The hallmark of good literature is that it combines art with raising social consciousness. This is certainly true of the 3 classics perused for this essay. Falling into different genres like fiction, nonfiction and reportage, the three works treat the social consequences of war in their own unique ways. The rest of this essay will…
Category: Literature
Why we should read To the Reader (from Fleurs du Mal) by Charles Baudelaire
Thesis: Charles Baudelaire expanded subject matter and vocabulary in French poetry, writing about topics previously considered taboo and using language considered too coarse for poetry. Analyzing To the Reader makes a case for why Baudelaire’s subject matter and language choice belong in poetry. Dear Reader, Any work of art that attracts controversy is also likely…
In what ways is WH Auden’s In Memory of WB Yeats typical of the tradition of elegy, and in what ways is it distinctive?
WH Auden’s classic elegy of his contemporary WB Yeats has withstood the test of time. Even after five decades of its first publication, the poem is fresh in its invocation of feelings of loss and suffering. The loss and suffering are so much at the deceased artist and the cessation of his work, but more…
The Great Man Theory of History as evidenced in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance
Applying the Great Man theory of History as a subtext to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s classic essay Self-Reliance makes for an interesting synthesis. The Great Man theory was brought into public discourse by Thomas Carlyle in the 1840s. But most of the later commentators pointed out to some of the misassumptions and flaws in the theory….
Literary theoretical analysis of Virginia Woolf’s To the Light House
Woolf’s novel was a ground breaking work at the time of its publication in 1927. It broke away from the literary tradition of narrative, plot based story-telling. Instead the work experimented with impressionistic and modernist methods of art, borrowing from their successful implementation in the visual arts. In his insightful essay, Jonathan Culler enlists five…
Totalitarianism & Dehumanization in 1984
The most prominent message of 1984 is that totalitarianism destroys all that is civil and noble in human beings. In the novel, Orwell writes “Freedom is the freedom to say two plus two equals four. Once that is granted, all else follows.” The converse of this quote is that by disallowing fundamental freedoms that are…
A speculation on the most valuable book lost to humanity
Much of the knowledge which the world had at one time has been lost to us now. Natural disasters, wars, fires, have destroyed books and the knowledge in them. We know they existed once, but they no longer exist now.Suppose you could protect and save ONE of the things we’ve read this semester so people of future…
William Shakespeare: A Question of Authorship
William Shakespeare and JS Bach are perhaps the two most important cultural figures in Western Civilization. This high pedestal that they occupy makes questions over their authorship almost blasphemous for their admirers. If Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor has come for scholarly debate in recent years, the question marks over Shakespeare’s authorship were…
The Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address: A Comparative Analysis
Abraham Lincoln’s greatness as President lies in his extraordinary ability to take crucial decisions that would prove pivotal to the nation’s history. The Emancipation Proclamation, which essentially promised blacks of their right to equality and liberty, is one of its kind – not just in American history but in political history as a whole. The…
Huxley’s effective use of conflict and control in reinforcing the dangers of technocracy in Brave New World
Brave New World is a profound literary work that encompasses themes of philosophical discourse, projection of societies in the future, the impact of technology on human relations, etc. The major theme in the novel, however, is the link between dystopian societies and an underlying technocratic socio-political order. Huxley uses conflict and control in the realms…