The Once and Future King

what it was like to live in the days when there were kings and queens. Was it all peace and happiness? Or did it consist of tension and evil? In Scotland in the year of 1606, Shakespeare showed that situations can go from good too bad in a matter of minutes in his drama "The Tragedy of Macbeth." As the title does speak for itself, the main character is Macbeth. Macbeth has a conflict when he has to decide what is best for him, how will he become king; and what will the consequences be. The…

robbed of his life by those accursed Southerners. Our king, our friend, our fearless general, Robb Stark, first of his name, headed our revolution against the corrupted, false king who sits on his pretty throne down in the rat’s nest of King’s Landing. Robb Stark was a brave man, who did not deserve to die at such a young age, because he reminded the South that the North was not to be trifled with, and was a good, honest king to his people. The king in the North lived for the North and died for…

Macbeth is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy, and tells the story of a brave Scottish general named Macbeth who receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that in some unspecified time in the future he can become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the throne for himself. In Macbeth, William Shakespeare usually talks concerning and offers imagery on darkness. Darkness is invariably related to evil and to a precise extent…

Arthur Schopenhauer once said, “Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.” In Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Macbeth is a middle-aged man who wants nothing more than to be the king of Scotland. With this yearning for power comes the problem of how to obtain it. Was it fate that controlled Macbeth or his own free will? Free will is a free and independent choice while fate is the development of events beyond a person’s control. Macbeth is not a helpless victim of fate, he was in…

The Meanings Behind The Once and Future King The famous tale of King Arthur was widely known as one of the most iconic stories ever told, and set a standard for modern storytelling. Since the original iteration, there have been many adaptations of King Arthur where authors have created new and unique elements of their own in an attempt to enliven the original story. An example of one such novel is titled The Once and Future King by T.H. White which features several interesting and insightful…

Gandhi once said “no two leaves are alike, yet there is no antagonism between them or between the branches they grow on.” In Martin Luther King Jr's “I have a Dream” speech, he preaches his wishes for the future of the United States of America. King's speech has left a lasting impact on the people of America, and still to this day, is one of the most well known speeches in history. In his speech he discusses the lack of equality in this country and how many are discriminated based upon the color…

As Anna Akhmatova is the Queen of Russian poetry, I found it most appropriate to pick the first poetic analysis to be of The Gray-Eyed King. Hardly anyone contests Akhmatova’s wide influence on all of poetry throughout Eastern Europe (and beyond); each of the Greats after her (Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, Mayakovsky, Brodsky) have cited her as an influence on their poems. In terms of poetic influence, I wish to then descend the poetic “family line.” While Akhmatova is clearly the poetic…

the future. Teiresias who is the blind prophet, present the truth to King Oedipus and his wife Jocasta. Oedipus has been blind to the truth all his life. And Jocasta is also blind to the true identity of her king. The difference between blindness and seeing is how King Oedipus and Jocasta a blind to the truth of how Oedipus has become king and the prophecy that was place upon him as a child has shown its fate. And seeing refers to the prophet who doesn’t have sight, but can see into the future…

Baptist minister and civil rights activist, Martin Luther King Jr., in his speech, “I Have a Dream,” asserts that African Americans did not have the freedom to exercise the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness granted to them by the constitution because of abhorrent racism. King supports his claim by illustrating the deplorable discrimination black people faced through the use of metaphorical language. He also employs anaphora to suggest that a united front, united…

White’s The Once and Future King, and William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. The characters in these literary works often perform deeds and services to either earn or maintain honor or respect of their peers or family members. The majority of these works tends to center around the honor associated with monarchies or factors of royalty. Stories such as The Once and Future King and Henry IV: Part One are directly associated with boys who must find honor before they assume their role as king…