"I sit between Gilles de Retz and the Marquis de Sade," Oscar Wilde writes to his lover Lord Alfred Douglas, known affectionately as "Bosie," from the solitude of his prison cell (54). The letter – given the title De ...
Ralph Ellison's multi-nuanced novel seems to veer continually between real and surreal planes, between mimesis and metaphor, without ever resting fully in either one. Ellison's most striking departures from verisimilitude ...
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte's 1847 novel, follows the protagonist, for whom the title is named, in a rags-to-riches bildungsroman told as an autobiography. Jane's new, distinctively personalized voice gave rise to the ...
Henry Perowne, the protagonist of Ian McEwan's novel, struggles with various forms of guilt as he attempts to have a relaxing Saturday. Despite Henry's job as a neurosurgeon, none of the guilt‐inducing situations that ...