Today's Date:
December 16, 2024
Character and Divine Influence in The Iliad and The Aeneid : The Role of the Gods and Goddesses and the Direction of Fate
Despite the wide margin of time that elapsed from the writing of Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid, many of the same themes are apparent in each text. Within both The Aeneid and Iliad, there is a strong urge to present a world in which wars are glorious and the →
The Quest for Identity in American Poetry
The issue of identity in American culture has, since the first pieces composed in the New World, been a consistent trope of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry alike. America’s position throughout history as a burgeoning and constantly-developing country is naturally reflected →
Analysis of Poems by Emily Bishop : “One Art” and “A Miracle for Breakfast”
Categorized by the Great Depression, two World Wars, as well as a rapidly changing society, America in the twentieth century was a time of many gains as well as many losses. No poet displays this sense of loss quite so →
Portnoy’s Broader Complaint: The Inescapability of Being Jewish
Although it is impotence that initially drives Portnoy to Doctor Spielvogel, his underlying complaint is not overtly sexual in nature: he contends that the very fact of his Jewishness is responsible for the degradation and shame that has cripples him →
The Theatrical Nature of Iago in Othello as Director, Actor, and Manipulative Confidante
Throughout Shakespeare’s play Othello, the character Iago is one of the main instigators of the action and serves the dual role of director and actor, thus putting the audience at his mercy as both director of the action and central →
Analysis and Review of Montaigne and Othello
Shakespeare’s Othello is a play wrought with the intricacies of the human mind. While Othello and Desdemona begin a life together in marital bliss, dissatisfaction from her father and allusions to an affair with Cassio soon taint the once perfect →
Henry V and the Reconciliation of the “Little Bit of Harry”
There are numerous examples in Shakespeare of power corrupting absolutely, greed running rampant, and of course, some exaggeration of Shakespearean gender roles. Shakespeare’s Henry V features a conflicted central character that is both tied to his past as a carousing, →
Analysis of Beowulf
What do the poets in Beowulf sing about? To whom do they sing their songs? What is the purpose of their performances? Much of the subject matter the poets relate in Beowulf (click here for a full analysis of Beowulf) →
The “Black for Life” Theory and Writers of the Harlem Renaissance
In his historical consideration of the literary movement known as the Harlem Renaissance, essayist Thadious M. Davis does the reader a profound service by situating the phenomenon and its writers within a situational and socio-historical framework. Davis examines the lives →
