The novel Jane Eyre is a Victorian Gothic bildungsroman that explores the early life of the eponymous character. At eighteen Jane is hired by Mr. Rochester as a governess at Thornfield Hall. This essay will argue that Jane’s innocent, independent personality liberates Mr. Rochester from his mental enslavement at Thornfield Hall. Jane provides a glimpse... Continue Reading →
Dante Alighieri and Francesco Petrarch were Florentine thinkers active in the 13th and 14th centuries. But their worldviews were very different, and two of their most famous texts reflect this. Dante’s On Monarchy uses Aristotelian scholasticism to argue that the Holy Roman Emperor has the right to rule over Europe. Meanwhile, Petrarch’s On His Own... Continue Reading →
One of the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer’s most famous poems is Troilus and Criseyde, a retelling of the classic love tragedy poem. It is set amid the background of the Trojan War, but in a 14th century environment. In it, the Trojan prince Troilus falls in love with the Trojan noblewoman Criseyde. Criseyde is a... Continue Reading →
The French structuralist writer Roland Barthes wrote a short essay called “The Death of the Author” in 1967. In it, he argues that writing is the destruction of every voice, and that while this has not been recognized before, writers are now starting to take this into account and critics should focus on the reader... Continue Reading →
Plato’s Republic is a Socratic dialogue on justice, how the perfect city-state should be ordered, and how the virtuous man should behave. In “Book X”, Glaucon and Socrates explore the nature of poetry. They argue that Poetry must be excluded from a well-ordered state, as it is an imitative art form, thrice removed from the... Continue Reading →
John Keats, “[When I have fears that I may cease to be]” When I have fears that I may cease to beBefore my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,And think that... Continue Reading →
William Blake’s “The Tyger” poem is arguably his most famous work in this form of literature and in all of English. It is about a person who wonders how a tiger is created, but it is not merely a fun poem. “The Tyger” is a discourse on duality, with a speaker who is shocked at... Continue Reading →
In Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno, there is a scene where Captain Delano encounters a group of black women and children on the deck of the Saint Dominick. While looking at them, Delano assumes that the women are uncivilized but at the same time are well-mannered, innocent and loving towards their children. This scene, unlike what... Continue Reading →
Phillis Wheatley was an American poet who was the first African American to get published. Her poem “To the University of Cambridge in New England” is addressed to students of that university, and she tells them of Jesus’ sacrifice and the promise for redemption. This poem affirms equality through the shared sin and salvation of... Continue Reading →
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