Literary Ocean

Walter Benjamin’s Concept of Constellation: Meaning and Analysis

Walter Benjamin famously proposed the concept of ‘constellation’ in the ‘Epistemo-Critical Prologue’ to Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels (1928), translated as The Origin of German Tragic Drama (1977), that ideas are to objects as constellations are to stars. That is to say, ideas are no more present in the world than constellations actually exist in the heavens, but like constellations,…

7 hours ago0Comments BySupriya Maity

Plays

Poetic Justice or Moral Anarchy in King Lear? A Critical Discussion

Poetic justice is a sort of ideal justice, which the poets and critics are expected to impart in allocating rewards and punishments to the characters they create. It is an ideal world of justice where crime and punishment exist bound more or less by a nexus of transcendental mathematics. Poetic justice as an idea, however,…

3 days ago0Comments BySupriya Maity

Plays

The Role of the Witches in Macbeth by William Shakespeare

In William Shakespeare’s play “Macbeth”, the witches are weird sisters. In some way, they resemble the mythological Fates, who impersonally control human destiny. They are malevolent characters. They embody evil. They control the sequence of events of the play in a true sense. When they meet Macbeth and Banquo, they greet Macbeth as the thane…

4 days ago0Comments BySupriya Maity

Poem

Ode to the West Wind: Activities of the West Wind by P.B. Shelley

P.B.Shelley’s celebrated ode titled Ode to the West Wind is an invocation to the spirit of the wild and uncontrollable west wind. He extols this spirit of the west wind in its two-fold capacity as a destroyer and preserver. The poet celebrates here the uncontrollable power of the west wind. He describes its activities on the…

September 15, 20260Comments BySupriya Maity

Essay

Readerly and Writerly Text: Roland Barthes’ Theory Explained

The terms ‘readerly/writerly’ text are devised by Roland Barthes (1915-80), the French critic, to make a distinction between two basic kinds of text: the lisible (‘readerly’) and the scriptible (‘writerly’). He expounds on this in his book S/Z (1970). By a ‘readerly’ text he means a book (a novel, say) to which a reader’s response is more or…

September 14, 20260Comments BySupriya Maity

Author

Leo Strauss (1899–1973): Biography, Political Philosophy and Works

Leo Strauss (1899-1973) was a German-born Jewish-American political philosopher. He is often referred to as the “father” of neoconservative philosophy. In 1921, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Hamburg under the guidance of Ernst Cassirer. He also took classes at Freiburg, where he was taught by Martin Heidegger and Edmund Husserl. He was involved…

September 13, 20260Comments BySupriya Maity

Author

Jeremy Collier: Biography, Works and A Short View (1698)

Jeremy Collier(1650-1726) was an English theatre critic, clergyman, and theologian. He was born in Cambridgeshire. He was educated at Caius College, University of Cambridge, receiving a BA (1673) and MA (1676). He was a supporter of James II. He refused, as a nonjuror, to swear the oath to William III and Mary II and was…

September 12, 20260Comments BySupriya Maity

Short Stories

“He took out his handkerchief and passed it inside his collar. For the life of him he could not remember.” Explain it from “The Fly” by Katherine Mansfield

He took out his handkerchief and passed it inside his collar. For the life of him he could not remember. This passage forms the concluding sentence of Katherine Mansfield’s short story The Fly. This comment is made in connection with the mental state of the boss after the death of the fly. The author particularly signifies…

September 11, 20260Comments BySupriya Maity

Literary Terms

Inoperative Community by Jean-Luc Nancy: Definition and Theory

The French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy proposed the theory of ‘inoperative community’, or ‘communauté désoeuvrée’, which rejects the idea that community can be created through work. By inoperative (‘désoeuvrée’), Nancy does not mean dysfunctional or failing, but rather a spontaneous or ‘unworked’ inclination to come together that has no object or purpose other than itself. The…

September 10, 20260Comments BySupriya Maity

Literary Terms

Paragone: Definition, Features and Examples in Literature

Paragone is an Italian word that means ‘comparison’. It is a contention between the arts, usually spoken by representative practitioners, to determine supremacy. The most typical paragone pits poetry and painting against each other, with the ultimate conclusion that each has an indisputable excellence and supremacy which informs the excellence and supremacy of the other (hence…

September 9, 20260Comments BySupriya Maity