Henry Wadsworth Longfellow an American Writing Icon Essay Example

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow an American Writing Icon Paper Henry Wadsworth Longfellow an American Writing Icon Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a powerful figure in nineteenth century America. He is considered to be one of the most influential writers of this time. There are many reasons for the popularity and significance of Longfellows poetry. The most evident is the manner in which he uses the gift of effortless rhyme. He writes poetry with a natural grace, read or heard once, his rhyme and meters cling to the mind long after the initial sense may be forgotten. No other American poet has so penetrated the general consciousness of the entire English speaking world as is apparent through the way that he uses common themes which appeal to all kinds of people. To first understand the unique genius of Longfellow and the way he created his writings one must learn a little about his life. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland Maine; he grew up of modest means and was exposed to the conditions of everyday life. His first major achievement in his litaray career was his accepentce to Bowidian College at the age of 14; he stayed there for a few years and graduated in 1825. We will write a custom essay sample on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow an American Writing Icon specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow an American Writing Icon specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow an American Writing Icon specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer After his graduation he went to further his study in Europe and then came back to America and accepted a position at Bowidian College teaching as a professor of modern language. After teaching for five years he once again returned to Europe to study and stayed for a year but once he returned he accepted a position at Harvard University and taught there for eighteen years. Many people who have been aquatints with Longfellow agree that he was â€Å"such a thoroughbred gentleman, in his everyday life that even the most timid were at ease in his company† (Moulton 386). While Longfellow was at college he became good friends with a man named Nathaniel Hawthorne. Longfellow was not only a gentleman in his social life but was a devoted husband to his two wives, both which ended in tragedy due to their untimely deaths. Longfellow grew up as your average child of the early nineteenth century with nature surrounding him. He saw the things that happened in everyday life people working and the changing of the seasons. His boyhood was spent mostly in his native town, which he never ceased to love, and whose beautiful surroundings quaint and pure, found its way into some of the main theme of his poems. Even though they varied a little they had the same overtone one of simplicity that any individual that picked up his writings could connect with and understand them. Many of his poems were derived from nature some of them consisted of â€Å"The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls†, â€Å"A Gleam of Sunshine† and â€Å"Autumn†. The next major influence in his poems was the integration of American history, including Indians, the ride of Paul Revere and the life of slaves. The last selection was that of everyday life the lessons, like â€Å"Something Left Undone† and â€Å"The Reaper and the Flowers†. The idea to incorporate common themes, of nature, American history and everyday life was a first and truly appealed to the readers. The subjects of Longfellow’s poetry are, for the most part, aspects of nature as influencing human feeling, either directly or through historical association, the tender or pathetic sides and incidents of life, or heroic deeds preserved in legend or history. He had a special fondness for records of human devotion and self-sacrifice, whether they were monkish legends, Indian tales or bits of American History. The reason for his choice of such familiar topics was to reach the general public and connect with them. All of the topics which he chose were easy to understand and were common occurrences in people’s lives at this time. The choice of topics such as waves in the ocean, a man working and the life of a slave were topics that the people related to and up until this time most poets wrote about European ideas, things that had no relation ship with the people who lived in America. He brought about the topics of Native Americans and their way of life, in the many poems of â€Å"Hiawatha†. The concept of these poems was to take the reader back into early America and show them what the life of an Indian was like, this captured the reader â€Å"With the Song of Hiawatha Mr. Longfellow has broken the silence compelled us to listen once again restored the legends by giving them zest† (Harris 447). When Longfellow used the topics of Nature in his poems, he connected with the reader and held on to him. He talked about the waves crashing on a beach and the sun shining through the sky in the poem â€Å"Milton†, when he wrote of these topics he knew that the people would connect for numerous reasons, the most evident are the commonness of the poems and the fact that many people in the world have already seen these events take place, sequentially the readers can relate. Readers response to his new way of writing were astonishing and it made him one of the most revolutionary poets of his time, some called him the father of modern day poetry. By writing poems that soothed and encouraged readers, Longfellow became the first American to reach such a wide range and create an interest in poetry. Many people agree that â€Å"The same gentle spirit which characterized his writings showed itself also in the manners of man† (Moulton 384). Longfellow on many accounts can be credited with the advance of poetry through commonality. The central thing that set Longfellow apart with his poems was that they â€Å"appeal to the sympathies, and falls within the comprehension of every reader† (Harris 479). The impact from his first poem collection â€Å"Voices of the Night†, achieved him almost immediate popularity among American and soon the whole English speaking world. With poems like â€Å"A Psalm of Life† and â€Å"The Light of Stars† he connected with the reader and they could not wait for more. â€Å"So when storms of wild emotion/ Strike the ocean† (Longfellow 1). The vivid picture that this sentence embodies shows the manner of which Longfellow would write his poems. He wanted the reader to see and feel the poems not just sit and listen. Throughout his poems Longfellow’s use of imagery is always evident weather talking about the Native Americans or describing nature. â€Å"The poetry or Mr. Longfellow is marked by a very vivid imagination, great susceptibility to the impressions of natural scenery†¦. and the feelings of the human heart† (Harris 471). This use of imagery allows him to connect with the reader and show him the world. The setting for his poems were simple, they were of a common place like a work place a house or a forest. This idea for a common place to set his poetry was so that all his readers could relate to the poems. Even though his choice of setting was not extravagant his poems still captivated the world through his vivid description. In the poem â€Å"Milton† Longfellow describes the scene of him walking on the beach â€Å"I pace the sounding sea-beach and behold / How the voluminous billows roll and run / Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun / Shines through their sheeted emerald far unrolled† (Longfellow 1). With this description most of the people were able to relate and for this reason, his poems became started a sensation. The subjects in his poems have a deep connection with the story; through this the reader feels an attachment to the story. His way of writing makes it feel as if the story is taking place right in front of your eyes. â€Å"In his lodge beside a river, / Close beside a frozen river, / Sat an old man, sad and lonely. /White his hair was as a snow-drift; /Dull and low his fire was burning, / And the old man shook and trembled† (Longfellow 1). Through way Longfellow describes a scene makes it life like and in turn captures the reader. Longfellow uses many key literary elements in his poems to evoke the reader’s response it is said that â€Å"He had a knack for expressing commonplace thoughts very memorably† (Derbyshire 3). The most obvious tool that he used was his natural, masterful gift of rhyme; his poems flowed with ease and made a lasting impression on the reader. One of his most famous poems to use this gift was â€Å"The Song and the Arrow† â€Å"Long, long afterward, in an oak/I found the arrow, still unbroke; / And the song, from beginning to end, /I found again in the heart of a friend† (Longfellow 1). This use of rhyme so simply captivates the reader and makes him read on. The second most evident implement that Longfellow uses is meter. Longfellow was famous for using meters that had never, or hardly ever, been used in English poetry before. In the introduction to The Song of Hiawatha is one of his most famous examples, using the same metre,Should you ask me,/ whence these stories (Longfellow 1) for many lines, and all going to prove that there is a reason for this to capture an audience through a new way of writing. Through Longfellow’s unique approach to writing that captured the whole English speaking world, it is said that he is one of the most influential writers of the nineteenth century. He was the first to use native topics about our heritage and things that people of the time can relate to. Not only did his writings captivate the reader’s when they first came out, they still do to this day Through the themes which his poems imbed that evokes the feelings of the many readers of his poems it is evident that, no other American poet has so penetrated the general consciousness of the entire English speaking world as apparent through the way he uses common themes which appeal to all kinds of people. Works Cited Derbyshire, John. â€Å"In the Bivouac of Life: Longfellow and the Fate of Poetry† Literary Criticism by John Derbyshire. December 2000. ;http://www. olimu. com/journ alism/Texts/Criticism/Longfellow. htm ; Harris, Laurie Lazen . (1982). â€Å"Henry Wadsworth Longfellow†. Nineteenth- Century Literary Criticism Vol. 2. (468-492) Moulton, Charles Wells. â€Å"Henry Wadsworth Longfellow†. Moultons Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors through the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Vol. IV. Abridged, revised and with editions by Tucker, Martin. New York, F. Ungar Pub. Co. 1966 4 v. (27-45) Moulton, Charles Wells. â€Å"Henry Wadsworth Longfellow†. The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors Vol. VII. Buffalo New York, The Moulton Publishing Company. Longfellow, Henry. All poems of the poet: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Poem Hunter 4/23/2007. http://www. poemhunter. com/henry-wadsworth-longfellow/.

Surplus Value essays

Surplus Value essays 1. The rate of surplus value is surplus labor time divided by necessary labor time, or the ratio of surplus value to wages. An increase in the productivity of labor, such as shortening the labor time necessary to produce a given set of use-values or substituting existing products with new cheaper ones with the same use-value, will initially cause an increase in the rate of surplus value. When labor time is shortened but the surplus value of what is being produced remains the same, then the total amount of wages is decreased. Mathematically, it is obvious that this increases the rate of surplus value. The organic composition of capital is the value of constant capital, or materials and fixed costs embodied in production, divided by the variable capital, or wages. When there is an increase in the productivity of labor, the total wages of production decreases, and this causes the organic composition of capital to increase. An increasing organic composition means that the industry is going from a more labor intensive industry to a more capital intensive one. The rate of profit is the surplus value divided by the total capital invested in production, or in other words, the value embodied in the individual commodities that represents profit for the capitalist. The formula for the rate of profit includes two important variables: organic composition of capital and the rate of surplus value. Marx explains that an increase in organic composition, or capital accumulation, by itself causes wages to increase with the demand of labor power. With the rate of surplus remaining constant, an overall increase in the productivity of labor causes the rate of profit to decline. This is where Marx derived his law that shows a tendency for the rate of profit to fall due to growing productivity of labor and socialization. The major question among economists is if this law of tendency is still present when the rate of surplus value is variabl...

Unit 4 Scenario Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Unit 4 Scenario - Essay Example The duration of the lot starts from 6pm to midnight, say, 6 hours per day. Moreover, this parking lot will be guided by a staff member at a cost of $10 per hour. It means that the staff needs to be paid an amount of $60 per day, and $1800 per month. Other than this, an additional cost will be charged for the supplementary usage of parking lot. Therefore, in order to evaluate and adopt the most appropriate decision in respect of the parking and maintenance cost, it is necessary to analyze the marginal revenue and marginal costing technique. Under marginal costing, only variable costs are charged to cost units. â€Å"Comparable to any profit-maximizing firm, a perfectly competitive firm produces the quantity of output in the short run that generates the maximum difference between total revenue with total cost, which is economic profit. This profit maximizing level of production is also achieved by the equality between marginal revenue and marginal cost. At this production level, the firm cannot increase profit by changing the level of production. The analysis of marginal revenue and marginal cost can be achieved through a table of numbers or with marginal revenue and marginal cost curves† (Marginal Analysis, 2007). The solution is proposed by the bank was to charge a higher cost for parking lot. This is because, through higher charging for parking, it is possible to reduce the problem related with the parking to a certain degree. The main reason for the higher charge set by the bank is that to make it possible the availability of suitable parking facilities. Whenever the charge for parking increases, then the time spent for parking will automatically be reduced. Due to this, it is possible to make the parking lot conveniently at any time effectively. In addition to this, in order to overcome this specific problem, it is necessary to consider the concept of perfect competition and

Human Engineering Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Human Engineering - Essay Example Such act is against the morals and ethics. Individuals who possess anomalies that are heritable are benefitted from such kind of genetic testing followed by selection of the baby. If the anomaly persists then the parents tend to terminate the pregnancy and opt for the better genetic make-up of the individual. In this genetic epoch where human engineering is being utilized for the betterment of the human race and to safeguard the future of the individuals. As eugenics is directed for the enhancement of the genetic composition of the population couples testing their fetuses for Down syndrome and abort fetus practice eugenics to certain extent as it is a step towards prevention of the hassles as well as elimination of the defective genetic makeup from the gene pool as well as it prevents social discrimination. Genetic testing aids in testing genetic anomalies encompassing Huntingtons, Cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, Thalassemia, congenital malformations, deformations, chromosomal anomalies and also pre diabetics to a greater extent if it runs in the family. Although genetic test and screening does not provide any cure to the condition but affirms the carrier of the genetic anomalies leaving the decision on the parents to go or not to go for the child ("This House Would Allow Parents to Genetically Screen Foetuses For Heritable

Access to Medicines in Developing Countries Essay Example for Free

Access to Medicines in Developing Countries Essay One of the appalling statistics that came out of a survey in 2000 was the percentage of the HIV/AIDS infections in Africa. It was reported that nearly 80% of the total number of affected people was from this continent. Now if this report sounds dreadful, one might get a bigger shock by looking at the picture of modern healthcare methodologies in Africa. Despite being a developing nation, Africa gets scarcely one percent of modern drugs. The value of all medical drugs transported to Africa amounts to the expenses spent on advertising by the leading pharmaceutical companies in the United States of America. Under the light of this reality, this paper is going to discuss the genuine scenario in developing countries that don’t have an affordable access to life-saving medicines. It might be noted that access to medicines is a fundamental human right, and there is a yawning gap between crisis and cure in a capitalistic social setup. Due to increased political pressure, many drug manufacturing companies have been forced to review their business strategies and produce medicines that are relatively less expensive. Moreover, it is also mandatory to formulate a well-organized delivery system that would ensure a proper and timely delivery of the medicinal goods to Africa and other Third World countries. Modern healthcare remedies are needed to be deployed in order to combat the menace of HIV and other diseases in the underprivileged tropics. (â€Å"Access to Medicine in Developing Countries†, 2000) Access to medicine in developing countries has always been a matter of great disputation, mainly because of the convoluted interaction between macroeconomic development, patterns of diseases and healthcare requirements and provisions. It has been an inescapable paradox for many countries where the national economic status can only be attained by improved health status. Hence, lack of supply of life-saving drugs hinders the scope and opportunity of national healthcare. (â€Å"Improving Access to Medicines in Developing Countries†, 2005) The impoverished countries find it a mammoth task to meet both ends successfully. It has been proposed that only a large scale international funding can inject some fruitful results in the context of healthcare and economic boost. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) are working together to provide the best possible framework for improved health status as well as the macroeconomic development of developing nations. WTO is primarily concerned with the organized growth of a capitalist, free market global economy. On the other hand, WHO is focused on improving health conditions by providing healthcare models that can be applied to both developed as well as developing nations. Institutional and public sector frameworks play a crucial role in realizing the objectives of WHO to the best possible extent. The newly incepted Global Health Fund is working relentlessly to provide remedies for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria. The Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS agreement) are held, in some cases, as obstacles for access to essential medicines in developing countries. Ever since WTO finalized the TRIPS agreement in April 1994, this issue has been a matter of great debate. The main problems in accessing medicines, as viewed by experts, are the increasing expenses, which can shoot up to 66% of total expenditure in developing nations. Today’s scenario as far as having access to essential medicines is concerned is an alarming one, with more than one-third of the world’s population are deprived of indispensable drugs. According to the WHO, developing countries, especially those in Asia and Africa, must be provided with an all-encompassing solution in terms of health priority problems, and they must be able to gain access to life-saving medicines at an affordable deal. To make matters worse, the poorer section of societies in developing countries find themselves all at sea due to their inability to physically access life-saving drugs. So both availability and affordability are the key areas of concern. Now under these circumstances, the introduction of strong and worldwide product patents for drugs, as implemented through the TRIPS agreement, may cause drastic increase in prices for essential medicines. The ‘legal monopoly’ that comes with such rigid patent system prevents anybody from producing, selling or distributing medicines in an unauthorized manner. Even if there is no patent laws, access to medicines is going to be a problem for the developing countries, due to adequate purchasing capabilities and required infrastructure. Majority of the medicines for HIV/AIDS are still under ‘live’ patent coverage. It doesn’t make for affordable access to such medicines either. And since more than 95% of HIV/AIDS affected people are from developing countries, and 50% of them belong to the productive age group of below 25 years, serious socio-economic consequences are perceived with very little signs of relief. Before TRIPS were put to effect, most developing countries and some developed countries did not impose patent laws on medicines even if they were manufactured with innovative technological aids. But today, most of these nations being WTO members have to enforce the patent laws laid down by TRIPS. This has led to hike in prices of patented medicines. It is worth noticing that even under the TRIPS guidelines, patents are to be given only on applications received from 1995 onwards for new therapeutic inventions. So any medicine manufactured before 1995 should not be unaffordable for the developing nations. Manufacturers of the newer and more innovative pharmaceutical products file for patents only in countries where business of piracy runs rampant. Parallel import of drugs is another important issue that came into consideration after the TRIPS agreement. The Intellectual Property Rights owners of specific brands of medicines face problems when goods, legally distributed in the market of one country, are imported to another without the necessary legal authorization. Now, as long as there is no discrepancy in Intellectual Property Rights in two different countries, article 6 of TRIPS defends parallel import. But considering the economic side of such imports, it might be noted that price of the same medicine in one country may rise or fall to a great extent in another. So developing countries, without violating the Intellectual Property Rights protection, may find a way out to access essential but expensive drugs from its neighboring countries. (Watal, J. 2000) In addition to what is discussed above, one must bear in mind the supply side process concerning manufacture and distribution of medicines. The specific issue related to accessibility to medicines is directly linked with the development and implementation of more efficient and cost-effective measures in manufacturing and distributing drugs. A number of speculative theories and ideologies have been put forward to address the issue of maximizing the available resources to achieve a standardized health status around the globe. However, the aim of this paper is not to get into a particular ideological standpoint, or to promote distinct solutions, but to gain a deeper insight into the real constraints of manufacturing and distributive activities. One has to take into account the diverse theoretical concepts, the macroeconomic environment of international economics and technological nuances of the pharmaceutical sectors. Once we identify the constraints, it will be easier to suggest feasible solutions in terms of easy and regular access to medicines for the developing countries. The policies adopted by pharmaceutical companies are worth taking a look at.

The Asian As Superior Myth Essays -- essays research papers

The author, Ronald Takaki, wishes to illustrate that the perceptions of Asian Americans as a "model minority" are not entirely accurate. Takaki writes that the facts and figures used to compare Asian-Americans to other, less successful minority groups are misleading. For example, the author writes that although Japanese Americans are seen as upwardly mobile, they have not yet achieved equality. The essay states that "while Japanese American men in California earned an average income comparable to Caucasian men in 1980, they did so only by acquiring more education and working more hours." In addition, the author found that while some Asian American groups do have higher family incomes than Caucasians, at the same time the Asian American families are larger and have more members of working age than Caucasian families. The author's purpose is to show the reader that although Asian Americans are portrayed as "successful" when compared to other minority groups, they still have ground to make up before they begin to accurately approach the ranks of the Anglo majority. The author uses his own personal experiences as the grandson of agricultural laborers to relay to the reader than he, too, can relate to the plight of Asian Americans in this country. The essay was written to show and give reasons why Asian Americans are seen by other minority groups as a "model minority." The author attempts to show that this i...

“5th grade autobiography” and “the writer” Essay

Both Dove’s and Wilbur’s poems are written from the perspective of an older writer looking back at youth. Although in â€Å"5th Grade Autobiography† the author writes of her own youth from a first person perspective whereas the in â€Å"The Writer† the author writes about his daughter’s youth from an outside perspective, both wonderfully impart the blissful feeling of childhood through vivid descriptions of the soft and pleasant nuances that make childhood so blissful. Rita Dove shows us her  world through the lens of a fifth grader. She envies her older brother despite the fact that he is depicted as young and inexperienced, shown by his poor choice to squat in poison ivy. Her grandparents have a very strong presence and are given just as lively a role as her young brother. Pictures of luminous felines come to mind when she describes her grandmother, a youthful and vibrant staple in her world. Grandfather smells of lemons, a bright, zesty, lively smell, and is imprinted in her life memories of Christmases. Richard Wilber manages to conjure a similarly blissful/childish world encompassed by the sounds of a typewriter, beautiful linden windows, and the majestic and dreamlike positioning of his daughters room. He pulls us further into this blissful illusion by using words and descriptions alluding to a ship, drifting into the deep open water away from the rest of the world. After bringing us into the peaceful settings of a child’s world, both authors send us plummeting into deep thought. Dove does so by abruptly letting us knowthat this grandfather is no longer alive but his memory or â€Å"hands† still exist in our  minds as it did when it was written in this 5th grader’s autobiography. What does this say about her grandfather’s existence and death? Perhaps that recording it through a photo or even the writing of a 5th grader, it has become eternal. This pushes us to think about the sheer power of writing our thoughts and experiences down on paper. Richard also makes us consider the strength and power that writing has even for youth. The setting of his daughter’s writing turns into the prison trapping the delicate starling. The heart-wrenching struggle of the songbird to free itself from the  confines of the room, smashing its delicate body against the window until it finally slips free, it equated to the daughters struggle to get her words on the page. The young writer continuously pauses her finger-smashing to collect herself and continue on in her writing, similar to the bird repetitively picking up and trying again to find freedom. The humped and bloody bird is seen as his daughter, fighting with all its life force to free itself from the constraints we humans feel as writers until we finally break free, the same struggle his daughter faced in that very room.