Renaissance Country House Poetry Essay examples -- Poem Poetry Poet Es

Renaissance Country House Poetry Country house poetry is a sub-genre of Renaissance poetry and was first written during the seventeenth century. It was closely linked to patronage poetry, in which poets (sometimes outrageously) flattered patrons in order to gain sponsorship and status. At this time, many houses were built in the countryside as a display of wealth, and as a retreat for the courtier when overwhelmed by the court and city life. Country houses were not, originally, just large houses in the country in which rich people lived. Essentially they were power houses - the houses of a ruling class. As such they could work at the local level of a manor house, the house of a squire who was a little king in his village and ran the county. They could work at a local and national level as the seat of a landowner who was also a member of parliament. Basically, people did not live in country houses unless they either possessed power, or, by setting up in a country house, were making a bid to possess it. Country house poems generally consisted of complimentary descriptions of the said country house and its surrounding area which often contained pastoral detail, and praised cultivated nature. The purpose of the central part of this essay is to assess the effectiveness of Renaissance 'country house' poetry as social criticism. Country house poems were written to flatter and please the owner of the country house. Why did poets do this? Until the nineteenth century the wealth and population of England lay in the country rather than the towns; landowners rather than merchants were the dominating class. Even when the economic balance began to change, they were so thoroughly in control of patronage and legislation, so strong throu... ...ely that people read country house poetry to be provided with political or social insights, so it is likely that many of the allusions were lost on the majority of readers. Endnotes 1 The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse 1509-1659, p.420 2 Ibid. p.420 3 Life in the English Country House, Mark Girouard, p.7. 4 The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse 1509-1659, p.420 5 Ibid.p.421 6 Ibid.p.421 7 Ibid.p.421 8 Ibid.p.421 9 Ibid.p.422 10 Ibid.p.422 11 Ibid.p.422 12 Ibid.p.422 13 The Description of Cooke-ham, Renaissance Verse, p.414. 14 The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse 1509-1659, p.417 15 Ibid.p.418 16 Marvell's "Upon Appleton House", Robert Markley, p.91. Bibliography Mark Girouard. Life in the English Country House, Yale University Press, 1978. Maclean, Landry and Ward. The Country and the City Revisited, Cambridge University Press, 1999.

“Shrouded in Contradiction” by Gelareh Asayesh

In the essay â€Å"Shrouded in Contradiction† by Gelareh Asayesh discusses the distention of gender in her Islamic society. She expresses her feeling toward wearing a hijab and how it’s not a big deal until it is. â€Å"None have been more daring than I. I've wound my scarf into a turban, leaving my neck bare to the breeze. The woman in black is a government employee paid to police public morals. †Fix your scarf at once! † she snaps. †But I'm hot,† I say. †You're hot? † she exclaims. ‘Don't you think we all are? † I start unwinding my makeshift turban. The men aren’t hot,† I mutter. Her companion looks at me in shocked reproach. â€Å"Sister, this isn’t about men and women,† she said, shaking her head. â€Å"This is about Islam. † I want to argue. I feel like a child. Defiant, but powerless. Burning with injustice, but also with a hint of shame. † In this excerpt, she clearly expres ses the way that a hijab is about a lot more than a religious article of clothing.It’s a societal definition of genders. She expresses the way that the hijab can become complicated do to the societal views. She feels a strong sense of injustice because on a hot scorching day by the sea short, as a result of their sexuality women have to endure the heat in silence under there hijab. When she expresses her discomfort, she is reproach by a women officer. She reminded her; that the hijab has nothing to do with being a woman or a man, but is about being an Islamic woman.Thus, lies the contradiction, gender does play a role within the Islamic religion and society. This dictates the way in which a woman should dresses, and is expected to behave. This excerpt correlates with the main topic of this essay, by explaining the role of clothing in an Islamic society. She also links this excerpt by expressing the powerless and guilty feelings she felt when the officer reproach her. There sh e was a women, yet she felt â€Å"†¦like a child. † Because of the societal rules and expectations that where being demanded of her.

How Does Elizabeth Gaskell Create an Effective Ghost Story?

Elizabeth Gaskell wrote this short story in 1852. It is based on revenge within a wealthy family. It is a ghost story where death plays a significant part. The choice of story teller really makes this 19th century story work. The nurse who tells this story in first person perspective tells us how her early life comes to a halt when picked out to look after Miss Rosamond the cousin of a lord. The tone of this story is very natural, honest, genuine and believable and adds certain freshness. At the start it is a very slow build up. She relates to the reader by expressing her fears truly, she's an outsider the same as the reader and we know this because she has no relation to this family. She also makes it very realistic and with no resistance. The impact of the setting is effective as the house is in the middle of no where, isolated and lonely. There are some safe areas in the house e. g. the kitchen, drawing room, nursery where there's a sense of warmth but all together over whelming because of the size of the house. The writer describes the sounds and sights of this place and compares to where she used to live. There were oak trees â€Å"white and peeled with age† from this extract you can tell this place is very old and adds effectiveness to this description. â€Å"Branches dragged the wall† from this we realise this house isn't looked after appropriately and in windy weather the characters would hear scraping against the wall which adds a sensation of mystery in the story. The east wing adds creepiness as no-one is allowed in there. It's like a taboo and no-one knows what the room even looks like. â€Å"Except the east wing which was never opened† which suggests that some one keeps it locked to try to hide or forget about something. The way tension is built up through out the story adds to the feeling of unease. The organ begins this disturbing atmosphere when the weather isn't good â€Å"someone â€Å"plays on the old organ but when Hester goes to look it's broken. This adds apprehension. Rosamond's mother dying very early in the story adds tension and suspense from the start. You are anxious to know is going to happen to Rosamond as she is so young. The writer adds thought to our minds while questioned with this. Tense and edgy is what we fell when the characters in the story only tell us a small part of the whole story and keeps the reader in need of more. When Dorothy reveals â€Å"If I show you, you must never let on† to Hester she firstly learns about Miss Graces' sister having her portrait turned to face the wall. Automatically the reader is wondering why this family has done such a thing. The use made of the ghosts in the story makes you have all different kinds of perspectives towards them. The ghost of the old Lord Furnivall very sinfully pounds of the organ on nights with severe weather conditions. â€Å"He played more and more stormily and sadly on the great organ† This suggests that the playing of the organ grew stronger and louder as the weather got more unpleasant as they grew quickly into winter. When Hester confronted the staff about these incidents they all alleged that they hadn't heard it or held the wind responsible. The danger the phantom child brought was far worse than the old Lords. â€Å"I could not choose but to go† Rosamond explained to Hester which says that the Phantom child has a power of Rosamond to make her pursue her to her mother up at the fells, where she would meet her death, but not only do they have a power over Rosamond they also have a power over Miss Furnivall. â€Å"Miss Furnivall shivered and shook so much† this makes the reader think why she is doing this and why she is so worried and scared. The ghosts are trying to achieve revenge on the family by killing Rosamond as the old Lord and Miss Furnivall killed them. Also before the ghosts come the atmosphere would change dramatically. â€Å"It grew dusk indoors† from this we can tell that the ghosts have immense power to turn the inside of the house dark while outside it is light and this is another fact of when the ghosts come the environment changes The use made of the family history is explaining the background this family has came from. The family history captures the mystery as the still don't give you the story intact just little tasters to keep the reader interested and always wanting more. You find out why the ghosts are there after everything is told to Hester and are there because when alive were thrown out of the manor when Lord Furnivall found out that Miss Maude the elder sister of the two had a child and was married to a musician that Lord Furnivall invited to his house every year but for musical purposes only, also he thought no man was good enough for his daughters which made him more angry. The building up throughout the story gives this story great potential and promise to have a superior impact at the end. For example the violence in this story in one way is especially exciting and open. Its exciting by making us the reader anxious of the intensity Elizabeth Gaskell goes to to put the message across. She is very open because she initially doesn't make it known to Hester that there is a chilling secret to this household and all of a sudden it comes out as if she cant keep it back any longer but all the way through she gives clues about it. Dorothy's coloured changed once or twice† This tells us that Dorothy knew everything that had happened but either couldn't say or didn't want to bring back such bad memories. The images in this story are very obvious and the writer has described them unmistakably throughout the story which gives the reader a clear picture in their minds. One example from the book is â€Å"the vast heath-place which gave out no heat† This description makes the reader realise that this was not real but just a re-enactment of something which took place a long time ago. Ending on a moral gives the reader an opportunity to think about things they have done in the past and involves them so then they relate to the book, and that gives the book an exceptionally good end. The moral â€Å"What is done in youth can never been undone in age† concludes this 19th century story splendidly. Miss Furnivall mutters these words on her death bed which intensifies the whole story even though the climatic part is over and all together adds great effect. Ghost stories aren't my favourite genre but I still appreciate them greatly!

‘A Passion for DNA: Genes, Genomes, and Society’

â€Å"No one then had any compelling reason to take my hypothesis seriously, but by November 1952 I liked it well enough to print DNA  ® RNA  ® protein on a small piece of paper that I taped on the wall above my writing table in my rooms at Clare College.From the day of our first meeting, Francis Crick and I thought it highly likely that the genetic information of DNA is conveyed by the sequence of its four bases. But we knew it was premature to promote this idea before the structure of DNA was known. However, the moment we first saw how to build a double helix out of the four base pairs, it was clear that the essential uniqueness of a gene must reside in its respective sequence of four bases.†So wrote James D. Watson in his book, A Passion for DNA: Genes, Genomes, and Society. In this work, told with refreshing honesty, is the human story of how Watson and Francis Crick won a Nobel Prize for what may be the most important advance in the life sciences since Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species.In this collection of essays (written for a variety of occasions during the past three decades), Watson discusses the science and sociology of several issues – foremost are recombinant DNA, the nature of cancer research, the past, present, and future of DNA the Human Genome Project and its bioethical problems.The book starts with an autobiographical discussion of the events in Watson’s life that preceded his discovery of the double helix. He then describes his scientific mentors, collaborators and rivals, as well as his philosophy on science. (Watson’s advice for budding scientists: learn from the winners, take risks, have a fallback, have fun and stay connected.)In 1953, two young, unknown scientists sparked a worldwide revolution. Studying DNA for clues to the nature of genes, James Watson and Francis Crick deduced its molecular composition – two chains twisted into a double helix – and immediately realized that th e structure implied how genes were copied and passed from one generation to the next.Their observation has had extraordinary consequences: the discovery of a genetic code that all living things share and the realization that the code translates into proteins; the ability to alter an organism's genetic make-up; recognition that diseases like cancer begin when genes go wrong; the foundations of a biotechnology industry and the means of cloning plants and animals; a start on cataloguing human genes; and the glimmer of a new kind of medicine that uses DNA therapeutically.As public concern about genetically modified food mounts, here is Watson's salutary reminder, from a previous era of DNA anxiety, that restrictions on potentially rewarding research are justifiable only if there is robust evidence of likely harm.Commenting on the 1970s War on Cancer, he warns that effective leadership of publicly funded research initiatives, such as the current search for an AIDS vaccine, demands the co urage to support promising but risky new ideas and prune away anything less than the best. And as the first Director of the Human Genome Project, now approaching its climax, he acknowledges the past evils of eugenics but argues fiercely for the need to balance potential misuses of genetic data with the overwhelming benefits of a rational attack on the roots of disease.In an essay on cancer research and the â€Å"war on cancer,† Watson tells us that to win wars one must know the enemy and the location of the battlefield. When Richard Nixon declared a war on cancer, this information was not yet available. The discovery and elucidation of the action of oncogenes and of cancer viruses were pivotal for understanding the terrain, planning the strategy, and pursuing the war. Watson provides numerous examples to stress the necessity of research in the basic sciences for developing successful therapies against cancer.

Corporate Finance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Corporate Finance - Essay Example I agree to this because diversification spreads the risk over the different types of assets. Given the fact that the two assets are uncorrelated to each other, it would be rational to invest in both assets. The higher risk of asset S will be compensated with the less risky return of asset B. 2. I totally disagree to the statement; it is quite opposite of the fact that there is a direct relationship between correlation of the portfolio assets and its risk. The higher the correlation between the portfolio assets, the more chances will be that the downside movement of one asset will accompany the same in the other and thus the investment will turned to be the worst. Thus, a rational investor should invest in uncorrelated or atleast less correlated assets in order to reduce the overall risk of the portfolio (Ross et. al, 2013). 3. I agree to this argument. Since the expected return of portfolio is the weighted average of the expected returns of the individual assets, it must lie in betwe en the range of these two individual expected returns. . However, the standard deviation of the return on portfolio doesn’t need to be in b/w the individual standard deviations of the two assets, especially when the stocks are uncorrelated, because the standard deviation of a portfolio is not just the weighted average of individual standard deviations but is computed using the standard deviation formula to the return on portfolio assets rather than just the returns for one asset... al, 2013). 4. I agree to this statement. When capital market consists of all risky assets, a rational investor should hold large number of assets in portfolio in order to diversify risks to a large extent. Risk diversified over the large number of stocks will tend to reduce the portfolio risk more significantly because a large portfolio tends to behave more like the market portfolio which compensates unsystematic risks (Ross et. al, 2013). 5. I agree to this statement. The variance of the return on a portfolio is function of both the component variances of the individual assets as well as co-variances among the assets’ returns (Ross et. al, 2013). That is, even if the individual variances of the assets are very low though their returns are highly correlated, the portfolio will be highly volatile and risky and there won’t be any advantage of such diversification. 6. I disagree. Although increasing the number of assets reduces the variance of portfolio return because of d iversification, the reduction in risk occurs at a diminishing rate (not at a constant rate) with the increase in number of assets in the portfolio. It is even said that to attain the maximum benefits of diversification, 10-15 assets are enough for a portfolio since this amount of diversified assets can resemble the market portfolio. Adding more assets won’t contribute to any further reduction in the portfolio risk. So, the variance will be more or less same but won’t be zero even when N is very large. Also, it’s not just the added number of assets which reduces the portfolio variance but the correlation between the assets does that too. Theoretically, a mix of negatively and positively correlated assets or a mix of uncorrelated

The Long Term Effects of Divorce on Children Essay

The Long Term Effects of Divorce on Children - Essay Example They converse less and as a result open up negligibly. They seldom speak out what is within them and hurting from inside. They seem to be in a constant fight with their existence and life for them becomes a problem – a problem that has got no bearing on their actions and yet they are on the receiving end. Academically, these children fall back on the track of education and are less interested at gaining the new avenues of knowledge and information. They seem unwelcoming to the new technological changes and are happy with their lives, in a desolate area with no one in company. Life for them is a slow killer but a killer for sure. With the passage of time, these children grow up to a less secure financial environment and they fall back on their expenses most of the times. They are usually dependent on one of their parents, with the one they live most of the times or in instances where both the parents have let gone on them, they are dependent on their guardians, which could be just about anyone. They are always trying to make both ends meet and in this quest cry their hearts out for having more of the finances since they seem to go broke on most of the times. As stated before, academically, divorce leaves an indelible negative impression, which means that education takes the backseat for them. They seem to focus more on the material gains and yet fail to realize the importance of gaining quality education for their own betterment – education and knowledge which will guarantee them success in different areas of life. (Sun, unknown) They do not think of making a respectable career and their attention is more or less bent on extracting short term gains rather than long term profits, which could only be had in the wake of attaining education and that too in a consistent manner. Since these children are on the receiving end, they seem to end up using substances which are illegal and morally wrong for them. They indulge in

Chronicity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Chronicity - Essay Example They are more likely to be trusted by patients because of their community and family-centered approach to care. Finally, I have learned from my readings that the current progress and gains made in medicine are a product of history, and that the past and traditional methods of medicine still have a place in contemporary practice when taken in their proper context and in caring for chronically ill patients. Life-limiting illnesses have a significant impact on patient, family, and the health system. On the patient, it can decrease his productivity, limit his activities of daily living, limit his mobility, and cause him feelings of depression. Among the family, it can cause them mental health issues like depression; it can also limit their own activities in terms of their employment and social life. It can also financially burden them. As for the health care system, life-limiting illnesses can also cause a huge financial burden on the government with more claims on Medicare and Medicaid. It can also limit the productivity of the government due to reduced productivity of workers. The above discussion implies how important it is for the government to establish a chronic care program which can address the health needs of these patients and minimize the impact of these life-limiting diseases on the patients, their families, and on the health system as a