Your College Application in 650 Words or Less

Your College Application in 650 Words or Less Last August, Sarah Vander Schaaff interviewed me about working with college students on their application essays. Here is her article, edited for The Essay Expert and updated for 2015-16! In 650 words or less, describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there and why is it meaningful? Or In 650 words or less, recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn? Or In 650 words or less, discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family. You are now sitting in the shoes of a high school senior, thank you very much. These questions are a few of the prompts on the 2015-16 Common Application for college. They are slightly changed from last years’ says Brenda Bernstein, the professional resume writer, personal statement coach, and business copywriter behind the Essay Expert, and for some students facing the questions, answering them is hardly simple. “High school students don’t all have life coaches standing by,” Brenda told me when I spoke to her on the phone this summer. “They don’t step back and reflect on their lives.” Sometime between August and five days before applications are due, Brenda gets a call for help. If the student has already written an essay, she takes a look at it and determines the level of help it might needâ€"anything from some minor fixes to  an overhaul.  And it’s here when Brenda goes back to the basic creed that good writing requires good thinking. “By the end of the first conversation they have an outline for a new essay and new thoughts. I have the students tell me what they see as the way the essay is going to go.” Bernstein says students struggle when they “… know stuff that happened in their lives and they’ve drawn broad conclusions or they have conclusions that they think they should draw.” Parents divorcing, for example, is a major life event that sometimes deserves a deeper look. “They know they got a lesson from it,” she said. But the true lesson is not always the one they initially thought. Bernstein says she got an early start thinking about college applications. Her father interviewed applicants for Yale as part of the school’s alumni committee. Later, he’d let her read the interview reports. “I would read a lot of them,” she said. While at Yale herself, friends applying to graduate schools often asked her to edit their essays. Later, while working as a public interest lawyer in New York, she started posting flyers offering her editing services. And in a move that would make a pretty good essay itself, she decided she didn’t want to practice law, sought advice from an astrologer, and moved to Madison, Wisconsin where she still lives seven years later. Her site offers help not only for students, but also for professionals seeking a better resume or LinkedIn profile. The Essay Expert’s essay consultations range in price from $697 for Common Application essay help to $247 for a personal statement reviewâ€"far less than some boot camps described in The New York Times that cost $14,000 for 4 days. Essays, Bernstein says, are 6th on a list of 10 criteria colleges look at for admissions. “If students can’t write this type of essay without help, should they get into the college?” I asked Bernstein. She said pretty much all students get help, whether that’s from a parent, a teacher, or a paid professional (26 percent employing the latter). In school, students also have access to writing help if they need it. “A smart studentâ€"and professionalâ€"will get input and support on every important piece of writing they submit, especially when so much is riding on it. What’s important is that they write it in their own voice.” Furthermore, explains Bernstein, “I find that as they work with me they become much better writers.” Part of what she teaches them, she added, was to look at what about their lives and experiences fit together as a story. What The Essay Expert is doing appears to be the counterpoint to the technique explained by Frank Bruni in his June opinion piece in The New York Times, Naked Confessions of the College-Bound: Oversharing in Admissions Essays. Bruni tells of one Yale applicant’s essay.  A highly qualified student wanted to highlight her complete absorption with French and her teacher, “she described their one-on-one conversation at the end of a school day. And then, this detail: During their talk, when an urge to go to the bathroom could no longer be denied, she decided not to interrupt the teacher or exit the room. She simply urinated on herself.” Bruni cites similar examples, and quotes author Sally Rubenstone, who calls this type of behavior, “…the Jerry Springer-ization of the college admissions essay.” Coaches like Bernstein can help rein in the conflicting messages our children receive when they mistake the shock-factor for good writing. But the real work for these essays begins long before the fall of senior year. As parents, we need to give our children moments to reflect on their own lives, and genuine experiences to mull about as individuals without the constant pressure to document every minute of it. When I taught public speaking, I asked students to give a biographical speech touching on three major aspects of their lives. Many talked about a sport, or a hobby, or a pet. But almost all included this as part of those three defining elements of biography: a family tradition. The next time you fret about not giving your kid every opportunity to fill his or her resume, think about what it takes to be able to reflect on one’s own life. As the Essay Expert asks, “How well did you know yourself at the end of high school?”

Gender Roles Of Women And Women - 1536 Words

Men and women have very different expectations and roles in the work force. In the past almost all corporations have discriminated against gender, especially women. Whether it is women not being allowed certain positions and/or promotions at a job, or women not being allowed into the field of work that they desire at all. Women have also been discriminated by being payed lower wage and made to work longer hours in unsafe and unhealthy work environments. Gender roles set expectations that are extremely incorrect. A woman is just as capable at any job that a man is and should not be discriminated against because of her gender. Culture and society have a huge impact on gender roles, specifically among women. â€Å"Among the ancient Celts women rulers and warriors were so common that when a group of Brigantian captives was brought to Rome in the reign of Claudius they automatically assumed his wife†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Irish, Shawn). Women in some cultures like the ancient Celts had women in leadership roles such as governing the people of their land. However, some cultures see women as nothing more than someone to care for the children and keep the house clean. â€Å"Before World War II, the division of workers into different jobs on the basis of gender was universally accepted† (Irish, Shawn). Meaning that society found it morally right that you could not allow women certain jobs due solely to the fact that they were women. Also, in ancient Rome, a common job for women was to work as a â€Å"hawker†. HawkingShow MoreRelatedGender Roles Of Women And Women1524 Words   |  7 PagesGender refers to the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to either sex. Culture and biology determine the moral, intellectual, and emotional differences between males and females. Biology partially determines gender constructions of men and women. A woman’s ability to conceive or a man’s natural strength are all examples of biological gender. However, I believe a larger proportion of personal gender is formulated through cultural believes and values. Cultures create gender through social practicesRead MoreGender Roles Of Women And Women1535 Words   |  7 PagesEveryday you hear women and men being compared in life. A majority of the time it is in a form of men being more superior than women rather it s stereotypes, appearances, or money; Men usually end up more dominant. Society tends to assume that men are more capable than women in all aspects throughout life. These postulations have commenced before we were even born. Men are expected to constantly be working and providing the home for the women and children; Women are assumed to be cleaning, cookingRead MoreGender Roles Of Women And Women1630 Words   |  7 Pagesallow freedom for women, freedom for men, freedom from those sharply defined gender roles â€Å" (Fred Ward). I agree with this quote because in today’s society gender defines the roles of what a male and a female can do. What is gender? Gender, according to the Merriam Webster dictionary, is the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones). The term gender is only used when we describe how men and women are different in aRead MoreGender Roles Of Women And Women1677 Words   |  7 PagesGender is one of the greatest factors that can determine how we define ourselves and others. Although gender is determined at birth for many, it does not influence one s identity of self until a later age. How society views the roles of each gender influences how a perso n views themselves. As the views changes, so does one’s identity. In the past, the roles of men and women were defined and separated. Men were expected to provide income for the family, while women were expected to take care of theRead MoreGender Roles Of Women And Women1512 Words   |  7 Pages1.a Gender roles are how a society believes a man or women should act based on their gender. Each society has its own gender roles, where a man might be expected to do something in one society a woman might be expected to do it in another one. An example of gender roles affecting women is that women are expected to take care of the housework and so they do chores around the house even if they have a job. Men are expected to be the breadwinner and support his family financially. Men are not expectedRead MoreGender Roles Of Women And Women892 Words   |  4 Pages Gender roles are a set of behaviors that indicate that a person should fit in to a category of either being male or female . This is society’s concept of how men and women are expected to behave. These gender roles were commonly accepted before the twenty-first century. Society viewed males as being the main financial providers for their family whereas women were viewed as the maker of the home, raising and taking care their children. Men were expected to be strong, athletic,aggressive,and dominantRead MoreGender Roles Of Women And Women2066 Words   |  9 PagesThroughout history, gender roles were portrayed based on their physical appearance and the ability to do things. Men were always considered the caretakers and protectors of their homes and never had to worry about what kind of outfit they had to wear the next day. Men were free to roam around in whatever clothing that appealed to them and no one seemed to care. However, in the case of women, they were the ones who did the house work all day and if she wanted to get an education that was somethingRead MoreGender Roles Of Women And Women23 59 Words   |  10 PagesMen and women are consistently sexualized and misrepresented in the media. These misrepresentations have serious implications on society and both sexes are constrained by these ideals. These ideal depictions of masculine and feminine are threatening to the already distorted gender roles. The media standards for beauty are outrageous and simply unattainable, putting immense pressure on women today. Moreover media targeting men present a constant theme of hyper masculinity that is normalized inRead MoreGender Roles Of Women And Women1662 Words   |  7 Pages Gender Roles â€Å"Gender is the costume, a mask, a straightjacket in which men and women dance their unequal dance† (Kearl). Throughout history, women have been treated with unequal and unjust standards in comparison to their male counterparts. This paper will discuss gender roles in society and the stereotypes placed on men and women. As well as gender role development and the different influences that lead to these roles and stereotypes. Also, it will outline the history and progress of women’sRead MoreGender Roles Of Women And Women876 Words   |  4 PagesA gender role is simply a behavior that may be learned by a person that is so called â€Å"accepted† into society or a cultural normality. For example, men are known for supporting the family the most such as keeping the food on the table and being most of the income that comes into the household. Women on the other hand are normally looked upon as house cleaners, childcare givers, and less responsible jobs inside the house. Gender stereotypes are a little bit different; this is a way of seeing someone

Constant Critics of Monopolies Free Essays

Monopolies are under constant critics from the public and other producers of being polutive, straining to competition and they are accused of worsening resource allocation. Whether this is true or not, depends on the specific company, but certain characteristics are possible to define. It is these I will describe in the following, and hence conclude if monopolies worsen or improve It is important to distinguish between competition and monopoly before describing advantages and disadvantages of both. We will write a custom essay sample on Constant Critics of Monopolies or any similar topic only for you Order Now Many monopolies are government owned. This means that the incentive to trive for more profit, better conditions etc. is gone. This is due to the fact that, if there is a loss, the government will cover it, and government owned companies seldom strive to achieve maximum profits. A lot of the characteristics are also seen in privately owned monopolizing firms. When they become so big, that competition is practically gone, the incentive to make even more profits, and In a competitive industry this is not the case. The fear of loosing your job, not being able to compete, your products becoming obsolete etc. re important factors, which stimulate productivity. It is therefor obvious that the competitive industry will try harder to allocate their resources in the most efficient way. To land, the external costs in a competitive industry will often be pollution, seeing that the firm will strive hard to diminish their costs resulting in the firm ignoring ‘unnecessary’ costs. The monopoly owned by the government, would never be able to ignore such a serious matter, and they would have to pay the costs. A monopoly would also have to be careful not to damage its image, seeing that is, in many cases, already is unpopular. Capital, on the other hand, is often to the benefit of a monopoly, since they produce at a large scale. To fully utilize capital, a lot of labour is needed, labour which a monopoly is expected to have, and a smaller competitive firm may lack. For example, a blast furnace might need a crew of 24 men working night and day, to fully utilize it. The monopolizing company may be able to provide the men, but the smaller firm might not have the money to hire all the 24 men at night, seeing wages are much higher at then. The question then is if the competitive company is so much more efficient due to ard work, that they still can produce more than the monopoly. When it comes to labour, it is obvious that a competitive industry will strive to utilize the workers at a maximum level, due to the desire of minimizing costs, and workers will in general be very efficient due the reasons mentioned above. The workers in a monopoly, often loose the feeling, that their work makes a difference in the firm, making it hard for managers to fully In my opinion, the characteristics described above are not as valid any more. Companies, which enjoyed monopoly status in the eginning of the 80’s, like IBM, are now realizing that nothing lasts forever, and they have be innovative, even if the competition is not a great threat. Bill Gates, owner of MicroSoft, has very admirable policies concerning this. His firm is not a monopoly, but it is definably a cutting-edge firm, which is shaping the future. One rule he has, is that every six months the bottom five percent of the company’s workforce (in terms of performance) get firedo. It is his goal to make his own products obsolete, not letting others do it, and it seems he is achieving that goal. How to cite Constant Critics of Monopolies, Essay examples

Tom Clancy Essays - Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising, Red Storm

Tom Clancy English Tom Clancy's genius The Cold War and post Cold War eras have brought with them many interesting aspects. New technologies initially meant for mass destruction filter down into the civilian world, making current lives easier. One example of this is the anti-lock braking systems of today's cars. Originally designed to slow fighter-planes on landing without skidding, these systems make it safer for parents to take their children on vacation. One less noted advancement the eras brought is a considerable amount of exciting and forewarning fiction. While most authors chose to warn of nuclear and post nuclear holocaust, one significant author chose a different approach. Tom Clancy chose to write of conventional warfare and sometimes unconventional enemies. Between his novel Red Storm Rising and Debt of Honor, Tom Clancy makes evident the changing face of America's enemies and threats, while staying true to issues that keep people interested in his books. Published in 1986, Red Storm Rising is Tom Clancy's second novel dealing with the former Soviet Union as a potential enemy. This was a time when America's finest tank and infantry units went on exercises in Germany fully armed with the expectation that the Russians could attack them at any time. This was also a time when the Soviets did the same exercises with the same amount of live ammunition. Therefore there was reason enough to worry about potential conflicts. Deep within the ocean waters, submarines played similar cat and mouse games with other submarines and surface ships. However some of these submarines were more dangerous then a whole army because they were fully loaded with nuclear missles. These facts were well know to the American public and made Red Storm Rising all the more real when it combined land and ocean warfare in a way that captivated millions of readers. The book begins as the Soviet Union's ability to provide their own oil is cut off by a terrorist attack. Right away it is no ted that two very frightening events have just happened. Terrorism, for one, is a major scare tactic that can and does strike fear into millions. This was demonstrated by two suspected attacks in the U.S. recently (Bombing of Flight 800 and the Olympic Park bombing). Secondly, the threat of losing petroleum resources is enough to drive governments to drastic measures. This fact is evident in the world's participation in the 1991 Gulf War. The leaders of the Soviet Union decided that the only way to prevent the total collapse of their economy and country was to seize the oil rich Middle East. They also realized that the countries that make up the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in particular the United States would not stand for this hostile action. Consequently the Soviets determine that it will be necessary to neutralize NATO conventionally; that is to say without nuclear weapons. Of course, throughout the Cold War the many themes of the U.S.S.R. attacking the U.S a re presented by various authors. All of these had the same result: nuclear holocaust. One exception is that Red Storm Rising is the first to present it (theme of U.S.S.R. attacking the U.S.) in a non-nuclear scenario. This is very intriguing to examine the possibilities which include all the new technological weapons in the American and Soviet arsenals. Red Storm Rising captivates audiences with its techno-wizardry of smart bombs and satellite guided cruise missles. ?It was like an arcade game. Big, slow-moving blips denoted the aircraft. Smaller, quicker blips were the Mach-2 missiles (Clancy 178).? This was seen by a radar operator who was under attack during Red Storm Rising. However it is not the high tech gadgets that appeal to audiences of Red Storm Rising. There is a personable feel as the reader becomes better acquainted with the characters and sympathizes for them and the decisions they make. This is not the story of machines run by artificial intelligence, these are r eal people, friends, and neighbors of the reader. Bob Toland was a middle-level analyst at the National Security Agency. He'd left the Navy after six years whey the adventure of uniformed service had palled, but he remained an active reservist. His work at NSA dovetailed nicely with his

Apply for the CPP Retirement Pension

Apply for the CPP Retirement Pension The application for the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) retirement pension is quite simple. However, there are a lot of things to learn and decide  before you apply. What is the CPP Retirement Pension? The CPP retirement pension is a government pension based on workers earnings and contributions. Just about everybody over the age of 18 who works in Canada (except in Quebec) contributes to the CPP. (In Quebec, the Quebec Pension Plan (QPP) is similar.) The CPP is planned to cover about 25 percent of pre-retirement earnings from work. Other pensions, savings and interest income are expected to make up the other 75 percent of your retirement income. Who is Eligible for a CPP Retirement Pension? In theory, you must have made at least one valid contribution to the CPP. Contributions are based on employment income between a set minimum and maximum. How much and how long you contribute to the CPP affects the amount of your pension benefits. Service Canada maintains a Statement of Contributions and can provide an estimate of what your pension would be if you were eligible to take it now. Register for and visit My Service Canada Account to see and print a copy. You can also get a copy by writing to: Contributor Client ServicesCanada Pension PlanService CanadaPO Box 9750 Postal Station TOttawa, ON K1G 3Z4 The standard age to start receiving a CPP retirement pension is 65. You can receive a reduced pension at the age of 60 and an increased pension if you delay starting your pension until after the age of 65. You can see some of the changes that are taking place in the reductions and increases in CPP retirement pensions in the article Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Changes. Important Considerations There are numerous situations that can affect your CPP retirement pension, and some may increase your pension income. Some of those are: Child rearing provision  can be requested if you stopped working or received a lower income as the primary caregiver of your children under the age of seven, which could increase your retirement pension.Pension sharing with your spouse or common-law partner could mean tax savings for you.Credit splitting  after a divorce or separation  allows CPP contributions made by you and your spouse or common-law partner to be equally divided.International social security agreements  may make you eligible for a pension if youve lived and worked in certain countries. How to Apply for the CPP Retirement Pension You must apply for the CPP retirement pension. It is not automatic. For your application to be eligible You must be at least a month past your 59th birthdayYou must have contributed to the CPPYou must want your pension payments to begin within 11 months. You can apply online. This is a two-part process. You can submit your application electronically. However, you must print and sign a signature page that you then must sign and mail to Service Canada. You could also print and complete the ISP1000 application form and mail it to the appropriate address. Dont miss the detailed information sheet that comes with the application form. After You Apply for the CPP Retirement Pension You can expect to receive your first CPP payment approximately eight weeks after Service Canada receives your application. Service Canada has other  useful information to be aware of once you start receiving your benefits.

Yeats and The Symbolism of Poetry

Yeats and 'The Symbolism of Poetry' One of the greatest poets of the 20th century and a recipient of the Nobel Prize, William Butler Yeats spent his early childhood in Dublin and Sligo before moving with his parents to London. His first volumes of poetry, influenced by the symbolism of William Blake and Irish folklore and myth, are more romantic and dreamlike than his later work, which is generally more highly regarded. Composed in 1900, Yeatss influential essay The Symbolism of Poetry offers an extended definition of symbolism and a meditation on the nature of poetry in general. The Symbolism of Poetry    Symbolism, as seen in the writers of our day, would have no value if it were not seen also, under one disguise or another, in every great imaginative writer, writes Mr. Arthur Symons in The Symbolist Movement in Literature, a subtle book which I cannot praise as I would, because it has been dedicated to me; and he goes on to show how many profound writers have in the last few years sought for a philosophy of poetry in the doctrine of symbolism, and how even in countries where it is almost scandalous to seek for any philosophy of poetry, new writers are following them in their search. We do not know what the writers of ancient times talked of among themselves, and one bull is all that remains of Shakespeares talk, who was on the edge of modern times; and the journalist is convinced, it seems, that they talked of wine and women and politics, but never about their art, or never quite seriously about their art. He is certain that no one who had a philosophy of his art, or a theory of ho w he should write, has ever made a work of art, that people have no imagination who do not write without forethought and afterthought as he writes his own articles. He says this with enthusiasm, because he has heard it at so many comfortable dinner-tables, where some one had mentioned through carelessness, or foolish zeal, a book whose difficulty had offended indolence, or a man who had not forgotten that beauty is an accusation. Those formulas and generalisations, in which a hidden sergeant has drilled the ideas of journalists and through them the ideas of all but all the modern world, have created in their turn a forgetfulness like that of soldiers in battle, so that journalists and their readers have forgotten, among many like events, that Wagner spent seven years arranging and explaining his ideas before he began his most characteristic music; that opera, and with it modern music, arose from certain talks at the house of one Giovanni Bardi of Florence; and that the Plà ©iade laid the foundations of modern French literature with a pamphlet. Goethe has said, a poet needs all philosophy, but he must keep it out of his work, though that is not always necessary; and almost certainly no great art, outside England, where journalists are more powerful and ideas less plentiful than elsewhere, has arisen without a great criticism, for its herald or its interpreter and protector, and it may be for this reason that great art, now that vulgarity has armed itself and multiplied itself, is perhaps dead in England. All writers, all artists of any kind, in so far as they have had any philosophical or critical power, perhaps just in so far as they have been deliberate artists at all, have had some philosophy, some criticism of their art; and it has often been this philosophy, or this criticism, that has evoked their most startling inspiration calling into outer life some portion of the divine life, or of the buried reality, which could alone extinguish in the emotions what their philosophy or their criticism would extinguish in the intellect. They have sought for no new thing, it may be, but only to understand and to copy the pure inspiration of early times, but because the divine life wars upon our outer life, and must needs change its weapons and its movements as we change ours, inspiration has come to them in beautiful startling shapes. The scientific movement brought with it a literature, which was always tending to lose itself in externalities of all kinds, in opinion, in declamation, in pic turesque writing, in word-painting, or in what Mr. Symons has called an attempt to build in brick and mortar inside the covers of a book; and new writers have begun to dwell upon the element of evocation, of suggestion, upon what we call the symbolism in great writers. II In Symbolism in Painting, I tried to describe the element of symbolism that is in pictures and sculpture, and described a little the symbolism in poetry, but did not describe at all the continuous indefinable symbolism which is the substance of all style. There are no lines with more melancholy beauty than these by Burns: The white moon is setting behind the white wave,And Time is setting with me, O! and these lines are perfectly symbolical. Take from them the whiteness of the moon and of the wave, whose relation to the setting of Time is too subtle for the intellect, and you take from them their beauty. But, when all are together, moon and wave and whiteness and setting Time and the last melancholy cry, they evoke an emotion which cannot be evoked by any other arrangement of colours and sounds and forms. We may call this metaphorical writing, but it is better to call it symbolical writing, because metaphors are not profound enough to be moving, when they are not symbols, and when they are symbols they are the most perfect of all, because the most subtle, outside of pure sound, and through them one can the best find out what symbols are. If one begins the  reverie  with any beautiful lines that one can remember, one finds they are like those by Burns. Begin with this line by Blake: The gay fishes on the wave when the moon sucks up the dew or these lines by Nash: Brightness falls from the air,Queens have died young and fair,Dust hath closed Helens eye or these lines by Shakespeare: Timon hath made his everlasting mansionUpon the beached verge of the salt flood;Who once a day with his embossed frothThe turbulent surge shall cover or take some line that is quite simple, that gets its beauty from its place in a story, and see how it flickers with the light of the many symbols that have given the story its beauty, as a sword-blade may flicker with the light of burning towers. All sounds, all colours, all forms, either because of their preordained energies or because of long association, evoke indefinable and yet precise emotions, or, as I prefer to think, call down among us certain disembodied powers, whose footsteps over our hearts we call emotions; and when sound, and colour, and form are in a musical relation, a beautiful relation to one another, they become, as it were, one sound, one colour, one form, and evoke an emotion that is made out of their distinct evocations and yet is one emotion. The same relation exists between all portions of every work of art, whether it be an epic or a song, and the more perfect it is, and the more various and numerous the elements that have flowed into its perfection, the more powerful will be the emotion, the power, the god it calls  among  us. Because an emotion does not exist, or does not become perceptible and active among us, till it has found its expression, in colour or in sound or in form, or in all of the se, and because no two modulations or arrangements of these evoke the same emotion, poets and painters and musicians, and in a less degree because their effects are momentary, day and night and cloud and shadow, are continually making and unmaking mankind. It is indeed only those things which seem useless or very feeble that have any power, and all those things that seem useful or strong, armies, moving wheels, modes of architecture, modes of government, speculations of the reason, would have been a little different if some mind long ago had not given itself to some emotion, as a woman gives herself to her lover, and shaped sounds or colours or forms, or all of these, into a musical relation, that their emotion might live in other minds. A little lyric evokes an emotion, and this emotion gathers others about it and melts into their being in the making of some great epic; and at last, needing an always less delicate body, or symbol, as it grows more powerful, it flows out, with all it has gathered, among the blind instincts of daily life, where it moves a power within powers, as one sees ring within ring in the stem of an old tree. This is maybe what Arthur OShaughnessy meant when he made his poets say they had built Nineveh with their sighing; and I am certainly never certain, when I hear of some war, or of some religious excitement or of some new manufacture, or of anything else that fills the ear of the world, that it has not all happened because of something that a boy piped in Thessaly. I remember once telling a seer to ask one among the gods who, as she believed, were standing about her in their symbolic bodies, what would come of a charming but seeming trivial  labour  of a friend, and the form answering, the devastation of peoples and the overwhelming of cities. I doubt indeed if the crude circumstance of the world, which seems to create all our emotions, does more than reflect, as in multiplying mirrors, the emotions that have come to solitary men in moments of poetical contemplation; or that love itself would be more than an animal hunger but for the poet and his shadow the priest, for unless we believe that outer things are the reality, we must believe that the gross is the shadow of the subtle, that things are wise before they become foolish, and secret before they cry out in the  market-place. Solitary men in moments of contemplation receive, as I think, the creative impulse from the lowest of the Nine Hierarchies, and so make and unmake mankind, and even the world itself, for does not the eye altering alter all? Our towns are copied fragments from our breast;And all mans Babylons strive but to impartThe grandeurs of his Babylonian heart. III The purpose of rhythm, it has always seemed to me, is to prolong the moment of contemplation, the moment when we are both asleep and awake, which is the one moment of creation, by hushing us with an alluring monotony, while it holds us  waking  by variety, to keep us in that state of perhaps real trance, in which the mind liberated from the pressure of the will is unfolded in symbols. If certain sensitive persons listen persistently to the ticking of a  watch,  or gaze persistently on the monotonous flashing of a light, they fall into the hypnotic trance; and rhythm is but the ticking of a watch made softer, that one must  needs  listen, and various, that one may not be swept beyond memory or grow weary of listening; while the patterns of the artist are but the monotonous flash woven to take the eyes in a  subtler  enchantment. I have heard in meditation voices that were forgotten the moment they had  spoken; and  I have been swept, when in more profound meditatio n, beyond all memory but of those things that came from beyond the threshold of waking life. I was writing once at a very symbolical and abstract poem, when my pen fell on the ground; and as I stooped to pick it up, I remembered some  phantastic  adventure that yet did not seem  phantastic, and then another like adventure, and when I asked myself when these things had happened, I found, that I was remembering my dreams for many nights. I tried to remember what I had done the day before, and then what I had done that morning; but all my waking life had perished from me, and it was only after a struggle that I came to remember it again, and as I did so that more powerful and startling life perished in its turn. Had my pen not fallen on the ground and so made me turn from the images that I was weaving into verse, I would never have known that meditation had become trance, for I would have been like one who does not know that he is passing through a wood because his eyes are on the pathway. So I think that in the making and in the understanding of a work of art, and the mo re easily if it is full of patterns and symbols and music, we are lured to the threshold of sleep, and it may be far beyond it, without knowing that we have ever set our feet upon the steps of horn or of ivory. IV Besides emotional symbols, symbols that evoke emotions alone,and in this sense all alluring or hateful things are symbols, although their relations with one another are too subtle to delight us fully, away from rhythm and pattern,there are intellectual symbols, symbols that evoke ideas alone, or ideas mingled with emotions; and outside the very definite traditions of mysticism and the less definite criticism of certain modern poets, these alone are called symbols. Most things belong to one or another kind, according to the way we speak of them and the companions we give them, for symbols, associated with ideas that are more than fragments of the shadows thrown upon the intellect by the emotions they evoke, are the playthings of the allegorist or the pedant, and soon pass away. If I say white or purple in an ordinary line of poetry, they evoke emotions so exclusively that I cannot say why they move me; but if I bring them into the same sentence with such obvious intellectual symbols a s a cross or a crown of thorns, I think of purity and sovereignty. Furthermore, innumerable meanings, which are held to white or to purple by bonds of subtle suggestion, and alike in the emotions and in the intellect, move visibly through my mind, and move invisibly beyond the threshold of sleep, casting lights and shadows of an indefinable wisdom on what had seemed before, it may be, but sterility and noisy violence. It is the intellect that decides where the reader shall ponder over the procession of the symbols, and if the symbols are merely emotional, he gazes from amid the accidents and destinies of the world; but if the symbols are intellectual too, he becomes himself a part of pure intellect, and he is himself mingled with the procession. If I watch a rushy pool in the moonlight, my emotion at its beauty is mixed with memories of the man that I have seen ploughing by its margin, or of the lovers I saw there a night ago; but if I look at the moon herself and remember any of her ancient names and meanings, I move among divine people, and thing s that have shaken off our mortality, the tower of ivory, the queen of waters, the shining  stag  among enchanted woods, the white  hare  sitting upon the hilltop, the fool of  faery  with his shining cup full of dreams, and it may be make a friend of one of these images of wonder, and meet the Lord in the air. So, too, if one is moved by Shakespeare, who is content with emotional symbols that he may come the nearer to our sympathy, one is mixed with the whole spectacle of the world; while if one is moved by Dante, or by the myth of Demeter, one is mixed into the shadow of God or of a goddess. So too one is furthest from symbols when one is busy doing this or that, but the soul moves among symbols and unfolds in symbols when trance, or madness, or deep meditation has withdrawn it from every impulse but its own. I then saw, wrote Gà ©rard de Nerval of his madness, vaguely drifting into form, plastic images of antiquity, which outlined themselves, became definite, and seemed to represent symbols of which I only seized the idea with difficulty. In an earlier  time  he would have been of that multitude, whose souls austerity withdrew, even more perfectly than madness could withdraw his soul, from hope and memory, from desire and regret, that they might reveal those processions of symbols that men bow to before altars, and  woo  with incense and offerings. But being of our time, he has been like Maeterlinck, like Villiers de IIsle-Adam in  Axà «l, like all who are preoccupied with intellectual symbols in our time, a foreshadower of the new sacred book, of which all the arts, as somebody has said, are beginning to dream. How can the arts overcome the slow dying of mens hearts that we call the progress of the world, and lay their hands upon mens heartstrings again, without becoming the garment of religion as in old times? V If people were to accept the theory that poetry moves us because of its symbolism, what change should one look for in the manner of our poetry? A return to the way of our fathers, a casting out of descriptions of nature for the sake of nature, of the moral law for the sake of the moral law, a casting out of all anecdotes and of that brooding over scientific opinion that so often extinguished the central flame in Tennyson, and of that vehemence that would make us do or not do certain things; or, in other words, we should come to understand that the beryl stone was enchanted by our fathers that it might unfold the pictures in its heart, and  not to  mirror our own excited faces, or the boughs waving outside the window. With this change of substance, this return to imagination, this understanding that the laws of art, which are the hidden laws of the world, can alone bind the imagination, would come a change of style, and we would cast out of serious poetry those energetic rhythms, as of a man running, which are the invention of the will with its eyes always on something to be done or undone; and we would seek out those wavering, meditative, organic rhythms, which are the embodiment of the imagination, that neither desires nor hates, because it has done with time, and only wishes to gaze upon some reality, some beauty; nor would it be any longer possible for anybody to deny the importance of form, in all its kinds, for although you can expound an opinion, or describe a thing, when your words are not quite well chosen, you cannot give a body to something that moves beyond the senses, unless your words are as subtle, as complex, as full of mysterious life, as the body of a flower or of a woman. The form of sincere poetry, unlike the form of the popular poetry, may indeed be sometimes obscure, or ungrammatical as in some of the best of the Songs of Innocence and Experience, but it must have the perfections that escape analysis, the subtleties that have a new meaning every day, and it must have all this whether it be but a little song made out of a moment of dreamy  indolence,  or some great epic made out of the dreams of one poet and of a hundred generations whose hands were never weary of the sword. The Symbolism of Poetry by William Butler Yeats first appeared in  The Dome in April 1900 and was reprinted in Yeats Ideas of Good and Evil, 1903.

Critical Literature Review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Critical Literature Review - Essay Example Therefore, they should be sheltered and protected under all circumstances. Moreover, the best way to protect them is to keep them away from the social life, locked inside the walls of the house for the rest of her lifetime (Brà ¼ckner, pp. 44-46, 2004). There are so many examples all over the world and throughout the history that indicate the gender disparity, gender inequality, sexism, or stratification of genders. Despite the fact that over the past decades, the situation has improved a bit but still there is a long way to travel. It is very difficult to talk about a world where there would be equal opportunities in relation to gender (Pasero, pp. 219-228, 2003). In fact, this is virtually impossible to implement all around the globe. There are several reasons for this strong but bitter assumption. We live in a world where, consciously or unconsciously, we have created some strong and irrevocable social perception and outlook of gender. In fact, gender is not just a symbol of any one’s reproductive role but it has become a symbol and determinant of one’s behavior, attitudes, and role expectations (Tomm, Hamilton, Mackie & Calgary Institute for the Humanities, pp. 159-167, 1998). For example, a female school teacher, if announces that she would be late for a class or would not be able to make an appearance the next day; this statement from her would not get so much of attention if the same statement is put forward by a male teacher. Actually, after hearing the same from the father we would start thinking about different things and would make various assumptions in out minds. That he would be a single father, or may be he is too nice or may be his wife is too busy with other stuff. This happens because as individuals grow up in human societies they quickly learn ab out their roles and expected behaviors (Chaneles, pp. 85-92, 1984). For example, both men