An Analysis of Yeats The Second Coming Essay -- Yeats Second Coming E

An Analysis of Yeats' The Second Coming Yeats' poem "The Second Coming," written in 1919 and published in 1921 in his collection of poems Michael Robartes and the Dancer, taps into the concept of the gyre and depicts the approach of a new world order. The gyre is one of Yeats' favorite motifs, the idea that history occurs in cycles, specifically cycles "twenty centuries" in length (Yeats, "The Second Coming" ln. 19). In this poem, Yeats predicts that the Christian era will soon give way apocalyptically to an era ruled by a godlike desert beast with the body of a lion and the head of a man (ln. 14). Critics have argued about the exact meaning of this image, but a close reading of the poem, combined with some simple genetic work, shows that Yeats saw the new order as a reign of terror haunted by war. "The Second Coming," in its entirety, is an astounding encapsulation of Yeats' idea of the gyre and his fears about the future of mankind; it is expertly woven with threads of prophetic literary reference and impressive poetic t echniques. To begin, the gyre, a spiral or repeated circling motion, is a symbol and a concept that Yeats used repeatedly in his poetry and prose, and the poetics of "The Second Coming" illustrate the idea of the gyre. The repeated words in the poem enforce the idea of "spiral images" (Drake 131); words and phrases, such as "surely" and "is at hand" in lines 9 and 10, "turning" in line 1, "is loosed" in lines 4 and 5, and the very title, "Second Coming" in lines 10 and 11, are repeated, creating an onomatopoeic effect suggesting the repetitive movement of the gyre (Bornstein 203). Similarly, repetitious or paired images give the same effect, as Yeats seems to cycle through his "falcon" ("The Second Coming... ...tin's, 1966. Drake, Nicholas. The Poetry of W. B. Yeats. London: Penguin, 1991. Ellmann, Richard. The Identity of Yeats. New York: Oxford, 1954. ---. Yeats: the Man and the Masks. New York: Macmillan, 1948. Jeffares, A. Norman. A Commentary on the Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Stanford: Stanford U., 1968. ---. W. B. Yeats. New York: Humanities, 1971. Purdy, Dwight H. Biblical Echo and Allusion in the Poetry of W. B. Yeats: Poetics and the Art of God. Lewisburg: Bucknell U., 1994. Stock, A. G. W. B. Yeats: His Poetry and Thought. London: Cambridge, 1961. Yeats, William Butler. Michael Robartes and the Dancer Manuscript Materials. Eds. Thomas Parkinson and Anne Brannen. Ithaca: Cornell, 1994. ---. "The Second Coming." Norton Anthology of English Literature. Eds. M. H. Abrams, et al. 6th ed. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1993. 1880-81.

How to Make a Simple Birthday Cake :: Expository Process Essays

How to Make a Simple Birthday Cake Have you ever wanted to make a birthday cake for a loved one? Well, here is how to make a simple birthday cake. All you'll need is a little time, love, and a few items from the grocery store. You will need a boxed cake mix (the favorite of the birthday person), shortening, eggs, oil, flour, and birthday candles (the number will depend on the age of the birthday person.) When you get home, you will need to gather a few items: a large mixing bowl, a large cake pan, an electric mixer or a large mixing spoon, a spatula, and measuring cups and spoons. First, you will need to wash your hands and work area. Read through the directions on the cake box to be sure you have everything you need. Then, gather all of your equipment and food items in your work area, organize it according to the order you will use them in making your cake. Be sure to preheat your oven to the appropriate temperature before you begin. Next, put the dry cake mix into your large mixing bowl. Then, put the prescribed amount of water, oil, and eggs into the mix. Then, with the electric mixer or mixing spoon mix the batter until it is smooth and free of clumps. Next, grease the large cake pan with the shortening. If you wish, you can wrap your fingers with wax paper to keep them from getting greasy. Then, flour the pan lightly. If you do this over the garbage can it will be easier to clean your work area later. Next, pour the cake batter into the cake pan, using the rubber spatula to scrape all of the batter off of the sides of the bowl. Be sure the batter is level in the pan so it will rise evenly. Next, place the cake on the top rack of the oven and bake for the amount of time specified on the box, the time is usually around thirty minutes. While the cake is baking clean up you work area. After the cake is done remove it from the oven. If you push a toothpick to the bottom and it comes out clean it is done. Turn off the oven and let the cake cool. After the cake has had ample time to cool, you are ready to spread the icing on the cake.

Human Resource Development and Strategy Essay

Abstract The purpose of this portfolio project is to assess the learning experienced and my development during my group project. Also, to explain the methods and approaches implicated in completing the training plan; my involvement and participation in the group project. This Final HR Portfolio Project will present the reader a thorough analysis of my contribution to the group project. Final HR Portfolio Project Introduction The purpose of this portfolio project is to assess the learning experienced and my development during my group project. Also, to explain the methods and approaches implicated in completing the training plan; my involvement and participation in the group project. I will conduct a self-evaluation of my participation in the project and express my beliefs and perceptions. In addition, I will answer the following questions: †¢Was the training program the team developed effective in meeting the written objectives †¢The challenges the team and I met and the actions I took to address and resolve the problem †¢I will explain how the interpersonal relationships within the team change from the beginning to the end of the project †¢Convey the effectiveness of the overall team project to me as an individual learning activity and what I learnt that was totally new to me †¢What I would do differently if I had it to do all over again and why? †¢I will describe how could the project have been a better learning process? With specific thoughts on improving the course. †¢Lastly, particular attention will be given to the team experiences and the effectiveness of communication Statement about my own perceptions I went into this project not knowing the amount of work it takes to assess, design, develop and evaluate a training program. I believe that I emerge from this project with new profound knowledge and I learnt how to enhance my training program development for future training needs of my employees. Self-evaluation for participation in the project In completing a self-evaluation for my participation in the group project, I found that I had put forth a lot of time into completing this project. My strengths in the project were as follow: I was able to research my part of the project efficiently and I found some very useful information, I compiled and refined the paper. My weakness in this team assignment was my impatient with the team’s leader continuous duplicate posting of the same information, but I the end of the day, I had to remind myself that it was her managing style and to bring the project to fruition, I had to overcome my impatience. I believe that I have done this assignment to the best of my abilities and if I could have improve my part of the assignment, it would have to be instead of having done so much research that was not even use in the final project; I should have had research only the key points that was going in the slides. Lesson learned and I now know better for next time. Effectiveness of team meeting written objectives The training program strategy our team developed epitomizes the approach that the Dell Company need to implements to make sure that presently and in the future, the call center customers interactions support the attainment of its goal of customer satisfaction by widening the skills and aptitudes of the call center’s employees and managers alike. I judge that it can be expressed that the team’s training program development has indeed met its written objectives and if Dell HR strategically implements the plan, then I believe the group’s training program should be successful. What challenges did you and your team meets? What actions did you take to address and resolve the problem? Whenever a team assembled together there bound to be some challenges and the action and reaction of each individual member of the team can make or break the team. Such a statement is true in the case of my involvement in this group’s training program plan. Since I was the compiler for this group project; I believe one of our major challenge was the fact that we misunderstood the direction given by the instructor and some group member’s portion of the research for the project were somewhat off topic, some were trying to evaluate the training program (when the directive stated otherwise) and some of the suggestions were not helping moving the project forward. Another challenge was the fact that we ended up with a vast amount of data from different team member and most of them were unusable. The action I took to address and resolve the challenges were by omitting some of the data and ensure that the remaining information was suitable to satisfied the requirement of the training program Interpersonal relationships Changes The interpersonal relationships within the group did change somewhat. But to put this into prospective, after taken many upper-level courses for my BS program here at Walden, which required my involvement with group projects–I had my share of interpersonal relationships changes and some were never amended. However, the changes that occurred during this group project were minor, compared to others and the team experience/interaction was pleasant. Nadler (1998) point out: â€Å"Develop and communicate a clear image of the future state† (Nadler, 1998). To be specific, Nadler’s point of communication was taken to whole new level during this project. For example, one interpersonal relationships change that transpired during the beginning to the end of the project were the fact that the project leader did not give the team members a chance to select their own question(s) to answer; she assigned the questions and some of the roles without the prior agreement from the te am members. Additionally, when the timeline set forth by her was not followed down to the minute, she sent constant emails and posted many messages on the group discussion board that went unanswered by most of the team members. Nonetheless, for the sake of completing the project on a timely manner, our interpersonal nuisances were resolved, team members had became more flexible and useful, members were offering helpful suggestions for the completion of the training program plan and at the end of the project, the group discussions were more lively and our training program plan were effective. How effective was this overall team project to you as an individual learning activity? What did you learn that was totally new to you? The group project Rubric stipulated the context and design measurements for the competition of the group’s project, which, in conjunction with our groups’ own research, led to the development of the call center training program plan. The training program design, development, instruction, and evaluation were further enhanced with each individual contribution to ensure that the training program meets all design requirements and capable of accomplishing the call center staffs training needs. As Honey et al (1996) defined learning as: â€Å"Learning has happened when people can demonstrate that they know something that they did not know before (insights, realizations as well as facts) and when they can do something they could not do before (skills)† (Honey et al, 1996). I believe that I have gained plenty of knowledge from this group project experience. From the training program development, to the detailed training program, I judge that it was indeed effective for my individual learning endeavor and I learned the mechanics necessary to create a successful training program. What I learned that was totally new was the formatting of the contents for the training program utilizing PowerPoint. What would you do differently if you had it to do all over again? Why? Having the chance to redo this project all over again, I probably make myself available to be the project leader and direct the team to focus their attentions toward the requirements of the project. By doing so, I would be able to filter out any unnecessary tension between the group members. How could the project have been a better learning process? I believe that as a team, we could have made better use of the tools available to us to streamline the completion of the project and tools such as the chat-room, and file sharing could have been incorporated to foster a smoother workflow. As far as improving the project itself, I am not able to provide any clear assessment because of the fact that I do not have any other groups to compare our work with ¬Ã¢â‚¬â€œfor as such has been my experience here at Walden. On the other hand, I do think that the formation of the groups should be done at the end of the first week of class to allot plenty of time to the group members to get acquainted before the start of the project. If such a suggestion is not feasible, then changing the due date for submission of the project could better the learning process. Conclusion The group training program plan has outline all the essential assessment, design, development, instruction, and evaluation (ADDIE) of training development planning and the proper implementation of the training program will ensure that the call center will be effective. In addition, in case of decreased in the call center productivity or an increased in customer dissatisfaction, could force the organization to take a careful look at its training program, Dell should put together a systematic way to evaluate and do a retraining assessment of the call center staffs to help lessen the number of customer issues. Additionally, our team did a great job creating the training program plan and our instructor’s feedback made a big difference. References Blanchard, P. N., & Thacker, J. W. (2010). Effective training: Systems, strategies, and practices (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice-Hall. Honey, P., & Mumford, A. (1996). The Manual of Learning Styles (3rd ed.). Maidenhead, NJ: Honey Publications. Nadler, David A. (1998). Champions of change: How CEOs and their companies are mastering the skills of radical change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

What did Hoggart and other British cultural critics see the “juke box boys” (Hoggart, 1958, 247) as a portent of?

Dan Bednar The essay will introduce the notion of consensus – the agreement reached between political parties as well as in the society as a whole. However, due to the limitation of this paper, this is a rather an abbreviated description of the whole situation. As a result the British foreign affairs, as well as the importance of immigrant waves on forming the new British culture, will be ignored. Furthermore, the youth phenomenon did not appear overnight as it might seem from reading the following lines. In fact as the teenagers gained more and more attention from the marketplace and the popular press, they also gained more confidence and their voice was heard. The focus here will be on the Teddy Boys youths; the nation's young generation, however, was much more diverse, ranging from middle and upper class youth (with their specific culture) to youngsters organised in clubs and societies. Consensus Since 1951 the Conservative Party won three subsequent elections. The political consensus between the parties â€Å"reflected a consensus in the nation. In the spectrum of political opinion from right to left, the majority of electors had moved towards the middle †¦ leaving only minorities at the extremes† (Hill, 1986 p.7). This was due to a relative affluence of the working classes. They were better off, ate better food and watched more and more television. The Conservative party followed the political line of the Labour years, and, therefore, many ordinary citizens lost their interest in politics as well as their post-war collective enthusiasm (Hill, 1986 p.5). Furthermore, the consensus seemed to be reached between classes: the affluence of the lower classes made it seem like the class distinctions would eventually disappear (Hill, 1986 p.7). The consensus also reached the mass media. After the war the BBC set up a task of a â€Å"‘cultural mission'- elevating national standards† (Caughie, 1986 p.194).* Television hours were limited to a few hours a day: an act of protectionism. The contrast between what the public wanted and what was BBC's policy of educational entertainment was to be challenged by the first private channel. The British cinema was also rigorously protected. Import quotas secured the showing of a certain number of British films. New films were also censored or banned (McKibbin, 1998 p.423-435). As MsKibbin argues, â€Å"contemporaries thought the cinema was a uniquely powerful medium. The country's elites were persistently worried about its potentially subversive effect on England's politics and morality† (1998 p.455). The consensus reached in this area was set up to protect the citizens from what was then thought to be extremely dangerous: exposure to violence, sex and Americanisation. Contemporary studies supported these views: mass media supposedly had immediate effect (Street, 1997 p.62). The Horror of Rock'n'Roll The critics and academics saw the working class youth as the most endangered group. Thanks to the after war baby boom they were large in numbers, were often employed (We Are the Lambeth Boys) and earned more money. They are ground between the millstones of technocracy an democracy; society gives them almost limitless freedom of the sensation, but makes few demands on them – the use of their hands and of a fraction of their brains for forty hours a week. For the rest they are open to the entertainers and their efficient mass-equipment (Hoggart 1957 p. 249). Hoggart describes the Teddy Boys as frequent customers of milk bars, throwing one coin after another into the jukebox machine, reading sex and violence novels. These novels inspired the first British films targeting youth. With the emergence of the X certificate, some of the British studios concentrated on the horror and the sci-fi genres, the most famous being the Hammer studio. Although the cinema attendance numbers dropped drastically, due to the impact of television and shifting demographics (more and more people moving into new towns), the youth remained the largest cinema audience (McKibbin, 1998 p.420). The Hammer horror films were attractive for the youth audience (Street, 1997 p.76) as well as the Rock'n'Roll imports and their British versions (films with Cliff Richard and Tommy Steel). The horror and Rock'n'Roll films had their exploitational strategies in common. They were both taking advantages of certain novelties (scandals, wars) or/and their cinema audiences. These films usually had an inaccurate, sensational approach similar to that of the tabloid press. They, however, managed to express contemporary anxieties (nuclear threat, crisis of masculinity) (Street 1997, p.76-78). Films like Rock Around the Clock benefited from the Rock'n'Roll hype and from the controversy of the music; the assumed link between music and violence. Some Rock'n'Roll features were banned in local cinemas which only added to their popularity. Parents feared their children would turn into delinquents as the youth crime numbers were raising and the tabloid press blew the violent acts of a few into a nation-wide phenomenon (Hill, 1986 p.13-14). Famous filmmakers like Pressburger and Powell were clearly inspired by the horror genre in their film Peeping Tom. As well as some of the Hammer films, the film comments on the danger of science manipulation (Tom was a subject of scientific experiments of his fathers), but goes deeper into examination of the media exploitation itself, reflecting on contemporary anxieties (â€Å"fear of independent women† (Street, 1997 p.78)) and the supposed ‘higher morality' of the older generation (the elderly man, buying pornographic material in the kiosk). We might go further and suggest that the film is a call for realism. The studio in Peeping Tom produces popular murder stories, but when confronted with a real murder, we realize how remote these people are from the topics of their films. Similarly to Hitchcock's Psycho, Powell and Pressburger cast the main character with a good-looking young man – instead of a villain looking character. As Lowenstein argues, the social realism of Peeping Tom shows that these shifting social currents are shot through with anxieties that include viewers ‘like you and me' as agonized participants in ‘life here today'. (2000 p.229) Powell's and Presburger's interest in products of the mass culture is of the same sort as Warhol's interest in advertising, Kubrick's interest in popular genres in The Shining as well as Tarantino's obsession with pulp novels. Angry Young Men Hoggart's appeal was to preserve and enforce original ‘working class' culture. This appeal came about at the same time as the new breed of writers, first just called Movement and later on called the Angry Young Men. They were often of working class origin, and wrote novels about working class youth or about young men fighting bureaucracy and the current social order (Kingsley Amis – Lucky Jim). These ‘angry young men' represented the part of society that was slowly waking up from the consensus dream. The British Empire was facing internal and external crisis (racial upheavals, Suez War). Problems like class distinctions and national identity re-emerged with greater strength. The writers showed discontent with both the traditional highbrow culture as well as the faceless mass culture. However it turned out, that the mass culture swallowed the new subculture soon afterwards*. The films based on the Angry Young Men novels differed from the exploit features in their respectable treatment of the young individual and investigating the causes of their revolt. They might have been inspired by some of the American youth films, like A Rebel Without a Cause: the film is not just another exploit; it examined psychological depths of delinquent behaviour (the influence of the family background). Also the documentary tradition of some of the filmmakers like Karel Reisz was important. Reisz carefully observed youngsters and disclosed that they are much more than young delinquents in We Are the Lambeth Boys. Braine's novel Room at the Top was turned into a successful film. The film's revolt is in its exposed sexuality. As Marwick suggests: â€Å"censorship was itself changing its views as to what was now acceptable to British audiences† (1991 p.73-74). One of the illusions of the 50s was that the class distinction seemed to disappear (Hill, 1986 p.10-11). Clayton's film is a cruel awakening from the classless dream. The young man in the Room at the Top, puts up a tough fight to be accepted by the privileged class, only to realise that he had to pay huge prize for it. His lover dies in a car accident (suicide?). Joe Lampton hates the everyday routine and the oblivion of his own class, but also despises the class he is trying to join: their power and money are the only way to realise his potential. Sillitoe who wrote Saturday Night and Sunday Morning was of working class background. Reisz, who directed the subsequent film, already got a reputation with We Are the Lambeth Boys. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is a fierce attack on the ‘great' values of the fifties: affluence of the working class, full employment and mass culture (television). In a way, Arthur is a representative of the disappearing working class culture with his spare time ‘activities': fishing, drinking with friends and revolting. Arthur's parents and his colleague, Jack, represent the new emerging mass culture. They all watch television: Arthur's father to such an extent that he becomes totally absorbed by the medium. When Brenda is getting ready to go out, Jack suggests that one day they will be able to afford a TV set so that she can stay home. The disaffection ..of the young worker is directed against organized society and it bureaucrats, and against the more docile members of he working class, rather than against any identifiable enemy (Marwick, 1982 p.135). Arthur's culture is that of a revolt. He knows that there is something very wrong, but he is not sure how to fight it. Arthur says ‘no' to Hoggart's definition of working class youths: use your hands and a fraction of your brain and you can then be entertained. Arthur's ‘no' is also a ‘no' to the boom of the fifties. The youths were the first to realise the drawbacks, while the older generation was blinded by relative affluence and the pleasures of television. Arthur carries on with the fight until he agrees to marry Doreen. He then conforms to the mass culture of regular wages, consensus and television. His culture of revolt is lost to mass culture. The same can be said of the Angry Young Men movement: it later assimilated with the mass culture, since â€Å"media interest nearly always means immediate expropriation and assimilation by the mass culture† (Taylor, 2000). Conclusion Hoggart saw the emergence of the mass culture as a serious threat to the authentic working class culture. He was one of the first critics who realised the richness of the original popular culture, but he also criticised the highbrow values imposed on the working class. He saw the horror and science fiction films as a sign of classless mass culture and Teddy Boys as a portent of losing one's culture to the universal culture. At the same time, however, a group of writers emerged that created and re-created original working class culture, giving young men the potential for cultural revolution. I have argued that the exploit culture targeting a young audience had a profound effect on the art of the next decade. The Pop art had it's inspiration in trivial entertainment and commercials. The Pop art (art for everyone) made no distinctions between popular and highbrow culture and freed art from all preconceptions. Furthermore, the open dealing with sexual matters in some of the films and novels, opened up the censorship and gave way to artistic freedom. The youth shook the power of the â€Å"highbrow minority† that dictated the shaping of the whole culture and helped the existence of working class bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. The youth also gained more attention from advertisers and this resulted in strictly teenage products – fashion, such as jeans and short skirts. The youth changed the whole nature of cinema production. From then on film producers became more aware of their audiences and the films targeted increasingly younger audiences. Also the age of the media planners, directors and producers decreased and the young filmmakers gained more power both in Britain (Anderson, Reizs) and Hollywood (Beatty, Hopper), only to loose it later on due to further commercialism of cinema during the 70s and 80s (Biskind,1998: Introduction). The strength of the youth influence is also in its diversity: it inspired Marxists, trash artists, nihilists, hedonists, feminists and the list could go on. Its main strength is that it enabled wide cultural and political discussions. Arthur was a portent of complex socio-cultural changes that started during the sixties and carry on until today.

Expalnation of Father Returning Home Essay

ldad return home! My father travels on the late evening train Standing among silent commuters in the yellow light Suburbs slide past his unseeing eyes His shirt and pants are soggy and his black raincoat Stained with mud and his bag stuffed with books Is falling apart. His eyes dimmed by age fade homeward through the humid monsoon night. Now I can see him getting off the train Like a word dropped from a long sentence. He hurries across the length of the grey platform, Crosses the railway line, enters the lane, His chappals are sticky with mud, but he hurries onward. Home again, I see him drinking weak tea, Eating a stale chapati, reading a book. He goes into the toilet to contemplate Man’s estrangement from a man-made world. Coming out he trembles at the sink, The cold water running over his brown hands, A few droplets cling to the greying hairs on his wrists. His sullen children have often refused to share Jokes and secrets with him. He will now go to sleep Listening to the static on the radio, dreaming Of his ancestors and grandchildren, thinking Of nomads entering a subcontinent through a narrow pass. The poem speaks about the inner loneliness of the poet’s father, the utter alienation he is experiencing in the twilight years (man’s estrangement from a man-made world) as he ceases to matter to his children who no longer share anything with him. All the while he is trying to evoke, through the racial conscious, the invisible connection with his ancestors who had entered the sub-continent through the Khyber Pass in the Himalayas in some distant past (the allusion is perhaps to the migration of the Aryans to the Indian subcontinent from Central Asia). The poet uses some fine imagery to describe the pain and misery lurking in the old man’s soul as he travels in the local train . His bag stuffed with books is falling apart refers to the state of the old man’s mind which has turned senile after all that knowledge it has acquired through years of dedicated study. A wonderful image is used to describe his getting down from the train: Like a word dropped from a long sentence . The uniqueness of the image lies in the highly evocative visual picture of an old man dropping off from the train as though he is no longer relevant to the train which will now move forward with other people to their destinations. The old man is just a word in the syntax of life. The sentence that is long enough to carry several words forward each contributing to its overall meaning now drops off one stray word, which is no longer required. The other interesting image is the eyes and vision, which occurs in the poem again and again. The suburbs slide past his unseeing eyes is a pretty image. The second one is his eyes dimmed by age fade homeward. Above all we may look at the dexterous use of words to convey the â€Å"twilight† atmosphere in the poem : evening train, yellow light, unseeing eyes , his eyes dimmed by age fade homeward ,gray platform. Meaning of the poem is also a part of â€Å"to know, how to live in the society†. Other meaning is It’s all about the severe problem of generation gap. The widening crisis due to the explosion of rational. Father Returning Home is a poem written by Dilip Chitre. The main idea of this poem is ‘Man’s estrangement from a man-made world’. Here the father comes home late tired with his pants are soggy and his black raincoat is stained with mud and his bag is falling apart-He never cares the scenes of the outer world when he travels. Because he is always musing about his family. He is so true about his family, yet no one in his family realizes his care for them. He gets only the weak tea and stale chapati. (Look, he is the only one who works hard for his family yet he does not get even good food.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The lines like ‘The cold water running over his brown hands, A few droplets cling to the greying hairs on his wrists’ are used to add to the effect of the life and the world of poor father. His children are not ready to share jokes with him-their sullenness shows the unspoken resentment. And finally, even when he goes to bed the story is not different. There he receives only noi sed receiving, not even a good program from the radio. In short the father has no joy in his life; there is no closeness between the father and the children. The only thing that changes the mood of the poem is when he thinks about his dead yesterdays (ancestors) and unborn tomorrows (grand-children and nomads) -Here one thing must be noted that he dreams about these people not about his own children. Patel wanted to convey the idea of unseen sincerity of millions of fathers who strive hard for their family and their people. Dilip Chitre’s poem â€Å"Father Returning Home† is selected from â€Å"Travelling in A Cage†. It speaks about the dull and exhausting daily routine of a commuter. Delinked from his family he is left with himself to talk. Dreaming about his ancestors and grand children he communicates with the dead ‘yesterdays and unborn tomorrows. ‘ His alienation is complete and irreversible. Sleep and dream come as sweet relief from a world that is alien to him. The theme of the poem is â€Å"Man’s estrangement from a man-made world. † Dilip Purushottam Chitre (Marathi: ) was one of the foremost Indian writers and critics to emerge in the post Independence India. Apart from being a very important bilingual writer, writing in Marathi and English, he was also a painter and filmmaker. Biography He was born in Baroda on 17 September 1938. His father Purushottam Chitre used to publish a periodical named Abhiruchi which was highly treasured for its high, uncompromising quality. Dilip Chitre’s family moved to Mumbai in 1951 and he published his first collection of poems in 1960. He was one of the earliest and the most important influences behind the famous â€Å"little magazine movement† of the sixties in Marathi. He started Shabda with Arun Kolatkar and Ramesh Samarth. In 1975, he was awarded a visiting fellowship by the International Writing Programme of the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa in the United States. He has also worked as a director of the Indian Poetry Library, archive, and translation centre at Bharat Bhavan, a multi arts foundation, Bhopal. He also convened a world poetry festival in New Delhi followed by an international symposium of poets in Bhopal. His Ekun Kavita or Collected Poems were published in the nineteen nineties in three volumes. As Is,Where Is selected English poems (1964-2007) and â€Å"Shesha† English translation of selected Marathi poems both published by Poetrywala are among his last books published in 2007. He has also edited An Anthology of Marathi Poetry (1945–1965). He is also an accomplished translator and has prolifically translated prose and poetry. His most famous translation is of the celebrated 17th century Marathi bhakti poet Tukaram (published as Says Tuka). He has also translated Anubhavamrut by the twelfth century bhakti poet Dnyaneshwar. Film Career He started his professional film career in 1969 and has since made one feature film, about a dozen documentary films, several short films in the cinema format, and about twenty video documentary features. He wrote the scripts of most of his films as well as directed or co-directed them. He also scored the music for some of them. Awards and Honors He worked as an honorary editor of the quarterly New Quest, a journal of participative inquiry, Mumbai. Among Chitre’s honours and awards are several l Maharashtra State Awards, the Prix Special du Jury for his film Godam at the Festival des Trois Continents at Nantes in France in 1984, the Ministry of Human Resource Development’s Emeritua Fellowship, the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program Fellowship, the Indira Gandhi Fellowship, the Villa Waldberta Fellowship for residence given by the city of Munich, Bavaria, Germany and so forth. He was D. A. A. D. German Academic Exchange) Fellow and Writer-in-Residence at the Universities of Heidelberg and Bamberg in Germany in 1991–92. He was Director of Vagarth, Bharat Bhavan Bhopal and the convenor-director of Valmiki World Poetry Festival ( New Delhi,1985) and International Symposium of Poets ( Bhopal, 1985), a Keynote Speaker at the World Poetry Congress in Maebashi, Japan (1996 ) and at the Ninth International Conference on Maharashtra at Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA in 2001 and Member of the International Jury at the recent Literature festival Berlin, 2001. He was member of a three-writer delegation ( along with Nirmal Verma and U. R. Ananthamurthy) to the Soviet Union (Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia), Hungary, the Federal Republic of Germany and France in the spring and summer of 1980 and to the Frankfurter Buchmesse in Frankfurt, Germany in 1986; he has given readings, lectures, talks, participated in seminars and symposia, and conducted workshops in creative writing and literary translation in Iowa City, Chicago, Tempe, Paris, London, Weimar, Saint Petersburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Konstanz, Heidelberg, Bamberg, Tubingen, Northfield, Saint-Paul/Minneapolis, New Delhi, Bhopal, Mumbai, Kochi, Vadodara, Kolhapur, Aurangabad, Pune, Maebashi, and Dhule among other places. He travelled widely in Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America as well as in the interiors of India; been on the visiting faculty of many universities and institutions, a consultant to projects. He was the Honorary President of the Sonthhheimer Cultural Association, of which he was also a Founder-Trustee. Death After a long bout with cancer, Dilip Chitre died at his residence in Pune on 10 December 2009. Dilip Chitre: Portrait of an artist At the ripe young age of 16, Dilip Purushottam Chitre made a decision that would change his life forever. He decided he wanted to live as a poet and artist. It could not have been an easy choice. He admits to vague premonitions of it being difficult, and admits it proved hard at times. And yet, after over fifty years of living that life of poet and artist, he stands by it, refusing to have it any other way. One can’t blame him either. After all, his has been a life gifted with all sorts of revelations. It has been a colourful life, one spent whole-heartedly in the service of art and literature. His achievements, when strung together casually, boggle the mind. Chitre has — since publishing his first collection of poems, Kavita, in Marathi in 1960 — published a lot in English (Travelling in the Cage, 1980), has had his work translated into Hindi (Pisati ka Burz, 1987), Gujarati (Milton-na Mahaakaavyo, 1970), German (Worte des Tukaram) and Spanish. He has exhibited his own paintings (First One Man Show of Oil Paintings, 1969); written and directed an award-winning film (Godam, 1984); made a dozen documentary films and scored music for some of them; taken on the mantle of editor for literary magazines (Shabda, 1954-1960); written for India’s most respected publications; influenced a literary movement (the little magazine of the sixties in Marathi); convened poetry festivals; won all kinds of honours; travelled widely across India and abroad; and taught at universities worldwide. So, when he describes his interests on his blog thus — ‘I am a poet and a writer. I paint. I make films. I travel. I make friends. I read. I listen to music. I reflect. I contemplate. ‘ — it’s hard not to believe him. Born in Baroda in 1938, Chitre soon moved with his family to Mumbai, where he published his first collection of poems. Possibly the most famous of his translations is Says Tuka, a rendition of the work of seventeenth century Marathi bhakti poet Tukaram. It is a translation of abhangs, a form of devotional poetry sung in praise of Vitthal. Chitre’s translation continues to find new readers, surprising and moving them with its simplicity: ‘There is a whole tree within a seed/ And a seed at the end of each tree/ That is how it is between you and me/ One contains the Other. I envy Dilip Chitre for the life he has lead, for his unwavering faith in all he holds dear. He now lives in Pune with his wife, Viju, to whom he has been married for over 45 years. ‘Even in the most civilized societies of the world, poets receive ambivalent treatment,’ he writes. ‘The economic value of what poets do is considered extremely dubious†¦ The most they can hope for during a lifetime is niche audiences scattered far and wide and small publishers crazy enough to publish poetry without any regard to sales. ‘

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 †A Book Analysis Essay

In his book, Fahrenheit 451, author Ray Bradbury highlights the power and importance of obtaining knowledge through books but decries the impact that technological innovations, particularly the television, pose in stifling intellectual and creative development. As a science fiction book that was first printed in 1953, many readers — particularly literary critics and students — correlate the book to state censorship and subsequent cultural decay presaging the eras following the book’s publication. Indeed, it can be easily gleaned from the main character’s occupation as a book-burning fireman that the book burning per se may be emblematic of   a common situation that most societies have found themselves grappling with – specific stages in nations’ histories whereby basic inalienable rights and freedoms were suppressed. Literary censorship, in particular, has been a recurring theme in many great works of literature. In real life, censorship is something that most governments have resorted to for varied reasons other than as a means of quelling what they categorize as rebellion or insurrection, and in almost every instance, books that echo the sentiments of many great nationalists or radical-thinking individuals have borne the brunt of censorship laws. Some analysts point out that in Ray Bradbury’s book, Fahrenheit 451, â€Å"The book burning is not a government mandated censorship†¦ Instead, it is a society-built degradation of the written word. Society has rejected the black and white messages bound in leather and paper† (Przybyszewski).   The author himself does not dispute this observation. Whether it is art imitating reality or the other way around, Fahrenheit 451 is a successful attempt in making readers — including those who got to read the book generations after its initial publication — ponder on key social and political issues like censorship, even if the author himself had clarified that his novel â€Å"is actually about how television destroys interest in reading literature† (Oleck, par. 1). A lover of the written word, Ray Bradbury hails from humble beginnings in Illinois, which set the stage for his profound yet realistic insights, searing views and cunning overall approach to his subject matter. He was born on August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois; studied in a Los Angeles High School in 1938, and furthered his education by working nights in the library and pounding away at   typewriter keys and selling newspapers in Los Angeles by day (â€Å"Ray Bradbury Biography†).   It can be noted that Fahrenheit 451, in many ways, pays homage to Bradbury’s Waukegan hometown.   It is in this locality that he developed an enormous and lasting appetite for books and a love for libraries, something which is continually described in his book. As Bradbury himself narrates: From the time I was 9 up through my teens I spent at least two nights a week in the   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   town library in Waukegan, Ill. In the summer months, there was hardly a day I could   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   not be found lurking about the stacks, smelling the books like imported spices, drunk   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   on them even before I read them (Moran). Based on the author’s personal narrative, one clearly sees how he obtained the characteristic ease in describing to readers a well-stacked library, and how he skillfully let some of his characters express forceful sentiments about books not just as a storehouse of knowledge and cultural heritage of nations, but as instruments to guide man in living and making decisions about the future. Ray Bradbury’s Waukegan roots likewise armed him with first-hand knowledge and distinct style of writing about a specific subject matter as firefighters. As another writer gathering from Ray Bradbury’s musings in writing Fahrenheit 451: Bradbury’s wary respect for fire can be traced back to his Waukegan youth, where he   Ã‚  Ã‚   would pass the firehouse on his way to and from the Carnegie Library and end up   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   writing down his descriptions (Moran). Ray Bradbury’s remarkable style is indeed something which has not escaped discerning book readers and analysts. â€Å"While a lesser writer would have to content himself with beating the reader over the head with description and exposition, Bradbury is able to make his nightmare world real with economy and subtlety. The horror never grabs you by the throat as in a Stephen King novel; instead it creeps into your soul almost unnoticed† (Wright). Content-wise, what American writer Ray Bradbury sought to impress on his readers is the fact that humanity stands to be strangled by the very forces – or trappings of modern living —   that had originally been conceived to make life better. Bradbury makes a very good point in singling out television as the piece of equipment that most people have been overly relying on, and it comes at a very huge price: a stifled intellectual development. Indeed, of all the new modern conveniences or gadgetry the world has ever seen, one medium of communications which remains all-powerful or influential to minds and attitudes of people of all ages is the television. It is evident that Bradbury possessed remarkable foresight in ascertaining early on that people are bound to be enslaved. One of many insightful reviews about Ray Bradbury and his book states: Bradbury’s novel — or novella, really — is an inspired criticism of what we now call   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   the â€Å"information society,† and the yawning chasm it is creating in our collective soul.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In it he managed to predict with frightening accuracy such current social pathologies   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   as the dumbing down of popular entertainment and education, our growing addiction   Ã‚  Ã‚   to empty sensory stimulation, the rise of random violence among youth, the increasing anomie and alienation among everyone (Wright). Indeed, it takes a meticulous eye attuned to his surroundings for a writer to realistically depict current real-life situations as well as future scenarios. One important point that Ray Bradbury stressed in Fahrenheit 451 is that most of the time, people’s enslavement, whether by societal forces or modern technological advances, do occur from their own volition or free will. â€Å"It’s ordinary people who turn away from reading and the habits of thought and reflection it encourages. When the government starts actively censoring information, most people don’t even bat an eye† (Bradbury 183). It is true, of course, that in the present society, there are many cases of jaded individuals – especially ordinary citizens who wield little or no power to go against the powers-that-be – who initially protest but end up allowing circumstances like government   restraints on media/information to prevail or take place.   It is, however, an inescapable fact that many freedoms, like free speech and expression of ideas through books, are not absolute. This is something that advocates of censorship keep harping on. Introspection will show that in many ways, people, during these increasingly complex times and informational bombardment, do succumb or let government impose controls as the latter may deem morally and socially and politically fit. In doing so, it becomes a clear case of the antagonist turning into an ally. In societies which do a good job of balancing interests and rights, this may be permissible. There are, however, exceptions to the rule. There are people may rant and do nothing, but there are some individuals who even band together to form a coalition or cause-oriented group/association to bat for what they perceive as just. To their minds, the words of 18th century political theorist and philosopher Edmund Burke, of letting evil triumph if good men do nothing, may be ringing loud and clear. Reverting to the other main issue tackled by the book, which is the tendency of people to allow themselves to be enslaved by new technology and turn away from the many virtues of reading books, this is a universal problem pervading modern societies today. Ray Bradbury may have crafted decades ago a concise book about a dystopian society, but its message reverberates up to the present age, when gadget-toting new generations turn to books only when school requires them to, or when a bestselling book-turned-movie or escapist adult novels catch their fancy. In effect, the firemen’s task of burning books in the novel is actually a metaphor for the way a society’s citizens allow themselves, or their knowledge and future, to be stunted.   â€Å"The firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord† (Bradbury 87).

Tranditions#2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Tranditions#2 - Essay Example There is a danger side of tradition which does not build people but rather make them miserable. For example, fraternity practices hazing which can lead to death; polygamy causes division and rivalry among wives and half-siblings and political power caused wars throughout the history of civilization. This paper entails two literary works namely, â€Å"Mending Walls,† by Robert Frost and â€Å"The Lottery† by Shirley Jackson. The two works suggest that tradition should not simply be practiced and passed to the next generation. Rather, traditions should be well scrutinized whether they are helpful and relevant to the present and the culture. In â€Å"Mending Walls,† the notion that â€Å"good fences make good neighbors,† as indicated by Frost (222), is the belief that makes the characters build the walls every spring. The practice seems to be harmless but instead, has a purpose as the neighbor implies. However, the fence seems irrelevant to the characters time and place because there is nothing to be walled in or walled out. The narrator hates building the wall but his neighbor insists that â€Å"good fences make good neighbors† (Frost, 222) so they both have to build the wall. However, the narrator cannot make any sense of building the wall every year because they do not have any cows to keep away from each other’s yard. Obviously, the neighbors are not farmers who would have needed to build fences in order to keep their animals from messing with their neighbor’s yard. Therefore, unlike the neighbor, the narrator questions the tradition that has been passed on to them. If they continu e with their practice, they might pass the insensible tradition to their children without them questioning it. Thus, in exasperation, the narrator can only pose a challenge to question the importance of what has been established as a tradition. In essence, it appears that the tradition in important in creating good neighbors. This tradition strengthens the people staying in