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Showing posts from July, 2016

Song: Go and catch a falling star (John Donne) Critical Appreciation

This poem by John Donne is simply titled "Song", but to distinguish it from the other songs and sonnets Donne wrote, it is often listed by its first line: "Goe and catch a falling starre." It falls within the category of poetry that most authorities term Donne's "love poems" or his "younger works," but there is no accurate way to determine when Donne wrote it. He did not publish during his lifetime (although his poems were often circulated in manuscript), so they are notoriously difficult to date. In the first stanza of the poem, Donne states a number of impossible tasks; he compares finding an honest woman to these tasks. He cleverly states that to find a woman who is honest in love is as difficult as it is to catch 'a falling star'. The impossible tasks also include conceiving a child with a mandrake plant, gaining full knowledge of the past, solving the mystery of thé Devil's cloven hoof (why is the Satan's

Norman Conquest

Introduction: The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 traditionally signifies the beginning of the domination of French in English. The name ‘Norman’ is basically a softened form of ‘Northman’. The Normans were originally the inhabitants of Scandinavia. At first they led their livelihood by plundering and adventuring in their Viking ships. Later they landed on the French coast and conquered the whole northern country and accepted the French ideals and spoke the French language. Slowly within a century they became the most polished and intellectual people in all Europe. In 1066 ‘The Battle of Hastings’ took place. William of Normandy became the conqueror defeating the last Anglo-Saxon king Harold II of Wessex, and it is truly said “The Norman conquest brought England more than a change of rulers”. William's claim to the English throne derived from his familial relationship with the childless Anglo-Saxon King Edward the Confessor, who may have encouraged William's hopes for

A list of Allusions in Macbeth.

What is Allusion? A n allusion is a covert, implied, or indirect reference; a passing or incidental reference to some piece of knowledge not  explicitly  mentioned. Allusions usually come from a body of information that the author presumes the reader will know. 1. Battle of Golgotha (1,2): A biblical reference to Christ's death upon Mount Calvary, as reported in Matthew 27.33: "And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull."     Shakespeare's Captain tells King Duncan that Macbeth's army was so violent and remorseless that he wonders if they were taking delight in the "reeking wounds" of their foe, or trying to make their outrageously bloody battlefield as famous as the most famous place of the skull, Golgotha. 2. Rape of Lucrece (2,1): "...thus with his stealthy pace, with Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design moves like a ghost." Sextus Tarquin, son of Tarquinius Superbu