William Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream Essay -- Shakespeare M

William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream can be considered an archetypal comedy due in large part to the ill-defined characters. Part of what makes this play work so well is that rather than becoming too invested in any one character’s hopes and fears or desires and struggles, the audience is simply rooting for things to work out well in general. If the audience became too attached to any one character, they might lose sight of the bigger picture in their concern over, for example, Demetrius remaining drugged at the end of the play, or the disturbing repercussions of Helena marrying a man who only a few acts earlier she had urged to â€Å"Use me but as your spaniel†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (2.i.212). The audience is not plagued by these difficulties, however, because the lovers are only one or two shades more real than the characters presented by the Athenian laborers in Pyramus and Thisbe. A couple of the lines uttered in and about the play-within-a-play are very remi niscent of the â€Å"real† lovers whose trials and travails make up the rest of the work. The most appropriate line uttered by the mechanicals is â€Å"My love! Thou art my love, I think.† (5.i.207). This pretty well sums up the situation of the four lovers. Even before any fairy drugs enter the picture, they can’t seem to keep their affections straight. Demetrius, we learn, â€Å"Made love to†¦Helena, and won her soul†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (1.i.109-10). This comes out as he is in court with Hermia’s father, appealing to Theseus to force Hermia to marry him. His fickleness is in fact the cause of the entire conflict, since as far as we know the two couples were perfectly happy before his affections were switched. Later in the play, once the two coupl... ...worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.† (5.i.224-6). He refers here to theatre, but his statement can be more broadly applied to the idea of love as seen in this play. All four of the â€Å"real† lovers can be seen as â€Å"shadows† of actual people—they exist to be in love, to be in love with being in love, to talk about being in love, etc. They have no function beyond that and really are not capable of much more. The lovers of the play-within-a-play, without trying too hard, can seem to be remarkably similar to Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia and Helena. With just a little bit of imagination, they are in fact â€Å"no worse†. The play in Act 5 serves to reflect back an image of what we have just seen that is only slightly distorted, and it is in the smallness of the distortion that we can really understand how ridiculous the events that have just unfolded really are.

If u forget me †Pablo Neruda Essay

â€Å"If you forget me† is one of the most famous poems by Pablo Neruda. Despite it was written around a century ago, the poem is still very popular nowadays. As love is a never ending topic, â€Å"If you forget me† with the main themes of passionate love and sacrifaction has become a living moral for many people. The sentimental sonnet is the confession of a man to his lover, saying how much he loves her and willing to sacrifice for her. The poem opens with a very short stanza of two lines. The use of punctuation immediately creates a dearing atmosphere and brings the audience closer to the speaker. A list of evocative objects follows in the second stanza. â€Å"Silver moon†, â€Å"red branch†, â€Å"slow autumn† bring up a sense of peace and calm. â€Å"Fire†, â€Å"impalpable ash†, â€Å"wrinkle log† evoke something passionate and strong, yet soft and tender. All of them remind the speaker of his love, all of them just to show how much he loves her: â€Å"As if everything that exists/ Aromas, light, metal/ Were little boats/ That sail/ Toward those isles of yours that wait for me†. Pablo uses metaphor to describe his lover. She is referred to as â€Å"isles† that are waiting for him. He hopes that she loves him just as he does and will always be there for him. Describing the speaker’s feelings as â€Å"little boats† that are floating toward her isles, Pabblo has created a beautiful and unique imagery. The rhyme of the poem suddenly changes at the beginning of the third stanza, creates a swift in tone of the speaker. â€Å"If† is repeated at the beginning of the next three stanzas, followed by presuppositions about his girlfriend not loving him anymore, then his reaction will be definitive. If she stops loving him, he will do the same. If she forgets him, he will forget her first. If she leaves him, he will has left already. It might sound apathetic at first, but decoding the use of metaphor in the sixth stanza reveils how much his love is for her, underlying within his bitter tone. He himself is described as a tree. In the heart are his roots. All the love will go there and he is living from it and because of it. Without this love he wouldn’t be himself. The last metaphor is that he is describing other girls, potential girlfriends, as another land. He will seek there if his present girlfriend will forget him. this is significant because the hardest thing to do is to let the person you love go and face the truth. The speaker, promising himself to move on, has shown that his love for her is stronger than any spoken words. The last stanza is probably the most important one, where his deepfelt sentiment is shown clearest. Very short lines are put at the beginning of the stanza. Punctuation once again has immediate impacts on the tone and mood. Despite his lover’s betrayal, at any moment if she changes her mind, he will always be willing to take her back again, as if they have never been detached. Determination is expressed by the quick pace, whereas love and caring is shown in longer lines. Pablo Neruda has composed a stunning piece of his most sincere confessions. A variety of language techniques is used throughout the poem. Imagery, connotation and metaphor are the key devices that contribute to the success of â€Å"If you forget me†. The poem leaves the audience a lingering feeling after they have long finished reading it.

Age Of Enlightenment - 755 Words

During the 18th century, a worldwide movement, more commonly recognized as the Age of Enlightenment, encouraged the spread of philosophical thinking, science, communications, and politics. This movement gradually branched out from Northern Europe and reached places such as the United States of America and France, encouraging the American and French Revolutions. The Enlightenment brought about a new age of philosophical and intellectual thinkers, such as John Locke, which helped shape and influence modern government and politics. John Locke is recognized as the father of classical liberalism, introducing the Two Treatises of Government, Social Contract, and private property, which formed the basis for the constitutions in westernized†¦show more content†¦Americas Declaration of Independence.) Natural rights became the staple of Locke’s political philosophy. Locke believed that an individual was born with the right and duty to their own life, including their property. H is idea based off of natural rights has become what he is most commonly recognized for in politics. Much like Locke’s belief in natural rights, he also believed in the social contract theory. The social contract theory is the agreement among people in a society to cooperate in order to receive social benefits. The government could only be a legitimate government with the consent of the people that it governs, along with their agreement to obey its laws (Thompson, Bruce E.R. social contract theory.) If the citizens obey the rules of its government, then the government should protect their natural rights such as their freedom of speech, equality, and property. Locke’s social contract theory became one of the ideas that capital punishment was founded off of, however, he was not the only enlightened thinker to have this theory. Both John Locke and Thomas Hobbes believed in the social contract theory, but they had conflicting ideas. Hobbes believed in an absolute monarchy, a form of government in which Locke was greatly opposed to, and that the people must obey the law, but trying to overthrow their king would be a violation of the contract. In contrast to Locke, who believed that the citizens have the right to rebel against its government if theyShow MoreRelatedAge Of Enlightenment1210 Words   |  5 PagesThe Age of Enlightenment has historically been affiliated with drastic skepticism and revolution in politics, philosophy, science, and communications, amongst other disciplines. In the early eighteenth century, people began to challenge the idea that rulers, spirits, and Catholicism were dominant over other ways of life. Although the Enlightenment primarily prevailed in parts of Europe in countries such as England and France, it was also crucial in determining several aspects of colonial AmericaRead MoreThe Age Of The Enlightenment1646 Words   |  7 PagesThe Age of the Enlightenment during the beginning of the 18th century was a revolution that vanquished the suffocating darkness of superstition that shrouded the Middle Ages. Revolutionary thinkers of the Enlightenment, such as Denis Diderot, Renà © Descartes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, led western civilization out of the darkness of ignorance with a small flame generated by the power of scientific and intellectual reason. For a while, it seemed as though the reason and rationality of EnlightenmentRead MoreThe Age Of Enlightment : The Age Of Enlightenment1161 Words   |  5 PagesThe age of enlightenment took place in the 18th century. This was a time that was characterized by lot of aristocratic wars. Philosophers of that time agreed that war was among the greatest evils confronting mankind. The problem they faced with this conviction is that power lay with the aristocracy who viewed wars as a constituent of the society. The aristocracy treated wars as a necessity and as such it was treated as a normal and ordinary fact of life. These philosophers therefore devised waysRead More Age of Enlightenment Essay2052 Words   |  9 Pages The 18th century is referred to as the ‘Age of Enlightenment’. The trends in thought and letters from Europe to the American colonies brought a new light and attention upon mankind. This new movement described a time in Western philosophy and cultural life in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority. ‘To understand the natural world and humankinds place in it solely on the basis of reason and without turning to religious belief was the goal of the wide-rangingRead MoreThe Age Of Enlightenment In Frankenstein835 Words   |  4 Pagesand works of individuals during the Age of Enlightenment. Consequently, many of the ideas and theories that were expressed during the Age of Enlightenment are found throughout Shelley’s gothic novel. Furthermore, the Age of Enlightenment impacted the events depicted in Mary Shelley’s gothic novel, Frankenstein , such as man’s state of nature, as discussed by John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. Thomas Hobbes is considered one of the first major figures of the Enlightenment, and his major argument presentedRead MoreThe European Age Of Enlightenment1359 Words   |  6 PagesEuropean Age of Enlightenment, a period when great thinkers shared innovative thoughts on the governance and rights of man, slavery, the ultimate expression of human oppression, was widely practiced. The development of the Atlantic trade saw millions of Africans, enslaved by white European societies, shipped to the Americas to live a life void of liberty and dominated by misery, an existence starkly contrasting Enlightenment ideals. Despite the commonality of the practice, the Enlightenment movementRead MoreAge of Enlightenment and Century5169 Words   |  21 Pagesof art reproduced below express the artistic, philosophical and cultural values of their times. (Pictures of Michelangelo s David and Giacometti s Man Pointing 1947). 3. 82: Compare and contrast the cultural values of the Enlightenment with those of the sixteenth century Northern Renaissance. 4. 84: Compare and contrast the views of Machiavelli and Rousseau on human nature and the relationship between government and the governed. 5. 85: ToRead MoreThe Age of Enlightenment Essay2088 Words   |  9 PagesThe Enlightenment was a period in the eighteenth century where change in philosophy and cultural life took place in Europe. The movement started in France, and spread to Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Germany at more or less around the same time, the ideas starting with the most renowned thinkers and philosophers of the time and eventually being shared with the common people. The Enlightenment was a way of thinking that focused on the betterment of humanity by using logic and reason ratherRead MoreThe Age Of Enlightenment And The Scientific Revolution1675 Words   |  7 Pagesnew social norms and scientific advances. Although the industrial revolution and the scientific revolution represented a giant leap forward in human development, the Age of Enlightenment delivered the greatest influence for the future American society and planted the way for cultural and humanistic enrichment. The Age of th e Enlightenment raised new concepts in education, democracy, and human freedom. The new humanistic philosophy promoted the polish of the human intelligence and made education a longingRead MoreThe Age of Enlightenment in Society634 Words   |  3 Pageseveryone was born with natural rights that are incredibly important to have control over (John Locke). When they were stripped of their privileges it caused many to think of new ideas, or in other words, new inventions. Between the 1600’s and 1790’s enlightenment thinkers changed society with the new concept of putting power in the peoples’ hands. The king took away any self-dignity he could from any individual he may to gain more power for himself. With all of this capability and no one to stop him,