A poetic form for philosophical contemplation Essay Example for Free

A poetic form for philosophical contemplation Essay ‘The Ode is used as a poetic form for philosophical contemplation. ’ Compare two odes by Keats in the light of this observation Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode to a Nightingale were written in May 1819, a time in Keats’ life which he devoted entirely to poetry. Both of these poems contemplate the poet’s approaching death, using stimuli of what is on the face of a Grecian vase and the song of a nightingale. There are differences and similarities between the two poems, and both will be looked at in the essay. Both of the above poems are odes. An ode is a form of poetry about emotion. First used by the Romans and Greeks, the form was revived in England in the 17th century. The form was popular among the English Romantic poets. A typical verse of an ode consists of a quatrain with a rhyme structure of ABAB and a sestet with a rhyme structure of CDECDE. However, Keats tended to be more liberal with his rhyme structures in his odes. Keats was born in 1795 and was the last born of the English romantic poets He became interested in poetry through his secondary school headmaster, who introduced him to Renaissance poetry and so the ode. Both of his parents died before he turned fifteen, so he became familiar with loss at an early age. His most famous sets of poems were his odes and these were written as Keats’ tuberculosis worsened in 1819. He died in 1821. There are two main themes in Keats’ odes: beauty and death. It is obvious beauty is looked at intently in Ode on a Grecian Urn, as the urn seems to tell the poet in the second to last line: ‘â€Å"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢. Keats firstly tries to tell the reader what the urn’s figures think of beauty. They see happiness in beauty, as they are in ‘wild ecstasy’ to be with ‘fair’ women and listen to ‘pipes and timbrels’. Because they will be youthful forever, Keats tells them this is ‘all ye need to know’, as ignorance is bliss. Beauty is also looked at in Ode to a Nightingale The nightingale is similar to the urn’s individuals, because it is able is to ‘quite forget’ the horror of old age and can forever fly free above ‘hungry generations’ of people. Unlike the Urn, its ‘plaintive anthem fades’ without actually helping the author in any way.

The Protestant Reformation Essays -- European History Religion Papers

The Protestant Reformation Introduction The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century is one of the most complex movements in European history since the fall of the Roman Empire. The Reformation truly ends the Middle Ages and begins a new era in the history of Western Civilization. The Reformation ended the religious unity of Europe and ushered in 150 years of religious warfare. By the time the conflicts had ended, the political and social geography in the west had fundamentally changed. The Reformation would have been revolutionary enough of itself, but it coincided in time with the opening of the Western Hemisphere to the Europeans and the development of firearms as effective field weapons. It coincided, too, with the spread of Renaissance ideals from Italy and the first stirrings of the Scientific Revolution. Taken together, these developments transformed Europe. Causes of the Reformation Many bishops and abbots (especially in countries where they were also territorial princes) bore themselves as secular rulers rather than as servants of the Church. Many members of cathedral chapters and other beneficed ecclesiastics were chiefly concerned with their income and how to increase it, especially by uniting several prebends (even episcopal sees) in the hands of one person, who thus enjoyed a larger income and greater power. Luxury prevailed widely among the higher clergy, while the lower clergy were often oppressed. The scientific and ascetic training of the clergy left much to be desired, the moral standard of many being very low, and the practice of celibacy not everywhere observed. Not less serious was the condition of many monasteries of men, and even of women (which were often homes for the unmarried daughte... ...s did not have to be run by a religious leader or Monarchist and that a person’s life did not have to be centered on religion or the afterlife. If it were not for the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the world we live in now would be a much different place. The Protestant Reformation was a major building block of history, and some would say our country. Bibliography: Works Cited Birch, David. Early Reformation English Polemics. Austria: University of Salzburg, 1983. Dickens, A.G. The English Reformation. London: BT Batsford Ltd, 1989. Rex, Richard. Henry VIII and the English Reformation. London: Macmillan Education Ltd, 1993. Scarisbrick, J.J. The Reformation and the English People. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Publisher Ltd, 1984. Tyacke, Nicholas. England’s Long Reformation 1500-1600. London: UCL Press, 1998.

Mongols in the Middle East

The Mongols were raiders, clan warriors, and rulers of a transcontinental empire in the thirteen century.   Also referred to as the Tatars and barbarians, they conquered Persia before moving on to Europe with the Khan of Khans, Genghis Khan as their most important leader.   Eventually the Mongols made an empire for themselves which is known as the largest contiguous empire in world history. In Europe, the Mongols first attacked Hungary in the year 1241.   They smashed all military opposition in Poland and the Balkans before regrouping to push west.   The Mongol invasion of all Europe could have been completed in the course of a year.   However, an unexpected message arrived to call back all Mongols to Genghis Khan.   Europe was partly delivered.   But Islam was not. By the year 1220, the Mongols had captured Samarkand and Bukhara.   And, in the year 1255, the Mongol rulers of Persia went to war against the Caliph of Islam in Baghdad.   Led by Genghis Khan’s grandson, Hulagu Khan, they invaded Syria and Palestine, and in 1258, captured Baghdad, destroying the city and killing the Abbasid Caliph in the process. Baghdad, before the Mongol invasion, was one of the centers of intellectual activity for the entire globe.   By attacking the center, the Mongols pretty much snuffed out the intellectual flowering of the time.   Besides, the city had had its agriculture supported by a canal network thousands of years in age.   The Mongols also destroyed the physical structure of Baghdad – before then referred to as the City of Peace – by filling in the irrigation canals and leaving Iraq  too depopulated to restore them.   The barbarians had killed around eighty thousand people of Baghdad. After Baghdad, the Mongols marched westward, but were halted at Ayn Jalut, one of the decisive battlefields of history near Nazareth in Israel.   In the year 1260, the Turkish and Egyptian forces routed the Mongols at Ayn Jalut, thereby preventing the enemy from attacking Egypt and North Africa.   The Golden Horde Mongols of Russia sided with the Turks and the Egyptians to turn against their own kind. By coming into contact with the Muslims through invasions, countless Mongols began to embrace Islam.   Ghazan Khan Mahmud, a Mongol ruler, officially adopted Islam as the religion of the state at the dawn of the fourteenth century.   During this period, the Mongols built mosques and schools, and patronized all sorts of scholarship. Then again, Tamerlane, the world conqueror, appeared among the Mongols, leading the barbarian forces to sweep down on Central Asia, India, Iran, Iraq, and Syria; occupying Aleppo and Damascus; and threatening the Mamluks.   The Muslims survived their invaders.   Nonetheless, the damage had been done.   Some of the regions occupied by the Muslims in the past did never recover fully, and the Muslim empire never fully regained its enormous power held in the past. The Mongol invasions happened to be a major cause of subsequent decline that set in throughout the heartland of the Arab East.   The Mongols, in their sweep through the Muslim world, had killed and deported innumerable scholars as well as scientists; destroyed libraries along with their irreplaceable works; and thereby set the stage for general intellectual decline in the Middle East.   By wiping out the invaluable cultural, scientific, and technological legacy that  the Muslim scholars had been preserving for some five hundred years – the Mongols had left an indelible mark on the minds of the Middle Easterners.   After the Mongols, the Middle East never really reached the height of intellectual supremacy it once had reached. The Mongols came to rule the entire Middle East except for Egypt.   Traditionally the worshippers of heaven, the Mongols had believed in their divine right to rule the entire world.   The Muslims in the Middle East had also believed in their own supremacy until this time.   This is because the Holy Qur’an had referred to the believers as the best of communities raised on earth.   The Mongol invasions were a bitter disappointment for the Muslims of the Middle East, seeing that they showed how the great Muslim Caliphate could be routed easily by a band of barbarians. A serious setback for the Muslims of the Middle East, Mongols ruled the Middle Easterners from Persia instead of Baghdad, crushing the Arab sense of superiority in the process.   The masters had turned into subjects.   This, indeed, was an important lesson for Middle Easterners, seeing that the events of the centuries to come held even greater blows in store for them. Muslim historians have asserted that the Mongol invasion of the Middle East was a punishment from God for the rulers of the Muslim world that had turned to corruption.   Moreover, God does not tolerate arrogance on the part of a race that comes to rule another.   The Middle Easterners had, by this time, seen tremendous successes almost everywhere in the world.   And yet, the Abbasids had overthrown the Umayyads, thereby setting the stage for Middle Eastern decline.   This is because Islam does not set brother against brother.   It may very well be that rulers from the Middle East had begun overthrowing one another for power alone rather than  Islam.   In fact, the same pattern was applied among the Mughal emperors of the subcontinent, who too were eventually overthrown by â€Å"outsiders†. When the Ottomans were overthrown by â€Å"outsiders† after the First World War, it was a reminder for the Muslim world.   As a matter of fact, the Mongols were brought to mind.   Once again, the Muslim Caliphate had been done away with. One of the reasons cited by Muslim scholars for the fall of the Muslim Caliphate is that many of the caliphs who came after Prophet Muhammad and his friends, Abu Bakr, Usman, Umar, and Ali – were defeated because they had built grand empires at the cost of discarding thoughts about the afterlife.   In fact, right up to the Ottomans, the Muslims had formed a truly magnificent empire. Harems were common, and there was just too much excitement over worldly affairs to let the afterlife be of much concern to the rulers as well as their subjects.   In actuality, Muslims are meant to be focused on the afterlife instead of worldly affairs.   Even though the grandeur of David and Solomon is not disdained, many of the caliphs of Islam after the first few ones are truly known to have turned too much attention on worldly affairs.   This, according to Muslim historians, was one of the chief causes of Middle Eastern decline. The Mongols stay in the consciousness of the Middle Easterners today as a reminder of the brutal past – a past for which only they were held responsible.   The reminder is beneficial.   In point of fact, the history of the Mongols among the Middle Easterners is only meant to bring the Muslims of the Middle East closer to God, and the real spirit of Islam.      

Leadership Style Of The Company Essay - 1986 Words

Most companies and organizations have members of their senior executives that take on more than their role as an executive but are also the organizational leader for the company. They are the type of person that works to mold the company into the image that they want for it by being a role model for the behaviors and characteristics that will help achieve organizational goals. Leadership styles are different, and many of the best leaders have their own unique style that they use to inspire others to do their best in whatever capacity the company needs them in. Not all managers or executives can be seen as leaders, and some senior executives may have a leadership style that actually has a negative impact on the company as a whole, but usually in order for the company to be profitable and excel, this type of leadership should not be able to last long or should be balanced by other better leaders within the company. The COO or Chief Operating Officer at a previous organization had a very charismatic presence. He was the type of leader that made an employee want to â€Å"do good† on any project that they would work on for him. His leadership style could be described as consultative. According to DuBrin (2011), â€Å"Consultative leaders confer with group members before making a decision. However, they retain the final authority to make decisions† (p. 123). This was probably one of his biggest strengths as an executive and leader of the company because he made the employeesShow MoreRelatedLeadership Style Of A New Company1314 Words   |  6 PagesWhen a new executive or manager takes charge of an existing company it is common for them to inherit a business that is established but encountering lack luster performance because of the lack of leadership or the wrong style of leadership. The leader is the most significant role within an organization that drives the success or failure of the company. Their own particular leadership style may pr oduce positive results or hamper productivity. No two leaders are alike and no two employees are exactlyRead MoreLeadership Style at Coca-Cola Company5663 Words   |  23 PagesLeadership Style at Coca-Cola Company - May 4th, 2011 ________________________________________ The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) is a beverage retailer, manufacturer and marketer of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups. The company is best known for its flagship product Coca-Cola, invented by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton in 1886. The Coca-Cola formula and brand was bought in 1889 by Asa Candler who incorporated The Coca-Cola Company in 1892. Besides its namesake Coca-Cola beverage, Coca-ColaRead MoreThe Leadership Style Of The Company Of Netflix And A Number Of Not- For- Profit Companies1767 Words   |  8 Pagesphilanthropist and entrepreneur, is known for serving over the boards of Facebook, CEO of Netflix and a number of not- for- profit companies. 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