John Donne Essays (Examples)

The Holy Sonnet 'Death be not Proud' (Complete Poetry 283-4) seems to show Donne's mind grappling anew with the reality of death in the wake of his wife's demise. The form of the poem gives an impression of thinking aloud, as if the reader overhears the poet's thoughts as he engages directly with death in an attempt both to cut it down to size and to understand its true nature - by such understanding, Donne's words strongly imply, fear of death will be banished, for death will be seen in its true colors as a place of passage from one, unsatisfactory, existence, to another, equally real but more complete and joyful. The opening lines reflect the fact that Donne himself has been among those who have been in awe of death: 'Death be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful...'. Donne immediately argues against that perception,…

John Donne's "The Canonization" begins relatively simply, as a familiar lyrical ode to his mistress. Gradually it deepens in meaning while approaching the final verses, where Donne reveals the true complexity of his vision of love. "The Canonization" is undoubtedly still a love poem; it revels in theatrical descriptions of the love he and his beloved share. ut there are also many layers of meaning and irony behind the words he chooses to express his feelings. "The Canonization" is brimming with powerful imagery and symbols, witty jabs at other poets and Elizabethan English society, and a playfully blasphemous attitude toward religion. Although Donne was ordained as a priest and therefore was presumably quite religious, many of his poetic works demonstrate his questioning of society's deemed superiority of religious love over romantic love. His love poetry often contains naturalistic, vivid bodily and sexual imagery that subverts traditional Petrarchan metaphors for love.…

She is to remain quiet and calm, trusting the necessity and inevitability of the speaker's leaving.

The second and third strong images in the poem concern the love connection between the couple. The poet uses gold as a metaphor for the pliability and expanding properties of the couple's love. When gold is beaten, it bends and expands; it does not break. In the same way, the love between the man and the woman will only grow stronger and more expansive through the trial of their separation.

The strongest conceit in the poem is the drawing compass, which the poet uses to demonstrate the unbreakable connection provided by the love between the speaker and his lady. They are joined to each other like the two legs of the compass. The leg drawing the circle represents the speaker, while the leg remaining as an axis represents the lady remaining at home. Like…

" (Lines 5-7) the metaphor of the poet being like a battered and invaded town that is impinged upon by outsiders yet still strives to let in the saving forces suggests both a medieval castle and the poet's divided alliances between the world (evil) and God (good).

The second half of the poem creates further parallels the relationship of the poet to God. The next metaphor, after the castle, suggests that the poet and God's state of affections are like a marriage vow, as word 'yet' marks the transition between thoughts. "yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain, / but am betrothed unto your enemy. / Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;" (8-11) the poet is like a bride who has been betrothed, because of human's fallen nature, to another being besides God, the enemy (presumably Satan or evil in general.) This is despite the…

The conceit or metaphor in extended though an image of the world or globe. The tears become the entire world which encompasses the speaker's life and feelings.

So doth each tear,

Which thee doth wear, globe, yea world, by that impression grow, (Lines 14-16)

This comparison also leads to the insistence in the poem that without each other the two lovers in fact cease to exist and that their essential meaning is dependent on their proximity to one another. The speaker states that Till thy tears mix'd with mine do overflow

This world, by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so. (lines 17, 18)

The tears shed by the two lovers at parting become a flood over the globe or world created by those tears; and this flood of sadness and despair causes the speaker to lose his "heaven."

The third stanza compares the lover to the moon; with…

The poem emotionally appealing and with such invigorating language, is easily translatable as a sermon. The reader could easily manipulate the tone of the poem with slight incensed articulation by accenting the poem as horrifying, delightful, spiritually persuasive or even amusing tone. Throughout the reading of this sonnet, despite its recognition towards God, the sonnet still mimics the consistency Donne always had in his poetry. Consider the plethora of emotional content in this poem. It is hard to pin down one singular emotion. The emotions in Holy Sonnet Fourteen advance on a continuum like the wavelength of colors presented in a rainbow. Although the poem as a reaction to secularism is not obvious, consider his satires. His satires dealt with human instincts, corruption in the legal system and the problems of true religion. (Honig, 37) Hence most of these satires dealt with secular problems. His biggest obsession sex, masked as…

This is seen the verse "Thou know'st that this cannot be said A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead" (Donne). Unfortunately for the seducer, the flea has succeded where he failed. The social conventions of marriage and consumation are symbolized by it in the verse where Donne speaks of marriage bed and marriage temple." The killing of the flea would be like killing his lover and symbolizes the shortness of life and the immediacy and importance of finding love above all else (ibid.).

On the surface of it all, the Marvell poem appears to expound the concept of seizing the moment, however in that the works are different in that Donne is using an animal metaphor while Marvell is using that of a coy mistress instead (Donne and Marvell). Also, the Marvell work is a warning to the lady against the inflated flattery men use to seduce and bed…

Metaphysical Poetry of John Donne

Donne's life and work are filled with occurrences that are reflected as paradoxical images in his work. The secret marriage with his wife, Ann for example resulted in Donne's imprisonment as a result of the disapproval of her father. Donne also loses his powerful political position as a result of this and years of financial hardship follow. The couple is however extremely happy together and the death of Donne's wife in 1617 left him with seven surviving children from a total of twelve (Winny 35). This event left Donne with a spiritual crises that is exacerbated by his declining health in later years. A theme through much of his religious poetry is therefore the conflict that exists between his physical and his spiritual self. Donne lives with a continual feeling of spiritual inadequacy. This is especially shown in his later religious poetry, where the poet…

VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING by John Donne

Understanding and analyzing Donne's poetry involves an appreciation of his particular literary style. His poetry is usually known as "metaphysical" due to the use of conceits. Conceits are extended metaphors which are a complex form of the metaphor. A metaphor is a forced comparison between two things that are usually different or unlike. Donne's poetry is also characterized by the use of argument and logic. This is particularly the case with the poem under discussion: A Valediction Forbidding Mourning.

The central argument that runs throughout the poem is that while the poet or protagonist is going to be separated from his mistress or lover, their love will endure his departure. The entire poem is an elaborate proof that physical separation is not final and that true love cannot be changed, altered or destroyed by physical distance. In order to prove this point the poet…

Although "peace" appears in the speech as often as "United Nations," I am arguing that "United Nations" is the more primary of the two terms here, having precedence over "peace" since I believe that Bush is asking his listeners to focus on the formal authority of the United Nations as the font from which peace can be coaxed. Focusing on peace as the primary term would (I believe) make the speech sound more abstract and less strategic. Bush is not asking his listeners to agree that peace is a good thing.

He is asking them to acknowledge that in this particular place and time, only a unified front from the United Nations is sufficient to guarantee peace. The next reference to peace is again twinned with the idea of international alliance: Invasion has only occurred after "the 28 countries with forces in the Gulf area have exhausted all reasonable efforts…

Close Textual Analysis: “The Flea” by John Donne

The British poet John Donne is one of the best-known and most often-quoted of the metaphysical poets. Donne was a devout Christian but often used strange, arresting metaphors to convey theological truths. This can be seen quite clearly in “The Flea,” in which the small, biting insect that is apparently a mere annoyance becomes a metaphor for the joining of the poet and his beloved. “It sucked me first, and now sucks thee, / And in this flea our two bloods mingled be,” writes Donne (3-4). Even though the poet and his beloved are not physically touching, the ugly, even repugnant parasite still has an elevating, even beautiful role in uniting the two souls, although the poet’s beloved cannot perceived this.

Donne’s poem reflects his belief as a Christian that all creatures, however humble, have a dignity as they are created by…

Donne Island

No man is an island unto himself," a line written during the Renaissance by poet John Donne, reflects the brotherhood of all men. hile this line was written at the height of the Renaissance, it has remained meaningful in both public and private spheres in the decades since. Today, contemporary attitudes in society often reflect this theme of the brotherhood of man, including the humanitarian reasons that George Bush gave for the invasion of Iraq. In my personal experience, the idea of brotherhood put forth by Donne, plays an important role in personal hopes for the future of my generation. Ultimately, both Donne's poem itself and the ideas about brotherhood that it espoused have had a lasting influence in western history and culture that remains valid today.

Donne's Mediation XVII

Meditation XVII is a poem that delves into the theme of the brotherhood of man. In Meditation XVII,…

This speaker is after something slightly more adult than cookies, of course, but this just makes the humor of the rhyme stand out more. His desire to "travel, sojourn, snatch, plot, have, forget" in line six details his desires of infidelity, and the basic lack of any sort of unity in these words -- there does not appear to be more than the accidental alliteration -- also reflects the speaker's disconnect from the many conquests he hopes to make by striking this bargain with Love. The last two lines of the poem reveal that the speaker is not really this cynical, however; he desires to "think that yet / We'd never met." He admits to having met Love; it is too late for him, which is why the bargaining seems so comically desperate.

The tone is very different in the Holy Sonnets, which seem fearful of death and sin, though…

In comparison, he feels weak and inferior. These emotions are driven by fear of God and while fear is never good, it can be constructive in regard to building character.

Donne's language is significant because it emphasizes the mood and tone of the poem. He describes himself as "riddenly distempered, cold and hot" (7) - words that illustrate the conflict he is feeling. It is important to realize how these conflicts allow the poet see himself as he actually is. The cold and hot images are polar opposites and they reveal the poet's awareness of his human condition. The conflict within him is also illustrated with the image of a prayer and muteness. God's infinite power forces the poet to realize that he is none but he calls to God. His "devout fits" (12) are come and go just as his fear does and while he realizes that he will…

. . "

"I don't recall having sold the house," Ned said, "and the girls are at home."

(Cheever)

In the narration Ned continues on his journey home. Once he is home it is revealed that his house is indeed empty and his wife and daughters are gone. This is just one example of the conflict that exist in this narration between was is reality and what is illusion.

In addition to this aspect of conflict in The Swimmer, there is also a great deal of conflict associated with Ned's ability to swim across the county. This conflict exist because Ned also drank strong alcoholic beverages throughout his journey. It would have been next to impossible for him to swim after he had consumed just a few of these drinks. This is an obvious conflict that would have hindered his journey but the author presents it as fact and not…

Song -- Go and catch a falling star" by John Donne

It was said that Donne's poem was likely written when he was in a drunken mood and possibly, too, when he was rejected by his lover or disappointed in his love. Describing the difficulty of finding virtuous women in the world, Donne uses the similes of catching falling stars, pregnancies with mandrake roots and teaching mermaids to sing. "ide ten thousand days and nights" says he, "till age snow white hairs on thee / Thou, when thou returns't, will tell me / all strange wonders that befell the / and swear / no where / lives a woman true and fair" (lines 12-18). A true Schopenhauer! In his final stanza, Donne concludes that even were this woman to live next door, by the time he would manage to meet her she would have succeeded in being unfaithful.

Donne's historical…

Marriage in "Daystar" and "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"

The circle is the symbol of eternity, where there is no beginning and no end. As with life, love can also be considered an eternal journey, but viewed from different perspectives in the poems "Daystar" (795-796), by Rita Dove, and "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" (51-52; "Valediction"), by John Donne. The unity of marriage in "Valediction" is prized, with symbolic images of metaphysical elements and circles used to depict the perfection of lovers and an undying love. "Daystar," however, describes the ritual of marriage and the timeless monotony of the burdens that marriage presents. Thus, marriage can be premised in perfection, as in "Valediction," but the cycle of the commitment between two lovers, like in "Daystar," can be stagnant during the journey.

Valediction" shows the parallel between the circle of life and death, and the relationship between lovers, whom must eventually leave each…

Flea by John Donne

In the 1500's, Europe was a very dirty place, and fleas were a major problem. It was, in fact, fleas that were responsible for the Black Death, or Plague, that had ravaged Europe since the 1300's. However, in the late 1500's, a flea landed on the breast of a certain lady in French Society by the name of Madame Des Roches, a writer of some fame, and this sparked off an obsession with the flea as the subject of literature. hole books were devoted to the flea, and the flea became a subject for comedy, romance, poetry, and all sorts of artistic expression. Around this time an English poet, named John Donne, wrote a poem entitled The Flea, in which he metaphorically compares a flea to the act of sex.

Structurally, The Flea is a poem that alternates its meter between lines of iambic tetrameter, and…

Blood by Suzan-Lori Sparks expands on the main theme of society's unfair disregard for its people of low condition in general, for women, and for adulterers. Hester La Negrita, the protagonist, is an African-American woman who struggles to survive in poverty along with her five base-born children. The family's outcast status is portrayed as a direct inducer and accelerator of emotional suffering, poverty, lack of education, and sexual exploitation.

(A) From a structural perspective, In the Blood is constructed in two acts and nine scenes, employing a linear plotline (ush, 2005). In this sense, the play debuts with the equilibrium of Hester striving to provide for her children in meager conditions, the inciting incident represented by the suggestion to seek help from the available former lovers and fathers of her children, the major dramatic question of whether or not she will attain it, the developing action as Hester approaches everend…

For the author, death in its simplest term is stupid and weak. Death is useless, that every time it executes its job it often misses which only adds on misery and pain for man. Death is perceived to be pathetic and frail showing most of its weaknesses in every attempt to fulfill its work even with man's own intervention.

Sometimes it isn't strong enough, to swat a fly from the air"

Ill will won't help

And even our lending hands with wars and coup de etat is so far not enough"

It still cannot impede the overall offspring of life because every time it does it only fails and life still continues to prevail. The creativity of man to dissuade death has made it lose its credibility in modern times. According to the poem, there have many times that the occurrence of death has opposed the natural flow time and…

Flea

This paradoxical and provocative poem by John Donne illustrates a number of the central characteristics of Metaphysical poetry. This paper will attempt to elucidate the paradoxical elements of the poem through a close reading of the text. The poem is essentially argumentative and displays a number of conceits or paradoxical comparisons. The poet uses words and meanings in an unconventional and often startling sense to convince his lover to make love with him.

The poem compares the image of a flea to love and physical union. The entire poem is a sustained argument to convince the protagonist's lover of the validity of this comparison. The image of the flea is used to spur or encourage the loved one into agreeing to the unification of their blood through intercourse. It is also significant to note in this regard that during the Renaissance it was believed that in the act of…

Shape of Things:

Theatrical Convention from Class: Suspension of Disbelief -- the audience is made to believe that a man or any person for that matter could become so obsessed with a single person that they are willing to completely change themselves, including having plastic surgery and destroying their interpersonal relationships for a person whose only appeal to them is a sexual one.

Potential Convention: Given the subject matter of the play and the heightened emotions the ending portrays at least on the part of one character that I would try to have the actors deliver their dialogue and their attitudes as realistically as possible.

In the Blood:

Theatrical Convention from Class: Pathos -- the audience is meant to feel sympathy for the main character of this play and to understand her sense of desperation and her inability to find a way to preserve herself and her sense of dignity…

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"Sonnet 130" by Shakespeare and "Sonnet 23" by Louis Labe both talk about love, as so many sonnets do. Their respective techniques however, differentiate them from each other. Shakespeare uses a rhyme scheme that became known as Shakespearean rhyme scheme or English rhyme. He writes about love in a sarcastic manner though. He is mocking the traditional love poems and the usual expressive manner in which women are often compared to. It is ironic in a way because Shakespeare himself also uses the very techniques in his previous writing when he is writing from a man's point-of-view and describing a woman. But in this sonnet he uses the technique of mocking this exaggerated comparison. Usually women are compared to having skin as white as snow, however, in reality, Shakespeare points out, women don't really fit this description, "If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun."

Louis Labe…

Poetry is a very complex concept, as it can be used to relate to a series of ideas and these respective ideas can be interpreted in numerous ways, depending on each individual's perspective. Ranging from pure amusement that some poets intended to put across to intense philosophical discussions that others aimed to express, poetry can be used in a multitude of ways and it can make it possible both for individuals creating them and for people interpreting them to experience all sorts of feelings as a consequence of interacting with poems in general.

An octet is responsible for introducing tension in the poem and is based on an ABBAABBACDCDEE rhyme type. The sonnet is relatively simple and is written in a loose iambic pentameter.

John Donne's 1609 poem "Death Be Not Proud" was the poet's attempt to provide the world with a different understanding of the idea of death. The…

Thomas/Updike Compare/Contrast

The Fight for Life in Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gentle into that good night" and John Updike's "Dog's Death"

Death has proven to be an inspiration for many poets and has been written about throughout history. These poets look at death from differing perspectives and many have argued that it should be fought against while others are more submissive to the concept. In "Do not go gentle into that good night," written by Dylan Thomas (1951), and "Dog's Death," by John Updike (1993), take a stance that accepting death is unnatural and that a person or any living being should fight until the end. In "Do not go gentle into that good night," Thomas argues that death is something that should be fought against and that a person should only succumb to their end when he or she is ready. On the other hand, in "Dog's Death,"…

Although using such a constricted form as the villanelle might seem to soften the poet's rage and anger against the coming death of his elderly father, the repetitive nature of the poem's structure shows how singular and blinding the anger and fear of death can be, when it is about to come to a parent. Unlike Donne's theoretical, abstract sense that death comes to everyone, Thomas underlines how even wise, good, wild, and grave men alike, no matter what they thought about death before they were actually facing it, still rage against the dying of the light. "And you, my father, there on the sad height, / Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray." No one, Thomas suggests, really wants to die, no matter how much they might profess to believe in a world hereafter, nor how fully or godly a life they lived.

Thomas begs his…

Donne also brings in the idea of the afterlife, and that when we die we do not sleep forever, but awake on the other side. Therefore death is not something to fear, but more so to ridicule for its false persona in the eyes of the world.

3. Rhetoric is one of the most important elements of establishing a distinct style within a particular work. John Donne effectively uses rhetoric to give his work "Meditation XVII" a religious and somber tone. He uses religious imagery, such as the repetition of the image of the bell tolling, "Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill as that he knows not it tolls for him." He also uses religious imagery to convey the idea that everyone is related, "for that child is thereby connected to that head which is my head too, and ingraffed into that body, whereof I…

Meanwhile, Huckabee supports local political jurisdictions passing laws that punish undocumented immigrants, and he asserts those laws "protect the economic well-being, physical safety, and quality of life" for citizens in those communities. By using "physical safety" Huckabee frames this issue in the context that immigrants are criminals out to harm people. But the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) (Rumbaut, et al., 2007) reports that "Foreign-born Mexicans" had an incarceration rate" of 0.7% in 2000, "more than 8 times lower than the 5.9% of native-born males of Mexican descent." And while the "undocumented population has doubled to 12 million since 1994," violent crime in the U.S. has declined 34.2%, the IPC reports.

Moreover, according to the American Immigration Law Foundation (Esbenshade, 2007) local ordinances such as the ones Huckabee believes in (that make it illegal to rent to undocumented immigrants, for example) - if they conflict with federal immigration law - are…

Renaissance Art

An Analysis of Love in the Renaissance Art of Sidney, Shakespeare, Hilliard and Holbein

If the purpose of art, as Aristotle states in the Poetics, is to imitate an action (whether in poetry or in painting), Renaissance art reflects an obsession with a particular action -- specifically, love and its many manifestations, whether eros, agape or philia. Love as a theme in 16th and 17th century poetry and art takes a variety of forms, from the sonnets of Shakespeare and Sidney to the miniature portraits of Hilliard and Holbein. Horace's famous observation, ut picture poesis, "as is poetry so is painting," helps explain the popularity of both. Indeed, as Rensselaer . Lee observes, the "sister arts as they were generally called…differed in means and manner of expression, but were considered almost identical in fundamental nature, in content, and in purpose" (Lee 196). In other words, the love sonnets…

Rebellion Against Death

"Do not go gentle into that good night" may be considered Dylan Thomas's most recognizable and popular poems. First published in Botteghe Oscure in 1951, the poem later appeared as part of the collection called "In Country Sleep." ritten for Thomas's dying father, the poem explores the theme of death and the resistance thereof.

ritten as a villanelle in which only two sounds are rhymed, such as night/light and day/they, and containing nineteen lines, the poem rhymes the first and third lines, alternating the third line of each successive stanza and closes with a couplet. The villanelle was first utilized in English language poetry in the 19th century and draws upon French poetic models.

Rife with undertones of rebellion, the opening line of "Do not go gentle into that good night" sets the tone for the rest of the poem. Thomas urges his father, and the men…

Body, Mind, and Soul in the Cancer Ward
Margaret Edson’s Wit dramatizes the death of a literature professor from cancer. The play is designed to show the limits of the intellect to fully understand human tragedy and existence. Although the central protagonist Professor Vivian Bearin was a rigorous academic fluent in the works of John Donne when she was healthy, ultimately the fact her old English professor is able to provide her comfort during her dying moments by reading a children’s book provides her the greatest solace more than her philosophy and more than intellectualism. Bearin embarked upon an academic career because she was primarily interested in the life of the mind, not the body. The central irony of the play is that she is being killed by her own body with ovarian cancer. Ultimately, human beings are unable to escape the body in the form of death. The play…

" James a.S. McPeek

further blames Jonson for this corruption: "No one can read this dainty song to Celia without feeling that Jonson is indecorous in putting it in the mouth of such a thoroughgoing scoundrel as Volpone."

Shelburne

asserts that the usual view of Jonson's use of the Catullan poem is distorted by an insufficient understanding of Catullus' carmina, which comes from critics' willingness to adhere to a conventional -- yet incorrect and incomplete -- reading of the love poem. hen Jonson created his adaptation of carmina 5, there was only one other complete translation in English of a poem by Catullus. That translation is believed to have been Sir Philip Sidney's rendering of poem 70 in Certain Sonnets, however, it was not published until 1598.

This means that Jonson's knowledge of the poem must have come from the Latin text printed in C. Val. Catulli, Albii, Tibulli, Sex.…

Thomas-Dickinson

Perspectives of Death

"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" is one of Dylan Thomas's most recognized poems. In the poem, he urges his father to fight against death even though it is something that everyone must at some point in his or her lives have to accept. On the other hand, Emily Dickinson, in "Because I could not stop for Death," accepts death as a natural part of life and unlike Thomas, does not combat it. Dylan Thomas and Emily Dickinson approach the topic of death from different perspectives with Thomas attempting to rebel against the inevitable and Dickinson passively submitting to her end.

"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" was written for Thomas's dying father and is stylistically structured as a villanelle where only two sounds are rhymed. The poem is composed of 19 lines, rhyming the first and third lines, with an alternation…

ETHICS plays an important role in many areas of our business world. Take direct selling, for instance. How can you tell the difference between a legitimate business and a disguised pyramid scheme? To answer this question, we need to back up and look at what "ethics" are all about and, why they are important. Then we will look at the legitimacy of the two direct selling methods.

What are ethics? Here is the most recent textbook definition from a college MA (Masters in usiness Administration) updated required reading selection, "Ethics are the moral principles that govern the actions and decision of an individual or group," Marketing 7th Edition (Kerin, 2003, 100). In other words, to choose a course of action in moral situations, we use ethics, our cornerstones or guidelines to follow.

Why are ethics important in the business arena? ecause every person is a part of the whole and…

Certainly, the reign of Elizabeth I "was indeed the Golden Age of England," due to her personality, love for her country and the adoration of millions of Englishmen and women, not to mention several foreign kings and rulers who during her lifetime were bitter enemies, but following her death became ardent admirers ("Death of Queen Elizabeth I," Internet).

In 1588, some fifteen years before her death, Elizabeth I gave a speech to her faithful and loyal troops at Tilbury camp, where she arrived "in a great gilded coach and was escorted by 2000 ecstatic troops." James Aske, an eyewitness to this event, describes Elizabeth as "king-like and a sacred general" just before she began to address those in presence with "one of the greatest orations of British history, all the more extraordinary for being delivered at a moment of such trepidation." This speech truly reflects the atmosphere of Elizabeth's reign…

Benjamin Britten

Today, Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) is best known for his instrumental, choral, and operatic compositions as well as being the co-founder of the English Opera Group and the Aldeburgh Festival (Radloff 426). Although Britten's music is likely familiar to many modern observers, his name is probably unfamiliar to most and facts about his early life even less well-known. To determine these facts and the impact of his work, this paper provides a review of the relevant peer-reviewed and scholarly literature concerning the composer, Benjamin Britten, including an in-depth analysis of one of his compositions. A summary of the research and important findings concerning Britten and his work are provided in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

On November 22, 1913 (St. Cecilia's Day), Edward Benjamin Britten was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, England (Craggs 3). Benjamin was the youngest child of five sons and two daughters (Brann 2) born to Robert…

ith the link to the Bible, the story "…resonates with the richness of distant antecedents" and it no longer is "locked in the middle of the twentieth century"; hence, it never grows old, Foster concludes (56).

C.S. Lewis on the Importance of Reading Good Literature

C.S. Lewis, noted novelist, literary critic, lay theologian and essayist, advocates reading literature in his book an Experiment in Criticism. He is disappointed in fact when individuals only read important novels once. Reading a novel the second time for many on his list of incomplete readers is "…like a burnt-out match, an old railway ticket, or yesterday's paper" (Lewis, 2012, p. 2). Those bright alert people who read great works will read the same book "…ten, twenty or thirty times" during their lifetime and discover more with each reading, Lewis writes. The person who is a "devotee of culture" is worth "much more than the…

Sensory experiences are nor reliable for making any statements, since people often mistake one thing for another. (Descartes talks about mirages). Knowledge based on reasoning is not always trustworthy, because people often make mistakes. (adding numbers is a classical example). Finally, knowledge is deemed by Descartes to be illusory, since it may come from dreams or insanity or from demons able to deceive men by making them believe that they are experiencing the real world, when are they are in fact not doing so. (the metaphysical approach in Descartes work is can be easily recognized here).

Following this analysis of existent forms of knowledge, Descartes concludes that certainty can be found in his intuition that, even if deceived, if he thinks he must exist: "Cogito ergo sum." The thought ("cogito") is a self-evident truth that gives certain knowledge of a particular thing's existence, i.e. one's self, but only the existence…

Meanwhile, the deranged viewers walk among the police officers who take notes, wash down the street of it blood, sweep up glass. Another metaphor likens the hanging "lanterns on the wrecks that clings, Empty husks of locust, to iron poles." With locusts, what was once green and lush, becomes brown and barren. Here, what was just minutes ago a living, breathing body, becomes dead and inert.

And what is the reaction of the voyeurs to this sight? Was it what they wanted, hoped to see? Now the onlookers look just like patients, "Our throats were tight as tourniquets, Our feet were bound with splints, but now, Like convalescents intimate and gauche..." However, worse yet, is the horror of recognition that there is no reason why one person lives and another dies. This is the lesson for the day: This person could have been good or evil, a friend or foe,…

Simile -- A common device in poetry is the use of comparisons, often comparing something unusual or uncommon with something that is more familiar to the reader or audience. One kind of comparison is the simile, which uses the words like or as and compares two things that are dissimilar in order to bring about a fresh view and new meaning.

An example of a simile that does this is found in Margaret Atwood's "You fit into me," in which she describes the fit of two lovers to each other as "like a hook into an eye." The reader imagines a hook and eye on the band of a skirt or the back of a bra, but then Atwood changes the significance of the simile by becoming more specific. She adds the explanation "A fish hook ... An open eye." The extended simile creates a very painful image of being…

This is the result of the child's physical and cognitive growth. Nature pursues a given path. One asks how does the world surrounding the child help or hinder the child's development. This is the question that is answered by Bronfenbrenner's theory (Paquette & yan, 2001).

Bronfenbrenner believed that the family suffered from the change in society from industrial to technological. Families were still locked into the normal 40-hour work week. Mothers were very often in the workforce, leaving the children with less parental influence at home. Bronfenbrenner thought that the schools were being called upon to fill the gaps left by parents. He thought that society should step in to provide support for the new family structure brought on by technology (Paquette & yan, 2001).

eferences

1. Crandell, T., Crandell, C., & Vander Zanden, J., 2009 Human Development (9th Ed.). Boston. McGraw-Hill

2. Gilbert, ., Widom, C., Browne, K., et…

Tenet of the theory

2. Another tenet of this theory (and one that is connected to certain clinical practices such as those of Rogerian therapy) is that humans are generally inclined to try to achieve greater levels of self-fulfillment, which in turn is linked to greater levels of insight and self-awareness.

Methodological assumptions of this model

. This question is a little more difficult to answer since a model or epistemological framework since the methodological connections to a theoretical framework are strong but not absolute. Any methodological approach to test the validity of Levinson's developmental framework would have to be qualitative since the model reflects complex, subjective states that are not discernible through statistical analyses.

Some of the most interesting potential research topics that could be devised around Levinson's model would be how subjects interpret their own status in terms of where a researcher assesses them to be. Levinson's model…

Any allegations of individualized injury is superfluous, they alleged, on the theory that this was a "public" action involving questions as to the use of natural resources.

The Holding was that a person has standing to seek judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act only if he can show that he himself has suffered or will suffer injury, whether economic or otherwise. In this case, where petitioner asserted no individualized harm to itself or its members, it lacked standing to maintain the action. Sierra Club relies on 10 of the Administrative Procedure Act, which accords judicial review to a "person suffering legal wrong because of agency action, or [who is] adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant statute."

On the theory that this was a "public" action involving questions as to the use of natural resources, the District Court granted a preliminary injunction. The…

Biases in Person Perception-Self-Verification

Biases in Self-Perception

"O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us ... To see ourselves as others see us," wrote Scotland's bard obert Burns, asserting the oft-believed truism that we would all like to have the power to know exactly what it is that other people are saying and thinking about us. And yet, as the poet continues on to say, the more we think about this idea the less wholeheartedly we might well be to embrace it: Thinking about how others see us (and especially if they so precipitate as to tell us their precise thoughts) carries a very high degree of social and psychological risk. The high degree of risk so incurred arises in no small part from the fact that when we consider the idea that other people know what we are "really" like rather than the self-deception with which we cloak ourselves…

The Spenserian sonnet combines elements of both Italian and the Shakespearean forms. It has three quatrains and a couplet but differ in that it has linking rhymes between the quatrains.

In the 17th Century the sonnet was adapted and used by John Donne in his religious poetry and by Milton who adapted to political themes. It was later revived by Wordsworth in the 19th Century, after being relatively neglected in the 18th Century. (aldick C.) have chosen Shakespeare Sonnet CXVI - Let me not to the marriage of true minds, to discuss.

The central aspect that appeals to me in this poem is its condensed and logical structure. The central point that is made is carried through the poem in a clear and concise way. This central theme is to emphasize that love, if it is true love, is enduring and permanent. True love cannot be subject to change or…

Wit

A made-for-television movie, Wit addresses issues related to terminal illness, death, and dying. Emma Thompson plays Vivian Bearing, a professor of literature enraptured with erudite poetry like that of John Donne. When she is diagnosed with ovarian cancer, Bearing's life changes dramatically. At first, Bearing goes the traditional route of succumbing to paternalistic medicine's approach to treatment. She obeys her doctor's orders, goes through chemotherapy, and generally struggles with the idea that she has an illness. A precocious woman, Bearing flashes back to a series of events in her life that place her personality and value system into perspective. Ultimately, Bearing comes to terms with the core essence of life as she goes through the stages of dying. She realizes that caring and compassion trump personal, intellectual, and career achievements.

The people who do and do not visit her in the hospital teach her about quality of life. Issues…

Death Penalty

There are many situations and concerns in the world that require using ethical thought. There are many issues we read about an learn about when we have to ask ourselves what we believe in. hich side do we take on euthanasia or abortion or sexual morays? It is the responsibility of all people to explore these issues so that their opinions are education and well-informed. It is the lazy individual who formulates their opinions on innuendo and rumor. hat is ethical? hat is moral? hat is right? hat is good? It is everyone's responsibility to ask themselves these questions and formulate their own answers to these extremely important issues. Perhaps one of the most controversial topics for debate is over the ethical right of the death penalty. Some feel the penalty to too severe and inhumane. Others feel the penalty is just and not used often enough. How…

Wit: Susie’s Nursing Metaparadigm
One of the pivotal characters in the movie Wit (2001) is that of Susie Monahan. Susie a nurse who has little knowledge of the poetry of John Donne so dear to the protagonist Vivian Bearing. Yet Susie shows expert mastery of the role of a healthcare provider in relation to her patients. Regarding the nursing paradigm of patient, environment, health, and nursing, Susie again and again demonstrates that she regards the patient as central in the ethical responsibilities of the nurse (Nikfarid, et al., 2018). Other characters, particularly the physicians and researchers handling Vivian’s case, place their own research needs above the needs of the patient. Vivian, although highly educated, admits she knows little of cancer research and does not fully understand she is being used as a test subject for research from which she is unlikely to benefit. For Susie, the patient is always first…

Your answer should be at least five sentences long.

The Legend of Arthur

Lesson 1 Journal Entry # 9 of 16

Journal Exercise 1.7A: Honor and Loyalty

1. Consider how Arthur's actions and personality agree with or challenge your definition of honor. Write a few sentences comparing your definition (from Journal 1.6A) with Arthur's actions and personality.

2. Write a brief paragraph explaining the importance or unimportance of loyalty in being honorable.

Lesson 1 Journal Entry # 10 of 16

Journal Exercise 1.7B: Combining Sentences

Complete the Practice Activity on page 202 of your text. After completing this activity, read over your Essay Assessment or another journal activity you've completed.

* Identify three passages that could be improved by combining two or more sentences with coordinating or subordinating conjunctions. Below the practice activity in your journal, write the original passages and the revised sentences you've created.

* Be sure to…

God of Sand and Fire

Benjamin Alire Saenz's breathtaking poem "To the Desert," updates the ancient sonnet form which Donne once used to praise the Christian God, and turns it into a revolutionary invocation of a pantheistic deity embodied by the desert itself. Through a flawless onomatopoeia which evokes the brushing and rustling and hissing sounds of the desert, he weaves sharply observant images to bring the very scent and color of the desert to the reader's mind. From this evocative nature poetry he increasingly moves towards personifying and deifying the desert itself, addressing it directly from the beginning, and eventually begging it to consume him. His reverential tone, which so warmly pays tribute to Dante's devotional hymn "Batter my heart Three-personed God), combines with his clear diction and imagery to allow him to make statements in verse (such as this about the desert being a god) that might seem…

Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift are two of the greatest satirists in literature because they capture elements of truth that force us to look at ourselves as a society. hile both authors reflect on political and economic conditions of the eighteenth century, their work is timeless because their topics ultimately return to humanity. Their achievements lie in the fact that they depict man in circumstances that are both thought provoking and amusing. Pope's "The Rape of the Lock" and "The Dunciad," along with Swift's "A Modest Proposal" and Gulliver's Travels demonstrate how satire takes its best form when its target is human nature.

The satirist is quite lucky in that he has many varieties of subjects when it comes to human nature M.H. Abrams observes that in most instances the satirist considers "prevalent evils and generally observable human types, not with particular individuals" (Abrams 2211). This is certainly true with…

The Lord will lead one to safety always. One can simply believe in something higher to get the meaning of this; it doesn't have to be Jesus. Psalm 127, contrarily is confusing because it states that unless the Lord builds the house, it is built in vain. This seems to be more literal, but I do get the idea. Unless the people building the house are doing it with the love of the Lord in their hearts, or building it for him, then what is the point?

Didactic poetry can be quite comforting as seen in Psalm 23 or it can be much too literal and seen as both confusing and condescending. Psalm 127 isn't very instructive spiritually speaking, unlike Psalm 23.

Updated Proverb: A broken toe can hurt, but a broken heart can kill.

Metaphors: Obscure or Illuminate? Didactic literature with its use of metaphors can sometimes obscure the…

Parris entraine le couple avec lui aux Etats-Unis; premier arret Boston et finalement Salem, ou Parris est nomme reverend.

A Salem, Tituba se vit accusee d'etre une sorciere apres avoir declenche une crise d'hysterie aupres de Betty, la fille de Samuel Parris. Durant ce temps, John Indien la trahit et feint d'etre possede par le diable, par peur d'etre accuse aussi. Apres un long sejour en prison pour sorcellerie, Tituba se trouve au service de Benjamin ohen d'Azevedo, un juif de la communaute. La communaute de Salem, tant qu'a elle, n'aprecient guere la presence de Tituba la sorciere et decide par consequent de bruler la maison du juif, entrainant la mort de ses 9 enfants. Benjamin decide donc de rendre la liberte a Tituba, qui rentre dans son pays d'origine, la Barbade. Tituba rencontre Iphigene et tombe en amour a nouveau, seulement pour etre pendue et Iphigene execute a la…

459). Such an encounter is the mainstay of Book 9 since both Eve and Adam are chastened by God and are forced to reason with Him in order to confess to their sin and accept the punishment required in order to 'multiply and replenish' the earth as they had been commanded. They knew the reason behind such a commandment, and they also knew that in the long run, what they had done, was what had to happen. According to Milton, both Adam and Eve had accepted that reasoning in Heaven before they were even placed on earth, and with that acceptance were blessed with the capability to reason over earthly circumstances that perhaps they would not have been capable of otherwise.

orks Cited

Besserman, L. (2007) Encounters with God in medieval and Early Modern English poetry, the Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 459 -460

Bradburn, E. (2006)…

Fern Hill (Dylan Thomas)

The "Poetry Explications" handout from UNC states that a poetry explication is a "relatively short analysis which describes the possible meanings and relationship of the words, images, and other small units that make up a poem."

The speaker in "Fern Hill" dramatically embraces memories from his childhood days at his uncle's farm, when the world was innocent; the second part brings out the speaker's loss of innocence and transition into manhood. This explication will identify and critique Thomas' tone, imagery (including metaphors) and expressive language (as it contributes to the power of the poem). ("Fern Hill" uses 6 verse paragraphs; there are 9 lines in each paragraph.)

"Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs / About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green / the night above the dingle starry / time let me hail and climb / golden…

oad not Taken, obert Frost uses the setting, mood, and characterization to help illuminate the theme of choice symbolized by the road not taken.

The poem uses various literary devices to describe choice.

The poem is set in the woods, where two roads diverge.

The setting is symbolic.

The roads represent choice.

The poem has a contemplative mood.

Each of the choices is appealing

The traveler knows that choosing one road means choosing not to follow the other road.

The poem has a complex structure with:

Four five-line stanzas;

ABAAB rhyme structure;

Iambic tetrameter; and D. The use of some anapests.

Frost uses an unnamed narrator in the poem

A. Old enough to have made choices

Not an old person because the narrator expects to age

Poetry Analysis: The oad not Taken by obert Frost

In The oad not Taken, obert Frost uses the narrator's voice to describe a man…

Mammals will evolve (to choose an analogy) but they do not revert to being reptiles. If the subjects of this research had simply disagreed about the exact biographical dates of the model this would not have been problematic. If research subjects, for example, had argued to extend the period of middle adulthood to fifty rather than forty-five, for example, as people work until they are older than had been the case when Levinson was working, this would have in general supported his findings.

The validity of his model is not dependent on being absolutely precise in his age-related break-points and while Levinson himself might not have acknowledged this, it makes sense that details of the different stages should have to be shifted to meet changes in society. Such an acknowledgement is in fact missing from Levinson's model (as well as from the models of Erikson and Piaget) and must be…

Those with issues to overcome are always more heroic. Hector also becomes a hero when, after at first running from Achilles, he eventually stands up to him and dies a heroic death.

The Iliad is primarily a war epic. In your opinion, is the Iliad condemnation of the it could easily be argued that the Illiad glorifies war, as much of the poem is spent portraying the warriors as brave and courageous, even as they go on killing rampages. Warriors are describes as "masters of the battle cry" and "warlike" in glowing epithets. When Achilles originally refused to fight, he is roundly condemned for it by all of the other Greek characters. Even the weapons of war, such as Achilles impenetrable shield, are glorified. But homer is more complicated than simple -- war also brings death, which he describes in great detail. Hector's death is perhaps the most graphic of…

Madam Eglantyne the Nun, is also an ironic charater. She eats in a very refined manner and attempts other fine characteristics such as speaking French, although she fares poorly at this. Ironically, not all her language is pure, as she swears cosntantly by "St. Loy," a saint renowned for not swearing. Unlike the general conception of the Nun, she is very concerned with outward appearances and did not much care for human beings. Indeed, she cared much more for her three dogs than the human beings around her. Another irony is that she has a coral trinket to fight worldly temptations, which is clearly failing badly.

A second character is the Friar, Hubert. While he is jolly, merry, and festive, his actions are nevertheless evil and cunning. He impregnates girls, for example, and marries them off. He deceived the faithful by hearing confessions for a fee, and even begged from…