Anomie and Alienation Lost, With No Possibility
Running through the literature of classical late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century sociology are themes of isolation, of the poverty of life lived in isolated cells, of the fragility of a life in which we can almost never make authentic connections with other people, in which we are lost even to ourselves. We have – and this "we" includes the entire population of the industrialized world, or at least most of it – have raised the act of rationalism to an art form, but along the way we have lost so much of our humanity that we can no longer form or maintain a community. Four of the major social critics of the twentieth century took up these themes for essentially the same reason: To argue that while ailing human society could be transformed in ways that would give it meaning once again. They differ significantly, however, in what the nature of that transformation should and what meaning humans should be intent on seeking.
Poetic Form Involves Some Kind of Structural
¶ … poetic form involves some kind of structural formula dictating how it is to be written. Beyond this, myriad of differences exist among abstract or genre poems. The three poems, "My Last Duchess," by Robert Browning,…