In Chapter 6 The Poetics, Aristotle discusses briefly the concept of “catharsis.” This is the only time in the Poetics that the term is mentioned, yet there is still on-going contention about its significance and meaning in tragic drama. This “purgation of pity and fear” is an integral part of tragedy by supplying a relief, [...]
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Allusion in Neoclassical Poetry
Allusion in Neoclassical poetry has various functions: allusion provides a contrast between the virtues of the past and the insanity of the present; allusion enriches the meaning and the texture of the poem; and allusion suggests a universality: people are not as different as they might believe being separated by time and space.
Some Views on Tragedy
A tragedy must not be a spectacle of a perfectly good man brought from prosperity to adversity. For this merely shocks us. Nor, of course must it be that of a bad man passing from adversity to prosperity; for that is not tragedy at all, but the perversion of tragedy, and revolts the moral sense. [...]
Gawain and Beowulf
With the waxing popularity of Christianity in late fourteenth-century England, the culture’s expectations had evolved to encompass new, more complicated views on human interrelations and the world view in general. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight represents a new conception of the heroic ideal, women, nature, and narrative technique. A comparison/contrast to Beowulf illustrates these changing ideals.
To Rome
The journey of Aeneas is typical in an epical tradition. In the Aeneid, Virgil presents the founding of a new empire and the story of its patriarch by manipulating history to show the influence of Greek culture on the Romans, but also to illustrate Rome’s new order and the death of Greek/Trojan ideology and way of life. Aeneas, the typical epic hero, must found the new empire by killing the old, and its representative, Turnus.
Aeneas and Dido
Dido, while the ruler of Carthage, does not have as rigid a destiny as Aeneas; therefore, she was able to forsake her duty for her “husband.” So, as is most often the case, the woman forsakes her career and ambitions for the sake of love — thus propagating the view so prevalent within our society: her work is never as important as his. In addition to Dido’s sacrifice, a lack of communication, responsibility, and bad choices constitute Aeneas’ and Dido’s relationship.
Shedding Light on Edna’s Suicide
The final page of The Awakening finds Edna stripping off the clothes that are a symbol of the shackles that bind her to her pre-awakened existence. With these shackles removed, she feels free: “How strange and awful it seemed to stand naked under the sky! how delicious! She felt like some new-born creature, opening its [...]