Romance and romantic medievalism Essay Example for Free

Romance and romantic medievalism Essay John Keats poem, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, presents a knight on his horse who meets a fairy lady but develops this clichi scenario into an exploration of the relationship between, the presumed male superiority and female innocence. It is a ballad that evokes medieval times. However, if one is expecting a stereotypical glorification of these, Keats rather has an interestingly critical approach to the archetypes of medieval romance and romantic medievalism. The identity of the titular female character is kept a mystery. We only know about her through the males interpretation of her. An essential point in this poem since it leads to the implicit meaning by the author. La Belle Sans Merci is a perfect example of how well-worn aspects as love such as sexual desire and unknown identity can be used to present a striking theme in a simple manner. These aspects are combined in a medieval set. The medieval setting is reinforced for the reader through the poems form. It is a ballad, which is full of fittingly old-fashioned diction and syntax. By his antiquated expression and his hypnotically monotone quadrametre, Keats achieves a mysterious and gloomy atmosphere with the first couple of stanzas of the poem. O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woebegone? (L. 5-6) To use Keatss own words, the mood is woebegone. This clearly reflects the knights emotions as the unknown individual, whose voice opens the poem, asks him about his problems. This is clear evidence that the whole poem is actually a dialogue between the knight and an unknown character possibly identifiable with the poet. The first two stanzas start with a question a clear indication of antiphonal or dialogic style being employed. O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? (L. 1-2) This unknown character is the speaker in the first three whole stanzas, after which the knight begins to tell of his surreal experience with this fairy. At this point, one could argue that it starts to get interesting. The keywords throughout the next five stanzas are presumed control, power, desire and superiority. Obviously the knight is somehow intrigued by this fairy. In what way, remains ambiguous in keeping with Keatss poetic style. Nevertheless, no doubt is left when one examines the diction that the knight has a distinct sexual desire for her: She lookd at me as she did love, And made sweet moan. (L. 19-20) The knight interprets her sweet moan as sexual and romantic interest even though he has no reason whatsoever to believe that the fairy is essentially interested: And sure in language strange she said I love thee true! (L. 27-28) It is rather his own presumption that makes him imagine this. Thus a still more surreal dream scenario arises within an already surreal world of fairies etc. This way of thinking leads the knight into a form of blind obsession. It is this ecstasy that leads him to his misery. From stanza five where he makes a garland and bracelets for the fairy until stanza eight where she takes him to her elfin grot, he presents himself is in charge of virtually everything. I set her on my pacing steed, (L. 21) She found me roots of relish sweet (L. 25) These are clear examples that indicate that either the knight acts upon the fairy or the fairy acts for him in keeping with conservative sexual roles. It can be assumed that this situation suits him since he nothing else saw all day long. The knight does not hesitate to convey his emotions nor is he the mysterious part in this poem. But loss of control appears in stanza eight when the knight enters onto the fairys territory. Certainly he goes to her home and he may go further than that: She took me to her elfin grot, And there she wept and sighd full sore, (L. 29-30) The subject of the sentences changes; now it is the fairy that acts and the knight becomes a passive character in the poem. This should be considered as the moment when the knights misery commences. Another, yet stronger example of this is found in the next stanza, And there she lulled me asleep, (L. 33). This line is attention-grabbing since it is not only the start of the knights misery, but can also be seen in the context of the male losing out in the battle between sexes. Suddenly the feminine character gets the upper hand in a poem set in the middle ages and written at the beginning of the 19th century. The clichi -like knight on pacing steed strong, handsome and should win over every lady that he desires. Instead he is utterly unmanned by the extremely sexy feminine fantasy character, whose identity remains a mystery throughout the poem, while his psyche is bared. The mysterious identity of the fairy and the ambiguity as to whether she did anything at all to the knight other than leave him is central to Keats message. If we knew more about her, it would no longer be a mystery to the reader whether she did entrance him or whether he has just fantasized all those Pale warriors, Death pale were they all; They cried La Belle dame sans Merci, Hath thee in thrall! Assuming the fairy was human, she could most probably speak and not only make sweet moan. Just one statement from the fairy could lead to a clarification of the real causes of knights apparently miserable situation and that would kill the point of the poem. In conclusion, Keats succeeds in revitalizing the medieval ballad form and romance themes by inverting their clichi s. He thereby succeeds to a high degree in questioning male assumptions of sexual dominance and the reader is left with a lot to think about after reading the poem.

Paul A Samuelson :: essays papers

Paul A Samuelson BIG ISSUES OF ECONOMIC CONCERN Samuelson has offered the world many economic theories. One area he is widely known for is his views on the spending multiplier. Samuelson has presented a way through his aggregate demand model to demonstrate how the spending multiplier affects individual types of spending. There are several components of aggregate demand. The basis for understanding this model is as follows: ïÆ'Ëœ An increase in prices causes a drop in household assets, thus causing consumers to spend less. ïÆ'Ëœ Increases in domestic prices reduce exports, which causes an increase in spending on imports. ïÆ'Ëœ The interest rate effect is when prices increase, as does the demand for money, thus increasing the interest rate. This forces a downward pressure on investment and purchases of durable goods. Therefore, investment, exports and consumption are all inversely related to pricing. In Samuelson’s model, government spending was the only constant. This means the government will always buy the same amount of goods no matter what the price. The aggregate demand schedule is therefore, the sum of consumption, investment, government purchases and exports. The chart below depicts the aggregate demand schedule. Price Level Consumption Investment Gov. Purchases Exports Real Expenditures (1986 $ billions) 160 400 75 100 25 600 140 450 100 100 50 700 120 500 125 100 75 800 100 550 150 100 100 9000 80 600 175 100 125 1000 Samuelson used this model to demonstrate how changes in these components would impact real expenditures. For example, the chart below shows the results if the government increased its purchases by $200 billion.

No development without Security Essay

Discuss this statement. In 2005, Kofi Annan, former United Nations General, made the memorable statement that there could be ‘no development without security, and no security without development’. This sparked a debate among multilateral agencies, governments and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) about the effectiveness and targeting of international aid. Kofi Annan and the UN observed that violent conflict, poor governance and human development, for example reducing poverty and improving education, were interconnected. As well as this, they found that progress towards human development is impossible with political instability and poor governance but at the same time, areas of deprivation and poverty create fear within communities that allows terrorism, civil war and crime to erupt. During the past decade multilateral agencies, such as the UN, the World Bank and major donor governments have acknowledged that peace, political stability and good governance are required in Less Economically Developed Countries (LEDCs) for development. In Sub-Saharan Africa civil wars and regional conflicts have prevented progress because the resources that should have been devoted to development have in fact been lost through armed conflict. An example of this is Somalia, in east Africa with a Human Development Index of just 0. 284, where 20 years of civil war has created lawlessness, anarchy and a state without an official government, since 1991. Islamic insurgents including the Al-Shabaab group, with an estimated 14,000 militants and connections to Al-Qaeda, have controlled much of southern Somalia since 2008. Piracy on the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Somalia, is also a major problem in progress towards development. Dozens of foreign ships bearing food aid have been waylaid and about 10 billion dollars has been collected through piracy in ransom money and cargo value. This situation, affecting much of the coast surrounding Somalia, has prevented development from trade and foreign investment with an estimated 1. 25 billion dollars lost through potential trade opportunities. In contrast, the self-proclaimed state of Somaliland to the north of Somalia is having a construction boom. As well as this, the area has low crime rates and low fear of violence mainly due to greater group homogeneity but also because the port of Berbara, on the coast of Somaliland does not suffer from piracy so foreign aid is able to enter the country and hence development has occurred. Also, population structures within a country can impact upon the rate of development. In the past 40 years, 80 per cent of civil conflict outbreaks have occurred in countries with more than 60 per cent of the population under the age of 30. Many of these countries have been faced with autocratic governments, where life expectancies are, on average, 9 years less than democratically governed countries and infant mortality rates are 25 per cent higher than in democracies. However as these countries, with youthful populations, advance along the demographic transition, with declining birth and death rates, their vulnerability to civil conflict decreases due to lower dependency ratios and in turn a greater proportion of population at working age which allows for greater personal savings and government spending. A youthful population can be a tremendous advantage to society if they are educated, healthy and living in a safe world. This means that there will be many potential workers for the future, paying taxes, but most of these countries lack adequate economic capabilities to realise this potential. Afghanistan, in stage 2 of the Demographic Transition Model (DTM), has a population of 31. 9 million, a total fertility rate of 6. 8 and 45 per cent of the population under the age of 15. This is has been mainly due to the fact that educational and career opportunities were non-existent, before 1980, and it was seen that women should stay at home which has dramatically influenced the demographic and economic situation of the country. Although, some development has started to take place with improvements in health care, small rural schemes, such as drainage systems and health clinics, being built through the National Solidarity Programme and a Hydro Electric Power turbine setup in the Helmand region which produces 33 megawatts of electricity annually. Inadequate and unequal human development is also a cause of political instability as well as an outcome. Poverty, hunger, poor health and education and oppression can create popular resentment towards governments. Where these problems coincide with separatist tendencies, the result may be armed conflict and civil war. Hence, it is argued that to achieve security and peace human development issues must have priority. In many countries some development can take place without security but this can also be observed at a smaller scale. On a local scale, it is often believed that without security of land tenure, housing will not develop. The huge pace of urbanisation in LEDCs has shown that large areas of previously empty land have been overrun by the development of poor, informal housing. In Bangalore, over 50 per cent of informal, slum housing, greater than 6km from the city centre is not ‘declared’ and there is no security of tenure, yet the residents continue to build. This shows that they are rarely willing to invest into housing that is anything more than semi-permanent without the security of being able to make sure they remain. In Mumbai, 90,000 of these dwellings were destroyed and 300,000 people were left homeless. Although, in areas such as Rochina in Sao Paulo, the opposite can occur. Here, one area within the country received granting for some security has resulted in development. Buildings are now being built with bricks rather than wood, roofs have tiles instead of corrugated iron and sewage systems have been installed. The continued development of the area is reliant on further improvements in security. While multilateral organisations and many world leaders believe that development can only be effective with security and security can only be achieved with development, some objections are still present. Some NGOs fear that this belief will encourage governments in LEDCs to divert international development aid to military spending to defeat separatist groups and crack down on political opposition. This in turn could escalate conflict, violate human rights and set back the whole development process.

Cartesian and Platonic Philosophical Themes in The Matrix...

This essay will examine the philosophical questions raised in the movie The Matrix. It will step through how the questions from the movie directly relate to both skepticism and the mind-body problem, and further how similarly those problems look to concepts raised by both Descartes’ and Plato’s philosophies. It will attempt to show that many of the questions raised in the movie are metaphor for concepts from each philosopher’s works, and why those concepts are important in relation to how they are presented in the film. In this analysis, we will examine the questions of skepticism and the mind-body problem separately. Part one will examine how the film broached the subject of skepticism, and in doing so how it ties in to†¦show more content†¦Simply put, the Matrix represent a system of complete and utter deception and cradle to grave control of those minds trapped within, all sharing the computer generated complex illusion. The Matrix as the evil ge nius or malicious demon should not be difficult to grasp. The parallels are there, near the surface, as Descartes surmises that an all-powerful malevolent entity has focused all its energies on to him to deceive him on every level of his existence (Descartes, 49). The Matrix as a system represents that very concept; as it can change the layout of buildings and the nature of things inside the Matrix within on a whim, it can manipulate events to influence the outcome of all of the lives contained inside, and that it shows one what it wants one to see in order to hide the fact that they are all just dreamers trapped in capsules full of goo with cables hooked to every nerve bundle tying the subjects nervous systems to the false reality of the Matrix (Sanders, 215). References to the Cave are not very deep below the surface either, perhaps more prevalent than the hints of Descartes. At the same time that the Matrix is