In order to analyse the use of myth by poets after the Second World War it is first necessary to briefly discuss what myth is. Although the word has its root in the Greek word ‘mythos’, which basically translates into ‘story’, there is no precise definition of what it entails (William, 2004 : 12). Wagner…
Goodbye to All That
The Great War, or World War I as it has come to be called, is a moment in history of many literal and symbolic endings and beginnings. It set the stage for the next conflict through the taxing Treatment of Versailles, brought about the existence of Soviet Russia, and with it planted the seeds of…
The life and strange adventures of Daniel Defoe
The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1719, is almost a universal title. Its reach extends so far and wide that even those who are not English native speakers and have not read the novel have some knowledge of the titular character and his desolate island ordeal….
The tragedy of Ran
Ran is a 1985 movie by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa; it is a free adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of King Lear play. It reworks the mythological pre-Roman England setting of the play into Sengoku Era Japan (1467-1573 A.D.), the kingdom of England is replaced by the lands of the Ichimonji clan, Lear and his…
‘White Tiger’ or A Tale of Two Indias
White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga is the 2008 Booker Prize Winner novel. The book has received mixed reviews in its home country of India, undoubtedly due to it being a controversial critique of the Indian socio-cultural system. Through the protagonist’s bloodstained journey from crushing poverty to becoming a successful businessman, it attacks the subjects of…
‘Midnight’s Children’ and the fractured self
Salman Rushdie’s (1981) Midnight’s Children is undeniably a novel which was not only a landmark in its time, but is also still relevant to this day. Proof of this is it having won The Best of Booker and being thus crowned as the best novel to receive the award in its forty years of existence….
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