English Literature and Linguistics

Literature, Philosophy, and Mythology Dante Alighieri,  Inferno , Canto 27, lines 61-66 (epigraph) Andrew Marwell, "To His Coy Mistress" (line 23, first reference) Hesiod, Works and Days  (line 29) William Shakespeare ,  Twelfth Night (line 5 William Shakespeare,  Hamlet  (lines 111-119) The Bible, Luke 16:19-31, (lines 94-95) Historical References Michelangelo (lines 13-14, lines 35-36) Lazarus(lines 94-95)

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Themes Love It’s hard to tell whether Prufrock is really in love with the person he is talking to. He speaks about himself a lot, and he ignores her, or "us," for most of the poem. Maybe he’s too s... Manipulation The poem’s epigraph is a quotation of Guido da Montefeltro, a particularly manipulative chap who finds a place near the bottom of Dante’s Hell in Inferno. Right away, this epigraph sets... Passivity Oh, Prufrock, why didn’t you just go into your lover’s "chamber" and ask her your darned "overwhelming question" when you had the chance?! Prufrock is the dramatic equivalent of a bump... Time In relation to time, this poem is a total trip. It ricochets back and forth between the past and the future, almost never settling on the present. One moment Prufrock is talking about all the thing... Appearances There seem to be no complete human beings in this poem. There are only bits and pieces of people:...

1. Introduction In the epigraph to  The Waste Land  the Sybil, a woman with prophetic abilities, looks at the future and proclaims that the only thing she wants is to die. Her pessimism about the future is the first indication of the idea which develops into the central theme of the poem: the decay of the human civilization. In this paper I am going to concentrate on interpretation of the motif of decay and its meanings in  The Waste Land . The poem was published in 1922 and appears to be a typical literary example of Modern poetry. That’s why I decided to adopt the New Critical perspective for my paper. New Criticism is the literary theory which dominated in the early 20th century and was used especially for interpretations of poetry. In this paper I will refer to the main statements of the New Critical theory described by I. A. Richards. [1] The New Criticical approach states that every literary text is  autonomous . Historical context and biography of the autho...

☸. Amir:  The narrator and protagonist; a Pashtun and Sunni Muslim. ☸. Baba:  Amir's father, who is considered a hero and leader in Kabul. ☸. Hassan:  Amir's playmate and servant; a Hazara and Shi'a Muslim; son to Ali. ☸. Sohrab:  Hassan's son. Like his father, Sohrab is excellent with a slingshot. Sohrab is the bait that Rahim Khan uses to lure Amir back to the Middle East. ☸.Rahim Khan:  Baba's best friend and business partner; father-figure to Amir. ☸. Assef:  A Kabul bully who ends up joining the Taliban. ☸. Soraya:  Amir's wife. ☸. Ali:  Hassan's father; servant to Baba. Having suffered from polio as a child, Ali has a crippled leg and is teased by kids in Kabul. ☸. General Sahib (Iqbal Taheri):  A friend of Baba's in America; father to Soraya. The general is biding his time in America, waiting to be called back into service in Afghanistan. ☸.Khala Taheri (Khala Jamila):  The wife of General Taher...

💮The Greatest English Dramatist and Poet (1564-1616) All Works Of Mr. William Shakespeare Includes: 🕉.A- Comedies: 01- The Comedy of Errors (1592-1594) 02- The Taming of the Shrew (1593-1594) 03- The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1594) 04- Love s Labor s Lost (1594-1597) 05- A Midsummer-Night s Dream (1595-1596) 06- The Merchant of Venice (1596-1597) 07- The Merry Wives of Windsor (1597-1601) 08- Much Ado About Nothing (1598-1599) 09- As You Like It (1599) 10- Twelfth Night; or What You Will (1601-1602) 11- Troilus and Cressida (1601-1602) 12- All s Well that Ends Well (1601-1602) 13- Measure for Measure (1604) 🕉.B- Histories: 14- The First Part of King Henry VI (1589-1590) 15- The Second Part of King Henry VI (1590-1591) 16- The Third Part of King Henry VI (1590-1591) 17- The Tragedy of Richard the Third (1592-1593) 18- The Life and Death of King John (1594-1596) 19- The Tragedy of King Richard II (1593-1594) 20- The First Part o...

The Kite Runner  is the story of Amir, a Sunni Muslim, who struggles to find his place in the world because of the aftereffects and fallout from a series of traumatic childhood events. An adult Amir opens the novel in the present-day United States with a vague reference to one of these events, and then the novel flashes back to Amir's childhood in Afghanistan. In addition to typical childhood experiences, Amir struggles with forging a closer relationship with his father, Baba; with determining the exact nature of his relationship with Hassan, his Shi'a Muslim servant; and eventually with finding a way to atone for pre-adolescent decisions that have lasting repercussions. Along the way, readers are able to experience growing up in Afghanistan in a single-parent home, a situation that bears remarkable similarities to many contemporary households. One of the biggest struggles for Amir is learning to navigate the complex socioeconomic culture he faces, growing up in Afghanistan as...

The Kite Runner The Kite Runner  is the  first novel  by  Afghan-American  author  Khaled Hosseini . [1] Published in 2003 by  Riverhead Books , it tells the story of Amir, a young boy from the  Wazir Akbar Khan  district of  Kabul , whose closest friend is Hassan. The story is set against a backdrop of tumultuous events, from the fall of  Afghanistan's monarchy  through the  Soviet military intervention , the exodus of  refugees to  Pakistan  and the United States, and the rise of the  Taliban  regime. The Kite Runner First edition cover (US hardback) Author Khaled Hosseini Cover artistHoni WernerCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishGenre Historical fiction Drama Classic Publisher Riverhead Books Publication date May 29, 2003Pages372 ISBN 1-57322-245-3 OCLC 51615359 Dewey Decimal 813/.6 21 LC Class PS3608.O832 K58 2003 Hosseini has commented that he considers  T...

Part I Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood in Kabul, setting of Part I Amir, a well-to-do  Pashtun  boy, and Hassan, a  Hazara  who is the son of Ali, Amir's father's servant, spend their days  kite fighting  in the hitherto peaceful city of Kabul. Hassan is a successful "kite runner" for Amir; he knows where the kite will land without watching it. Both boys are motherless: Amir's mother died in childbirth, while Hassan's mother, Sanaubar, simply abandoned him and Ali. Amir's father, a wealthy merchant Amir affectionately refers to as  Baba,  loves both boys. He makes a point of buying Hassan exactly the same things as Amir, to Amir's annoyance. He even pays to have Hassan's cleft lip surgically corrected. On the other hand, Baba jan is often critical of Amir, considering him weak and lacking in courage, even threatening to physically punish him when he complains about Hassan. Amir finds a kinder fatherly figure in Rahim Khan, Baba's closest f...

STANZA Wise Summary of the poem ( line-by-line explanation ) ( ☣Stanza 1 ) Lines 1-3 LET us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised upon a table; "We" are being invited on a trip somewhere. Oh, fun! But who am "I"? Am I the reader of "J. Alfred Prufrock," or am I someone else? For the purposes of the poem, you are someone else. Right from the very start, by addressing itself to a fictional person, the poem is announcing that it’s a "dramatic monologue." We know that a "dialogue" is two people talking, so a "monologue" must be one person talking, because "mono" means "one." The poem is "dramatic" because it is written in the voice of a speaker other than the poet. We know this from the title, which tells us that the speaker is a guy named J. Alfred Prufrock – this is his song. (In olden times, poems were called "songs"). It’s not clear ...