LitAide

The poem "To his Mistress going to bed" written by a noted metaphysical poet, John Donne. It deals with the poet and his mistress's sensuous act in their bedroom. The poem is a love poem in which the poet cherish the features of the female body. He urges his beloved to shed all her clothes which conceal her exquisite naked figure. He considers all these clothing as an obstacle which prevents him from reaching his beloved. Throughout the poem, he attributes the lady as a tressure. Explanation The poet asks his beloved to come as it's bedtime for her. His manly strength is eroded by excessive rest and he intends to "labour" i.e to test his strength otherwise it will be a waste. When an enemy faces his opponent on a battlefield, it's difficult for them to just stand and watch their enemy without a fight. He requests her to remove her girdle (a women garment). He employs a simile by comparing the girdle with the "glistering" heaven zone but the

Positive Features : None of the citizens carries/acquires any disease because of the advancement in medical science. Treatment of every disease is possible there. Moreover, no one grows old and people remain young throughout their life. War has no place in the World State and various arrangement are made to avoid a war. In fact, violence is totally prohibited. It's all about happiness. The government wants its citizen to live jubilant life with no distress or loneliness. Soma is a life-saver. Every basic amenities are provided to people and there is no dearth of nearly anything. It is wholly a productive society. Protection and adaptation against the occupational hazards. Chemical workers are immunized against toleration of lead, caustic soda, tar and chlorine. Similarly, rocket-plane engineers are enhanced with an improved sense of balance. Negative Features : An advance yet class-based (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon) society which is contrary to a highly modern w

The poem "The Good Morrow" written by John Donne is a love poem and features the strong love between Donne and his beloved. In Donne's view, all other pleasures are nothing in comparison to love and being in love is the ultimate awakening. He takes pride in finding his beloved who is no less than the whole world. He finds other enterprises in this world futile. Donne employs the rhyme scheme of ababccc recurring in each stanza. The phrase "were we not weaned" is a metaphor for an infant who had not left the practice of sucking of mother's milk. "Seven Sleepers’ den" is an allusion referring to seven men who hide in a cave for three hundred years. "two better hemispheres" is a metaphor pointing to Donne and his beloved. Explanation Stanza 1 Donne wonders what he and his beloved have been doing all those years before falling in love. He speculates that they were satisfied with little pleasures of life like an infant preoccupied with

The poem "Death Be Not Proud" is written by John Donne, a noted metaphysical poet. It is a sonnet, a fourteen-line poem. In the poem, Donne challenges death to restrain from boasting of its might against mankind. He refuses to bow before the might of death and emphasizes the death's usage of dirty tricks to kill people. He gives reasons to prove his points and conclude that death, in the end, will die. The poem employs the literary devices of conceit. Death is personified. Donne uses metaphor to compare dying with "short sleep". The rhyme scheme of the poem is: abba abba cddcae. Explanation Donne reprehends death for his pride of being mighty and creating fearfulness among people. The death might think that it can bring down anyone it claims. He ridicules Death by saying that it can't neither eliminate them nor him. Death is helpless. "Rest and sleep" symbolise the picture of the death. They are the desirable activities for men so death is not drea

Art is often called as a field which serves only aesthetic purpose. Non-fiction does affect us directly because it deals with the practical and realistic approach of life. Fiction is said to have no practical purpose served with the focus on imaginary things which can be denounced as "lies" But this can't completely or partially downgrade the value of fiction which beats non-fiction without unease. The reason for this popularity might be the escapism offered by these texts to break-free from the real world into something desirable, thrilling or haunting. When we think about the practical learning from a fictitious work we prima facie don't find a relevant thought to support fiction but when we muse about the contribution of fiction, myriad merits of it come out which does seriously impact our lives. Fiction encourages us to think beyond the status quo and gives us insight into what might happen if the changes take place and what might be the consequences. It bri

The poem "The Canonization" written by John Donne, the leading metaphysical poet of the Elizabethan age. The poem reflects the poet's defence of his love against all sorts of bad happenings in the world. The title refers to the Christian religious act of admitting a dead person into the line of saints. But the subject matter doesn't reflect the religious pursuit of the narrator instead it discusses the power and piousness of romantic love of the narrator and his beloved. The poem depicts the highness of love over other things, Donne believes that his love can achieve the blessings of God and attain canonization and legacy. Donne uses his signature styled literary device of conceit to show how lofty and tall his love is. He employs the recurring rhyme scheme of abbacccaa. Explanation Stanza 1 The narrator scolds his companion, perhaps his friend for interrupting him in between his love-making. Instead of it, he can mock his physical disabilities and shortcoming

Cordelia - A true daughter of her father who unconditionally loved him with no hidden greed to his share of the kingdom. She is plain and simplistic and doesn't want to show off the love towards her father she has in her heart. This is her only flaw, she is too honest to be misunderstood. This brings her from being an apple of her father's eyes to one whose father banish her with hatred. But she remains faithful to his father till the end despite earlier his rude conduct. Goneril and Regan - Both of these elder daughters of King Lear share a common character of conditional love for their father. They pretend to show love to their father just to get a bigger share of the kingdom after his retirement. Their love was fake. Both of them remain greedy first for the larger share, then for Edmund. Both of them admit that they could face defeat at the hands of French but could not see Edmund with the other. Their intention was to marry Edmund and in this race, both lost their lives

Most of Shakespeare's tragedies depicts the fall of powerful people from great heights to their total destruction not only in terms of their reputation but their life also. King Lear too faced such prospects of having ruled England undisputably with no one to question him. His hyper-assertive and naive character prohibit him to see the world reasonably, he couldn't see the true faces of his daughters who showed him the life of misery. Her daughter's flattery hides their true character. Their insidious behaviour deceives Lear into rewarding them the shares of his kingdom. His tragic flaw depicts his poor judgement of true characters of people. He misunderstood Kent and Cordelia's plainness and honesty as their apathy towards him. The impression of their unappealing conduct changed the course of his own life. Even after retirement, he intended to live like a king which created conflicts with his daughters. His daughters didn't like his kingship, they didn't wa

Having a voluminous vocabulary has numerous tangible benefits in our daily life. For a Literature student, it is not only essential but mandatory to fill her mind with a variety of words. In other words, the student should be a connoisseur of English. In this post, I will share how I learn new words and their usage in routine life. The most straightforward way to learn new words is to read, read and read. Even if it is a comic, fashion or a sports magazine or any book, you will definitely encounter words, unfamiliar words which are your treasure. Focus more on the common words which recur again and again in your readings . The more you come across a particular word, you will definitely remember the meaning the next time it comes before your eyes or enters your ears. Keep a dictionary app on your smartphone and check words which are alien to you. Make sentences with the newly learnt word because it will help you to use it in your routine life. It doesn't matter if you have a h

The short story of "The Guest" is about a French schoolmaster and his dilemma of either handing over an Arab prisoner to Police or to help him get away from the clutches of punishment. The story focuses on the theme of existentialism. The story can be seen as a picture which reflects the dilemma of Camus of himself. Just like the schoolmaster, Camus remained unsympathetic towards the French, his own people's cause. He wanted to be non-aligned between the tussle of French and Algerian forces. The story focuses on a schoolmaster named Daru of a school built upon an inhabited plateau. The place is unpopulated due to harsh weather conditions. In the beginning, it was difficult to live alone in a harsh place but eventually, he became habitual to his solitude. He was content with his modest life with an adequate supply of rations reaching him routinely. His problem began when Balducci, a gendarme (policeman) arrived at his place with an Arab prisoner with him. Balducci told

The novel "Things Fall Apart" depicts the life of Igbo people and particularly focuses on the life of Okonkwo, a great warrior and his downfall. It would not be wrong to say that Okonkwo was a Tragic hero whose fall was due to his own recklessness and short-temper. Even the opening lines of the novels derived from the W.B Yeats's The Second Coming give the impression of the chaos loosened upon the world of Igbo in the form of British imperialists. So the title of the novel Things fall apart tells the negative implications at the end of the novel. The novel is divided into three parts, the first part provides a description of the life of Igbo people of Africa with an understanding eye of the author, who is an African himself. The second and the third part chronicle the advent of the mighty wave of the Britishers who turned the world of Igbos upside-down. In first and second parts, we vaguely get the omen of future unfortunate happening for both our protagonist and the

Merits: 1. Igbo society is an epitome of meritocracy as it gives the even remotest and segregated individuals to climb to the highest ladder of the society. Our hero Okonkwo, whose father Unoka was certainly not a great man but due to his son's persistent hard work and determination, he achieved a high status in his society. 2. Igbo people respect their traditions and religiously follow it. And cultural traditions bind people together and give them a sense of identity and dignity. Even an arrogant person like Okonkwo bows before the priest, Ezeani, the priest of the earth goddess when he punished him for beating his wife during the week of peace. 3. Their Justice system is efficient to deliver justice to its people. There are no arbitrary decisions made by their law. Even a high-status person gets the same punishment for an offence as a poor one does. As it happened to Okonkwo who unintentionally killed the son of an elder person. For punishment, he had to leave the village wi