Blazing colors of pink, orange, and red mixed and swirled together in the evening sky as I walked home from work. It was a long, hard day of labor, and I looked forward to being with my family. But as I hurriedly walked, I frantically looked all around me to ensure my safety. You see, […]
This year, it seems like identity has been a major part in my classes; the idea of who we are and what people perceive of us especially defines identity. Identity is important because of how it construes one’s actions- a thief doing a good deed is viewed differently than a king doing a good deed. […]
Many mythical beast in lore are representation of abstract aspects, such as ferocity, evil, greed of man, wit, and purity; as well as representative of prominent figures both real and imagined: most notably the real yet often mythical Jesus Christ. The most notable beast that represents this is the unicorn, which is a strong symbol […]
I have hunted for white tail deer most of my life, so I have pretty good understanding of them. Moreover I have an extensive knowledge of their anatomy due to field dressing, and unfortunately I have an extensive knowledge of what a full stomach emptied looks likes. I would encourage you never to field dress […]
In the start of the article “Nothing Personal: The Decapitation of Character in A Tale of Two Cities,” Daniel Stout, reminds the reader of the last scene Sydney Carton is in: “As the final pages of A Tale of Two Cities lead their hero to the guillotine, Sydney Carton holds the hand of a poor […]
Of all the Shakespearean tales I have ever read, none is more beautiful or compelling as the Tragedy of Richard the II. The pompous, over-confident former king of England who was unable to see anything past his own face in a looking-glass. He ruled with utter reassurance; never doubting his reign would endure for he believed […]
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 […]
The talk given by Professor Wolfe on Book of Beasts helped me to see how ambiguous information was in the past. There was not exactly the amount of valid sources we have today. Something we take for granted the simple naming of things. This made the magical and fantastical all seem much more realistic in […]
Unicorns, Griffons, and many other mythical creatures have always seem to catch our attention in our favorite fantasy novels and movies. How have these creatures been created over time and why do we want to see these creatures in novels and film? Professor Wolfe’s discussion on Thomas Browne’s Pseudodoxia Epidemica touches on these ideas and […]
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 […]
For class I read both The Once and Future King by T.H White and Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. I noticed a lot of connections between the characters in both of these books. I made social network maps for them and looking at these networks I have made two big connections. One of […]
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 […]
One of the main things learned from our guest speaker (Professor Wolfe) is how widely believed that the people who lived in the Middle Ages believed in Mythical Beasts. We see such references in media, such as movies, and in some Shakespearean plays where many characters are quick to believe fantastical tales. However I never […]
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 […]
After reading the books The Once and Future King and Till We Have Faces I noticed that T.H. White and C.S. Lewis have differing ideals of proper education and how it is carried out. Though many ideas they have are similar, including the thought of who should be the one teaching. It seems that when […]
A week ago in our college literature class we talked with the writer of the play At the Back of the North Wind Jeffrey Haddow, and the man who did the music for it Thomas Tierney, and we were able to inquire about the changes made and why they were made. As with any adaptation, there were […]
Humanity has a dark side. Of this there is no doubt. What else would drive people to go to war with each other for years? But intermingled with the dark is light. It’s that mingling of dark and light that takes humanity from a two-dimensional stereotype to a human being. But in T.H. White’s The […]
Beauty: a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight. Ugly: unpleasant or repulsive, especially in appearance. Two stories. Two women. One renowned for her beauty and the other thought of as a ghoulish creature. One’s name is Guinevere and the other is Orual. Guinevere is remembered for being the fair […]
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 Picture of Dorian Gray has a lot of different film adaptations. When I was looking at movies to use for this post, I ended up finding ten and I think there may even be more I did not find. This does not surprise me considering how popular this book is. Putting all the movies […]
In the Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, Dorian begins to study different jewels in chapter 11. Dorian devotes much time studying chrysoberyl, cymophane, peridot, topaz, spinels, amethysts, sunstone, moonstone and opal (Wilde 99). From this long list of jewels, the moonstone caught my interest and decided to research more about this jewel. […]
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 […]
How often is it that you wake up in a place where you know that you didn’t fall asleep in? Sleepwalking isn’t something that much of the population experiences on a regular basis, if it happens at all. But it is similar to what Diamond experiences within the novel At the Back of the North […]
Oscar Wilde is throughout “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is commenting on outward appearance and value. Dorian in many ways is a consumer, the many things he chooses to study are more or less things to occupy his need for something to consume. In this era jewels were seen as a consumable item to show […]
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.
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 […]
A week ago we talked with the writer of the play At the Back of the North Wind and the man who did the music for it, we were able to inquire about the changes made and why they were made in the first place. As with any adaptation, there were many changes made from the […]
My blasted computer is not permitting me to use the UWGB Commons website at present so I am posting my latest blog for English Novel 1800-Present here: Of all the Shakespearean tales I have ever read, none is more beautiful or compelling as the Tragedy of Richard the II. The pompous, over-confident former king of […]
Within a Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens likes to show the good qualities of the characters in his text. He does so by showing the characters using form of sacrifice, which helps the people most important to them. In the beginning of the novel, Dickens uses many forms of sacrifice through his characters. Even […]
In their article “About the Human Condition in the Works of Dickens and Marx” Ami E. Stearns and Thomas J. Burns find many correlations between Marx’s work and Dickens writing. Dickens in many ways illustrates Marxist theories about human interaction. The time period in which Dickens wrote fits perfectly with Marxist approach. In terms of […]
Author Judith Wilt, in her essay “Ernest in the Town Jacques in the Country: Wildean Perspectives on A Tale of Two Cities”, claims that there are many echoes of Dickens work in Oscar Wildes “The Importance of being Earnest”. Right of the bat, there are a few in text similarities with M. Defarge. Going by […]
A Tale of Two Cities is one of Charles Dickens’ most cherished works. The French Revolution plays a large role in the novel, and critics and readers alike have often noticed how Dickens wrote about the revolution with what has been perceived to be mixed emotions (to say the least). Cates Baldridge examines such […]
I am quite certain that many of you have seen the recent film adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. Although the film was a riveting and moving tale, it is not the most accurate if you compare it to the original text written by Victor Hugo in 1862. It’s the story about Jean Valjean and […]
Daniel Stout talks about A Tale of Two Cities in his Essay “Nothing Personal: The Decapitation of Character in A Tale of Two Cities” and describes how the flat characters, in his mind, are not individuals but rather represent a great mass of similar people. He is referring to the seamstress at the very end of the novel who is talking with Carton awaiting death. Their […]
In the article, “Nothing Personal: The Decapitation of Character in A Tale of Two Cities,” Daniel Stout, the author, talks about the indifference to individual distinction and the kind of French Revolution the book imagines. Before evening getting to the two points mention above Stout reminds the reader of the last scene Carton is in. […]
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 […]
In Charles Dickens’s novel, A Tale of Two Cities, Carton willingly sacrifices his life allowing Darnay to live. This scene in the end of the novel resembles a Christian theme of resurrection. In A Tale of Two Mimeses: Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities and René Girard, Kevin Rulo argues that Dickens used the Gospels […]
The two main women in A Tale of Two Cities could not be more different. As critic J.F. Hamilton discusses in his article “Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities,” Lucie Manette and Madame Defarge represent two completely opposite sides of femininity. On one hand, Hamilton concludes that Lucie Manette is the weaver of the novel. […]
Every revolutionary believes that they’re fighting for a just cause, yet there are others that would look upon that act of revolution as a form of terrorism. Where is the line between revolution and terrorism? How does one know when it’s crossed? In the article “Dickens and the Female Terrorist: The Long Shadow of Madame […]
In class, we’ve read A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. While reading, I found myself drawn to a specific detail. I was intrigued by the women who helped lead the French Revolution by knitting codes and names in order to keep the movement organized. Knitting of all things! I found this idea fascinating […]