Melodrama and its Criticism: An Essay in Memory of Sally Ledger Juliet John For a century, melodrama was virtually ignored by literary criticism. Its popular cultural status was anathema to the Arnoldian tradition dominating approaches to ‘Literature’ from Arnold’s day to that of his disciple, F. R. Leavis. Since the 1960s, however, the rise of Cultural Studies and the reaction against the humanist approach to literary study associated with Leavis has resulted in an increasing critical attention to melodrama. Indeed, such has been the upsurge of interest in the genre that a search of the MLA Bibliography for the term currently returns 1,151 entries. Having recently compiled the melodrama entry for the planned Oxford Online Bibliography of Victorian Literature, I am acutely aware of the prolific expansion in melodrama studies that has taken place in the last decade alone.
The interesting thing though that many people wouldn’t think, is that the themes in Shakespeare are, in fact quite common in our day to day lives. A large amount of teenagers would say the plays are too old and that the connection has been lost forever, especially through the complicated language, but this is not the case. It is quite the opposite! What do you see in Shakespeare’s plays? Jealousy, love, betrayal; are these themes not still apart of today’s society?
Undoubtedly, young-adult dystopian fiction is the face of today’s literary trend, as revealed by the overwhelming reception to books like The Hunger Games. Yet, as such, it has also gained as much condemnation as commendation. What most critics fail to realize is the purpose these novels are written: to let the youth — the leaders of the next generation — be critically aware of the real world problems as reflected by the models of dystopia. Dystopias, of course, are anything but new. In fact, because of the influence of many notable dystopian depictions, words like “Robot” (Karel Capek’s R. U. R., 1920), “Big Brother” (George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949) and now — with the influx of The Hunger Games phenomenon — “Capitol” already spawned over our modern Cornelio 2 vocabulary.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty When it comes to literature I bounce between comedy and drama, which do not reflect the types of movies I like to watch strangely. So when going through the different choices of literature, I found quite a lot that actually interested me. The one I chose however was “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” The author tied in not only a relationship that you could see every day between couples who have been together for quite some time, but exaggerated humor can be found within the story as well. This piece of literature was a great example of satire. Mrs. Mitty is characterized as a flat character in my opinion.
The Importance of Critically Thinking Freely The process of writing is different for everyone. Some people use outlines to clearly organize their thoughts and others just start writing and go wherever that takes them. Peter Elbow teaches how to relate these two writing styles by using first-order thinking and second-order thinking. For a piece to be interesting and well thought out, I believe that both styles should be incorporated. First-order thinking is creative and free.
Persuasive Essay Mark Twain even 100 years after his death has been the subject for many conversations around the world. Mark Twain’s book “Huckleberry Finn” is very controversial because of its racist language. Some people think changing racist language in old literature won’t hurt the book. I like Mark Twain’s quote “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter.” This is saying that changing the words in books to make it more comfortable for the reader isn’t right. It should stay the way the author intended it to be.
In the rather dramatic soliloquy, Doran cuts out almost half of the lines. He does this to get his point across fast, and easy. He knows that the works of Shakespeare are already hard to understand, especially for a younger audience, so he takes the most important lines and uses those. He keeps the attention of the audience and still is able to keep the Shakespearian feel to the play. Although the Shakespearian feel was definitely effected by having a very modern twist.
In my own opinion; the book was often difficult to understand at time because the wording was quite different than the vocabulary that we use today. I found the film adaptation to be much easier to follow but enjoyed the novel just as well. Despite the extended time period of over a century between the film and novel both begin using almost the same plot. The novel is off to a quick start that immediately gauges the readers attention to what is happening to Alice as she falls down a very deep rabbit hole. The author goes into great detail to describe all of the different pieces of furniture and object that the main character passes on her long journey to Wonderland (Carroll 1).
These authors do you a favor by retelling history that most people find more entertaining than reading about it in a history book. But if we believed that learning or knowing history does not benefit people, it would not be taught, and people will fall for the same
Popular Literature There is a series of books, much like the ever popular Happy Potter series or Twilight series, that is becoming the new must read book and must watch movie. The Hunger Games is a post-apocalyptic dystopian science fiction series written by Suzanne Collins. This is one of those can’t-put-it-down, what’s-going-to-happen-next reads. It has a unique twist of a story line, which the success of this series is probably attributed to. I was determined not to read the newest hype, but it turns out, it is one of the better books I have read in a while.