The Power of Illumination in Poetry Essay Example for Free

The Power of Illumination in Poetry Essay The stunning power of illumination found in poetry is a luxury for readers who love to read verses. Compared to other genres in Literature such as short stories or plays, poems offer insight in just one sitting, in a matter of minutes. In as few as four lines, the reader is offered an illumination about life, invaluable insight that would make him understand the events in his life and the world in general.   Such illuminations are found in the following poems: â€Å"London,† by William Blake offers us a tour of the London’s gloomy streets. â€Å"Traveling through the Dark,† penned by William Stafford, gives the readers a poignant account of death. â€Å"Ozymandias,† written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, introduces the concept of kings and royalty in a new way. â€Å"We Wear the Mask,† written by Paul Laurence Dunbar emphasizes the need for human falsities in society. â€Å"The Man He Killed,† by Thomas Hardy offers an alternate reality in respect to war. â€Å"The History of War,† by Billy Collins reveals the folly of cushioning the children from the spikes of the real world, of accurate history. â€Å"My Papa’s Waltz,† by Theodore Roethke offers the readers an endearing account of a father and son relationship. â€Å"Daystar,† written by Rita Dove characterizes one aspect of motherhood. â€Å"Spring and Fall,† penned by Gerard Manley Hopkins, renders the theme of mortality through a child named Margaret. The popular Robert Frost poem, â€Å"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,† documents the pull between responsibility and abandon. The wonderful poem, â€Å"Rain,† by Naomi Shihab Nye, describes safety through the eyes of a child. The witty poem, â€Å"Latin Women Pray,† by Judith Ortiz Cofer gives a criticism on religion. And finally, the last poem in the list, â€Å"Buffalo Bills/ defunct,† by e.e. cummings, mourns the death of popular cowboy, William Frederick Buffalo Bill Cody. In â€Å"London,† by William Blake, the persona characterizes London as a gloomy, oppressive place. The images portrayed in the poem are dark and disturbing. People’s faces are marked with woe and despair, and the only sound the reader ‘hears’ in the poem are cries. The tone of the persona is obviously dark and foreboding, warning the reader of despair and death.   William Stafford’s â€Å"Traveling through the Dark,† on the other hand, uses the issue of death to illustrate a lesson about life. The persona gives the reader an account of a dead deer, pregnant with a doe, lying on a narrow road. The persona is confronted with a dilemma of making a choice. To leave the deer and its doe on the road would cause accidents and therefore cause more deaths, so he decides to push the deer to fall onto the river. Rich in figurative language, the poem effectively uses the word, â€Å"swerve† to prove the point that big decisions in life might make a person radically change his convictions to get off the path he chose, so to speak. The popular poem, â€Å"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,† is rich with symbolism. The persona, who is making his way home, stops by the woods long enough to admire its beauty, but short enough to proceed to his destination. Here, the reader clearly sees the divide between the call of responsibility and the luxury of pure abandoned pleasure. The most unconventional style in poetry is revealed in the poem of e.e. cummings entitled, â€Å"Buffalo Bills/ defunct.† The verses are written in a different form and pattern, the lines are slashed to emphasize a point. The poem is an ode, or more appropriately, a eulogy for William Frederick Buffalo Bill Cody, a popular figure in America. These poems provide the reader a vicarious and enlightening experience about other places, about people, and about life’s big issues. The challenge for the reader is how to utilize this enlightenment, these points of illumination, for a better understanding of life.

Lawrence Ferlinghettis Politics :: essays research papers fc

Lawrence Ferlinghetti's Politics I hope I won't seem too politically incorrect for saying this but after immersing myself in the writings of the guilt-obsessed asexual Jack Kerouac, the ridiculously horny Allen Ginsberg and the just plain sordid William S. Boroughs... it's nice to read a few poems by a guy who can get excited about a little candy store under the El or a pretty woman letting a stocking drop to the floor (â€Å"Literary Kicks†). For casual reading, Lawrence Ferlinghetti's poetry is cheerful and humorous. At best it is a welcome break for the mainstream of the â€Å"beat generation.† Inside his poetry, deep rooted criticisms of the United States exist. Ferlinghetti has had an anti-government attitude since the 1950's. His beliefs strengthened when he was put on trial for publishing a highly controversial collection of poems written by Allen Ginsberg. Lawrence Ferlinghetti has chosen to express his political views through his poetry. Additionally, Ferlinghetti became more vocal with the use of protests and further publication of controversial and/or anti-government materials through his publishing house, New Directions. By using poetry, Ferlinghetti was able to reach a vast audience including those whom he was criticizing. Through his poetry, Lawrence Ferlinghetti blatantly and subtly criticized the American democratic system and politicians.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In 1957, Ferlinghetti received his first national attention. Ferlinghetti was arrested and brought to trial as the publisher of a collection of obscene poetry, Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg (Alspaugh 1148). Eventually he was cleared of the charges of â€Å"publishing and sale of obscene writings.† Since his involvement in the obscenity trial, Ferlinghetti became quite cynical of the government. After the trial ended, Lawrence Ferlinghetti canceled all government grants coming to him and to any writers under his publishing house. Currently he still disallows the acceptance of government grants to any of his writers (Alspaugh 1146). Economically speaking, Ferlinghetti did benefit from the trial. The publicity created by the trial attracted new names to New Directions Publishing. The publicity also was great enough to propel Lawrence Ferlinghetti's image to the degree where he could successfully release his second collection of poetry, A Coney Island of the Mind. In most of Ferlinghetti's work, he has shown a concern with political issues. â€Å" His poetry often addresses political subjects...† (Nasso 196). The Kennedy Assassination, McCarthyism and the Vietnam conflict were all topics in several Ferlinghetti poems (Oppenheimer 136). Lawrence Ferlinghetti's past incidents involving the government influenced his poetry and consequentially he has little respect for government. â€Å"Ferlinghetti's... poetry offered blatant tirades against the destructive tendencies of America's political leadership† (Trosky 136).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Politics are themes in virtually all of Ferlinghetti's works.

A Critical Assessment of the Eclectic Theory

INTRODUCTION It is true of everything that the first steps ate both the most important and the most difficult. To begin with, theorization consists of a set of definitions of concepts. The basic concepts underlying the eclectic theory of the multinational enterprise (MNE)(1) are currently being criticized by the internalization theorists(2) in that the ‘ownership advantage' is ‘double counting,' that is, the internalization and location factors are necessary and sufficient to explain the existence and growth of the MNE.The controversy seems to require a thorough examination of the concept of the ‘ownership advantage'. However, the examination should extend further afield. Our objective in this paper is to assess critically the three basic concepts in the eclectic theory, i. e. , the ‘ownership advantage,' the ‘internalization advantage,' and the ‘location advantage' and to suggest the beginnings of an alternative framework to deal with the MNE and FDI (i. e. , foreign direct investment). REDUNDANCY OF THE ‘OWNERSHIP ADVANTAGE'Some Features of the Electic Theory First of all, we must set up the target of our examination. The eclectic theory, Mark I, as advocated by Dunning is as follows [Dunning 1981:79]: 1. It (i. e. , the firm) possesses net ownership advantages vis-a-vis firms of other nationalities in serving particular markets. These ownership advantages largely take the form of the possession of intangible assets, that are, at least for a period of time, exclusive or specific to the firm possessing them. . Assuming condition 1 is satisfied, it must be more beneficial to the enterprise possessing these advantages to use them itself rather than to sell or lease them to foreign firms, that is, for it to internalize its advantages through an extension of its own activities rather than externalize them through licensing and similar contracts with independent firms. 3.Assuming conditions 1 and 2 are satisfied, it must be profitable for the enterprise to utilize these advantages in conjunction with at least some factor inputs (including natural resources) outside its home country; otherwise foreign markets would be served entirely by exports and domestic markets by domestic production. Four features of the eclectic theory should be noted here, as far as they are concerned with our argument. Firstly, needless to say, the concept of the advantage is a relative concept; i. e. advantage of a firm vis-a-vis the others tautologically means their disadvantage vis-a-vis the firm. The advantage is understood from the viewpoint of economic competitiveness and profitability, and thus it takes the form of an economic asset whether tangible or intangible. Thus, the asset value is measured by capitalizing the stream of expected future earnings by means of the rate of return. Secondly, the concept of internalization is interpreted as internalization of an ‘ownership advantage' rather than that of an imperfec t market. 3) Thirdly, the existence per se of the ‘ownership advantage' has nothing to do with the internalization; thus, the ‘ownership advantage' is logically independent of the ‘internalization advantage. ‘ Finally, the ‘ownership advantage' is logically independent of the ‘location advantage;' thus, the ‘ownership advantage' can be measured without referring to location factors. (4) The Logic of the Internalization Theory Let us focus on the second and third features and compare them with the basic logic of the internalization theory. The distinctive feature of the internalization theory is its recognition that the firm is an economic institution, the objective of which is to maximize profit (i. e. , super-normal profit in the Marshallian sense) in the world of market imperfections. The firm attempts to maximize its revenue and minimize its costs: the firm maximizes its organizational benefits after remunerating all the factors of produc tion, R&D, marketing, and management.Firstly, if arm's-length markets are inefficient and incur huge transaction costs, the firm would replace them with its unified ownership and control (i. e. , the internal quasi-market)(6) and minimize its internalization costs;(7) i. e. , the internalization of markets. Secondly, if no market exists for external economies defined to be private costs minus social costs), the firm would bring them under common ownership and control and prevent them from leaking outside; i. e. , the internalization of externalities. 8) Thirdly, if internal economies defined to be private benefits and, at the same time, social benefits) are expected after totally eliminating markets, whether internal or external, the firm would not only internalize the markets but also reorganize and rationalize the activities under the common ownership and control; i. e. , integration under internalization. (9,10) Market imperfections may exist in final-product markets as well as i n intermediate-product markets of physical products (i. e. components and semi-finished products) and intellectual products (i. e. , knowledge or information). final-product markets, however imperfect they are, the firms cannot internalize markets since, needless to say, consumers are independent of producers and merchants. They can only acquire super-normal profit by manipulating their market power. Note that although some academics misunderstood,(11) there is no guarantee that the internalization increases efficiency and social welfare in both intermediate- and final-product markets.On the contrary, it is quite possible that the internalization by the MNE creates imperfect competition or monopolistic (monopsonistic) situations and thus increases social costs by means of restricting the output of high-tech goods, building up an entry barrier by vertical and/or horizontal integration, effective collusion, etc. It is also quite possible that the integration takes part in restricting competition and more than offsets its positive benefits in social welfare. (12,13) In relation to social costs, we should pay some attention to a new concept, perceived transaction costs. Transaction costs can be classified into three categories; i. e. , those inherent in commodity transactions per se,(14) those inherent in oligopolistic or imperfect competition, and those originating from government regulations. (15) Oligopolistic or imperfect competition places competitors in a situation of uncertainty in respect of potential transaction costs as a result of arrn's-length transactions. Concerns about the dissipation of valuable information may well inflate the value of subjectively perceived transaction costs to the extent of virtually prohibiting arm's-length transactions.Uncertainty in oligopolistic or imperfect competition creates self-inflating feature to the ‘perceived transaction costs'. Certain 'embedded social relations' modify pure economic rationality(16) and affec t the choice of internalization. Furthermore, bounded and creeping rationality of the management makes the strategy (i. e. , choosing between internalization, integration, and arm's-length transactions) fairly rigid once it has been decided upon. 17) Internalization, in these circumstances, may be perceived as private-cost minimization, but not as social-cost minimization. 18 Another important feature of the internalization theory is that it expounds interrelations between production, R&D, marketing, and management. (19) The internalization of the markets and externalities of these activities and their integration generate the advantages of the firm over the others. The firm may exercise its market power when it internalizes and integrates them, so as †¦

Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis Essay - 1411 Words

Founding Brothers Essay The founding fathers, or as the book calls them the founding brothers, are an assorted group of men from wildly different backgrounds. In political terms, they were divided. Yet, they came to together to help shape this country into the place it is today. Now on their journey towards the making of this country they did encounter some trouble. They encountered heated debates among themselves though for getting through these debates they show just why they deserve to be called, founding brothers. There were several issues in which the founding brothers found themselves on opposite sides of an issue. In the case of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, Hamilton had questioned Burr’s qualifications in Burr’s run for†¦show more content†¦Madison saw this as being treasonous and tried to have it repealed, but he was facing George Washington, who was the most respected person in the US at the time. Finally in the Sedition Act which was signed in by President John Adams, it was aimed at silencing editors who openly talked bad about the government. It was greatly opposed by most Republicans and greatly supported by Federalists. Later, as it was put into motion it actually backfired, with many immigrants and former Federalists defecting to the Republicans. All these things were issues that were debated by the founding brothers, but their voices are what also made them significant. These men, Hamilton, Burr, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams, and Madison, were important contributors to development of our country in many ways. Hamilton had tried to push policies, funding and assumption, in order to fix America’s debt problem with foreign and domestic debt and restoring America’s credit with European bankers. His policy for funding was passed, which also gave bonds that were given to soldiers but were now in rich peoples’ hands, credit. Burr was known as the father of modern political campaigning, as he helped drum up support for Jefferson during their run for the presidency. Jefferson had authored the Declaration of Independence and was also a good friend of John Adams. So good a friend, in fact, that when they wereShow MoreRelatedfounding fathers book report873 Words   |  4 PagesJoseph J. Ellis is a well-known historian. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from the college of William and Mary, and his masters and Ph.D. at the University of Yale. Ellis is currently a full time professor of the Commonwealth at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. In addition to Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation Ellis has written many books and editorials. His books include; The New England Mind in Transition: Samuel Johnson of Connecticut (Yale University Press, 1983)Read More My Friend Hamilton -Who I shot Essay6642 Words   |  27 Pagesconclusions. It is the object of this discussion, therefore, to examine the heretofore mentioned interpretations, and to critically analyze the differing ideas concerning the Burr-Hamilton duel. The most succinct version of the event, as told by Joseph J. Ellis reads On the morning of July 11, 1804, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton were rowed across the Hudson River in separate boats to a secluded spot near Weehawken, New Jersey. There, in accord with the customs of the code duello, they exchangedRead MoreEssay about Jefferson vs. Hamilton on Views of Government1974 Words   |  8 PagesHamilton’s? Both of these men served under George Washington in the first presidential cabinet, yet they had very different views of what government should be (Davis 86). My objective in this research essay is to inform the reader of why there was so much controversy between these two founding fathers, and to determine which side had the better views for our newly forming country. After Washington became president, people started forming political parties based on how they thought the governmentRead More65 Successful Harvard Business School Application Essays 2nd Edition 147256 Words   |  190 PagesGRIFFIN NEW YORK 65 SUCCESSFUL HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL APPLICATION ESSAYS, SECOND EDITION. Copyright  © 2009 byThe Harbus News Corporation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For-information, address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010. www.stmartins.com Library of Congress Cataloging...in..Publication Data 65 successful Harvard Business -School application essays : with analysis by the staff of The Harbus, the Harvard Business School newspaperRead MoreStephen P. Robbins Timothy A. Judge (2011) Organizational Behaviour 15th Edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall393164 Words   |  1573 Pagesreceived the Ernest J. McCormick Award for Distinguished Early Career Contributions from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. In 2001, he received the Larry L. Cummings Award for mid-career contributions from the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management. In 2007, he received the Professional Practice Award from the Institute of Industrial and Labor Relations, University of Illinois. Books Published : H. G. Heneman III, T. A. Judge, and J. D. Kammeyer-MuellerRead MoreOne Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. Explain the Impact This Change Has Made on Our Lives and Why It Is an Important Change.163893 Words   |  656 PagesPHILADELPHIA Temple University Press 1601 North Broad Street Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122 www.temple.edu/tempress Copyright  © 2010 by Temple University All rights reserved Published 2010 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Essays on twentieth century history / edited by Michael Peter Adas for the American Historical Association. p. cm.—(Critical perspectives on the past) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-4399-0269-1 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-4399-0270-7