It is a fact agreed upon that literature whether orient or occident undoubtedly remains to be the expression of life. Literature deals with the domains of human life which can be social, political, cultural, economic, and religious in nature. There are works like Everyman in His Humor by Ben Jonson, 1984 by George Orwell, Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazer, Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, and The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri which reflect in a very beautiful manner and with the essence of universality; the issues of their society by means of words. Similarly, The Rape of the Lock (1714) by Alexander Pope remains to be a literary work of great reputation because of the important social issues he has addressed by means of wit, irony, and humor in form of a mock-epic as Henry Fielding did in his novel Joseph Andrews which remains well known as the social document of English society.
The Rape of the Lock deals with the issues of vanity, frivolity, conceit, pride and the indulgence of elite of the English society in trivial matters of love, romance, sexuality and flirtation. In the mock-heroic form and by means of wit and humor, Pope has both implicitly and explicitly ravished the immoral values of the rich (both men and women) and judiciary. Belinda stands out to be the representative of women whereas The
…show more content…
As far as beaus are concerned he portrays them indulged in same trivial matters of writing billet-doux, playing cards and love making. Apparently, from the epic-plot it seems to be as if the cutting of the lock of Belinda’s hair was the matter of great tragic catastrophe. On the contrary, the issues of real and vital importance the social values of that society which Pope has humorously criticized by mean of mocking them through comic
It is my intention to compare the book, Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos, to its modern movie version, Cruel Intentions starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. I intend to examine how the original French text was modified in reference to plot, character, morals/values, and themes. I also plan to discuss how these transformations change the meaning of the story and reflect different cultural/historical contexts. There are some major differences between these two works, if only because of when they were written.
Pope, Alexander. "The Rape Of The Lock". In The Norton Anthology Of English Literature: The Major Authors . Ed. M.H. Abrams et al. 5th Ed. New York: Norton, 1987. 1108-1128
Alexander Pope is responsible for one of the most comic poems of the eighteenth century, The Rape of the Lock. This poem was written s...
To begin, in The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope uses satire to invoke a capricious, melancholy mood to illustrate the absurdity of fighting over the cutting of one's hair. Hidden inside this poem is a crafty criticism of the society that helps create the crisis over the stolen lock. A Society in which appearances ere more important to a person’s sense of identity, and treats the insignificant with utmost importance.
Literature evolved in the early ages and is still evolving today. Writers Joseph Conrad, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Guillermo Del Toro all display an uncommon style of literature. In Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, he writes about the realist fiction that has developed around the nineteenth-century in Russian intelligentsia. Conrad’s novel called The Secret Agent takes place in London in 1886 before the Greenwich bombing. “Pan’s Labyrinth” by Toro takes place after the Spanish Civil War 1944. Each work displays similar qualities across the borders of both time and earth. They each reflect the changing culture of their time period. All three put forth the sentiments of revolution and social change, while tackling the feelings of alienation and navigating the labyrinths of symbolism.
Stillinger, Jack, Deidre Lynch, Stephen Greenblatt, and M H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume D. New York, N.Y: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print.
The Lover by Marguerite Duras and Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker are both transgressive novels and post modernist fiction. Both novels tell a story of a young girl in which is experimenting with her sexuality at a young age. In The Lover the narrator is in love with a man who is giving her money. Blood and Guts in High School is a fictional novel about the main character’s love for her father amongst other men. The goal of this essay is to explore the desires in which drive both of the young women’s sexual behavior that Duras and Acker express through their narrators.
Brilliance surely comes with a price. Often a protagonist is, in his own right, an absolute genius, but for this gift of vision, he must remain isolated for eternity. Crime and Punishment (1886), by Fyodor Dostoevsky, depicts a poverty stricken young man who discovers a revolutionary theory of the mind of a criminal. Despite his psychological insight, Raskolnikov is alienated from society, and eventually forced to test his theory upon himself. Ivan Turgenev’s Bazarov, in Fathers and Sons (1862), pioneers the anarchistic philosophy of nihilism, depending entirely on science and reason, but ends up falling passionately in love and then cast out, through death, from the rigidity of thought he held so dear. D-503, the main character of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (1921), discovers an immense and rigid counterculture and drowns himself in it, only to surface without anyone with whom to relate. Each author suggests the irony of a prophetic mind being wasted and outcast among ordinary men.
In the three chosen works of literature, Ordinary people by Judith Guest, Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Antigone by Sophocles, alienation, initiation, journey, suffering and reconciliation are among the themes covered by the these great works of literature. The writers through the various characters in the scripts have clearly brought out the five themes as the main themes. These works of literature act as a reflection of what was happening in the society then. In terms of literature not much has changed and would still expect the same to be happening in the society today. As acknowledged, literature indeed reflects the society, its ill values and good values. In mirroring of the ills of the society, the view is to make the society realize its mistakes and make amends. The good values are set out for others to emulate. As an imitation of human actions, literature presents an image of what people do, think and do in the society.
Murphy, B. & Shirley J. The Literary Encyclopedia. [nl], August 31, 2004. Available at: http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2326. Access on: 22 Aug 2010.
...dy of sexuality, and the destructive effect of institutionalised power discourses upon personal relationships. It emphasises the need for cultural acknowledgment of an individual autonomy, thus destroying the morality of the nineteenth century patriarchy which dictated sexual repression and ownership. Love as an integral element of sexual relations, with the definition of love conveying mutual respect as well as desire is presented as a major theme in the film, and sexual relations as a requirement of oppressive transactions such as arranged marriage are shown to be not only irrationally unjust but potentially tragic.
Pope, Alexander. "An Essay on Man." in Eighteenth-Century English Literature. Eds. Geoffrey Tillotson, Paul Fussell, Jr. and Marshall Waingrow. New York: Harcourt, 1969. 635-51.
Literary generations accomplish to one another. There is a trend for the realism of one she to look like romance to the readers and writers. One of the problems the plagues critics and writers of romantic fiction is it's main popularity as a genre. An analysis of the life of the affections is a Romantic fictions absolute th...
The Norton Anthology: English Literature. Ninth Edition. Stephen Greenblatt, eds. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 460. Print.
"The Rape of the Lock." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt et