Essays on Literary Genres

Christopher Marlowe wrote The Passionate Shepherd to His Love in traditional iambic tetrameter and published it in 1599. The Elizabethan political context is referenced in The Passionate Shepherd. The poem is written in the pastoral style. The pastoral tradition poems are characterized by romantic passion, a state of innocence, and...

Claudia Rankine's book Citizen: An American Lyric was released in 2014. It is one of his many works that are difficult to categorize. Many people, though, have characterized the book as both a literary work and a criticism. It is mixed with photographs, criticism, and sculpture, and hence can be...

Poetry is and has always been a broad topic in the history of the arts. Various authors have made several attempts to describe poetry. Also with the advancement of literature, there is no universally accepted concept of poetry. Thus, poetry is the general art of using human language aesthetically to express...

‘The Obligation to Be Happy' discusses success and how difficult it is to attain. The poet observes that meeting other desires, such as attractiveness and housework, is easy, but achieving the expected satisfaction is difficult. This is similar to the poem 'Why are your poems so dark?' The individual interviewing...

This was a comforting read for someone who loves writing (as I do), as Tim O'Brien details his thoughts about why storytelling is important. He writes, “Stories will save us” (213), explaining how using the imagination can offer warmth that does not always happen in reality. One of the novel's...

Isabel's novel 'House of Spirits' tells the story of the Trueba family, who are surrounded by passion, hate, a desire for riches and strength, a desire for vengeance, and poverty all at the same time. Clara, her husband, Esteban Trueba, their children Blanca and the twin sons, Jaime and Nicolas,...

Clarice Lispector was a Brazilian author born in Ukraine in 1920. She is a well-known author around the world for her innovative novels and short stories. She was born in Podolia to a Jewish family before being moved to Brazil. Her adoption to Brazil was due to the issues confronting...

Emile Zola's novel Germinal Germinal is notable in the French tradition. It depicts a coal miner's strike in Northern France in the 1860s. The title "Germinal" is the name of a French calendar month that means "seed." The novel's central focus is the plight of miners and their search for life....

Tarfia Faizullah's Seam is an enthralling series of poems that blends charm with aggression, personal memories with historical events. The poems recount the harrowing memories of two thousand female rape and torture victims during the Pakistani army's Liberation War in 1971. Tarfia Faizullah, the daughter of a Bangladeshi refugee, discusses...

Virginia, a British novelist, editor, and critic Stephen Woolf is regarded as one of England's most dependable authors between the First and Second World Wars. Woolf went down her experimental path after becoming dissatisfied with the novels of the well-known, real, and obvious. Along the way, the author discovered a...

Agatha Christie's novel The Hollow is a work of crime fiction. It was first published in the United States of America in 1946, and later that year in the United Kingdom. With 66 full-length novels published during her writing career, Agatha Christie established herself as a prolific novelist. The Hollow...

O'Brien's Poetic Tactics and Storytelling Ability O'Brien employs poetic tactics to resolve his role in Vietnam's atrocities. Most notably, his storytelling ability reflects his exceptional creative abilities. In an apparent effort to overcome post-war depression, O'Brien employs his imagination to use narration as a means of reintegration into society.The Power of...