Essays on Ezra Pound

Literature: Big Two-Hearted River part I and II

‘Big Two-Hearted River’, a short story by American writer Ernest Hemingway, consisting of two parts, was firstly published in 1925, in the ‘In our time’ edition, which appeared to be the first American collection of his short stories. Simple on the surface, the plot, however, hides a complicated story of the process of healing through the contact and blending with the nature, the main motive force in the narration.

The story describes a soldier, Nick Adams, who having returned to his native place, after suffering the post-traumatic stress syndrome from the World War I, finds courage and strength to ...

English

Li Bai, One of the World’s Greatest Poets In the greater scheme of things, it’s very rare that a poet is published in multiple languages. We may hear of it a lot, especially if you study poetry, but it’s usually the same group of names, from roughly the same time periods; a select hundred or so poets from the last couple centuries. They come primarily from the Western Hemisphere, and primarily in the Western Hemisphere their poetry remains, no matter how great it is. I know it’s great, because I’ve gotten to experience it now that ...

1. James Weldon Johnson “The Creation” Johnson’s poem “The Creation” describes the creation of the world and humanity. However, it differs slightly from the ‘classical’ description of the story. Judeo-Christian concept of God regards God as an omnipotent and infallible superhuman. Creation of the world was deliberate and the meaning of each item created is described, “And God said, ‘Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.’”; “Then God said, ‘Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their ...

The terms modernism and modernity have presented a lot of ambiguity in the literature world. Modernism refers to the reactions people had to modernity. Modernity symbolizes the changes that came about in the world in the 19th century. Most of the major changes that came to the world happened in the years 1890-1960 the period from the occurrence of the First World War to the Second World War (Haferkamp and Smelser 26). The First World War brought about major change in chemical weaponry, rise of wireless communication, machine guns, aircraft and armored vehicles among other changes. The First World War ...

The years of James Joyce's life mark major transitions in world history, as well as in world culture. When he was born, in 1882, the worldwide transition from an agrarian way of life to the industrial paradigm was still in fits and starts. Wars were still fought hand-to-hand and on horseback. Literature was still primarily a mostly straightforward affair, as were the visual arts. Matters of perspective, the bailiwick of the modernist artists, were still yet to be the matter of much experimentation. However, the arrival of the Impressionist painters began to erode a unified perspective by considering how subjects might ...

The influence of the western culture on the history of the world is an undeniable fact. The concept can be used to describe modernist movement in the arts, the different cultural tendencies and cultural movements associated with it. The factors that are considered to have favored modernism include rapid growth of cities and development of industrial societies, and honor of the First World War (Stangos 23 – 45). While the ore modernist period is characterized by a sense of order and stability, with deep understanding of the nature of faith, personal and cultural identity, and social values, the modernistic period presents a ...

E E Cummings is probably one of the finest poets of the 20th Century with an all-encompassing view of life that portrayed the American tradition yet he was also a realist in the sense that he viewed old age and decay as important elements of his poetry. His vast corpus of work numbers over 2,200 poems and he was also a painter this bringing an element of visual imagery into his writings. In ‘Old Age Sticks’ we are faced with the dilemma of ageing and remaining relevant in today’s society. The poem is also originally structured and almost consists ...

Bob Dylan’s song’s Desolation Road is dense with allusions to mythical, fictional and historical subjects. When a reporter asked Dylan where desolation row was located he was told, “Oh, that's some place in Mexico, it's across the border.” We’ll start with the allusion to, “Ophelia” who is a tragic character from Shakespeare’s hamlet. The reason she is simply tragic instead of a tragic heroine, is because instead of overcoming her weaknesses and overcome her adversaries, she crumbles into insanity. That fits in with mold of the song. T The song establishes the theme with when Dylan ...