Jane Austen was the quintessential producer of the form called comedy of manners, its subject being the set of social conventions of a particular class in a particular time and place. The novel of manners describes in detail the customs, behaviors, habits, and expectations of a certain social group atContinue Reading
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s most famous novel, is filled with many different minor characters. Some seem superfluous, but others bring life to certain scenes and help to advance the plot. Certain plot-lines in the story actually revolve around minor characters and the plot could not truly be complete withoutContinue Reading
One of the main themes in Pride and Prejudice is that of marriage and its close relation with money and social status. The novel’s oft-quoted opening sentence: “It’s a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife” showsContinue Reading
Fitzwilliam Darcy, generally referred to as Mr. Darcy, is one of the two central characters in Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice. He is an archetype of the aloof romantic hero, and a romantic interest of Elizabeth Bennet, the novel’s protagonist. The story’s narration is almost exclusively from Elizabeth BennetContinue Reading
The second daughter in the Bennet family, and the most intelligent and quick-witted, Elizabeth is the protagonist of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and one of the most well-known female characters in English literature. Her admirable qualities are numerous—she is lovely, clever, and, in a novel defined by dialogue, sheContinue Reading
The society that Jane Austen presents in Pride & Prejudice is concerned with reputation and appearance. First written in 1797 under the title First Impressions, it was later revised and published as Pride and Prejudice in 1813. The theme of judgment runs throughout the novel as prejudging people is a favoutiteContinue Reading
Jane Austen (1775-1817) was the seventh child and second daughter of an Anglican rector in a country parish in Hampshire, England. She had a happy childhood. She read widely, though she had little formal schooling, and she and her siblings delighted in writing and performing plays at home. At theContinue Reading
Psychological isolation is a theme that runs as a vein throughout Matthew Arnold’s poetry which has won much critical acclaim. Poems like “Dover Beach” and “To Marguerite” reverse the argument made by John Donne, the metaphysical poet, that “No man is an island”, by emphasizing that mortals have indeed becomeContinue Reading
Arnold’s “Dover Beach” laments the transition from an age of certainty into an era of the erosion of traditions and loss of faith – Modernism. “Misery”, “sadness” and “melancholy” reign most of the poem, yet the author chooses to conclude it with an emotional appeal for honesty: “Ah, love, letContinue Reading
Sine sed diffundi proximus. Super minantia praeter temperiemque scythiam. Posset: nix aliis acervo magni acervo temperiemque formaeque. Pinus locis? Liquidum montibus quia dedit sui orba margine reparabat. Evolvit mundum nuper pontus. Liquidum iunctarum regna pontus totidem freta qui hominum frigore. Tumescere quae suis. Qui quisquis. Omni possedit seductaque sibi. DensiorContinue Reading
