Friday, 30 December 2016

http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415485432/19.asp

http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415485432/19.asp
Posted by at No comments:

Thursday, 29 December 2016

Romanesque vs Gothic Architecture

Posted by at No comments:

Wednesday, 28 December 2016

How I memorized an entire chapter from “Moby Dick”

Posted by at No comments:

Tuesday, 27 December 2016

confidence

A nuclear triad refers to the nuclear weapons delivery of a strategic nuclear arsenal which consists of three basic components: land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), strategic bombers, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). The purpose of having a three-branched nuclear capability is to significantly reduce the possibility that an enemy could destroy all of a nation's nuclear forces in a first-strike attack; this, in turn, ensures a credible threat of a second strike, and thus increases a nation's nuclear deterrence.[1][2][3]
Other methods of nuclear attacks are nuclear torpedos and the use of hypersonic glide vehicles.
India completed its nuclear triad with the commissioning of INS Arihant in August 2016.[17][18][19][20][21][22] INS Arihant is a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine armed with 12 K-15 missileswith a range of 750 km,[23] which will later be upgraded K-4 missiles with an extended range of 3500 km.[24][25][26] India maintains a no first use nuclear policy and has been developing a nuclear triad capability as a part of its credible minimum deterrence doctrine.[27] India's nuclear-weapons program possesses surface-to-surface missiles such as the Agni III and Agni IV. In addition, the 5,000–8000 km range Agni-V ICBM was also successfully tested for third time on 31 January 2015[28] and is expected to enter service by 2016.[29] India has nuclear-capable fighter aircraft such as the Dassault Mirage 2000H, Dassault Rafale, Sukhoi Su-30 MKI, MIG-29 and SEPECAT Jaguar. Land and air strike capabilities are under the control of Strategic Forces Command which is a part of Nuclear Command Authority.

In future, Agni-V is expected to feature Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRVs) with each missile being capable of carrying 2–10 separate nuclear warheads.[41] Each warhead can be assigned to a different target, separated by hundreds of kilometres; alternatively, two or more warheads can be assigned to one target.[40] MIRVs ensure a credible second strike capability even with few missiles.
Ballistic missile defence system
In theory, when two nuclear powers go to war, they are inviting "mutual assured destruction". If you hit, you'll also get hurt. To shield the territory from the terror of nukes, interceptor missiles are developed to counter the ballistic missiles carrying a nuclear payload. They neutralize the ballistic missiles en route to the destination, making the nuclear warhead ineffective. The ballistic missile defence system is a package of advanced military radars, a command and control centre and a different range of missiles. After constant efforts of nearly a decade, India became the fourth nation to possess this extremely distinct technology.
Given its lack of capacity in a full-fledged nuclear war, Pakistan will have try a lot harder before it can give its arch-rival sleepless nights. 
The development of India's Pradyumna and Ashwin interceptor missiles, supported by the constantly improving Swordfish Radar, are seen by Islamabad as "upsetting the strategic balance". Given 50% odds of neutralizing an incoming ballistic missile, it muddles Pakistan's wartime strategy or virtually makes half of its arsenal ineffective. Like the ballistic submarine, even this technology is out of reach for Pakistan, whose meagre coffers apportion a paltry defence budget of $7.6 billion (India's defence budget is $51 billion). 
In conclusion, Pakistan's committed approach to tie with India nuke-for-a-nuke may seem daunting on the surface. However, given its lack of capacity in a full-fledged nuclear war, Pakistan will have try a lot harder before it can give its arch-rival sleepless nights.

While there can be little expectation of any room for India in CPEC at present, there is space for India to step back and see where China and Pakistan want to go with it. The offer to India was made along with offers to other “neighbouring countries”. Already, Iran wants Gwadar to be a “sister” port to Chabahar, and Turkmenistan and other Central Asian republics have shown interest in the warm-water port that will be a nodal point for goods through Pakistan to the Chinese city of Kashgar. Further north, despite its problems on terror from Pakistan, Afghanistan is becoming a nodal point for China’s connectivity projects to Iran. The meeting among Russian, Chinese and Pakistani officials on Afghanistan this week, and Russian engagement with the Taliban, indicate much more is changing in the region than just the alignment of highways and tunnels. While India has done well to shore up relations with others in the region, it cannot afford to be blindsided by their involvement with the OBOR project and Chinese plans. CPEC is no longer a project in Pakistan, but one that runs through it, a project that will link 64 countries.

Posted by at No comments:

victoria

Defining Victorian literature in any satisfactory and comprehensive manner has proven troublesome for critics ever since the nineteenth century came to a close. The movement roughly comprises the years from 1830 to 1900, though there is ample disagreement regarding even this simple point. The name given to the period is borrowed from the royal matriarch of England, Queen Victoria, who sat on throne from 1837 to 1901. One has difficulty determining with any accuracy where the Romantic Movement of the early nineteenth century leaves off and the Victorian Period begins because these traditions have so many aspects in common. Likewise, identifying the point where Victorianism gives way completely to Modernism is no easy task. Literary periods are never the discrete, self-contained realms which the anthologies so suggest. Rather, a literary period more closely resembles a rope that is frayed at both ends. Many threads make up the rope and work together to form the whole artistic and cultural milieu. The Victorian writers exhibited some well-established habits from previous eras, while at the same time pushing arts and letters in new and interesting directions. Indeed, some of the later Victorian novelists and poets are nearly indistinguishable from the Modernists who followed shortly thereafter. In spite of the uncertainty of terminology, there are some concrete statements that one can make regarding the nature of Victorian literature, and the intellectual world which nurtured that literature.
If there is one transcending aspect to Victorian England life and society, that aspect is change – or, more accurately, upheaval. Everything that the previous centuries had held as sacred and indisputable truth came under assault during the middle and latter parts of the nineteenth century. Nearly every institution of society was shaken by rapid and unpredictable change. Improvements to steam engine technology led to increased factory production. More manufacturing required more coal to be mined from the ground. The economies of Europe expanded and accelerated, as the foundations of a completely global economy were laid. Huge amounts of wealth were created, and the spirit of the times discouraged the regulation of business practices. Today, this is called laissez-faire economics. This generation of wealth was to the sole benefit of the newly risen “middle class,” an urbane, entrepreneurial segment of society which saw itself as the natural successor to the noble’s former position of influence. At the same time, scientific advancements were undermining the position of the Church in daily life. Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution and natural selection brought humanity down to the level of the animal, and seemingly reduced the meaning of life to a bloody struggle for survival. Rather than a benign Creator, the world was dominated and steered by strength alone. In the general population, the ever-present gap between the haves and have-nots widened significantly during the Victorian period. The poorest of their poor found their lot in life to be worse than it had ever been, as the new market economy favored industry over agriculture. Large numbers of dispossessed farmers and peasants migrated from the countryside to the cities, seeking work in the factories. The effects of that demographic shift can still be observed. Conditions in the overwhelmed, sprawling cities degenerated as the infrastructure simply could not handle the influx of new workers. Slums and shantytowns became the norm, and depredation was a fact of life for the majority of the working class.a
For some, the fundamental changes taking place in the world meant progress, and were a source of hope and optimism. For the majority of writers and thinkers, however, the inequality present in Victorian society was a kind of illness that would sooner or later come to a tipping point. Many intellectuals saw it as their duty to speak out against the injustices of this new and frightening world. Essayists like Thomas Carlyle railed against the systematic abuse he saw happening all around him. He saw machinery and the Industrial Revolution as engines of destruction, stripping people of their very humanity. The level of social consciousness and immediate relevancy one finds in much of Victorian writing was something not witnessed before in English letters. Rather than turning inside or escaping into fantasy, essayists and novelists chose to directly address the pressing social problems of the day. These problems ranged from atrocious labor conditions and rampant poverty to the issue of women’s place in the world – what contemporaries referred to as “The Woman Question.” Elizabeth Barrett-Browning’s long-form poem “The Cry of the Children” represents an attack on mining practices in England, specifically the employment of young children to work deep in the mines. Barrett-Browning had been outraged by a report she read detailing the practice and felt compelled to make her voice heard on the issue. She was certainly not alone in this feeling. Novelist Charles Dickens made a cottage industry out of addressing social ills in a light-hearted, optimistic tone. Each of his many novels called attention to real-world problems that others might just as soon have swept under the rug. Dickens is also noteworthy for his “rock star” status, attaining popularity that would not have been possible in the previous generation. He wrote with a voice that was very accessible to the ordinary reader of the time, and yet couched within his fiction were essential questions that society would sooner or later be forced to confront. One cannot say exactly how much influence Dickens and others had on their society, but the fact that they tried to change their world is what is important. Writers of the preceding era did not speak to a popular audience nearly as much as the Victorians, or at least not as self-consciously. The Romantic Movement was marked by introversion and abstraction; they were much less interested in commenting on, much less altering the course of world events. Furthermore, the Romantics did not see leadership as a primary objective for art. Victorians, on the other hand, tacitly agreed that encouraging society toward a higher good was a righteous, noble occupation for any artist.
Not surprisingly, women in the Victorian world held very little power and had to fight hard for the change they wanted in their lives. What one thinks of as feminism today had not yet taken form in the Victorian period. The philosophy of female emancipation, however, became a rallying point for many female Victorian writers and thinkers. Though their philosophies and methods were often quite divergent, the ultimate goal of intellectual women in the nineteenth century was largely the same. Poets and novelists frequently had to be coy when addressing their status in society. Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” combines early feminist imagery with many other concepts in a fairy-tale like world of imagination. Her use of religious symbolism is especially fascinating. Though not as highly regarded, Letitia Elizabeth Landon was also an accomplished and popular female poet. Charlotte and Emily Brontë crafted novels that have stood the test of time and taken their place as literary classics. These women were exceptions to the rule. Patriarchy had been firmly entrenched in Western society for so long that women writers faced an uphill climb to gain any level recognition and acceptance. Some authors, like Mary Ann Evans, felt the need to work under a male pseudonym in order to receive recognition. Evans published her first two novels, Adam Bede and Scenes of Clerical Life, under the false name of George Eliot. Interestingly, even today Evans is more commonly known by her pseudonym than her real name.
In the early years of the Victorian Period, poetry was still the most visible of literary forms. Like everything else, poetry and poetics underwent an evolution during the nineteenth century. Both the purpose of poetry and its basic style and tone changed drastically during the Victorian Period. In the first half of the nineteenth century, poetry was still mired in the escapist, abstract imagery and themes of the earlier generation. While essayists and novelists were confronting social issues head-on, poets for their part remained ambivalent at best. This self-induced coma gradually lifted, and by mid-century most poets had moved away from the abstractions and metaphysical tropes of the Romantics and fashioned a more down-to-earth, realistic kind of verse. Alfred, Lord Tennyson was the master of simple, earthy lyricism to which everyone could relate. His In Memoriam shows off this simplicity and economy of verse, while remaining an effective and moving elegy for his deceased friend Arthur Hallam. The obsession with the natural world and the imagination that so clearly distinguished the Romantic poets was supplanted during the Victorian Period by a clear-headed, almost utilitarian kind of poetics. The subject matter of Victorian poetry was quite often socially-oriented, but this was by no means set in stone. Victorian poets were nothing if not masters of variety and inventiveness. Robert Browning’s dramatic monologues, for example, covered a wide array of subjects, from lucid dreams to the nature of art and even the meaning of existence. Throughout his various aesthetic experiments, Browning never failed to inject humanity into his subject matter. “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed’s Church,” one of Browning’s most famous poems, demonstrates the intensity and psychological realism he was able to portray in the space of a few hundred lines.
At some point in the Victorian era, the novel replaced the poem as the most fashionable vehicle for the transmission of literature. This fundamental shift in popular taste has remained to the present day. Serial publications in magazines and journals became more and more popular, and soon these pieces were being bound and sold in their complete forms. Dickens made full use of the serial format, and his novels betray the episodic arrangement of their original publication method. He was the first great popular novelist in England, and was the forerunner of the artist-celebrity figure which in the twentieth century would become the norm. The influence of Dickens was so severe that every novelist who came after him had to work under his aesthetic shadow. Part of his appeal certainly owed to the fact that his literary style, while always entertaining, put the ills of society under the microscope for everyone to see. His Hard Times was a condemning portrait of society’s obsession with logic and scientific advancement at the expanse of the imagination. Until the Victorian Period, the novel had been frowned upon as a lesser form of writing, incapable of the sublime reaches of lyric poetry. Critics saw that the novel appealed to a popular, often female readership, and therefore dismissed it as artless and dull. The later Victorian novelists, however, proved that the form could attain heights of artistic achievement previously reserved only for poetry. Thomas Hardy, for example, pushed the novel to its limits, significantly expanding the possibilities of the form. Although he thought of himself more as a poet, his first best talent lay in constructing detailed, fatalistic plot-structures that still captivate readers. Novels like Jude the Obscure share many qualities with Greek tragedy, of which Hardy was quite fond, but they also contain psychologically sophisticated, realistic characterizations. His gift for characterization would influence an entire generation of writers. 
Thomas Hardy must be regarded as a key forerunner of the Modernist Movement in literature. His novels and poetry all display tendencies that would reach their apex in the early twentieth century. Hardy often created desolate, hopeless worlds where life had very little meaning. He also actively questioned the relevance of modern institutions, in particular organized religion. Sentiments like these would find accomplished spokespersons in poets like T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. Another skilled poet who is often considered a precursor to Modernism is Gerard Manley Hopkins. Though he never published in his lifetime, his work was greatly received after his death. His unusual use of language set him apart from virtually every other poet of his day. Hopkins was very much concerned with religion and the nature of Creation. However, he still preserved a healthy quantity of skepticism. It is this existential doubt that, like Hardy, made Hopkins a favorite among the Modernist writers who would later discover his work.
For many, the word “Victorian” conjures up images of over-dressed ladies and snooty gentlemen gathered in parlors and reading rooms. The idea of “manners” essentially sums up the social climate of middle-class England in the nineteenth century. Rules of personal conduct were in fact so inflexible that the Victorians garnered a reputation for saying one thing while doing another – an attack that the next generation of writers would take up with vigor. In the world at large, change was happening faster than many people could comprehend. A surging global economy was orchestrated by the might of the British Empire. The nobility, formerly at the top of the pyramid in society, found their status reduced as agriculture lost its preeminence in the now industrial economy. Mechanization and steam power led to ruthless efficiency, while more often than not the poor suffered under the weight of the capitalist middle class. Being impoverished in Victorian England was unpleasant to say the least, but there were efforts underway to improve the lot of the poor. The Reform Bills of the nineteenth century extended voting rights to men who were previously disenfranchised – but not, of course, to women. That would require years more of struggle. For all of the social inequalities which still persisted, the Victorians successfully undermined some of humanity’s most time-honored institutions. Some writers greeted these changes with fear, and wanted desperately for society to check its relentless pace. Others embraced the new world that was coming into being, thrilled at the progress of science and society. Together, these voices comprise an important and sometimes overlooked era in English literary history.
This article is copyrighted © 2011 by Jalic Inc. Do not reprint it without permission. Written by Josh Rahn. Josh holds a Masters degree in English Literature from Morehead State University, and a Masters degree in Library Science from the University of Kentucky.
Major Writers of the Victorian Period

Posted by at No comments:

Monday, 26 December 2016

victoria

Defining Victorian literature in any satisfactory and comprehensive manner has proven troublesome for critics ever since the nineteenth century came to a close. The movement roughly comprises the years from 1830 to 1900, though there is ample disagreement regarding even this simple point. The name given to the period is borrowed from the royal matriarch of England, Queen Victoria, who sat on throne from 1837 to 1901. One has difficulty determining with any accuracy where the Romantic Movement of the early nineteenth century leaves off and the Victorian Period begins because these traditions have so many aspects in common. Likewise, identifying the point where Victorianism gives way completely to Modernism is no easy task. Literary periods are never the discrete, self-contained realms which the anthologies so suggest. Rather, a literary period more closely resembles a rope that is frayed at both ends. Many threads make up the rope and work together to form the whole artistic and cultural milieu. The Victorian writers exhibited some well-established habits from previous eras, while at the same time pushing arts and letters in new and interesting directions. Indeed, some of the later Victorian novelists and poets are nearly indistinguishable from the Modernists who followed shortly thereafter. In spite of the uncertainty of terminology, there are some concrete statements that one can make regarding the nature of Victorian literature, and the intellectual world which nurtured that literature.
If there is one transcending aspect to Victorian England life and society, that aspect is change – or, more accurately, upheaval. Everything that the previous centuries had held as sacred and indisputable truth came under assault during the middle and latter parts of the nineteenth century. Nearly every institution of society was shaken by rapid and unpredictable change. Improvements to steam engine technology led to increased factory production. More manufacturing required more coal to be mined from the ground. The economies of Europe expanded and accelerated, as the foundations of a completely global economy were laid. Huge amounts of wealth were created, and the spirit of the times discouraged the regulation of business practices. Today, this is called laissez-faire economics. This generation of wealth was to the sole benefit of the newly risen “middle class,” an urbane, entrepreneurial segment of society which saw itself as the natural successor to the noble’s former position of influence. At the same time, scientific advancements were undermining the position of the Church in daily life. Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution and natural selection brought humanity down to the level of the animal, and seemingly reduced the meaning of life to a bloody struggle for survival. Rather than a benign Creator, the world was dominated and steered by strength alone. In the general population, the ever-present gap between the haves and have-nots widened significantly during the Victorian period. The poorest of their poor found their lot in life to be worse than it had ever been, as the new market economy favored industry over agriculture. Large numbers of dispossessed farmers and peasants migrated from the countryside to the cities, seeking work in the factories. The effects of that demographic shift can still be observed. Conditions in the overwhelmed, sprawling cities degenerated as the infrastructure simply could not handle the influx of new workers. Slums and shantytowns became the norm, and depredation was a fact of life for the majority of the working class.
For some, the fundamental changes taking place in the world meant progress, and were a source of hope and optimism. For the majority of writers and thinkers, however, the inequality present in Victorian society was a kind of illness that would sooner or later come to a tipping point. Many intellectuals saw it as their duty to speak out against the injustices of this new and frightening world. Essayists like Thomas Carlyle railed against the systematic abuse he saw happening all around him. He saw machinery and the Industrial Revolution as engines of destruction, stripping people of their very humanity. The level of social consciousness and immediate relevancy one finds in much of Victorian writing was something not witnessed before in English letters. Rather than turning inside or escaping into fantasy, essayists and novelists chose to directly address the pressing social problems of the day. These problems ranged from atrocious labor conditions and rampant poverty to the issue of women’s place in the world – what contemporaries referred to as “The Woman Question.” Elizabeth Barrett-Browning’s long-form poem “The Cry of the Children” represents an attack on mining practices in England, specifically the employment of young children to work deep in the mines. Barrett-Browning had been outraged by a report she read detailing the practice and felt compelled to make her voice heard on the issue. She was certainly not alone in this feeling. Novelist Charles Dickens made a cottage industry out of addressing social ills in a light-hearted, optimistic tone. Each of his many novels called attention to real-world problems that others might just as soon have swept under the rug. Dickens is also noteworthy for his “rock star” status, attaining popularity that would not have been possible in the previous generation. He wrote with a voice that was very accessible to the ordinary reader of the time, and yet couched within his fiction were essential questions that society would sooner or later be forced to confront. One cannot say exactly how much influence Dickens and others had on their society, but the fact that they tried to change their world is what is important. Writers of the preceding era did not speak to a popular audience nearly as much as the Victorians, or at least not as self-consciously. The Romantic Movement was marked by introversion and abstraction; they were much less interested in commenting on, much less altering the course of world events. Furthermore, the Romantics did not see leadership as a primary objective for art. Victorians, on the other hand, tacitly agreed that encouraging society toward a higher good was a righteous, noble occupation for any artist.
Not surprisingly, women in the Victorian world held very little power and had to fight hard for the change they wanted in their lives. What one thinks of as feminism today had not yet taken form in the Victorian period. The philosophy of female emancipation, however, became a rallying point for many female Victorian writers and thinkers. Though their philosophies and methods were often quite divergent, the ultimate goal of intellectual women in the nineteenth century was largely the same. Poets and novelists frequently had to be coy when addressing their status in society. Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” combines early feminist imagery with many other concepts in a fairy-tale like world of imagination. Her use of religious symbolism is especially fascinating. Though not as highly regarded, Letitia Elizabeth Landon was also an accomplished and popular female poet. Charlotte and Emily Brontë crafted novels that have stood the test of time and taken their place as literary classics. These women were exceptions to the rule. Patriarchy had been firmly entrenched in Western society for so long that women writers faced an uphill climb to gain any level recognition and acceptance. Some authors, like Mary Ann Evans, felt the need to work under a male pseudonym in order to receive recognition. Evans published her first two novels, Adam Bede and Scenes of Clerical Life, under the false name of George Eliot. Interestingly, even today Evans is more commonly known by her pseudonym than her real name.
In the early years of the Victorian Period, poetry was still the most visible of literary forms. Like everything else, poetry and poetics underwent an evolution during the nineteenth century. Both the purpose of poetry and its basic style and tone changed drastically during the Victorian Period. In the first half of the nineteenth century, poetry was still mired in the escapist, abstract imagery and themes of the earlier generation. While essayists and novelists were confronting social issues head-on, poets for their part remained ambivalent at best. This self-induced coma gradually lifted, and by mid-century most poets had moved away from the abstractions and metaphysical tropes of the Romantics and fashioned a more down-to-earth, realistic kind of verse. Alfred, Lord Tennyson was the master of simple, earthy lyricism to which everyone could relate. His In Memoriam shows off this simplicity and economy of verse, while remaining an effective and moving elegy for his deceased friend Arthur Hallam. The obsession with the natural world and the imagination that so clearly distinguished the Romantic poets was supplanted during the Victorian Period by a clear-headed, almost utilitarian kind of poetics. The subject matter of Victorian poetry was quite often socially-oriented, but this was by no means set in stone. Victorian poets were nothing if not masters of variety and inventiveness. Robert Browning’s dramatic monologues, for example, covered a wide array of subjects, from lucid dreams to the nature of art and even the meaning of existence. Throughout his various aesthetic experiments, Browning never failed to inject humanity into his subject matter. “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed’s Church,” one of Browning’s most famous poems, demonstrates the intensity and psychological realism he was able to portray in the space of a few hundred lines.
At some point in the Victorian era, the novel replaced the poem as the most fashionable vehicle for the transmission of literature. This fundamental shift in popular taste has remained to the present day. Serial publications in magazines and journals became more and more popular, and soon these pieces were being bound and sold in their complete forms. Dickens made full use of the serial format, and his novels betray the episodic arrangement of their original publication method. He was the first great popular novelist in England, and was the forerunner of the artist-celebrity figure which in the twentieth century would become the norm. The influence of Dickens was so severe that every novelist who came after him had to work under his aesthetic shadow. Part of his appeal certainly owed to the fact that his literary style, while always entertaining, put the ills of society under the microscope for everyone to see. His Hard Times was a condemning portrait of society’s obsession with logic and scientific advancement at the expanse of the imagination. Until the Victorian Period, the novel had been frowned upon as a lesser form of writing, incapable of the sublime reaches of lyric poetry. Critics saw that the novel appealed to a popular, often female readership, and therefore dismissed it as artless and dull. The later Victorian novelists, however, proved that the form could attain heights of artistic achievement previously reserved only for poetry. Thomas Hardy, for example, pushed the novel to its limits, significantly expanding the possibilities of the form. Although he thought of himself more as a poet, his first best talent lay in constructing detailed, fatalistic plot-structures that still captivate readers. Novels like Jude the Obscure share many qualities with Greek tragedy, of which Hardy was quite fond, but they also contain psychologically sophisticated, realistic characterizations. His gift for characterization would influence an entire generation of writers. 
Thomas Hardy must be regarded as a key forerunner of the Modernist Movement in literature. His novels and poetry all display tendencies that would reach their apex in the early twentieth century. Hardy often created desolate, hopeless worlds where life had very little meaning. He also actively questioned the relevance of modern institutions, in particular organized religion. Sentiments like these would find accomplished spokespersons in poets like T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. Another skilled poet who is often considered a precursor to Modernism is Gerard Manley Hopkins. Though he never published in his lifetime, his work was greatly received after his death. His unusual use of language set him apart from virtually every other poet of his day. Hopkins was very much concerned with religion and the nature of Creation. However, he still preserved a healthy quantity of skepticism. It is this existential doubt that, like Hardy, made Hopkins a favorite among the Modernist writers who would later discover his work.
For many, the word “Victorian” conjures up images of over-dressed ladies and snooty gentlemen gathered in parlors and reading rooms. The idea of “manners” essentially sums up the social climate of middle-class England in the nineteenth century. Rules of personal conduct were in fact so inflexible that the Victorians garnered a reputation for saying one thing while doing another – an attack that the next generation of writers would take up with vigor. In the world at large, change was happening faster than many people could comprehend. A surging global economy was orchestrated by the might of the British Empire. The nobility, formerly at the top of the pyramid in society, found their status reduced as agriculture lost its preeminence in the now industrial economy. Mechanization and steam power led to ruthless efficiency, while more often than not the poor suffered under the weight of the capitalist middle class. Being impoverished in Victorian England was unpleasant to say the least, but there were efforts underway to improve the lot of the poor. The Reform Bills of the nineteenth century extended voting rights to men who were previously disenfranchised – but not, of course, to women. That would require years more of struggle. For all of the social inequalities which still persisted, the Victorians successfully undermined some of humanity’s most time-honored institutions. Some writers greeted these changes with fear, and wanted desperately for society to check its relentless pace. Others embraced the new world that was coming into being, thrilled at the progress of science and society. Together, these voices comprise an important and sometimes overlooked era in English literary history.
This article is copyrighted © 2011 by Jalic Inc. Do not reprint it without permission. Written by Josh Rahn. Josh holds a Masters degree in English Literature from Morehead State University, and a Masters degree in Library Science from the University of Kentucky.
Major Writers of the Victorian Period
Posted by at No comments:

existentialism online literature

I think therefore I am.” Though reduced now to the level of cliché, Rene Descartes’ famous maxim sums up perfectly the philosophical underpinnings of existentialist thought. Existentialism has its roots in the writings of several nineteenth and twentieth century philosophers, among them Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Søren Kierkegaard. The philosophy is by most standards a very loose conglomeration of perspectives, aesthetics, and approaches to dealing with the world and its inherent difficulties. There are therefore countless permutations and flavors of existentialism which cross disciplinary lines and modes of inquiry. In the most general sense, existentialism deals with the recurring problem of finding meaning within existence. From this perspective, there are no meanings or structures that precede one’s own existence, as one finds in organized religion. Therefore, the individual must find or create meaning for his or her self. Existentialist thought has garnered an unfair reputation for pessimism and even full-blown nihilism. This reputation is somewhat understandable. The idea of created meaning strikes some as ultimately meaningless or even absurd. Some of the popular tropes associated with existential philosophy, such as angst, boredom, or fear, likewise strike the average observer as dripping with pessimism. However, nothing in the philosophical train of thought of existentialism dictates a negative view of humanity or reality. In fact, much of the philosophy revolves around the limitless capacity for ethically and intellectually engaged persons to enact change in the world. Positive change is then an imperative for the true existentialist; otherwise existence is a complete void. To put it another way, it is not simply enough to “be.” One has to be “something” or life truly lacks meaning or purpose. From this point of view, existentialism has the potential to indeed be a very positive means of approaching reality.
The writings of Søren Kierkegaard provided the base upon which later thinkers and artists built up the edifice of existential philosophy. Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher deeply interested in human psychology and Christian ethics. His principal concerns were with how people responded under crisis, and the choices one made in the shaping of one’s life. One of his most famous works is Fear and Trembling, an exploration of the nature of faith in the face of complete loss and fear. A speculation on the psychology and emotions of Abraham when asked by God to sacrifice his son Isaac, Fear and Trembling is a fundamental work in the canon of Christian existentialism. More than that, Kierkegaard paints a portrait of total loneliness, secrecy, doubt, and finally resignation to fate. His work complicates the simplistic and ideal notions of religious faith, showing real and absolute faith to be a kind of limitless, timeless sacrifice to an unknowable being. Later existential thinkers would frame their discourse differently, but Kierkegaard’s basic tenets have remained powerfully influential for generations of artists and thinkers.
The art world has been enormously influenced by the current of existential thought, even from its very beginnings in the nineteenth century. First the novel, and later the cinema each had unique contributions to make to existential philosophy. Many existential philosophers have intimated that literature is especially well positioned to communicate the central tenets of their philosophy. From this perspective, art tends to act as a lens which either focuses or diffuses certain modes of thinking which pass through it. In that sense, an existential novelist absorbs the ideas in vogue at the time and reproduces them within literature. Just as existential philosophy is difficult to fit neatly into a box, one cannot simply boil the literature of existentialism down to a simple recipe. There are multiple strains and variations from one author to the next, yet still just enough commonalities to see the shared underlying principles. It is perhaps more productive to discuss the work of several individual authors than to attempt a sweeping overview of the whole movement.
In world literature, few have been as universally admired as Fyodor Dostoyevsky. He has been grouped with several different literary movements because his novels display so many characteristics so well. While his work is distinctly, unmistakably Russian, his characters and their specific dilemmas transcend cultural boundaries and speak to the shared problems of all humans living in modern times. Crime and Punishment is a profound example of how some of the principles of existentialist thinking can be perverted, leading to ethical decay and personal destruction. The lead character – one hesitates to label him a protagonist – Raskolnikov believes that he can justify for himself the murder of a greedy pawnbroker who lives near him. In his own mind, Raskolnikov hypothesizes that he can justify the crime of nature by using the stolen money to perform good works. This kind of moral calculus, carried out by a lone individual and not sanctioned by the greater society, is ultimately bankrupt and doomed to failure. In addition to the quasi-moralistic rationalizations for murder, Raskolnikov mythologizes himself as imbued with personal power in the mold of a Napoleon. He posits that certain individuals are born with the right and the privilege to act outside of ordinary societal rules and expectations. That all these machinations fall away and leave Raskolnikov with nothing but animalistic fear demonstrates the real danger of elevating one’s ego too high. Dostoyevsky knew a little something about feeling powerless. He spent five years as a political prisoner in the gulags of Siberia. It is no coincidence that his greatest works would be produced upon return from exile.
The writings of Franz Kafka have long been associated with twentieth century existentialism. Born to Jewish parents in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kafka lived through the turmoil of the First World War. The death and destruction which ravaged Central and Western Europe most definitely had an impact on Kafka’s aesthetics. He actually never completed a full-length novel, and is most famous for his novella The Metamorphosis, in which a man awakens to find himself transformed into something hideous. Critics have pointed out that in the translation from German to English, a great deal of the wit of Kafka’s writing is lost. However, the primary themes which Kafka wished to convey are understandable in any language. Like many existential writers, Franz Kafka saw the individual as being caught up in systems and bureaucracies that were beyond understanding. Even existence becomes a kind of control over personal autonomy. The natural response to this is to resign from life, but Kafka presents the situation with dry humor. He approaches the inherent terror of existence with a wink and a nod, and embraces the absurdity of everything. Later in the twentieth century, the comedy troupe Monty Python would in a sense follow in Kafka’s steps, presenting life as ultimately absurd and as meaningful or meaningless as one chose to make it.
The name most synonymous with existential literature is Albert Camus, despite the fact that he himself rejected the label. His novels typically represent characters caught up in situations and systems well beyond their control, and the ways in which they cope with such seeming futility. In The Stranger, the protagonist Meursault almost randomly commits a murder on the beach, yet seems to lack deep human feelings. He by all accounts feels no remorse for his act, nor sadness for the recent passing of his mother. The prevailing themes of the novel are isolation and ostracism, and the sense of being insignificant within the larger systems of society. In the prison awaiting execution, Meursault is incapable of any sort of epiphany regarding his actions or place in the world – all that he understands is absurdity. The absurd and the isolated nature of human existence is definitely a recurring theme for Camus. A somewhat more positivist example of Camus’ point of view can be found in The Plague, a novel recounting an outbreak of the bubonic plague in a small port city. Those trapped within the city walls with the disease are forced to summon inner reserves of strength and determination in the face of the ultimate negative force – death.
The twentieth century’s greatest existential thinker was undoubtedly Frenchman Paul Sartre. Uniquely, Sartre was the only person to ever decline the Nobel Prize in Literature award. His was a life committed to activism and the advancement of social causes. His literary contributions were relatively few, but profound. In The Nausea, Sartre tells that story of an academic who becomes aware of the intense singularity of his own existence. Objects and even other people are completely outside of his experience, no matter what steps he takes to impart his own meanings onto them. This leads to the realization of complete freedom, but also complete isolation. In the novel, this freedom is terrifying. The title explains perfectly the feelings of the protagonist when confronted with his own essential Being. In real life, Sartre saw this complete freedom as an imperative towards action. Given ultimate freedom, humans had ultimate responsibility for their own actions. In this way, Sartre took existentialism in a very positive direction. He advocated for the downtrodden, and continually struggled for a more egalitarian society based on the worth of each individual.
The theater of Samuel Beckett brings together themes and concepts common to several periods of literary and intellectual history. His drama is most frequently characterized by spare, minimalist settings, peopled by beings that seem incomplete and strange. There is a distinct rejection of traditional stage play structures and expectations. The conflicts which Beckett presents to the audience – for all drama must have some conflict – are sometimes so obfuscating as to frustrate and distort meaning entirely. Characters do not know where they are or what their purpose is or their purpose lacks discernible meaning. Audiences often find Beckett extremely frustrating and inaccessible, but one could argue that inaccessibility is precisely the point. Existence itself is difficult, confusing, frustrating and even at its very end refuses to divulge any meaning other than what the individual has created for him or herself. With that in mind, the theater of Beckett is truly a mirror held up to the insanity of modern existence. Seemingly fantastic and meaningless settings mimic those same settings which people inhabit daily, from the office to the mall to the subway train. Anyone who has stopped in the middle of their daily routine and realized, “This is crazy,” is a co-conspirator with Samuel Beckett.
Contemporary film and literature have by no means given up the ghost of existential thought. Chuck Palahniuk, Stanley Kubrick, and David Lynch all have created works of art that follow a direct line from nineteenth century existential philosophy. Palahniuk offers a prime example of how existentialist ideas can still permeate work that is firmly rooted in the contemporary idiom. In Fight Club, readers are introduced to a fast-talking, mentally unstable protagonist who regurgitates a lot of the ideas of existentialism, yet simultaneously cannot grasp the import of the philosophy he recites. The modern world, which commodifies everything, even one’s internal life, has rendered all philosophies essentially bankrupt. The reaction of the protagonist is to rail against that commodification in ever more violent ways, but nevertheless he cannot escape the commercial, postmodern world which he inhabits. Part of him understands this, and resists the urge to simply annihilate things – this provides the greatest twist of the novel – and that part of him is ultimately correct. The unfortunate conclusion that Palahniuk forces the reader to grapple with is that existence as such has become a commodity, a blank slate for advertisers, and the individual no longer has self-ownership and self-determination. Of course given that Palahniuk is writing in a very contemporary idiom, many interpretations are absolutely possible. One could even read that an embrace of commodity culture, a sell-out to buy-in, is the most meaningful response possible in the world that has come to pass in the twenty-first century.
As quickly as it came into the mainstream, existentialist philosophy and literature fell out of fashion. There are several reasonable explanations for this. In the first place, the labels that critics give to periods of intellectual and literary history are frequently applied in hindsight. Existentialism was never really a cohesive body of thought, but instead a vague and amorphous intersection of ideas, questions, and methods of inquiry. Few people labeled themselves as existentialists. Many, in fact, resisted the appellation altogether. Second, the adoption of existentialist philosophical principles in popular art reduced its significance to that of a product, a kind of kitsch that many self-respecting thinkers shied away from. Contemporary literature adopts, discards, and modifies so many philosophical and aesthetic perspectives that holistic points of view like existentialism gets washed out by all the competing voices. However, the influence of existential thought is not totally swept away, as many filmmakers and novelists still claim the likes of Kafka or Sartre as prime inspirations.
This article is copyrighted © 2011 by Jalic Inc. Do not reprint it without permission. Written by Josh Rahn. Josh holds a Masters degree in English Literature from Morehead State University, and a Masters degree in Library Science from the University of Kentucky.
Major Existentialist Writers
Posted by at No comments:

current

The successful test-firing of the long-range ballistic missile Agni-V for the fourth time is a significant step towards building a credible nuclear deterrence. With this test and the recent commissioning of the indigenously built nuclear submarine INS Arihant, India is inching towards creating a robust and world-class second-strike capability. For a nation sworn to no-first-use of nuclear weapons, a reliable second-strike capability is an absolute necessity. In the worst-case scenario, the country should have the ability to withstand an enemy nuclear strike on its key locations and launch a successful second strike. Agni-V rose up from a canister mounted on a truck stationed at Dr. Abdul Kalam Island, Odisha, and went up a few hundred kilometres before following a ballistic trajectory and splashing down near Australian waters, some 20 minutes after the launch. This was the fourth test of the Agni-V missile, but the second from a canister mounted on a road mobile launcher. With the four tests, Agni-V is now ready for induction into the Strategic Forces Command, which already operates other Agni missiles with a target range from 700 km to 4,000 km, besides Prithvi-II.
However, despite the impressive strides made by the security establishment in developing nuclear weapons and delivery platforms, there is still a long way to go before the nuclear triad is complete and competent. Just a few days ago, the Nirbhay land attack cruise missile meant to carry nuclear warheads failed for the fourth time during a test. On December 21, it veered off its designated flight path within a couple of minutes of launch, and it had to be destroyed mid-air. There are several such gaps to be filled to ensure a foolproof nuclear triad. A credible second-strike capability should also be complemented by a modern, powerful military. The Indian military is in crying need of modernisation across its three arms. The Air Force has a huge shortage of fighters; the Navy’s submarine arm is far from meeting multiple challenges; and the Army needs an array of new platforms. Most importantly, India also needs to consistently showcase itself as a responsible nuclear power, and not just through a no-first-strike policy. India has a mature political and military leadership today. In a complex global strategic environment, where nations issue nuclear threats based on fake news and global powers threaten to add to their already bulky arsenal, it is important to be recognised as a responsible democracy.
Posted by at No comments:

ethics abraham and isac

Fear and Trembling centers on the biblical story of Abraham. Abraham, childless after 80 years, prays for a son. God grants his wish, and Abraham has Isaac. Thirty years later, God orders Abraham to kill his son. Abraham prepares to kill Isaac, but at the last second God spares Isaac and allows Abraham to sacrifice a ram instead. Fear and Trembling includes four different retellings of the story, each with a slightly different viewpoint. In the first version, Abraham decides to kill Isaac in accordance with God’s will. Abraham convinces Isaac that he’s doing it by his own will, not by God’s. This is a lie, but Abraham says to himself that he would rather have Isaac lose faith in his father than lose faith in God. In the second version, Abraham sacrifices a ram instead of Isaac. Even though God spares Isaac, Abraham’s faith is shaken because God asked him to kill Isaac in the first place. In the third version, Abraham decides not to kill Isaac and then prays to God to forgive him for having thought of sacrificing his son in the first place. In the fourth version, Abraham can’t go through with killing Isaac. Isaac begins to question his own faith due to Abraham’s refusal to do what God commanded.
In the rest of Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard examines his four retellings of the story of Abraham, focusing on the religious and the ethical. Kierkegaard claims that the killing of Isaac is ethically wrong but religiously right. Kierkegaard also uses his retelling of the Abraham story to distinguish between faith and resignation. Abraham could have been resigned to kill Isaac just because God told him to do so and because he knew that God was always right. However, Kierkegaard claims that Abraham did not act out of a resignation that God must always be obeyed but rather out of faith that God would not do something that was ethically wrong. Abraham knew that killing Isaac was ethically wrong, but he had faith that God would spare his son. Abraham decided to do something ethically wrong because having faith in God’s good will was religiously right. Kierkegaard claims that the tension between ethics and religion causes Abraham anxiety.
Kierkegaard argues that his retellings of the story of Abraham demonstrate the importance of a “teleological suspension of the ethical.” Teleological means “in regard to the end.” If you are hungry and you eat something with the goal of no longer being hungry, then you made a teleological decision: you acted, by eating, so as to achieve the end of no longer being hungry. Abraham performs a teleological suspension of the ethical when he decides to kill Isaac. Abraham knows that killing Isaac is unethical. However, Abraham decides to suspend the ethical—in other words, to put ethical concerns on the back burner—because he has faith in the righteousness of the end (or telos) that God will bring about. Abraham’s faith that God will not allow an unethical telos allows him to make what seems to be an unethical decision. Abraham puts religious concerns over ethical concerns, thus proving his faith in God.

Analysis

Fear and Trembling details the relationship between the ethical and the religious in much the same way that Either/Or details the relationship between the aesthetic and ethical. In Either/Or, the aesthetic and the ethical are not entirely opposed. In Fear and Trembling, the ethical and the religious are not directly opposed either. However, the tension between ethics and religion produces anxiety. Abraham feels anxiety because it is his ethical duty to spare Isaac and his religious duty to sacrifice Isaac. Ethics are for the good of the many, and they transcend an individual’s personal aesthetic concerns, but Abraham recognizes that his personal relationship to God transcends his social commitment to ethics. If Abraham had desired to kill Isaac, this would have been both immoral and irreligious. However, Abraham doesn’t decide to kill Isaac for personal aesthetic reasons or for social ethical reasons. Abraham decides to kill Isaac because of Abraham’s personal faith that God will not actually allow Isaac to die.
Kierkegaard believes ethics are important to society but that only an individual can approach God, and an individual can only approach God through faith. Kierkegaard argues that Abraham’s faith in God was a faith that God wouldn’t really make Abraham kill Isaac. If Abraham had not had enough faith, he would have refused to kill his son. Abraham’s faith allowed a teleological suspension of the ethical. Kierkegaard uses this story to illustrate strong faith. Abraham’s faith was tested by God, and Abraham passed the test. In this way Kierkegaard attempts to draw a distinction between the blind obedience required by the church and the true faith of the individual. Kierkegaard would argue that if Abraham had only been willing to kill Isaac because God ordered him to do so, this would have demonstrated obedience, not faith. Instead, the Abraham of Kierkegaard’s retelling is willing to kill Isaac because of his faith that God won’t actually make him kill Isaac. This sounds like a paradox, or an inherently contradictory situation. However, the seeming paradox highlights the distinction between faith and belief. Abraham has faith that God won’t make him kill Isaac, but that doesn’t mean he believes it. To believe something is to be assured of it; to have faith requires the possibility that you will be proven wrong. If Abraham genuinely believed that God wouldn’t make him kill Isaac, the sacrifice would be no kind of test. However, Abraham cannot be fully assured that his son will be spared. He must have faith that Isaac will not die, even though he believes that he must kill him.
Kierkegaard illustrates one of the essential paradoxes, or seeming impossibilities, of ethics. An ethical system consists of rules that are established to promote the welfare of large groups of people. However, sometimes the rules actually harm people, and following a rule may help one person but harm ten. Ethical systems are created to achieve certain ends, but humans lack the ability to see into the future. Therefore, no one can be completely certain of how to reach these desired ends. Faith in God answers this uncertainty because it removes the burden of prediction. Faith involves the teleological suspension of the ethical, in which faith allows one to believe that an unethical action will actually result in a better end. Humans alone have no access to this kind of information, only God does. Therefore, humans must put their trust in God whenever doing so conflicts with society’s ethical systems. The decision to do this produces anxiety because a person can never know if he or she has passed the test until the test is complete. Kierkegaard thinks anxiety is a negative feeling, yet it can be taken as a positive sign that one is pursuing the correct relationship with God.
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)