In The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, Dorian becomes transfixed with jewels in chapter 11. For this blog post, I researched one specific person Dorian discussed within the novel. I researched the alchemist, Pierre de Boniface. In chapter 11 of the novel Wilde writes, “According to the great alchemist, Pierre de Boniface, the […]
Image Credit When I started reading as a child, I became more interested in the American classics like Steinbeck and Poe, but not anything emerging from the fantasy genre, especially literature that contained a mythical style. Nevertheless, as an English major, I am always open to learning about different types of literature and literary elements, […]
Professor Wolfe’s lecture on Thomas Browne’s Enquiries into Vulgar Errors provided a lot of information on mythical beasts and how they are viewed symbolically and even how they could have come to be. For some of the ideas brought forward, it seems quite likely that T.H. White had similar notions of these beasts when crafting […]
Jessica Wolfe, author of Humanism, Machinery, and Renaissance Literature, gave a very insightful lecture on mystical creatures in our British Lit class at UWGB recently. Wolfe’s powerpoint and lecture on beasts in books really fascinated me. One thing that stuck out to me within her presentation was the way she explained that the depiction of the […]
Within The Once and Future King by T.H. White and Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, there are a number of relationships and networks that are similar. On particular are the family networks of the hateful Morgause in The Once and Future King and King Trom in Till We Have Faces. Both are similar […]
In both Till We Have Faces and The Once and Future King, readers are exposed to the weaknesses of both Arthur and Orual. The idea of a Monarchy is to achieve the will of the people through a single person and their decisions, also defined as a “supreme power or sovereignty held by a single […]
The perception of beauty is a common theme within The Once and Future King by T.H. White and Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis. These two novels focus heavily on beauty standards and the perception of beauty versus ugly. Though this is a commonality shared between the two novels, each book seems to […]
The preface of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray ends with the phrase “All art is quite useless” (Wilde 6), which encompasses one of the themes of this popular novel: interpreting art. Everyone as a spectator is free to interpret art differently; the main character of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian, is driven to insanity by […]
The adaptation of George MacDonald’s At the Back of the North Wind by Jeffrey Haddow and Thomas Tierney changed quite a bit of the story. For the most part, the primary thing that remained the same is the general idea, that of a mortal flying with the North Wind. This idea is prominent in both […]
Jewels are some of the most sought after object in the world, aside from their exquisite beauty they each come with some sort of back story, myth, and history that adds to the allure of them. Within The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian conducts a study on many jewels and their own stories they have within […]
In The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, Dorian becomes transfixed with jewels in chapter 11. For this blog post, I decided to research one specific jewel that Dorian discussed within the novel. I chose to analyze the amethyst gemstone. It’s surprising how relevant this gemstone is to the themes within the novel.
All art is quite useless. (Wilde, Pg. Viii) As humans, we experience life within the physical sphere called reality. We have the ability to physically experience the multifarious senses within our lives, varying from the nostalgic smells to delicious tastes, as well as have the gift of sight to view both beauty and catastrophe- so, […]
In the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde wishes to capture the idea that all art is useless and essentially provides no meaning whatsoever. In chapter 11 Wilde describes his character Dorian divulging himself in the various arts in order to procure meaning from them (the outcome aforementioned). Beginning on page 98 and […]
After speaking with Thomas Tierney and Jeffrey Haddow about their musical adaptation of At the Back of the North Wind, I found a few similarities and differences. At the Back of the North Wind is a beautiful story describing a young boy’s relationship with the possibility of nearing death. The North Wind is the ideology […]
As humans, it is understandable that at least once in our lives may have a longing to have a second chance at something, a renewal of sorts- this wish may be what draws so many to the novel A Tale of Two Cities. In Charles Dickens’ novel A Tale of Two Cities, rebirth is a prominent […]
“We were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…” (Dickens, 1). When reading A Tale of Two Cities for the second time (the first time for fun, in high school), I picked up more complex ideas with my prior education of literary criticism, including how to read more closely […]
In the article “Darkness, Light, and Various Shades of Gray: The Prison and the Outside World in Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities,” Jan Alber makes the argument that the prison in revolutionary France, called La Force, and the Bastille are the most important focal points within the novel, which dictates how the narrative’s […]
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other (pg. 8, A Tale of Two Cities). There is an air of mystery to every human being, which is overshadowed by a veil of identity within the public sphere, necessary to find a […]