English Literature

Text: This is my letter to the World That never wrote to Me— The simple News that Nature told— With tender Majesty Her Message is committed To Hands I cannot see— For love of Her—Sweet—countrymen— Judge tenderly—of Me An Analysis of the Poem: This is my letter to the World is a beautiful poem by Emily Dickinson. It has attracted considerable critical attention. It is a short lyric but it is lovely enough. It was published in 1890 and since then it has been attracting the attention of countless readers of this entire world. This is my letter to the World has been divided into two stanzas. Each stanza has six lines. The first stanza of the poem deals with the frustration of the poet and the last one deals with poet’s hope. In the beginning part of the poem the poet regards herself as the messenger of Mother Nature. She considers her poetry as the record of that message. The entire world appears as her audience. She regularly records the message of nature sincerely and f...

  Albee is a gifted writer. The Zoo Story is a beautiful and popular absurd play him. This one-act play was composed in 1958. It is considered author’s masterpiece. Here Albee explores the themes of isolation, loneliness, existentialism, dehumanization, and meaninglessness of life in the fragmented society of America. Characterization, symbolism and language serve author’s purposes. Here two major characters named Peter and Jerry represent man’s interior alienation, detachment, fragmentation, and surrender. The Zoo Story  is an absurd play. It takes place in the Central Park in New York. There are two characters named Peter and Jerry in it. Peter is a middle-aged man. He is slightly older than Jerry. The play starts in Sunday afternoon. In New York City’s Central Park Peter is reading a book on his favorite bench peacefully.   He is a publishing executive. He wears tweeds and glasses. He smokes. Suddenly a stranger named Jerry arrives there and tries to engage ...

  The Zoo Story  is an absurd play. It takes place in the Central Park in New York. There are two characters named Peter and Jerry in it. Peter is a middle-aged man. Peter is slightly older than Jerry. The plot of the play starts with Sunday afternoon. In New York City’s Central Park Peter is reading a book on his favorite bench peacefully.   He is a publishing executive. He wears tweeds and glasses. He smokes. Suddenly a stranger named Jerry arrives there and tries to engage him into conversation. Without any context he makes an announcement that he had been to the zoo. Peter does not notice. Jerry repeats the same thing. Then Peter responds him politely but Jerry is not satisfied with his response. Jerry then proceeds to probe deep into Peter’s life. He asks Peter personal questions about his home life. By questioning he teases him. He comes to know that Peter has a wife and two daughters. His household contains two cats and two parakeets. After that he st...

  Edward Albee is one of the greatest playwrights of America. This prolific playwright is known as the pioneer of ‘The Theatre of the Absurd’. He received several prestigious awards for his literary contribution. He makes the pointlessness and absurdity of the human situation as the central subject matter of his plays. He is known for his biting wit, his mastery of dramatic tension and his grasp of ‘The Theatre of the Absurd’. Edward Albee is a very popular American playwright who has composed several popular plays. The names of his popular plays are – The Zoo Story, The Sandbox, The American Dream, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Lover, A Delicate Balance, All Over, The Man Who Had Three Arms, Finding the Sun, Marriage Play, Seascape, Three Tall Women, The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia, The Ballad of the Sad Café, Tiny Alice, The Play About the Baby, The Death of Bessie Smith, At Home at the Zoo, The Lady from Dubuque, Lolita, Me, Myself and I, Occupant, Fam and Yam, Bartleby, M...

  The Glass Menagerie is a beautiful expressionistic play by a popular American playwright named Tennessee Williams. This memory play has strong autobiographical overtones. It is a powerful psychological tragedy that brought national fame to the author. As best American play it won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1945. The Glass Menagerie  is an American classic that tells a tragic family tale of love, bitterness, and abandonment. Set in St Louis of the 1930s, it is the poignant drama of a family's gradual disintegration. A frustrated mother persuades her rebellious son to secure a suitor for her shy and crippled daughter. But her romantic dreams are shattered by the intervention of harsh reality. The story of the play is narrated by a central character named Tom. His narration is based on his recollection of his mother Amanda and his sister Laura. Amanda is a faded lady of middle age. She lives with her son named Tom and Daughter named Laura in an apartment ...

Tennessee Williams is widely regarded as one of the greatest playwrights in the world of American drama. He is unquestionably the most influential American playwright after the II World War. He wrote several award-winning poetic plays. He is known as ‘the theater poet in prose’.   He is best known for his powerful plays named The Glass Menagerie , A Streetcar Named Desire  and  Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. His plays reveal a world of human frustration in which sex and violence underlie an atmosphere of romantic gentility. Williams' plays are known for their symbolism, metaphor and for their lyrical intensity. Expressionism is a dramatic technique. It enables a dramatist to depict the inner reality of life.   As a dramatist Tennessee Williams uses expressionistic technique in a masterly manner. In order to reveal the inner reality of a thing or a character, he takes the help of this technique. The use of lighting effects, music, telephone and symbols ...

 Banabhatta is the most illustrious example of prose writer in Sanskrit. He belongs to the 7th century India. He is a towering figure in classical sanskrit literature. It is he who is the celebrated author of Kadambari and Harshacharita. Kadambari is his masterpiece. He was the court author and poet of a very famous Indian Emperor named Harshavardhan. Banabhatta's Kadambari is one of the best romantic fictions. It is a detailed, exquisite novel in the Sanskrit language. It is one of the world's earliest novels. The title of this fiction is named after its heroine. The presentation is made in seven chapters. It is an imaginative romantic story of love in the katha form. Kadambari is a fantastic prose romance. This work transcends the bounds of mortal existence. It moves through three- lives until deep and passionate love attains its fulfilment. In due course Banabhatta has depicted the fanciful fusion of the world. Here animals, birds, human beings, semi divine and divine ...

 Jane Austen is one of the greatest novelists of English Literature. She has been called the pure novelist. She occupies a high place in English novel. She imparted realism and pioneered the the comedy of manners. She always receives praise for the use of humour and irony in her novels.  Jane Austen's novels are domestic comedies of a high order. She was mainly interested in the comedy of human nature. Her comedy was confined to human beings in their personal relations. Her novels look like novels of manners. It is because they depict the manners, customs and follies of her limited social circle. She laughs at follies and vices. For that she employs humour and irony that are charming. Jane Austen's attitude towards life is that of a humorist. Like a true comedian her first literary impulse was humorous. Humour appears on every page of her novels. She laughs at follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies. Folly is the chief source of laughter in her novels.  Jane...

Sweetest love, I do not goe, For wearinesse of thee, Nor in the hope the world can show A fitter Love for mee; But since that I Must dye at last, ‘tis best, To use my selfe in jest Thus by fain’d deaths to dye; Yesternight the sunne went hence, And yet is here to day, He hath no desire nor sense, Nor halfe so short a way: Then feare not mee, But beleeve that I shall make Speedier journeys, since I take More wings and spurres then hee. O how feeble is mans power, That if good fortune fall, Cannot adde another houre, Nor a lost houre recall! But come bad chance. And wee joyne to it our strength, And wee teach it art and length, It self o’r us to advance. When thou sigh’st, thou sigh’st not winde, But sigh’st my soule away, When thou weep’st, unkindly kinde, My lifes blood doth decay. It cannot bee That thou lov’st mee, as thou say’st, If in thine my life thou waste, Thou art the best of mee. Let not thy diving heart, Forethinke me any ill, Destiny may take thy part, And may t...

This is my play's last scene; here heavens appoint My pilgrimage's last mile; and my race, Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace, My span's last inch, my minute's latest point; And gluttonous death will instantly unjoint My body and my soul, and I shall sleep a space; But my'ever-waking part shall see that face Whose fear already shakes my every joint. Then, as my soul to'heaven, her first seat, takes flight, And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell, So fall my sins, that all may have their right, To where they'are bred, and would press me, to hell. Impute me righteous, thus purg'd of evil, For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil.  A short Note on the Poem: This is My Plays Last Scene is a beautiful poem by John Donne. It is the third sonnet in the Holy Sonnets. The Fear of damnation and the hope of redemption are realistically expressed in this sonnet. The sonnet opens with a common metaphor of Eli...

Text of the story: High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt. He was very much admired indeed. “He is as beautiful as a weathercock,” remarked one of the Town Councillors who wished to gain a reputation for having artistic tastes; “only not quite so useful,” he added, fearing lest people should think him unpractical, which he really was not. “Why can’t you be like the Happy Prince?” asked a sensible mother of her little boy who was crying for the moon. “The Happy Prince never dreams of crying for anything.” “I am glad there is someone in the world who is quite happy,” muttered a disappointed man as he gazed at the wonderful statue. “He looks just like an angel,” said the Charity Children as they came out of the cathedral in their bright scarlet cloaks and their clean white pinafores. “How do you know?” said the Math...