Treatment of Change and Expansion in Lotos-Eaters and Rip Van Winkle
During the Victorian Era, great accomplishments lead to prosperity for the British Empire. Accomplishments include owning nearly a quarter of the world’s land and its people. As a result, trade and commerce expanded, and Great Britain reached the height of its power. Furthermore, science rapidly made progress during this time. These rapid strides in economic and technological advances gave the British people a feeling of pessimism about whether they were progressing for the good. As a result, people began to question man’s place, or duty, on earth. Also occurring within the time of the Victorian Era is the American Renaissance. During this period, Americans were expanding their territory according to the belief in Manifest Destiny, or the idea that God or Nature intended for the United States to spread its civilization from coast to coast. Like the British, Americans questioned their moral responsibility concerning change and expansion. Consequently, the concerns of the people were echoed in the literature written during these time periods. For example, the Victorian poet, Alfred Tennyson, voiced his concerns about constant change and expansion in "The Lotos-Eaters," while the American writer, Washington Irving, also expressed his concerns in "Rip Van Winkle." An examination of the poem, "The Lotos-Eaters," and the short story, "Rip Van Winkle," reveal that Tennyson and Irving romanticized the concept of stasis while also questioning the duty of change and expansion.
In "The Lotos-Eaters," Tennyson romanticizes nature in order to emphasize the virtues of a land that remains in stasis as opposed to a land that is in constant change. When the mariners land on the island, its is described as a "land where all things always seemâd the same" (Tennyson 24). Tennyson is saying that the beauty of the island has been preserved because no one has attempted to change it. Tennyson is also saying that colonization and expansion lead to industry, which strips nature of its beauty. Furthermore, the atmosphere of the island is romanticized in that "there is neither sharp sunlight nor clear moon, only the haze of a seemingly perpetual afternoon; the air itself is languid and the stream, not full and rushing but slender and slow, seems to pause in its fall from the cliff" (Ryals 97). The idea of an island that remains constantly at the most pleasant time of day and a stream that is barely moving romanticizes the idea of being at rest with no worries.
America’s Manifest Destiny first surfaced around the 1840’s, when John O’Sullivan first titled the ideals that America had recently gained on claiming the West as their ‘Manifest Destiny.’ Americans wanted to settle in the West for multiple reasons, from the idea that God wanted them to settle all the way to the West co...
Expansionism in America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century shared many similarities and differences to that of previous American expansionist ideals. In both cases of American expansionism, the Americans believed that we must expand our borders in order to keep the country running upright. Also, the Americans believed that the United States was the strongest of nations, and that they could take any land they pleased. This is shown in the "manifest destiny" of the 1840's and the "Darwinism" of the late 1800's and early 1900's. Apart from the similarities, there were also several differences that included the American attempt to stretch their empire across the seas and into other parts of the world.
Most Americans probably believe our times are different from Washington Irving’s era. After all, almost 200 years have passed, and the differences in technology and civil liberties alone are huge. However, these dissimilarities seem merely surface ones. When reading “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” I find that the world Irving creates in each story is very familiar to the one in which I grew up. The players may have changed, and institutions have mostly replaced roles traditionally taken on by people, but the overall pieces still fit the rural lifestyle of contemporary America.
One major theme present in both stories is liberty/freedom. In “Rip Van Winkle,” Irving depicts the main character as a person who only wish...
One of the largest and most wealthy countries in the world, the United States of America, has gone through many changes in its long history. From winning its independence from Great Britain to present day, America has changed dramatically and continues to change. A term first coined in the 1840s, "Manifest Destiny" helped push America into the next century and make the country part of what it is today. The ideas behind Manifest Destiny played an important role in the development of the United States by allowing the territorial expansion of the 1800s. Without the expansion of the era, America would not have most of the western part of the country it does now.
Poets have often addressed the theme of how soldiers at war long to come back home and return to a normal life in solitude away from the harshness and ruggedness of war. But, what happens once they are back? Are their days as solemn, nights as tranquil as before? Seldom are these questions answered. This poem is of a soldier who is bombarded (no pun intended) with questions about war on his return and the subsequent discomfort that he faces in realizing that his hands have the blood of many foreigners (War Poets). The war changes the identity of an individual, the way he sees himself and those around him. And this blood that every soldier bears is something that water might clear, but the conscience always bears. In order to survive, soldiers have to kill their enemies who in reality are no different than themselves. They are to kill out of force and not out of choice. Once a soldier is back, things are never the same again even if the people and surroundings
In “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving he writes about a simple man, Rip Van Winkle, who does just enough to get by in life. He lives in a village by the catskill mountains, and is loved by everyone in the village. He is an easy going man, who spends most of his days at the village inn talking with his neighbors, fishing all day, and wandering the mountains with his dog to refuge from his wife the thorn on his side. On one of his trips to the mountains Rip Van Winkle stumbles upon a group of men who offer him a drink, and that drink changes everything for Van Winkle. He later wakes up, twenty years later, and returns to his village were he notices nothing is the same from when he left. He learns that King George III is no longer in charge,
The Renaissance was the most influential time period in the discovery of America. During the Renaissance, which lasted from the 14th century to the 17th century, great advancements were made in methods of navigation. Also, the greatest goal of almost every nation and empire was to claim new lands and seize its riches. The desire for the land motivated some to move westward. Another motive to expand during the Renaissance was the will to convert the native "heathens" into Christians.
They believed that every man is sinful but that God, through his mercy and grace, has chosen to save a few people and bless them with eternal life. The Puritans believed in the concept of “Original Sin”; which states that all people are damned by Adam’s original sin and that there are no exceptions to this rule. Some Puritans even believed that babies who died in childbirth were sent to Hell, as that was God’s predestined plan for them (Woodlief). Illegitimacy was viewed as a problem and as a moral disruption in Puritan society. The mothers of the children were often ostracized and ridiculed while their baby received fewer rights and was viewed as an abomination by the surrounding community. Lessons were taught to young children in their schoolhouses to try and dissuade the children from partaking in premarital sex, yet illegitimacy continued to grow well into the 18th
Although the aftermath of World War I was devastating to many, it did bring the literature world some of the most important work of the modernist era. Many of the writers were directly or indirectly affected by the war and their writing certainly showed this. Each writer’s work shows a view of the war from a different perspective. However, what they most have in common is they way they paint the war in a negative light. T.S. Elliot writes his poem The Wasteland to show the after affects of the war on everyone while Sassoon write They to show the after affects on the soldier. In the essay, these writers and their poems will be discussed to show how they similarly reacted to the event of World War I in reference to the themes of their poems and how differently they use those themes.
War is not a necessary evil humans must endure. Although, war is not necessary, humans go to war to try to gain power, fortune, and to spread their particular group’s religions and beliefs. By definition civilization is an advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society, marked by progress in the arts and sciences, the extensive use of record-keeping, including writing, and the appearance of complex political and social institutions. The chaos of war is reflected in the semantic history of the word war. War can be traced back to the Indo-European root *wers-, “to confuse, mix up.” In the Germanic family of the Indo-European languages, this root gave rise to several words having to do with confusion or mixture of various kinds. War is a state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties. The most widely used excuse to go to war is to progress civilization. To progress, is to advance toward a higher or better stage; as of a society or civilization. Burundi and Rwanda went to war with each other because of the “need” for a class of people to be looked at as the “dominant race/class”.
The span of time from the Victorian age of Literature to the Modernism of the 20th century wrought many changes in poetry style and literary thinking. While both eras contained elements of self-scrutiny, the various forms and reasoning behind such thinking were vastly different. The Victorian age, with it's new industrialization of society, brought to poetry and literature the fictional character, seeing the world from another's eyes. It was also a time in which "Victorian authors and intellectuals found a way to reassert religious ideas" (Longman, p. 1790). Society was questioning the ideals of religion, yet people wanted to believe.
The military historian, John Keegan offers a useful characterization of the political-rationalist theory of war in his A History of War. It is assumed to be an orderly affair in which states are involved, in which there are declared beginnings and expected ends, easily identifiable combatants, and high levels of obedience by subordinates. The form of rational war is narrowly defined, as distinguished by the expectation of sieges, pitched battles, skirmishes, raids, reconnaissance, patrol and outpost duties, with each possessing their own conventions. As ...
The Victorian period was in 1830-1901, this period was named after Queen Victoria; England’s longest reigning monarch. Britain was the most powerful nation in the world. This period was known for a rather stern morality. A huge changed happened in England; factories were polluting the air, cities were bursting at the seams, feminism was shaking up society, and Darwin’s theory of evolution was assaulting long established religious beliefs. The Victorians were proud of their accomplishments and optimistic about the future, but psychologically there was tension, doubt, and anxiety as people struggled to understand and deal with the great changes they were experiencing. One of the authors known for writing during the Victorian Period was Robert Browning. Robert Browning was a poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic monologues, which made him one of the Victorian poets. Robert died in December 1889. His Poem “Porphyria’s Lover” was published in 1836. This essay will explore three elements of Victorianism in Porphyria’s Lover by Robert Brown...
War is defined differently from different perspectives, some may viewed it positively and some may not. Cochrane, 2008 in his book defined war as being a period of organized violence between at least two parties, who may come from transnational, state or sub-state sources. On the other hand, “war” can also be defined as a patriotic act where one seeks the determination to lead their country as well as a sweet act that willing to sacrifice for their country. It can be viewed cruel, inhumane, and at the same time, noble. Ironically, war can make an individual a hero or a criminal.