Notes

 

Enjoy our online database of English literature notes, academic articles. New notes/articles are published every week. Some of these notes are exclusive to members only. When you become a member on site, you get unlimited access to these articles and notes. To support us and help bring more educational content to you, please support us on Patreon.

 

Measure For Measure

“Measure For Measure” as a Dark Comedy

Measure for Measure is one of the dark comedies or problem plays of William Shakespeare . In this group of plays, we find Shakespeare confronted with some practical problems of life— generally with the problem of evil in daily life—and we find him also trying for a comic solution but net often getting it. 0..

T.S Eliot

T.S Eliot as a Critic

T.S Eliot is one of the greatest literary critics of England from the point of view of the bulk and quality of his critical writings. His five hundred and odd essays occasionally published as reviews and articles had a far-reaching influence on literary criticism in the country. His criticism was revolutionary which inverted the critical..

“The Mill on the Floss”: The end of the novel

The end of George Eliot‘s The Mill on the Floss is the most controversial issue of the novel. It has been subjected to biting criticism as it is alleged to be illogical, unnatural and rapid. Lytton spots that “the end is weakly prepared”. To Henry James, the end is ‘defective and shocking’. Bennet views that..

Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Tess of the D’Urbervilles: Hardy as a Pessimist

The fact that Thomas Hardy resented being called a pessimist is no reason why he should not be thus described. Hardy was the painter of darker side of life as it was no wonder if people charged him of “pessimist”. The opinion is both right and wrong in this context. In fact, there are some..

Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding

Realism in “Joseph Andrews”

Realism means conceiving and representing the things as they are. The basic essence of human life is embodied in realistic literature. Besides it, we have also realistic picture of contemporary society. We, thus, have realism of particular order i.e. a true picture of society, manners, people and customs. We also have what we may call..

Humor in Joseph Andrews (analysis)

Henry Fielding’s proclaimed aim was to tear the veil off affectation and expose it to ridicule, which is the true source of laughter. Humor, naturally, occupies an important place in Fielding’s concept of novel. Satire has an equally important role, for it has to strip the mask off the ills of society, holds up a..

The Canterbury Tales

Chaucer’s Realism in “The Canterbury Tales”

Literature is the mirror of its age. Supreme literary artist is one who becomes a mouthpiece and provides a real picture of his age with its minute details. Chaucer is a perfect representative of his age. He is in true sense a social chronicler of England. His poetry reflects the 14th century not in fragment..

Joseph Andrews: A Picareaque

“Joseph Andrews” can’t be called a regular picaresque novel for Fielding employs elements of this tradition in an exposition of his own theory of the Ridiculous. He was writing a “comic epic-poem in pose”. He adapts the picaresque tradition to his own theory of the novel, which shows the influence of various other literary forms..

George Eliot as a modern novelist

George Eliot is known as a modern novelist in spite of living in Victorian Age. She wrote in the fashion contrary to that of her contemporaries, Dickens, Thackeray, etc. She is not completely divorced from the traditions. She draws her picture in the Victorian style, but she develops it in a new direction. 5 (1..

George Eliot: A Psychologist

Eliot was not a psychologist. She didn’t have even the knowledge required by a psychologist; yet, she is called the first modern novelist since her approach is psychological. She is the pioneer of psychological fiction. With the transcription of the visible and real, she traces the ups and downs of the mental processes and the..

George Eliot: A Moralist

George Eliot is known as a modern moralist despite living in Victorian Age. Other Victorians did have a moral touch but Eliot had the moral earnestness. She wrote to inculcate moral in the people. She reshapes the perception of the people to remould the whole structure of the society. She believes in the presence of the moral code at the heart of the universe.

Role of Nature in Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Thomas Hardy was a naturalist, part of a Darwinist-influenced literary movement at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century that saw nature as indifferent to humankind. Obviously, nature plays in important role/element in Tess of the D’Urbervilles. 5 (1 ratings) You must sign in to vote