World Literature Essay Example for Free

World Literature Essay In this introductory lecture it better to say something about the intimate connection between English literature and English history. They go hand in hand: they are both sides of the same coin. English history is considered as the fundamental base for English literature. A history of English literature has therefore a national, as well as a personal character and interest. The inner life of each generation is revealed in the literature. In studying English literature, according to the chronological method of history, let us always try to think of it as the progressive revelation of the mind and spirit of the English people. We shall look in detail at the social and cultural history of the centuries in which the British literary tradition has grown, and explore the historical experience as well as the literary importance of the writers it considers. English literature as an integral part of the world cultural heritage English literature is an integral part of the world cultural heritage. The best traditions of English art have enriched the world literature. The masterpieces of English prose and poetry were translated into almost all languages, thus winning the recognition far overseas. Together we shall explore the long, jagged /? d? ag? d/ history of writing in the British Isles, from the Anglo-Saxon and the early Christian period up to the present day. Strong emphasis is made on the growth and development of the English language, and how changing understanding of the nature of language has affected the growth of writing. The British Isles have always been a multilingual landscape, and the language or rather languages have always been in constant change. The Celtic /? k? lt? k/ heritage, the Viking invasion, the Norman invasion, the deep penetration of Latin as the lingua franca /? l gw? ?fra? k? / a language that is adopted as a common language between speakers whose native languages are different. – all are part of the great word-stock we call English. And that has led to no less profound changes in language’s most developed form of expression – that is, in its oral and, above all, its written literature. Today, for a variety of different historical reasons, English has become the world’s first language, the modern lingua franca. It is used in all six continents as first, second or third language. Over 300 million people today speak it as a mother tongue; another 300 million use it regularly as a second language. All over the world, authors write in English, to describe worlds, landscapes, cultures for which the language itself was not originally devised. This has led to an extraordinary expansion not just in the spread but also in the vocabulary, structure and power of the language, which some contemporary writers ignore at their peril. Literature written in the British Isles is read everywhere. This vivid, expanding, difficult language is one of the world’s richest. Part of that richness comes from the remarkable history of its literary use. This is a language that has constantly recreated itself. The Anglo-Saxon of the Beowulf poet is a quite different English from that of the travelled and educated Geoffrey Chaucer, writing under the influence of court French, even while he was recreating the contemporary vernacular /v nakj? l? / the language or dialect spoken by the ordinary people of a country or region. The rich Elizabethan / l? z bi (? )n/ English is something else again – and different from the more formalized, Latinate /? lat? ne? t/ language of John Milton. Dickens’s English carries the noise of the Victorian streets of London when it was the world’s biggest city. The language of writers today is shaped by contemporary multi-culturalism, by streets that are noisy with different sounds and by the universal spread of travel and contact. So there is still a tradition to be remembered: a sequence of forms, myths, preoccupations, cultural debates, literary and artistic trends, great and influential literary movements. The flowering of verse in Anglo-Saxon times and again in the Middle Ages constructed a poetic tradition that still has influence on the most experimental poets of today. The flowering of drama in the Elizabethan age has, despite many transformations, founded a lineage /? l? n d? / direct descent from an ancestor that still has its impact on the theatricality of modern playwrights. The remarkable emergence of the novel as a popular form in Britain in the early eighteenth century not only composed a form in which some of the essential stories of national life have been told, but helped create what is now one of our most important and popular of literary genres, practised right across the world. Any writer draws in many ways on the previous heritage of the form he or she uses, the devices and artifices / t? f? s/ clever or cunning devices or expedients it has developed, the cultural energies it has acquired, the themes and experiences it has explored. The same is true of the history of the language, that elegant instrument of expression which has taken on such a complicated shape over time. A literary language goes through a great range of adventures and experiments. Forms and genres take shape: the comedy and the tragedy, the ode /d/ and the epic / p? k/, the novel and the dramatic poem, blank verse and stream of consciousness /? k? n sn? s/. Literary language moves between high formality and vernacular ease; common speech frequently transforms conventions when they grow fixed, so creating – as with the Romantic movement – a major literary and emotional revolution. Tradition deposits a vast stock of words and meanings, complex grammatical and artistic devices: simile and metaphor, irony and burlesque /b l? sk/ and satire. Literature is our link with great humane /hjme? n/ and moral ideas; it is part of the advancement of learning and the imaginative / mad n? t? v/ understanding of other people’s lived experience. Literature is always an experiment, as significant and innovative as any in medicine and science – as well as an eternal story of the power of the human imagination. The true tradition of literature is never simply national; it never has been. Writers constantly venture out of their own landscapes, borrow from other traditions and other tongues, welcome in travellers or influences from elsewhere. This course rightly emphasises the relationships among the different traditions within the British Isles, and their relation with other traditions beyond. But every new writer of significance shifts the tradition slightly, adding something of his or her own, extending, sometimes totally upturning, what has gone before. At the beginning of the twenty first century, a time with its own conviction of deep and fundamental change in political, gender and global relations, as well as in science and the technologies, that extending and upturning is visibly happening again, as it did at the start of the twentieth century. Yet writing still needs the past and the tradition – if only as a help in discovering the present, and prospecting the future. So, my task as a lecturer is to lead the way as effectively as possible to the works of past and present that show you British writing does have a long and fascinating history. Periodization For the sake of convenience, the history of English literature is divided into periods.

Go Kart History :: Racing Entertainment Essays

Go Kart History Do you ever hear the word â€Å"karting†? Many people still don’t know what karting is. They try to relate it to the cart; the basket to take your things from the market with the wheels on it. In this situation, kart means the miniature of car racing, especially Formula One (F-1) cars. And karting means racing of using a kart. Maybe if I say â€Å"go kart†, you will know what I am talking about. Actually â€Å"go kart† is a trademark of karting. It is the manufacturing company that originated karting in 1958. The history and accessories of karting are important in order to get started in karting. The history of the go kart is quite interesting. To begin with, there were two guys whose names were Duffy Livingstone and Roy Desbrow. They were partners in a muffler business in Monrovia, California. Both were experts in welding components. One time, they saw Art Ingle’s one off creation (model of the car). Then they were inspired to make their own versions. Duffy built a couple for their friends. And there was another guy whose name was Bill Rowles, a salesman of surplus materials in Los Angeles. He visited their muffler shop very often. He also got inexpensive engines from a failed West Bend rotary lawn mower venture. These three individuals formed a loose partnership to produce and sell kit components for go karts. One day, when they are relaxing in the small office at their muffler shop, the postman came by with many envelopes. These envelopes brought about thirty orders for that day. The demand became constant in the following days, so they thought that they needed to change their business. They formed a corporation for the company called Go Kart manufacturing and leased a five acre facility in Azusa from AeroJet General Corporation. This corporation had six stockholders. Duffy Livingstone, Roy Desbrow, and Bill Rowles were the primary stockholders. Other stockholders were Jim Patronite (the company’s accountant, who later formed Azusa Engineering), Don Boberick, and the company’s office manager. In 1962, Art Linkletter Enterprises wanted to buy the shares for $750,000. But Go Kart declined the offer because the proposal gave the Linkletter group management of Go Kart mfg and Go Kart didn’t trust the Linkletter group ability to manage the Go Kart mfg. However, in less than a year, Go Kart hired a very experienced, energetic and enthusiastic person to manage the sales.

The Meaning of Symbolism and Imagery in the Writings of Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston uses symbolism and imagery to capture emotions and guide the reader through the story through the eyes of the characters. In her short fiction story, The Gilded Six-Bits, Hurston entertains the emotional and visual senses of the reader by using several symbols and images to give light to the story and character settings. Hurston starts out the story by portraying a couples' relationship and giving it a sense of security, love and trust. However, as the story develops it is clear that know matter how true love is – greed can falter love. Symbolism is shown strongly through colors in Hurston's story. White is used as a symbol of purity. It portrays the relationship between Joe and Missie May as a clean and untouched relationship as described by Hurston, â€Å"The fence and house were whitewashed. The porch and steps scrubbed white.† (252) Joe thinks of the image of his white house on the way home from work right before he discovers Missie May and Slemmons together. Gold is used frequently throughout the short story as a symbol of social status and greed. Otis D. Slemmons is respected by Joe in the beginning of the story and depicted as being of great importance because of his gold teeth, a five-dollar gold piece for a stickpin and a ten-dollar gold piece on his watch chain. Slemmons character is later disemboweled because he is caught in the act of having sex with Joe's wife. The gold symbolizes mistrust, misfortune, greed and falsehood after Slemmons, Missie May and the gold are revealed. Silver also symbolizes a social status to all three of the main characters and a personal symbol to Joe and Missy May. It is clear a little over half way through the story that Slemmons was in the same social class as Joe and Missie May because he did not really have any more money than they did. For Joe and Missie May silver was a symbol  of there relationship. It was a ritual in their relationship for Joe to give Missie May the silver dollars every Saturday. The moon is described by Hurston as a silver image on Joe's ride home from work, â€Å"†¦a lean moon rode the lake in a silver boat. If anybody had asked Joe about the moon on the lake, he would have said he hadn't paid it any attention. But he saw it with his feelings. † (255) Joe saw the lake with his â€Å"feelings† and he saw the silver moon; it is clear that he associated his relationship with his wife with silver. Numbers are also used as symbols to make a statement without actually stating it. Joe and Missie May's magic number is nine. This stands for the nine silver dollars that Joe would throw into the house every Saturday. After she and Slemmons were caught together Joe no longer threw the coins into the house on Saturdays. Slemmons is told to have two gold pieces on him in the amounts of five and ten which is the amount of coins that Joe throws into the house at the end of the story. Slemmons uses numbers in an abstract way to describe people. He associates the number forty with the word forte and Joe doesn't understand what he means by it. Slemmons ironically opens an ice cream shop. Ice cream is a universal symbol for something that is sweet but cold. Slemmons was seen as sweet and suave as was Missie May until the two got together; then Joe viewed them as being cold. Clothing is another social status symbol. Slemmons is described as someone who wore fine clothes. Later in the story Joe calls them rags. When Joe took Missie May to the ice cream parlor he wanted her to wear her Sunday clothes so that he could show her off to Slemmons. He wanted him to see his woman since Slemmons talks about all of the women that he has. Hurston writes that Joe considered Missie May to be the best dressed woman at church, â€Å"†¦church on Sunday nights when Missie outdressed any woman in town†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (255) This quote also brings up  the symbol of religion. When Joe asked Missie May to go to the ice cream parlor for the first time Hurston writes that he tells her, â€Å"†¦put on yo' Sunday-go-to-meetin' things.† (253) Hurston  writes in other quotes that refer to images from the Bible. â€Å"Like Samson awakening after his haircut.† (256) â€Å"Don't look back lak Lot's wife and turn to salt.† (257) The imagery from these q uotes make it know that Joe is a religious man in the story and Hurston herself has a religious background. Laughter is used to portray and hide feelings in Joe. Laughter shows the happiness between Joe and Missie May when they have their playful game on Saturdays. Later in the story Hurston writes that Joe's laughter is shown as an unsure feeling when he finds Slemmons with his wife, â€Å"So he just opened his mouth and laughed.† and before bed that night, â€Å"†¦and took a good laugh and went to bed.† (256) At the end of the story Joe was laughing in the store when he turned in the 4-bit piece that he pulled off of Slemmon's neck for candy. The clerk states after Joe leaves, â€Å"Wisht I could be like these darkies. Laughin' all the time. Nothin' worries 'em.† This was surely not Joe's case at all but his character tells otherwise. Hurston also uses laughter as a private symbol in another one of her writings. â€Å"They made burning statements with questions, and killing tools out of laughs.† (Their Eyes Were Watching God 2) â€Å"Pearl Stone opened her mouth and laughed real hard because she didn't know what else to do.† (Their Eyes Were Watching God 2-3) Hurston's real life is story is a mystery according to Ann Ducile's book review in The New York Times. She has conflicting age and birth date documents due to her habitual lying. â€Å"†¦although she gave the year of her birth as 1910, rather than 1891, as scholars have now determined.† (The New York Times) Literature and The Writing Process has her birth date listed as 1901. Her birthplace is also not certain. She has said that she was born in Eatonville but it is assumed that she was born in Notasulga, Alaska. Nonetheless, Hurston has made a mark in the history of writing with her cultural relations and peers. According to The New York Times  article there are festivals, foundations, literary societies, endowed chairs, journals, honors and awards in the name of Zora.

Domestic Violence Against Women Act Of 1994 - 3515 Words

Domestic Violence Health Policy Yuliet Pozo Martinez South University Abstract Despite the fact the physical effects of domestic violence could be the similar as for other forms of violent crime, the emotional effects can be much worse. Domestic violence happens when a crime is committed against a victim by someone with whom the victim is or has previously found, in a close relationship or somebody living in the same household as the victim. Domestic violence regulations differ from state to state. These variances range from conceptualization to the requirements under required reporting laws. Because of all these differences, the entire process of avoidance a domestic violence situation rest on each state. The Violence†¦show more content†¦Legislation Types The Congress of the United States in 1994, as part of the Crime Bill, passed law allowing the federal government to take part in the battle against domestic violence. This new law, named The violence against Woman Act (VAWA), To fight this violent crime problem, VAWA made federal domestic violence c rimes to be act against by the Department of Justice. Reliable with this federal inventiveness, the Crime Bill also modified the Gun Control Act to embrace domestic violence-related crimes. Congress reiterated its commitment to fight domestic violence crimes by the performing in the fall of 1996 of extra federal domestic violence crimes in both VAWA and the Gun Control Act. The federal government has largely lacked authority over several domestic violence crimes. However domestic violence remains primarily a matter of state and local jurisdiction (Lindhorst, Casey, Meyers, 2010). Federal Legislation The Violence against Women Act (VAWA) delineated funding programs to avoid violence against women and set a national domestic violence hotline. Also, new protections were given to victims of domestic abuse, such as confidentiality of new address and modifications to migration regulations that permit an abused partner to apply for permanent residency. This act also discourses federal tools to accuse domestic violence offenders in certain situations including firearms or interstate travel or activity. The federal domestic violence statutes offer