C harles Lamb occupies a unique place in the history of the English prose by virtue of his unique style. All of Lamb's major trademarks as an essayist are to be found in this work: overall, a relaxed and colloquial voice and a genteel sensibility incorporating elements of humour, whimsy, strong personal rec…

Wordsworth’s   “Lamb, the frolic and the gentle” was a refined humorist whose smile could be both satirical and tender. In him humour and pathos are, indeed, very often allied. Lamb could not prevent his mind from passing at times to the sadder aspects of life, and there is belief that he laughed to save himself…

During the Renaissance, Europeans saw love and marriage as two important, but very different, parts of life. Poets described love as an overpowering force, both spiritual and sexual. For most people, however, marriage was a more practical matter. As the basic building block of society, it involved the expectation…

Typically, epic heroes are honest, hard-working, loyal, brave, of noble birth and probably good-looking, too. Beowulf has all these qualities. The hero of  Beowulf , Beowulf is a Geatish warrior loyal to his king,  Hygelac . Beowulf's father was the warrior  Ecgtheow , and his mother is a sister of Hygela…

The expression ‘ Interpreter of Maladies ’ suggests clarifying or explaining ailments of the body, mind, or moral. Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies” is an outstanding short story of the vistit of a Bengali-American family, consisting of a couple, Mr. & Mrs. Das, and their three children, little daugh…

Thomas Hardy is a detached observer of life and a typical product of the Victorian spirit – ‘Fin-de-siècle’. As a poet Hardy’s vision of life is that of a pessimist. Unlike Robert Browning, he finds no hope, no consolation in the life-long tunnel of darkness. His none-too-happy views of life are actually ‘expl…

Prof. V.K. Gokak defines Indianness as, “A composite awareness in the matter of race, milieu, language and religion.” But Indianness has been interpreted differently by different critics. It can be described as the author’s feeling of being an Indian, whether he lives in India or lives abroad Indian writing in …

Pat Macpherson points out in the book Reflecting on Jane Eyre , “ Jane Eyre is marked by strong romantic elements and the role of nature is especially important” A feminist is a person whose beliefs and behavior are based on feminism (belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes).…

Escapism is the English Romantic Movement as affirmation by Keats and many other poets. Escapists run away from harsh, unpleasant facts and duties, thus try to hide themselves in their idle world of dream and peace. Yes, a note of escapism is sounded clearly in “Ode to a Nightingale” because the poet wants pa…

In his dedicatory letter to Miss Arabella Fermore, Pope writes “The machinery, Madam is a term invented by the critic to signify that part which the Deities, Angels and Demons are made to act in a poem”. From the ancient epics like The Iliad , The Odyssey , The Aeneid , The Paradise Lost , The Ramayana and The…