Literary Ocean

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552–1618): Biography and Famous Works

Introduction Sir Walter Raleigh (1552–1618) was an English poet, statesman, historian, courtier, explorer, and colonist. He was one of the most important and versatile figures of the English Renaissance. His life combined literary achievement with political ambition, military activity, exploration, colonial enterprise, and courtly influence. Raleigh typifies the Renaissance ideal of the complete individual who…

August 16, 20260Comments BySupriya Maity

Literary Terms

Blank Verse: Definition, Characteristics and Examples

Introduction Blank verse is a literary device that consists of unrhymed five-stress lines; properly, iambic pentameter. It was introduced in England by the Earl of Surrey in the 16th c. in his translation of Virgil’s Aeneid (c. 1540). Surrey probably took the idea from the versi sciolti (“freed verse´) of Molza’s Italian translations of the Aeneid (1539).…

August 15, 20260Comments BySupriya Maity

Essay

What is Pulp literature and its examples

Introduction ‘Pulp’ is a pejorative term for certain kinds of fiction (and its authors). Pulp magazines began to appear during the First World War or earlier and got their name from the fact that they were printed on wood pulp, which gave the content a coarse, grainy appearance. They were about 7 x 10 inches…

August 14, 20260Comments BySupriya Maity

Short Stories

“Twenty-five years seemed a long time to me, and twenty-five years of happiness…substantial for” Explain it from The Lotus Eater

The quoted words from W. Somerset Maugham’s short story The Lotus Eaters are spoken by Thomas Wilson, the central character of the story, during his conversation with the narrator. Through these words, Wilson explains the unusual decision that changed the course of his life: he gave up a secure and respectable career in England to…

August 13, 20260Comments BySupriya Maity

Poem

What is Sick verse: Definition, Characteristics and Examples

Introduction The term ‘sick verse’ is akin to black comedy; it is queasily, uneasily funny, mordant, sardonic, and occasionally macabre. Its themes are misfortune, death, disease, cruelty, love-sickness, and morbid preoccupations related to mental illness (sometimes masochistic and sadistic). It is the product of melancholy, ennui, despair, and nausea of the world. At its strongest,…

August 12, 20260Comments BySupriya Maity

Others

Theatre-in-the-Round: Definition, Features, Advantages and History

Introduction Theatre-in-the-round is a form of theatrical presentation in which the acting area is surrounded by the audience. It is far from being a new idea, though it has had some vogue since the 1930s. It seems very probable that some of the Cornish Mystery Plays were performed in the air with an audience ranged…

August 10, 20260Comments BySupriya Maity

Poem

Discuss the theme and elegiac note of Tennyson’s poem “Tithonus”

The source of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem Tithonus is the classical myth of the love of the goddess Aurora (the goddess of dawn) for Tithonus, a lovely Trojan Youth. Tithonus entreated the goddess to grant him immortality but forgot to ask for the perpetuation of his youth and beauty. The goddess granted the prayer of her…

August 9, 20260Comments BySupriya Maity

Poem

Explain the first stanza of the poem Dylan Thomas’s poem “A Refusal to Mourn the Death”

Never until the mankind making Bird, beast and flower Fathering and all humbling darkness³ Tells with silence the last light breaking And the still hour Is come to the sea tumbling in harness. (Stanza 1) This forms the beginning of Dylan Thomas’s poem A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London. The poet expresses here his determination…

August 8, 20260Comments BySupriya Maity

Novels Others

Consider the novel “Kanthapura” as a Gandhi-puran or sthala puran

As James Joyce in his “Ulysses” or T.S. Eliot in his “The Waste Land”, so also Raja Rao in his novel “Kanthapura” made great use of the mythical legends and techniques. By juxtaposing the myths and legendary tales of the past with the present state of society in the village called “Kanthapura”, Rao glorified the…

August 7, 20260Comments BySupriya Maity

Poem

Summary and Analysis of the poem Waldhere, Anglo Saxon heroic poem

Waldhere is a heroic poem which is a fragment of two leaves (containing 32 and 31 lines = 63 lines in toto) preserved in the Royal Library of Copenhagen. Through this poem, we have a glimpse of the Anglo-Saxon or proto-Germanic socio-economic life, not a total but a fragmented one. This heroic poem is mainly…

August 6, 20260Comments BySupriya Maity