Essential Literary Concepts and Textual Analysis
Literary Devices Identification
- 1. Hyperbole
- 2. Second Person
- 3. Flashback
- 4. Ambiguity
- 5. Alliteration
The Crucible
Setting
- Salem, Massachusetts, 1692
Themes
- Religion
- Jealousy
- Justice
- The Supernatural
- Good vs. Evil
Characters
- Abigail Williams: Parris’s niece; she initiated the witch trials by falsely accusing others of witchcraft and saved herself by lying throughout the story.
- John Proctor: A Salem farmer and former lover of Abigail Williams; he is intelligent and independent.
Summary
A group of teenage girls from
Read MoreNineteenth-Century Literature: Trends, Novels, and Key Authors
Nineteenth-Century Literary Trends
After the Romantic movement, literature divided into two main currents: one aimed to accurately portray society, while the other resisted adherence to reality due to perceived artistic limitations.
The Realistic Movement
The Realistic movement began with authors like Stendhal, Balzac, and Flaubert. This realism later evolved into Russian spiritualist realism and Zola’s Naturalism. Writers were seen as doctors treating a sick society, experimenting with unpleasant
Read MoreThematic Depth in Miguel Hernández’s Works
Image and Symbol in the Poetry of Miguel Hernández
Miguel Hernández’s poetic journey developed, resulting in his book Expert on Moon. In Expert on Moon, a style very close to Ramón Gómez de la Serna’s greguerías can be observed. Following the example of Gómez de la Serna and the avant-garde poets, Hernández focuses on real-life scenes, such as the cock, bull, rockets, watermelon, sheep, goats, snakes, gypsies, the well, the wheel, or the palm. He applies a very particular lunar iconography.
Read MoreThe University Wits: Shaping English Renaissance Drama
The University Wits: Defining Early Modern Drama
The University Wits denote a significant cohort of late 16th-century English playwrights and pamphleteers who profoundly shaped the landscape of early modern drama. Predominantly graduates from Oxford and Cambridge Universities, though exceptions like Thomas Kyd existed, these intellectually driven individuals brought their extensive classical learning and honed rhetorical abilities to the burgeoning public theater scene in London.
Academic Roots and
Read MoreLiterary Avant-garde and the Generation of ’27 in Spain
The Avant-garde: A Revolution in Art and Literature
The avant-garde artistic movements, which developed in the early twentieth century, revolted against the conception of art based on the imitation of reality. They embraced a taste for the exceptional and the strange, a legacy of symbolism. Their ideological and aesthetic programs spread through manifestos and magazines.
Key Characteristics of Avant-garde Movements:
- Anti-realism and Autonomy of Art: In poetry, anecdote and sentiment were eliminated,
Macbeth Character Analysis: Key Traits and Contrasts
1. Characterization of Macbeth
- Brave and Honorable at First: “For brave Macbeth—well he deserves that name—Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel” (Act 1, Scene 2, Captain).
- Ambitious and Easily Influenced: “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition” (Act 1, Scene 7, Macbeth).
- Paranoid and Tyrannical: “O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!” (Act 3, Scene 2, Macbeth).
2. Characterization of Lady Macbeth
- Manipulative and Ambitious: “Look like