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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge, the most controversial of Hardy's works as it toes the line between Victorian and modernism literature.
As an author who lived to see both literary time settings, Hardy was often, criticized during his lifetime for combining elements of realism and fantastic coincidences. Moreover, The Mayor of Casterbrige was Hardy's attempt...
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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for selected works by William Golding, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983. Titles in this study guide include Lord of the Flies, The Inheritors, Pincher Martin, and Free Fall.
As a collection of novels, Golding's work offers commentary on modern society and the primitive behavior of people. Moreover, his stories are based in reality and include literary...
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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for selected works by Harold Pinter, receiver of the New York Critics' Antoinette Perry Award for Best Broadway Drama in 1967. Titles in this study guide include The Homecoming, The Comedies of Menace, The Birthday Party, The Dumb Waiter, A Slight Ache, The Caretaker, The Collection, The Lover, and other minor works.
As an author of mid-twentieth-century drama, Pinter...
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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for selected works by Aristophanes, is popularly, known as the Father of Comedy. Titles in this study guide include Plutus, The Ecclesiazusae, The Frogs, The Thesmophoriazusae, Lysistrata, The Birds, Peace, The Clouds, The Wasps, The Knights, and The Acharnians.
As a playwright of Old Comedy, his work, explores the limits of comedy. Moreover, his work was pivotal in the...
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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for George Meredith's The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, published in 1859 and regarded as his best work.
As a philosophical novel, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel tells the story of an abusive father and his son who fell in love with a girl of a lower social class. Moreover, Meredith uses intellectualism, satire, and poetry to explore human motive and rationalization....
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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for selected works by Aeschylus, the ancient greek playwright. Titles in this study guide include The Suppliant Maids, The Persians, The Oresteia, Seven Against Thebes, Prometheus Bound, The Eumenides, and The Libation Bearers.
As the world's first great dramatist, Aeschylus became, known as "the father of tragedy." Aeschylus greatly influenced Greek tragedies by expanding...
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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl, arguably one of the most powerful Holocaust memoirs of the World War II era.
As an historic account of World War II, Anne Frank's diary has provided a firsthand account of a life in hiding as a Jew in Nazi Germany. Moreover, the journal has kept alive the spirit of an exceptional young person whose thoughts have broadened the...
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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for Edward Everett Hale's The Man Without a Country, a short story written during the Civil War.
As a work of patriotic literature, The Man Without a Country bolstered support across the U.S. for the Union in the North. Moreover, Hale uses irony, mystery, and realism to tell the gripping story of a man who feels seemingly no patriotism or connection to his country...
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Yes, Chicagoland is an odd place. But, the word is out that Megan, Raf, and Raf's talking dog Bradley are the team to go to when weirder things than usual start happening. Their Chicagoland Detective Agency takes danger in hand (and paw) to find a mysteriously missing puppy and an even more mysterious pack of dogs that only shows up once a month. Bradley's nose knows from the start that this is more than a simple case of stray pets...and a whole,...
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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, with adaptations in film, radio, theatre, opera, and rock music.
As a work of 1869 historical fiction, War and Peace showcases a Russia before, during, and after the invasion by Napoleon. Moreover, Tolstoy writes of the glory of epic struggle, the horror of man-to-man combat, and the loveliness of peace. This Bright Notes Study Guide...
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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for Herman Melville's Moby Dick, deemed by author Raymond Weaver as "indisputably the greatest whaling novel."
As an 1851 tragic epic, Moby Dick tells the story of a captain's expedition to track down and seek revenge on a whale from the point of view of one of the sailors. Moreover, Melville uses allusion, simile, and metaphor to showcase themes such as revenge,...
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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for Dante's The Divine Comedy, a defining work of religious literature for the Renaissance time-period.
In Pilgrim's exploration through the Inferno, Purgatory, and Heaven, Dante takes readers on a religious journey of the soul as defined by the Renaissance era. In doing so, his work also displayed the dominant views of the culture and organized religion for that time-period....
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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, a book that pioneered the feminist science fiction movement.
As a science-fiction, fantasy novel of the mid to late 1900s, The Left Hand of Darkness explores androgyny, tragedy, and love. Moreover, Le Guin's writing shows that in fantasy, journeys into outer space are often metaphors for journeys inward. This Bright...
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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for Charles Dickens's Hard Times, a novel that brought to light the harsh conditions of factory workers during the nineteenth century.
As a novel set in nineteenth-century England, many lower class citizens worked factory jobs and were very poorly treated. Dickens comments on this treatment and the abuse of power regarding the wealthy. This Bright Notes Study Guide explores...
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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd, the publication attributed with Hardy's achievement of literary success.
As a novel of Victorian England, Far from the Madding Crowd tells the realities of living in the idyllic farming communities of southwest England. Moreover, Hardy is acknowledged for his use of Victorian and modern literary techniques with traditional...
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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, thought to be written as the author approached the middle of his career.
As a theatrical comedy of the late sixteenth century, Much Ado About Nothing poses the question of how love expresses itself. Moreover, it suggests to readers that people who get swept up into fits of passion do so because of everyday situations...
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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, an instant success across all popular media.
As an anti-war novel of the 1960s, Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse-Five as a double story, the main character suffers from the traumatic effects of war; the author struggles with the effects of war on both the character and the author. Moreover, his writing shows his belief that art is...
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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for selected works by Andre Gide, winner of the 1947 Nobel Prize in Literature. Titles in this study guide include The Immoralist, The Notebooks of Andre Walter, Urien's Travels, Strait Is The Gate, The Counterfeiters, The Pastoral Symphony, Isabelle, Robert and Genevieve, The Vatican Swindle, Fruits of the Earth, Prometheus Misbound, Corydon, and excerpts from his personal...
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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for selected works by Herbert Marcuse, a famous western philosopher. Titles in this study guide include A Critique of Pure Tolerance, An Essay on Liberation, Counterrevolution and Revolt, Eros and Civilization, and One Dimensional Man. As a sociologist, philosopher, and political theorist of the twentieth-century, his theories launched the New Left movement in the Western...
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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for selected works by Euripides, one of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived. Titles in this study guide include Rhesus, Iphigenia In Aulis, Bacchae, Phoenissae, Orestes, Electra, Trojan Women, Helen, Iphigenia In Tauris, Ion, Suppliants, Hecuba, Heracles, Cyclops, A Satyr-Play, Andromache, Heracleidae, Hippolytus, Medea, and Alcestis.
As a Greek...
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