Hello again fellow prose-lovers, play enthusiasts and partners in rhyme (sorry, I had to use that pun once it came to mind). Since I last posted, the weeks have flown by and I am already in the penultimate week of my first term. Surreal! Those that have followed my journey to the University of Oxford…
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I’m back! I missed writing on this blog, but over these first few weeks of university I’ve gotten up to plenty of (essay) writing for my course tutors which will make my writing here much more worth reading. So, you might know that one of the things that makes the English course at Oxford stand…
Read MoreReading Literature is more than just a question of books; it’s a question of our worldview, our endless mental assumptions. This post is an attempt at becoming conscious of my own Achilles heel – black and white thinking.
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Why should I be spending my summer holidays reading Terry Eagleton’s ‘Introduction to Literary Theory’? The unglamorous reason, of course, is to acclimatise myself to the looming rigours of studying English at university. Another reason is anxiety: count yourself lucky if you can sit in one place without your mind running wild. Mine, meanwhile, needs…
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One more exam, and then the freedom to write blog posts beckons! (can you tell that I snatched some time for this one between French revision sessions?). So, let’s talk ‘Vile Bodies’ by Evelyn Waugh. It sounds like an apt name for secondary examination organisations. It is in fact a comedy, and the satirical type.…
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‘Mirror’ appears like a relatively simple poem. However, in no way does it lack depth: narrated from the point of view of a personified mirror, we witness the coming and going of a woman who looks in and reacts bitterly to what she sees. What I found most stunning about this poem were the contrasts.…
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A pot of basil, two lovers and a tragedy. It’s a plot that will always sound like you’ve heard it before (save for the pot of basil.) This week, read my take on the tragic Romantic-era poem ‘Isabella’ by Keats.
Read MoreIt is rare to find that one book on my reading list leads so effortlessly into the next one, but no sooner had I emerged from Hawthorne’s ‘The Scarlet Letter’ did I stumble upon ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ by Jhumpa Lahiri, opening with this vivid epigraph (above). Long having claimed her place on my ‘Favourite Authors’ shelf, Lahiri brings her skill with the short story form to a life of travel and rootlessness.
Read MoreNathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter delves into one woman’s journey through guilt, temptation and societal humiliation. Set in a Puritan New England settlement, a young woman named Hester Prynne has been condemned to wear a ‘scarlet letter’ to shame her for having a child out of wedlock. Her husband, a traveler who is usually abroad,…
Read More“What had gone wrong with these first descendants of the first great ocean crossing experiment? Was there not a substantial garden area, regular meals, clean clothes from Marks ‘n’ Sparks, A class top-notch education?” These are the telling words of White Teeth by Zadie Smith. It’s not only a riotous panorama of multicultural England, but…
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