Literary theory or literary criticism can be hard to understand at the best of times. It’s frequently written in complex language, and addresses some of the most complex and challenging ideas around. So how do you even get started with this field? The best place to begin with literary theory is with glossaries, introductions to … Read more
The nine best Gothic writers are Radcliffe, Shelley, Brontë, Wilde, Dickens, Poe, Rossetti, Coleridge, and Byron. If you seek a greater understanding of the tropes of this genre, these writers are the place to start. If you find pleasure in the haunted, and the macabre, then these titans are sure to thrill and delight. Gothic … Read more
The 12 best innovative, experimental, and avant-garde writers of all time are Folarin, Kandasamy, Wallace, Calvino, Stein, Ginsberg, Baker, Brecht, Jarry, Wachowski, Kaufman, and Nolan. These writers expressed themselves in novels, plays, poems, and via screenplays. Innovation began when words were first committed to paper, and that tradition continues as strongly as ever today! The … Read more
Science fiction is worth reading because of the extraordinary creative works that exist in this genre, and the talented writers who compose science fiction including Orwell, Card, Adams, Verne, Asimov, Gaiman, Herbert, Le Guin, Bradbury, and Wells. Below we examine the works of each of these authors, and consider whether science fiction is worth reading … Read more
The 10 best absurdist writers are Camus, Kōbō Abe, Stoppard, Beckett, Pinter, Albee, Ionesco, Kafka, Vonnegut, and Heller. Absurdism is a philosophy which has roots in the philosophy of Existentialism: both address questions related to the meaning of life. Where Existentialism offers modes of meaning, Absurdism proposes life is … absurd! This is symbolized most famously … Read more
The Age of Sensibility is the period in British literature which sits between and 1745 and 1798. The greatest Age of Sensibility writers are Burney, Johnson, Sheridan, Goodsmith, and Sterne. They were titans in their own time and still influential and enjoyed today! Sensibility refers to the ability to appreciate and understand emotions: in this … Read more
Akira Toriyama is one of the most popular and commercially successful manga artists. He’s a down to earth guy, apparently regularly getting reprimanded for turning up late and dressing casually at his first job, in advertising. He was blown away by several animated series he viewed as a child, and although determined to do something … Read more
The best pastoral writers of all time are Brontë, Ovid, Virgil, Hesiod, Horace, Theocritus, Orwell, McCarthy, Hardy, Shakespeare, Jonson, Fletcher, and Tasso, Spenser, Milton. The pastoral genre can be traced to Ancient Greece (over two thousand five hundred years ago!), and pastoral characters often have Greek names which gesture to this lineage. So, what is pastoral … Read more
When you play a video game, do you find the detail, depth and originality of the story has the greatest effect upon your experience? You’re not alone. Let’s take a look at the writers who have given us some of the most memorable video game stories and characters of all time. The five best video … Read more
Description offers an excellent place for budding writers to start, but the art of writing description well can be more difficult than anticipated. It takes a lot of skill and nuance to capture different characters and settings accurately through language, and to craft descriptions your readers visualize, remember and long to revisit. The best descriptive … Read more