Is ‘Jane Eyre’ guilty of upholding imperialist ideologies? — As a lover of literature, there is no greater delight for me than getting cosy beside a fire and enjoying the eloquent and poetic prose of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. A novel which I have always cherished lovingly at heart, its verses continue to grace and adorn my world. To…

Tips from Mortimer J. Adler’s classic guide to intelligent reading — How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Re... Read 2,704 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. How to Read a Book, originally published in 1940…www.goodreads.com “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” — Francis Bacon We’ve all (hopefully) read a book at some point in our lives. But do we know how to actually read a book properly?

Is E. M. Forster’s novel a tale of racial division or racial unity? — “Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.” — Edward Said As a novel set against the backdrop of the British Raj and its colonial rule in 1920 India…

What was Toomer’s vision of the African-American identity during the Jim Crow era? — “Night winds in Georgia are vagrant poets, whispering.” ― Jean Toomer Jean Toomer’s novel, Cane (1923), has been hailed as a revolutionary work of modernist literature by many modernist critics, particularly in its contribution to the Harlem Renaissance. Told through a series of creative vignettes — from poetry to prose…

Capitalism, Tradition and the Modernist Revolution — “Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.” — Virginia Woolf Literary movements born from the Age of Enlightenment dealt with the rational, observable world in their art. Much of…

How important is it to read works of literature within their literary and social contexts? — “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life” — Oscar Wilde The debate between Idealism, Romanticism and Realism during the 19th century was one that had divided the Arts up. Where Realists looked to the everyday for inspiration, Idealists looked to the spiritual and Romanticists looked towards the aesthetic.

How influential was the novelist’s voice in Victorian Britain’s justice system? — “Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.” — Charles Dickens Crime is a popular theme in Charles Dickens’ novels. From the Artful Dodger to old Magwitch, there’s certainly no shortage of convicts, criminals and villains in Dickensian London. Through his works, Dickens offered his…

A free-verse poem on Carl Jung’s Philosophy of ‘Individuation’ — I It is necessary for Man to become an individuated being. II Society thwarts him — thrusting him into situations which bring him into disharmony with his true Self. Alas, too much time spent in the society of others leads one to rely too heavily on a social mask that cripples the…

A poem in ode of literature — The world of literature is not a reality to be explained; rather, it is the explanation of reality. A book is like a painting — by which its artist fashions chaos into harmony. It is the song of the writer’s soul and a lens through which we might understand the world…