English Literature

William Butler Yeats, the celebrated Irish poet, in his 1919 epoch-making poem, �The Second Coming� shows us a vision of full of apocalyptic, ritualistic and mystical symbolism. Drawing on the image of a falcon that has flown too far and on the notion of a catastrophic flood, the speaker sums up the spirit of his age, which is characterized by anarchy, violence, and the inversion of values. �The Second Coming", in its entirety, is an astounding encapsulation of Yeats' idea of the gyre and his fears about the future of mankind; it is expertly woven with threads of prophetic literary reference and impressive poetic techniques. The speaker of this poem is someone capable of seeing beyond the things. He is a poet-prophet of sorts. Yeats uses a bunch of metaphors and to evaluate the present state of affairs. The first stanza is a powerful description of apocalypse, opening with the indelible image of the falcon circling ever higher, in ever-widening spirals, so far that soon it i...

Yeats had a deep fascination with mysticism and the occult, and his poetry is infused with a sense of the otherworldly, the spiritual, and the unknown. His interest in the occult began with his study of Theosophy as a young man and expanded and developed through his participation in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a mystical secret society. Mysticism figures prominently in Yeats� discussion of the reincarnation of the soul, as well as in his philosophical model of the conical gyres used to explain the journey of the soul, the passage of time, and the guiding hand of fate. Mysticism and the occult occur again and again in Yeats� poetry, most explicitly in �The Second Coming� but also in poems such as �Sailing to Byzantium� and �Among the School Children�. Yeats thought himself to be one of the last of the classical Romantics; he celebrated the power of imagination to help people see and empathize deeply. Yeats was greatly influenced by early nineteenth-century artist William ...

Gulliver's Travels  is an anatomy of human nature, a sardonic looking-glass, often criticized for its apparent misanthropy. Gulliver's Travels   was unique in its day; it was not written to woo or entertain. It was an indictment, and it was most popular among those who were indicted. On the subject of misanthropy Swift famously said, �Principally I hate and detest that animal called man" Swift called man not the " animal rationale " but only the " rationis capax �, animal capable of reason. In a letter to Alexander Pope Swift wrote: �I have ever hated all Nations professions and Communities and all my love is towards individuals. . .Upon this great foundation of misanthropy the whole building of my travels is erected� He admits that the chief end of all his labour is  �to vex the world rather than divert it�. Swift so violently �vexed� the world that different critics from his own time to this day have bitterly criticized him. Thackeray attacked his book c...

The problem of madness is perhaps the most maddening problem in Hamlet. Some critics are of the view that Hamlet is sane throughout but feigns insanity. Others hold the opinion that Hamlet�s madness is less than madness and more than feigned.  Before the play begins Hamlet is clearly a sensitive and idealistic young man. He is a scholar, a philosopher, and a poet too, who conceives the finest thoughts and exhibits great intellectual quality. We get a vivid picture of Hamlet as he was in the words of Ophelia: �The courtier�s, soldier�s, scholar�s, eye, tongue, sword/Th� expectancy and rose of the fair state/The glass of fashion, and the mould of form/Th� observed of all observes� This shows that Hamlet was once a master of his own self and had full command over his mind and sense. But as the play proceeds we can find the traces of madness in him. After his mother�s hasty marriage and the Ghost�s revelation, Hamlet�s �noble and most sovereign reason� is all �out of tune and harsh� ....