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literature , a body of written works. The name has traditionally been applied to those imaginative works of poetry and prose distinguished by the intentions of their authors and the perceived aesthetic excellence of their execution. Literature may be classified according to a variety of systems, including language , national origin, historical period, genre , and subject matter.

For historical treatment of various literatures within geographical regions, see such articles as African literature ; African theater ; Oceanic literature ; Western literature ; Central Asian arts ; South Asian arts ; and Southeast Asian arts . Some literatures are treated separately by language, by nation, or by special subject (e.g., Arabic literature , Celtic literature , Latin literature , French literature , Japanese literature , and biblical literature ).

Definitions of the word literature tend to be circular. The 11th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary considers literature to be “writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest.” The 19th-century critic Walter Pater referred to “the matter of imaginative or artistic literature” as a “transcript, not of mere fact, but of fact in its infinitely varied forms.” But such definitions assume that the reader already knows what literature is. And indeed its central meaning, at least, is clear enough. Deriving from the Latin littera , “a letter of the alphabet,” literature is first and foremost humankind’s entire body of writing; after that it is the body of writing belonging to a given language or people; then it is individual pieces of writing.

But already it is necessary to qualify these statements. To use the word writing when describing literature is itself misleading, for one may speak of “oral literature” or “the literature of preliterate peoples.” The art of literature is not reducible to the words on the page; they are there solely because of the craft of writing. As an art, literature might be described as the organization of words to give pleasure. Yet through words literature elevates and transforms experience beyond “mere” pleasure. Literature also functions more broadly in society as a means of both criticizing and affirming cultural values.

The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature

ISBN: 978-0-745-60987-4

January 1993

Pierre Bourdieu

Bourdieu elaborates a theory of the cultural field which situates artistic works within the social conditions of their production, circulation and consumption. He examines the individuals in institutions involved in making products: not only the writers and artists, but also the publishers, critics, dealers, galleries and academies. He analyses the structure of the cultural field itself, as well as its position within the broader social structures of power.

The essays gathered together in this volume examine a variety of substantive topics, including Flaubert's point of view, Manet's aesthetic revolution, the historical creation of the pure gaze, and the relationship between art and power. The Field of Cultural Production will be of interest to students and scholars from a wide range of disciplines: sociology and social theory, literature, art and cultural studies.

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Essays on Art and Literature (Goethe: The Collected Works, Vol. 3) Paperback – July 5, 1994

Translated by Ellen von Nardroff and Ernest H. von Nardroff The reflections on art and literature that Goethe produced throughout his life are the premise and corollary of his work as poet, novelist, and man of science. This volume contains such important essays as "On Gothic Architecture," "On the Laocoon Group," and "Shakespeare: A Tribute." Several works in this collection appear for the first time unabridged and in fresh translations.

• Print length 268 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Princeton University Press
• Publication date July 5, 1994
• Dimensions 6 x 0.71 x 9 inches
• ISBN-10 0691036578
• ISBN-13 978-0691036571
• See all details

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Princeton University Press; Reprint edition (July 5, 1994)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 268 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0691036578
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0691036571
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.71 x 9 inches
• #311 in German Literary Criticism (Books)
• #316 in German Poetry (Books)
• #575 in Gothic & Romantic Literary Criticism (Books)

About the author

Johann wolfgang von goethe.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (/ˈgɜː(r)tə/; German: [ˈjoːhan ˈvɔlfɡaŋ ˈɡøːtə] ( listen); 28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German writer and statesman. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour; and four novels. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters, and nearly 3,000 drawings by him exist. A literary celebrity by the age of 25, Goethe was ennobled by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Karl August in 1782 after first taking up residence there in November 1775 following the success of his first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther. He was an early participant in the Sturm und Drang literary movement. During his first ten years in Weimar, Goethe served as a member of the Duke's privy council, sat on the war and highway commissions, oversaw the reopening of silver mines in nearby Ilmenau, and implemented a series of administrative reforms at the University of Jena. He also contributed to the planning of Weimar's botanical park and the rebuilding of its Ducal Palace, which in 1998 were together designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Joseph Karl Stieler [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

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BUY THIS BOOK

1997 --> 1997 344 pages. from $35.00

Hardcover ISBN: 9780804729727 Paperback ISBN: 9780804729734

Despite Freud's enormous influence on twentieth-century interpretations of the humanities, there has never before been in English a complete collection of his writings on art and literature. These fourteen essays cover the entire range of his work on these subjects, in chronological order beginning with his first published analysis of a work of literature, the 1907 "Delusion and Dreams in Jensen's Gradiva " and concluding with the 1940 posthumous publication of "Medusa's Head." Many of the essays included in this collection have been crucial in contemporary literary and art criticism and theory.

Among the subjects Freud engages are Shakespeare's Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, and Macbeth, Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit, Michelangelo's Moses, E. T. A. Hoffman's "The Sand Man," Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, fairy tales, the effect of and the meaning of beauty, mythology, and the games of aestheticization. All texts are drawn from The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud , edited by James Strachey. The volume includes the notes prepared for that edition by the editor.

In addition to the writings on Jensen's Gradiva and Medusa, the essays are: "Psychopathic Characters on the Stage," "The Antithetical Meaning of Primal Words," "The Occurrence in Dreams of Material from Fairy Tales," "The Theme of the Three Caskets," "The Moses of Michelangelo," "Some Character Types Met with in Psycho-analytic Work," "On Transience," "A Mythological Parallel to a Visual Obsession," "A Childhood Recollection from Dichtung und Wahrheit," "The Uncanny," "Dostoevsky and Parricide," and "The Goethe Prize."

About the authors

“These are classic essays, referred to over and over again in work of all sorts, widely read, and extensively used in courses. But until now they have not been collected in English. The choice of essays is excellent, covering the whole chronological range of Freud’s writings on art and literature.”—J. Hillis Miller,University of California, Irvine.

The Grounds of the Novel

Daniel Wright

Bruce Robbins

Translating the Jewish Freud

Naomi Seidman

Edited by Max Saunders and Lisa Gee

Programming Language Cultures

Brian Lennon

Styles of Seriousness

Steven Connor

Refiguring Speech

Amy R. Wong

Barroco and Other Writings

Severo Sarduy, Translated by Alex Verdolini

Common Measures

Joseph Albernaz

The Sociology of Literature

Gisèle Sapiro, Translated by Madeline Bedecarré and Ben Libman

The Arts of Logistics

Michael Shane Boyle

Of Effacement

David Marriott

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This interdisciplinary collection of essays investigates the concept of ‘late style’ as a category for addressing art, literature, and music produced either in old age or in the proximity of death. The volume interrogates the assumptions that underpin the idea of ‘late style’ by way of a critical, comparative examination of the genealogy and philosophical and psychological underpinnings of the concept, and by analysing case studies of writers, artists, and composers to whom a ‘late period’ has been attributed. These include Austen, Beethoven, Darwin, Goethe, Hamburger, Lawrence, Monet, Mann, Nietszche, Oppen, Picasso, Ravel, Rossini, Schubert, Shakespeare, and Titian. Together, the contributors—who include leading art historians, literary critics, and musicologists—raise key questions about ‘late style’ as a category, and work towards a taxonomy of lateness that can adequately encompass the range of possibilities grouped under the general heading ‘late’. In the process—and in many cases by assessing the accounts of lateness by Theodor Adorno and his disciple Edward Said—they reflect on the extent to which lateness is a modern category, one that both highlights and obscures the nature of modernity. The essays together suggest that it is impossible to read late style as a transhistorical, transcultural phenomenon; rather, late style is an idea that is, like all such critical constructs, contingent, complicit, and culturally invested; it has emerged from the history of the idea of ‘genius’ and persists in shaping the way in which we view the relationship between old age and creativity.

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How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay | A Step-by-Step Guide

Published on January 30, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on August 14, 2023.

Literary analysis means closely studying a text, interpreting its meanings, and exploring why the author made certain choices. It can be applied to novels, short stories, plays, poems, or any other form of literary writing.

A literary analysis essay is not a rhetorical analysis , nor is it just a summary of the plot or a book review. Instead, it is a type of argumentative essay where you need to analyze elements such as the language, perspective, and structure of the text, and explain how the author uses literary devices to create effects and convey ideas.

Before beginning a literary analysis essay, it’s essential to carefully read the text and c ome up with a thesis statement to keep your essay focused. As you write, follow the standard structure of an academic essay :

• An introduction that tells the reader what your essay will focus on.
• A main body, divided into paragraphs , that builds an argument using evidence from the text.
• A conclusion that clearly states the main point that you have shown with your analysis.

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Table of contents

Step 1: reading the text and identifying literary devices, step 2: coming up with a thesis, step 3: writing a title and introduction, step 4: writing the body of the essay, step 5: writing a conclusion, other interesting articles.

The first step is to carefully read the text(s) and take initial notes. As you read, pay attention to the things that are most intriguing, surprising, or even confusing in the writing—these are things you can dig into in your analysis.

Your goal in literary analysis is not simply to explain the events described in the text, but to analyze the writing itself and discuss how the text works on a deeper level. Primarily, you’re looking out for literary devices —textual elements that writers use to convey meaning and create effects. If you’re comparing and contrasting multiple texts, you can also look for connections between different texts.

To get started with your analysis, there are several key areas that you can focus on. As you analyze each aspect of the text, try to think about how they all relate to each other. You can use highlights or notes to keep track of important passages and quotes.

Language choices

Consider what style of language the author uses. Are the sentences short and simple or more complex and poetic?

What word choices stand out as interesting or unusual? Are words used figuratively to mean something other than their literal definition? Figurative language includes things like metaphor (e.g. “her eyes were oceans”) and simile (e.g. “her eyes were like oceans”).

Also keep an eye out for imagery in the text—recurring images that create a certain atmosphere or symbolize something important. Remember that language is used in literary texts to say more than it means on the surface.

Narrative voice

Ask yourself:

• Who is telling the story?
• How are they telling it?

Is it a first-person narrator (“I”) who is personally involved in the story, or a third-person narrator who tells us about the characters from a distance?

Consider the narrator’s perspective . Is the narrator omniscient (where they know everything about all the characters and events), or do they only have partial knowledge? Are they an unreliable narrator who we are not supposed to take at face value? Authors often hint that their narrator might be giving us a distorted or dishonest version of events.

The tone of the text is also worth considering. Is the story intended to be comic, tragic, or something else? Are usually serious topics treated as funny, or vice versa ? Is the story realistic or fantastical (or somewhere in between)?

Consider how the text is structured, and how the structure relates to the story being told.

• Novels are often divided into chapters and parts.
• Poems are divided into lines, stanzas, and sometime cantos.
• Plays are divided into scenes and acts.

Think about why the author chose to divide the different parts of the text in the way they did.

There are also less formal structural elements to take into account. Does the story unfold in chronological order, or does it jump back and forth in time? Does it begin in medias res —in the middle of the action? Does the plot advance towards a clearly defined climax?

With poetry, consider how the rhyme and meter shape your understanding of the text and your impression of the tone. Try reading the poem aloud to get a sense of this.

In a play, you might consider how relationships between characters are built up through different scenes, and how the setting relates to the action. Watch out for  dramatic irony , where the audience knows some detail that the characters don’t, creating a double meaning in their words, thoughts, or actions.

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Your thesis in a literary analysis essay is the point you want to make about the text. It’s the core argument that gives your essay direction and prevents it from just being a collection of random observations about a text.

If you’re given a prompt for your essay, your thesis must answer or relate to the prompt. For example:

Essay question example

Is Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” a religious parable?

Your thesis statement should be an answer to this question—not a simple yes or no, but a statement of why this is or isn’t the case:

Thesis statement example

Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” is not a religious parable, but a story about bureaucratic alienation.

Sometimes you’ll be given freedom to choose your own topic; in this case, you’ll have to come up with an original thesis. Consider what stood out to you in the text; ask yourself questions about the elements that interested you, and consider how you might answer them.

Your thesis should be something arguable—that is, something that you think is true about the text, but which is not a simple matter of fact. It must be complex enough to develop through evidence and arguments across the course of your essay.

Say you’re analyzing the novel Frankenstein . You could start by asking yourself:

Your initial answer might be a surface-level description:

The character Frankenstein is portrayed negatively in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein .

However, this statement is too simple to be an interesting thesis. After reading the text and analyzing its narrative voice and structure, you can develop the answer into a more nuanced and arguable thesis statement:

Mary Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as.

Remember that you can revise your thesis statement throughout the writing process , so it doesn’t need to be perfectly formulated at this stage. The aim is to keep you focused as you analyze the text.

Finding textual evidence

To support your thesis statement, your essay will build an argument using textual evidence —specific parts of the text that demonstrate your point. This evidence is quoted and analyzed throughout your essay to explain your argument to the reader.

It can be useful to comb through the text in search of relevant quotations before you start writing. You might not end up using everything you find, and you may have to return to the text for more evidence as you write, but collecting textual evidence from the beginning will help you to structure your arguments and assess whether they’re convincing.

To start your literary analysis paper, you’ll need two things: a good title, and an introduction.

Your title should clearly indicate what your analysis will focus on. It usually contains the name of the author and text(s) you’re analyzing. Keep it as concise and engaging as possible.

A common approach to the title is to use a relevant quote from the text, followed by a colon and then the rest of your title.

If you struggle to come up with a good title at first, don’t worry—this will be easier once you’ve begun writing the essay and have a better sense of your arguments.

“Fearful symmetry” : The violence of creation in William Blake’s “The Tyger”

The introduction

The essay introduction provides a quick overview of where your argument is going. It should include your thesis statement and a summary of the essay’s structure.

A typical structure for an introduction is to begin with a general statement about the text and author, using this to lead into your thesis statement. You might refer to a commonly held idea about the text and show how your thesis will contradict it, or zoom in on a particular device you intend to focus on.

Then you can end with a brief indication of what’s coming up in the main body of the essay. This is called signposting. It will be more elaborate in longer essays, but in a short five-paragraph essay structure, it shouldn’t be more than one sentence.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific advancement unrestrained by ethical considerations. In this reading, protagonist Victor Frankenstein is a stable representation of the callous ambition of modern science throughout the novel. This essay, however, argues that far from providing a stable image of the character, Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as. This essay begins by exploring the positive portrayal of Frankenstein in the first volume, then moves on to the creature’s perception of him, and finally discusses the third volume’s narrative shift toward viewing Frankenstein as the creature views him.

Some students prefer to write the introduction later in the process, and it’s not a bad idea. After all, you’ll have a clearer idea of the overall shape of your arguments once you’ve begun writing them!

If you do write the introduction first, you should still return to it later to make sure it lines up with what you ended up writing, and edit as necessary.

The body of your essay is everything between the introduction and conclusion. It contains your arguments and the textual evidence that supports them.

Paragraph structure

A typical structure for a high school literary analysis essay consists of five paragraphs : the three paragraphs of the body, plus the introduction and conclusion.

Each paragraph in the main body should focus on one topic. In the five-paragraph model, try to divide your argument into three main areas of analysis, all linked to your thesis. Don’t try to include everything you can think of to say about the text—only analysis that drives your argument.

In longer essays, the same principle applies on a broader scale. For example, you might have two or three sections in your main body, each with multiple paragraphs. Within these sections, you still want to begin new paragraphs at logical moments—a turn in the argument or the introduction of a new idea.

Robert’s first encounter with Gil-Martin suggests something of his sinister power. Robert feels “a sort of invisible power that drew me towards him.” He identifies the moment of their meeting as “the beginning of a series of adventures which has puzzled myself, and will puzzle the world when I am no more in it” (p. 89). Gil-Martin’s “invisible power” seems to be at work even at this distance from the moment described; before continuing the story, Robert feels compelled to anticipate at length what readers will make of his narrative after his approaching death. With this interjection, Hogg emphasizes the fatal influence Gil-Martin exercises from his first appearance.

Topic sentences

To keep your points focused, it’s important to use a topic sentence at the beginning of each paragraph.

A good topic sentence allows a reader to see at a glance what the paragraph is about. It can introduce a new line of argument and connect or contrast it with the previous paragraph. Transition words like “however” or “moreover” are useful for creating smooth transitions:

… The story’s focus, therefore, is not upon the divine revelation that may be waiting beyond the door, but upon the mundane process of aging undergone by the man as he waits.

Nevertheless, the “radiance” that appears to stream from the door is typically treated as religious symbolism.

This topic sentence signals that the paragraph will address the question of religious symbolism, while the linking word “nevertheless” points out a contrast with the previous paragraph’s conclusion.

Using textual evidence

A key part of literary analysis is backing up your arguments with relevant evidence from the text. This involves introducing quotes from the text and explaining their significance to your point.

It’s important to contextualize quotes and explain why you’re using them; they should be properly introduced and analyzed, not treated as self-explanatory:

It isn’t always necessary to use a quote. Quoting is useful when you’re discussing the author’s language, but sometimes you’ll have to refer to plot points or structural elements that can’t be captured in a short quote.

In these cases, it’s more appropriate to paraphrase or summarize parts of the text—that is, to describe the relevant part in your own words:

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The conclusion of your analysis shouldn’t introduce any new quotations or arguments. Instead, it’s about wrapping up the essay. Here, you summarize your key points and try to emphasize their significance to the reader.

A good way to approach this is to briefly summarize your key arguments, and then stress the conclusion they’ve led you to, highlighting the new perspective your thesis provides on the text as a whole:

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

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By tracing the depiction of Frankenstein through the novel’s three volumes, I have demonstrated how the narrative structure shifts our perception of the character. While the Frankenstein of the first volume is depicted as having innocent intentions, the second and third volumes—first in the creature’s accusatory voice, and then in his own voice—increasingly undermine him, causing him to appear alternately ridiculous and vindictive. Far from the one-dimensional villain he is often taken to be, the character of Frankenstein is compelling because of the dynamic narrative frame in which he is placed. In this frame, Frankenstein’s narrative self-presentation responds to the images of him we see from others’ perspectives. This conclusion sheds new light on the novel, foregrounding Shelley’s unique layering of narrative perspectives and its importance for the depiction of character.

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Art, Literature, and Culture: Heritage of the XX Century Essay

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To portray the events of the twentieth and the twenty-first century I want to create a virtual time capsule that will be buried at this point and opened many years later. Certainly I want to leave something for the future generation in terms of my working activity, life, relations with other people and my own interpretation of this world. My personal activity and everyday life would be depicted in this virtual time capsule. Analyzing everyday life and its events, I would say that I am a decent hard-working American, living in Dallas, TX. I live by myself. My typical day starts with a bowl of cereal that I eat for breakfast over a glass of plain cranberry or orange juice. I drive a Honda Accord. Though not very luxurious, the car breaks down rarely and I don’t go to Auto repair often. Once a month I visit my parents that live in Irving, TX. The ride does not take long. I would have visited them more often if I had time. They live in a small neighborhood. During lunch I go to a Mexican restaurant that is located near the place I work. In my opinion stress at work is much better than depression and having nothing to do. Being lazy and slothful makes me angry. Virtual letter hidden in my time capsule would definitely describe the events concerning my everyday activity and the things connected with it. With Power Point and overhead I may create a document on all the activities concerning ordinary American citizens’ lives.

Different video films and certain pieces of art would definitely serve the purpose greatly. Future generations will be able to compare products of the culture and arts with our own products. Gwendolyn Brooks’ book of poetry under the title ‘A Street in Bronzeville’ serves as a wonderful example of the twentieth century art of poetry. (Brooks, 1945) First poetry collection of Gwendolyn Brooks, the book analyzes many blacks’ lives and their oppression. I would not say that blacks are suppressed at present. However they were in the twentieth century. Different individuals are depicted in the book of poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks including sad hunchback girl. Describing various layers of American black society, Gwendolyn Brooks pictures the true life of domestic workers and individuals of different jobs and occupations. One of the most significant topics that Gwendolyn Brooks writes about in the book is her brother staff Sergeant Raymond Brooks.

Dealing with analysis of twentieth century architecture I may name Seagram building skyscrapers in New York. The most significant feature of the building is its construction in 1957. Skyscrapers are quite new to American culture because they appeared only in the twentieth century. This is the buildings’ main significance.

Art and literature of the twentieth century individuals gave rise to many literary trends and movements in art, literature, architecture, music, etc. Pablo Picasso is one of my favorite painters. ‘Woman ironing’ (1904) is a masterpiece and a wonderful example of art (Mailer, 1995). The picture of a thin woman with a desperate face and a heavy iron signifies hard labor activity of the individuals. Judging from the point of my life I dare say that people are living much easier than they used to.

Concerning music analysis, I could say that Jay-Z’s ‘Black album’ of 2003 appears to be very fascinating in terms of its structure. It was the eighth and actually the final album of Jay-Z. The rapper actually sold 463,000 copies of it. The most significant feature of the album was the interest to The Beatles songs and certain remixes/mash-ups. Personally, it is one of my favorite records.

Nation’s culture and significance are also pretty vital for many people. I could say that by ruling the country in a proper way, people overcome certain injustices. Analyzing people’s strong will, I must list ‘Titanic’ as one of the most significant films of the twentieth century. Generally the film specifies certain people’s strong love and will to live life and achieve certain happiness.

Stressing the strong point of many people’s communication nowadays, my letter would describe mobile phones as an important gadget and means of communication between different people. Certainly in the future people would be able to read one another’s thoughts and live according to their own schedule implanted in them. However, mobile phones would always maintain a great monument and a reminder of our past life and former activity.

Morality and cultures’ decision-making allow certain people to regard different concepts connected with religion and social patterns of behavior concerning many individuals’ lives. To understand or have a clear view of the concept connected with heaven and hell, we might regard the book ‘Paradise lost’ by John Milton and some critics connected with it where different points of view are clearly presented. (Milner, 1981)

People’s morals allow these people live correctly and do everything according to the correct pattern of social behavior. Except for behaviorism there are many other trends and concepts connected with psychology individuals consider being very important. Among them is the so-called existentialism. (Belkind, 1970)

Among things connected with religion a person could list Ten Commandments and six stages toward making a real person. The latter one is described in the book by Plato where he quotes the words of Socrates. (Plato, 1995) Religion in this case plays a very important role because it makes people’s lives easier.

Writing about my own freedom and happiness that may be pictured greatly in the time capsule, I could say that these two notions are very important in their own way. Freedom means the ability to live and exist with abilities to do what you want. Happiness means being in peace with oneself and everything around you. I definitely possess freedom and rights to think, exist and speak openly what I think about the world, economy, society and my own life. In my personal opinion freedom and happiness are closely connected with creating different masterpieces in art, literature and music.

Drawing a conclusion on everything said above, I say that the twentieth century is signified by the drastic success of many people connected with art, literature and culture’s development. Modernism, postmodernism and cubism emerged in the world of art recently. Different important events happening in the world in the XXth century are depicted in different books and literature. Importance of World War II of the twentieth century makes us mention the name of ‘Doctor Faustus’ created by the prominent German writer Thomas Mann (Mann, 1992). Doctor Faustus is compared to Adolf Hitler in the book and his activities are depicted brilliantly in it.

Reference list

Belkind, A. (1970). Jean-Paul Sartre and existentialism in English . Kent, Ohio: University Press.

Brooks, G. (1945). A Street in Bronzeville . New York: Harper.

Mailer, N. (1995). Portrait of Picasso as a young man: an interpretive biography . New York: Grove/Atlantic.

Mann, T. (1992). Doctor Faustus (translation H.T. Lowe-Porter). New York: Everyman’s Library.

Milner, A. (1981). John Milton and the English revolution: A study in the sociology of literature. New Jersey: Barnes & Noble Books.

Plato. (1995). The Last Days of Socrates . New York: Penguin.

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BUY THIS BOOK

1997 --> 1997 344 pages. from $35.00

Hardcover ISBN: 9780804729727 Paperback ISBN: 9780804729734

Despite Freud's enormous influence on twentieth-century interpretations of the humanities, there has never before been in English a complete collection of his writings on art and literature. These fourteen essays cover the entire range of his work on these subjects, in chronological order beginning with his first published analysis of a work of literature, the 1907 "Delusion and Dreams in Jensen's Gradiva " and concluding with the 1940 posthumous publication of "Medusa's Head." Many of the essays included in this collection have been crucial in contemporary literary and art criticism and theory.

Among the subjects Freud engages are Shakespeare's Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, and Macbeth, Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit, Michelangelo's Moses, E. T. A. Hoffman's "The Sand Man," Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, fairy tales, the effect of and the meaning of beauty, mythology, and the games of aestheticization. All texts are drawn from The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud , edited by James Strachey. The volume includes the notes prepared for that edition by the editor.

In addition to the writings on Jensen's Gradiva and Medusa, the essays are: "Psychopathic Characters on the Stage," "The Antithetical Meaning of Primal Words," "The Occurrence in Dreams of Material from Fairy Tales," "The Theme of the Three Caskets," "The Moses of Michelangelo," "Some Character Types Met with in Psycho-analytic Work," "On Transience," "A Mythological Parallel to a Visual Obsession," "A Childhood Recollection from Dichtung und Wahrheit," "The Uncanny," "Dostoevsky and Parricide," and "The Goethe Prize."

About the authors

“These are classic essays, referred to over and over again in work of all sorts, widely read, and extensively used in courses. But until now they have not been collected in English. The choice of essays is excellent, covering the whole chronological range of Freud’s writings on art and literature.”—J. Hillis Miller,University of California, Irvine.

Styles of Seriousness

Steven Connor

Of Effacement

David Marriott

Bruce Robbins

The Arts of Logistics

Michael Shane Boyle

Refiguring Speech

Amy R. Wong

The Grounds of the Novel

Daniel Wright

Translating the Jewish Freud

Naomi Seidman

Barroco and Other Writings

Severo Sarduy, Translated by Alex Verdolini

Programming Language Cultures

Brian Lennon

Edited by Max Saunders and Lisa Gee

Common Measures

Joseph Albernaz

The Sociology of Literature

Gisèle Sapiro, Translated by Madeline Bedecarré and Ben Libman

The Art of Literature

THE ART OF LITERATURE

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

Vitam impendere vero .— Juvenal

SELECTED AND TRANSLATED

WITH A PREFACE BY

T. BAILEY SAUNDERS, M.A.

LONDON: SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., Lim. NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO. 1897.

First Edition, March 1891: Second Edition, January 1892: Third Edition, March 1897.

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Guest Essay

What the Lobstermen of Maine Tell Us About the Election

By Scott Ellsworth

Mr. Ellsworth, a historian, traveled to Maine for this essay.

Mid-July is peak season on the central Maine coast. The blueberries — the small, low-bush kind long prized by the state’s jam makers and pie bakers — had started to appear in the farmers markets, along with the first of the tomatoes. Bright orange tiger lilies burst from front yards, while Queen Anne’s lace and goldenrod line the two-lane roads. The summer light dazzles, falling in soft waves upon the spruce and cedar, and brightening the paint on both midcentury saltboxes and grander Victorian homes. It’s no wonder that people want to come here.

Stonington is, without a doubt, one of the prettiest towns on the Maine coast. Over breakfast one morning at Stonecutters Kitchen, I asked Linda Nelson, the town’s economic and community development director, how many Hallmark movies had been filmed there.

“Not enough,” she replied.

Stonington also happens to be the largest lobster port in America. Dozens of fishing boats are anchored in the harbor, while lobsters caught in nearby Blue Hill and Jerichoare exported across the country and, more recently, across the globe. I was told by locals that not one of the beautiful wooden homes that form Stonington’s classic picture postcard view is owned by a fishing family, who now live elsewhere on Deer Isle or over the bridge on the mainland. From the perspective of a lobsterman, many of whom have deep Maine roots, the P.F.A.s — People From Away, as locals call them — are a presence to be tolerated. The lobster fishermen and the tourists and part-time residents coexist in two separate worlds, one that is changing beneath the surface.

In a significant political year, when a small group of voters in a few places will most likely shape the answers to pivotal questions about our government, how does a community living out climate change feel to its residents? This part of Maine is represented by a Democrat in Congress, but the district, Maine’s second, has voted for Donald Trump twice by decent margins; this is one of those places where every vote can matter. Here, the punishing demands of the present, how hard everyday work is, how important costs and prices are, make the pivotal nature of this time feel very distant from politics.

During much of the past two decades, record numbers of lobsters have been caught off the Maine coast, providing a steady living for scores of lobster fishermen and their families. But a host of recent pressures has been building up that may upend a way of life that, for some, stretches back for generations. Indeed, as far as climate change goes, Maine’s lobster fishing community may well be America’s own canary in the coal mine.

“Everything has changed. Everything is changing,” said Dana Black, age 50, who is a fourth-generation fisherman and lives with his wife and two daughters over the bridge in Brooksville. “That’s all I’ve done,” he said. Mr. Black got his first job, on a lobster boat, when he was 12. By the time he was in high school he had gotten a taste of what kind of money could sometimes be made on the water. He skipped school one Friday to work as a sternman on an offshore boat, hauling lobster traps. By the time he got back on dry land on Monday, he recalled, “I had made 27-hundred bucks.” Like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather before him, Mr. Black had found his calling.

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