In his plays, Shakespeare reveals a double view of life by repeatedly juxtaposing a representation of the comic spirit with the tragic protagonist. In the idiom of Shakespeare's world, heroic characters often embarrass or destroy themselves by confusing appearance with reality. Then, the comic characters or "mad men," functioning as…

This paper discusses a contemporary literary movement, "New Nonfiction." New Nonfiction is described as a reaction against the hermeticism of the modern novel, the abstractions of historical scholarship, and the impersonal, sensational, and formulaic reports of the mass media. It is a written narrative that connects private sensibility with public…

Intended for college students and teachers of English literature, this paper examines the lives and works of three great medieval Anglo-Saxon priestly scholars whose Latin writings have preserved the Anglo-Saxon roots of the English language. The paper first describes the works of Aldhelm, born in 650 A.D., whose poetry was not in the Latin…

This collection, containing essays by contemporary critics, analyzes such aspects of the novel as structure, history, point of view, techniques, and its future. Included are "What is Exposition?" by Meir Sternberg; "Notes Toward a Comic Fiction" by Robert B. Martin; "The Aesthetics of the Supra-Novel" by Irving H.…