Americká literatura
McKay, Claude. "Harlem Shadows".
Summary
The speaker describes a night in Harlem which is marked by the footsteps of black girls prowling from street to street. Their "little gray feet" cross the streets all the night. The speaker observes...
>>
———
McKay, Claude. "I Shall Return".
Summary
The speaker announces that he shall return again to enjoy the natural sceneries and the scenes of joyful people. Motifs of colour wind throughout the whole poem: the noon is golden, the forest fires...
>>
———
McKay, Claude. "If We Must Die".
Summary
The speaker announces that "if we must die", we should not die ingloriously like hogs hunted by barking dogs. He urges to die "nobly", not to die in vain, but to die in such a brave way, that even our...
>>
———
Melville, Herman. "Bartleby, The Scrivener".
Characters
The Narrator
- a man not far from sixty, an unambitious lawyer in the office of a Master in Chancery
- his employees are known by their nicknames
Turkey
- a man not far from sixty, an Englishman
-...
>>
———
Melville, Herman. "Billy in the Darbies".
Summary and Analysis
The poem gave rise to Melville's novella Billy Budd, Sailor which explains the background of the poem. The poem's speaker is Billy, the poem is concerned with his hanging. Similarly as the...
>>
———
Melville, Herman. "John Marr and Other Sailors".
Summary
The speaker addresses the sailors whose fellow he used to be a long time ago, but the sailors remain silent. He recalls the times when they were "taking things as they fated merely". The memories are...
>>
———
Melville, Herman. "The Maldive Shark".
Summary
A shark is described in two contrary ways. On one hand, the shark is phlegmatic, lethargic, with dull eyes and brains. On the other hand, it is also ghastly, predatory, ready to devour anything.
Little...
>>
———
Melville, Herman. "The Man-of-War Hawk".
Summary
The brief poem describes and follows the motion of the man's-of-war black hawk above the black ship on the white sky. The speaker asks in a rhetorical way whether "we" have wings to approximate the...
>>
———
Melville, Herman. "Tom Deadlight".
Summary
The poem has a prosaic introduction which explains the situation. A petty officer is dying, watched by his two messmates, and fanned in his fever by one of them. What follows are bits of phrases and...
>>
———
Melville, Herman. Billy Budd, Sailor.
Introduction
(by Frederick Busch)
- a classic confrontation between good and evil: an innocent young man is unable to defend himself against a wrongful accusation
- originally written as a headnote to...
>>
———
Miller, Arthur. The Crucible.
Historical Background
Salem Witch Trials
Several factors are thought to have contributed to the outbreak of the trials:
1. Political instability: The Glorious Revolution of 1689 deposed King James II and...
>>
———
Miller, Henry. "A Saturday Afternoon".
Note
This is an individual chapter from Miller's novel Black Spring.
Summary
Motto: "This is better than reading Vergil."
Paris. Saturday afternoon. The first person narrator has a sense of being home and is...
>>
———
Moore, Marianne. "Poetry".
Summary
The speaker expresses her attitude to and her view of poetry. She claims she dislikes poetry, but when it is read with perfect contempt, one can discover there is a place for something genuine. She...
>>
———
Moore, Marianne. "The Mind Is an Enchanting Thing".
Summary
The speaker celebrates the mind and compares its chants to the forms of exotic animals or to a favourite piece of music. She likens the mind to the play of sun on the wings of a katydid, to the...
>>
———
Moore, Marianne. "The Past Is the Present".
Summary
The speaker reacts on the claim of a minor Old Testament prophet who says that the rhyme as well as "external action" in poetry are old-fashioned. She says that she will follow his words as well as the...
>>