"Shall I project a world?" (64). Page numbers are taken from this Harper Perennial edition. Is Thomas Pynchon's 1966 classic, The Crying of Lot 49, subtly a work of Existentialist fiction? It's more plausible than you think. In many ways, Oedipa Mass's search for truth throughout a Tristero-controlled Southern California represents her search for the... Continue Reading →
In his 2013 animated film The Garden of Words, Japanese director Makoto Shinkai explores the complex interpersonal relationship between Takao Akizuki, a fifteen-year-old high school student, and Yukari Yukino, a twenty-seven-year-old schoolteacher, in modern day Tokyo, Japan. Early in the film, Takao and Yukino are shown to be socially isolated from their peers and unsatisfied... Continue Reading →
As seen in his poems “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” and “The Second Coming,” Irish poet William Butler Yeats’ poetry became increasingly political as he grew older. Yeats’ early poetry, such as “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” published in 1890 when he was twenty-five, is reminiscent of the Romantic poets who preceded him, while his... Continue Reading →
Throughout history, civilizations have been largely defined by their practiced religions; religion often influences both the societal structure of a civilization and how it chooses to record its own history. By examining how the ancient poems The Epic of Gilgamesh and Beowulf reflect the religious ideologies of Sumerian and Anglo-Saxon civilizations, where the poems respectively... Continue Reading →
Oedipus the King, written by Greek philosopher and playwright Sophocles, remains one of the most extensively studied and performed plays in the western literary canon. Its story focuses on the plight of Oedipus, King of Thebes, whose cursed life afflicts him with many tribulations. Rather than acting solely as a source of entertainment for its... Continue Reading →
Valperga Literature Review 