The Representation of Valuable or Treasured Objects in Fantasy Novels

The Representation of Valuable or Treasured Objects in Fantasy Novels There has always been a place for valuable objects in people’s minds; indeed, the material assets of the human world have allowed to define the value of a number of things, finally leading to the invention of money. Being one of the most important material elements in the human world, valuable objects, therefore, have been mentioned or referred to in a number of human creations and works of art, one of which is literature.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on The Representation of Valuable or Treasured Objects in Fantasy Novels specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Despite the fact that the representations of valuable or treasured objects in Beowulf, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Spencer’s Faerie Queene, and Pope’s Rape of the Lock are completely different from each other, the three still offer a common idea about the place which these valuable or treasured objects take in people’s lives, which makes a common thread in all three poems. To start with, the representation of the treasured and valuable objects in Beowulf is rather obvious from the very start of the poem; it is obvious that the characters focus on the secular values. The latter can be considered the result of paganism, the belief which all characters of Beowulf hold to from the very start of the poem. However, as the novel progresses, the beliefs of the character change in a rather radical manner; as Hill explains, the characters are gradually converted from pagans to Christians, which causes a drastic change in the assessment of their values. However, as Hill explains, the characters of Beowulf are not to be judged harshly because of the fact that low values were a standard for them: â€Å"We look back, then, to days when kings of the Spear-Danes were great, when one could say that they were good, rather than to a time when inadequate values were embraced† (Hill 5). Therefore, it can be considered that Hill discusses moral values of the time in which Beowulf was written than the actual valuable items (McMillen). Moreover, Hill actually makes a connection between time and timeless values in his argument: Without breaking the past-tense framework of his narrative, the poet repeatedly asserts the continuity of time and values between his present and a heroic past that steadily moves from a deep past to those bleak anticipations of a violent future near poem’s end. (Hill 7)Advertising Looking for research paper on literature languages? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More To be more exact, in the heroic past, which can be also referred to as the pagan times, the characters of the poem attributed all their deeds either to themselves and their strength, skills, power, intelligence, etc.: â€Å"the poet places a Ruler and a Judge of the deeds of each man† (Hill 10), or to the hand of doom. Meanwhile, in th e period referred to as the Christian one, the characters start attributing the major events to the power of God: â€Å"Happy events testify to God’s benign rule. When referred to God, fateful events are signatures of his judgment. God’s dom cannot be changed by men now any more than it could then† (Hill 8). Hence, the hero ethics dissolves into the appraisal of the supernatural powers, making the characters plunge into the realm of Christianity and its specific humble ethics. It is quite different with the ideas offered by Milton in his Paradise Lost. However, before developing an argument about Milton’s poem and the interpretation of valuable objects that it offers to the readers, it is necessary to consider some of the issues raised on Odell’s article concerning the understanding of the eulogy which Dryden wrote addressing Milton’s untimely death. Odell’s article on Milton revolves around a different reading of the epigram, which, as the author emphasizes, makes even more sense than the original interpretation. According to Odell, the fact that the eulogy which Dryden created and which honored Milton is aimed at wiping the latter from people’s memory as a writer who belonged to a particular period in time and establishing him as a transhistorical writer can and must be argued. As Milton explains, there is not a single trace of an attempt to make Milton a timeless classic in Dryden’s eulogy; hence, Odell suggests a different reading of the eulogy. As Odell explains, â€Å"he was canonized authoritatively by John Dryden (poet laureate of Great Britain, 1668–88), in his eulogy often entitled ‘Epigram on Milton’ (Odell 159). Even from the very start of the article, one can see evidently that Odell prefers to interpret the epigram in a slightly different way from the original one; the very word â€Å"canonized†, with its irony, rings certain dissatisfaction about the curre nt opinion on the eulogy and its meaning.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on The Representation of Valuable or Treasured Objects in Fantasy Novels specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In addition, Odell clarifies that the existing interpretation of Dryden’s eulogy is not the only one possible and by far not the most sensible one. As Odell states, Marcie Frank offers a new but out of context reading of â€Å"Epigram† as partial evidence that, for Dryden, â€Å"criticism† is â€Å"an identification in which one has to efface the historical individual in order to make an ‘author’- a figure with whom one can identify in order to be a critic† (Odell 159) Hence, Odell makes it clear that the eulogy which Dryden wrote to honor Milton might aim not at making the latter a transhistorical author, but to compare Milton to such ancient authors as Virgil and Homer. Again, the above-0men tioned Ð °Ã' Ã µdoes not mean that Dryden places Milton together with these two; the entire eulogy is only about the comparison between these authors and showing that there are certain common things in their writing. When it comes to discussing the major theme that is raised in Lewis’s The Faerie Queene, Lewis’s article is the first thing that comes to one’s mind. Offering rather original ideas concerning the poem’s interpretation and the ideas implied in the poem context in a very subtle way, Lewis makes an interesting statement concerning the poem and the author: â€Å"The moralizing poems to his cantos, which sounds so characteristically Spenserian, are in accordance with the regular practice of Boiardo and Ariosto† (60). Hence, Lewis defines the moral and the philosophical in the allegories created by Spenser in his poem. It is essential that Lewis specifies the two key virtues which Spenser emphasizes most in his poem; to be more exact, Lew is pays a lot of attention to the way in which Lewis describes such issues as the Holiness and the Chastity. However, Lewis makes it clear that the focus of the poem is still on Love, while Holiness and Chastity complete the former, making it worth fighting for:Advertising Looking for research paper on literature languages? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The subjects of these two books are respectively Chastity and Friendship, but we are justified in treating them as a single book on the subject of love. Chastity, in the person of Britomart, turns out to mean not virginity but virtuous love: and friends are found to be merely â€Å"another sort of lovers† in the Temple of Venus. (Lewis 90) Back to the issue of the morality and philosophical dilemmas which Spenser discussed in his poem, according to Lewis’s opinion, one must mention that Spenser’s poem offers â€Å"popular, homely, patriotic associations† (Lewis 60) to the readers, therefore, creating the realm of family values and the idea of hearth and home in the poem. In the given context, Lewis’s interpretation of Spenser’s Queene Faire sounds more than reasonable. Finally, the argument in Pope’s Rape of the Lock is worth another close consideration. One of Pope’s most famous works, it is also the most sophisticated one and the one that is filled with a lot of hidden innuendoes. Analyzing his work, Kathleen McConnell has come across a range of peculiar facts which are truly worth being presented to the public. According to McConnell, there is a common thread that links the given work and such famous stories as the tales about Pygmalion and the movie Artificial Intelligence. As McConnell explains, the thing that links these pieces of art is the idea of redemption. Judging by the fact that McConnell makes examples of three works one of which belongs to the sphere of classic literature, another one to the realm of myths, and the last one belongs to the popular culture, one must assert that the key idea of McConnell’s article is that Pope’s poem is nowadays ranked as something belonging to popular culture as well and is consumed as a mass product. On the one hand, the idea that something as timeless as Pope’s poems can be considered a product of mass consumption and an element of the present-day popular culture must seem absurd. However, as McConnell’s argument cadence continues, one starts realizing that there is actually a strong point that Kathleen makes in the course of the argument, and, to one’s sheer amazement, McConnell’s idea proves completely right: â€Å"the stories of Pygmalion, ‘The Rape of the Lock,’ and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have the social redemption of an outcast in common, though the nature of the outcast is different in each† (McConnell 683). However, it is not the fact of Pope’s poem being a mass product for the popular culture that makes McConnell’s argument so enticing; it is rather the string of arguments that the author provides to prove her pint that thrills and makes one hyped for a debate. Indeed, even though it is highly unlikable for something as grandeur as Pope’s poems to become an element of popular culture, it is rather peculiar to understand what an average rea der, the adept of pop culture, can possibly find for his/her mind in such a poem as, for example, Pope’s Rape of the Lock. McConnell’s detailed analysis of the given fact is what makes the article a really thrilling read. According to McConnell, the fact of objectification, which exists both in The Rape of the Lock and AI, makes both a peculiar artwork for the audience to be thrilled with: â€Å"The two situations – the uncanny humanizing of an object and the canny objectification of a human – exist side by side in the relationship of ‘‘child’’ David and its ‘mother’ Monica in AI.† (McConnell 684). Indeed, there is a fact of objectification in The Rape of the Lock: Though not an object per se, Arabella Fermor, the historical inspiration for Pope’s satirized heroine â€Å"Belinda,† was objectified, in that she was appreciated as an item of exchange value; far from re-humanizing Arabella, Pope†™s caricature craftily objectifies her. (McConnell 684) In addition, the idea of gambling in the poem can be considered as an interpretation of the object value in The Rape of the Lock (Walls). Analyzing the arguments introduced above, one must admit that there are certain similarities between the four articles in question. Both touch upon certain values and the way people interpret them. However, while in Rape of the Lock, the value of a human personality is considered through objectification, in Faerie Queene, moral values are the focus of the work. Likewise, Paradise Lost offers some food for thoughts about morality, along with Beowulf, which focuses on honor of a warrior in particular. Hence, it can be concluded that there are considerable differences between the ways in which the treasured or valuable objects are represented in Beowulf, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Spencer’s Faerie Queene, and Pope’s Rape of the Lock. Since each of the poems conveys a specific and unique idea, the representation of valuable objects in each appears to be quite different from the other ones. However, when it comes to discovering the key message which these representations convey, one will inevitably figure out that all of the three representations serve to convey the same idea. To be more exact, the three poems make it clear that valuable objects in people’s lives actually worth nothing. While these objects have no intrinsic value of their own, people endow the ostensibly treasured things with all the values possible, which all the three poems address at certain points. Once again making it clear that aesthetic and moral values are much more important than the monetary ones, the authors offer peculiar and surprisingly non-preachy works, which makes them pretty timeless. Hill, John M. â€Å"Beowulf, Value, and the Frame of Time.† Modern Language  Quarterly 40.1 (1979): 3-18. Print. Lewis, C. S. â€Å"The Faerie Queene.† In Spensers C ritics: Changing Currents in  Literary Taste. Ed. William R. Mueller. New York, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1959. 206-232. Print. McConnell, Kathleen. â€Å"Creating People for Popular Consumption: Echoes Of Pope’s ‘The Rape of the Lock’ in Artificial Intelligence: AI.† Journal Of Popular Culture 40.4 (2007): 683-699. Print. McMillen 14 May 2007, A Bloody Enterprise: The Power of Treasure over Men  in Beowulf. Web. Odell, David. â€Å"Drydens ‘Epigram on Milton’: A New Reading Questioned.† Explicator 68.3 (2010): 159-168. Print. Walls, Kathryn. â€Å"A Question of Competence: The Card Game in Popes ‘The Rape of the Lock’. A Response to Oliver R.Baker.† Connotations. 19.1-3 (2009/2010): 229-237. Print.

Codes of ethics essays

Codes of ethics essays As some people would say new times bring new crimes; especially with the invention of internet more people have access to private information to use it for them our benefits. The more knowledgeable or professional a person is about computers, the higher is the risk people can get harm. For this, codes of ethics was created; for computer practitioners to follow. Code of ethics is more like a guide for computer practitioners that everyone in the field should follow according to many professionals in the field. Some writers have suggested that codes of ethics are pointless and unnecessary. Many others believe that codes are useful and important, but disagree about why. Writers argue that some codes need to be completed or updated to the most recent technology, which brings a bigger argument in the computer field. First of all; to make home, school, and office life easier people relies on computers. As a result of this dependency, computer grows everyday. Along with the growing use of computers comes widespread computer crime. Most of the people who uses computer to do a crime are the ones who has knowledge of computer which most of them are the ones who studied a career in computers. In this time is not that hard for a person to get a computer like it was before; the computer industries have so many distributors and competitors that any middle class family can own one. Most people will agree that one of the main reasons for buying a computer is the internet. Once people start to get know how to use the computer, most of them will start using the internet for many reasons: business, homework, research, etc. Knowing the facilities the internet gives, people start to save private information on their computers or let the computer do the job for them for example pay their bills online. For some computer professionals this may be one of the easiest ways to make money from the accommodation of their private home. This is when the codes of ...

Teacher's Pension Scheme Reforms in the UK Essay

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Australian Postwar Art & Film Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Australian Postwar Art & Film - Essay Example Members of this movement engaged in other activities such as composing, performing, recording, and videotaping humorous songs, which had revolutionary lyrics quoted from Marx. Nevertheless, Burn had achieved an artistic career prior to commencement of these movements; in fact, he had a profound involvement in conventional landscapes and self-portraits. In the beginning of 1965, he ventured into abstract and Minimalist painting. Therefore, this resulted to Conceptual art work and installations, which facilitated participation in the International Conceptual Art Movement. After disbarment of Art and Language movement from the international panorama, Burn seemed to withdraw from the International Conceptual Art Movement. Apparently, in 1977, he decided to go back to Australia, where he joined Australian labor movement via Union Media Services, which as a small company. During this period, he focused on organizing cultural programming for trade union members; exhibitions that show cased their art work, and authored associated essays and commentaries. Furthermore, he focused on publishing articles on Anglo-Australian landscape painting, while others were Albert Namatjira, who was Anboriginal artist of Aranda tribe (Burn and Stephen, 1992, 266). It is evident that Ian was a renowned writer in the realm of International Conceptual Art Movement and guardian of contemporary art; in fact, he served as unofficial mentor to numerous dissertations in esthetics and art history in various universities in Australia (Burn, 1991, 115). It is evident that Burn used his early painting to experiment with strategies was a way of separating perception from cognition. He offered conceptual systems aimed at facilitating perception of different things in various ways, which were in temporal and instinctive order. For instance, he segregated the square canvas into six, hard-edge, quasi-organic shapes in the Re-ordered Painting from 1965. In this painting, he used different colours on eac h of the six utensils; in fact, these organic shapes created a perception in a specific sequence. Therefore, Burn utilized cognitive analysis insentience as a way of redirecting the perception of the audience in their own situation. It is evident that Burn focuses on the theme of status and circumstance of self in his works; for instance, in Blue Reflex from 1966, he expresses functions that reflect the blue lacquered surface. Another example is Mirror Piece from 1967, which proved a question seeking to determine the meaning of self-reflection; in fact, this work entails a horizontal sequence consisting of thirteen framed pages of notes and diagrams (Burn, 1991, 118). Therefore, this led to a reflection and refraction of light, which was relative to mirror under various situations. However, he offers a sequence that ends with a large plain and framed mirror. Furthermore, he offers instinctive perceptual relations, which appears to be a mirror that offers a reflection to different pe ople around the world. This work of art is framed in a gallery in a way that modified people’s perceptions regarding the art object. In this case, Burn’s work of art as a part of International Conceptual Art, by presenting a cognitive system, which is independent of the frames references, whereby this is considered disentanglement of the mirrors from the true meaning. Definition of Conceptual Art

Social Policy With Reference to Social Security Essay

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Finances Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Finances - Essay Example These subsidiary companies are engaged in a wide range of business activities. The main ones are primary insurance and reinsurance business. Over the years it has acquired a myriad of subsidiaries engaged in diverse business operations like utilities and energy (MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company), manufacturing-service-retailing (Marmon group), wholesale distribution & logistics (McLane), jewelry (Ben Bridge Chain), carpets (Shaw Industries), bricks & boots (Justin Industries). The insurance (both primary and reinsurance) business is through more than sixty national and overseas enterprises. Berkshire being primarily in insurance business in effect means that the premium for undertaking risk generates cash which is available for investment when the opportunity knocks. The reputation of Mr. Buffet has been built over the years is due to the fact that he has been consistent in picking winning opportunities by and large. This translates into the fact that almost of the business acquisitions turn out to be profit making ones, which in turn swell the coffers of Berkshire to be ready to invest. Contrary to expectations and common belief, Berkshire does not invest by only trading in stock i.e., picking stock at low price and selling, but also by investing in the businesses and earning through their operations. â€Å"For some sellers Berkshire is a refuge, a place to land when, say, some members of a family that controls a private company want cash and others wish to keep running the business. To the latter Buffett promises independence and respect and then--barring some irreconcilable problem that just has to be dealt with--delivers on the commitment. "We dont have any MBAs running around telling these people what to do," Buffett says. "And God knows I wouldnt know what to tell them." To public companies that may also have a family reason for selling, or that just want to escape the cold world of regrettable stock prices, unrealistic quarterly demands, and

Genocidal rape in Bosnia-Herzgovina Research Paper

Genocidal rape in Bosnia-Herzgovina - Research Paper Example Systematic mass rape and forced impregnation of women to cause pregnancy was related to the policy of â€Å"ethnic cleansing† of the Serbian genocide. Methods used in the campaigns of ethnic cleansing included but were not limited to torture, murder, detention, arbitrary arrest, sexual assaults in general and rape in particular, extra-judicial executions, forcible removal, confinement of the civilians into the ghettos, civilian deportation and displacement, exposure of the civilians to deliberate military attacks, and property destruction. Widespread ethnic cleansing was accompanied with the outbreak of war from 1992 to 1995 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnian Serbs forced Bosnian Muslims in large numbers along with some Bosnian Croats to flee their homes. There was also a small population of Bosnian Croats that conducted similar campaign against the Serbs and the Muslims, though they were far outnumbered by the violent Serbs. In the start of 1991, Balkans saw political upheava ls displacing a total of nearly 2,700,000 people, 700,000 of which sought refuge in Europe. There was an obvious military intent behind the systematic policies of rape in conflict with the International Humanitarian Law adopted by the Serbs. Giuseppe Zaccaria, an Italian journalist, summarized the Serb army officers’ minutes of meeting conducted in late 1991 in a Belgrade suburb in which he noted that the explicit policy of the Serbs was meant to target the children and women, they being the most vulnerable part of the social and religious structure of the Muslims. The reason why Bosnian Serbs targeted women and children can be summarized in these words: â€Å"Our analysis of the behavior of the Muslim communities demonstrates that the morale, will, and bellicose nature of their groups can be undermined only if we aim our action at the point where the religious and social structure is most fragile. We refer to the women, especially adolescents, and to the children. Decisive intervention on these social figures would spread confusion among the communities, thus causing first of all fear and then panic, leading to a probable [Muslim] retreat from the territories involved in war activity† (Zaccaria cited in Alien 57). In spite of the media reports discussing the mass killings, the secret camps, the destruction of architecture of Bosnia and mosques, most of the global community showed indifference to them. In response to such media reports, the UN implemented economic sanctions upon Serbia. The first UN peacekeeping force during the Yugoslav wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina was the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR). Mandate of the UNPROFOR for Bosnia and Herzegovina was to keep the people alive as the war reached its end. In an attempt to supervise the food and medicine distribution among the Muslims, the UN deployed its troops. However, these troops were not allowed by the UN to make any sort of military interference against the Serbs. UN had its own reasons not to stop the Serbs from killing Bosnian Muslims; the UN security forces thought that this was not their war and so they should not risk their lives trying to stop the Serbs from committing the atrocities. In addition to that, some soldiers of the UN security forces were held hostage by the Serbs. The safety and security of those captured UN soldiers was the prime concern of the UN securit