... .66 The next story of this era is a bit different for it is not outright supernatural, but the whole mood of the work gives off an eerie feeling. It is Moby Dick by Herman Melville. H.P. Lovecraft, a horror writer, once wrote that the test if a story is truly unearthly and strange is "simply whether or not there be excited in the reader a profound ... sense of dread, of contact with unknown spheres and powers" beyond the mortal realm.67 If this true, then Moby Dick passes the test. Melville speaks of "forbidden seas,"68 prophetic events, and a white whale of immense size and strange powe...

• Word Count: 3126
• Approx Pages: 13
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

The literary creed of Aestheticism was much in fashion at the times of Oscar Wilde and he fully embraced its philosophy of the central importance of art in life. The Aesthetic Movement encompassed the visual arts,the decorative arts and literature. "Art for art's sake implies the autonomy of art and artist, the rejection of didactic aim and the refusal to subject art to moral or social judgements"(Tindall 5).Art should have no spiritual meaning or message. "A work of art should be judged by beauty alone."(Tindall 7) Basil Hallaward speaks about an abstract art in "The Picture of Dorian Gray":"...

• Word Count: 3731
• Approx Pages: 15
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... the archetypal "evil genius": the highly gifted but ultimately degenerate individual whose fall is the stuff of legend. Kurtz is related to figures like Faustus, Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost,Moby-Dick's Ahab, and Wuthering Heights's Heathcliff. Like these characters, he is significant both for his style and eloquence and for his grandiose, almost megalomaniacal scheming. In a world of mundanely malicious men ... ...

• Word Count: 3088
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: Undergraduate