A Womans Work Poem Explication - 711 Words

A Mother’s Work ENG/125 March 6, 2013 A Mother’s Work A liquid takes the form of the container into which it is poured. Similarly, an artist chooses a medium for painting or sculpture, and a poet chooses a form. This aesthetic should complement the artist’s overall theme. In the case of â€Å"Woman’s Work† by Julia Alvarez, the chosen form is a villanelle. This form is very restrictive and repetitive, often used to express some sort of obsessiveness. Alvarez slightly modifies the traditional structure of the villanelle repetition and rhyme scheme by using a lot of feminine rhymes and repeating lines in spirit but not necessarily in law. In much the same way, the rigid repetitiveness of housework done by the author’s mother is the†¦show more content†¦790). As her mother’s â€Å"masterpiece,† she now sees how the repetition and practice of keeping house is not oppressive, but expressive. In the same way that a villanelle is able to express powerful emotions with its repetitivenes s, so is the â€Å"housewife† able to impress upon her family the degree of her love and devotion to their well-being. In the final stanza Alvarez expresses her frustration, her amazement, and finally her acceptance of herShow MoreRelated An Explication of She Walks in Beauty Essay680 Words   |  3 PagesAn Explication of She Walks in Beauty Many Romantic poets embrace the concept of self -expression through the use of imagination to convey their personal visions of love and life. The power of emotion is evident in Lord Byrons poems. It can be possible that light can be emitted through the darkness of night. In his poem, She Walks In Beauty, Lord Byron epitomizes the balance between two opposing forces. The two forces involved are the darkness and the light at work in a womans beautyRead MoreEssay on Collection of Poems by Various Authors3882 Words   |  16 PagesCollection of Poems by Various Authors Poet Biography, Edgar Allan Poe The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe Mamie by Carl Sandburg Explication, Mamie by Carl Sandburg Two Strangers Breakfast by Carl Sandburg Mag by Carl Sandburg Explications of Two Strangers Breakfast and Mag by Carl Sandburg Reasons Why by Langston Hughes Explication of Reasons Why by Langston Hughes The Faces of Our Youth by Franklin Delano Roosevelt Enjoyment, Explication, The Faces of Our Youth by FranklinRead MoreBusiness and Management2600 Words   |  11 Pagesthe modality in which you attend class. If you have recently changed modalities, read the policies governing your current class modality. Course Materials Barnet, S., Cain, W.E., Burto, W. (2011). Literature for composition: Essays, stories, poems, and plays (9th ed.). New York, NY: Longman. All electronic materials are available on the student website. |Week One: Elements of Literature—Stories Read MoreHow Fa Has the Use of English Language Enriched or Disrupted Life and Culture in Mauritius15928 Words   |  64 PagesDickenson’s poem â€Å"Because I could not stop for Death† details the events the narrator experiences after dying. In the poem, the narrator is driven around in a horse-drawn carriage to several places, including a schoolyard, a field of wheat, and a house sunken in the ground. However, a deeper reading of the poem reveals the poet’s uncertainty of whether there is or is not an afterlife. The events she describes are of course fictional and unknowable, but the multiple changes in pacing of the poem, as wellRead More The Death of the ‘Authorlessness Theory’? Essay6470 Words   |  26 PagesBarthes’ claim that â€Å"The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author†? (172). Even if â€Å"it is language which speaks, not the author† (168), an author is responsible for the creation of a unique sequence of words in a novel, a poem or an article. The canvas on which freeplaying signifiers paint themselves seems so vast to Barthes that â€Å"the writer can only imitate a gesture that is always anterior, never original† (170). His claim, when taken at face value, is equivalent to saying

Historical Development of Continental Philosophy’s Existentialism Free Essays

Historical development of Continental philosophy’s existentialism and phenomenology as a response to Hegelian idealism Absolute Idealism left distinct marks on many facets of Western culture. True, science was indifferent to it, and common sense was perhaps stupefied by it, but the greatest political movement of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries— Marxism—was to a significant degree an outgrowth of Absolute Idealism. (Bertrand Russell remarked someplace that Marx was nothing more than Hegel mixed with British economic theory. We will write a custom essay sample on Historical Development of Continental Philosophy’s Existentialism or any similar topic only for you Order Now Nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature, theology, and even art felt an influence. The Romantic composers of the nineteenth century, for example, with their fondness for expanded form, vast orchestras, complex scores and soaring melodies, searched for the all-encompassing musical statement. In doing so, they mirrored the efforts of the metaphysicians; whose vast and imposing systems were sources of inspiration to many artists and composers. As we have said, much of what happened in philosophy after Hegel was in response to Hegel. This response took different forms in English-speaking countries and on the European continent—so different that philosophy in the twentieth century was split into two traditions or, as we might say nowadays, two â€Å"conversations. † So-called analytic philosophy and its offshoots became the predominant tradition of philosophy in England and eventually in the United States. The response to Hegelian idealism on the European continent was quite different however; and is known (at least in English-speaking countries) as Continental philosophy. Mean while, the United States developed its own brand of philosophy—called pragmatism—but ultimately analytic philosophy became firmly entrenched in the United States as well. Within Continental philosophy may be found various identifiable schools of philosophical thought: existentialism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, deconstruction, and critical theory. Two influential schools were existentialism and phenomenology, and we will begin this chapter with them. Both existentialism and phenomenology have their roots in the nineteenth century, and many of their themes can be traced back to Socrates and even to the pre- Socratics. Each school of thought has influenced the other to such an extent that two of the most famous and influential Continental philosophers of this century, Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 –1980), are important figures in both movements, although Heidegger is primarily a phenomenologist and Sartre primarily an existentialist. Some of the main themes of existentialism are traditional and academic philosophy is sterile and remote from the concerns of real life. Philosophy must focus on the individual in her or his confrontation with the world. The world is irrational (or, in any event, beyond total comprehending or accurate conceptualizing through philosophy). The world is absurd, in the sense that no ultimate explanation can be given for why it is the way it is. Senselessness, emptiness, triviality, separation, and inability to communicate pervade human existence. Giving birth to anxiety, dread, self-doubt, and despair as well as the individual confronts as the most important fact of human existence, the necessity to choose how he or she is to live within this absurd and irrational world. Now, many of these themes had already been introduced by those brooding thinkers of the nineteenth century, Arthur Schopenhauer (see previous chapter), Soren Kierkegaard, and Friedrich Nietzsche. All three had a strong distaste for the optimistic idealism of Hegel—and for metaphysical systems in general. Such philosophy, they thought, ignored the human predicament. For all three the universe, including its human inhabitants, is seldom rational, and philosophical systems that seek to make everything seem rational are just futile attempts to overcome pessimism and despair. This impressive-sounding word denotes the philosophy that grew out of the work of Edmund Husserl (1859–1938). In brief, phenomenology interests itself in the essential structures found within the stream of conscious experience—the stream of phenomena—as these structures manifest themselves independently of the assumptions and presuppositions of science. Phenomenology, much more than existentialism, has been a product of philosophers rather than of artists and writers. But like existentialism, phenomenology has had enormous impact outside philosophical circles. It has been especially influential in theology, the social and political sciences, and psychology and psychoanalysis. Phenomenology is a movement of thinkers who have a variety of interests and points of view; phenomenology itself finds its antecedents in Kant and Hegel (though the movement regarded itself as anything but Hegelian). Kant, in the Critique of Pure Reason, argued that all objective knowledge is based on phenomena, the data received in sensory experience. In Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind, beings are treated as phenomena or objects for a consciousness. The world beyond experience, the â€Å"real† world assumed by natural science, is a world concerning which much is unknown and doubtful. But the world-in-experience, the world of pure phenomena, can be explored without the same limitations or uncertainties. How to cite Historical Development of Continental Philosophy’s Existentialism, Essay examples

Judy Almighty free essay sample

â€Å"There is no substitute for a good night’s sleep,† says Judy on this morning, while wagging a finger at my coffee cup and scoping the circles under my eyes. â€Å"Nor is there one for a good Baldacci.† At this I think, Isn’t that the truth, for I’m not one to ever turn down a hardbound thriller, or an inviting bed in a quiet room. But can she blame me for skimping on sleep when there lay an unfinished Wide Sargasso Sea by my bedside the night before? Judy is a woman with silvery hair and fingernails resembling talons, polished in graffiti-like airbrushed designs—â€Å"The better to turn pages with, my dear,† she cackled upon my noticing them. I found her at the reference desk of a neighboring city’s library last winter, and my literary life has since been revamped. At the time I sought to make richer my study of the piano and violin with biographies of classical composers, so we started from Nonfiction. We will write a custom essay sample on Judy Almighty or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page She led me to sections of Handel and Mendelssohn and, after she had spouted, for solid minutes, facts and opinions on those men’s musical contributions, I inferred that she had read these books before. â€Å"Of course,† Judy shrugged, â€Å"because what else is there to do but read for an old lady like myself?† As it turns out, I will be perpetually inspired by this particular old lady. As I began frequenting her end of the reference desk for guidance in the following months, my suspicion was confirmed that Judy could tell me the ending to any book in the library worth reading. Since the day in 1994 when I read my first little book sitting on Dad’s lap, I have not been able to keep my nose out of the things. Now I can read fast and long, and with decent retention; what is more, I have outgrown my love for Are You My Mother? and There’s a Wocket in my Pocket, and have gathered the courage to dip my toes into the oceans that are new genres and topics. I have found that there aren’t many experiences more gratifying than having one more story under your belt, or a little more knowledge of a certain history, or the addition of a couple words to one’s vocabulary by the end of a couple hundred pages. I have also realized that my zeal for literature isn’t common enough, and I feel lucky to have stumbled upon a dear soul like Judy’s. That wizened little lady pulls me toward the Mystery rows now, and selects a copy of Absolute Power. â€Å"We didn’t have authors like Baldacci when I was your age,† she says in her acquired small, sparkly librarian whisper; I can’t help thinking: if there were writers like David Baldacci, and Dan Brown, and these other recent ones which Judy adores so ardently, if she had always read as much as she does nowadays, that her head might have exploded by now from the magnitude of her knowledge. And I am thankful. I’m thankful that she is here for me at this time in my life, at an age when it is so critical for a person’s fervor for reading and writing to be fueled with the most stimulating works of literature. I am thankful to have met the woman I’ve been striving to become much later on†¦not because of her dazzling acrylic fingertips or her silver hair, or even because of her wit so sharp that it seems misplaced within such a slow-moving, creaking body. It is Judy’s own fulfillment of my lifelong goal that makes her my hero: that is, my goal to have learned as much as possible by the end of my days about whatever made it into a book—whatever people before me have deemed valuable enough to write down and publish. I want to know everything, just like Judy knows everything. I will always remember her wisdom.