Literary Analysis of Robert Frost's Poem "The Road Not Taken"

The Road Not Taken can be read against a literary and pictorial tradition that might be called "The Choice of the Two Paths, " reaching not only back to the Gospels and beyond them to the Greeks but to ancient English verse as well. In Reson and Sensuallyte, for example, John Lydgate explains how he dreamt that Dame Nature had offered him the choice between the Road of Reason and the Road of

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Early European Response to Early America / New World

Foreword: The essay focuses on early American life beginning from the colonial period to the year 1800. It examines and evaluates the early European response to the New World/Early America, including response to the land itself and the natives. The essay takes a critical look at various prevailing ideas related with politics, slavery, religion and the role of women in the said period of time -

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Critical Literary Analysis of Wallace Stevens' "Sunday Morning"

"Sunday Morning" offers one of Stevens's first substitutes for Christianity: natural religion, or paganism. Stevens said very little about this poem after writing it, other than to note in 1928 that "the poem is simply an expression of paganism" and later, in 1944, to indicate that Hi Simons was correct in assuming that the poem suggests "a naturalistic religion as a substitute for

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Critical Analysis of Robert Frost's "Birches"

"Birches" (“Mountain Interval”, 1916) does not center on a regularly encountered and revealing natural scene; rather, it effectively builds a mosaic of thoughts from fragments of memory and fantasy. Its vividness and genial, bittersweet speculation help make it one of Frost's most popular poems, and because its shifts of metaphor and tone invite varying interpretation it has also received much

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Kids and ADHD

Editor's Note: The following essay explodes the myths about ADHD kids and critically analyzes the way such children are erroneously looked upon and treated. It debunks the dangerous way these innocent children are being administered harmful medicines without thinking twice about the serious consequences and side-effects. The article underlines the urgent need for a complete overhaul in the

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Baseball Players with ADHD

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, often called ADD or ADHD, is a medical term that refers to people with problems related with inattention, impulsivity, hyperactivity and boredom. It is a neurological based medical condition and doesn’t point to willful defiance. The percentage of the general population with ADHD is estimated at 6%, with boys being three times more prone to this ailment

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Robert Frost: Critical Analysis of "Neither Out Far Nor in Deep"

Robert Frost's mysterious little lyric "Neither Out Far nor in Deep" remains as elusive as "the truth" that is so relentlessly pursued in the poem itself. This cryptic poem is very much "about" this search for truth, and scholars, for the most part, persistently maintain that such effort is both necessary and noble, adding slowly but inexorably to the storehouse of human knowledge. Suggestive

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Literary Analysis of Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"

Critics feel that ‘Woods’ by no means the most psychologically rich poem Frost ever wrote, yet in its elegance it has no match. Perhaps the first thing that the reader notices is that the poem is an interior monologue. The first line establishes the tone of a person musing quietly to himself on the situation before him: "Whose woods these are I think I know." He pauses here on "the darkest

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Robert Frost: A Critical Analysis of 'Mending Wall'

Editor's Note: The following essay critically evaluates Robert Frost's famous poem "Mending Wall" and describes how "Mending Wall' is much more than mere annual ritual of repairing a wall that routinely gives in to the onslaught of severe winter and ice."Mending Wall"' is the opening poem of Frost's second volume, North of Boston. "Mending Wall" dramatizes the emancipating imagination in its

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A Psychoanalytical Interpretation of The Catcher in the Rye

Editor's Note: The following treatise presents an Adlerian psychoanalytical interpretation of the J.D. Salinger’s play 'The Catcher in the Rye'. It attempts to demonstrate the neurotic behavior of Holden Caulfield along with his aim for social superiority. It also takes into account the factors influencing the feelings of inferiority in him. "The great authors succeed in creating their

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Walt Whitman: The Poet Electric

The Electric WhitmanOn March 5, 1842, a twenty-two-year-old reporter for the New York Aurora attended Ralph Waldo Emerson's well-traveled lecture, "The Poet." The journalist, Walt Whitman, praised the speech, calling it "one of the richest and most beautiful compositions ... we have heard anywhere, at any time." When Emerson expanded and published the lecture as an essay in 1844, Whitman pored

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G.B. Shaw’s Saint Joan as a Tragedy

"This shows how dangerous it is to be too good," is Shaw's legendary comment on the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Undoubtedly, the same can be said of Joan of Arc.In his detailed Preface to St. Joan, Shaw argues that "an irresistible force" in Joan met "an immovable obstacle" in the Church and "developed the heat that consumed poor Joan." Further, he states that he has tried to maintain his

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Walt Whitman: Science and Mysticism

Walt Whitman was the first important American poet to extol science. In 1855, when the first edition of Leaves of Grass, his epochal volume, came out, the Romantic aversion to science still chafed poetic sensibilities. Through its invasive procedures, the standard indictment read, science violated Nature's pristine wholeness, disfiguring the beauty of natural forms. "We murder to dissect," carped

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An Analysis of Whitman as a Poet

Somewhere in the beginning of our histories of Philosophy, a thinker had announced that the World was a 'Becoming'. That intuition was left to the philosophers until Walt Whitman arrived. And with Whitman the 'Becoming' seems not only to be realized, but to be participated in. All is urge in his poetry. His rhythms flow and break like waves. His stanza have not the measure that belongs to the

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"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking": A Critical Appreciation and Analysis

First published as “A Word Out of the Sea” in the 1860 edition of his collection Leaves of Grass and later published in the 1871 version using the final title. This long poem, one of the most powerful in the collection, is written in lyrical free verse. A boy stands by the seashore at night listening to the song of a mockingbird mourning for his mate; at the same time he listens to the death song

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"Restless Explorations": Whitman's Evolving Spiritual Vision in “Leaves of Grass”

Editor's Note: The following essay deliberates upon the element of spirituality that pervades Whitman's poetry and examines how the poet sends across the message of spirituality, transcendentalism and mysticism in more than one ways through his poems. His quest for the unknown and the ultimate emphasis on the need for soul's embrace of the unknown over the known forms the bedrock of this

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Detailed Biography and Introduction to Walt Whitman

Family Origins Walt Whitman, arguably America's most influential and innovative poet, was born into a working class family in West Hills, New York, a village near Hempstead, Long Island, on May 31, 1819, just thirty years after George Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the newly formed United States. Walt Whitman was named after his father, a carpenter and farmer who was 34

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Tennessee Gun Law Divides Opinion

Editor's Note: In the BBC article that follows, James Coomarasamy brings to light the sharp division in opinion on the issue of gun control.Following a recent series of high-profile shooting incidents in the United States, the southern state of Tennessee is changing its gun laws this week.It is relaxing them.If a last-minute legal challenge fails, from Tuesday, gun owners in the state will be

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The Burning Carousel and the Carnivalesque: Subversion and Transcendence at the Close of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’

Editor's Note: In this treatise of significant value, Yasuhiro Takeuchi examines the merits of "The Catcher in the Rye" beyond contemporary assessments of the novel's political/cultural relevance. and as a literary document that epitomises a bold revolt against all fixed values. Takeuchi explores the carnivalesque aspect of the novel, which is fundamental to its import and value. Carnivalesque is

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The Catcher in the Rye: Allie Caulfield's Death and Holden

Editor’s Note: In the following essay Edwin Haviland Miller draws attention to Holden's conflict with his brother's death as a principal theme in The Catcher in the Rye. There is nothing denying the fact that Allie Caulfield’s death did bring a noticeable change in Holden Caulfield’s life. Although J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye deserves the affection and accolades it has received since

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The Catcher in the Rye and All: Is the Age of Formative Books Over?

Editor’s Note: In the following treatise Sanford Pinkster reflects upon the enduring popularity and cultural significance of J. D. Salinger The Catcher in the Rye and speaks on the role of formative adolescent novels in contemporary American literature. Pinkster draws some satisfaction from the fact that Holden Caulfield still has an honored place in the minds of what might well be the last

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Research: How Can We Possibly Save the Environment ?

The following essay essentially deals with environmentalists’ concern about the future of planet earth and how it can possibly be saved from further ruin. It particularly examines this vital issue of paramount importance in the light of two prominent essays on the subject; one, Bliese’s essay ‘Traditionalist Conservatism and Environmental Ethics’ and the other Anderson & Leal’s treatise ‘Free

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J.D. Salinger: Detailed Introduction and Biography

Editor's Note: The web is awash with numerous biographies and introductions to Jerome David Salinger but none comes close enough to the following introduction. It touches upon almost all facets of Salinger's life and works and going through it is a rewarding experience indeed, greatly helping the reader to understand Salinger and his chief work The Catcher in the Rye on a better

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The Literary Significance of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye

Editor’s Note: A lot has been said and discussed about the literary quality of The Catcher in the Rye over the years. Despite its huge popularity, some find it to be of no or little literary significance. These detractor’s of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye dub the novel s as sheer trash, calling it downright vulgar, corrupting and immoral. They have been vociferously clamoring for its

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Literary Criticism: Reviewers, Critics, and The Catcher in the Rye

Editor’s Note: The following article by Carol and Richard Ohmann kicked up a literary storm of sorts over J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and provoked prominent writers and critics like James E. Miller Jr. to respond vehemently. In this oft quoted masterpiece Carol and Richard Ohmann offer a detailed Marxist analysis of how capitalist social and economic strategies influence the

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Catcher In and Out of History

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