Comparing The Earl Of Rochester And The Imperfect Enjoyment

Since it was originally written in the 8th century, The Odyssey by Homer has served as inspiration to many writers and artists, who tell the story of the lost king of Ithaca, Odysseus. In Book 21 of The Odyssey “The Contest with Odysseus’ Bow”, Penelope, Odysseus’ Wife, decides that her beloved Odysseus will not return and therefore sets up a contest for the suitors to decide who her future husband will be. One portrayal of this contest is in O’Grady’s poem “The Test of the Bow” where the poet describes the act of Odysseus stringing and shooting the bow. Although Book 21 of The Odyssey by Homer and O’Grady’s poem “The Test of the Bow” express similarities in characterization, they differ in diction and tone.

During the 16th Century, English poetry was dominated and institutionalised by the Court. Because it 'excited an intensity that indicates a rare concentration of power and cultural dominance,' the Court was primarily responsible for the popularity of the poets who emerged from it. Sir Thomas Wyatt, one of a multitude of the so-called 'Court poets' of this time period, not only changed the way his society saw poetry through his adaptations of the Petrarchan Sonnet, but also obscurely attempted to recreate the culture norm through his influence. Though much of his poems are merely translations of Petrarch's, these, in addition to his other poetry, are satirical by at least a cultural approach.

The corrupting nature of jealousy and isolation in the play Othello by William Shakespeare and adapted film O directed by Tim Blake Nelson expresses the negative effects on relationships, society and the individual. Shakespeare explored the corruptive power of jealousy and isolation as an inhuman flaw or issue that should be fixed, while Nelson offers a more sympathetic view for a modern teenage audience. These two texts are influenced by their context and differ depending on their target audience, further revealing the values and beliefs of our modern audience and an Elizabethan audience. Language and film techniques are what effectively portray the transformation of each character in their appropriate context and expose the influence of jealousy

Homer’s The Odyssey and Virgil’s ¬The Aeneid are both epic poems chronicling the travels and trials of their respective heroes. Though both stories deal with the fates of their leading men, Homer employs the use of hubris with his protagonist, Odysseus, while Virgil utilizes the trait of pietas with his protagonist, Aeneas. A comparative analysis of the heroes in their reactions to the mythical creatures they encounter, their relationships with the women they love, and their ultimate purposes in seeking passage to the underworld demonstrate the differences in their fatal character flaws.

The English Neo-Classical Movement dominated English Literature from the Restoration (1660) to the lyrical ballads of 1798,1800 and 1802. It is conventionally divided into three parts. These being the Restoration Age (1600-1700) where figures such as John Milton and John Dryden were renowned. The Augustan Age (1700-1750) where Alexander Pope himself was a central poetic figure and The Age of Johnson (1750-1798). The primary focus is of course the Augustan Age, where Pope’s work is prevalent.

My eyes fluttered as the sun crawled into the gaps not covered by my eyelids. I could smell the fresh sweets being cooked by the servants. The lace curtains swayed back and forth as the fresh air weaved throughout the room, adding a new aroma of fruit. The sweet smell of the fruit dispersed throughout my room. I grabbed the dainty lace cover and moved it with grace. Sitting up quickly, I blinked multiple times to allow my eyes adjust to the light. Today would be a thrilling and riveting day. My husband and I were invited to appear at the theater. He had asked me to accompany him yesterday and I had gladly accepted. I had told my friends I would be there. A servant then knocked on the thick wooden door, interrupting my thoughts. ( pg 43, Daily

He introduced realism to Elizabethan poetry while drawing from his extensive knowledge of ancient literature and his personal experiences as the 17th Earl of Oxford and a ward of Queen Elizabeth I. His position in the royal court provided him access to education and classic literature that was unavailable to his peers. This exclusive knowledge gives De Vere’s poetry a unique layer of allusion that complimented the era of English Renaissance.

Shakespeare’s society was strongly patriarchal .Women were expected to behave passively obediently and submissively toward their husbands ,who were considered the superior sex and were given the responsibility of governing the household .This is a topic undoubtedly critical to our understanding both of the role of women and the traditional concepts of gender and sexuality.Tarub explains that even domestic households were structured in accordance with patriarchal values ; the man ruled whilst his wife managed it .Traub sums up the repression and confinements of women within the domestic households as ‘’the body enclosed’’ to refer to their ‘closed genitals ,closed mouths and closure within the home ‘’ .Weakness and ‘the body enclosed’’ may have been synonymous with women at the time , but certainly not with the heroic and overbearing Rosalind who shows a reckless disregard for social conventions in donning on the disguise of Ganymede ,mocking the principles of love and bringing Orlando under her sway .She is ‘’a woman .When {she} thinks , {she} must speak ‘’ .To arrive at a tentative argument as to whether Rosalind acts as an ‘agent of change ‘ (Todd 1 ) and a challenge to the ‘body enclosed’ or a reflection of traditional gender roles , we must first of all define ‘heroine’ and look at how the its sense has changed over time , and how it may be applied to her as a ; cousin : daughter : man and boy .

Geoffrey Chaucer lived from thirteen-forty-three to fourteen-hundred. “Chaucer is one of the most interesting writers in English literature because he straddles two worlds: the Middle Ages and the Renaissance” (Collin 1). He wrote his poems in middle-English, which is called Vernacular. “Geoffrey Chaucer chose to write his poetry in the Vernacular – the everyday language – of his time and place” (Chaucer et al. 18). Perhaps one of Chaucer’s most important literary works, “The Canterbury Tales,” sets the stage for a more in depth understanding of the feudal systems and classes of the Middle Ages.

hereas a variety of Canterbury Tales tales are inclined to make the nobility aware of the capability of ordinary people and how beauty presents itself in their lives, other medieval popular romances strive to provide a sense of wish fulfillment for a different audience; the powerless. Thomas Chestre’s Sir Launfal in particular appeals to someone who wishes to escape profound social inequality and injustice. Thomas Chestre speaks to his audience by rewriting a better version of the difficult life of a commoner as a fairytale that idealises familiar views of the peasant; “Her faces wer whit as snow on downe” (l. 251). Radulescu’s statement that anonymous audiences should be acknowledged for embracing the incendiary nature of these medieval popular

The journal article, “The Context, Design, and Argument of Rochester’s A Satyr against Reason and Mankind” by A.D. Cousins discusses the context of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester’s poem “A Satyr against Reason and Mankind”. The article was published in the Studies in English Literature. The article places the important poem and discusses how the poem is Rochester’s “tentative solution to the private and social disorder recurrently analyzed in his other poems, and that to understand the solution it implies one must recognize how it redefines “right reason” (Cousins 429). This article analyzes Rochester’s well-known poem as a criticism of life in the Restoration Age and compares this analysis to the libertine’s other poems. The author suggests that Rochester was so satirical because of his critique and disapproval of the disorder of Restoration life. Cousins goes on to declare that this disapproval was rooted in Charles II. The article continues to examine Rochester’s “A Satyr” and his other works and their statement against the Restoration society and the values.

The genre of comedy, throughout the history of dramatic art has always served to not only entertain audiences, but to make them aware of their own individual flaws, or flaws that exist in society. (Weitz, E.) Comedy has no precise definition, and its boundaries are broad. One function of comedy however has remained the same - to hold up a mirror to the society of the time but through pleasure, inviting audiences to reflect and also providing amusement. Set in the late nineteenth century, the play An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde (1895) epitomises comedy, as both a literary and dramatic genre. Wilde was masterful in his ability to combine aspects of evolved comedic traditions and dramatic conventions to critique Victorian society. Drawing on characteristics of Greek and Roman tragicomedy, the choices in the play’s plot involves elements of tragedy as well as scenes that serve as comic relief and give the audience a sense of finality through a happy resolution. (Bureman, L) Focussing on the upper class stratum, Wilde employs a comedy of manners Molière style, of the Restoration Period in the seventeenth century in the play by combining forms of comedy with aspects of realist drama. The portrayal of archetypal figures such as Lady Chiltern and Lord Goring satirize rigid moral value of the time and expose their hypocrisies, through dialogue involving irony, wit and humour. Elements of farce and disguises characterized by ‘commedia dell’arte’, a form of comedy first developed in

Geoffrey Chaucer is an English author who was born in 1343 into an average, middle-class family. During his teenage years, he was given to opportunity to work in an aristocratic household. This living arrangement gave Chaucer the chance to observe the lifestyles of the middle and upper class and how their relationships with the lower class were. These observations created a significant impact towards his distinct writing style that comically and accurately portrayed social adaptations. Such writing styles led a group of analysts to say “Chaucer is credited with having set the style for modern English Literature”

The role of the poet is constructed through various means within the poetry of the eighteenth-century. This essay shall James Thomson and Thomas Gray in their construction of the role of the poet. Thomson’s Spring conveys the role of the poet as being multifaceted. Contrary to this, Gray establishes the role of the poet as one of isolation and being an outsider whilst expressing anxiety over the declining role of the poet, as seen in ‘The Bard’. To begin, this essay shall examine the forms used by the poets. Thomson makes of the Miltonic blank verse. By doing this, the role of the poet is conveyed as multifaceted as a range of subjects are discussed. Gray uses the form of the Pindaric ode in order to establish the idea of the poet being

William Wordsworth’s “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” is from the Romantic Period of British literature, while Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock” and John Dryden’s “Mac Flecknoe” are both from the Neoclassical Period; “The Rape of the Lock” is from the Augustan Age, while “Mac Flecknoe” is from the Restoration (“Literary”). Despite these discrepancies in the time periods that their respective works were produced, however, Wordsworth, Pope, and Dryden express similar attitudes toward machinery, language, and substance. Their works evidence their agreement that machinery is a destructive force of serial production and repetition; good poetic