Why the Greeks?
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
I take the question which is the title of this paper in two ways. First, I take it to mean, “what racial, historical, cultural, geographical and political factors gave rise to what is commonly considered the first flowering of philosophical thought;” Second, to mean, “for what...
Modern tragedy-The crucible
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
In the history of the theatre, tragedies have always existed as a window to human nature. They depict man at his best, ready to sacrifice everything, even his life for the cause. The different types of tragedy include Sophocles's Greek tragedy, Shakespearean romantic tragedy, and modern...
American art : An interface with the modern art
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Throughout the history of art, different movements arise as a result of the social, political, economic, and emotional state of mind that both people and nations are experiencing at a given time. Modern art and postmodern art are no two exceptions to these circumstances and have come to be for...
Fitzgerald and modernism
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Throughout periods of literature, Modernism has revolted against former social standards and subject matter that is both prohibited and restricted in conversation and literature alike. The early 1900s were a time when writers were determining for themselves what they deemed to be important and...
Memorize your timetables: The rational world and the power of prediction in Tabucchi's La Testa Perduta di Damasceno Monteiro
Tutorials/exercises - 4 pages - Philosophy
In Antonio Tabucchi's La Testa Perduta di Damasceno Monteiro, the reader is pulled into a detective murder-mystery dealing with decapitation, murder suspects named il Grillo Verde, and tripe. Of particular interest, however, is the character of Don Fernando, a lawyer whose mind flies from topic...
An investigation into cause and effect in Hume
Book review - 4 pages - Philosophy
My roommate has asserted that every time she breathes pepper, she sneezes. Her past experience of breathing pepper and sneezing has always reflected her future experience of breathing pepper and sneezing. She claims that if she amasses a sufficient number of similar cases where the future has...
The circle of life: A comparative look at the metaphysics of Conway and Spinoza
Book review - 3 pages - Philosophy
Both Lady Anne Conway and Baruch Spinoza argue that the individual things in the world, everything from the mosquito to the chair to the supermodel, contain the substance of God. And by sharing in the substance of God, the chair, the supermodel, and the mosquito are all alike. At the same time,...
European social philosophy: A look at human need in Hegel's "Modern civil society"
Book review - 4 pages - Philosophy
In his Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Hegel gives an account of the modern social world as consisting of three institutions: the family, civil society, and the state. Focusing on modern civil society, I plan to discuss one of several ways in which human need is affected by this...
Human catharsis in war
Essay - 5 pages - Philosophy
Do you ever look at something for so long it doesn't make sense anymore? Have you ever been stuck in a moment that was your entire life? Cheated death, but regretted it afterwards? Looked at the man standing next to you and thought, “Who will die first, you or me?” This is every single...
Sir Thomas Browne: The cosmography of himself
Essay - 6 pages - Philosophy
There is an adventurer who discovers more that is truly surprising, than the one who penetrates jungles, crosses deserts, and keeps the company of caravans; for all ‘Africa, and her prodigies' cannot have an effect on the placid, unplumbed nature, other than to store up images in his mind;...
Moral philosophy on God, rationality, and the death of both
Essay - 6 pages - Philosophy
Right off the get go one can see these two philosopher's thoughts on morality appose one another, but their differences goes far beyond a petty disagreement over morality. The nature of their conflict goes much deeper, past a simple debate over what is good and what is evil. Together these two...
The ethics of Merton: Non-violence and its connection with the sacred
Essay - 9 pages - Philosophy
Nonviolence is both a form of theory and the commitment to a lifestyle which adheres to this theory. Although there are different perceptions of the importance of direct action, nonviolence is mostly defined by its attitude of understanding and humility. The nonviolent tradition believes strongly...
Analyzing the Amplesso: The philosophy of lovemaking in Calvino's Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore
Book review - 4 pages - Philosophy
Italo Calvino's Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore is usually acclaimed on grounds of its experimentation with narrativity. More specifically, Calvino weaves the beginnings of ten different pseudo-novels into a larger plotline involving the adventures of a reader (Lettore), who the narrator...
The path to freedom
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
This book as a whole does not tell a story; that is, the trace of events and the overall course of Irish independence don't go from beginning to end and tell. Rather, each chapter depicts a significant time period in the history of Ireland that Collins, the author, witnessed. Everything is more...
Edgar Allan Poe: The relationship between symbolic imagery and the human psyche in "Metzengerstein" and "A Tale Of The Ragged Mountains"
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the best known authors in American literature. John Kehoe (1997) discusses Poe's life in his brief biographical article “Edgar Allan Poe.” Kehoe explains that Poe is considered to be one of the major literary figures of the Romantic Movement that existed...
Anne Frank's "The Diary of a Young Girl" and Elie Wiesel's "Night": A literary analysis and comparison of Holocaust literature
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
The Holocaust of the 1940s is one of the most abominable periods in world history. Approximately eleven million Jews lost their lives during World War II due to Nazi genocidal policy enforced by Adolf Hitler. Jews were beaten to death, starved, burned in human crematoriums, enslaved, and...
Mind control and nineteen eighty-four and brave new world.
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Dystopia is, “an imaginary place or state in which the condition of life is extremely bad, as from deprivation, oppression, or terror.” (Dictionary) In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four, we are introduced to two different dystopian societies. Mind...
Literature's ladder
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Each age of British Literature- from Romanticism to Post-Modernism, can be seen as a rung on a ladder that ushered in the next age. As each age instigates, encourages, and nourishes change and progress, a new age is ushered in. And just as one can not get to the top of the ladder without the...
Facing adversity : Women and religion in Alice Walker's "The Color Purple"
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Alice Walker's “The Color Purple” is one of the most well known novels in contemporary literature. This book places the author among the top literary canon of American writers. Since its first publication in 1982, the novel continuously gains both positive acclaims and ambivalent...
Unifying mankind through asexuality and abstraction
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
The unprecedented bloodshed, terror, and violence that blanketed Europe during World War I left the people at the War's end saddened and detached, and the world, “chaotic and fragmented” (Tepper, p.79). Over ten million people had died, had been slaughtered, not counting those who...
A child's sex and age as predictors of the total time spent engaging in sex-specific toy play
Tutorials/exercises - 14 pages - Philosophy
This naturalistic observational study examined the effect of a child's sex and age with regard to how long comparatively that child is likely to engage in the three established categories of sex-specific toy play: male sex-specific toy play, female sex-specific toy play, and neutral toy play....
History and spirituality of the book of common prayer
Essay - 5 pages - Philosophy
Introduction The Book of Common Prayer is the universal title given to a number of prayer books in the Church of England and used all throughout the Anglican Communion. The very first volume, that came out in 1549, in the reign of Edward VI, was the creation and the result of the English...
Neoclassicism
Essay - 6 pages - Philosophy
During the late eighteenth century, significant changes in the arts promulgated the development of, what has since become known, as the period of a neoclassicism. The period has become such an important part of art and architectural history that any examination of these areas must include an...
Portrayals of traditional and contemporary views on marriage in Postwar Vietnam through modern Vietnamese literature
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Marriage is a historically worldwide phenomenon. However, different times and cultures hold distinct views towards marriage. What constitutes a traditional or untraditional marriage varies greatly from culture to culture and even from time to time within a particular culture. Examining the...
The lady of Shalott" by William Holman Hunt
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
To begin, the referenced version of Hunt's The Lady of Shalott holds a history and meaning unparalleled to most paintings. Most significantly, this was the final painting completed by Hunt before passing away in 1910 (Stilo, par. 2). The finished product of this painting is derived from its...
Take that Baudrillard: The absurdity of narrative and the possibility of meaning in Candide
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
Voltaire has been said to have been mocking Leibniz's popular theory that “whatever is, is right,” (Pope, l.294) in Candide. While that is true, it only scratches the surface. The more significant fact is that the language and logic with which Candide satirizes Leibniz mock the very...
Empire of the Sun by James Graham Ballard
Book review - 20 pages - Literature
Jim, an eleven year old boy, and his parents are living in a wealthy European area in Shanghai during World War II. The novel begins the evening before the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. Most of the European families had already been evacuated from China, and there were many scrambling to get...
Humor as a Mask for Anguish in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
As the quote from The New York Times points out on the back cover of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou's novel is “Simultaneously touching and comic.” Through language, choice of detail, and the story itself, Angelou introduces humor and comic relief to a narrative filled...
Jo Shapcott's Mad Cow
Essay - 7 pages - Literature
Jo Shapcott is considered to be a contemporary British poet with traits of a Desperado poet. I explore the literal and figurative meaning of the cow in some of her Mad Cow poems as well as the issues that have influenced the usage of this persona. The essay begins with a quote from the Sunday...
Moral Philosophy: A Smorgasbord of Moral Philosophers
Essay - 6 pages - Philosophy
“Aristotle, the man with a Grecian plan” Aristotle along with many of the other ancient Grecian philosophers are considered to have given birth to rational thought and its integration into philosophy, so it is no surprise that Aristotle's work on moral philosophy would focus on...
