Literature

Literature is also a form of time travel that helps put today in context. All those apocalyptic lamentations about how "things used to be so much better" are controverted in literature of the last...

A primary difference between academic and non-academic texts involves audience, which also speaks to purpose. An academic, nonfiction text will be based on research methods that can be replicated....

Literature is one way for us to hear the voices of the past and work with the present. It is a way for the present to connect to the possible future. Story telling is one way for humans to reach...

The basic elements of prose are: character, setting, plot, point of view, and mood. Character refers to: biographical information; personality traits; social roles, and psychological factors such...

In examining the terms "traditional" and "modern," literary scholars will differ on the defining time periods or characteristics which qualify those classifications. The following are provided as a...

A literary convention is: A customary feature of a literary work, such as the use of a chorus in Greek tragedy, the inclusion of an explicit moral in a fable, or the use of a particular rhyme...

The poem “Identity” by Julio Noboa Polanco is an unrepentant celebration of individuality. Asserting himself against other people, whom he contemptuously likens to well-fed, well-watered flowers,...

Figures of speech enhance the author's creation. This is true of any genre and any form of writing. The effective use of figures of speech brings to life what would have been mere words, phrases...

A novel is a book-length fictional prose narrative that contains six primary elements: character, plot, point of view, setting, style, and theme. Let's look at these six through a sample novel,...

Medieval literature extends over a wide geographic area and a long span of time, so it is difficult to identify characteristics that apply to all or even most literature of the Middle Ages. That...

The relationship between history and literature is complex and multifaceted. First, literature often presents historical people, places, and events in story form. Think, for instance, of the...

The difference between non-academic and academic writing can be important to you when you are doing research for a paper. It also will concern you if you are considering writing as a career. When...

The main difference between the different forms of literature is the purpose and the way words are arranged. The main difference between prose and poetry is how the words are used. In prose we...

Poetry is a form of writing in verse, which usually has a musical quality obtained through the specific use of literary elements such as meter and rhyme, and literary devices such as alliteration,...

There exists a duality in this sparsely written poem through combining the speaker's frustration and recognition of the humiliation of women with a spirit of resilience and dry optimism. The...

Dictionary.com defines myth this way: A traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation,...

This phrase is contained in a speech found in Act II of The Crucible by Arthur Miller. It is spoken by John Proctor at the height of the witchcraft/accusation frenzy in the courts of Salem. At the...

"Olden days" is a fairly relative phrase. Some younger students might consider olden days any time before Instagram existed. They can't fathom a world that existed before cell phones and texting,...

It is telling, I think that when Nenita is first introduced, she is described as "the wife." She is not the loving wife, the dutiful wife, the good wife: just the wife. Earlier, she'd taken a nap...

In the science fiction short story "The Wretched and the Beautiful" by E. Lily Yu, an alien spaceship lands on a popular tourist beach. Inside are strangely shaped alien refugees (the wretched) who...

The primary similarities between a novel and a drama are that they both have plots, complete with rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution; they both have conflicts, characters, and...

Santa Rama Rau's short story "By Any Other Name" refutes Juliet's contention that something retains its essence no matter what its name. In this colonial story of English imperialism, the teacher...

In addition to the excellent posted comments, literary criticism helps reader develop critical thinking skills. Criticisms take the reader to a higher level of cognitive thought by evaluating what...

I think the engine here definitely refers to the goldfinch and her family. Before she arrives, the laburnum tree is quiet, "quite still," with nothing to indicate that there is anything alive...

Mr. Robert Baldwin is Mr. John Gresham's personal secretary. At the start of the play, Baldwin's wife (Martha), son (John), and daughter (Evie) are tense and worried: John Gresham has just been...

It sounds like what you may be referring to is, as the other instructor has pointed out, a frame story. Such stories start at the ending and then flash back in time to demonstrate how this pivotal...

Beauty and the Beast is a well-known fairytale written by French author and novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, originally published in 1740. Another equally as popular publication is...

The simplest and most obvious point is that "humble" is an adjective or a verb, whereas "humility" is a noun. More significantly, however, "humble" is often used refer to social status, in phrases...

Certainly, one theme of the story is that we must be wary of strangers. Little Red Riding Hood meets the wolf in the forest, "but as she did not know what a bad sort of animal she was, she did not...

The best metaphor I have ever heard on why we read literature is that literature acts as a window or mirror (or both.) This is expressed so often in education that I am not even able to tell you...

In a critical appreciation of "Bequest," you could focus on the role of women as it is presented in the poem and how Souza utilizes literary devices and form to accomplish that purpose. Souza was...

Este cuento, "Los Bomberos" de Mario Benedetti, depende mucho de la ironía. El cuento se trata de un hombre llamado Olegario, quien tiene un don de premonición. Olegario ha ganado bastante fama y...

Prose refers to written or spoken language that is not in poetic form, whether in rhythm, rhyme, or structure. Drama is a performing art in which actors use dialogue and actions to tell a story or...

This poem turns on its head the idea that a tenth birthday is a joyous occasion. Instead, the young speaker laments the loss he is feeling as he grows older. The poem shows the pain of maturing...

In the short story "The Rain Came" by Grace Ogot, customs and traditional beliefs leave Oganda having to face death for her people to have rain. Oganda is to be sacrificed in order to end the...

As was mentioned in the previous post, the central themes throughout the short story examine justice, responsibility, discernment, and friendship. Both characters, Jumman Shaikh and Algu Chowdhry,...

In general, we read stories to learn about life, about the world around us, and about how people in the world react to their circumstances and experiences. Characters in stories help us see how...

The short story "Night Calls" takes place on a small game preserve in South Africa. A 13-year-old girl named Marlene comes home from her boarding school for the holidays. Five years earlier, her...

Onomatopoeia is a literary device in which a word is formed to imitate a sound. Examples include "ring," "pow," "snap," and "boom." The first example of onomatopoeia in Edgar Allan Poe's short...

Merriam-Webster defines a prelude as "an introductory performance, action, or event preceding and preparing for the principal or a more important matter." So it is understood as something that...

The poem "The Last Lesson of the Afternoon" by D.H. Lawrence is about a teacher who is second-guessing his life’s work as an instructor to various students. In this six stanza poem, the poet begins...

Here is how you would quote the passage according to Modern Language Association (MLA) style: But we must never speak of the times before the Great Rebirth…. They whisper many strange things, of...

This is a good and important question. English literature is important in many different ways. Let me list a few of them. First, English literature tells us about the history of the English...

To put it bluntly, she thinks that Nenita's husband is no good. And it's hard to disagree with this assessment given that he's a serial philanderer. But Nenita's friend doesn't just want Nenita to...

Sometimes I think you can learn more from short stories than novels, simply because the author gets to his/her point much quicker and is more concise with descriptions. Authors don't write just to...

You will recognize a simile (take care spelling simile as there is no extra i) when you see a comparison using the word "like" or a description of something using as....as when those two things...

Since you categorized this question under literature, I'm assuming that you are writing a paper about the theme of guilt in literature. A determining factor in how you approach this is deciding on...

There are many examples of parallelism in Abraham Lincoln's short speech. Parallelism is the repetition of the same grammatical structure in a work of writing. Some examples of parallelism include...

The basic characteristics of African English Literature are: 1) Written in both African and European languages. The predominant African languages used are Amharic, Zulu, Hausa, and Swahili. 2)...

A biography is the true story of a person's life. An autobiography is the true story of a person's life when it is written by that person. The author writes about him- or herself in an...