him General Webb's letter, in which the British general has refused reinforcements. At this, Munro agrees to Montcalm's terms that the British soldiers, together with their wounded, women, and children, must leave the fort and withdraw from the war for eighteen months. Outside the fort, the column of British prisoners is attacked by 2000 Huron warriors; in the ensuing massacre, Magua kidnaps Cora and Alice, and he leads them toward the Huron village. David Gamut follows them. After the massacre, Hawk-eye, the Mohicans, Heyward, and Colonel Munro head into the ruins of the fort to plan their next move. The next morning they set out to follow Magua, and cross a lake to intercept his trail. They encounter a band of Hurons by the lakeshore who spot the travelers. A canoe chase ensues, in which the rescuers reach land before the Hurons can kill them, and eventually follow Magua to the Huron village. Here, they find Gamut (earlier spared by the Hurons as a harmless madman), who says that Alice is held in this village and Cora in one belonging to the Lenape (Delaware). Disguised as a French medicine man, Heyward enters the Huron village with Gamut, to rescue Alice; Hawk-eye and Uncas set out to rescue Cora, and Munro and Chingachgook remain in safety. Uncas is taken prisoner by the Hurons and left to starve when he withstands torture, and Heyward fails to find Alice. A Huron warrior asks Heyward to heal his lunatic wife, and both are stalked by Hawk-eye in the guise of a bear. They enter a cave where the madwoman is kept, and the warrior leaves. Soon after revelation of his identity to Heyward, Hawk-eye accompanies him, and they find Alice. They are discovered by Magua, but Hawk-eye overpowers him, and they leave him tied to a wall. Thereafter Heyward escapes with Alice, while Hawk-eye remains to save Uncas. Gamut convinces a Huron to allow him and his magical bear (Hawk-eye in disguise) to approach Uncas, and they untie him. Uncas dons the bear disguise, Hawk-eye wears Gamut's clothes, and Gamut stays in a corner mimicking Uncas. Uncas and Hawk-eye escape by traveling to the Delaware village where Cora is held, just as the Hurons suspect something is amiss and find Magua tied up in the cave. Magua tells his tribe the full story behind Heyward and Hawkeye's deceit before assuming leadership of the Hurons as they vow revenge. Uncas and Hawk-eye are being held prisoner with Alice, Cora, and Heyward at the Delaware village when Magua visits the Delaware tribe and demands the return of his prisoners. During the ensuing council meeting, Uncas is revealed to be a Mohican, a once-dominant tribe closely related to the Delawares. Tamenund, the sage of the Delawares, sides with Uncas and frees the prisoners, except for Cora, whom he awards to Magua according to tribal custom. To satisfy laws of hospitality, Tamenund gives Magua a three-hour head start before pursuit. While the Delawares are using that time preparing for battle, David Gamut escapes and tells his companions that Magua has positioned his men in the woods between the Huron and Delaware villages. Undeterred, Uncas, Hawkeye, and the Delawares march into the woods to fight the Hurons. The Delawares vanquish the Hurons in a bloody battle and ultimately capture the Huron village, but Magua escapes with Cora and two other Hurons; Uncas, Hawk-eye, and Heyward pursue them up to a high mountain. In a fight at the edge of a cliff, Cora, Uncas, and Magua are killed. The novel concludes with a lengthy account of the funerals of Uncas and Cora, and Hawk-eye reaffirms his friendship with Chingachgook. Tamenund prophesies: "The pale-faces are masters of the earth, and the time of the red-men has not yet come again....".

The Brain--is wider than the sky (Emily Dickinson)

THE BRAIN is wider than the sky, For, put them side by side,The one the other will include With ease, and you beside. The brain is deeper than the sea, For, hold them, blue to blue,The one the other will absorb, As sponges, buckets do. The brain is just the weight of God, For, lift them, pound for pound, And they will differ, if they do, As syllable from sound. testifies to the mind's capacity to absorb, interpret, and subsume perception and experience. The brain is wider than the sky despite the sky's awesome size because the brain is able to incorporate the universe into itself, and thereby even to absorb the ocean. The source of this capacity, in this poem, is God. In an astonishing comparison the author likens the minds capabilities to "the weight of God", differing from that weight only as syllable differs from sound.

The Soul selects her own Society (Emily Dickinson)

The Soul selects her own Society — Then — shuts the Door — To her divine Majority — Present no more — Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing — At her low Gate — Unmoved — an Emperor be kneeling Upon her Mat — I've known her — from an ample nation — Choose One — Then — close the Valves of her attention — Like Stone — (that people choose a few companions who matter to them and exclude everyone else from their inner consciousness) conjures up images of a solemn ceremony with the ritual closing of the door, the chariots, the emperor, and the ponderous Valves of the Soul's attention.

A Narrow Fellow in the Grass (Emily Dickinson)

The author balances the tension between the admiration of the object she describes—the snake—and the fear of it. ... First, it can be read on a literal level as a description of a snake. A narrow Fellow in the Grass Occasionally rides - You may have met him? Did you not His notice instant is - The Grass divides as with a Comb, A spotted Shaft is seen, And then it closes at your Feet And opens further on - He likes a Boggy Acre - A Floor too cool for Corn - But when a Boy and Barefoot I more than once at Noon Have passed I thought a Whip Lash Unbraiding in the Sun When stooping to secure it It wrinkled And was gone - Several of Nature's People I know, and they know me I feel for them a transport Of Cordiality But never met this Fellow Attended or alone Without a tighter Breathing And Zero at the Bone.

In Just- spring (E.E Cummings)

The author creates a poem that's half painting and half sound-scape (that's the aural version of a landscape). We know, we know: we told you it was a poem. But it's also an image. We won't get deep into the technical reasons for why this works so well here; check out "Symbols, Imagery, Wordplay" for some closer looks at all the good stuff that's going on. For now, though, we'll just tell you to read the poem aloud. You'll see what we mean. Chock-full of words like "mud-luscious" and "puddle-wonderful," the poem seems to be bursting with descriptions of the way that a spring day in the park looks and feels and sounds and smells. And because the poem repeats itself several times (in fancy technical terms, we'd call that a "refrain,") it emphasizes the way that all the tiny details of the poem actually contribute to one overarching image: the park in spring.

Much madness is divinest Sense (Emily Dickinson)

The speaker drops a mind-bomb on us, saying that crazy people are sane and sane people are crazy. Next thing you know, she's going after the Majority who cracks down on anybody who dares to go against the mainstream. It's the people on the outside, claims the speaker, who see it all for what it really is. Much Madness is divinest Sense - To a discerning Eye - Much Sense - the starkest Madness - 'Tis the Majority In this, as all, prevail - Assent - and you are sane - Demur - you're straightway dangerous - And handled with a Chain - assent: approve demur:oppose

I died for Beauty--but was scarce (Emily Dickinson)

This bizarre, allegorical death fantasy recalls Keats ("Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty," from Ode on a Grecian Urn), but its manner of presentation belongs uniquely to the author. In this short lyric, Dickinson manages to include a sense of the macabre physicality of death ("Until the Moss had reached our lips—"), the high idealism of martyrdom ("I died for Beauty. . . One who died for Truth"), a certain kind of romantic yearning combined with longing for Platonic companionship ("And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night—"), and an optimism about the afterlife (it would be nice to have a like-minded friend) with barely sublimated terror about the fact of death (it would be horrible to lie in the cemetery having a conversation through the walls of a tomb). As the poem progresses, the high idealism and yearning for companionship gradually give way to mute, cold death, as the moss creeps up the speaker's corpse and her headstone, obliterating both her capacity to speak (covering her lips) and her identity (covering her name). I died for Beauty - but was scarce Adjusted in the Tomb When One who died for Truth was lain In an adjoining Room - He questioned softly 'Why I failed'? 'For Beauty', I replied - 'And I - for Truth - Themself are one - We Brethren are', He said - And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night - We talked between the Rooms - Until the Moss had reached our lips - And covered up - our names -

correspondence (Charles Baudelarie)

This poem establishes correspondences between objects in Nature and the symbols and archetypes that populate our psyches. Nature is a temple where living pillars Let escape sometimes confused words; Man traverses it through forests of symbols That observe him with familiar glances. Like long echoes that intermingle from afar In a dark and profound unity, Vast like the night and like the light, The perfumes, the colors and the sounds respond. There are perfumes fresh like the skin of infants Sweet like oboes, green like prairies, —And others corrupted, rich and triumphant That have the expanse of infinite things, Like ambergris, musk, balsam and incense, Which sing the ecstasies of the mind and senses.

The Sick Rose (William Blake)

This poem in the collection, Songs of Experience, describes a sick rose and a worm that manages to locate the rose's "bed of crimson joy." The worm destroys the rose with his "dark secret love," a not so subtle reference to some kind of destructive sexuality. It also connotes the ideas of lust, sin, destruction, corruption, and death. The worm is a mystery as it is described as "invisible". It is engaged in secret activities: finding the bed, expressing dark and secret love. The rose stands for purity, innocence, beauty, ignorance, and so on.

The Armadillo (Elizabeth Bishop)

This poem is against the destruction and the immortality of the war. The painful situation of the armadillo is depicted in the poem; armadillo is extremely slow animal and is defenseless before the terrifying shower of fire. Other animals like owls as well as rabbit are also in dangerous a situation.

"the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls, (E.E Cummings)

This poem is an analysis and an attack, on a certain part of society he dislikes. The author's poem is both satirical and lyrical. It satirizes the hypocrisy and artificiality of people, represented by the Cambridge ladies, who are more concerned with their own images than with the images of nature around them. While appearing to go about their humanitarian tasks with duty and dedication, these ladies actually spread gossip, and they fail to appreciate and become a part of the natural beauty surrounding them (one of the greatest sins of all in the author's inventory of sins). the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds (also, with the church's protestant blessings daughters,unscented shapeless spirited) they believe in Christ and Longfellow, both dead, are invariably interested in so many things— at the present writing one still finds delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles? perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D .... the Cambridge ladies do not care, above Cambridge if sometimes in its box of sky lavender and cornerless, the moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy

A Poison Tree (William Blake)

This poem is in the collection, Songs of Experience. It is a short and deceptively simple poem about repressing anger and the consequences of doing so. The speaker tells of how they fail to communicate their wrath to their foe and how this continues to grow until it develops into poisonous hatred.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

Written in 1797-8, first appeared in Lyrical Ballads. The idea of killing an albatross bringing bad luck upon the crew of a ship appears to have been invented in this poem, as there is no precedent for it - and the albatross idea was probably William Wordsworth's, not Coleridge's (Wordsworth got the idea of the albatross-killing from a 1726 book, A Voyage Round The World by Way of the Great South Sea, by Captain George Shelvocke). The poem is one of the great narrative poems in English, with the old mariner recounting his story, with its hardships and tragedy, to a wedding guest. Variously interpreted as being about guilt over the Transatlantic slave trade, about Coleridge's own loneliness, and about spiritual salvation.

Frost at Midnight (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

Written in 1798, a night-time meditation on childhood and raising children, offered in a conversational manner and focusing on several key themes of Romantic poetry: the formative importance of childhood and the way it shapes who we become, and the role nature can play in our lives.

Little Big Man (Thomas Berger)

a 1964 novel. Often described as a satire or parody of the western genre, the book is a modern example of picaresque fiction. The author made use of a large volume of overlooked first-person primary materials, such as diaries, letters, and memoirs, to fashion a wide-ranging and entertaining tale that comments on alienation, identity, and perceptions of reality. It has been called "(The author)'s response to the great American myth of the frontier, representing as it does most of the central traditions of American literature." The novel is structured as a recorded narrative of the purported exploits of 111-year-old Jack Crabb, a white male child raised by the Cheyenne nation, as he describes his wanderings across the nineteenth-century American West to Ralph Fielding Snell, a somewhat gullible "Man of Letters." Though unknown to conventional history, Crabb has supposedly crossed paths with many of the West's notable figures, including Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, Buffalo Bill, and George Armstrong Custer. At various times captured, rescued, escaped, and returned to or from both white and Native American societies of the time, Crabb also claims to be the "sole white survivor" of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Democracy In America (Alexis de Tocqueville)

a classic French text, 1835. In the book, the author examines the democratic revolution that he believed had been occurring over the previous several hundred years. The primary focus of Democracy in America is an analysis of why republican representative democracy has succeeded in the United States while failing in so many other places. The author seeks to apply the functional aspects of democracy in the United States to what he sees as the failings of democracy in his native France.[12] The author speculates on the future of democracy in the United States, discussing possible threats to democracy and possible dangers of democracy. These include his belief that democracy has a tendency to degenerate into "soft despotism" as well as the risk of developing a tyranny of the majority. He observes that the strong role religion played in the United States was due to its separation from the government, a separation all parties found agreeable. He contrasts this to France where there was what he perceived to be an unhealthy antagonism between democrats and the religious, which he relates to the connection between church and state. The author also outlines the possible excesses of passion for equality among men, foreshadowing the totalitarian states of the twentieth century. Insightful analysis of political society was supplemented in the second volume by description of civil society as a sphere of private and civilian affairs mirroring Hegel.[13] The author observed that social mechanisms have paradoxes, as in what later became known as the Tocqueville effect: "social frustration increases as social conditions improve".[14] He wrote that this growing hatred of social privilege, as social conditions improve, leads to the state concentrating more power to itself. The author's views on the United States took a darker turn after 1840, however, as made evident in Aurelian Craiutu's Tocqueville on America after 1840: Letters and Other Writings

Miss Julie (August Strindberg)

a naturalistic play written in 1888. It is set on Midsummer's Eve on the estate of a count in Sweden. The young woman of the title is drawn to a senior servant, a valet named Jean, who is particularly well-traveled, well-mannered and well-read. The action takes place in the kitchen of Miss Julie's father's manor, where Jean's fiancée, a servant named Christine, cooks and sometimes sleeps while Jean and Miss Julie talk. On this night the relationship between Miss Julie and Jean escalates rapidly to feelings of love and is subsequently consummated. Over the course of the play Miss Julie and Jean battle until Jean convinces her that the only way to escape her predicament is to kill herself. Furiously, Miss Julie tells him of how her mother raised her to be submissive to no man. They then decide to run away together to start a hotel, with Jean running it and Miss Julie providing the capital. Miss Julie agrees and steals some of her father's money, but angers Jean when she insists on bringing her little bird along - she insists that it is the only creature that loves her, after her dog Diana was "unfaithful" to her. When Miss Julie insists that she would rather kill the bird than see it in the hands of strangers, Jean cuts off its head. In the midst of this confusion, Christine comes downstairs, prepared to go to church. She is shocked by Jean and Miss Julie's planning and unmoved when Miss Julie asks her to come along with them as head of the kitchen of the hotel. Christine explains to Miss Julie about God and forgiveness and heads off for church, telling them as she leaves that she will tell the stablemasters not to let them take out any horses so that they cannot run off. Shortly after, they receive word that Miss Julie's father, the Count, has returned. At this, both lose courage and find themselves unable to go through with their plans. Miss Julie realizes that she has nothing to her name, as her thoughts and emotions were taught to her by her mother and her father. She asks Jean if he knows of any way out for her. He takes a shaving razor and hands it to her and the play ends as she walks through the door with it, presumably to commit suicide.

Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe)

a novel published in 1958, its story chronicles pre-colonial life in the south-eastern part of Nigeria and the arrival of the Europeans during the late nineteenth century. The novel follows the life of Okonkwo, an Igbo("Ibo" in the novel) man and local wrestling champion in the fictional Nigerian clan of Umuofia. The work is split into three parts, with the first describing his family, personal history, and the customs and society of the Igbo, and the second and third sections introducing the influence of British colonialism and Christian missionaries on the Igbo community.

Holy Thursday (William Blake)

a poem from the 1789 book of poems Songs of Innocence. The poem depicts a ceremony held on Ascension Day, which in England was then called Holy Thursday,[2][3][4] a name now generally applied to what is also called Maundy Thursday:[5] six thousand orphans of London's charity schools, scrubbed clean and dressed in the coats of distinctive colors, are marched two by two to Saint Paul's Cathedral, under the control of their beadles, and sing in the cathedral. The children in their colorful dresses are compared to flowers and their procession toward the church as a river. Their singing on the day that commemorated the Ascension of Jesus is depicted as raising them above their old, lifeless guardians, who remain at a lower level.[2][6][7][8][9] The bleak reality of the orphans' lives is depicted in the contrasting poem, Holy Thursday (Songs of Experience).

So we'll go no more a roving (Lord Byron)

a poem that was included in a letter to Thomas Moore on 28 February 1817. Moore published the poem in 1830 as part of Letters and Journals of (The poet). It evocatively describes the fatigue of age conquering the restlessness of youth. Byron wrote the poem at the age of twenty-nine. In the letter to Thomas Moore, the poem is preceded by an account of its genesis. "At present, I am on the invalid regimen myself. The Carnival--that is, the latter part of it, and sitting up late o' nights--had knocked me up a little. But it is over--and it is now Lent, with all its abstinence and sacred music... Though I did not dissipate much upon the whole, yet I find 'the sword wearing out the scabbard,' though I have but just turned the corner of twenty nine."

We Real Cool (Gwendolyn Brooks)

a poem written in 1959 and published in the poet's 1960 book The Bean Eaters, her third collection of poetry. It consists of four verses of two rhyming lines each. The final word in most lines is "we". The next line describes something that "we" do, such as play pool or drop out of school. Brooks has said that the "we"s are meant to be said softly, as though the protagonists in the poem are questioning the validity of their existence.

I sing of Olaf glad and big (E.E Cummings)

a poem. It first appeared in cummings' 1931 collection ViVa. It depicts the life of Olaf, a conscientious objector and pacifist during the First World War who is tortured by the United States Army but nonetheless "will not kiss your f#$@&&$# flag", and subsequently dies in prison. The poem is based on the true story of a conscientious objector who cummings briefly knew while stationed at Camp Devens in 1918. Critics have noted the similarity of the opening stanza to that of Virgil's Aeneid, underlining the contrast between Olaf (whose heroic values are based in peace) and Achilles(whose heroic values were based in war).

She Walks in Beauty (Lord Byron)

a short lyrical poem in iambic tetrameter written in 1813 It is said to have been inspired by an event in Byron's life. On 11 June 1814, the poet attended a party in London. Among the guests was Mrs. Anne Beatrix Wilmot, wife of Byron's first cousin, Sir Robert Wilmot. He was struck by her unusual beauty, and the next morning the poem was written.

"Work Without Hope" (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

a sonnet relating nature to the emotions of the speaker. The imagery used throughout the poem is both a reflection of the natural world and a reference to the speaker's mental state. Seasons are used in the poem to relate what the speaker is feeling, and how it affects his life. Described as "lines composed on a day in February," or during the beginning of spring, we realize that the speaker is truly contemplating the ideas presented throughout the poem. ALL Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair— The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing— And WINTER, slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow, Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow. Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may, For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away! With lips unbrighten'd, wreathless brow, I stroll: And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul? WORK WITHOUT HOPE draws nectar in a sieve, And HOPE without an OBJECT cannot live.

Nobody Knows My Name, "Sonny's Blues" (James Baldwin)

a story, originally published in Partisan Review. The story is written in the first-person singular narrative style. The story opens with the narrator, who reads about his younger brother named Sonny who has been caught in a heroin bust. The narrator then goes about his day; he is a teacher at a school in Harlem. Sonny and Sonny's older brother. Each of these characters has an independent conflict and together they share another conflict. Sonny's conflict has multiple parts: heroin addiction; the "vivid, killing streets;" his choice for jazz and blues music over classical, which translates to a choice for poverty and limits to opportunity and freedom and a rejection of an established place in society with at least some economic opportunity, such as his brother attained.

A Doll's House (Henrik Ibsen)

a three-act play. The play is significant for the way it deals with the fate of a married woman, who at the time in Norway lacked reasonable opportunities for self-fulfillment in a male-dominated world. It aroused a great sensation at the time, and caused a "storm of outraged controversy" that went beyond the theatre to the world newspapers and society. The play opens at Christmas time as Nora Helmer enters her home carrying many packages. Nora's husband Torvald is working in his study when she arrives. He playfully rebukes her for spending so much money on Christmas gifts, calling her his "little squirrel." He teases her about how the previous year she had spent weeks making gifts and ornaments by hand because money was scarce. This year Torvald is due a promotion at the bank where he works, so Nora feels that they can let themselves go a little. The maid announces two visitors: Mrs. Kristine Linde, an old friend of Nora's, who has come seeking employment; and Dr. Rank, a close friend of the family, who is let into the study. Kristine has had a difficult few years, ever since her husband died leaving her with no money or children. Nora says that things have not been easy for them either: Torvald became sick, and they had to travel to Italy so he could recover. Kristine explains that when her mother was ill she had to take care of her brothers, but now that they are grown she feels her life is "unspeakably empty." Nora promises to talk to Torvald about finding her a job. Kristine gently tells Nora that she is like a child. Nora is offended, so she teases the idea that she got money from "some admirer," so they could travel to Italy to improve Torvald's health. She told Torvald that her father gave her the money, but in fact she managed to illegally borrow it without his knowledge because women couldn't do anything economical like signing checks without their husband. Over the years, she has been secretly working and saving up to pay it off.

To Lucasta, Going to the Wars (Richard Lovelace)

about a man who is leaving his lover behind in order to seek glory on the battlefield; the poem first appeared in 1649. ... During the English Civil War, the author fought on behalf of the king. Tell me not (Sweet) I am unkind, That from the nunnery Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind To war and arms I fly. True, a new mistress now I chase, The first foe in the field; And with a stronger faith embrace A sword, a horse, a shield. Yet this inconstancy is such As you too shall adore; I could not love thee (Dear) so much, Lov'd I not Honour more.

An Enemy of the People (Henrik Ibsen)

an 1882 play. The playwright wrote it in response to the public outcry against his previous play, Ghosts, which challenged the hypocrisy of 19th-century morality. According to Ellen Mortensen (Ibsen Studies v.7, 169), the words "scandalous, degenerate," and "immoral" were hurled at both Ghosts and its author because it openly discussed adultery and syphilis. Therefore, An Enemy of the People tells the story of a man who dares to speak an unpalatable truth (the water in the town bath is contaminated), and is punished for it. However, Ibsen took a somewhat skeptical view of his protagonist, suggesting that he may have gone too far in his zeal to tell the truth. Ibsen wrote to his publisher: "I am still uncertain as to whether I should call [An Enemy of the People] a comedy or a straight drama. It may [have] many traits of comedy, but it also is based on a serious idea." His antagonist was his brother, the mayor.

Heracles (Euripides)

an Athenian tragedy that was first performed c. 416 BC. While Herakles is in the underworld obtaining Cerberus for one of his labors, his father Amphitryon, wife Megara, and children are sentenced to death in Thebes by Lycus. Herakles arrives in time to save them, though the goddesses Iris and Madness (personified) cause him to kill his wife and children in a frenzy. It is the second of two surviving tragedies by Euripides where the family of Herakles is suppliants (the first being Herakles' Children). It was first performed at the City Dionysia festival.

Bulfinch's Mythology (Thomas Bulfinch)

collection of general audience works, named after the author and published after his death in 1867. The work was a highly successful popularization of Greek mythology for English-speaking readers. The book is a prose recounting of myths and stories from three eras: Greek and Roman mythology, King Arthur legends and medieval romances. Bulfinch intersperses the stories with his own commentary, and with quotations from writings by his contemporaries that refer to the story under discussion. This combination of classical elements and modern literature was novel for his time.[2] The author expressly intended his work for the general reader. In the preface to The Age of Fable he states "Our work is not for the learned, nor for the theologian, nor for the philosopher, but for the reader of English literature, of either sex, who wishes to comprehend the allusions so frequently made by public speakers, lecturers, essayists, and poets, and those which occur in polite conversation."[3] The author originally published his work as three volumes: The Age of Fable, or Stories of Gods and Heroes, published in 1855; The Age of Chivalry, or Legends of King Arthur, published in 1858; and Legends of Charlemagne, or Romance of the Middle Ages, published in 1863. The original three volumes were later combined into a single volume titled Bulfinch's Mythology, published in 1881.[4] Now in the public domain, multiple editions of the combined work are still in print more than 150 years after the three books were published.

I like to see it lap the Miles (Emily Dickinson)

describing an "iron horse" or railroad engine and its train. The poem was first published in 1891. I like to see it lap the Miles - And lick the Valleys up - And stop to feed itself at Tanks - And then - prodigious step Around a Pile of Mountains - And supercilious peer In Shanties - by the sides of Roads - And then a Quarry pare To fit its sides And crawl between Complaining all the while In horrid - hooting stanza - Then chase itself down Hill - And neigh like Boanerges - Then - prompter than a Star Stop - docile and omnipotent At it's own stable door -

Paradise Lost (John Milton)

epic poem in blank verse. It is about Adam and Eve--how they came to be created and how they came to lose their place in the Garden of Eden, also called Paradise. It's the same story you find in the first pages of Genesis, expanded by the author into a very long, detailed, narrative poem. OF Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast Brought Death into the World, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat, Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed, In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth Rose out of Chaos: or if Sion Hill ... ..... Intent, with jocond Music charm his ear; At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds. Thus incorporeal Spirits to smallest forms Reduc'd thir shapes immense, and were at large, Though without number still amidst the Hall Of that infernal Court. But far within And in thir own dimensions like themselves The great Seraphic Lords and Cherubim In close recess and secret conclave sat A thousand Demy-Gods on golden seat's, Frequent and full. After short silence then And summons read, the great consult began.

The Glass Menagerie (Tennessee Williams)

memory play that premiered in 1944 and catapulted the author from obscurity to fame. The play has strong autobiographical elements, featuring characters based on its author, his histrionic mother, and his mentally fragile sister Laura. In the Wingfield apartment in St. Louis, the mother, Amanda, lives with her crippled daughter and her working son, Tom. At dinner she tells her daughter, Laura, to stay nice and pretty for her gentlemen callers even though Laura has never had any callers and expects none. Amanda remembers the time that she had seventeen gentlemen callers all on one Sunday afternoon. Amanda then tells Laura to practice her shorthand and typing. A few days later Amanda comes home from Laura's school after finding out that Laura had dropped out several months earlier. Amanda is shocked and wonders what they will do with their lives since Laura refuses to try to help and spends all her time playing with her glass menagerie and her old phonograph records. Amanda decides that they must have a gentleman caller for Laura, and Laura tells her that she has liked only one boy in her whole life, a high school boy named Jim. When Tom goes out to the movies that night, Amanda accuses him of doing something else rather than going to the movies every night. They have an argument, and the next morning after Tom apologizes, Amanda asks him to find some nice gentleman caller for Laura and to bring him home for dinner. A few days later, Tom tells Amanda that he has invited a young man named Jim O'Connor home for dinner. Amanda immediately begins to make rather elaborate plans for the gentleman caller. On the next night, Amanda oversees Laura's dress and adds some "gay deceivers" to the dress to make Laura more attractive. When she mentions the name of the gentleman caller, Laura realizes that it is possibly the same Jim on whom she had a crush in high school. She tells her mother that she might not be able to come for dinner if it is the same one. Amanda will have nothing to do with such foolishness, and even though Laura is sick when the gentleman caller arrives, Amanda forces her to open the door. And it is the Jim that she knew from high school. At dinner she is physically sick and has to be excused. Later, Amanda sends Jim, the gentleman caller, into the living room to keep Laura company while she and Tom do the dishes. As Jim and Laura talk, she loses some of her shyness and becomes rather charming. Jim is attracted by Laura's quiet charms, but later after having kissed her, he must explain that he is already engaged. When Amanda reappears, Jim explains to her also that he is engaged and must go. Amanda is so stunned that she accuses Tom of deliberately playing a trick on them. The play ends with Tom some years in the future thinking back on his sister Laura whom he can never forget.

My Antonia (Willa Cather)

novel published in 1918. It is the final book of the author's "prairie trilogy" of novels, preceded by O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark. The novel tells the stories of an orphaned boy from Virginia, Jim Burden, and the elder daughter in a family of Bohemian immigrants, Ántonia Shimerda, who are each brought as children to be pioneers in Nebraska towards the end of the 19th century. Both the pioneers who first break the prairie sod for farming, as well as of the harsh but fertile land itself, feature in this American novel. The first year in the very new place leaves strong impressions in both children, affecting them lifelong.

Siddhartha (Herman Hesse)

novel that deals with the spiritual journey of self-discovery of a man named Siddhartha during the time of the Gautama Buddha. grows up in a prosperous Brahman family. He's well-loved, but unhappy despite his popularity. He is spiritually dissatisfied and believes the elders in his community have nothing more to teach him. Siddhartha decides to join the Samanas, who are a group of wandering ascetics. His best friend, Govinda, accompanies him, and the two men spend three years with the Samanas learning how to withstand pain and hunger in an effort to flee the body's limitations. Although the two friends learn quite a bit from the Samana way of life, they are still dissatisfied and decide to hear the teachings of Gotama Buddha. Govinda is impressed and chooses to join Gotama's community of monks. Despite Govinda's urgings and despite recognizing Gotama as the Holiest Man Ever, Siddhartha opts not to follow Gotama. He decides instead that he's an independent learner and is done with doctrine. The friends part ways. Siddhartha travels to a nearby town where he is entranced by the beauty of a well-known courtesan named Kamala. He offers himself to her as a student in the art of love, but is gently rebuffed. Kamala says he needs money, clothes, and shoes. Siddhartha begins working for a wealthy merchant named Kamaswami and becomes Kamala's lover. For a time, Siddhartha is content with his life and is able to maintain a Samana-like distance from material concerns. Eventually, however, wealth and lust prove too much for Siddhartha. He develops anxiety, self-hatred, and a high-stakes gambling habit. One morning, overwhelmed by his own depression and troubling dreams, Siddhartha walks out of his fancy home and never returns. After considering suicide and briefly encountering his old friend, Govinda, Siddhartha finds a ferryman and asks to become his apprentice. The ferryman, named Vasudeva, accepts Siddhartha as his companion and together the two men listen to the river. With the river as a spiritual guide, Siddhartha gradually grows wiser and wiser. After allowing his son (by Kamala) to leave the river and follow his own path, Siddhartha achieves enlightenment. Vasudeva passes into Nirvana, and Siddhartha continues to ferry people across the river. He then helps Govinda reach enlightenment.

The Master and Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov)

novel written in the Soviet Union between 1928 and 1940 during Stalin's regime. A censored version was published in Moscow magazine in 1966-1967, after the writer's death. The manuscript was not published as a book until 1967, and then first in Paris. The story concerns a visit by the devil to the officially atheistic Soviet Union. The Master and Margarita combines supernatural elements with satirical dark comedy and Christian philosophy, defying a singular genre. Many critics consider it to be one of the best novels of the 20th century, as well as the foremost of Soviet satires. A darkly comedic takedown of Soviet society, an audacious revision of the stories of Faust and Pontius Pilate, and a thrilling love story. The novel begins with the Devil's arrival in 1930's Moscow disguised as the distinguished Professor Woland. Together with his retinue of odd associates, including a talking, vodka-swilling black cat, Woland wreaks havoc on the societal elite. Meanwhile, the Master (an author of an unpublished novel about Jesus and Pontius Pilate who has been hounded by Soviet censors), languishes in despair in a psychiatric hospital, unable to share his story. His devoted lover, Margarita, agrees to sell her soul to the Devil in an effort to rescue the Master from his fate. The story weaves back and forth between current day Moscow and ancient Jerusalem, studded with sparkling scenes ranging from a dizzying Satanic Ball to the crucifixion of Jesus on Bald Mountain, with the enduring love between the Master and Margarita joining the strands of plot across space and time.

Porphyria's Lover (Robert Browning)

one of the earliest and most shocking of the poet's dramatic monologues. The speaker lives in a cottage in the countryside. His lover, a blooming young woman named Porphyria, comes in out of a storm and proceeds to make a fire and bring cheer to the cottage. She embraces the speaker, offering him her bare shoulder. He tells us that he does not speak to her. Instead, he says, she begins to tell him how she has momentarily overcome societal strictures to be with him. He realizes that she "worship[s]" him at this instant. Realizing that she will eventually give in to society's pressures, and wanting to preserve the moment, he wraps her hair around her neck and strangles her. He then toys with her corpse, opening the eyes and propping the body up against his side. He sits with her body this way the entire night, the speaker remarking that God has not yet moved to punish him.

"next to of course god america I (E.E Cummings)

poem about patriotism and the war. The poem starts off with the speaker being someone that is a patriot and feels strongly about America. ... Therefore bringing to our attention that patriotism can manipulate people into doing things they usually wouldn't. next to of course god america i love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh say can you see by the dawn's early my country 'tis of centuries come and go and are no more what of it we should worry in every language even deafanddumb thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry by jingo by gee by gosh by gum why talk of beauty what could be more beaut- iful than these heroic happy dead who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter they did not stop to think they died instead then shall the voice of liberty be mute? He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

"Kubla Khan; or, A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment," (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

poem completed in 1797 and published in 1816. According to the poet's preface to Kubla Khan, the poem was composed one night after he experienced an opium-influenced dream after reading a work describing Xanadu, the summer palace of the Mongol ruler and Emperor of China Kublai Khan.[1] Upon waking, he set about writing lines of poetry that came to him from the dream until he was interrupted by "a person from Porlock". The poem could not be completed according to its original 200-300 line plan as the interruption caused him to forget the lines. He left it unpublished and kept it for private readings for his friends until 1816 when, at the prompting of Lord Byron, it was published. The speaker describes the "stately pleasure-dome" built in Xanadu according to the decree of Kubla Khan, in the place where Alph, the sacred river, ran "through caverns measureless to man / Down to a sunless sea." Walls and towers were raised around "twice five miles of fertile ground," filled with beautiful gardens and forests. A "deep romantic chasm" slanted down a green hill, occasionally spewing forth a violent and powerful burst of water, so great that it flung boulders up with it "like rebounding hail." The river ran five miles through the woods, finally sinking "in tumult to a lifeless ocean." Amid that tumult, in the place "as holy and enchanted / As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted / By woman wailing to her demon-lover," Kubla heard "ancestral voices" bringing prophesies of war. The pleasure-dome's shadow floated on the waves, where the mingled sounds of the fountain and the caves could be heard. "It was a miracle of rare device," the speaker says, "A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice. The speaker says that he once saw a "damsel with a dulcimer," an Abyssinian maid who played her dulcimer and sang "of Mount Abora." He says that if he could revive "her symphony and song" within him, he would rebuild the pleasure-dome out of music, and all who heard him would cry "Beware!" of "His flashing eyes, his floating hair!" The hearers would circle him thrice and close their eyes with "holy dread," knowing that he had tasted honeydew, "and drunk the milk of Paradise."

How do I love thee? (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

sonnet number 43 taken from The Sonnets From the Portuguese, a book first published in 1850. She chose this title to give the impression that she had translated the work from the Portuguese and would therefore avoid any controversy. It was dedicated to her husband, poet Robert Browning.

Death of a Salesman (Arthur Miller)

written in 1948 and produced in 1949. The author won a Pulitzer Prize for the work, which he described as "the tragedy of a man who gave his life, or sold it" in pursuit of the American Dream. After many years on the road as a traveling salesman, Willy Lomanrealizes he has been a failure as a father and a husband. His sons, Happy and Biff, are not successful—on his terms (being "well liked") or any others. His career fading, Willy escapes into dreamy reminiscences of an idealized past. In the play's climactic scene, Biff prepares to leave home, starts arguing with Willy, confesses that he has spent three months in jail, and mocks his father's belief in "a smile and a shoeshine." Willy, bitter and broken, his illusions shattered, commits suicide.