Francis Bacon and Torture Essay Example

Francis Bacon and Torture Essay Example Francis Bacon and Torture Paper Francis Bacon and Torture Paper Essay Topic: The Scrutiny and Other Poems Francis Bacon and Torture BY ajf2055 Academic Bio: Anthony J. Funari I am currently a doctoral student at Lehigh University and in May will have finished my dissertation, entitled Challenging the Scientific Mind: The Poetic Resistance to Bacons Grand Instauration. My thesis examines the poetry of John Donne, Andrew Marvell, and John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, as a site from which is launched a meaningful critique of Francis Bacons scientific program. My research interests include depictions of the natural in seventeenth-century poetry and prose, the rise of the city in Jacobean drama, and ecofeminist criticism. Abstract: This article examines the relevance that Francis Bacons call for humanity to engage in a (re)productive relationship with Nature has for Andrew Marvells The Mowers Song. Rather than viewing Damons realization of his isolation from the meadows as solely due to his emerging sexual feeling for Juliana, this article complicates the Mowers plight by arguing that Damon experiences a tropological shift in how he characterizes Nature. While in Damon, the Mower sexuality appears alien to the natural world, Damon comes to recognize Nature as a sexual entity through his epiction of the grasss growth as luxuriant and the meadows as a participant in a May-game festivity. The transition that Damon experience parallels that which Bacon demands for the sciences. For Bacon, the restoration of humanitys Edenic mastery begins with treating Nature as any woman subject to masculine domination. However, in perceiving Nature through Bacons terms, Marvells protagonist does not discover a path to back Paradise but reenacts the Fall. : On this basis, Marvell problematizes the tropological foundation on which Bacon rests the new science. Companions of My Thoughts More Green: Damons Baconian Sexing of Nature In his essay Of Youth and Age, Bacon expresses anxiety over the youthful mind, which he finds to be impetuous, prone to flights of fancy, and possessing a vitality that must be checked: And yet the invention of young men is more lively than that of old, and imaginations stream into their minds better, and as it were more divinely. Natures that nave much neat, and great and violent desires and perturbations, are not ripe for action till they have passed the meridian of their years. i The danger of the young ind, for Bacon, lies in its susceptibility to the imagination, which provokes the intellect into rashly latching onto its initial thoughts as opposed to subjecting them to sober scrutiny. Bacon appears much concerned over this period in ones intellectual development: though energetic, without the proper guidance and temperance, the youthful mind may fail to act productively. The intellect in this early stage will move hastily, supposing too much from its preliminary impressions: Young men, in conduct and [management] of actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they an quiet; fly to the end, without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few principles which they have chanced upon absurdly and, that which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse that will neither stop nor turn. i Here the quintessential aspects of the young mind, as Bacon portrays it, are the lack of order in its thought processes and sense of egotism in its disregard for contrary evidence. Yet, as readers of Bacons Essays are aware, the essays themselves do not offer an unequivocal stance on a topic but rather emonstrate Bacons own unstructured mental explorations. Bacon goes as far as to contradict his opening assessment of the young mind; in citing Joel 2. 28 Wour young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dr eam dreams. ), Bacon posits the notion that the youthful mind itself should be privileged in its being closer to God than the old. Consequently, the mature mind is corrupted through its trafficking in the world of human thought: And certainly, the more a man drinketh of the world, the more it intoxicateth; and age doth profit rather in the powers of understanding than in the virtues of the will and affections. iii In a sense, Bacon here espouses a proto-Romantic idealization of youth, as a moment prior to societys intrusion that obscures ones pristine encounter with the world. Within this brief meditation on the nature of youth, Bacon articulates a primary tension that informs his program of reform for all learning: whether learning should be retrospective, always attempting to recover a past era that was the height of knowledge, or progressive, viewing knowledge as accumulative and successively ameliorating humanitys condition. Though in Of Youth and Age Bacon does not offer a final conclusion on the value f the youthful mind, the corpus of his scientific writings unreservedly advocates for the progressive nature of human learning. Throughout Novum Organum (1620), Bacons foundational treatise of the new philosophy, there is a sustained distrust of youth. In essence, the program that Bacon envisions looks to curb the instinctual habit of the immature mind to leap and fly from particulars to remote and nearly the most general axioms (such as the so-called first principles of arts and of things). iv Bacon portrays his instauration of learning as the transitioning from a young, mpetuous mindset to one more disciplined. In Temporis partus masculus (The Masculine Birth of Time) (1603), one of Bacons earliest espousals of his epistemological reform, the elder guide admonishes his student that he should not feel ready to explore Nature without his guidance yet: But, my son, if I should ask you to grapple immediately with the bewildering complexities of experimental science before your mind has been purged of its idols, beyond a peradventure you would promptly desert your leader. v Without his elderly instructor, the youthful student would succumb to the idols ot the road. Bacon reiterates again and again his conception of youth not as a privileged time of innocence and intellectual/ spiritual clarity but a perilous moment through which one must be carefully guided. Bacons apprehension of youth becomes a pivotal facet of the tropology of his instauration. As Bacon foresees the future path of human learning, the transition from a pre-modern, allegorical worldview to a modern scientifically-based mode of learning parallels the sexual maturation of the male youth. Bacon foresees in the human minds leaving behind its childhood, which he finds represented in the lassical texts, mankinds reclamation of the mastery over Nature once enjoyed in Eden. This mental transition or maturation entails the imperative to sexualize Nature, to perceive the relationship between humanity and Nature as one in which the latter is subject to sexual domination by the former. For Bacon, only when the encounter with Nature is read through the metaphor of sexual reproductionNature is properly read as other and engaged with on a sexually reproductive basis can humanity hope to formulate the type of knowledge so that the mind can exercise its rightful authority over the nature of things. vi For Bacon, when learning enters into a sexually mature adulthood, humanity will prosper in enjoying a return to an Edenic state. Feminist critics of modern science expose the sexism innate in the rhetoric of Baconian scientific knowledge. Carolyn Merchant reveals the implicit sexualizing imagery in transforming Nature into inert material for industrial consumption: The constraints against penetration associated with the earth-mother image were transformed into sanctions for denudation. vii Although recent apologists of Bacon rebut this line of criticism as anachronistically misreading his tropology,viii his cientific treatises bear out the correlation between the emergence of the new science and the entrance into adult male sexuality. In the discussion of Bacons writings below, I trace this analogy through a series of key texts. My intent for revisiting Bacons use of adult male sexuality as a trope for the new science is to identify the conception of sexual/intellectual maturation that Andrew Marvell responds to in the Mowers Song. In this essay, I will read Andrew Marvells Damon, the Mower and The Mowers Songix in the context of the tropology that Bacon grounds the humanitys new engagement with Nature. Critical discussion of Marvells Mower poems centers on his diverging from the pastoral convention of the sympathetic landscape. While the pastoral mode is primarily characterized by the pathetic fallacy between the human subject and Nature, Marvell breaks with this tradition by depicting a dissonance between his protagonist, Damon, and his environment. Particularly, The Mowers Song opens with Damons lament for the loss of the reflective relationship that he once enjoyed with the meadow. i My own reading of Damons isolation contextualizes Marvells revising of the pastoral mode rom one based on harmony with ones environment to one expressing a profound sense of division between the self and other within Bacons scientific instauration. If the Mower poems are a sequence centered on the sexual maturation of a single personality, The Mowers Song presents Damon at the end of this development, nostalgically looking back on a period of unity. ii Damon ultimately experiences sexuality as alien ating, entrapping him in an unfamiliar world in which he can no longer enjoy the unity he once had with the meadows. Beyond Damons isolation, I ind that Marvells pastoral protagonist enacts Bacons a Baconian tropological shitt Damon intellectually transitions from mindset that reads his environment as asexual and reflective of his own inner world to one that sees the meadows as a sexual entity that must be dominated. So far so good, as Bacon would have us understand Damons maturation. However, as opposed to a re-entering of Eden, Damon comes to suffer another Fall. Where Bacon promised to bring knowledge to perfection in charity, for the benefit and use of life, xiii Marvells Damon finds only alienation, anguish, and death in his newly sexualized environment. The tropology that will open up path to ameliorating humanitys physical condition that Bacon espouses,undergirds Baconian science for Damon, leads to his lashing out against the meadows. This reading of Damons alienation from the meadows further builds on and complicates how his crisis is generally understood by scholars. Critics of the Mower poems argue for the intersection between Damons emerging sexuality and his relationship with the meadows. Within this reading, Julianas entrance into Damons world, which becomes the catalyst for his entrance into sexuality, provokes is loss of the harmonious relationship that he once enjoyed with Nature. Robgert N. Watson traces the loss of a symbiotic relationship with Nature to the speakers heterosexual desire. That isFor Watson, the poem acts as an admonishment against men involving themselves with women, who bring with them otherness: The Mower to Glowworms is ostensibly a poem of frustrated love that never in fact mentions love at all. This certainly suggests that something else is at stake; Juliana has displaced his mind, not broken his heart. All the same can be said of The Mowers Song. Again the woman is a marker of otherness e desire for her produces (or reflects) a recognition of a loss of symbiotic presence in the universe that is a perpetual fact for the human creature, despite the impulse to hide it behind a particular erotic betrayal. xiv Likewise, Judith Haber finds that Julianas presence forces Damon into a recognition of his own individuality and separateness: Romantic love makes Damon acutely aware of the separate existence of another; he therefore becomes aware of both his i ndividual isolation and his desire for union. xv For Watson and Haber, then, the sexual awakening that Juliana evokes from Damon leads ocauses Damon to recognize his awareness of her uniqueness from himself, which in turn causes him to perceive his own isolation from his environment. Sexual maturation in Marvells Mower poems brings loneliness. True enough, but I argue that Damons new post-Juliana experience of Nature is more complex. It is not simply that Damon finds himself unconnected to the meadows after encountering Juliana and thus is no longer able to enjoy an easy fantasy of a childish fellowship with Nature, but also that Damon within his post-Juliana perspective sees sex as part of Nature. While I agree with this reading that attributes Damons sense of alienation to his recognition of his sexuality, Damons new post-Juliana experience of Nature, I argue, reflects a profound and complex metaphorical transition. This re-imagining Nature as a sexual entity redefines the dynamic of Damons relationship with his environment: what had once secured his sense of self through a maternal trope now is perceived as Jeopardizing his agency and so must be subdued. This is my intervention into the critical conversation surrounding The Mowers Song: whereas while critics, such as Watson and Haber, read Damons dilemma as merely one in hich sexuality brings otherness and isolation, I posit add to this converstion by positing that Julianas presence and Damons subsequent sexual maturation leads to his perceiving sexuality as an innate facet of his environment. This article then looks to recover The Mowers Song as a space in which Marvell dramatizes the tropological shift that Bacon advocates. and critiques the Baconian shift in the terms through which one encounters Nature. Leaving Behind The Boyhood of Knowledge In Novum, Bacon posits a modern historiography, which puts forth the progressive nature of learning. For Bacon, contemporary knowledge appears stagnant: By contrast [to the mechanical arts] philosophy and the intellectual sciences stand like statues, worshipped and celebrated, but not moved forwards. xvi The Bacon charges humanist veneration of the ancient authors had humanism for turning the intellects perspective forever looking backwards through its veneration of classical authors. Such an epistemological position sought truth in the recovery of ancient learning through philology; that is, the closer one could come linguistically to these past texts, the more one could access a golden age of learning. Much of the agenda that Ba con sets out in his scientific writings advocates for the reorienting of our historical perspectiveoutlook. Rather than what Bacon sees as the humanists nostalgia for antiquity, the disciple of the new science will be focused on the present and future. This reversal of history, in which the past becomes merely prelude to the present, demands a new ontology of truth: As regards authors, it is utterly feeble to grant them so much but to deny his rights to Time, the author of authors and indeed of all authority. For Truth is rightly described as the daughter of Time, not of Authority. Here Bacons iconoclasm is most pronounced: he sets as antithetical time and authority, each one denoting an opposed epistemology. While authority suggests a textual-based learning that discourages deviation from ancient writings, Bacons claim that truth is the daughter of time liberates the mind from obsequious devotion to the past. The knowledge held in the texts of Aristotle and Plato, for Bacon, should no longer be privileged as representing the maturity of human thought. For the worlds old age is its true antiquity and should apply to our own times, not to the worlds youth, when the ancients lived. For their age which our own point of view is ancient and older, from the worlds point of view is new and younger: Bacon reevaluates the past and repositions the early modern seventeenth-century subject not in a diminished present but on the cusp of an era of discovery. Bacon cites recent innovations and the exploration of the New World as evidence for his historiography: And surely it would be disgraceful in a time when regions of the material globe, that is, of earth, the seas and stars, have been opened up far and wide for us to see, if the limits of our intellectual world were restricted to the narrow discoveries of the ncients. xvii The achievements of Columbus and Galileo necessitated a conception of intellectual history as successive, not in decline. xviii In part, Bacon formulates his progressive model of human intellectual history as a rejection of the preoccupation with words as opposed to things, of which Bacon charges Aristotle as being the original instigator. Notably, in The Masculine Birth, Bacons elderly guide commences his diatribe against ancient philosophers with Aristotle, who leads, for Bacon, the human mind awry by turning its attention towards words: Just when the human mind, borne thither by some favoring gale, had found he rest in a littl e truth, this man presumed to cast the closest tetters on our understandings. He composed an art or manual of madness and made us slaves to words. xix As Bacon will develop further throughout his scientific treatises, Aristotles crime of duping the intellect into the belief that words possess an intrinsic connection with Nature confused the subjective and the objective. That is, the minds fixation on words leads to its mistakenly reading the objective world through its own linguistic constructions. Aristotle, rather than holding the venerable position that umanist tradition had placed him in, becomes the origin of humanitys intellectual fall. Likewise, Bacon remarks that the sin that Aristotle had perpetrated on learning is replayed in the humanist infatuation with ancient texts. In The Advancement, Bacon offers a brief synopsis of the rise in the interest of classical learning, which led to a detrimental obsession with words at the expense of empirical knowledge: This grew speedily to an excess; for men began to hunt more after words than matter more after choiceness of the phrase, and the round and clean composition of the sentence, nd the sweet falling of the clause, and the varying and illustrations of their works with tropes and figures, than after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of Judgment. x The danger of linguistic-based learning is the solipsism in which the mind indulges: the precedence that word assumes over the thing itself, the sign over the referent, turns our mental focus inward. Bacon finds in the humanist preoccupation with words Pygmalions frenzy that fetishizes our linguistic constructs: for words are but images of matter, and xcept they have life of reason and invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall in love with a picture. xxi As with Aristotle, the humanists obsession with the word fails to distinguish the self from the other, the subjective from the objective, our linguistic realization of the world from its actuality. Through textually, as opposed to experientially, based learning, Bacon finds that words have become autonomous: instead of facilitating the generation of knowledge, words actually obstruct ones ability to access an objective reality. This epistemology reflects, for Bacon, the mmaturity of the pre-scientific intellect, for the Greeks seem merely the boyhood of knowledge, with the characteristic of boys, that it is good at chattering, but immature and unable to generate. xxii To summarize, Bacon laments that human knowledge is stuck in a pre-sexual stage, characterized by an un(re)productive preoccupation with words that inhibits the encountering of the other beyond the self. The overarching trope that Bacon employs in describing the new stage of human intellectual history is that of male sexual maturation. In considering the above quotation from the preface to his Novum, the boyhood of knowledge that classical uthors represent is marked by impotency: their knowledge, linguistically-based, lacks the ability to sexually encounter Nature, to engage in a (re)productive relationship with a recognized other. This conflation of intellectual and sexual maturity comes through in The Masculine Birth. Here the elderly guide acts as much as teacher as panderer for his young male student. The text indentifies the end goal of the elderly guides instructions as the students ability to engage in a (re)productive relationship with Nature: My dear, dear boy, what I propose is to unite you with things themselves in a chaste, holy, and legal wedlock. Although, as the text presents it, the student has not as yet reached that point of intellectual/sexual maturity, the elderly guide assures the student that once ne nas properly distanced himselt trom Nature he will then be able to bring forth a blessed race of Heroes and Supermen who will overcome the immeasurable helplessness and poverty of the human race. xxiii Bacon, through his character of the elderly guide, defines sexual/intellectual maturation as not Just the penetration of the female other/Nature but also the realization of the social function of this copulation. That is, for Bacon, the sexually/ intellectually mature male subject is one who moves beyond the personal and views his efforts in a public context. In this s ense, both learning and human sexuality most be seasoned with charity. Like the young male who must emotionally separate himself from the female other to properly copulate for the benefit of society, the mind must cleave itself from Nature in order to generate productive knowledge. As Bacon would have the Early Modern subject comprehend his contemporary moment in history, learning, particularly natural philosophy, is about to experience a sexual wakening. No longer will the pre-sexual mindset of the ancient authors confine humanity to mediating its encounter with Nature through solipsistic fantasies. In his Thoughts and Conclusions (1607), Bacon succinctly articulates his identification of ancient Greek philosophy with immature sexuality: Now of this philosophy Aristotle is by universal consent the chief, yet he left nature herself untouched and inviolated, and dissipated his energies in comparing, contrasting and analyzing popular notions about her. xxiv Benjamin Farringtons translation of this unpublished text suggests Bacons overarching indictment of classical philosophy as condemning human learning to a perpetual childhood: in being obsessed with his own mental constructions of Nature, Aristotle allows the human mind to confuse its own fantasy with objective reality and to forgo any material engagement. The notion that Aristotle has left nature untouched and inviolated not only connotes the distance that Aristotle set up between the pre-scientific observer and Nature but also implicitly marks the new adherent of the new philosophy as one who would violate, deflower Nature. The Luxuriant Growth of Nature The correspondence between sexual maturation and humanitys relationship to Nature is a central theme in Marvells Mower poems. Damon, the Mower, The Glowworms, and The Mowers Song chronicle Damons sexual awakening, which, the poems show, has ramifications for Damons perception of his relationship with the meadows. Susan Snyder offers a compelling reading of Damons anxiety over being alienated from Nature that points to the transition of the human subject from a pre-sexual, imaginary state to the recognition of sexual individuality: the overall metaphoric system casts suspicion on sexuality itself. The favored condition here is presexual, with no desire and in fact no discernible differentiation into he and she. xxv The typical Renaissance pastoral Journey, according to Snyder, follows the male protagonist as he leaves a time of unity and allegory to enter into a world of sexuality and death: The Journey is now familiar passage from an Edenic state of natural wholeness through sexual awakening that is also an initiation into individual mortality, which here concludes in a new, negative relation with nature based this time on alienation and death. xxvi The end of the Journey is then separation. Snyder locates this break trom the imaginary stage tor Damon in his sexual awakening brought about by Juliana: Damons song makes apparent the connection between feeling desire and realizing a separate identity. xxvii Sexual awareness then forces one to recognize otherness, and, consequently, the unity of the past, presexual stage is irretrievably lost. My argument here is that as Damon experiences his nascent sexuality, which he initially perceives as an inescapable, preternatural heat that he ascribes to Juliana in Damon, the Mower, not only does he find himself cut off from he reflective relationship that he once enjoyed but also the tropes through which he reads Nature change. To summarize the intellectual shift that I find Damon going through: while the Damon of Damon, the Mower identifies Juliana and the sexuality she comes to represent as external to the meadow, in The Mowers Song the protagonist labels the grasss growth as luxuriant, a word that Marvell invests with sexual connotations a point that I elaborate on further below. Critical discussion of the Mower poems generally characterizes Damon as a solitary pastoral fgure: Damons environment is devoid of any other persons, save Juliana and the wandrring mowers in The Mower to the Glow-worms. Damon imaginatively creates a world that is populated by a personified Nature: the sun that licks off [his] sweat, the eVning sweet that bathes his feet in cowslip water, or the deathless fairies whom he leads in dance (Damon the Mower Ins. 45-8, 61-4). xxviii Yet with Julianas entrance and the recognition of his own sexuality, Damon no longer finds himself co-eternal with his environment. Juliana brings with he r the imperative that Damon must come to grips with his own individuality. Yet this account is only half of the story, as I read it. What scholars of the poem overlook is the fundamental shift in how Damon reads his environment, which reflects the new tropology that Bacon demands for human learning. Damons reading of Nature/ the meadows goes through a fundamental transition along similar lines to those which Bacon demands for human learning. While Damon is not completely aware of his mental transition, Marvell means for the reader to notice and question the new terms on which Damon encounters the meadows. It is not that we are meant to perceive Damon as reaching a truer account of Nature, i. . as a sexual other to be dominated, but instead to itness the consequences of a mind that perceives Nature this way. On this basis, I bring to light Marvells rejection of Baconian thought: whereas Bacon finds the sexualizing of Nature as restorative, through Damons tragedy Marvell avers such a path as isolating and destructive. The opening stanza of the poem finds Damon mourning the loss of the union that once existed between his internal reality and his environment: My mind was once the true survey Of all these meadows fresh and gay (Ins. -2) In this idyllic state of correspondence, Damon could read his world as merely himself rit large; the grass became as a symbol of his own Joy. The meadows were reflective of Damons subjectivity and, when interpreted properly, reveal the similitudes between the human subject and the natural world. This youthful epistemology renders the human subject passive regarding his interaction with Nature. Damon does not concern himself much with the meadows materiality but rather is preoccupied with their metaphorical import: the grasss greenness has significance for him solely when he can see it as connoting his interiority. Notable, also, is the narcissism that underlies Damons worldview. The tundamental beliet ot Damons epistemology that Nature is simply composed of signs through which Damon could read himself creates a knowledge that is inwardly directed. Damons knowledge of Nature, derivesd primarily from a hermeneutics of signs and not an engagement with things, echoes the pre-modern epistemology Bacon finds as more focused on deformed images produced by the unequal mirror of the postlapsarian mind. xix The opening line of the poem further reveals that Damon unconsciously now occupies a fallen postlapsarian perspective. Damon appears incognizant of the ntellectual transition that he has undergone. To claim that his mind was once a true survey of the meadows raises concerns as to the state of mindintellectual state from which he is presently speaking. If in what seems to be the unrecoverable past Damon could read Nature correctly, how is the new relationship that he constructs between Nature and hi mself to be read? Damons opening lament at the loss of his earlier mindset, in which existed a harmony between the external and the internal, I believe, removes the reader from the drama that Damon perceives between himself and the meadows. Damon is ignorant to the full implication of his statement; that is, for him, his intellect has not altered, but rather it is the meadows who have abandoned the fellowship between them. However, Marvell, in distancing the reader from his protagonist, holds up for scrutiny the mindset that Damon now occupies. What has been lost to Damon is not, as he Marvell would have the reader believe, the fidelity of his environment to his internal state but instead his ability to perceive such a relationship. So whereas Damon projects the drama of the poem outwardly onto the meadows, the poem relocates the crisis internally within the mind. Essentially, Damon makes the same mistake as he does when he first meets Juliana, which I discuss immediately below: he misreads his own inner turmoil, his intellectual crises, he misreads as an external phenomenon. In Marvells earlier Mower poem, Damon the Mower, Damons tropology presents Nature itself not only as asexual, but also sexuality becomes a destructive, alien force. In the first poem of the Mower sequence, Damon portrays Juliana as emitting a preternatural heat, which appears destructive for both the Mower and the environment alike: This heat the sun could never raise, Nor Dog Star so inflames the days. It from an higher beauty growth Which burns the fields and mower both: Which mads the dog, and makes the sun Hotter than his own Phaeton. No July causeth these extremes, But Julianas scorching beams. Ins. 17-24) As typical of Damon in this earlier stage of consciousness, the internal and the external blur together: his nascent sexual passion for Juliana Damon projects back onto her the heat that he misperceives as emanating from her only to have it threaten the fields and himself. Ironically, Damons confusion about whether this heat emanates from the hot day, or hot desires, leads h im to seek refuge in the xternal, a cool cave or gelid fountain (Ins. 25-32). His fictional world appears resistant yet vulnerable to the sexual passion Juliana provokes in Damon. The asexual tantastical environment that Damon creates, which ne reads himselt in union witn must exclude Julianas presence. Marvell, like Bacon, appears to raise concerns over pre-modern metaphorical perspective as being solipsistic and non-reproductive. Damons gift to Juliana of a harmless snake disarmed of its teeth and sting (Ins. 35-6) speaks to this asexuality: Damons feckless courting in offering the snake, endered impotent, denotes how alien Juliana and the mature sexuality she comes to represent are to his child-like mind. xxx Likewise, The Garden pivots on this same dichotomy between the sexual and the natural. Stanza Ill imagines this antagonism in the image of the tree scarred by lovers inscriptions: No white nor red was ever seen So amrous as this lovely green. Fond lovers, cruel as their flames, Cut in these their mistress name. (Ins. 16-20) Again sexuality appears as an annihilating force that seeks the ruin or perversion of Nature. As with Julianas supposed preternatural heat, the passion of the fond overs become a cruel ruinous flame inimical to a presexual, symbiotic communion with pristine Nature. Jonathan Crewe correctly points out that sexual desire is foreign to the first pastoral world, and is in effect overwritten on it. In this sense, sexuality becomes an imposition, overtly indicated by the speakers tirade against the luxurious gardener whose lustful acts abuse the natural world in The Mower Against Gardens. xxxi Given that in Damon, the Mower sexuality seems alien from a pre-sexual Nature, The Mowers Song marks a profound shiftstark transition in Damons metaphorical tropol ogical framework. Damons ability to take solace in an interpretation of Nature meant entirely for his comfort is obliterated by the imagined indifference of the meadows. Damon now realizes himself as isolated from Nature, recognizing the boundary between the self and the other. However, rather than giving himself over to a solely material universe, one evacuated of any figurative meaning, Damon delves into a new tropological project. The loss that Damon grieves for, the inability within his new tropological paradigmthis interpretation of Nature to easily blur the subjective and the objective, becomes an motional betrayal by the meadows: the growth of the now unthankful meadows signals that they have forgone a fellowship so true (Ins. 3-4). Watson claims that Damon continues to anthropomorphize his environment only now engaging the meadows confrontationally: He has ceased to intervene with his blade, but his mind is still subjugating the grasses to human purposes: they are mocking him only because he has ceased mowing them, but in another sense, they are mocking him only because he has made them volitional and conscious creatures. xxxii For Watson, h en, what primarily denotes Damons tropological shift is the recognition of Nature as possessing a separate will, inimical to Damons own will. Yet an important and overlooked facet of Damons mental transformation, I argue, is that meadows have now become a sexual entity for him:. But these, while I with sorrow pine, Grew more luxuriant still and fine (Ins. 7-8) This moment when Damon notes the lack of correspondence between his internal turmoil and the grass also suggests sexuality as now being part of Nature. The growth of the grass is now luxuriant, a word that possesses sexual implications,

What are the tradeoffs between relational and object-oriented Essay

What are the tradeoffs between relational and object-oriented databases and database management systems - Essay Example This section also outlines tradeoffs between relational, object-oriented databases and database management systems. RDBMSs (Relational Database Management Systems) have been offering excellent services and benefits to their users; however this achievement is incomplete as well as limited to only some kinds of applications. In view of the fact that the business clients adopt latest versions of systems, as well as develop to previous ones, their efforts to make use of RDBMS come across the "Relational Wall," where RDBMS technology is no longer capable to offer the functionality and services required by the users. Additionally, users face this barrier when they try to enlarge information models to sustain associations among data, novel data types, extensible data types, and straight support of data objects. In the same way, the barrier can take place when implementing database in distributed environments through complicated processes. On the other hand, attempts to resolve these issues with relational technology cause an explosion of tables, a lot of joins, deprived performance, unfortunate scalability as well as loss of integrity. Thus, ODBMSs present a path further than the wall (Objectivity, Inc., 2005). Additionally, the emergence of new generation of Relational Database Management Systems has offered a lot of advantages to clients. These advantages comprise unplanned query, self-governing data from logical application, and a variety of front-end GUI (graphical user interface) systems. In addition, it has also offered many business applications, as well as the business sector has expended to over $4B yearly, comprising tools. There is a question that why we should look beyond RDBMSs? We should perform so simply when essential to capability and support of new types of systems, new associations, distribution, media data types as well as scalability. In reality, the majority of systems and applications have never made use of RDBMSs, and a lot of applications that have utilized RDMBS are now searching for other options, like that ODBMSs (Objectivity, Inc., 2005). In addition, the relational databases have offered a high-quality service in a lot of customary database systems. Despite the fact that, in many scenarios for instance when it is complicated to deal with information, or when superior efficiency is needed (i.e. objects having anonymous identifiers, or objects going from one type to another, etc.), or when we need to manage non-conventional data (such as images, long texts, etc.), additional techniques need to be implemented. Normally, these techniques include object-oriented or semantic databases. Additionally, the semantic database models are object oriented database models. Moreover, they present, a variety of levels, a lot of characteristics of semantic models, in the form of conceptual information, as well as, purify a number of behavioral characteristics of the data (Rishe, 2010). However, if a RDBMS can resolve our problems without numerous efforts as well as offers the required results, efficiency and scalability then there is no need to utilize an ODBMS. If some of the below given situations are convened then we should think about using ODBMS. Belo w are some of the important reasons that require us to make use of RDBMS: (Objectivity, Inc., 2011) Complicated Relationships: If we are having numerous many-to-many relationships in our database, tree arrangements or network (graph) formations (Objectivity, Inc., 2011). Complicated Data Arrangement: If the data has numerous changeable length parts, such as arrays of structures, multi-dimensional arrays or binary streams (Objectivity, In

Music 1920-1980 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Music 1920-1980 - Essay Example e main changes in music and understanding why it altered through each time frame also builds deeper knowledge about the evolution of music and how it changes because of the external environment and philosophies from individual artists. The purpose of this paper is to examine the main ways in which the music of the 1920s – 1980s changed and transformed. Specifically, there will be a relation to the alterations in popular music and how this changed because of the external environment and the internal philosophies of music. The objectives of this paper will enhance this with: The main objectives are defined by creating a deeper understanding and analysis of music between the 1920s and 1980s while discovering how it evolved between time frames. This will enhance the overall understanding of how music has changed between time frames and what the main factors are with this change. Music that began to emerge in the 1920s differed from what was known in the past, specifically because of alterations which were being made in society. The social influences began to change first with the social changes between generations that began in the 1920s. The first change was based on social groups that began to arise, all which identified with music, fashion and popular culture as a way of creating a sense of identity. Jazz, blues and other forms of music were an example of how this arose. Many considered this the music of the African – Americans during this time and created a different sense of preferences with those in the group. The music was able to create a sense of identity because of the struggles which it identified as belonging specifically to those who were a part of the group. This was combined with attitudes, actions and other concepts which followed, all which were based on similar social influences which were a part of the generations and the social st igma of the time (Smith, 43). The concepts that were associated with social groups were furthered as

Presidents of the Vietnam War Essay Example for Free

Presidents of the Vietnam War Essay President Nixons move to end the war in Vietnam and propagate peace there is the most noble move compared to that of the John F. Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson, who, at that time have deployed 500,000 soldiers, more than 300 of which are held prisoners. More so, the citizens were divided over the purpose of the war. Nixon plotted a strategy to end Americas involvement in that struggle without sacrificing the dignity that it has upheld in the global scene. With his strong intentions, he was instrumental in the signing of a peace treaty that benefited both countries.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   John F. Kennedy views the war as only a small part of a bigger struggle between freedom and communism, an idea that he widely advertised to the Americans. His stand on Americas defense for freedom in Vietnam is rooted from the legal relationship that it tried hard to uphold. With this, JFK pursued all possibilities of winning the war. His pledge to â€Å"pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty† (John F. Kennedy, 1962) was considered ambitious.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Lyndon Johnsons move to give support to Diem in order to make sure that the waging of war against the communist was not effective in the course of the Vietnam War. His obvious support to continue waging war and sending young soldiers made him the antagonist by many Americans who felt that by doing so, it is synonymous to genocide with a different purpose.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   President Nixons intentions handled the Vietnam War best since he made sure that the war was fought in a manner he knows will be a win-win situation to both countries. Works Cited Herring, George C. Americas Longest War The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975. America in crisis. New York: Wiley, 1979. Small, Melvin. Antiwarriors The Vietnam War and the Battle for Americas Hearts and   Minds. VietnamAmerica in the war years, v. 1. Wilmington, Del: Scholarly Resources, 2002.

The Open Boat :: essays research papers

The Open Boat is a particularly interesting story because of the great detail that author extends and because of the solitary reflections of the characters in consideration of their demise. The story possesses amazingly vivid description. This attention to detail affords the reader the greatest degree of reading pleasure. Crane paints such glorious images in reader's mind with his eloquence. "The morning appeared finally, in its splendor, with a sky of pure blue, and the sunlight flamed on the tips of waves"(387). Artistic sentences of such caliber are not often found. The reader is left with a terrific vision of the perilous sea maintaining its beauty amongst the violence of the wind. "Their back- bones had become thoroughly used to balancing in the boat and they now rode this wild colt of a dinghy like circus men"(378). Here, again, Crane uses splendid detail to capture the essence of the chaotic situation. Another attribute to the story is the insight which the third person narrator offers to the reader regarding the sailors' state of mind. Particularly interesting, is the reference to the poem "Bingen on the Rhine". Until the correspondent must contemplate his own death on the cold and desolate seas, he does not realize the tragedy of a soldier of the legion dying in Algiers. Also, not only did he not realize the significance, he says that, "it was less to him than the breaking of a pencil's point"(385). Again, towards the end of the story, the narrator describes the bitterness the correspondent feels towards nature when he realizes that after all his efforts he may not live to appreciate his being. Observations such as these are not encountered frequently until confronted with death and the conveyance of these thoughts is insightful and meaningful to the reader. The only depreciative factor in the story is the length.

Riordan Manufacturing Pt 1

BSA375 Service Request SR-rm-022, Part 1 Joshua J. Farmer BSA/375 March 25, 2013 †¢ Key Stakeholders Of the majority of the stakeholders at Riordan Manufacturing, the focus would be on those most influential to the process change and those that will have direct use of the new system. Those individuals are CEO Michael Riordan, Executive Assistant Jan McCall, SVP-RD Kenneth Collins, COO Hugh McCauley, VP international operations Charles Williamson, IT service managers.In addition to the above listed key stakeholders, the individual users of the final app will be consulted for input and revisions per the information gathering steps. †¢ Information-Gathering Collection of the requirements to aid in the completion of the system will be a ten part process to ensure that the system and processes are workable and answer the demand set forth by SR-Rm-004. These processes are outlined below but are in no way set in procedural number and can be repeated numerous times or omitted based on current requirement status. 1.One-on-one interviews: sit down with the key stakeholders individually and receive input as to the solution sought and possible methods to achieve it. 2. Group interviews: focus on the departments and meet with the key individuals from the same department to get their input as a group effort. 3. Facilitated sessions: useful stage used only when there seems no cohesive solution can be found from both meeting stages above. 4. Joint application development (JAD): this stage will keep the group interview session together until a solution is agreed upon. 5.Questionnaires: are a viable way to gather information and input from the key stakeholders who are in remote locations so that they are part of the requirements and solution gathering. 6. Prototyping: create a working version of the solution for testing and refinement. 7. Use cases: create a story about how the solution will work or not work and how to refine the final process. 8. Following people arou nd: Useful stage when the interviewed cannot explain every process or routine that they follow, steps may be found that they are not aware or did not report. 9.Request for proposals (RFPs): a list of criteria and requirements already compiled to check against for possible matches between companies. 10. Brainstorming: Gather all the key stakeholders in conference to discover the best solution that they all feel will meet their requirements. Each of these steps have their own value in certain circumstances, and in many cases, you need multiple techniques to gain a complete picture from a diverse set of clients and stakeholders. †¢ Key Factors In order to keep track of progress towards the agreed upon solution there will be implementations of different progress milestones.One will be a short term milestone based on weekly reporting and the second will be long term milestone based on month end meetings. The Weekly reporting will consist of meeting agendas met and key developmental stages being met. The Monthly meetings will ensure that every weekly milestone is met and if there are problems to resolve then they can be addressed. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are at the heart of any system of performance measurement and target-setting. When properly used, they are one of the most powerful management tools available to growing businesses.The progress tracking is based on two key factors. The first is target date setting, making sure to picking out a date that can be met. The second is to create reachable goals, as demonstrated above in both short term and long term goals. Keeping these factors in mind will aid in project completion that creates a viable solution. One of the key challenges with performance management is selecting what to measure. This can be avoided by knowing what the solution is that you are working on and the requirements that need to be met. †¢ Project ScopeThe Project Scope pertains to the work necessary to deliver a product. Requi rements and deliverables define the project scope, and it is critical that the stakeholder is in agreement with the information discussed in the proposed plan. Scope planning does not occur after only one planning session, the scope baseline consists of the project scope statement, WBS, and WBS dictionary, a collaborative approach is the most effective method for scope planning, all stakeholders must understand the scope baseline to minimize scope creep during project execution Rreferences Mochal, T. (2008). TechRepublic. Retrieved from http://www. techrepublic. com/blog/10things/10-techniques-for-gathering-requirements/287 Info Entrepreneurs. (2009). Retrieved from http://www. infoentrepreneurs. org/en/guides/measure-performance-and-set-targets/ Project Scope. (2012). Retrieved from http://www. projectscope. net

Death Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller - 789 Words

In the play â€Å"Death of a Salesman â€Å"by Arthur Miller, the father-son relationship is displayed throughout the entire play. Willy the father and his sons Biff and Happy have an unusual relationship; where Willy is an unsupportive father his sons. Both sons have to lie to their father so that he is pleased with them. Willy does not treat Biff and Happy equally, and expects too much from them. Willy paid more attention to Biff then Happy when the boys were younger. For example, Happy tried to get Willy’s attention twice by asking Willy â€Å"I’m loosing weight, you notice, Pop?† (21), Willy ignores his son and goes on to talk with his wife. Nearing the end of the play, Biff confronts Willy and tells him â€Å"†¦ We never told the truth for ten minutes in this house!† Biff explains to his dad that he was actually in jail for 3 months for stealing. And Happy wasn’t actually the assistant buyer, he was in fact on of the two assistants for the assistant. Willy’s sons had to le to his just to make Willy content. Wills seems to think that his way is the right way. Willy wanted his boys to become great business men just like him. He thinks that the boys should be well liked so that they can get far in life. He expected too much from them so the boys had to lie to Willy to keep him alive and satisfied. Willy doesn’t know how to bring up his children because he never had a father in his childhood. Willy fails to teach his sons about the real world. Willy influenced them that in the realShow MoreRelatedDeath Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller1387 Words   |  6 PagesAmerican play-write Arthur Miller, is undoubtedly Death of a Salesman. Arthur Miller wrote Death of a Salesman in 1949 at the time when America was evolving into an economic powerhouse. Arthur Miller critiques the system of capitalism and he also tells of the reality of the American Dream. Not only does he do these things, but he brings to light the idea of the dysfunctional family. Death of a Salesman is one of America’s saddest tragedies. In Arthur Miller’s, Death of a Salesman, three major eventsRead MoreDeath Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller888 Words   |  4 PagesDeath of a Salesman† is a play written by Arthur Miller in the year 1949. The play revolves around a desperate salesman, Willy Lom an. Loman is delusioned and most of the things he does make him to appear as a man who is living in his own world away from other people. He is disturbed by the fact that he cannot let go his former self. His wife Linda is sad and lonely; his youngest son Biff is presented as a swinger/player while his eldest son Happy appears anti-business and confused by the behaviorRead MoreDeath Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller1573 Words   |  7 Pagesrepresents a character with a tragic flaw leading to his downfall. In addition, in traditional tragedy, the main character falls from high authority and often it is predetermined by fate, while the audience experiences catharsis (Bloom 2). Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman is considered to be a tragedy because this literary work has some of the main characteristics of the tragedy genre. In this play, the main character Willy Loman possesses such traits and behaviors that lead to his downfall, and theRead MoreDeath of Salesman by Arthu r Miller972 Words   |  4 PagesIn the play Death of a Salesman by the playwright Arthur Miller, the use of names is significant to the characters themselves. Many playwrights and authors use names in their works to make a connection between the reader and the main idea of their work. Arthur Miller uses names in this play extraordinarily. Not only does Miller use the names to get readers to correlate them with the main idea of the play, but he also uses names to provide some irony to the play. Miller uses the meanings of someRead MoreDeath Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller1628 Words   |  7 PagesArthur Miller wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning play Death of a Salesman in 1949. The play inflated the myth of the American Dream of prosperity and recognition, that hard work and integrity brings, but the play compels the world to see the ugly truth that capitalism and the materialistic world distort honesty and moral ethics. The play is a guide toward contemporary themes foreseen of the twentieth century, which are veiled with greed, power, and betrayal. Miller’s influence with the play spreadRead MoreDeath Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller949 Words   |  4 PagesDeath of a Salesman can be described as modern tragedy portraying the remaining days in the life of Willy Loman. This story is very complex, not only because of it’s use of past and present, but because of Willy’s lies that have continued to spiral out of control throughout his life. Arthur Miller puts a modern twist on Aristotle’s definition of ancient Greek tragedy when Willy Loman’s life story directly identifies the fatal flaw of the â€Å"American Dream†. Willy Loman’s tragic flaw can be recappedRead MoreThe Death Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller846 Words   |  4 PagesA Dime a Dozen The Death of a Salesman is a tragedy written by playwright Arthur Miller and told in the third person limited view. The play involves four main characters, Biff, Happy, Linda, and Willy Loman, an ordinary family trying to live the American Dream. Throughout the play however, the family begins to show that through their endeavors to live the American Dream, they are only hurting their selves. The play begins by hinting at Willy’s suicidal attempts as the play begins with Linda askingRead MoreDeath Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller Essay2538 Words   |  11 PagesSurname 1 McCain Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course: Date: Death of a Salesman Death of a salesman is a literature play written by American author Arthur Miller. The play was first published in the year 1949 and premiered on Broadway in the same year. Since then, it has had several performances. It has also received a lot of accordances and won numerous awards for its literature merit including the coveted Pulitzer for drama. The play is regarded by many critics as the perfectRead MoreDeath Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller2081 Words   |  9 Pages#1 â€Å"Death of a Salesman† by Arthur Miller is a tragedy, this play has only two acts and does not include scenes in the acts. Instead of cutting from scene to scene, there is a description of how the lighting focuses on a different place or time-period, which from there, they continue on in a different setting. The play doesn’t go in chronological order. A lot of the play is present in Willy’s flashbacks or memories of events. This provides an explanation of why the characters are acting a certainRead MoreDeath Of Salesman By Arthur Miller1475 Words   |  6 Pagesto death to achieve their so- called American dream. They live alone and there is no love of parents and siblings. They may have not noticed the America dream costs them so much, which will cause a bigger regret later. In the play Death of Salesman, Arthur Miller brings a great story of a man who is at very older age and still works hard to achieve his desire, which is the American dream. Later, he no tices that his youth is gone and there is less energy in his body. Willy Loman is a salesman, who