Galileo Galilei was one of the most influential scientists of the modern era. His discovery and development of telescopes and his study of the cosmos revolutionized scientific understanding of the day. But his discoveries and inferences were disliked by the dominant religious institutions of his time, for they challenged the Christian theocratic view of the…
Category: Literature
Two Lives of Charlemagne by Einhard and Notker the Stammerer: Summary and Analysis
Charlemagne, translated into English as Charles the Great, was the King of the Franks, who expanded his empire to as further south as Italy. We learn from the two biographies that Charlemagne was instrumental in the spread of culture and arts to all corners of his kingdom. By closely associating himself with the Papacy, he…
Quranic and Biblical Depictions of Solomon (Sulayman)
The Judeo-Christian religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have several common characteristics. All three of them originate from what is presently referred to as the Middle East and thus share a common cultural and geographic heritage. Islam being the most modern of the religions has derived some of its precepts from its immediate predecessor Christianity. …
Response to Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed
Wild Seed is a novel written by Octavia Butler. It belongs to the science fiction genre and was published in 1980. The book belongs to what the author calls the Patternmaster series – a sequence of novels that expand or continue a common storyline. The book is set at a period when the peoples of…
Report of a Censor sent to check on Judge Dee
It makes sense academically to measure the competency of Judge Dee with respect to his role as a high ranking Chinese official of the Tang period. What follows is an attempt to make an evaluation of Judge Dee from the eyes of an equally high ranking Chinese Censor of the same period. Here the author…
How are Pa Chin’s anarchist politics conveyed in his novel Family?
The novel Family, written by Pa Chin in the early part of the twentieth century, is one of the most influential novels in modern Chinese Literature. Set in the early twentieth century China, the novel has for its backdrop the most eventful period in Chinese history. In retrospect, one could see the early signs of…
Death Be Not Proud by John Donne
John Donne’s poem Death Be Not Proud is typical of the religious/metaphysical genre employed by the poet. All human beings have a lurking fear of death. As we get older, this fear increases and ultimately dominates our thoughts. But contrary to the negative connotations attached to the event of death, Donne presents to the readers…
The Iliad and the Odyssey
Both the Iliad and the Odyssey remain the oldest known literary works in Western Civilization. Written around eighth century B.C. the Iliad is an epic poem totaling 16000 lines. Its central theme is warfare in ancient Greece, especially those waged by King Agememnon and his rivals. It also has several references to the Trojan War. …
How the past influences the present in the novel ‘The Reader’ and the play ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’?
The two works of literature discussed in this essay have several similarities in their underlying themes and narratives. The Street Car Named Desire, written by Tennessee Williams in 1947, was not only well received by critics, but also adapted into several stage productions. The post Second World War period in which the play is set…
The Moment by Margaret Atwood: Analysis
The poem titled “The Moment” is a beautifully illustrated and compactly presented work, and its meaning is especially relevant for contemporary societies. The poem is organized in three stanzas of six lines each. The first stanza sets up the narrative by making the claim about human beings’ ‘ownership’ of earth. The second stanza counters the…