Shakespeares Sonnet 12 and Seamus Heaneys Blackberry-Picking Essay Example for Free

Shakespeares Sonnet 12 and Seamus Heaneys Blackberry-Picking Essay Endeavor to confront Times scythe or surrender to fatalism? Compare and Contrast Shakespeares Sonnet 12 and Seamus Heaneys Blackberry-Picking By Sally, Kuok Si Nok, School of Translation and Interpreting, Beijing Language and Cultural University Human in all ages races through lives in an everlasting fight against time. Mens struggle against nature has been a timeless theme in the literary world. From the early 17th century Sonnet 12, Shakespeares When I do count the clock that tells the time, to Seamus Heaneys Blackberry-picking, written in late 20th century, both poems addresses the effect of Times scythe on the transience decayed in nature as a natural cycle of life; however, while Shakespeare adopts a positive attitude in suggesting procreation to defeat time as a temporary solution, Heaney reflects on the inevasible disappointment at the interference of natural law. To address the theme of natural cycle, Shakespeare employs elaborated diction and juxtaposes contrasting ideas to measure the passage of time, nature and youth through life: In line 1 and 2, brave day sunk in hideous night reflects the daily passage of time, line 3 and 4 link nature to humankind, by first evokes a flowers wilting stage to the image of black hair naturally aging an turning grey, line 5 to 7 discuss the progression of season from canopy to barren of leave, to white and bristly beard, indicating snow and winter. Since Heaney metaphorizes old man as white beard on the bier, it can be suggested that he also compares young maid to violet prime and young man to lofty tree. Thus, the implicit use of figurative language hints the universal law of nature on all creatures throughout Sonnet 12 a number which symbolizes hour and month (passage of time). With regard to Heaneys techniques of expression, he visualizes the decaying process of blackberry by reminiscing a childhood activity in rural Northern Ireland. In the poem, the specific temporal markings like late August, for a full week, At first, just one and every year vividly demonstrates the time sequence of blackberry growing before ultimate rot; the employment of color and texture like green, red, purple glossy and hard serves not only to illustrate the ripening blackberries, but also impact on the readers taste and tactile sensation. Most importantly, the reminiscence itself, utilizes both the perspective of Heaney as a young child and an adult looking back, and the half-rhyming pattern suggesting imperfect memory, both symbolize the passage of time and ageing process. The last line Each year I hoped theyd keep, knew they would not. suggests a repetitive emotional behavior and disillusionment, highlighting the natural law of life. Shakespeare and Heaney, though addressing the same theme, differ in the motivation and the attitude toward Times scythe. The former speaks of sterility of bachelorhood and recommends procreation as a means of immortality in the form of human race, whereas the latter blends autobiological account of disillusionment in rural life with the natural decay of blackberry, impacting the reader on the spiral of disappointment. In Sonnet 12, Shakespeare displays a strident attitude to persuade: first, brave day sunk into hideous night the antithetical choice of word establishes a stark contrast, not only between day and night, but above all, the courage and futility of battling against indefensible nature, for brave is meant to imply a visual brightness and gallantry. A man begins his live bravely, wanting to explore the world around him and learn as much as he can. Once he has reached his prime he begins to sink into his twilight years, and his beard begins to turn silver. The girls who once flocked to him have either been married or have lost interest. His beauty has waned, and been replaced by the wrinkles and gray hair that mark old age. His life continues thus until he dies; leaving the world with no one to keep his memory alive. Therefore, the repeated brave in the last line means to endure something without showing fear; in this case, that which much be endured is death, or time that will take thee hence. Second, the progression of natural creature to human emphasizes the universally incessant movement of time, further frightening his bachelor friend and readers. Lastly, the third quatrain shifts in tone and the speaker begins to talk directly to the young man, warning the inescapable fate of his beauty being engulfed by decay and eventual death. The personification of flowers images the general obligation of all creatures forsaking ones sweets and beauties to nourish offspring. Together with muscular rhyme, the palindrome-like metaphor pushes the poem to a climax. In Blackberry-picking, Heaney frames the the progression of pleasure to disappointment by two separated stanzas: he first describes his enthusiasm for picking blackberries, from tasting the first black berry of the season to the frenzy of excitement with the involvement of his peer friends; he then reflects on how his attitude towards the berries evolves into revulsion as the berries decay. Together with half-rhymes and abovementioned poetic structure, the elaborated diction and imagery associated with greed, lust, violence, sex and horror further highlight how the speaker laments the effect of time on joyful life and pleasure, both sharing a transitory nature. In line 3 and 4, one of the two only full rhymes of clot and knot invites readers to compare them, reinforcing the stark contrast between hard, unripened and soft, ripe berry. Amongst, the metaphor of a clot draws a comparison between the first berry of the season and a blood clot, first highlighting its soft juiciness and deep rich color of the berry and then associating it with flesh and blood. This introduces the sensual nature of berry-picking, which later violent and guilty association await. Words like flesh, thickened wine summers blood, hunger and lust are strong expression of human desires, usually pathological craving, which implies the intoxificating effect of the berries on the children and foreshadows of the loss of innocence in coming adulthood (Passage of time). The young ravenously gorge on the blackberries, tasting the stains upon the tongue and lust for Picking The enjambment of Picking marks the start of the next section of the poem the actual picking of blackberry, which can be perceived as the crime scene of human crippling nature. The children are sent out by hunger and desire, disregard of their inked-up hands and mouths, and randomly gather all possible containers like milk can and jam-pots in order to satisfy their bottom-less lust for berry. They frantically scour the hayfields and potato-drills, seemingly forbid any berry, ripe or not, to spare from their blood-stained mouth, oblivion to treasuring their spoils and throw them in until the tinkling bottom has been covered with green ones- fantasizing endless gratification. The last two lines in the first stanza push the crime, or the process of lust, to a climax, by juxtaposing the victims mutilated corpses staring like a plate of eyes and the assailants sticky palms like Bluebeards an allusion of a black fairytale in which a lord married a succession of bosom girls before murderi ng them. The second stanzas choice of word is the antithesis of the first: Rat-grey fungus, stinking, fruit fermented and sour starkly contrast with the not-long-ago euphoria, as the berries start to rot and go moldy, marking the post-climax downward slope of emotion plunging to the bottom. Thus, it may hint that Heaney subtly associates the arch-like process of pleasure to that of a sexual intercourse, by both diction and alliteration. Starting from first and flesh, to briar, bleached our boots and big blobs burned in the middle, then followed by pricks and palms, ending with filled we found a fur and fruit fermented, the deliberate use of alliteration pattern draws association to a complete process of copulation. Linguistically speaking, the labiodental /f/ hints the arousal and foreplay, then progress into bilabial /b/ implicating orgasm, finally ends with plosive /p/ and fricative /f/, indicating sudden stop of sensual pleasure along with frustrated insatiability. Therefore, when Heaney i ntroduces the speaker I lamenting that it wasnt fair and always felt like crying, he acts like a petulant child or a dissatisfied teenager. â€Å"At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. â€Å"That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.† â€Å"Each year I hoped theyd keep, knew they would not.† These full-rhyming couplets act as a framing device by introducing the first taste of blackberries and the excited frenzy of picking that stem from it, whereas the second couplet epilogue with Heaneys disillusionment by using antithesis to express the futility of fighting against fleeting time, from the perspective of an adult as he recognizes and looks back to the fundamental contradiction in his idea. Nevertheless, Heaney might sound less indulgent if he is alluding to a deeper significance metaphorizing blackberry and sensual pleasure as life itself. Hence, within this interpretive framework, Heaney can be understood as mirroring the same literary skill and message that Shakespeare conveys explicitly: using natural decay to intimate humans own mortality. Yet, the difference lies in the strong contrast in attitude and motivation, in which Shakespeare confidently persuades his bachelor friend whereas Heaney helplessly laments on his overwhelming fatalism.

Gary Soto Essay -- essays research papers

Throughout the autobiographical narrative written by Gary Soto, many different literary elements are used to recreate the experience of his guilty six-year old self. Different elements such as contrast, repetition, pacing, diction, and imagery. Soto narrates this story as a young boy at a time when he seems to be young and foolish, Soto foolmaking mistakes, but at the same time hoping to learn from them. Soto uses each of these devices to convey different occurrences in the narrative. Contrast is used when Soto compares himself to Eve, a biblical character, when God punished her for stealing an apple from a sacred garden. Also in the first line of the story Soto explains he â€Å"knew enough about hell to stop me from stealing†, but later in the story he states that, â€Å"the best things in life come stolen.† It is obvious these two statements contrast each other. Soto also uses repetition in this story and starts off with the driver, Mrs. Hancock, and his mom who all â€Å"knew† that he had stolen the pie. The thing is â€Å"knew† is repeated too many times in too little writing. Also though I think using â€Å"knew† so many times brings out the element of diction into the narrative because by using the word so many times, it is obviously used to show how paranoid Soto was. The word pie is at least 14 times while â€Å"I† is also used at least 42 where in the third paragraph it is used to begin the last three sentences.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Next, was the element of pacing and in the third par...

Central Nervous system &Metaphors

This essay explores the concept of an organization style metaphorically as professed by Gareth Morgan in his book Images of Organizations (1989). This essay provides examples of how the responsibilities and functionality of upper management within a corporation serve similar functions as to how the brain functions within the Central Nervous system. First, one must understand exactly what a metaphor is in order to understand how Morgan (1989) comes to his conclusion.A metaphor is defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them (2009). Morgan (1989) discusses how the brain is a metaphor for a company’s organization structure and behavior. He considers the organization as the brain and draws attention to the importance of information, learning, and intelligence, and provides a framework for understanding modern organizations . This style of organization has the capacity to be flexible and inventive with a continuous improvement mindset.The brain stores and processes enormous amounts of information in its parts simultaneously thus the end result being able to speak and walk. To understand the brain like metaphor we have to understand that the brain is made of two hemispheres. It is understood that the left side of the brain is the more logical, analytical and rational side, much like the strategy and finance side of an organization whereas the right side is more creative and emotional much like the marketing and human resources departments of an organization.Like the brain, an organization has areas that concentrate on particular parts of the business; however, the organization as a whole must work together. Each department can work on its own as can be seen in artificial intelligence such as Rodney Brooks' mobot (Morgan, 1989). The functions of an organization such as Marketing, Human Resources, Finance , Operations, and Information Technology have a series of processes which results in the function of whole organization. Each of these departments in an organization can be likened to a sensory input element to the executive â€Å"brain†.Marketing, for example, can serve as the â€Å"eyes† of the organization by providing input to the brain related to the business environment, supply and demand and other market elements important to the navigation capabilities of the organization. The Finance department acts as the â€Å"skin† by providing information about the financial atmosphere and environment of the corporate body. The Finance department â€Å"skin† can tell the corporate brain whether conditions are financially cool, or hot. Also, the †skin† can indicate whether the organization is acting in a manner that produces â€Å"pain† in terms of financial difficulties.Operations acts as the ears of an organization, providing information a bout the â€Å"balance† of the entire organization and allowing the brain of the leadership to issue the appropriate instructions to the organization to keep it moving without collapse. Human Resources acts as a taste mechanism for the organizational body, giving the brain an idea of the building blocks (personnel) that are being introduced to the organizational body. The IT department can be likened to the central nervous system. It is this department that maintains the flow of information to and from the â€Å"brain† of the organization.The metaphor of the organization as a body with the corporate officers as the brain can be further understood with respect to what happens when there are breakdowns in any one of the parts composing the organizational body. Failure of the Human Resource department, for example, can lead to the ingestion of organizational poison: workers who are not qualified for the jobs they are assigned. If the â€Å"skin† of finance fails, t he infection of debt may set in, causing necrosis to various parts of the organizational body.It is possible that such a result could result in a systemic infection that could kill the entire organization. The Operations department should malfunction; the entire organization could lose its balance and fall, destroying the organizational â€Å"brain†. Perhaps most significantly, the failure of IT to properly move information between the â€Å"brain† and the other appendages of the organization, the result is paralysis, as the messages the executive send get lost or misinterpreted. The organization-as-brain-and-body metaphor goes a long way toward explaining the interconnectivity of various aspects of organizations.All the component parts contribute information to the executive â€Å"brain† which can react quickly and guide the organization toward action that will make the most effective use of the information. The failure of any one of the component parts of the organizational body represents a hazard that threatens the organization as a whole, and the brain in particular. â€Å"Metaphor. † Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online. 17 April 2009

What Is Prior Restraint Definitions and Examples

Prior restraint is a type of censorship in which speech or expression is reviewed and restricted before it occurs. Under prior restraint, a government or authority controls what speech or expression can be publicly released. Prior restraint has a history of being viewed as a form of oppression in the United States. The Founding Fathers had experienced the effects of prior restraint while under British rule, and they specifically used language in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution—freedom of speech and freedom of the press—to guard against prior restraint, which they felt was a violation of democratic principles. Key Takeaways: Prior Restraint Prior restraint is the review and restriction of speech prior to its release.Under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects speech and freedom of the press, prior restraint is deemed unconstitutional.There are some exceptions to prohibitions against prior restraint, including obscenity and national security.Famous cases dealing with prior restraint include Near v. Minnesota, New York Times Co. v. U.S., Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart, and Brandenberg v. Ohio. Prior Restraint Definition Prior restraint is not limited to speech. It can impact all forms of expression including writing, art, and media. It legally takes the form of licenses, gag orders, and injunctions. The government might outright prevent public distribution of media, or place conditions on speech that make it difficult for it to occur. Something as seemingly harmless as a town ordinance restricting where newspapers can be sold could be considered prior restraint. Exceptions to the Prior Restraint Doctrine U.S. courts view prior restraint as unconstitutional until proven otherwise. The government entity or organization looking to review and restrict speech must offer an extremely compelling reason for the restriction to even be considered. Courts have recognized some of these reasons as exceptions to the general illegality of prior restraint. Obscenity: U.S. Courts have decided that the distribution of certain obscene material can be limited in order to preserve public decency. Obscene material is a limited category. Pornographic material on its own might not be considered obscene. However, obscenity applies to pornographic material that features unwilling or underage participants.Court documents: Most court documents like land deeds, complaints, and marriage licenses are publicly available. A court may place an injunction (a restriction) on court records during an ongoing criminal case to prevent public disclosure. Outside of an injunction, publishing information that may damage a case can be penalized but cannot be used as an exception to allow prior restraint.National Security: Some of the most powerful and significant arguments in favor of prior restraint came from the publication of government documents. The government has a compelling interest in keeping defense documents classified if they might jeopardize ongoing military action, particularly during wartime. However, courts have determined that the government must prove an inevitable, direct, and immediate danger, in order to justify reviewing and restricting publication in the name of national security. Major Cases Involving Prior Restraint The most famous cases concerning prior restraint form the foundation of free expression in the U.S. They are cross-disciplinary, focusing on art, speeches, and documents. Near v. Minnesota Near v. Minnesota was one of the first U.S. Supreme Court cases to take on the issue of prior restraint. In 1931, J.M. Near published the first issue of The Saturday Press, a controversial, independent paper. The governor of Minnesota at the time filed a complaint under the states public nuisance law for an injunction against the paper. He alleged that The Saturday Press was malicious, scandalous, and defamatory, qualities which were illegal under the law. In a 5-4 decision delivered by Justice Charles E. Hughes, the court found the statute unconstitutional. The government cannot restrict publication prior to the release date, even if the material being published might be illegal. New York Times Co. v. United States In 1971, the Nixon administration attempted to block the publication of a group of documents known as the Pentagon Papers. The papers were part of a study commissioned by the Department of Defense to document U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. The Nixon Administration argued that if the New York Times published information from the study, it would harm U.S. defense interests. Six Supreme Court justices sided with the New York Times, denying the governments request for an injunction. The Court adopted a heavy presumption against prior restraint under the First Amendment. The governments interest in keeping the papers secret could not provide a strong enough reason to restrict the freedom of the press. In a concurring opinion, Justice William J. Brennan added that the government did not offer evidence that the papers would result in direct and immediate harm to U.S. troops. Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart In 1975, a Nebraska state trial judge issued a gag order. He was concerned that media coverage of a murder trial might prevent the court from seating an unbiased jury. The Supreme Court heard the case a year later. In a unanimous decision delivered by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger,  the court struck down the gag order. The court argued that restricting media coverage did little to help ensure a fair trial and allowed rumors to overcome factual reporting. The press should not be hindered except in situations where there is a clear and present danger that the media will disrupt the trial, Justice Burger wrote. The court listed ways that a fair trial could be ensured without the use of a gag order. Brandenberg v. Ohio In 1964, a Klu Klux Klan leader in Ohio delivered a speech at a rally using derogative and racist language. He was arrested under Ohios syndicalism law for publicly advocating for violence. Clarence Brandenburg was convicted and sentenced and his appeals were affirmed or dismissed by lower courts. The Supreme Court reversed his conviction on the basis that Ohios syndicalism law violated the First Amendment. The court ignored prior language surrounding inciting violence like clear and present danger and bad tendency. In Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Court unanimously backed the imminent and lawless action test. In order to restrict speech for inciting violence, the government must provide a compelling argument to show intent, imminence, and likelihood to incite. Sources Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931).Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969).Nebraska Press Assn. v. Stuart, 427 U.S. 539 (1976).New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971).Howard, Hunter O. â€Å"Toward a Better Understanding of the Prior Restraint Doctrine: A Reply to Professor Mayton.†Ã‚  Cornell Law Review, vol. 67, no. 2, Jan. 1982, scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?refererhttps://www.google.com/httpsredir1article4267contextclr.