...Analyse the poems and how they reflect the time they are written in The poem ‘The Rear-Guard” has been written by Siegfried Sassoon in 1917 during the time when Word War 1 was going on. He was provoked to write this poem because he was unhappy of the effect it had on soldiers. The poem ‘The Solitary Reaper’ on the other hand, has been written during the romantic era by William Wordsworth in 1803. It is a poem about how Wordsworth is affected by a song sung by a woman reaping grain by herself in a field. ‘The Rear- Guard’ is an anti-war poem about how violent and cruel war is and that it drives people crazy. The poem starts off with “Groping along the tunnel step by step”. In this line, the word ‘groping’ has the connotation that the Rear- Guard is lost in the tunnel. In the last line of the first stanza, it says “sniffed the unwholesome air”. Air is normally a good thing but the adjective ‘unwholesome’ gives us a feeling that the air is unhealthy. As he keeps going along he notices “a mirror smashed”. He feels even worse than before as a smashed mirror symbolises bad luck. The poet is showing that this person is going crazy due to the war, believing in superstition. The poet shows us how far away he is under by using alliteration “Fifty feet below” and “rosy gloom” an oxymoronic term (he is feeling the good and bad points of the war above). The Rear- Guard finds someone lying on the ground “saw someone lie”. He exclaims “I am looking for headquarters”. The poet has written...
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...Literature Through Time Literature depicts the morals of time it shift and morphs into less power in the divine and more faith in man. Stories began being written by monks and the clergy which in time turned into regular men with stores that focused on more secular matters. English literature fills up the gap between wars, between societal change, you can see time progressing, you can see our values and morals changing, you can see history passing by. In the beginning there was Bede, a philosopher, speaker of many languages, a man who looked around him and saw a world in peril that only God could save, a man full of faith. Time passes and we see Shakespeare, a genius, a man with a queen, a man who rallied against the common, Shakespeare was a man with deep loves and a strong voice. “The Story of Caedmon”, was written during a time when Christian religious dogma was primarily hagiography, “the telling of the life of virtuous men and women that represents what it means to be a good Christian.” These stories are used as a form of reflections on one’s life as to make it better in the future. Religious dogma needed to be made more accessible to the congregation which was widely illiterate, so the stories were written with easy points and then acted out so that the congregation would not only be awake and attentive, but so that these stories of morality and faith would really sink in. “Caedmon” is probably the earliest extant of Old English poetry, Bede tells about Caedmon, an...
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...1590’s, to the fashion for sonnets, he moved closer to the cultural and literary dominance of the court’s taste—to the fashionable modes of Ovid, Petrarch, and Neoplatonism—and to the need for patronage. Although the power of the sonnets goes far beyond their sociocultural roots, Shakespeare nevertheless adopts the culturally inferior role of the petitioner for favor, and there is an undercurrent of social and economic powerlessness in the sonnets, especially when a rival poet seems likely to supplant the poet. In short, Shakespeare’s nondramatic poems grow out of and articulate the strains of the 1590’s, when, like many ambitious writers and intellectuals on the fringe of the court, Shakespeare clearly needed to find a language in which to speak—and that was, necessarily, given to him by the court. What he achieved within this shared framework, however, goes far beyond any other collection of poems in the age. Shakespeare’s occasional poems are unquestionably minor, interesting primarily because he wrote them; his sonnets, on the other hand, constitute perhaps the language’s greatest collection of lyrics. They are love lyrics, and...
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... Talking Dirty to My God! My paper will be on 2 different poems and there from the book “Talking Dirty to the Gods”. The first poem is called Silkworm and the second poem is called Janus. Both the poems focus on the culture, beauty of life and history. My paper will in tell about the art of poetry and the art of how to tell a story inside of a story. When slaves were to tell stories, they couldn’t write down there dreams or there life and what they went through, so they were to say it in a story form. So they, meaning the kids would never forget there heritage. Therefore, when they became slaves they would sing songs and they would also make other things to remember there past to show there future. The first poem I chose was Silkworm on page.53 when reading the poem it made me think about love and how it was taken away from a lot of African Americans. In the first line it says “they made a fancy catch for a nightgown out of me”. When I first read this poem I, at first didn’t understand what the book was insinuating, but after reading that line about three times it made me think about the slaves and there body being taken advantage of and body being sold as if we were animals to be bought and used for pleasure. To look at this in a different way would be, were you are made to be someone else’s toy and to also not have a real purpose to have a say in anything. The second line of the poem that I would like to go more in depth is: “against her skin eager fingers...
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...fiction as well as poetry. He collaborated with visual artists and musicians. Within his poetry there is a great deal of variety as well. The Poem “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes, is a short twenty line poem that hass significant meaning in the short verse. Hughes uses an older female speaker to give advice to a son who is part of the younger generation. In the poem Hughes uses the device of an extended metaphor to describe the life of the mother. The extended metaphor compares the mother’s life to a staircase. The line “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair” begins and ends the poem. With this line, Hughes quickly establishes for us that the speaker in the poem has not had an easy life. The concept of the crystal staircase gives the reader the impression of great wealth. Us the readers can indulge in inferring that it would be someone with supreme wealth and someone who did not have to work as hard as the speaker did. By using the imagery of a crystal staircase as the opposite of her staircase, we immediately know before learning any of the details of her staircase that she has not had an easy life. Another great peom by Hughes is called “Harlem Sweeties”. It is a luscious, sensual poem appealing to the reader's sight, sound, and taste. It is joyous and catchy, and it represents Hughes's early depictions of Harlem. In this poem, Harlem is filled with jazz, sex, art, cultural fecundity, dreams, and...
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...Nikki Vanessa V. Novales July 20, 2012 # 2012-42443 PI 10 E2-6R Rizal: Hidden Beneath The Surface A Reaction Paper On “Bayaning 3rd World” “Who is Rizal?” If you ask this question to any Filipino, they will most likely say, “He is our national hero” Or “He’s the person stamped on our 1-peso coin”. But is that all he really is? The movie “Bayaning 3rd World” is about two film makers trying to make a movie about Rizal. They found out, however, that this would not be an easy task, for their subject is a very complicated man. Rather than focusing on a single issue about Rizal, they decided to make a detective story about Rizal being the country’s national hero. They tackled several issues but focused mainly on Rizal’s retraction and Josephine Bracken. The movie was meant to be educational, but unlike most documentaries, “Bayaning 3rd World” is definitely not boring. The documentary was presented in a comical way, so that viewers of all ages would be able to understand it and grasp its meaning. I was confused at first because I didn’t know what the “Retraction Controversy” was and the two film makers started having these long conversations about it without explaining it to the viewers. But when I found out what it was all about, following the flow of the story became easy. Another controversy that arose was about Josephine Bracken, on whether she and Rizal were married or not. It was implied that if they were indeed married, then Rizal retracted...
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...wrote many stories and essays. One essay he is famous for is called “Being a Man”. In “Being a Man” he talks about his point of view of his life from when he was a little boy to being a man, and also he talks about his insecurity of being a man. In the essay he says: “everything in stereotyped manliness goes against the life of the mind”. This quote is true because this is what is stereotyped everyday. Theroux tells us that America's view of "Being a Man" means to be stupid, obedient, and soldierly. This idea goes against everything that Theroux is. Theroux has many examples that back up his belief ."In paragraph nine he says “everything in stereotyped manliness goes against the life of the mind”. This means that writing is not a manly behavior. Theroux believed the idea which is why he hates being a man.Theroux goes into detail about how sports harms little boys and how it make boys every violent."Just as high school basketball teaches you how to be a poor loser, the manly attitude toward sports seems to be little more than a recipe for creating bad marriages, social misfits, moral degenerates, sadists, latent rapists and just plain louts I regard high school sports as a drug far worse then marijuana.." I have witnessed two experience similar to Theroux. One was when I was in the 3rd grade. My teacher had gave the class an assignment to do. We either had to write a peom nature or make a picture collage of nature. Most of the girls chose the poem and all the boys did...
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...Broken Dreams Essay In the essay Broken Dreams by WB Yeats a strong connection to the themes and ideas of Romanticism are shown through the concern with the sublime. The idea of incoherent darkness is portrayed seamlessly in the description of the last stroke of midnight dying. The mysterious battle between the greatness of life and how time slipped too quickly from the beauty portrayed further gives insight to an underlying theme of finding escape from pressure. The repetition of the line “vague memories, nothing but memories” exemplifies the strong alienation the speaker now feels after his love has crossed over to the other side most anticipated. The emotions and freedom that bloom over intellectual growth tends to mention the after life but never directly. The consequences towards godliness and its connection to the brief future that lies ahead for his past love, are always vague. The author suggests that his love for the woman is more than just physical motivations. He still shows that he is devoted to her (and to the beauty that she beholds) to write a poem about her, even though her physical loveliness has diminished. The alliteration of the word pair “Burdensome beauty” shows that she does not lose her prominent beauty to him or her other admirers. Even as her beauty slowly subsides, and he makes sure to stretch every moment of it to emphasize there is still something about her, thus making time a burden on her beauty. The poem consists of five stanzas...
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...Compare and Contrast Essay 5/12/2014 Ashford University English 121-AXC1415E Instructor: Jamie Cooper Student: Katherin Wheat When it comes to writing the compare and contrast essay style, it is one of the more difficult ones to achieve. The differences between these two essays “How to say nothing in 500 words” by: Paul McHenry Roberts and “caged bird” by: Maya Angelou is easy to pick out. As far as the similarities goes that proved to a little harder to give a lot of examples. In the following paragraphs there will be plenty of examples of compare and contrast, give summaries, a couple of quotes and a paraphrase will be included in this essay. While how to say nothing in 500 words and Caged Bird are both well-written essays, caged Bird was more visual than How to say nothing in 500 words because the author painted a more detailed picture which kept the reader’s attention, the attended audience was more overly open to more people than that of how to say nothing in 500 words essay, and the author of caged bird had a bigger and deeper impact on the readers then the author of how to say nothing in 500 words did. Caged Bird was more visual than How to say nothing in 500 words because the author painted a more detailed picture which kept the reader’s attention. Maya Angelou’s descriptive essay “Caged bird” tells a story of a caged bird and a free bird. The caged bird signifies a person with the skin color darker than that of a peach colored crayon, held down by the paralyzing...
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...be satirized by Voltaire in Candide.[1] More than any other work, it popularized optimistic philosophy throughout England and the rest of Europe. Pope's Essay on Man and Moral Epistles were designed to be the parts of a system of ethics which he wanted to express in poetry. Moral Epistles have been known under various other names including Ethic Epistles and Moral Essays. On its publication, An Essay on Man met with great admiration throughout Europe. Voltaire called it "the most beautiful, the most useful, the most sublime didactic poem ever written in any language". In 1756 Rousseau wrote to Voltaire admiring the poem and saying that it "softens my ills and brings me patience". Kant was fond of the poem and would recite long passages of the poem to his students [2]. However later Voltaire renounced his admiration for Pope andLeibniz's optimism and even wrote a novel, Candide, as a satire on Pope and Leibnitz's philosophy of ethics. The essay, written in heroic couplets, comprises four epistles. Pope began work on it in 1729, and had finished the first three by 1731. However, they did not appear until early 1733, with the fourth epistle published the following year. The poem was originally published anonymously; Pope did not admit authorship until 1735. Pope reveals in his introductory statement, "The Design," that An Essay on Man was originally conceived as...
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...Compare-Contrast Essay The thought of doing an essay for most people can at be quite intimidating because of the need to be technically proficient, following the mandatory expectations outlined and some might find them boring because they feel like it is too restrictive in nature. That is merely just a common misconception though, there are several different styles of essays and the two that are going to be discussed are descriptive and narrative essays. The narrative essay's main purpose is to tell a story using characters and a plot, where perhaps a problem is given, and the events that unfold eventually explain a solution to the problem or issue presented. In contrast the descriptive essay can be very powerful in the fact it is written using the five senses (visual, audible, taste, tactile sensations and smells) this allows the author to bring a scene or object to life in the mind of the reader. While narrative essays are almost like a movie that is played out in the judgment of the reader, the descriptive essay paints a vivid photograph or place the reader can experience and this is why descriptive essays are the superior of the two styles. One of the best qualities that narrative essays are able to offer over descriptive essays is they are structured to appeal to the simplest of mankind's urge to share a good story. There are various forms in which we can find a narrative writing example such as a poem, play, novel and the obvious essay. There are times...
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...to write about subjects that interest or relate to them. Everyone has their own way of writing, but their way was influenced by another source whether they know it or not. Individuality in writing is influenced through transferability. Technical writing is something that is learned. In school everyone was taught how to format an essay or different types of writing like poems or stories. Anything that I did in class I was always given a template of how the instructor wanted the paper to be written. This would have word count, the format, and what the paper should be about. All throughout school we learned the fundamentals of writing starting with letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, to structures of writing like essays and poems. The thing that is learned from writing is technical. As my English education grows the technical side is less focused on while the content is the most important thing. Content is the writing that I am doing now. The content portion of writing is not learned but influenced by others. My writing becomes influenced through examples like essays. In this English class, I believe that that’s how these three previous essays worked out. The Scholarly Discourse Unit paper was a paper that had us synthesize how we thought the writers Gee, Swales, and Porter connected to each other. I used transferability to apply the knowledge that I got from each of the three sources and created an argument that I could synthesize with each other. This paper gave me the...
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...ENGLISH 281 Draft Workshop Questions for Essay Two in Wikis Steps: 1. Post your draft to your appointed Wiki area by Sunday, April 5 by midnight. 2. Review drafts attached to your Wiki area and provide feedback using the below questions, pasting the answers in to the Wiki area and making it clear who the answers are for/whose draft you are commenting on and that you are the writer. For example, you could paste in something like the following: Susan, here are my thoughts/feedback on your draft posted so far: #1. [Provide feedback using the criteria below] #2 [Provide feedback using the criteria below] #3 on [Repeat above] You are expected to complete these steps for at least one draft posted to your group’s Wiki by Monday, April 6 by midnight for possible five points credit. Be sure to answer the “Specific Questions” below the first ten questions here depending on which essay prompt you are reading for a draft. 1. Does the author/student have all of the “front matter” needed in the draft? (i.e, Does it give an author tag with the title of the poem in quotes or name of book in italics and name of film in italics being worked with in the essay, for example and the author(s) name of text being discussed in the first one or two sentences of introduction)? If this is information is missing, let the author know here and also provide an example please of how it could be better. 2. Are the introductory sentences attention-grabbing? If they are...
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...When I wrote my essay Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God I had some good parts and bad parts of the essay. I believe everyone can improve their writing in a certain way. No one is a “perfect” writer, and no one “never” makes mistakes. I could improve in two areas I noticed are my thesis in this essay and my visual pictures. Two things I did well on are the usage of rhetorical devices and introductory sentences. Pros and cons are what most people have in their essays or poems. My cons with my Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God are my thesis and my visual pictures. In my thesis I could improve them by just getting to the point in my essay and always referring back to it. The three main things that I need to work on to make a perfect thesis may be clearly identifies the subject of the paper, makes an assertion about that subject, one that allows for a range of discussion; and predicts the logical order you will follow in your discussion. With my visual pictures I need to create more enthusiasm and descriptive words. Or when giving quotes from the story I need to tie it back to the thesis or how they create visuals throughout the story. For my pros in my essay it was rhetorical devices and introductory sentences. For my rhetorical devices I scored high in this essay because I tied them into the story or back to the story really good. Also I identified them good; I can easily spot these rhetorical devices in a poem. My introductory sentences are also very good I believe, they...
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...of Northumbria Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST Self-Assessment ISBN: 1-86135-080-5 Text editor: Rebecca Johnson Copy editor: Publications Office, University of Northumbria Designed and produced by the Department of External Relations DER: 2308HCB/6/00J Contents Project mission statement Introduction The nature and scope of the project i) The self-assessment sheet ii) Student guide to self-assessment iii) ‘Writing essays: A guide for literary studies students’ (sample) 5 7 8 10 13 23 Ways of using the materials i) How the self-assessment sheet can be used ii) Workshop using the self-assessment sheet 34 34 34 iii) How ‘Writing essays: A guide for literary studies students’ can be used 35 iv) Workshop using the essay guide 35 Impact on staff and students i) Student response to the self-assessment sheet ii) Student response to workshops using the materials iii) Staff response to the materials 37 37 37 37 Further references About the authors Acknowledgements Appendices i) Example of completed self-assessment sheet with essay 39 39 39 41 3 4 Project mission statement T he Assessment and the Expanded Text Consortium is a project directed by the English division at the University of Northumbria. It involves collaborating with colleagues who teach English courses at Sheffield Hallam University, Staffordshire University and the University of East Anglia. We came together three years ago to build on existing relations between...
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