“Dubliners” is a collection of fifteen short stories written by James Joyce in which the author analyses the failure of self-realisation of inhabitants of Dublin in biographical and in psychological ways. The novel was originally turned down by publishers because they considered it immoral for its portrait of the Irish city. Joyce treats in “Dubliners” the paralysis of will in four stages: childhood, youth, maturity and public life. The paralysis of will is the courage and self-knowledge that leads ordinary men and women to accept the limitations imposed by the social context they live in. In “Dubliners” the style is both realistic - to the degree of perfectly recreating characters and idioms of contemporary Dublin - and symbolic – giving the common object unforeseen depth and a new meaning in order to show a new view of reality. Joyce defines this effect “epiphany” which indicates that moment when a simple fact suddenly explodes with meaning and makes a person realise his / her condi
John Milton was born into a Protestant family in London.
He went to St. Paul's School then to Cambridge where he took his Master of Arts degree in 1632.
He was in Italy in 1639 before the Civil war broke out.
He returned to England to support the Puritan cause and in 1649 became Latin secretary to the Cromwell's Council of State.
With the fall of the Commonwealth, Milton retired from public life and wrote the greatest epic poem of the Renaissance: Paradise lost.
This poem is based on the biblical story of the temptation of Adam and Eve by the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
In this poem there is a fusion of classical themes and Christian doctrine, according to the Humanism.
Paradise lost was written "to justify the ways of God to men", in order to make clear in their justness.
Milton admires man's free will, but he criticizes one of the biggest man's sins : the pride.
In fact, it's this sin that causes Satan's fall.
The author analyses, through soliloquies, the behaviour of several characters.
Milton gives Satan the rhetorical voice of a leader who has lost everything, except his self-esteem.
For this reason, according to Romantics, he is considered a dark solitary hero.
Some of Milton's prose writings had a direct relation to his life such as The doctrine and discipline of divorce.
Other works treat political events such as the introduction of book censorship in England in Areopagitica.
He died in 1674.
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