Shakesperes Hamlet and Humanism Essay - 885 Words

Hamlet and Humanism William Shakespeare, Hamlet, demonstrates human nature to be gluttonous, self-involved and merciless. Claudius is determined by his greed to commit murder. Polonius is always watching out for himself, without a care of the expense of anyone that gets in his way. Hamlet ponders only of retaliation from the second he finds out about Claudius murdered his father. Human nature has been several things throughout time, but it has also changed throughout the years. People can be immoral and cruel, but they can also show great empathy and kindness. Renaissance humanism scholars recognize that â€Å"Hamlet contains a vital critique of humanism† (Renaissance) throughout the play. The author, William Shakespeare, was from a period of†¦show more content†¦Polonius also acquires his daughter to stop courting Hamlet by ordering her to instead of allowing her to decide for herself. He is looking out for his daughter. The King and Queen were very troubled at Hamlet’s superficial insanity. They tell Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that discovery of what is hypocritical with Hamlet would be â€Å"the supply and profit of our hope â€Å"(Hamlet 2.2.24). They are noticeably embittered at his behavior, and Polonius knows this, and tries to use his daughter to demonstrate his notion. When Ophelia approached and pronounced to him her get-together with Hamlet in Act I, Polonius instantaneously brought her to the King. Polonius, performing on his duty to â€Å"both God and to gracious king† (Hamlet 2.2.45) took Ophe lia to Claudius to understand if he could be any assistance in demanding to find out what is iniquitous with Hamlet. He rapidly tells the King that he will â€Å"loose my daughter to himâ€Å"(Hamlet 2.2.161) and fabricates a premeditated plan to do so. This plan, and Polonius’ role of Ophelia, is all to gratify the Royal Court, and has no space in it for Ophelia’s feelings. Polonius treats his daughter practically like one would use a mare, with his loos of her and organizes it so just to try and get on the respectable side of Claudius and Gertrude. Polonius signifies the characteristic of human nature that is self-concern. He is continually

European Settlement in the New World - 2456 Words

The displacement of Indians and the enslavement of Africans tarnished the early history of European settlement in the New World’. Illustrate this statement by discussing the African slave trade and relations between European settlers and the various Native American peoples. America was regarded as the continent of new opportunities, religion freedom, new ideas, innovation. In other words, it was claimed to be the New World. Many people headed to America hoping to give a new beginning to their lives. Up to this point, we expect to learn wonderfulthings about the foundation of the States. Nonetheless, the displacement of Indians and the enslavement of Africans tarnished the early history of European settlers in what it was supposed†¦show more content†¦Natives generously shared with the settlers their belongings, supplies, food, and the skills necessary for survival in the New World. What the settlers gave them in exchange was destined to destroy them: disease, firearms, whiskey, a brutal religion totally at odds with nature, and a demand for material goods that would rob them of their independence. Within ten years of the arrival of Winthrop and his party, the natives welcome of the settlers had worn out. The settlers had appeared on the scene with two objectives in mind with regard to the Indians: secure their land and convert them to Christianity. The natives soon saw trade as the settlers means of exploitation. Sachems began to resent missionaries as interlopers interested only in preparing the way for land grabs. The English made their own laws on what for centuries had been native soil and held natives accountable to English rules. Moreover, any breach of English law resulted in a natives being subjected to a public humiliation unknown in his or her own culture. Relations were scarcely improved by the Puritan attitude toward the natives. To the European mind, the natives were sub fiends in the service ofShow MoreRelatedChristopher Columbus : A Dominant Figure1366 Words   |  6 Pagesthe 15th century. It created relationships between the old world and the new world. With the exchange of animals, insects, and plants, population as well as cultures, the Columbian Exchange was created. (Boundless.com) Different kinds of resources were shared after the exploration of the New World, which definitely brought European countries benefits. As a result, increasing number of European colonies came to North America, trying to find new chances for lives. However, there is no doubt that sacrificeRead MoreImages Of America The European Writers902 Words   |  4 PagesImages of America the European writers constructed to promote colonization and settlement European exchanged cultures with North America when Leif Ericsson’s arrived at the new land at the year 1000. However European settlement started to spread after Columbus first voyage in 1492. In 16th century America became the golden arena for Europe and renaissance attracted adventures and opportunities for colonial aspirations of rival empires. Explorations in America increased fast and grew and by the timeRead MoreEarly Settlers and Native Americans1038 Words   |  5 Pagesearly European arrival. All the different countries in Europe were all trying to find there own place in the new world by claiming the land for their country. The English were among one of the first Europeans to arrive in the new world; and establish the first permanent settlement called Jamestown. The English later extended their settlements along the Atlantic coast, colonizing Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay. It was not very long after the English arrived, came the French to the new world. TheyRead Mo reHow Did Contact Between The European Arrivals And The Native Peoples Of The Americas Affect Both Groups?1545 Words   |  7 Pagesbetween the European arrivals and the native peoples of the Americas affect both groups? Europeans brought to the Americas catastrophic diseases that killed millions and decimated native populations, who possessed no immunity to the illnesses. The Europeans also had deliberate policies of subjugation and extermination, by which they brutally tortured or murdered natives due to the Europeans history of brutality in war and their consideration of the natives as no more than savages. The Europeans alsoRead MoreThe American Journey : A History Of The United States866 Words   |  4 Pagescentury, Spain, France,England and Dutch all focused on competing for colonies and trade around the world. Beginning in the late fifteenth century, a lot of explorers, conquerors, missionaries, merchants, and adventurers tried to seek new lands to colonize. 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[Hint: the New England colonies.] How did theRead MoreEuropean Colonization Of Europeans And Native Americans1503 Words   |  7 Pagesfourteen hundred ninety-two, the New World encountered catastrophic epidemics from the European conquest. The spread of diseases between Europeans and Native Americans led to a demographic calamity. The earliest explorations from European countries introduced a plethora of diseases; these diseases hin dered the Native’s population and way of life. Not only early explorations of European countries impacted the indigenous people, but the settlement and encounters with Europeans in the twentieth century didRead MoreThe Spread of European Imperialism Essay1162 Words   |  5 PagesThroughout the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, the world witnessed a global expansion as well as a compaction of people, cultures, and ideas. The need for goods, as well as the process of mercantilism to inflate economies, was instrumental in the advancement of seafaring technologies, the need to spread religion, and the eventual globalization of the slave market. The four major regions in the world, which were the stepping stones of globalization, are Africa, Southeast Asia andRead MoreThe Control of England in North America and Demise of the Spanish Power in the Atlantic1490 Words   |  6 PagesAtlantic The year 1942 marked a division in the contemporary world history. There were a number of developments that would bring enormous effects for the Old and the New World Wars. The discovery of these developments changed the diets of both the western and eastern regions, assisted in initiating the Atlantic slave trade, and spread illnesses that had a destructive effect on populations in India, and resulted in the creation of European colonies across the Western region (Cohen and Rosenzwei 124)Read MoreNative Americans And Inuit From The American Arctic1337 Words   |  6 PagesIntroduction and Early Contact European explorers typically viewed Native Americans and Inuit (formerly called â€Å"Eskimo†) peoples as uncivilized savages who could be ignored, treated as curiosities, or manipulated to meet the goals of businessmen, clerics, scientists, or politicians. Civil interaction with native peoples was pursued only when it was critical to the success of European ventures such as procuring gold, silver, fur, and land. These exploitative or antagonistic relationships with native

Accounting for Business Statements of Calpino Honey limited

Question: Discuss about the Accounting for Business Statements of Calpino Honey limited. Answer: Introduction The financial statement analysis helps to determine and evaluates the performance of the company. The financial ratios show the profitability, liquidity, and efficiency of the company. The financial statements and financial ratios estimation provide significant information to the stakeholders of the company (Alexander, Nobes and Ullathorne, 2016). In this report, the financial statements of Calpino Honey limited will be analyzed. The company believes in quality products that are provided to the customers. The company has made considerable efforts to ensure food safety and quality of the systems. The financial report of the company is prepared at the end of the accounting year which provides significant information to the stakeholders. Main context: Return on assets Return on asset ratio is the indicators how an organization is utilizing its assets to generate returns. The ratio shows the ability of the company of utilizing all its resources and generate profitability. Company Name Item 06/14 06/15 06/16 Capilano Honey Limited ROA (%) 7.68 12.11 10.12 The return on assets of Calpino Honey has increased from 7.68% in the year 2014 to 12.11% in the year 2015, but it has decreased to 10.12% in the year 2016. Thus, it shows that the efficiency of the organization of utilizing its assets has been decreased in the year 2016. The higher value of the ratio means that the company can generate returns from its asset resources (Appannaiah, Reddy and Putty, 2010). The change in the ratio is due to the lack in themanagement of all the processes. Themanagement is responsible to utilize all its resources appropriately. The asset categories that should be analysed by the company are PPE, inventory, and account receivable. The property plant and equipment is important for carrying the activities of an organisation. The stock value is also important as shows the amount goods goes out and comes in (Britton and Waterston, 2013). The inventory level should be maintained. The account receivable is also important as shows the amount of due amount collected by the company. All these assets should be analysed before estimating the return on assets. Apart from this, the sales revenue account should be reviewed as it helps to estimate the profitability and the flow of cash within the organization. The increase in sales revenue means an increase in profitability and cash. The Item 06/14 06/15 06/16 Reported NPAT After Abnormals 4619011 7845047 9483463 CA - Cash 1103559 1424491 8695629 NCA - Inventories 0.00 0.00 0.00 CA - Receivables 14922176 20933909 22850501 The financial statements of the Calpino Honey Limited have been shown above. The company prepares the financial statements as per the accounting standards. Financial information The numbers in the financial statements of the organization reflect the real world events. The financial ratios and numbers are derived from the financial analysis help to understand and evaluate the realities of the world (Helbk, Lindset and McLellan, 2010). The performance of the companies can be easily analyzed with the help of the financial information. Accounting policies The company Calpino Honey Limited has adopted new, amending or reviewed accounting standards and the interpretations that are issued by the Australian Accounting Standards Boards has to be followed by the company in the current financial reporting period. The company has applied AASB 10 which describes the new definition "control (Horngren, 2014). The control exists when the organization is exposed and has the right to utilize its power in an appropriate manner. The organization has the power that enables to their activities that affect significantly the returns of the investee. The company follows the AASB amendments to the Australian Accounting Standards and fair value measurement. The standard provides measurement framework with clear objectives to measure the fair value (Rayman, 2013). The company has followed the AASB accounting standard. Net profit The financial ratio of Calpino Honey limited shows the performance of the organization from the year 2014 to 2016. The net profit after tax after abnormals of the organization has increased from the year 2014 to 2015, and again it has decreased in the year 2016. The profit margin shows a decrease in the profitability of the organization in the year 2016. The profit has decreased because the company has not maintained its business operation. The cost has increased and profit has decreased. Item 06/14 06/15 06/16 Reported NPAT After Abnormals 4619011 7845047 9483463 Asset Turnover 1.73 1.76 1.34 Asset turnover Item 06/14 06/15 06/16 Asset Turnover 1.73 1.76 1.34 The asset turnover ratio shows the ability of the company to utilize its asset resources. The asset turnover ratio has increased in the initial period, and again it has decreased in the final year (Parrino, 2015). The ratio shows that the ability of the company to utilize assets has been decreased. Limitations of the financial statements The financial statements provide Signiant information to the stakeholders, but it has some limitations. The transactions are recorded initially at their cost. It can affect the balance sheet as the values of liabilities and assets may change over time. If the rate of inflation is high than the liabilities and assets in the balance sheet appears low as they are not being adjusted for the inflation. The financial report can provide an incorrect view of the cash flows or financial results of the company by viewing at one reporting period (Powers and Needles, 2012). The financial report does not address the non-financial problems such as the environmental attentiveness of the operation of the company or how well it is working with the community. The information in the financial statement provides results about either financial status or the historical result of the business. The environmental, political and economic factors are not considered during the preparation of the financial state ments. Conclusion The financial analysis determines and evaluates the financial performance of Calpino Honey limited. The financial ratios show that the performance of the organization has increased in the year 2015 and it has decreased in the year 2016. The profit margin and ability to utilize its asset resources has been decreased in the year 2016. Themanagement of the company should take appropriate steps to enhance the performance of the company. References Alexander, D., Nobes, C. and Ullathorne, A. (2016).Financial accounting. Harlow, England: Pearson. Appannaiah, H., Reddy, P. and Putty, R. (2010).Financial accounting. Mumbai [India]: Himalaya Pub. House. Britton, A. and Waterston, C. (2013).Financial accounting. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall. Helbk, M., Lindset, S. and McLellan, B. (2010).Corporate finance. Maidenhead, Berkshire: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill Education. Horngren, C. (2014).Accounting. Toronto: Pearson Canada. Parrino, R. (2015).Corporate Finance. Singapore: John Wiley Sons. Powers, M. and Needles, B. (2012).Financial accounting. [Mason]: South-Western, Cengage Learning. Rayman, R. (2013).Accounting Standards. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.

The Perceptive Fox free essay sample

The world I have emerged from is comparable to that of the eager and cunning fox, which knows its boundaries and crosses them with caution and intelligence. Many would find it strange that I would depict myself as possessing the lowly and squalid temperament that the vixen in associated with; however, the environment the fox dwells in has brought the it amazing qualities that people have deluded from, including independence, cooperation, and perseverance. The world the fox awakens to is lonely; being a renegade from the canine species, a fox does not confide to packs or base it’s survival on any other individual. Such independence is analogous to the enjoyment I feel when I am able to accomplish tasks by own merit. In my own personal life, I have not been able to rely on my family to ensure my survival, because my mother fell victim to an alcohol addiction during my first year of high school. We will write a custom essay sample on The Perceptive Fox or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page However, like the fox, I do not find this independent lifestyle to be a somber existence; rather, an opportunity to prosper and apply what I have learned to my future. Eager to seize the task at hand, the fox is willing to take pride in its own abilities to outwit its competition. Likewise, I trust in my own abilities and intelligence to lead me above and beyond the requirements of an objective. Therefore, like the independent fox, I have learned to trust in my own abilities and strive to acquire success on my own. Although the forest is a lonely place and the fox takes pride in accomplishing its own goals, it also values relationships on a personal level. Observers lucky enough to study the world of the fox have found that foxes are some of the only animals that â€Å"date† their mates. Fox couples have been seen wandering the forest playing and hunting together. Like the fox, I trust in my own abilities, I also find fulfillment in working in groups and bringing out the best qualities in others. I have found in my life, that for some time I had isolated myself; like the solitary fox. By developing social skills and opening myself up to my classmates, I found great comfort in helping others and allowing others to help me. The inability to depend on my family, has taught me that personal relationships are very important; therefore, I will seize any given opportunity to get to know my peers and co-workers on a personal level. My desire to develop close relationships and ability to bring o ut the best qualities of others are what will lead me to at my university and in my future career as a therapist. Foxes are commonly known for their thieving of chickens and ability to escape from traps. Although the path to the farmer’s chicken coop leads the fox into the eyes of the hunter, it perceives the danger and becomes eager to outwit its opponent. This is comparable to my desire to strive for higher goals and my ability to learn from bad experiences. I have learned from my world, that the greatest of risks- if analyzed carefully- can yield the best opportunities for knowledge and growth. For example, it is because of my mother’s alcoholism that I will never drink liquor. Likewise, I know that if my parents have only have pursued attending a community college, I want to strive for a University. The fox’s ability to learn from observing, gain knowledge from mistakes, and leap over the boundaries of a fence, represents the qualities that will bring succes s in my life and future career in Psychology. With the hunter constantly in pursuit, the world of a fox is dark and frightful; however, I divulge that it is the darkest of places where the stars shine brightest and the greatest dreams fathom. My love for the fox comes from my naturally perceptive attitude. Although many would view foxes as dangerous thieves, I view them as dauntless creatures that make their decisions based upon their desire for survival. I find sympathy for even the worst of drug-addicts and angriest of teenagers. Just as the fox carefully observes a situation before acting, I find joy in analyzing and gaining a deeper understanding of the individual and meditate on the best way to assist them. My perceptive qualities lead me away from judgment; rather towards observation and unbiased analysis. My love for the fox comes from my naturally perceptive attitude. Although many would view foxes as dangerous thieves, I view them as dauntless creatures that make their decisions based upon their desire for survival. I find sympathy for even the worst of drug-addicts and angriest of teenagers. Just as the fox carefully observes a situation before acting, I find joy in analyzing and gaining a deeper understanding of the individual and meditate on the best way to assist them. My perceptive qualities lead me away from judgment; rather towards observation and unbiased analysis. I am proud of this quality because it has led me to close relationships, personal serenity, and has proven effective in the lives of others. Being naturally sympathetic and able to listen to a viewpoint without judgment, I have found that people are naturally drawn to me. Its not unlikely for someone that I havent talked to for months to approach me with the deepest of their problems. I believe this is because they are able to sense my perceptive abilities and find comfort in my advice. One way in particular that I was able to practice this skill was in Alateen, a support group for children with alcoholic parents. I found myself helping children who had drug addictions, different sexual preferences, and anger issues. Though the world would commonly shun these people I found that by truly listening to a persons viewpoint means imagining what its like to be them. In the end I concluded that these kids werent horrible people, rather they were deprived of the help they needed because of their parents alcoholism. The ability to help people by following them into the story of their life is what brings me the most happiness. I find that the more people I am able to help with their problems brings my own problem to rest. Due to the joy that helping others brings me, I have decided to pursue a career in Psychology. Psychology will help me strengthen my skills of perception by teaching me how exactly the brain produces different viewpoints. I am eager to bring my knowledge to those who need it and provide my sympathy and viewpoint for my peers in college.

Stranger Than Fiction Lit Critical Appreciation Essays

Stranger Than Fiction Lit Critical Appreciation Essays Stranger Than Fiction Lit Critical Appreciation Paper Stranger Than Fiction Lit Critical Appreciation Paper Essay Topic: The Stranger Stranger Than Fiction is another original yet broadly appealing movie to add to Kaufmans list of Impeccable Cinematographic Creations. This is one movie where two distinctly different themes, Comedy and Tragedy, are intelligently mangled with, occasionally even bordering on the lines of melding with each other.The movie, briefly put, scripts the life of its protagonist- Harold Crick, a Chicago IRS auditor whose world comprises of nothing but facts and figures. He epitomizes every characteristic a person is required to possess for society to label them a drone. From the eerie extent of obsessing over the proscribed number of toothbrush strokes each session must receive, to his genius ability to mentally solve large multiplication problems, this fastidious male is unknowingly, in a skewed yet extraordinary manner, the perfect lead character for a story book.The realization that the British voice narrating the movie was intended for not only the audience, but in fact specifically at Har old also, appalls many. This interesting use of an omniscient narrator draws in audience related themes such as Determinism and Fate and more blatantly surfaces the existence of yet another character- Karen Eiffel.Harbouring a Sylvia Plath sort of disposition, this chain smoking recluse of an author is adamant to find the appropriate closure for the main character of her latest downbeat novel, who happens to be none other than Harold Crick. However, the plot gradually reaches its climax when Karen, so desperately trying to find inspiration for a tragic ending, is put in contrast with Harold, who is urgently trying to pinpoint the problem with the perceived hallucinations or voices in his head. With the wisdom and advice of literary professor Jules Hilbert, he eventually understands the book he is living in and most vitally, the possible ends he would eventually have to face.Determinism is greatly exemplified here, where any possibility of free will Harold originally had the right to was ruled invalid and denied. Most pertinent to him, of course, was the fact that death was inevitable and there was no other alternative but it. Hhis fate was controlled by the antecedent script of the book. This prevailing theme brings the film to an entirely deeper level, much different from the regular bland, brainless on-screen entertainment we are usually provided with these days.Harolds contiguous brush with death allowed his character to concentrate on the emotional essentials of life, as opposed to the usual mundane and routine aspects he previously focused on. Like any other movie, romance is a necessity and topping this one of with tasteful humor and a tinge of predictability, Harold falls in love with an alterative bohemian baker whom he was delegated to audit. She fits comfortably in the category of a political non-conformist who refuses to pay the income taxes she deems objectionable. Moreover, she finds Harold Crick the root cause of the wrong in America, which makes their growing love for each other an uncanny yet amusing watch.The cerebral notion of suspense the movie entails is what keeps any viewers eyes glued to the screen. Kaufmans design of Stranger Than Fiction never once provides a moment in time where questions about the plot stop popping up in ones mind despite the many hints apparent throughout the film. With the assistance of a respectable supporting cast, this movie does not steer off tangent from start to finish. Regardless of the somewhat abrupt ending, Stranger Than Fiction is in a odd and eccentric way a must-watch and by far one of Kaufmans greatest portrayal of clever cinematography.

Exploring the Earths Four Spheres

Exploring the Earth's Four Spheres The area near the surface of the earth can be divided into four interconnected spheres: lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere. Think of them as four interconnected parts that make up a complete system, in this case, of life on earth. Environmental scientists  use this system to classify and study the organic and inorganic materials found on the planet. The Lithosphere The lithosphere, sometimes called the geosphere, refers to all of the rocks of the earth. It includes the planets mantle and crust, the two outermost layers. The boulders of Mount Everest, the sand of Miami Beach and the lava erupting from Hawaiis Mount  Kilauea  are all components of the lithosphere. The actual thickness of the lithosphere varies considerably and can range from roughly 40 km to 280 km. The lithosphere ends at the point when the minerals in the earths crust begin to demonstrate viscous and fluid behaviors. The exact depth at which this happens depends on the chemical composition of the earth, and the heat and pressure acting upon the material. The lithosphere is divided into 15 tectonic plates that fit together around the earth like a jagged puzzle:  African, Antarctic,  Arabian, Australian, Caribbean, Cocos,  Eurasian,  Indian, Juan de Fuca, Nazca, North American,  Pacific,  Philippine, Scotia, and South American. These plates arent fixed; theyre slowly moving. The friction created when these tectonic plates push against one another causes earthquakes, volcanoes and the formation of mountains and ocean trenches. The Hydrosphere The hydrosphere is composed of all of the water on or near the planets  surface. This includes oceans, rivers, and lakes, as well as underground aquifers and the moisture in the atmosphere. Scientists estimate the total amount at more than 1,300 million cubic feet. More than 97 percent of the earths water is found in its oceans. The remainder is freshwater, two-thirds of which is frozen within the earths polar regions and mountain snowpacks. Its interesting to note that even though water covers the majority of the planets surface, water accounts for a mere 0.023 percent of the earths total mass.   The planets water doesnt exist in a static environment, it changes form as it moves through the hydrological cycle. It falls to the earth in the form of rain, seeps into underground aquifers, rises to the surface from springs or seeps from porous rock, and flows from small streams into larger rivers that empty into lakes, seas, and oceans, where some of it evaporates into the atmosphere to begin the cycle anew.   The Biosphere The biosphere is composed of all living organisms: plants, animals and one-celled organisms alike. Most of the planets terrestrial life is found in a zone that stretches from 3 meters below ground to 30 meters above it. In the oceans and seas, most aquatic life inhabits a zone that stretches from the surface to about 200 meters below. But some creatures can live far outside of these ranges: some birds are known to fly as high as 8 kilometers above the earth, while some fish have been found as deep as 8 kilometers beneath the ocean surface. Microorganisms are known to survive well beyond even these ranges. The biosphere is made up of biomes, which are areas where plants and animals of a similar nature can be found together. A desert, with its cactus, sand, and lizards, is one example of a biome. A coral reef is another. The Atmosphere The atmosphere is the body of gasses that surrounds our planet, held in place by earths gravity. Most of our atmosphere is located close to the earths surface where it is most dense. The air of our planet is 79 percent nitrogen and just under 21 percent oxygen; the small amount remaining is composed of argon, carbon dioxide, and other trace gasses. The atmosphere itself rises to about 10,000 km in height and is divided into four zones. The troposphere, where about three-quarters of all atmospheric mass can be found, stretches from about 6 km above the earths surface to 20 km. Beyond this lies the stratosphere, which rises to 50 km above the planet. Next comes the mesosphere, which extends to about 85 km above the earths surface. The thermosphere rises to about 690 km above the earth, then finally the exosphere. Beyond the exosphere lies outer space. Conclusion All four spheres can be and often are present in a single location. For example, a piece of soil will contain minerals from the lithosphere. Additionally, there will be elements of the hydrosphere present as moisture within the soil, the biosphere as insects and plants, and even the atmosphere as pockets of air between soil pieces. The complete system is what makes up life as we know it on Earth.

Has America become a culture of entitlement, where people expect Essay

Has America become a culture of entitlement, where people expect society--parents, teachers, governmentto provide for them regardless of their own efforts - Essay Example Research has it that this culture is more prevalent among men and women of the present day generation than those of the past generations. It is quickly gaining ground and could even be more established in the years to come. Many people have in the earlier generations pursued the dream of America through commitment and inventiveness. They achieved success through strife and serious enthusiasm for their courses. In case they became successful, they counted themselves to be very lucky (Arguelles Web). The trend and mentality are quite different today. Most students today tend to think that they have an entitlement to success, and they do not have to work for it. Students in the present generations tend to focus on what the society should give to them instead of concentrating on how they can make the society better. Their sense of ability and skills is kind of inflated in comparison with that of the students of the older generations. One Jean Twenge, a popular American Psychologist with her team, has in the past gathered information on the subject of entitlement. She notes that in the last four decades, there was an interesting increase in the number of young people who take themselves to be ‘above average’ in certain fields. Such fields include; academic potential; their motivation to success, arithmetic prowess as well as self-confidence. Upon evaluating some of the traits that are taken to be more individualistic, the statistics either lowered or remained constant for the same period. Such traits may include; spirituality, personal cooperativeness and getting to know others (Arguelles Web). The opinions of these people (mostly students) and their actual potential have been found to be incongruent. The situation is known as ‘ambition inflation.’ It means they talk or think big about themselves but perform miserably on the actual

Resume Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Resume - Essay Example Passed the English Language course (first level) held at Al Khaleej Institute (Direct English) under the supervision of the Ministry of Education, General Department of Education in Riyadh with a grade A+ (excellent) and GPA 95% (22/4/2007-6/6/2007) Passed the Communication Disorders Course for Preparing Communication Specialists held at Al-Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh over duration of 60 hours long in one month from 2/5/2010, with a general grade A+ (excellent) Completed a training program entitled â€Å"Arabic Calligraphy (Riq’a)† over duration of 12-hours long held at the Educational Training Center of the General Department of Education in Riyadh under the supervision of the Ministry of Education (24/1/2011-27/1/2011) Completed a training program entitled â€Å"Strategy of Concept Maps† over duration of 12-hours long held at the Educational Training Center of the General Department of Education in Riyadh under the supervision of the Ministry of Education (17/1/2011-20/1/2011) Completed a training program entitled â€Å"Behavior Modification† over duration of 12-hours long held at the Educational Training Center of the General Department of Education in Riyadh under the supervision of the Ministry of Education (10/1/2011-13/1/2011) Completed a training program entitled â€Å"Student Activities’ Guide for Primary Stage† over duration of 8-hours long held at the Educational Training Center of the General Department of Education in Riyadh under the supervision of the Ministry of Education (27/12/2010-28/2/2010) Accomplished a training program entitled â€Å"Court and its Applications in Education (2)† over duration of 12-hours long held at the Educational Training Center of the General Department of Education in Riyadh under the supervision of the Ministry of Education (19/12/2010-22/12/2010) Accomplished a

Research and development Essay Example for Free

Research and development Essay The Human resource management department of the business is responsible for the hiring and firing of the staff that work in Boots PLC outlet stores and any other jobs that are related to the company. Their main aim to make sure that there is the right amount of workers in the specified place at the right time in order to contribute to the maximum output that the staffing effort can help towards. The hiring and firing is very important as it makes sure that the right people are hired for the job that are in appropriate situations to fulfill vacancies. On the other hand however the firing is just as important. If staff are not pulling their weight or are incapable of carrying out the jobs they are meant to they may be fired. Also if there is no need for all staff then they may be laid off. This is a way of maximizing profits as less go on output of wages which is a great percentage of the businesses output. The HRM is also responsible for the training of staff. It is their responsibility to make sure that all staff is fully trained for the job they are employed for. These increases the customer reliability and satisfaction as when staff are asked questions they will hopefully know they answers and also that they are capable of approaching customers comfortably and in a good fashion. This adds to customer satisfaction and this is important to Boots it is also one of their objectives listed previously in the report. HRM are responsible for forecasting labour amounts and the amount of man power that will be needed at different times of the day week and year. If manpower is low in rush hours or periods such as Christmas then the company may not reach its maximum out put through mistake of their own. Staff receives appraisals when they work for Boots. This lets them know if the business is happy with them and if they are considered a valued member of the work force. The appraisals are again responsibility of the HRM department and they help to maximize business by insuring workers are reaching their full potential within in the business. Boots recently proposed to train up 7000 people to become more knowledgeable about technology so that the business will benefit from this. Boots PLC also employ a further 45% of their workforce on top of their usual numbers to help in outlet stores over Christmas period with tills, stock rotation and demonstrations. This shows the business has been planning the workforce amounts according to potential times of increases in demand. This area of the business can be very economical and save the business money when it comes to hiring and firing staff. This is however also very beneficial to the staff also. When jobs in the business become available instead of employing new staff they promote current staff. This saves money as described in management styles later on. The HRM area of the business works towards the organization and in turn globalization objective of the business. The statement of we aim to develop staff and provide them with the right skills and attitude in order to achieve the organizations goals suggests that it be aimed at all the objectives of the business, which will reflect on the globalization and expansion conclusively. The fact that more staff was hired acts on the objective of improving customer satisfaction as more staff means that there are more hands to deal with the tasks needed which leaves more staff to be available to help customers and aid them with their shopping needs. The Marketing section of the business is responsible for satisfying customers needs at the right prices and once again as in Boots objective consumer satisfaction. To do this the marketing section of Boots PLC is responsible for researching what the target markets want and interpreting what their future needs would be and how they will change. They persuade the customer to buy products by advertising. They either increase awareness by advertising to all on TV or radio, or advertise specifics. These include in store adverts for particular products, which they make the customer, think they need. Free demos of some products also help to draw in custom and Boots does this in its make-up and its perfume range where there is always trained staff available to recommend and advice. The marketing aspect of the business has lead to the birth of the Boots Advantage Card. Boots customer services is an outstanding department as they have been able to established customer loyalty by the use of this Advantage card. Referring back to Boots objectives the wish to increase customer loyalty is proven as the Advantage Card is used by more than 70% of all key customers. Boots objectives on marketing were to increase promotion and stature by globalization. This has been attempted by opening several firms in Taiwan. A strategy that separated them from their competitors and attracted thousands of consumers over the Christmas period was the three for two-mix and match strategy which was introduced after a market research poll into marketing strategies return the mix and match as a popular suggestion. This was reflected by the feedback it returned. It is very important to be able to forecast and predict what will happen to the market. In order for a company to success in the long term it must have an idea of where it is going. One of the best ways to do this, which also show the success of the business, is to look at its accounts. This will show if there is a gradual increase or decrease in profit and it will show what products sell, how they sell and in what quantity are they likely to still be required as the majority of tangible inessential goods reach saturation point and are no longer needed. The finance section of the business is the area that looks after the accounts and the money flow forecasting. The Financial area of the business makes sure all the finances of a business are properly recorded. This involves keeping detailed accounts either manually or on a computer of all the money that comes in, and how it comes in to the business and how and where it goes out. The financial information is used by Boots and published in the yearly reports to show how the business is getting on. Boots PLC uses computer technology to record all the information and trained staff regularly analyzes it to spot correlation in output or product relationships. This is done to try and find out where Boots could benefit from altering the market and changing product ranges or increasing product base. This section of the business is also capable of raising finance when the business needs to raise capital for an investment or expansion. There is only a small aspect of the objective system that it appears the financial function touches on. This is the objective to act towards modernization. Boots keeps its financial records in the form of computer files as apposed to storing them manually. This shows that Boots keeps up with the development of technology, which was a specific objective. This shows that an objective has been worked towards and met which has been beneficial as now the financial function is a lot less time consuming in storing data and retrieving it. Although there is always more problems with modern technology it is likely that in the long run it is less time consuming. Production is another one of the functional areas but as there is little that Boots actually produce due to the fact that they are in the tertiary sector this function does not really affect them. The only way it does affect them is that Boots must keep in touch with the production (secondary industry) business to ensure that they can meet the demands that they need in order to increase customer satisfaction. Coinciding with this the staff at Boots must check produce that is received from the production companies to make sure it is correct. This section does not really affect any objectives that the business has directly. However indirectly it does regard the objective of wishing to increase the proportion of their own brand. There is little evidence I can provide of this objective been carried out but they do have their own cosmetic range that goes by the name of No7. This appears to have been doing very well. The main cogs of the business are the Administration section. This keeps the day to day workings of the business going. Again these are skilled staff trained in their field and Boots pride them selves on the level of training and standards that their staff operates to. The administration maintains the business premises and equipment and if anything goes wrong they are responsible for fixing it of finding someone to do so. Anyone who works for Boots doing photocopying, printing (stationary jobs) catering, computer services, data storage, all these types of jobs come under the job description of Administration. As boots is expanding it is relying less on its own workers to carry out some of these tasks and it calls in people from out side the business, this is called outscoring, these people are usually found by the administration team. The administrative function as it is a necessity in the business and keeps it flowing hardly relates as a contribution to any objective at all. The only objective I can see that the administrative function applies to id the modernization of the company. This is due to the fact that in order for the administration staff to act efficiently they need to be modernizing as technology such as computers develops. This will benefit all areas of the business. As the target markets demands are forever changing and new fashions are coming in and the months of the years come in and out the products that Boots supply are always changing. It is hard to keep on top of the supply for goods, as there are so many aspects that alter the product demands it is hard to be aware of where they will go next. The research and development of the business is responsible for trying to find out where to go next. They keep the other parts of the business informed about changes as much as they can. This is a main part of the marketing for the business. The research and development sector look at sales figures, accounts, customer trends and spending and try and deduct where the majority of the money goes and also where it doesnt. They do not look to replace products all the time but also to look for new products that would be beneficial to bring into the product range to increase sales or attract new business. It was the idea of the research and development of Boots to open the optician section of the business, as this was an area that they had not yet spread into and would be beneficial. The people in the research and development part of boots also look at other businesses and see how they operate, what they sell and how much they charge. All this contributes to the smooth running of the business. As Boots main objective is to produce a well-established firm that caters for the consumers needs research and development is a major part of decision making. Diversification is also reliant on this department as in order to diversify research needs to be carried out to find out which areas it would be beneficial to divert into in respects of the customers and the company as a whole. Boots has got a large research and development department. The paragraph below shown what affects the research and development has had on the companys expansion. The first Health and Beauty Experience store opened in Kensington High Street in September this year. It moves Boots into new areas of the expanding health and beauty market. Services include physiotherapy, osteopathy, homeopathy, herbalism, aromatherapy, reflexology and nutrition. These sit alongside beauty services including facials massage, false tan, ear piercing, pedicure, manicure, nail bars, and make-overs, plus lifestyle advice on weight management, smoking, sleep management, relaxation and stress management. All combine to offer a total wellbeing offer. This paragraph gives list of some of the new products and services that have been introduced. These expansions in the business would not have been the result if research and development had not taken place. This shows that research and development has also contributed to the firm expanding, which was another objective of Boots.

Love And Sacrifices :: essays research papers

Love and Sacrifices What does it mean to love another? To love another person means to feel compassionate towards them, to "feel" what they feel. Caring about someone, and what happens to them is also a sign of love. Sharing a relationship with someone means that you have to be responsible and have to be aware that there will be times when things go wrong. Loving someone means taking these "wrong" things and trying to fix them. What are some signs of love? Making sacrifices is one sign of devotion to another person. When you care about someone, you have to give a little. It all comes with life. In order to receive something, one must sacrifice other things. For example, if having to make a choice between the love of your life and going to a football game, a person who is truly in love, and not just in love with "being in love" will sacrifice the game in order to be with that person. What is the greatest power of potential human speech? (words, language) All humans have the power to communicate with other humans, interact, and share their ideas. The power of speech is what makes it all possible. Communication is the most important thing in the success of a relationship, and for someone to say that they love another is to respect them and their ideas and to want to share with them. The most anyone can ever do for you is listen, and the only way to do that is to communicate that you want to be listened to and that you are willing to listen to the one you love. That is the most anyone can do, and it is a gift of sorts. What is the greatest thing about human love? Being in love gives a sense of completeness, makes one feel as if nothing else is needed in order to survive. Sometimes, being in love can act as a stepping stone, or a doorway into a world you never knew was out there. It can give you a new outlook on things, turn everything you've ever known into something you never thought was possible. Love can also strengthen a "tie" or "bond" that you may have with someone, in a sense that you have that much more in common. What is the greatest expression of love? Sacrificing anything is the greatest expression of your "love". The greatest sacrifice one would have to make is death. Dying for a loved one means that your love wasn't an "It", but a "Thou", and dying only makes it more

Unit 4 Development

Unit 4: Development Through the Life Stages P1: Describe physical, intellectual, emotional and social development for each of the life stages of an individual. Through every life stage we experience physical, intellectual and social and emotional development. Physical development is when the appearance of the body changes. Intellectual development is the mental process of knowing, for example problem solving. The social and emotional development is when your emotions, your personality and social interactions begin. Conception is the process described when the penetration of an egg cell by a sperm cell fuses to form the first cell of a new living organism. Conception normally occurs in the fallopian tubes as a result of sexual intercourse. Pregnancy begins when the embryo implants or embeds itself in the living of the uterus wall and develops. An amniotic sac filled with fluid that surrounds the embryo and acts as a shock absorber. A placenta filled with the mother’s blood and through which the embryo obtains nutrients and eliminates waste. The umbilical cord contains the blood vessels that transport nutrients, oxygen and waste products between the embryo and the placenta. The first few weeks of the pregnancy are critical for the embryo and its development can be affected by the health and behaviour of the mother. The next life stage is birth and infancy this is to the age of 3 years. The physical developments throughout this stage are the following. The body doubles in height and quadruples in weight. Motor skills progress from simple reflexes to coordinates motor abilities such as grasping and walking. The child’s sensory and perceptual ability develops rapidly. For example when the baby is 0 to 6 months their short- sightedness reduces and their eyes begin to focus more clearly. Another physical development would the brain responding to stimulation, such as a child copying an adult clapping. The intellectual development in birth and infancy is when basic structure of language is learned through baby talk with adults. This development would usually occur 0 to 6 months. Babies often use crying, cooing and babbling as their first communication. Further language skills are developed by the age of 1, to constructing sentences by the age of 2. Children start to be aware of world progress through immediate sensory motor experiences such as hearing familiar voices and pointing. Lastly children start to think about the concept of objects, for example objects still exist when out of sight and awareness. This development occurs from 6 to 12 months when the child begins to pass objects between hands. It develops further at 18 to 24 months when children can throw a ball and use a crayon. By the end of birth and infancy children can build a tower of bricks and use scissors. The social and emotional developments in birth and infancy are the following. The child’s emotional responses change from basic reactions to more complex. For instance the child may become self-conscious when playing with other children. Independent behaviours increase with parental encouragement around feeding, dressing and toilet training. By the age of 18 to 24 months the child can use a spoon and remove some clothing. The ability to relate to playmates emerges at the end of birth and infancy the child; this shows the child has developed confidence and basic social skills. The fourth life stage is childhood; this is between the ages of 4 to 11 years old. One of the physical developments in the early ages of childhood is the brain; it attains 90% of adult weight by the age of 5 and develops faster than any other body part. Physical strength increase and body proportions become more adult like. Also athletic skills such as running and jumping dramatically improve in the early years of childhood. Fine motor skills involving the use of smaller muscles develop, allowing younger children to handle small objects with more accuracy such as pencils. When a child reaches the middle of its childhood the growth of the brain slows down, this is from the age of 7 to 9. Physical growth also slows but height spurts occur. Expansion of the heart and lung capacities supports more physical endurance such as swimming and football. In late childhood puberty begins with rising hormone levels. This also shows a specific physical change in gender, girls producing breasts and boys testes enlarging. Girls’ growth spurt begins with gains in height, weight and musculature. The intellectual developments for children in their early childhood are the following. Firstly social interactions with parents and play mates allow their knowledge about the world increase. Also language develops rapidly, resulting on average a 14,000 word vocabulary. In the middle stages of childhood a child’s memory capacity expands, as well as the ability to think about thought. As a result of this a child would be able to organise their own learning. In late childhood a child’s logical thought processes to abstract thinking. A child would have many language skills including synonyms, double meanings, metaphors and humour. There are several social and emotional developments that occur in the early stages of childhood. Firstly a child playing alone or with others becomes increasingly complex and imaginative. Also children become aware of gender roles. When children are near to the age of 6, they have the desire for independence and control over environment increases. This makes parent’s supervisory role more challenging. In the middle stages of childhood peer groups become more significant as dependence shifts to friends for help. Children experience loyalty and share mutual interests. The awareness of and involvement in outside world, increases awareness of family, economic and political conditions. In late childhood peer groups often divide into cliques due to many reasons, for example personality, style and beliefs. The awareness of gender stereotypes continues to increase. Issues increase around sibling rivalry and separation from family. The next stage in life is adolescence this is between the ages of 12 to 17 years old. The physical development in early adolescence is the body continues to grow in height and weight. Early adolescence is between the ages of 12 to 15. Another physical development is that girl’s growth spurts peaks while boys typically begin. The physical development in late adolescence which is ages between 16 to 19 years, this is the stage during puberty. This is when there are changes in level of growth and sex hormones which cause the development of sex organs. It also develops sexual characteristics. Females continue the develop breasts, but experience broadening of the hips, onset of menstruation and first ovulation, growth of pubic and armpit hair. Males experience growth of muscles, broadening of the shoulders, growth of the larynx, production of semen and body and pubic hair. Both genders have an increased activity of the sweat gland. One of the intellectual developments in adolescence is having the ability to grasp irony and sarcasm. The ongoing development of vocabulary expands to more abstract words. Also the understanding of complex grammar continues to improve. Lastly thinking becomes more self conscious and critical, this is usually influenced by the media. The ability to cope with new problems and situations is reached by the end of this period. There are many social and emotional developments in adolescence; this is mainly due to hormones. In the early stages of adolescence sexual orientation begins to emerge. This stage in life is where most parent and child conflicts are likely to happen. Also peer pressure is likely to increase at this stage. This is because children are getting to the age where they want to try new things out like alcohol, smoking and shoplifting. In late adolescence sexual orientation continues to develop, whereas cliques decline in importance. The process of developing and maintaining intimate relationships begin. At this stage your identity is greatly influenced by personal factors, including family and peer relationships, economic and political circumstances. Near the end of adolescence you are introduced to the world of work and career planning. Adulthood is between the ages of 18 to 65 years. The physical functioning increases through the 20’s and peaks around the age of 30, but can be maintained through exercise. In early adulthood, 20 to 40 years of age there is a gradual increase in weight and body fat and a decrease in lean muscle mass. The efficiency of many organ systems begins to diminish at the rate of 1% a year. Sexual responsiveness remains high throughout this period, although some men start to slow down. Physical appearance changes by developing grey hair and wrinkles towards the end of early adulthood, this continues into the middle stages of adulthood. When aged 40 to 65 years, health and potential onset diseases affected by preventive behaviour could appear. For example smokers could suffer from lung cancer. Also in this life stage gradual changes in hearing and vision will occur. Another main development in this life stage is menopause begins in women. In early adulthood the intellectual development of vocabulary and knowledge continues to grow through work interactions and every day problem solving. Wisdom begins to develop in early adulthood. In the middle of Adulthood reaction time and mental processing slows down due to old age. Another development in this life stage is short and long term memory remains relatively stable. The social and emotional developments in early adulthood are the following. Firstly the need of achievement is often met through satisfactory of work. Secondly friendships become particularly important for people who are single. Also personalities are most likely to change up to the age of 30, with additional maturation continuing into the 40’s. In the middle of Adulthood this is where it’s most likely for a mid life crisis, this is due to self confidence and their relationship with the world. This stage in life will often experience facing age discrimination. However this time of your life could experience the greatest productivity at work. The last stage of life is older adulthood this from the age of 65 and onwards. The physical development of this life stage is when the brain becomes smaller and functions more slowly. The body will weaken and this will affect organs and major body systems. A lot of older people suffer from arthritis because of muscle strength which causes stiffness of joints. In older adulthood short term memory may decline, but active exercise of mental abilities helps to maintain functioning. Intellectual developments in older adulthood include the decline of language abilities. In this stage of life there is a decrease in drivers due to the speed of processing information. Another development is the ability to receive information, organise and interpret it declines. There are also social and emotional developments for the older adulthood. For example the retirement experience is shaped by social class and gender factors, including income, health and amount of previous planning. In this stage of life human beings have a sense of well being which tends to be higher than all previous periods. Also a lot of older adults are extremely satisfied with life, this is usually dependent on family involvement.

Discuss Nationalism in the ERa of Good Feelings Essay

Nationalism, not sectionalism, was the driving force during the era of good feelings. Nationalism became the leading ideology of the American republic. While sectionalism proceeded in bringing the nation into turmoil and constant bickering among the politicians, as in the case with dealings leading to the Missouri compromise, nationalism was able to unite the nation into a headstrong body, led by an ever-increasing, more powerful central government. Nationalism, many can argue, was a guiding light that helped the populous in Europe unite. As early as the late great Roman Empire, it was that notion of being a part of a uniform body of civil, governed people who helped these places flourish. In early 19th century America, during the â€Å"Era of Good Feelings† as one newspaper put it, Americans began to root themselves in all that the nation stood for which helped them in turn begin to think about moving the United States into a respectable position among the world’s super powers. For example, Stephen Decatur toasts the country and acknowledges that it is our country, for better or for worse. This is a sharp contrast to the views of our founding fathers because George Washington himself, the â€Å"father of our nation†, saluted king George although he was a part of the attempt to establish a separate nation. Poets and writers also began to capture the nation’s spirit. In her Address to the New York State Legislature, Emma Hart Willard, explains how America has no problem in setting precedents and taking risks for the benefit of the country. For example, did the country take a risk in having a democracy instead of a monarchy? The answer to this question is yes, because no one in the history of the world before America, was able to successfully run a government the way that new nation ran. Although they had to switch from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution, this just proved that the nation could adapt with its people, thus setting precedents. Sectionalism only succeeded in dividing the country. This is because sectionalists always had their own agendas, which often clashed with that of their opposition. The division of votes on the tariff of 1816 was a pretty noticeable one, although the final vote was not really affected by  non-tariff votes. Sectionalism can be found here in the numbers of each region. The majority of New England Votes were cast against the tariff. This should be of no surprise because New England, which at the time was largely federalist, was against the whole war of 1812 effort from the get go. If it were not for the nationalistic pride of the western and southern regions, this protective tariff would have not been passed. Nationalism creates an atmosphere which attempts to propel the nation forward instead of becoming entangled in issues which cause a separation of agendas, thought, and eventually causes a rift in peoples beliefs. The nationalism brought about by the Era of Good feelings helped the United States get on track to becoming what it is today. If you look at current events, you can see that the United States operates with more fluidity when we have a common enemy instead of creating enemies out of our brethren because of our ideals.

The Euro in Crisis Decision Time at the European Central Bank essay

The Euro in Crisis Decision Time at the European Central Bank essay The Euro in Crisis: Decision Time at the European Central Bank essay The Euro in Crisis: Decision Time at the European Central Bank essayQ1. Evaluate the ECBs response to the financial crisis of 2008-2010. What was their analysis of the problem?The crisis of 2008-2010 which started in the United States later affected the whole international community, and had a particularly strong impact on Europe. The response of ECB to the first wave of the financial crisis was to inject money into the European economy without lowering interest rates (Trumbull, Roscini Choi, 2011). The next wave of crisis was further addressed by liquidity-stimulating measures; while these measures supported the position of the European banks and stabilized money markets in Europe, inflation went up. In addition, ECB reduced its MRO rate and changed the mechanisms of borrowing.In fact, ECB started performing the clearing functions which were previously performed by the money market (which became stagnant during crisis and no longer maintained clearing). ECB focused on maintaining l iquidity and protecting the euro, but it also experienced pressure from central European banks which were following the strategy of quantitative easing and expected ECB to follow that strategy as well (Trumbull, Roscini Choi, 2011). Eventually, ECB also became involved and announced the purchase of bonds, therefore energizing the market. However, the initial view of ECB was to deal with monetary aspects of the Eurozone, while the responsibility for fiscal measures should have remained with national governments.Q2. The ECB responded less aggressively than the US Federal Reserve to the crisis. Why?The US Federal Reserve acted quickly during the crisis: it reduced interest rates quickly and started the policy of quantitative easing (started the purchases of financial assets of commercial institutions ). The actions of the Fed were quick and aggressive, since the crisis was rapidly unfolding and the countrys financial system was at the threat of a total crash. At the same time, the act ions of ECB were different: it started increasing the monetary base using its traditional lending policy but did not reduce interest rates timely (it even increased them for a short period when the inflation was speeding up). Furthermore, ECB was reluctant to pursue quantitative easing and this reluctance to a certain extent contributed to the next wave of financial crisis in Europe.The differences between the actions of the Fed and the ECB were constituted mainly by different purposes of these institutions and different scopes of influence. The role of the Fed is to conduct monetary policy, to regulate and supervise banking institutions, to provide financial services of organizations and to maintain the stability of the U.S. financial system. The purpose of the ECB is to conduct monetary policy of the EU and to keep prices stable (Trumbull, Roscini Choi, 2011). Fiscal policies and policies aimed at increasing employment and maintaining the stability of national financial systems i n the EU belong to the responsibilities of governments. Therefore, the ECBs response was different from the Feds response to crisis since these organizations are different in purpose and have different spheres of impact.Q3. In May 2010, should the ECB agree to purchase Greek sovereign debt?Yes, in May 2010 the ECB should agree to purchase Greek sovereign debt. If the ECB does not participate in purchasing this debt, it will damage the financial system of the EU, affect prices and weaken the euro. Such stresses will likely lead other weaker European economies to another crisis and the economy of the EU will suffer. Therefore, by refusing to purchase Greek sovereign debt, the ECB will break its direct responsibilities and push the European economy into a new wave of crisis. However, the ECB should make steps to ensure that other countries with weak economies like Portugal do not follow the Greek scenario and do not dry the European bailout funds. Basing on the Greek precedent, the ECB should seek to create an aligned fiscal policy that would address the interests of all euro zone participants and would balance these interests, instead of letting the countries pursue non-aligned fiscal directions.

Chopping Off Syllables

Chopping Off Syllables Chopping Off Syllables Chopping Off Syllables By Maeve Maddox Heres a fab app for keeping track of your lab info docs, vocab lists, and rehab meds. English speakers have been lopping syllables off words for centuries. And thank goodness for that when it comes to such mouthfuls as taximeter-cabriolet and streptococcus. Id much rather call a cab or a taxi and talk about avoiding strep-throat. I cant help wondering, though, if the English spoken a generation or two in the future will consist of staccato sentences in which words of one and two syllables predominate. Here are some shortenings already in common use: doc document. exam examination fab fabulous graph paragraph info information lab laboratory meds medications op opinion/operative/opportunity promo promotion (with meaning of advertising) prep preparation rehab rehabilitation sax saxophone vac vacuum (Ive also seen it used as a shortened form of vacation, but I dont know how that vac is supposed to be pronounced.) vet veterinarian or veteran vocab vocabulary Some of these shortenings, even the ones I use in my own speech, bother me when I see them in formal writing. Others dont faze me because Ive grown used to them. Thats the way of change in language. What infuriates one generation of speakers is mothers milk to the next. I recall reading a novel written in the early 20th centuryby Booth Tarkington (1869-1946) I thinkin which a young man is chided by one of his parents for using the slangy word lunch instead of luncheon. Nowadays lunch is the common word for a meal between breakfast and supper. The word luncheon has not fallen completely out of use, but has acquired an altered meaning. My associations with luncheon include fussy repasts provided by and for ladies in flowered hats, and SPAM luncheon meat. Is the shortening of words a bad thing? Not necessarily, butdepending upon the intended audiencewriters should probably give some thought to which shortened forms they promote by committing them to print. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Avoid Beginning a Sentence with â€Å"With†Select vs. SelectedHow often is "bimonthly"?

Social Media Audit and Campaign Planning -- Fortune International Essay - 2

Social Media Audit and Campaign Planning -- Fortune International Realty - Essay Example The critical aspect of the social media marketing strategy has already been outlined above which includes reviewing the ideas and practices that competitors have and also a clear determination of the resources that are needed. This includes the need to have a team in place to not only develop as well as maintain the company’s social network presence. The above plan also outlined how the administration of the site should be carried out. In this instance, the objectives should act as a guide to determine the manner in which Fortune Realty will behave within this space and also provide the chance for the company to fully participate with the largest amount of confidence. It is important to note that having a purpose will ensure that the company has both a motive as well as guidance for all the engagements that it will have within this particular space. In having a purpose, Fortune Realty will have better opportunity to get more invitations to interact with all its numerous stakeholders. Making a decision on the objectives is key since it will enable a better decision on the technology that will be used. In this instance, Fortune Realty’s objectives are to increase on its brand awareness and visibility. In addition, the company hopes to actively build and manage on its relationships and manage trust and also generate a large amount of word of mouth. Ensuring that one has a specific audience in mind means that the company will have a far better idea of exactly who it is engaging with because having no restrictions means that there is a greater chance for the message to be diluted. In this instance, the firm’s audience can be its current customers, prospective customers, company staff, and the entire real estate community and business partners both local and foreign. The first strategy is to actively build relationships with those stakeholders that have been identified as critical

Stops, Frisks, and Terry Stops Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Stops, Frisks, and Terry Stops - Research Paper Example This paper will analyze the Terry stop legal issue and its impact in the society. The paper will also look at constitutional issues that touch on the matter and the impact that they have had. Introduction The issue of stop, frisk and Terry stop is very controversial and has been debated for a long period of time. A Terry stop involves stopping of an individual by a law enforcement officer for frisking and in some cases a short detention. An individual may be stopped for frisking if they are suspected of having committed or being likely to commit a crime by a law enforcement officer. As one undergoes a Terry stop, the police officer frisks and individual (the suspect) to ensure that the officer is not in danger or other members of the public (Acker & Brody, 2012). A Terry stop is different from an arrest since it takes less time and is accompanied by less legal procedures. During a Terry Stop, a police officer usually confirm the details of the suspect and finds out whether they have a criminal record or outstanding fines or arrest warrants that have been issued against them. Groups that represent both sides of the argument present their debates which sound justified. Records of crime statistics show that there has been an increase in crimes that are committed all over the country. People all over the world feel that is up to the government to introduce measures that lead to a reduction of crime levels. Stop, frisks and Terry stops is one of the ways that was introduced by the government to try and curb crime levels all over the country. Law enforcers feel that prevention of crimes consumes fewer resources and saves more lives for minimal inconvenience if any to those that undergo the Terry stops. Discussions Stops, Frisks, and Terry Stops affect many individuals in the United States and perceptions on the government and law enforcement officers. This constitutional issue also affects the constitutional rights of individuals. Terry stop and frisk involves detent ion by police if they are suspicious that an individual has been involved in committing a crime. The Terry stop and frisk law was introduced in 1968 after the Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S 1 (1968) court decision that was made by the Supreme court in the United States. The decision also authorized the police to conduct searches on the outer garments of the suspect if they have articulable suspicion that the suspect is armed and dangerous. The court authorized law enforcers to being able to detain an individual who they suspect is involved in committing a crime. Law enforcement officers also have the legal right to search the individual that they have detained. In some cases, the law enforcers might feel that the suspect might be in possession of a weapon, and may be planning to use in order to commit a crime. The rationale that causes the law enforcers to feel that the individual is likely to commit a crime should be reasonable. For example, a suspect might look overly nervous yet there is no evident reason why they should appear so. Such behavior might be an indication that such an individual is about to commit a crime. The law authorizes police officers to seize any form of contraband that they would find on a suspect while conducting the frisking. However there are some conditions in the frisking of the suspect (Acker & Brody, 2012). The frisking should be limited to the outer clothing of the

Informed consent , ethics and research Assignment

Informed consent , ethics and research - Assignment Example It is clear from the examples that Cassell and Young use that Informed Consent is, as they say, â€Å"poorly adapted† to Health Services Research. (2002) The main reason for this is that most HSR involves the reshuffling of entire organizational structures, which is obviously something that one particular person cannot really opt out of if they dont like the way the trial is proceeding. This is different from clinical research, where the Helsinki Declaration requires that a patient can leave the trial at any time. Cassell and Young use the example of a midwifery practice in rural England, and point out that patients â€Å"will not be able to opt out of the intervention †¦ if it becomes the standard local model of care.† (2002) That is, they will have to keep using the modified version afterwards if the organization decides they will, since that is their only option. It is clear that some alternative method of consent that reflects the realities of Health Services Research should be pursued. J Cassell, & A Young. (2002). Why we should not seek individual informed consent for participation in health services research. Journal of Medical Ethics, 28(5), 313-7. Retrieved December 7, 2009, from ProQuest Medical Library. (Document ID:

Edoxaban for Stroke Prevention

Edoxaban for Stroke Prevention 1. Indication (86words) Edoxaban, a drug part of the direct factor Xa group is licensed on two indications. The first indication, treatment of pulmonary embolism (PE) and deep vein thrombosis (DVT). (1). Treatment is only conducted following the use of parenteral anticoagulants on a minimum 5-day course. Second, prevention of systemic embolism (SE) and stroke in nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF). Treatment conducted in line with risk factors such as transient ischaemic attack (TIA), diabetes mellitus, congestive heart failure, hypertension, prior stroke, or age>75 years. (2) 2. Design (278) Edoxaban is part of NOAC, which includes apixaban and rivaroxaban. The development of edoxaban is primarily focused on overcoming the drawbacks of warfarin which requires frequent monitoring, unpredictable dosing and interactions with various food and drugs. (3) The API of edoxaban, edoxaban tosilate is accessible in two polymorphic forms, form I and form II with form I being the most thermodynamically stable. The crystalline form I of edoxaban tosilate is synthetically produced with no conversion of forms during the drug manufacturing process. (4) Edoxaban is available in 15, 30 and 60 mg immediate release film coated tablets that disintegrates quickly. Having a relatively long half-life of up to 14 hours, with dose-dependent, linear pharmacokinetic parameters, it is suitable for once a day dosing. Oral bioavailability is approximated to be at 62% and concentration levels reach a steady state within 3 days of oral administration and is unaffected by food. Edoxaban is 50% renally cleared, requiring doses for elderly and renally impaired patients to be reduced. The pharmacodynamics effects are usually produced within 1-2 hours in correspondence to the peak exposure levels of edoxaban. (5) Edoxaban tablets are manufactured from common granulate and are quantitatively proportional when manufactured. API particle sizes are reduced during the final steps of the API manufacturing process utilising milling. The final manufacturing process involves four main stages, fluid bed granulation; blending; tableting and film coating. Final product requires no special storage as it is photostable and is packaged in a PVC and aluminium blister. Storage of edoxaban ranges from 24 months for long and intermediate conditions and as low as 6 months in accelerated conditions. All excipients used in this formulation are compliant to European Pharmacopoeia Standards. (4) Figure 1: Structure of Rivaroxaban, Apixiban and Edoxaban. (6) 3) Safety (199 words) Warfarin is the current GOLD standard indicator for DVT and AF. Large scale pivotal phase II studies have been conducted to compare the safety and efficacy profile of edoxaban and warfarin. The results of studies; ENGAGE AF(7) and Hokusai VTE(8), are tabulated for analysis below in Table 1. Findings of the study place the adverse events (AE) among patients of each drug be well within tolerable range with only mild to moderate events occurring. However, the Treatment-emergent adverse event (TEAE) and serious TEAR were found be higher in warfarin. This is clearly seen in Table 2. Major bleeding is the primary safety endpoint for safety as defined by the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis (ISTH). The ENGANGE AF study showed reduced major bleeding against warfarin with the annualized rate of 3.43% as compared to 2.75% for Edoxaban. Intracranial, major or nonmajor relevant bleeding and fatal bleeding were found to be significantly lower compared to warfarin (p

The Lady of Shalott and Industrialized Misery Essay -- Lady of Shalott

The Lady of Shalott and Industrialized Misery Alfred Lord Tennyson, one of the mid-Victorian's most celebrated poets of the time, was genius in "eloquently presenting the anxieties and aspirations of his era" (Longman p. 1909). Trademarks of Victorian life included questioning faith, the Bible, the past, and the self. More and more people were interested in the industry of man rather than the uniqueness of nature, and progress of society proved that man was made to dominate and take everything for himself. Tennyson greatly recognized this trend as "he called attention to the industrialized misery and revolutionary anger of the poor" (Longman p. 1909-08) produced by the industrial progress in the mid-1800s. He noticed that as people delved into improving society, they at the same time lost their sense of humanity and innocence as they sped up industry and the making of material wealth for the well to-do. This loss of innocence is echoed in Tennyson's Arthurian lyrical poem "The Lady of Shalott" (Longman pp. 1913-1918). ...

Historical Evaluation of the Book Survival in Auschwitz Essay

When Hitler began his career as a politician, he was always obsessed of eliminating the Jews in Germany. This â€Å"elimination† did not necessarily mean extermination of the said race, but nevertheless would involve too much savagery and cruelty. In 1930, Hitler became chancellor of Germany, a post he held until 1932, and began instituting anti-Jewish legislations. Jews were not permitted to hold any government office. They were also barred from using public utilities and services, and worst, their citizenship was cancelled. When Hitler became dictator in 1933, he issued several orders to army and police units to begin the construction of concentration camps to hold prisoners. Many prisoners were transferred to these concentration camps. It was reported that they experienced torture and unwarranted murder. When the war broke, concentration camps were filled with Jews. Originally, the plan was to ship the Jews to Madagascar, a French colony (since Germany already defeated France during the war). 1 Because of lack of transport ships, Jews were forcibly transferred to the east where several concentration camps were being built. The â€Å"trip† to these concentration camps were not pleasurably; more accurately horrible. Jews were sealed in the trains. For six days, the Jews had to suffer the lack of water and food, and poor ventilation system. There was no toilet in the cargo section of the train. Escape was impossible since German soldiers are guarding every section of the train. Jews caught jumping off the train were shot. Worse, the section where the said Jews escaped would have to be liquidated. This was the policy of the German military at that time. Contents of Levi’s Book The book is essentially divided into 18 parts, organized into three themes (journey, life in the concentration camp, and war survival). 2 These are the chapters of Levi’s: 1) The Journey, 2) On the Bottom, 3) Initiation, 4) Ka-Be, 5) Our Nights, 6) The Work, 7) A Good Day, 8) This Side of Good and Evil, 9) The Drowned and the Saved, 10) Chemical Examination, 11) The Canto of Ulysses, 12) The Events of the Summer, 13) October 1944, 14) Kraus, 15) Die drie Leute vom Labor, 16) The Last One, 17) The Story of Ten Days, and 18) A Conversation with Primo Levi. Each of these chapters reveals the factual events that occurred during the deportation of Jews to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The first chapter deals on the capture of Levi by Italian Fascists on December 13, 1943. Although he supported Mussolini during his yearly years in power, he was considered an enemy of the Italian Fascist army because of his Jewish leanings. When he fled to the mountains during the early course of the war, he was left with nothing but a couple of personal effects: a pair of shoes, a small firearm, and a bag of canned goods. When he was captured, he was immediately sent to the SS camp in Northern Italy. The next chapters deal on the life of Levi on the concentration camp. At the end of January 1944, he was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp along with 150 Italian Jews. At their first arrival, several Jews were shot on the orders of the camp commandant. The reasons for the shooting were never made clear by the chief sergeant of the work cells, but during the next days shooting of prisoners became a common sight. The visit of the German doctors to the concentration camp, according to Levi, was initially welcomed by the Jewish prisoners in the belief that medicines would be distributed in the camp. It turned out that the doctors were invited by the camp commandant to take blood samples from selected Jews. These Jews would be transported back to Germany as part of an experiment. In October 1944, the Auschwitz camp commandant issued an order to liquidate some of the populous sections of the ghetto. Families became worried as German soldiers indiscriminately opened fire to women, children, and the old. Men of adult age were immediately shot. One of the families, according to Levi, was praying in unison when an SS unit came and shot them. Some pleaded to German soldiers to spare the lives of children, but to no avail. The SS was instructed by the commandant to shot all Jews found in the selected section of the camp. Those who will ignore the order will be immediately shot. Life in the Concentration Camp (Levi’s Account of Auschwitz) Levi’s book fits well to historical documents proving the atrocities committed by the Nazis to the Jews during the Second World War. His accounts of Auschwitz were invariably a supplementary record of war trials and criminal investigations of the Jewish High Tribunal. 3 His accounts however were highly accurate and devoid of emotions. It was as if the book was a photographed version of reality. Every prisoner in Auschwitz was supposed to work at least 16 hours a day. Not to do so would mean torture and with great probability death. Children were separated from the old. The old were machine gunned in a nearby SS camp. The children were sent to the â€Å"special treatment† house in Germany or in German-occupied territories to be gassed. Able-bodied men and women were â€Å"employed† as laborers, taking many different jobs a day. Those who were disabled were automatically shot. It was even noted that no prisoner would survive in Auschwitz for even four weeks. It was the policy of the Germans to kill all the Jews transported after a month. This would make liquidation and transport more efficient. After the last batch was killed, a new batch would be sent to the camp to be killed. Added to that, any German caught of fraternizing with the Jews would suffer the penalty of death. This policy was in accord with Nazi philosophy which requires every German to discriminate the Jews, take their properties, and possibly their lives (it was even noted that during Hitler’s time, crimes against Jews were relaxed. The courts were ordered by the Fuhrer not to proceed with crimes against the Jews, because they were not German citizens and should not be accorded with the rights and privileges of a German citizen). Sleeping was not also allowed. Anyone caught would be instantly killed. When anyone begged for mercy, the SS would take the pleasure of torturing him/her. 4 Killing would be the finale. Sometimes, a thousand people were killed in a day. In Auschwitz alone, an estimated 1. 5 million Jews were killed during the duration of the war. These killings were done sometimes for sanitary purposes, sometimes for recreation, sometimes for the abject order of the camp commandant. The Jews were provided with food periodically by the SS. The distributed supplies of food were however insufficient to augment the prisoners’ labor nutrient requirements in the concentration camp. Many times, Jews were not given food because there was either a scarcity of such or by the order of the camp commandant. It was also the policy of the Nazis to starve the Jewish race and to let them die in shame and pain. It was of no doubt that everyday many Jews in the camp die because of malnourishment and hunger. Clothing was not provided by the SS; the Jews were left on their own. They were ordered to bring their best clothing to the concentration camp, along with their personal effects. Their houses in the cities would be turned over to the German state. 5 Household equipments would have to be abandoned. There would be no room in the concentration camp for such â€Å"luxuries†. The German police â€Å"assured† them that their properties would be left unharmed. Such assurances were never made factual, for the Germans considered Jewish property as their own, in compensation of the Jewish traitorous activities during the First World War. The conditions of the Jews became more and more horrible as the war progressed. A new technology was invented by a corporal in the German army which can kill 10, 000 Russian prisoners in the Eastern Front. The so-called gas chambers were utilized to kill at least 20, 000 Jews a day per concentration camp. The efficiency of this newly discovered method eventually stimulated other SS commandants to adopt such method of execution. The â€Å"Final Solution of the Jewish Question† was almost solved have not Germany faced the situation of unconditional surrender. Levy made this assertion when he was invited as a witness in the Nuremberg trials. Conclusion The book written by Primo Levi, a Jew with a doctorate in chemistry was full of details portraying the miserable conditions of the Jews under the Nazi regime. 6 These miserable conditions, however, were not far removed from the obsession of the Nazis of their inherent superior qualities. The persecutions of the Jews during the Second World War were rooted in the deep hatred of the Germans to the Jews, of which was transformed into discrimination. This discrimination in due time was also transformed into political policies which highlighted the vagrant actions of the Germans against the Jews. The establishment of concentration camps, sufferings of the Jews in the concentration camps, and the desire of the Jews to be liberated from this system were historical facts, located in a milieu of social hatred and discrimination, imbibed in Hitler’s philosophy.

Stylistics

STYLISTICS In Stylistics Richard Bradford provides a definitive introductory guide to modern critical ideas on literary style and stylistics. The book includes examples of poems, plays and novels from Shakespeare to the present day. This comprehensive and accessible guidebook for undergraduates explains the terminology of literary form, considers the role of stylistics in twentieth-century criticism, and shows, with worked examples, how literary style has evolved since the sixteenth century.This book falls into three sections: Part I follows the discipline of stylistics from classical rhetoric to poststructuralism; Part II looks at the relationship between literary style and its historical context; Part III considers the relationships between style and gender, and between style and evaluative judgement. Richard Bradford is Professor of English at the University of Ulster. He has written books on Kingsley Amis, Roman Jakobson, Milton, eighteenth-century criticism, visual poetry and li nguistics. THE NEW CRITICAL IDIOMSERIES EDITOR: JOHN DRAKAKIS, UNIVERSITY OF STIRLING The New Critical Idiom is an invaluable series of introductory guides to today’s critical terminology. Each book: †¢ provides a handy, explanatory guide to the use (and abuse) of the term †¢ offers an original and distinctive overview by a leading literary and cultural critic †¢ relates the term to the larger field of cultural representation. With a strong emphasis on clarity, lively debate and the widest possible breadth of examples, The New Critical Idiom is an indispensable approach to key topics in literary studies. See below for new books in this series. Gothic by Fred Botting Historicism by Paul Hamilton Ideology by David Hawkes Metre, Rhythm and Verse Form by Philip Hobsbaum Romanticism by Aidan Day Stylistics by Richard Bradford Humanism by Tony Davies Sexuality by Joseph Bristow STYLISTICS Richard Bradford LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 1997 by Routledge 11 New F etter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. â€Å"To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www. Bookstore. tandf. co. uk. † Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001  © 1997 Richard Bradford All rights reserved. No part of this book my be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Bradford, Richard Stylistics / Richard Bradford. p. cm. —(The new critical idiom) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Style, Literary. I. Title. II. Series. PN203. B68 1997 809–dc20 96–27990 CIP ISBN 0-203-99265-2 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-415-09768-1 (Print Edition) 0-415-09769-X (pbk) To Jennifer Ford CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE INTRODUCTION iii ix xi PART I A SHORT HISTORY OF STYLISTICS 1 2 3 4 5 Rhetoric Stylistics and modern criticism Textualism I: poetry Textualism II: the novel Contextualist stylistics 2 11 14 50 72 PART II STYLISTICS AND LITERARY HISTORY 6 7 8 9 10 11 Renaissance and Augustan poetry Literary style and literary history Shakespeare’s drama: two stylistic registers The eighteenth-and nineteenthcentury novel Romanticism Modernism and naturalization 98 110 117 126 143 151 PART III GENDER AND EVALUATION vii 12 13 Gender and genre Evaluative stylistics BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX 67 183 201 206 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to the Faculty of Humanities and the School of English, University of Ulster, for providing me with the time to finish this book, and to John Drakakis, a scrupulous editor. The author and publisher are grateful for the permission to reproduce extracts from T. S. Eliot, Collected Poems 1909– 1962, reprinted courtesy of Faber & Faber Ltd. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use copyright material in this book. Please contact the publisher if any omissions have inadvertently occurred.SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE The New Critical Idiom is a series of introductory books which seeks to extend the lexicon of literary terms, in order to address the radical changes which have taken place in the study of literature during the last decades of the twentieth century. The aim is to provide clear, well-illustrated accounts of the full range of terminology currently in use, and to evolve histories of its changing usage. The current state of the discipline of literary studies is one where there is considerable debate concerning basic questions of terminology.This in volves, among other things, the boundaries which distinguish the literary from the non-literary; the position of literature within the larger sphere of culture; the relationship between literatures of different cultures; and questions concerning the relation of literary to other cultural forms within the context of interdisciplinary studies. It is clear that the field of literary criticism and theory is a dynamic and heterogenous one. The present need is for individual volumes on terms which combine clarity of exposition with an adventurousness of perspective and a breadth of application.Each volume will contain as part of its apparatus some indication of the direction in which the definition of particular terms is likely to move, as well as expanding the disciplinary boundaries within which some of these terms have been traditionally contained. This will involve some re-situation of terms within the larger field of cultural representation, and will introduce examples from the x are a of film and the modern media in addition to examples from a variety of literary texts. INTRODUCTIONStylistics is an elusive and slippery topic. Every contribution to the vast and multifaceted discipline of literary studies will involve an engagement with style. To accept that the subject of our attention or our critical essay is a poem, a novel or a play involves an acceptance that literature is divided into three basic stylistic registers. Even a recognition of literary studies as a separate academic sphere is prefigured by a perceived distinction between literary and non-literary texts.Stylistics might thus seem to offer itself as an easily definable activity with specific functions and objectives: Stylistics enables us to identify and name the distinguishing features of literary texts, and to specify the generic and structural subdivisions of literature. But it is not as simple as this. When we use or respond to language in the real world our understanding of what the words mea n is supplemented by a vast number of contextual and situational issues: language is an enabling device; it allows us to articulate the sequence of choices, decisions, responses, acts and onsequences that make up our lives. Style will play some part in this, but its function is pragmatic and purposive: we might admire the lucid confidence of the car advertisement or the political broadcast, but in the end we will look beyond the words to the potential effect of their message upon our day to day activities. The style and language of poems, novels and plays will frequently involve these purposive functions, but when we look beyond their effect to their context we face a xii INTRODUCTION otentially disorientating relation between what happens in the text and what might happen outside it. Stylistics can tell us how to name the constituent parts of a literary text and enable us to document their operations, but in doing so it must draw upon the terminology and methodology of disciplines which focus upon language in the real world. The study of metre, narrative and dramatic dialogue is founded upon the fundamental units and principles of all linguistic usage: phonemes, rhythmic sequences, grammatical classes, forms of syntactic organization and so on.But these same fundamentals of communication also underpin the methodology of pure linguistics, structuralism and semiotics, discourse theory, sociolinguistics, gender studies, linguistic philosophy and a whole network of disciplines which involves the context and pragmatic purpose of communication. Consequently, modern stylistics is caught between two disciplinary imperatives. On the one hand it raises questions regarding the relation between the way that language is used and its apparent context and objective—language as an active element of the real world.On the other, it seeks to define the particular use of linguistic structures to create facsimiles, models or distortions of the real world—literary la nguage. This problematic relationship is the principal subject of this book. In Part I, I will consider the progress of modern stylistics from its origins in classical rhetoric to its function in modern literary studies. This will focus upon the tension between stylistics as a purely literary-critical discipline—its function in defining literature as an art form (which I call textualism)—and its operations within the broader field of structuralism and social studies (contextualism).Part II will re-examine this tension in relation to literary history: what is the relationship between literary style and historical context? Part III is a detailed study of two issues that feature in the margins of Parts I and II. ‘Gender and Evaluation’ will be concerned with the way in which the twin elements of feminist criticism and women writers relate to stylistics. INTRODUCTION xiii ‘Evaluative Stylistics’ will look at how the discipline of stylistics underp ins our subjective experience of reading. PART I A SHORT HISTORY OF STYLISTICS 1 RHETORIC The academic discipline of stylistics is a twentieth-century invention.It will be the purpose of this book to describe the aims and methods of stylistics, and we will begin by considering its relationship with its most notable predecessor —rhetoric. The term is derived from the Greek techne rhetorike, the art of speech, an art concerned with the use of public speaking as a means of persuasion. The inhabitants of Homer’s epics exploit and, more significantly, acknowledge the capacity of language to affect and determine nonlinguistic events, but it was not until the fifth century BC that the Greek settlers of Sicily began to study, document and teach rhetoric as a practical discipline.The best-known names are Corax and Tisias who found that, in an island beset with political and judicial disagreements over land and civil rights, the art of persuasion was a useful and profitable prof ession. Gorgias, one of their pupils, visited Athens as ambassador and he is generally regarded as the person responsible for piloting rhetoric beyond its judicial function into the spheres of philosophy and literary studies. Isocrates was the first to extend and promote the moral and ethical benefits of the art of speech, and one of Plato’s earliest Socratic dialogues bears the name Gorgias.It is with Plato that we encounter the most significant moment in the early history of rhetoric. In the Phaedrus Plato/Socrates states that unless a man pays due attention to philosophy ‘he will never RHETORIC 3 be able to speak properly about anything’ (261 A). ‘A real art of speaking†¦which does not seize hold of truth, does not exist and never will’ (260E). What concerned Plato was the fact that rhetoric was a device without moral or ethical subject matter.In the Gorgias he records an exchange between Socrates and Gorgias in which the former claims that p ersuasion is comparable with flattery, cooking and medicine: it meets bodily needs and satisfies physical and emotional desires. Rhetoric, he argues, is not an ‘art’ but a ‘routine’, and such a routine, if allowed to take hold of our primary communicative medium, will promote division, ambition and self-aggrandizement at the expense of collective truth and wisdom, the principal subjects of philosophy.Plato himself, particularly in the Phaedrus, does not go so far as to suggest the banning of rhetoric; rather he argues that it must be codified as subservient to the philosopher’s search for truth. Aristotle in his Rhetoric (c. 330 BC) produced the first counter-blast to Plato’s anti-rhetoric thesis. Rhetoric, argues Aristotle, is an art, a necessary condition of philosophical debate. To perceive the same fact or argument dressed in different linguistic forms is not immoral or dangerous.Such a recognition—that words can qualify or unsettle a single pre-linguistic truth—is part of our intellectual training, vital to any purposive reconciliation of appearance and reality. Aristotle meets the claim that rhetoric is socially and politically dangerous with the counterclaim that the persuasive power of speech is capable of pre-empting and superseding the violent physical manifestations of subjection and defence. The Plato-Aristotle exchange is not so much about rhetoric as an illustration of the divisive nature of rhetoric.It is replayed, with largely Aristotelian preferences, in the work of the two most prominent Roman rhetoricians, Cicero and Quintilian; it emerges in the writings of St Augustine and in Peter Ramus’s Dialectique (1555), one of the founding moments in the revival of classical rhetoric during the European Renaissance. Most significantly, it operates as 4 RHETORIC the theoretical spine which links rhetoric with modern stylistics, and stylistics in turn with those other constituents of the cont emporary discipline of humanities: linguistics, structuralism and poststructuralism.Plato and Aristotle did not disagree on what rhetoric is; their conflicts originated in the problematical relationship between language and truth. Rhetoric, particularly in Rome and in post-Renaissance education, had been taught as a form of super-grammar. It provides us with names and practical explanations of the devices by which language enables us to perform the various tasks of persuading, convincing and arguing. In an ideal world (Aristotle’s thesis) these tasks will be conducive to the personal and the collective good.The rhetorician will know the truth, and his linguistic strategies will be employed as a means of disclosing the truth. In the real world (Plato’s thesis) rhetoric is a weapon used to bring the listener into line with the argument which happens to satisfy the interests or personal affiliations of the speaker, neither of which will necessarily correspond with the tru th. These two models of rhetorical usage are equally valid and finally irreconcilable. Lies, fabrications, exaggerations are facts of language, but they can only be cited when the fissure between language and truth is provable.For example, if I were to tell you that I am a personal friend of Aristotle, known facts will be sufficient to convince you (unless you are a spiritualist) that I am not telling the truth. However, a statement such as, Aristotle speaks to me of the general usefulness of rhetoric’ is acceptable because it involves the use of a familiar rhetorical device (generally termed catachresis, the misuse or mis-application of a term): Aristotle does not literally speak to me, but my use of the term to imply that his written words involve the sincerity or the immediate relevance of speech is sanctioned by rhetorical-stylistic convention.What I have done is to use a linguistic device to distort prelinguistic truth and to achieve an emotive effect at the same time. M y reason for doing so would be to give a RHETORIC 5 supplementary persuasive edge to the specifics of my argument about the validity of Aristotle’s thesis. Such devices are part of the fabric of everyday linguistic exchange and, assuming that the hearer is as conversant as the speaker with the conventions of this rhetorical game, they are not, in Plato’s terms, immoral or dishonest.But for Plato such innocuous examples were merely a symptom of the much more serious consequences of rhetorical infection. The fact that Aristotle lived more than two millennia before me cannot be disputed, but the fabric of intellectual activity and its linguistic manifestation is only partly comprised of concrete facts. Morality, the existence of God, the nature of justice: all of these correspond with the verifiable specifics of human existence, but our opinions about them cannot be verified in direct relation to these specifics.The common medium shared by the abstract and the concrete di mensions of human experience is language and, as a consequence, language functions as the battleground for the tendentious activity of making the known correspond with the unknown, that speculative element of human existence that underpins all of our beliefs about the nature of truth, justice, politics and behaviour.Plato and Aristotle named the conditions of this conflict as dianoia and pragmata (thought and facts, otherwise known as res or content) and lexis and taxis (word choice and arrangement, otherwise known as verba or form), and the distinction raises two major problems that will occupy much of our attention throughout this book. First of all it can be argued that to make a distinction between language—in this instance the rhetorical organization of language—and the pre-linguistic continuum of thought, objects and events involves a fundamental error.Without language our experience of anything is almost exclusively internalized and private: we can, of course, m ake physical gestures, non-linguistic sounds or draw pictures, but these do not come close to the vast and complex network of signs and meanings shared by language users. The most important consequence of this condition of language 6 RHETORIC dependency is that we can never be certain whether the private world, the set of private experiences or beliefs, that language enables us to mediate is, as Plato and Aristotle argue, entirely independent of its medium.The governing precondition for any exchange of views about the nature of existence and truth—a process perfectly illustrated by Plato’s Socratic dialogues—is that language allows us to disclose the true nature of pre-linguistic fact. However, for such an exchange to take place at all each participant must submit to an impersonal system of rules and conventions. Before any disagreement regarding a fact or a principle can occur the combatants must first have agreed upon the relation between the fact/principle an d its linguistic enactment.An atheist and a Christian will have totally divergent perceptions of the nature of human existence, but both will know what the word ‘God’ means. The twentieth-century alternative to Aristotle’s and Plato’s distinction between dianoia/pragmata and lexis/taxis has been provided by Ferdinand de Saussure, a turn-of-thecentury linguist whose influence upon modern ideas about language and reality has become immeasurable.Saussure’s most quoted and influential propositions concern his distinction between the signified and the signifier and his pronouncement that ‘in language there are only differences without positive terms’. The signifier is the concrete linguistic sign, spoken or written, and the signified is the concept represented by the sign. A third element is the referent, the pre-linguistic object or condition that stands beyond the signifiersignified relationship. This tripartate function is, to say the lea st, unsteady.The atheist and the Christian will share a largely identical conception of the relation between ‘God’ (signifier) and ‘God’ (signified) but the atheist will regard this as a purely linguistic state, a fiction sustained by language, but without a referent. For such an individual the signifier God relates not to a specific signified and referent, but to other signifiers and signifieds— concepts of good and bad, eternity, omniscience, omnipotence, the whole network of signs which enables RHETORIC 7 Christian belief to intersect with other elements of the human condition.In Saussure’s terms, the signified ‘God’ is sustained by the differential relationship between itself and other words and concepts, and this will override its correspondence with a ‘positive term’ (the referent). Plato and Aristotle shared the premise that it is dangerous and immoral to talk about something that does not exist, and that it is the duty of the philosopher to disclose such improper fissures between language and its referent. Saussure’s model of language poses a threat to this ideal by raising the possibility that facts and thoughts might, to an extent, be constructs of the system of language.The relation between classical philosophy/rhetoric and Saussurean linguistics is far more complicated than my brief comparison might suggest, but it is certain that Saussure makes explicit elements of the divisive issue of whether rhetoric is a potentially dangerous practice. And this leads us to a second problem: the relationship between language and literature. Plato in The Republic has much to say about literature—which at the time consisted of poetry in its dramatic or narrative forms.In Book 10 an exchange takes place regarding the nature of imitation and representation: the subject is ostensibly art, but the originary motive is as usual the determining of the nature of truth. By the end of the dialo gue Socrates has established a parallel hierarchy of media and physical activities. The carpenter makes the actual bed, but the idea or concept behind this act of creation is God’s. The painter is placed at the next stage down in this creative hierarchy: he can observe the carpenter making the bed and dutifully record this process.The poet, it seems, exists in a somewhat ambiguous relation to this column of originators, makers and imitators. Perhaps they [poets] may have come across imitators and been deceived by them; they may not have remembered when they saw their works that these were but imitations thrice removed from the truth, and could easily be made without any knowledge of the 8 RHETORIC truth, because they are appearances only and not realities. (1888:312) In short, the poet is capable of unsettling the hierarchy which sustains the clear relation between appearance and reality.Poets, as Aristotle and Plato recognized, are pure rhetoricians: they work within a kind of metalanguage which draws continuously upon the devices of rhetoric but which is not primarily involved in the practical activities of argument and persuasion. As the above quote suggests, they move disconcertingly through the various levels of creation, imitation and deception, and as Plato made clear, such fickle mediators were not the most welcome inhabitants in a Republic founded upon a clear and unitary correspondence between appearance and reality.Plato’s designation of literature as a form which feeds upon the devices of more practical and purposive linguistic discourses, but whose function beyond a form of whimsical diversion is uncertain, has for two millenia been widely debated but has remained the dominant thesis. During the English Renaissance there was an outpouring of largely practical books on the proper use of rhetoric and rhetorical devices: for example R. Sherry’s A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes (1550), T. Wilson’s The Arte of Rhetorique (15 53), R. Rainolde’s A Book Called the Foundation of Rhetorike (1563), H.Peacham’s The Garden of Eloquence (1577) and G. Puttenham’s The Arte of English Poesie (1589). These were aimed at users of literary and non-literary language, but a distinction was frequently made between the literary and the non-literary function of rhetoric. In George Puttenham’s The Arte of English Poesie we find that there are specific regulations regarding the correspondence between literary style and subject (derived chiefly from Cicero’s distinction between the grand style, the middle style and the low, plain or simple style).The crossing of recommended style-subject borders was regarded as bad writing, but a far more serious offence would be committed RHETORIC 9 if the most extravagant rhetorical, and by implication literary, devices were transplanted into the serious realms of non-literary exchange. Metaphors or ‘figures’ are, according to Puttenham, parti cularly dangerous. ‘For what else is your Metaphor but an inversion of sense by transport; your allegorie by a duplicitie of meaning or dissimulation under covert and darke intendments’ (1589:158).Judges, for example, forbid such extravagances because they distort the truth: This no doubt is true and was by then gravely considered; but in this case, because our maker or Poet is appointed not for a judge, but rather for a pleader, and that of pleasant and lovely causes and nothing perillous, such as be for the triall of life, limme, or livelihood†¦they [extravagant metaphors] are not in truth to be accompted vices but for vertues in the poetical science very commendable. (ibid. : 161)Poetry does of course involve ‘perillous’ matters, but what Puttenham means is that the poetic function is not instrumental in activities concerned with actual ‘life, limme, or livelihood’. As a spokesman for the Renaissance consensus Puttenham shows that the P lato/Aristotle debate regarding the dangers of rhetoric, especially in its literary manifestation, has been shelved rather than resolved: in short, Puttenham argues that in literature it is permissible to distort reality because literature is safely detached from the type of discourse that might have some purposive effect upon the real conditions of its participants.What Puttenham said in 1589 remains true today: literary and non-literary texts might share a number of stylistic features but literary texts do not belong in the same category of functional, purposive language as the judicial ruling or the theological tract. This begs a question which modern stylistics, far more than rhetoric, has sought to address. How do we judge the difference between literary and non-literary discourses? We 10 RHETORIC ave not finished with rhetoric, but in order to properly consider the two issues raised by it—the relation between language and non-linguistic reality and the difference betwee n literary and non-literary texts—we should now begin to examine its far more slippery and eclectic modern counterpart. 2 STYLISTICS AND MODERN CRITICISM Two groups of critics have had a major influence on the identity and direction of twentieth-century English studies: the Russian and central European Formalists and the more disparate collection of British and American teachers and writers whose academic careers began during the 1920s and 1930s.The term New Criticism is often applied to the latter group. The objectives of the majority of individuals in each group were the same: to define literature as a discourse and art form and to establish its function as something that can be properly studied. Until the late 1950s the work of these groups remained within mutually exclusive geographical and academic contexts: the New Critics in Britain and America and the Formalists in Europe. During the 1960s New Criticism and Formalism began to recognize similarities and overlaps in the ir goals and methods.Since the 1960s their academic predominance has been unsettled by a much broader network of interdisciplinary practices: structuralism, poststructuralism, feminism and new historicism, are all significant elements of contemporary literary studies, and each draws its methodologies and expectations from intellectual fields beyond the traditional, enclosed realms of rhetoric and aesthetics. This, I concede, is a simplified history of twentiethcentury criticism, but it provides us with a framework for an understanding of how rhetoric has been variously transformed into modern stylistics.The New Critics and the Formalists are the most obvious inheritors of the disciplines 12 STYLISTICS AND MODERN CRITICISM of rhetoric, in the sense that they have maintained a belief in the empirical difference between literature and other types of language and have attempted to specify this difference in terms of style and effect. Structuralism at once extended and questioned these p ractices by concentrating on the similarities, rather than the differences, between literature and other discourses.Poststructuralism took this a stage further by introducing the reader into the relation between literary and non-literary style, and posing the question of whether the expectations of the perceiver can determine, rather than simply disclose, stylistic effects and meanings. Feminist critics have examined style less as an enclosed characteristic of a particular text and more as a reflection of the sociocultural hierarchies—predominantly male—which control stylistic habits and methods of interpretation.Similarly, Marxists and new historicists concern themselves with style as an element of the more important agenda of cultural and ideological change and mutation. For the sake of convenience I shall divide these different approaches to stylistics into two basic categories: textualist and contextualist. The Formalists and New Critics are mainly textualists in t hat they regard the stylistic features of a particular literary text as productive of an empirical unity and completeness. They do not perceive literary style as entirely exclusive to literature—rhythm is an element of all spoken language, and narrative features in ordinary onversation—but when these stylistic features are combined so as to dominate the fabric of a text, that text is regarded as literature. Contextualism involves a far more loose and disparate collection of methods. Its unifying characteristic is its concentration on the relation between text and context. Some structuralists argue that the stylistic features of poetry draw upon the same structural frameworks that enable us to distinguish between modes of dress or such social rituals as eating.Some feminists regard literary style as a means of securing attitudes and hierarchies that, in the broader context, maintain the difference between male and female roles. STYLISTICS AND MODERN CRITICISM 13 The rem ainder of this Part is divided into three chapters. The first two will examine in basic terms how modern criticism has employed stylistics to evolve theories of poetry and fiction: these chapters will be concerned predominantly with textualist method and practice. Chapter 5 is more concerned with contextualism and will consider the ways in which the interface between text and context can unsettle textualist assumptions. TEXTUALISM I: POETRY The first part of this chapter will give brief definitions, with examples, of the devices and linguistic elements that constitute the stylistic character of post-medieval English poetry: prosody and poetic form; metre; rhyme and the stanza; the sonnet; the ode; blank verse; free verse; metaphor; syntax, diction and vocabulary. Following this is a section on critical methods, which will include examples of how the listed devices and linguistic elements are deployed by critics in their attempts to show how poetic style creates particular meanings a nd effects.PROSODY AND POETIC FORM The most basic and enduring definition of poetry is that the poem, unlike any other assembly of words, supplements the use of grammar and syntax with another system of organization: the poetic line. The poetic line draws upon the same linguistic raw material as the sentence but deploys and uses this in a different way. Our awareness of the grammatical rules which govern the way that words are formed into larger units of meaning is based on our ability to recognize the difference between individual words.Words are made up of sound and stress, identified respectively by the phoneme and the syllable. The function of sound and stress in non-poetic language is functional and utilitarian: before we understand the operative relation between nouns, verbs, adjectives and TEXTUALISM I: POETRY 15 connectives we need to be able to relate the sound and structure of a word to its meaning. Traditional poetry uses stress and sound not only as markers and indicator s of meaning but also as a way of measuring and foregrounding the principal structural characteristic of the poem: the line.In most poems written before the twentieth-century the line is constructed from a combination of two or more of the following elements: †¢ A specified and predictable number of syllables. The most commonly used example of this is the ten-syllable line, the pentameter. †¢ A metrical pattern consisting of the relation between the stress or emphasis of adjacent syllables. The most frequently used metrical pattern in English involves the use of the iambic foot, where an emphatic syllable follows a less emphatic one, with occasional variations, or ‘stress reversals’. †¢ Rhyme.The repetition of the phonemic sound of a single syllable at the end of a line. †¢ Assonance and alliteration. The repetition of clusters of similar vowel or consonant sounds within individual lines and across sequences of lines. The persistent and predictable d eployment of two or more of these features is what allows us to recognize the traditional line as an organizing feature of most pre-twentieth-century poems. METRE The iambic pentameter, consisting of ten syllables with the even syllables stressed more emphatically than the odd, is the most frequently used line in English poetry.It is the governing principle of Shakespeare’s blank verse; of nondramatic blank verse poems, including John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) and William Wordsworth’s Prelude, and of the heroic couplet, the structural centrepiece of most 16 TEXTUALISM I: POETRY (from Milton’s Paradise Lost) (from Swift’s ‘Cassinus and Peter’) of the poems of John Dryden and Alexander Pope. Examples of its shorter version, the octosyllabic line or tetrameter can be found in many of the couplet poems of Swift, in Matthew Arnolds ‘Stanzas from the Grand Chartreuse’ (1885), and in Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam (1850).The iambic pentameter consists of five iambic feet, its tetrameter counterpart of four. The following are examples of these, with ‘indicating the most emphatic and—the less emphatic syllables. These are examples of stress-syllabic metre, in which a consistent balance is maintained between the number of syllables of a line and its stress pattern. Alternative stresssyllabic lines include seven-syllable tetrameters (see William Blake’s ‘The Tyger’), which are comprised of three iambic feet and a single stressed syllable,Lines such as this, with an odd number of syllables, can also be scanned as trochaic The trochaic foot more frequently features as a substitute or variation in a line of iambic feet. This occurs in the first foot of Shakespeare’s line: Stress-syllabic lines consisting of three-syllable feet are generally associated with comic poetry and song. The threesyllable foot creates a rhythmic pattern that deviates from the modulati on of ordinary speech far more than its twosyllable counterpart; as in Oliver Goldsmith’s couplet, consisting of anapestic (––/)feet. TEXTUALISM I: POETRY 17Some poems vary the syllabic length of a line, while maintaining the same number of emphatic or stressed syllables in each. This is called pure stress metre. An early example of pure stress metre is Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Christabel’ (1816) and a more recent one occurs in T. S. Eliot’s ‘Ash Wednesday’ (1930), in which the differing length of each line is anchored to a repeated pattern of two major stresses. Lady of si ences Calm and distressed Torn and most whole Rose of memory The internal structure of the poetic line is only one element of its function as the organizing principle of poetry.RHYME AND THE STANZA Rhyme binds lines together into larger structural units. The smallest of these is the couplet, rhyming aa bb cc (as in the majority of poems by Dryden, Pop e and Jonathan Swift). More complex rhyme schemes enable the poet to create stanzas, the simplest of these being the quatrain, rhyming ab ab. (The octosyllabic quatrain is used by John Donne in ‘The Ecstasy and its pentameter counter-part in Thomas Grays ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’(1751). The stanza can play a number of roles in the broader structure of the poem.Narrative poems, which tell a story, often use the stanza as a way of emphasizing a particular event or observation while tying this into the broader narrative (as in Edmund Spenser’s long The Faerie Queene, John Keats’s The Eve of St Agnes and Lord Byron’s Don 18 TEXTUALISM I: POETRY Juan). Tennyson’s In Memoriam uses the socalled ‘envelope stanza (a b b a). This couplet within a couplet provides a formal counterpoint to the tragic or emotional focus of each stanza. Shorter, lyric poems which focus on a specific sensation, feeling or single event often use the stanza as a counterpoint to improvisation and spontaneity.Donne’s ‘The Relic’ consists of three very complicated stanzas. 8 8 8 8 6 10 7 10 10 10 10 syllables syllables syllables syllables syllables syllables syllables syllables syllables syllables syllables When my grave is broke up again Some second guest to entertain, (For graves have learned that woman-head To be to more than one a bed) And he that digs it spies A bracelet of bright hair about the bone, Will he not let us alone And think that there a loving couple lies, Who thought that this device might be some way To make their souls, at the last busy day Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?On the one hand the complex permutations of line length and rhyme scheme create the impression of flexibility and improvisation, as if the metrical structure of the poem is responding to and following the varied emphases of speech. But this stanzaic structure is repeated, with admirable precision, three times; an d as we read the poem in its entirety we find that the flexibility of the syntax is matched by the insistent inflexibility of the stanza. THE SONNET The sonnet resembles the stanza in that it consists of an ntegrated unit of metre and rhyme: the Shakespearian sonnet consisting of three iambic pentameter quatrains followed by an iambic pentameter couplet, its Petrarchan counterpart rhyming abba abba cdc dcd. It differs from the stanza in that TEXTUALISM I: POETRY 19 the sonnet is a complete poem. Most sonnets will emphasize a particular event or theme and tie this into the symmetries, repetitions and parallels of its metrical and rhyming structure. THE ODE The most flexible and variable stanzaic form will be found in the ode. Wordsworth’s ‘Ode on Intimations of Immortality’ consists of eleven sections.Each of these has a pattern of metre and rhyme just as complex and varied as Donne’s stanza in ‘The Relic’, except that in the ‘Immortality Ode’ the same pattern is never repeated. The open, flexible structure of the ode is well suited to its use, especially by the Romantic poets, as a medium for personal reflection; it rarely tells a particular story, and it eschews logical and systematic argument in favour of an apparently random sequence of questions, hypotheses and comparisons. BLANK VERSE A form which offers a similar degree of freedom from formal regularity is blank verse, consisting of unrhymed iambic pentameters.Prior to Milton’s Paradise Lost blank verse was regarded as a mixture of poetry and prose. It was thought appropriate only for drama, in which language could be recognizably poetic (i. e. metrical) while maintaining realistic elements of dialogue and ordinary speech (without rhyme). Paradise Lost offered blank verse as an alternative to the use of the stanza or the couplet in longer narrative or descriptive poems. Milton’s blank verse creates a subtle tension between the iambic patt ern of each line and the broader flow across lines of descriptive or impassioned speech (see below, pp. 28–9, for an example).A similar balance between discursive or reflective language and the metrical undertow of the blank verse line is found in the eighteenth-century tradition of landscape poems (see James Thomson’s The Seasons and 20 TEXTUALISM I: POETRY William Cowper’s The Task) and in Wordsworth’s ‘Tintern Abbey’ and The Prelude. The most flexible examples of blank verse, where it becomes difficult to distinguish between prose rhythm and metre, are found in the poems of Robert Browning, particularly The Ring and the Book (1868– 9): So Did I stand question and make answer, still With the same result of smiling disbelief, Polite impossibility of faith.FREE VERSE Before the twentieth-century, poems which involved neither rhyme nor the metrical pattern of blank verse were rare. Christopher Smart’s Jubilate Agno (1756) and Wal t Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (1855) replaced traditional metre with patterns redolent of biblical phrasing and intonation, and Blake in his later visionary poems (1789– 1815) devised a very individual form of free verse. It was not until this century that free verse became an established part of the formal repertoire of English poetry. Free verse (from the French vers libre) is only free in the sense that it does not conform to traditional patterns of metre and rhyme.The poetic line is maintained as a structural counterpoint to syntax, but is not definable in abstract metrical terms. Free verse can be divided into three basic categories: 1. Poetry which continues and extends the least restrictive elements of traditional poetry, particularly those of the ode and blank verse. T. S. Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ (1917) is a monologue with an unpredictable rhyme scheme and a rhythmic structure that invokes traditional metre but refuses to maintain a regular beat or pattern. A similar effect is achieved in TEXTUALISM I: POETRY 21 W. H. Auden’s ‘Musee des Beaux Arts’.In The Four Quartets (1935–42) Eliot often uses an unrhymed form that resembles blank verse, of which the following, from the beginning of ‘Little Gidding’, is an example: M dwinter spr ng is its o n season Sempiternal though sodden towards s ndown, Suspended in ti e, between pole and tropic. The lines of the poem vary between 9 and 13 syllables. Regular metre is replaced by the distribution of three to five major stresses across each line. Although the lines cannot be scanned according to expectations of regularity they do create the impression that Eliot is giving special attention to rhythmic structure. . Poems in which the line structure reflects the apparent spontaneity of ordinary speech, where, unlike in ‘Little Gidding’, no concessions are made to a metrical undertow. Line divisions will often b e used as an imitation of the process through which we transform thoughts, impressions and experiences into language. Easthope (1983) calls this form ‘intonational metre’. A typical example of this is D. H. Lawrence’s ‘Snake’. A snake came to my water-trough On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat, To drink there. 3.Poems in which the unmetrical line variously obstructs, deviates from or interferes with the movement of syntax. In Ezra Pound’s ‘In a Station of the Metro’ the two lines function as an alternative to the continuities of grammar. The apparition of those faces in the crowd Petals on a wet black bough. 22 TEXTUALISM I: POETRY The space between the lines could be filled by a variety of imagined connecting phrases: ‘are like’, ‘are unlike’, ‘remind me of’, ‘are as lonely as’. Individual lines offer specific images or impressions: the reader makes connections betw een them.In William Carlos Williams’s ‘Spring and All’ the line structure orchestrates the syntax and creates a complex network of hesitations and progressions, and for an example of this turn to pp. 154–7. The most extreme example of how the free verse line can appropriate and disrupt the structural functions of syntax will be found in the poems of e. e. cummings, where the linear movement of language is effectively broken down into visual units. The best, brief guide to the mechanics of prosody and metre is Hobsbaum’s Metre, Rhythm and Verse Form (1996).A more methodical survey of linguistics and poetic form is Bradford’s A Linguistic History of English Poetry (1993). T. V. F. Brogan’s English Versification 1570–1980 (1981) provides a comprehensive annotated bibliography of works on all types of metre and verse form. METAPHOR Metaphor is derived from the Greek verb that means ‘to carry over’. When words are used m etaphorically, one field of reference is carried over or transferred into another. Wordsworth (in ‘Resolution and Independence’) states that ‘The sky rejoices in the morning’s birth. ’ He carries over two ery human attributes to the non-human phenomena of the sky and the morning: the ability to rejoice and to give birth. I. A. Richards (1936) devised a formula that enables us to specify the process of carrying over. The ‘tenor’ of the metaphor is its principal subject, the topic addressed: in Wordsworth’s line the tenor is the speaker’s perception of the sky and the morning. The ‘vehicle’ is the analogue or the subject carried over from another field of reference to that of TEXTUALISM I: POETRY 23 the subject: in Wordsworth’s line the activities of rejoicing and giving birth.Metaphor is often referred to as a poetic device but it is not exclusive to poetry. Metaphors will be found in newspaper articles o n economics: ‘The war [vehicle] against inflation [tenor]’; in ordinary conversation: ‘At yesterdays meeting [tenor] I broke the ice [vehicle]’; in novels: ‘He cowered in the shadow [vehicle] of the thought [tenor]’ (James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man); and in advertisements: ‘This car is as good on paper [vehicle] as it is on the road [tenor]’. The principal difference between Wordsworth’s metaphor and its non-poetic counterparts is its integration with the iambic pentameter.We could retain the metaphor and lose the metre; turn it into the kind of unmetrical sentence that might open a short story or a novel: ‘I watched the sky rejoice in the birth of the morning. ’ One thing lost is the way in which the pentameter organizes and emphasizes the tenor and vehicle of the metaphor—sky r joic s and mor ing’s bi th. In order to properly consider differences between poetic and no n-poetic uses of metaphor we should add a third element to tenor and vehicle: the ground of the metaphor (see Leech, 1969:151).The ground is essentially the context and motivation of the metaphor. For the journalist the ground of the metaphor is the general topic of economics and inflation and the particular point that he/she is attempting to make about these issues. For the conversationalist the ground is the awareness, shared with the addressee, of yesterday’s meeting and his/her role in it. For the advertiser the ground involves the rest of the advertisement, giving details of the make, price and performance of the car, and the general context in which cars are discussed and sold.In non-poetic uses of metaphor the ground or context stabilizes the relation between tenor and vehicle. The metaphor will involve a self-conscious 24 TEXTUALISM I: POETRY departure from the routine and familiar relationship between language and reality. It would be regarded as bizarre and mildly d isturbing if the conversationalist were to allow the original metaphor to dominate the rest of his/her discourse: ‘I sank through the broken ice into the cold water of the boardroom. There we all were: fishes swimming through a dark hostile world†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢.In poems, however, this relation between ground, tenor and vehicle is often reversed. It is the language of the poem, as much as the reader’s a priori knowledge, which creates its perceived situation and context. It constructs its own ground, and metaphor becomes less a departure from contextual terms and conditions and more a device which appropriates and even establishes them. In John Donne’s ‘The Flea’ the tenor is the insect itself and the bite it has inflicted on the male speaker and the female listener.The speaker carries over this tenor into such an enormous diversity of vehicles that it becomes difficult to distinguish between the ground outside the words of the text and the ground whi ch the text appropriates and continually transforms. This flea is you and I, and this Our marriage bed and marriage temple is. We know that ‘this flea is the tenor, but the relation between tenor and ground becomes less certain with ‘is you and I’. On the one hand it is literally part of them since it has sucked and mixed their blood.On the other the speaker has already incorporated this image of physical unity into a vehicle involving their emotional and sexual lives. He builds on this with the vehicle of the ‘marriage bed’ and extends it into an image of spiritual, external unity in the ‘marriage temple’. Throughout the poem the flea and the bite become gradually detached from their actual context and threaded into a chain of speculative and fantastic associations. In ordinary language metaphor usually stands out from the rest of the discursive or factual nature of the statement. In TEXTUALISM I: POETRY 25 oetry a particular use of meta phor will often underpin and influence the major themes of the entire text. Donne’s ‘The Ecstasy’ opens with a simile (the bank ‘is like’ a pillow, rather than ‘is’ a pillow) but thereafter maintains a close, metaphoric, relation between tenor and vehicle, Where, like a pillow on a bed, A pregnant bank swelled up to rest The violet’s reclining head Sat we two, one another’s best; The tenor is the garden in which ‘we two’ are situated; the vehicle is a combination of images denoting intimacy and sexuality: pillow, bed, pregnant, swelled up, the violets (flower, denoting female) reclining head.This opening instance of the carrying over of rural horticultural images into the sphere of human sexuality becomes the predominant theme of the entire poem, underpinning more adventurous speculations on the nature of the soul. Again the dynamics of contrasting and associating verbal images has unsettled the stabilizing fun ction of ground or context.Donne is one of the so-called metaphysical school of poetic writers whose taste for extended metaphor is a principal characteristic of their verse, but the practice of creating tensions and associations between the words and images of the poem at the expense of an external context transcends schools, fashions and historical groupings. In Keats’s ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ the image of the real bird becomes a springboard for a complex sequence of associations and resonances: song, poetry, immortality, age, youth, death.The sense of there being a specific place and time in which Keats saw the bird and heard its song is gradually replaced by the dynamics of Keats’s associative faculties: the relation between the vehicles unsettles the relation between vehicle and tenor. The following is from the beginning of stanza 3: 26 TEXTUALISM I: POETRY Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weari ness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; The principal vehicle is Keats’s transformation of the bird into an apparently ratiocinative, cognitive addressee, who understands his words.This at the same time is unsettled by his constant return to the commonsense tenor of a bird without human faculties. The dynamic tension here becomes evident in Keats’s contradictory request that the nightingale should ‘forget’ those human qualities or frailties which, as he concedes in the next line, it had never and could never have known. A classic case of vehicle undermining tenor occurs in T. S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ (lines 15–22).This begins with the tenor (the city fog) being carried over into the vehicle of an unspecified animal which ‘rubs its back upon the window-panes’, ‘rubs its muzzle on the window-panes’, ‘Licked its tongue into the corners of the eveni ng’. By the end of the passage the actual vision of city streets which inspired the comparison has been overtaken by the physical presence of this strange beast, which ‘seeing that it was a soft October night,/Curled once about the house, and fell asleep’. Metaphor is the most economical, adventurous and concentrated example of the general principle of ‘carrying over’.Samuel Johnson defined metaphor in his Dictionary (1755) as ‘a simile compressed in a word’. Donne’s metaphor (from ‘The Relic’), ‘a bracelet of bright hair about the bone’, would, as a simile, be something like: ‘the brightness of the hair about the bone reminds me of the difference between life and death’. Simile postulates the comparison: X is like Y. Metaphor synthesizes the comparison: X is Y. Metonymy is logical metaphor, in which the comparison is founded upon an actual, verifiable relation between objects or impressions: ‘crown is used instead of TEXTUALISM I: POETRY 27 ‘king’, ‘queen’ or ‘royalty’.Allegory involves an extended parallel between a narrative and a subtext which mirrors the relation between the text and reality. Spenser’s The Faerie Queen (1590–6) is a medieval fantasy with allegorical parallels in the real world of the Elizabethan court. Simile, metonymy and allegory establish a balanced relationship between the use of language and conventional perceptions of reality, and occur as frequently in non-poetic discourse as in poetry. Metaphor involves language in an unbalancing of perceptions of reality and is more closely allied to the experimental character of poetry.SYNTAX, DICTION AND VOCABULARY The terms ‘poetic diction’ and ‘poetic syntax’ should be treated with caution. Any word, clause, phrase, grammatical habit or locution used in non-poetic language can be used in poetry. But their presence with in the poem will subtly alter their familiar non-poetic function. For example, in Donne’s ‘The Flea’ the speaker reflects upon the likely objections to his proposal to the woman: Though parents grudge, and you, we are met And cloistered in these living walls of jet. We might explain the use of the phrase ‘and you’ as a result of hurried and improvised speech. ‘Though you and your parents grudge’ would be a more correct form. ) But the fact that the placing of the phrase maintains the movement of the iambic metre and the symmetry of the two lines of the couplet shows us that the speech is anything but improvised. The metrical structure of a poem can accommodate the apparent hesitations and spontaneities of ordinary speech, but at the same time fix them as parts of a carefully structured artefact. Consider what happens when syntax crosses the space between two poetic lines, an effect known 28 TEXTUALISM I: POETRY s enjambment. A classic ex ample of this occurs in the opening lines of Milton’s Paradise Lost Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste The implied pause at the line ending might suggest, on Milton’s part, a slight moment of indecision: is he thinking of the figurative ‘fruit’ (that is, the result and consequences) of man’s disobedience, or the literal fruit of the act of disobedience? He chooses the latter. The placing of the word might also be interpreted as the complete opposite of fleeting indecision.The tension between the actuality of the fruit and the uncertain consequences of eating it is a fundamental theme of the poem, and Milton encodes this tension within the form of the poem even before its narrative begins. In non-poetic language the progress of syntax can be influenced by a number of external factors: an act or verbal interruption by someone else, the uncertainty of the speaker or the fraught circumstances of the speech act: known in stylistics as the pragmatic or functional registers of language.For example, conversations often consist of broken, incomplete syntactic units because both speakers are contributing to the same discourse, which will also involve a shared non-verbal frame of reference: ‘Look at this, its†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ ‘Well, it’s big enough’, ‘Whoa, sorry. ’ ‘It’s OK, it’ll clean up. ’ In poetry apparent hesitations or disturbances of syntax are a function of the carefully planned, integrated structure of the text. The ability of poetry to absorb and recontextualize the devices and registers of non-poetic language is evident also in its use of diction, vocabulary, and phrasing.The social or local associations of particular words or locutionary habits TEXTUALISM I: POETRY 29 can be carried into a poem but their familiar context will be transformed by their new structural framework. In Tony Harrison’s V ( 1985) the poet converses in a Leeds cemetery with an imagined skinhead whose hobbies include the spraying of graffiti on to gravestones: ‘Listen cunt! ’ I said, ‘Before you start your jeering The reason why I want this in a book ’s to give ungrateful cunts like you a hearing! ’ A book, yer stupid cunts not worth a fuck.The diction and idiom of both speakers is working class and Northern, but this specific, locative resonance is itself contained within a separate language, with its own conventions: each regional idiomatic flourish is confidently, almost elegantly, reconciled to the demands of the iambic pentameter and the quatrain. The realistic crudity of the language is juxtaposed with the controlled irony of Harrison’s formal design: the skinhead’s real presence is appropriated to the unreal structure of the poem, involving the internal and external rhymes, ‘book’ and ‘fuck’.In a broader context, the language of working-class Leeds is integrated with the same stanzaic structure used by Gray in his ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’, in which the poet similarly appropriates the voice of a ‘hoary-headed swain’. Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, ‘Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.Gray’s and Harrison’s language and experience are centuries and worlds apart—the diction of the hoary-headed individual is rather more delicate than that of his skinheaded counterpart—but their differences are counterpointed against their enclosure within the same ahistorical stanzaic framework. 30 TEXTUALISM I: POETRY This tendency for poetry to represent and at the same time colonize the habits of non-poetic discourse is a paradox that has taxed poets and critics—most famously in Wordsworth’s Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1798).Wordsworth rails agai nst the stultifying poeticization of ordinary language, of how the conventions and style of eighteenth-century verse had dispossessed poetry of the ‘real language of men’. But while he advocates a new kind of poetic writing he concedes that poetry must announce its difference in a way that will ‘entirely separate the composition from the vulgarity and meanness of ordinary life’. In short, although poetry should be about ‘ordinary life’ it must by its very nature be separate from it. D. H.Lawrence’s poems in the Nottinghamshire dialect, Robert Burns’s and Hugh MacDiarmid’s use of Scots idiom, grammar and diction emphasize region and very often class, but no matter where the words come from or what social or political affiliations they carry, they are always appropriated and acted upon by the internal structures of poetry. Wordsworth’s desire to separate poetry from the Vulgarity and meanness of ordinary life’ s ounds suspiciously elitist and exclusive, and there is evidence of this in the work of a number of our most celebrated poets.In Part II of The Waste Land (1922) Eliot represents the speech patterns and, so he assumes, the concerns of working-class women: Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart. He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you To get yourself some teeth. We will be expected to note the difference between this passage and the sophisticated command of metre and multicultural references of the poem’s principal male voice, Tiresias. With whom would we associate T. S. Eliot? Tiresias or the women?The sense of poetry as carrying social and political allegiances (principally male, white, English, middle class, TEXTUALISM I: POETRY 31 educated) has prompted acts of stylistic revolution. William Carlos Williams in the free verse of Spring and All and Paterson (1946–58) effectively discards those conventions of rhyme and metr e that restrict his use of ordinary American phrasing and vocabulary (see pp. 154–7 for examples). Linton Kwesi Johnson makes the structure of his poems respond to the character of his language. But love is just a word; give it MEAN IN thruHACKSHAN. ‘MEANIN’ and ‘HACKSHAN’ are words appropriated from ‘standard’ English by West Indians, and the fact that Johnson has used poetry to emphasize their ownership is significant. The unusual concentrations and foregroundings of poetry can unsettle just as much as they can underpin the allegiances and ideologies of diction and vocabulary. CRITICAL METHODS So far I have considered three principal characteristics of poetry and the