English Literature Example Essays
- Level: Undergraduate
- Subject: English Literature
- Type: Essay
- Grade: 2:1
"CHAUCER TRANSFORMED EVERY GENRE HE USED"
The Canterbury Tales is an undoubtedly a richly textured work that draws in and combines many different elements of many genres. As a collection of tales it forms a rich tapestry woven from a selection of threads that neatly cover the spectrum of Chaucer's society, and utilises a range of styles which are appropriately diverse and which suit the personality of each individual storyteller. But the casually adopted view that Chaucer utilised a separate genre for each of his tales is an over-simplification of a far more subtle overall generic scheme. For a start, Caroline D. Eckhardt explains that up to the twelfth century, Medieval statements about genre, such as those of Isidore of Seville, Bernard of Utrecht, Honorius of Autun and Matthew of Vendome, usually accounted for no more than four identifiable poetic genres. In the thirteenth century, Geoffrey of Vinsauf and John of Garland extended these lists, though not by much. At this time, the concepts of tragedy and comedy had little to do with humour or pathos, but were instead measures of the movement of fortunes of the characters involved, as well as their social status; Geoffrey of Vinsauf describes comedy as "a rustic song dealing with humble persons, beginning in sadness and ending in joy"(CTC 181) and tragedy as a work "showing the misfortunes of grave persons, beginning in joy and ending in grief"(CTC 181). By today's standards, these interpretations of genre seem rather constrictive. In all likelihood Chaucer was of the same opinion - his manipulation of the generic guidelines that he had inherited through […]
Download- Level: Undergraduate
- Subject: English Literature
- Type: Essay
- Grade: 2:1
"The fact that animation operates primarily within the realm of fantasy and for a child audience, does not mean it is innocent of cultural politics". Discuss.
"There is nothing in the least childlike about fairy tales" - Marina Warner Walt Disney was born in 1901 and started his animation career in the 1920's. His films have had a profound impact the world over, being immensely popular with children and ambiguous with critics. Bell states, "It would not be an exaggeration to assert that Disney was a radical film-maker who changed our way of viewing fairy tales, and that his revolutionary technical means capitalised on American innocence and utopianism to reinforce the social and political status quo" . Disney worked to promote American idealism, to provide a source of entertainment, to educate children, and ultimately to make money in the process. Disney stated that, "I think of a child's mind as a blank book. During the first years of his life, much will be written on the pages. The quality of that writing will affect his life profoundly" . Disney thus realised that his films exercised considerable influence on the child's viewing of the world, their hopes, dreams, thoughts and expectations. For this, and public expectation that he will educate children about good morals and the realities of life, Disney has been debated and criticised over and over again.[…]
Download- Level: Master's
- Subject: English Literature
- Type: Essay
- Grade: Pass
"Social novels have their purpose written clearly on them like a motto, and they hold to it perseveringly". Discuss whether you think this is an adequate account of nineteenth-century novels you have studied.
Dicken's Bleak House and Eliot's Middlemarch (1871) are two Victorian novels very different in tone, in structure (noting in particular Dicken's introductory use of a double-narrative) and, ultimately, in purpose. Both these novels however, despite these differences, incorporate very prominent aspects of reality for a reader living in the nineteenth century, whether it addresses a particular historical event, as is the case of Eliot, writing in 1869 - 40 years after the First Reform Bill of 1829, or in the present day misery of the London slums and brutally powerful world of the Chancery system, themes that Dickens ardently explores and vividly encapsulates through his work. Each novelist makes a poignant comment on the socio-political order of living, and the realities for the individual and interdependent communities existing within the social infrastructure. Yet how far does each novelist go to maintaining their individual purposes, the personal goals they set out to achieve through the writing of two such successful novels? In order to answer this question it is necessary to first analyse the purposes that are perceivable from the novels themselves. […]
Download- Level: Undergraduate
- Subject: English Literature
- Type: Essay
- Grade: TBC
"The search for something outside the self, some goal or new truth, so often in the fin-de-siècle period becomes a search within the self - with potentially devastating results." Consider in the light of two works.
"There is no morality, no knowledge, and no hope" - Joseph Conrad The term Fin-de-Siècle is generally used to describe a period of European history between 1890-1910. Literally meaning "the end of a Century", the period was one of much turmoil, anxiety and pessimism about the receding present and the approach of a new era. With Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) causing revolutionary scientific thinking, religion was in serious decline; as Nietzsche radically claimed, "God is dead...we have killed him - you and I". Darwin's theory of evolution involved a scientific account of the process of Natural Selection, which included the idea that all species will reform and will eventually become extinct. His biological ideas had a huge impact on the writers, thinkers and the general public of the day. Philosophical ideas about a nihilistic world and its effect on mankind were rife, and at the forefront of these fields were German philosophers Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Whilst they differ somewhat in their views, these great minds share the same pessimism that was quickly widespread across Europe, to the extent that this era has been questioned as being one of early existentialism.[…]
Download- Level: Undergraduate
- Subject: English Literature
- Type: Essay
- Grade: TBC
Is biology destiny? Discuss with reference to the development of a gender identity
"It is fatal to be a man or a woman pure and simple; one must be woman-manly or man-womanly" - Virginia Woolf For many decades, the nature - nurture debate has continued to appear in scientific, religious and educational studies. The controversial topic has raised many questions about how a child's gender identity is formed. Most theorists do not see biological nature and the rearing environment as independent of each other; rather, the interaction between these components in order to create a gender identity is stressed. The degree of importance that is placed on either biology or environment, however, differs, and provides the basis for much of the continuing research into this topical area. Gender is one of the most important and fundamental aspects of our identity; it can be described as a category that dictates societal views of individuals, and determines how humans come to view themselves (Whitehead, 2000). Individuals are born or assigned a sex at birth, male or female, and every known culture distinguishes between male and female (Gross, 2005). Yet it is the social assumptions made about the different sexes that determine ones gender (masculine or feminine). A gender identity serves as an internal monitoring system for governing choices and directing behaviour (Whitehead, 2000).[…]
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