Henry James was one of the great American literary critics, but James was better known as a novelist and short-story writer (Magill 750). In the nineteenth century James was considered to be an important and influential writer. James's writing career has been separated into three phases. ...

Henry James does an extraordinary job in establishing innocence in two distinguishable scenarios. Henry James, author of The Turn of the Screw and Daisy Miller uses somewhat of a superficial approach in using youth and beauty, in order to institute innocence. This is the basis for conflict in the ...

In London, England, the well-known artist Basil Hallward becomes obsessed with the beauty of a wealthy young gentleman, Dorian Gray. He paints Dorian's portrait, and introduces him to Lord Henry Wotton, a clever nobleman who enjoys embracing the sensibilities of his friends by advocating selfishness...

Abstract John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland in (1945). He is a novelist of ambition who cherished all works of literature of high imagination as well as craft and experimentation. He turned to literature itself as a source of imagination and aspiration for his fiction. Banville's nove...

In The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, the black clothing worn by the ghosts of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel foreshadows evil and darkness throughout the novel. Throughout the novel, James creates a character that is "in the dark." The phrase "in the dark" means to be without knowledge. The cha...

EDITH WHARTON Edith Wharton was born as Edith Newbold Jones in an aristocratic family in the city of New York. Wharton had no formal education but she was privileged enough to use her father's library and was privately educated at home by governesses and tutors. She was expected to learn the...

Graham Greene Who was a drunk in college who attempted suicide several times just to pass the time? Graham Greene, a 20th century writer, is considered to be one of the most important Roman Catholic writers of espionage and other fiction. In the following paragraphs I will discuss Greene's...

Under the pen name of Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens mocks the British monarchy under the facade of a child's fairytale. He dedicates his short novel to the young minds of adolescence, and yet it falls nothing short of a mature purpose. This converted American steamboat pilot constructs a novel dis...

In the past, critics have ad moralized and/or brutalized every writer they could get their pen on. This is seen from criticisms of Henry Adams to William Butler Yeats. These writers critique everything about the writer and his/her works. For instance many critics criticize Willa Cath...

In the great literary pieces of our time, content, depth of character development and uniqueness are the driving forces in creating a classic work; but in Hollywood, sex, famous Hollywood names, and big money making schemes dictate the development of a project. James Fenmore Cooper created the chara...

How Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey is the epitome of what is wrong with fiction, according to Samuel Johnson's Rambler No. 4. Fiction and its growing popularity during the mid-1700's was at the root of many problems within the literary community. It was a time of transition, the imp...

There are several suggestions that Imelda Whelehan gives on how to approach the study of adaptations in her article, "Adaptations: The Contemporary Dilemmas." Whelehan offers advice to students of the hybrid study of adaptations by encouraging them to look beyond the fidelity of the original text....

Having a strong heart like Elinor and a latent sense similar to Marianne, Jane Austen displayed her characteristics through her characters. Elinor and Marianne were two main characters that Jane Austen used to display her true character. Elinor is very devoted to her family and tries to do...

Knowing a solid, well-trusted confidant or confidante, provides every person or character the support that they need throughout life and oftentimes assist the individual in analyzing the situation and come to a well though out, viable conclusion. In Kate Chopin's groundbreaking feminist novel,...

Numerous feminist disciplines have shown that the interests of women in a patriarchal society are rarely taken into account. The traditional view of history, for example, is that it is the story of great political events; by contrast, feminist historians have tried to uncover evidence of women in th...

Knowing a solid, well-trusted confidant or confidante, provides every person or character the support that they need throughout life and oftentimes assist the individual in analyzing the situation and come to a well though out, viable conclusion. In Kate Chopin's groundbreaking feminist novel,...