Literary Criticism – Interesting Literature

A Summary and Analysis of Jorge Luis Borges’ ‘The House of Asterion’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The House of Asterion’ is one of the shortest stories by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986). Even by his usual standards – many of his best-known stories stretch to only a few pages – it is a shorter tale among his oeuvre, running to just three pages in most editions. Published in 1947, the story is a kind of riddle where the narrator, Asterion, is revealed to be the Minotaur from the famous Greek myth. Borges reportedly wrote the story in just two days.

A Summary and Analysis of Ambrose Bierce’s ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’ is a classic example of the American short story. Its author, Ambrose Bierce, was himself a fascinating figure, who is also remembered for his witty The Devil’s Dictionary and for his mysterious disappearance in around 1914.

Published by The San Francisco Examiner in 1890, ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’ was reprinted in Bierce’s Tales of Soldiers and Civilians the following year. You can read ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’ here before proceeding to our summary and analysis of Bierce’s story below.

A Summary and Analysis of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The 1955 play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is widely regarded as Tennessee Williams’s greatest play, and in it we find an echo of many of America’s main social and political preoccupations and struggles of the 1950s. But the way Williams taps into the national psyche at a particular point in US history is subtle, and requires closer analysis. Before we offer an analysis of the play, however, it might be worth recapping the plot of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

A Summary and Analysis of Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which had its premiere at the Edinburgh Festival in 1966, is one of the most famous plays by the Czech-born British playwright Tom Stoppard. Stoppard’s work has long been concerned with revisiting Shakespeare and offering a new take on his work; he even wrote the screenplay to the hugely successful 1998 film Shakespeare in Love.

A Short Analysis of the ‘Once More unto the Breach, Dear Friends’ Speech from Henry V

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more’ is the second most famous speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V, after Henry’s celebrated Crispin’s Day speech. This speech comes in Act 3 Scene 1 of the play, during the siege of Harfleur in Normandy, carried out by the real historical King Henry V in 1415 as part of the Hundred Years War.