...conception of art and literature was founded upon reason, logic and rationality. Tradition had valued art and literature for its ability to imitate human life. This however arguably took a step back and paved the way for the 19th century view that art and literature was to established on the grounds of pure emotion, imagination, external and internal experience. Or as William Wordsworth would say that ‘[...] poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.’ The poet therefore assumed the role of the mediator between man and nature. The role of the poet was arguably in place to showcase beauty, truth and the endless possibilities that tradition had previously encased. Within this new enlightened form of expression in literature, the imagination had been elevated to a primary position in regards to poetic composition. The imagination allowed poets to see beyond surface value, to create an external world of existence. It permitted them to see the truth beyond powers of reason and rationality. Samuel Taylor Coleridge in particular was a poet fascinated with the potential and limitless possibilities of the imagination. Coleridge placed considerable emphasis upon the imagination as a focal element within his poetry. He categorised the imagination into two key sectors; the primary imagination and secondary imagination. As explained in Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria: ‘The primary imagination I hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and a...
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...Eliminating the “Single Story” in Things Fall Apart Negative stereotypes of the African people “mainly come from western literature”(Adichie) which does not show the African people as human beings with complex lives but instead as an “incomprehensible people, fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty, unable to speak for themselves, and waiting to be saved by the kind white foreigner”(Adichie). Stories that only depict one point of view of a person or people develops a “single story” which creates misperceptions like the negative stereotypes of the African people. Adichie advocates that one must tell the story of a people from multiple perspectives to get the true story. By telling the story of the British colonization of Africa from the perspective of the colonized, which ultimately shows their complexities and similarities to Western culture, Achebe eliminates the “single story” of the African people in Things Fall Apart. Religion embodies one of the many complexities of the human race. Societies of all kinds, including the Ibo society, use religion to help guide them through hardships and provide morals and ethics. Achebe wants to show to Western readers that the Ibo religion is not any less enlightened than their Christian beliefs by showing the similarities to Christian religion, therefore refuting the “single story” of the African people. Similarly to how Christians consult their priests in Christianity, the Ibo people consult their ancestors called the egwugwu for spiritual...
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...scrutinized of being to some degree conflicting in that he embraces Marxism while getting a charge out of residency at a scholarly establishment, it is interesting how he finishes up the book and therefore his view on literary theory all in all by advising us that all writing is inalienably political thus it may be more helpful to mankind to study and examine the political and power structures of society overall. His most essential contention is that as literature supplanted religion as a carrier of qualities it started to be utilized as a type of social power. The standard was a way to keep one gathering in power while abusing different gatherings. In the event that you need to topple the gathering in power you should oust their literature. Eagleton's way to deal with such an oust is first to contend that literature is an esteem judgment, then to contend that there can be no target esteem judgements, along these lines there can be no goal literary qualities. He additionally contends that without objective value, literature is negligible...
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...What is Buddhism? General Information Buddhism is a path of practice and spiritual development leading to Insight into the true nature of life. Buddhist practices such as meditation are means of changing oneself in order to develop the qualities of awareness, kindness, and wisdom. The experience developed within the Buddhist tradition over thousands of years has created an incomparable resource for all those who wish to follow a path - a path which ultimately culminates in Enlightenment or Buddhahood. Because Buddhism does not include the idea of worshipping a creator God, some people do not see it as a religion in the normal, Western sense. The basic tenets of Buddhist teaching are straightforward and practical: nothing is fixed or permanent; actions have consequences; change is possible. Thus Buddhism addresses itself to all people irrespective of race, nationality, or gender. It teaches practical methods (such as meditation) which enable people to realise and utilise its teachings in order to transform their experience, to be fully responsible for their lives and to develop the qualities of Wisdom and Compassion. There are around 350 million Buddhists and a growing number of them are Westerners. They follow many different forms of Buddhism, but all traditions are characterised by non-violence, lack of dogma, tolerance of differences, and, usually, by the practice of meditation. Who was the Buddha? Buddhism started with the Buddha. The word 'Buddha' is a title and not...
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...James Staton Mr. Borton World Literature II October 6, 2015 Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Social Contract Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a prominent writer in the eighteenth century and influenced different revolutions in his work such as the revolutionary sentiments in France and American colonies. Rousseau helped start the Romantic Movement and is responsible for creating the new genre in literature known as an autobiography. This came from the one of the stories he wrote called Confession, which he goes in to detail about what he has been through in life. He was writer during the Enlightenment period and he drew influences from Immanuel Kant. A lot of beliefs of the enlightened way of thinking show in Rousseau‘s writing called The Social Contract. Being “Enlightened” is ones freedom to think for them and not be trapped in social status that societies may put on people. Rousseau put together the social contract to persuade people to break the political rule of authority and give power to the people and not one person. The Social Contract was written in 1762 containing four different books explaining the possibilities of how people can achieve equality and power with the help contract. Rousseau's intended audience were the people who were under the political rule of authority. I feel that the way he explains his contract is effective especially because each book is something different that would erase the political rule of authority and bring equality among the citizen. Book...
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...century C.E., it had already become a world religion with a history of a thousand years. The form of Buddhism that from the start was dominant in Japan is known as Mahayana, the Buddhism of the Greater Vehicle, and it brought with it an enormous canon of religious literature, an elaborate body of doctrine, a well-organized priesthood, and a dazzling tradition of religious art and architecture - all of which Shintô lacked in the sixth century. Although its view of the world and mankind differed markedly from that of Shintô, it is important to understand that within the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism both differences from and similarities to the native tradition could be found. On the one hand, for example, Buddhism regarded the world as transient and saw it as a source of suffering for those who remained attached to it, a view that contrasts sharply with Shintô's ready acceptance of the world. On the other hand, however, there was an optimism in Mahayana Buddhism that meshed well with Shintô - an optimism about human nature, for it was committed to the belief that all human beings had the potential to attain the wisdom that brings an end to suffering, and an ultimate optimism about the world itself, since it taught that once human attachments are discarded, the world takes on a new and positive significance. At first the Japanese regarded the Buddha as simply another kami and were drawn to the religion by the beauty of its art and the hope of such concrete benefits as wealth and longevity...
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...Buddhism is a philosophy, meaning ‘love of wisdom’. Buddha was not a god either. He was just a simple man encouraging peace and wisdom amongst humanity. Buddha was born in 563 BC and died in 483 BC. At age 35, Buddha ‘found’ the ‘middle path’ and he was enlightened. Buddha was a teacher of many things including The Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold path. So, what are The Four Noble Truths? In the first Noble Truth, Buddha explains that life has its hardships and that pain, suffering, frustration, sadness, death, disease, etc. is all apart of life and is a fact that cannot be contradicted. Although these things happen, Buddhism teaches ways to avoid the suffering and to find ways of one being truly happy. In the second Noble Truth, Buddha claims that every human being has the want rather the need for something. He instructs us to stop wanting things. To turn away from craving and aversion, and to accept what we have been given so that we will have eternal peace. In the third Noble Truth, Buddha reminds us to not worry about the hardships in life and see things in a positive way. That way we reach ‘Nirvana’, meaning we are focusing less on ourselves and more on others. In the fourth and final truth, the Noble Eightfold is the path that leads...
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...responsibility, not including its own report. Similarly, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD, 1999) seeks to develop a clear understanding of corporate social responsibility, including a matrix of corporate social responsibility indicators. But what is meant by Corporate Social Responsibility (‘CSR’)? Responsibility for what and to whom and who is calling for firms to be socially responsible? This article examines the broad development of the ideas behind CSR within the literature and some of the current attempts to define the social responsibilities of business. It starts by examining the debate about the nature of corporate social responsibility and current attempts to define CSR. It then looks at some theories to explain how and why business might undertake CSR –stakeholder theory, social contracts theory and legitimacy theory. The article concludes by describing ways of assessing corporate social performance – from industry and also from the academic literature. The need for companies to undertake activity that might be...
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...civil liberties of individuals (Mogen 124, 114). Due to the Cold War, Americans continuously felt threatened by the idea of communism and the idea of hostility from communist countries (Mogen 115). Any association with communism would immediately ostracize an American politician (Mogen 115). In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury displays a futuristic utopian society where "the people did not read books, enjoy nature, spend time by themselves, think independently, or have meaningful conversations." (Mogen 111). About sixty years later, some would argue that our society has been guilty of similar downfalls. (Book Rags) The government in Fahrenheit 451 bans books because they do not appreciate the thoughts books created peoples minds. Bradbury's society was to afraid to offend groups of people through literature.(Challenging Destiny). Bradbury's has an excellent pulse on the faults of American society such as its censorship. The government in Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 is full of flaws because it searches too hard for the greater good for everyone and neglects many aspects that make a human being. Written in...
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...Gothic Literature Gothic fiction is a genre of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. As a genre, it is generally believed to have been invented by the English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto. The effect of Gothic fiction feeds on a pleasing sort of terror, an extension of Romantic literary pleasures that were relatively new at the time of Walpole's novel. Melodrama and parody (including self-parody) were other long-standing features of the Gothic initiated by Walpole. Gothic literature is intimately associated with the Gothic Revival architecture of the same era. In a way similar to the gothic revivalists' rejection of the clarity and rationalism of the neoclassical style of the Enlightened Establishment, the literary Gothic embodies an appreciation of the joys of extreme emotion, the thrills of fearfulness and awe inherent in the sublime, and a quest for atmosphere. The ruins of gothic buildings gave rise to multiple linked emotions by representing the inevitable decay and collapse of human creations—thus the urge to add fake ruins as eye catchers in English landscape parks. English Gothic writers often associated medieval buildings with what they saw as a dark and terrifying period, characterized by harsh laws enforced by torture, and with mysterious, fantastic, and superstitious rituals. In literature such Anti-Catholicism had a European dimension featuring Roman Catholic excesses such as the Inquisition (in southern...
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...Mark Allison Third Block April 23, 2015 Stanley Milgram Are Germans more Obedient than others to execute orders such as genocide or shock someone at an extreme voltage?(Meyer) Is Milgram’s experiment applicable to literature we see? I believe that this experiment proved that people execute actions everyday just following orders. The Milgram experiment was a test the “German’s are different” theory, which was a theory by Milgram that German’s actually were more obedient than the average person(Cherry). “Learners” were told specific word pairs by the “teacher” and would read one word then list multiple answers.(Cherry) If the learner chose the wrong answer then he was electrocuted. The experiment consisted of a range of shocks from 5 to...
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...dystopic world. Would you want to know that you are living a false life and that the true world around you has been hidden? If you had this information, how would you react? This scenario is the basic premise for the Wachowski brother’s The Matrix Trilogy and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Both stories show humans perceiving a false utopic society that is being used to blind them from the true dystopic world. Over the course of this paper I will describe the similarities between The Matrix and the Allegory of the Cave and analyze how the Wachowskis and Plato used the ideas of utopias and dystopias as a backdrop for showing human nature. In The Matrix, humans have been enslaved by sentient machines, or sentinels, to be used as energy sources. In order to subdue the human population, the sentinels built a virtual world known as the Matrix. What each person thinks is reality, is actually a complex computer simulation. The Matrix simulates a “utopic” world where humans believe that they have freedom and choice and that their actions have a consequence on this “real” world. In reality, the real world lies in dystopic ruins after having been destroyed by a war between the humans and sentinels, and few people know the truth. The Allegory of the Cave presents a similar setting where prisoners are trapped in a cave and subjected to a false reality. In the story, the prisoners are bound in such a way that they cannot walk or turn their necks and are forced to gaze upon a wall....
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...Class issues and the rise of the superstructure in The Giver and The City of Ember Since the start of agriculture, man's evolution has gone from a hunter-gatherer to modern day capitalistic societies. Using a lot of energy in order to hunt was no longer necessary. By leveraging the division of labor, grains could be stored for human consumption. Consequently, population grew which meant that some people had to, for example, harvest the food, whereas others could be “thinkers” and create a better world in terms of science and effective infrastructures. Over time resources have been used and exploited in to order to sustain societies and the ever increasing population: It has become a scarcity. (Harris 12) Philosophers such as Karl Marx wrote about this scarcity and how it creates classes in societies, as in Das Kapital, the Critique of Political Economy: In social productions of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society.... With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations a distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of| production...(Marx 143) What is...
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...Siddhartha by german writer, Hermann Hesse, follows the journey of a boy as he becomes an enlightened man. The journey of Siddhartha is an inspiring one, going through several stages to achieve one goal. Personally, I believe that in today’s society we are deprived of taking journeys to find ourselves. Some human beings could use a transformation, or two, or three. The novel is littered with aspects of romanticism, which is very lacking in the “real life.” It is also lacking in modern literature. Romanticism has six main characteristics: emotion over reason, character introspection, love as a spiritual entity, emphasis on nature, preference to rural society over urban society, and subjectivity on the author’s part. Siddhartha has ample evidence to supply for its focus on emotions, introspection, love, nature, and rural societies. Siddhartha focuses primarily on the emotions of the titular character. His drive is viewed as unreasonable, fueled strictly by how he feels throughout his journey. Siddhartha’s feelings of discontent among the Brahman are what lead on the path he chooses. Under the banyan tree, his meditation brings him this conclusion, “It had to be found, the pristine source in one's own self, it had to be possessed! Everything else was searching, was a detour, was getting lost. Thus were Siddhartha's thoughts, this was his thirst, this was his suffering.” (Hesse, Kindle Locations 74-76). He feels so strongly about finding the cure for his discontent, that he feels...
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...in scientific and industrial development, are some of the clearly noticeable characteristics of this age. Lord Tennyson, the poet laureate of Victorian era glorifies the reign of Queen Victorian through his ode On the Jubilee of Queen Victoria. On the other side of this picture of commercial and scientific expansion we see the appalling social condition of new industrial cities, the squalid slums, and the exploitation of cheap labour ,the painful fight by the enlightened to introduce social legislation and Victorians were caught between materialism and spiritualism, between realism and romanticism, peace and unrest, science and religion, mechanism and humanism .They could not give up the conventional morality or religious practices so, they try to reconcile religious dogma and scientific truth. Thus Victorian age is often known as an age of compromise. The Victorian age was not only the longest, but also the greatest age in the history of English Fiction. The Novel was the most appealing form of literature during the Victorian age. It was partially because of the steady increase of reading public with...
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