Visionary Essays

  • William Blake "The Visionary"

    846 Words  | 2 Pages

    In one of his note books Blake said, "the nature of my work is visionary or imaginative; it is an endeavor to restore what the ancients call the golden age." Not only is the nature of Blake's work visionary, he claimed to have actually seen visions early in childhood. The first time he saw God was when he was only four; God put his head to the windows, and set to screaming. Four years later, he saw a tree filled with angels. Naturally, such things looked fantastic to the people around that when he

  • A Pattern of Visionary Imagery in W. S. Merwin

    7068 Words  | 15 Pages

    A Pattern of Visionary Imagery in W. S. Merwin After quoting Blake's own words to establish his work as essentially "'Visionary,'" and then defining that term as the "view of the world . . . as it really is when it is seen by human consciousness at its greatest height and intensity" (143), Northrop Frye suggests an important but largely ignored point for criticism in his essay "Blake After Two Centuries" when he observes that works like Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception "seem to show that

  • Henry David Thoreau - Conservationist, Visionary, and Humanist

    2242 Words  | 5 Pages

    Henry David Thoreau - Conservationist, Visionary, and Humanist He spent his life in voluntary poverty, enthralled by the study of nature.  Two years, in the prime of his life, were spent living in a shack in the woods near a pond.  Who would choose a life like this? Henry David Thoreau did, and he enjoyed it.  Who was Henry David Thoreau, what did he do, and what did others think of his work? Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts on July 12, 1817 ("Thoreau" 96), on his

  • Painting What We See Within: A Look at the Insides of Art Therapy

    1148 Words  | 3 Pages

    Painting What We See Within: A Look at the Insides of Art Therapy One of the most memorable experiences I had last summer was visiting the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. (3)At this museum, professional artists had created none of the works hanging on the walls. Visionary art is an individualized expression by people with little or no formal training; the rules of art as a school did not apply here. While I was there, I learned that for many years, the artwork created by

  • Suetonius 'The Twelve Caesars'

    1126 Words  | 3 Pages

    through the modern world. Suetonius has given me a better understanding of the Caesars and Rome. The two Caesars that caught my attention the most were Augustus and Gaius. These two represent a stark contrast between the rulers f Rome. One was a visionary and a leader, the other was an insane megalomaniac. Suetonius did a good job of describing not only the men and their actions, but how these actions affected the Romans and the world. All of the men were important and influential, but Suetonius'

  • James Joyce's Araby - The Lonely Quest in Araby

    1298 Words  | 3 Pages

    find a talisman, which, if brought back, will return this lost spirituality. The development of theme in "Araby" resembles the myth of the quest for a holy talisman. In "Araby," Joyce works from a "visionary mode of artistic creation"-a phrase used by psychiatrist Carl Jung to describe the, “visionary" kind of literary creation that derives its material from “the hinterland of man's mind-that suggests the abyss of time sepa-rating us from prehuman ages, or evokes a superhuman world of con-trasting

  • Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, and Ode to Autumn

    1467 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, and Ode to Autumn The casual reader of John Keats' poetry would most certainly be impressed by the exquisite and abundant detail of it's verse, the perpetual freshness of it's phrase and the extraordinarily rich sensory images scattered throughout it's lines. But, without a deeper, more intense reading of his poems as mere parts of a larger whole, the reader may miss specific themes and ideals which are not as readily apparent as are the obvious stylistic

  • Kandinsky's Art

    3975 Words  | 8 Pages

    belief in this spiritual art and his theories on its effects on the soul, can truly be felt and appreciated by the average viewer, who at first glance would most likely view Kandinsky's paintings as simply abstract. Kandinsky was indeed a visionary, an artist who through his theoretical ideas of creating a new pictorial language sought to revolutionize the art of the twentieth-century. Regarded as the founder of abstract painting, he broke free from arts traditional limitations and invented

  • Salvia divinorum, Herb of Mary, the Shepherdess

    1525 Words  | 4 Pages

    glory seeds, as a ritual entheogen (hallucinogen) and divinatory aid. It is propagated vegetatively by the Mazatecs, and no wild specimens of the plant have been observed by researchers. The diterpene salvinorin A is the chemical responsible for the visionary effects of this species. The plant now enjoys limited use among "basement shamans" in the North as an entheogen similar to LSD and psilocybian mushrooms, and is sometimes cultivated for this reason. Description A collection of Salvia divinorum

  • Abe Saperstein: A Champion of Civil Rights

    1419 Words  | 3 Pages

    to initiate integration throughout the country, while establishing himself as an unknown and unconventional hero. Saperstein was a masterful promoter and businessman who would build the most well known sports franchise in history. He was also a visionary who knew the immense impact that African Americans could have on the game of basketball and was determined to force integration throughout the game of basketball. By forming his own successful African American team, Saperstein pioneered the integration

  • Revelations

    1674 Words  | 4 Pages

    with private revelations have been explained in the article CONTEMPLATION. Some of them are at first thought surprising. Thus a vision of an historical scene (e.g., of the life or death of Christ) is often only approximately accurate, although the visionary may be unaware of this fact, and he may be misled, if he believes in its absolute historical fidelity. This error is quite natural, being based on the assumption that, if the vision comes from God, all its details (the landscape, dress, words, actions

  • The Essence of Tragedy in The Book of Job and Oedipus Rex

    1973 Words  | 4 Pages

    the stress is on the inner dynamics of man's response to destiny. Oedipus stresses not so much man's guilt or forsakeness as his ineluctable lot, the stark realities which are and always will be. The Greek tradition is less nostalgic and less visionary---the difference being in emphasis, not in kind. There is little pining for a lost Golden Age, or yearning for utopia, redemption, or heavenly restitution. But if it stresses man's fate, it does not deny him freedom. Dramatic action, of course, posits

  • Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

    2517 Words  | 6 Pages

    Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell "The Nature of my Work is Visionary or Imaginative; it is an Endeavor to Restore what the Ancients calld the Golden Age." -William Blake (Johnson/Grant,xxiv). William Blake completed the manuscript of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, as well as the twenty-five accompanying engraved plates, in 1792. In the sense that the The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is a vision of a particular version of reality, it subscribes to one definition of the mythic

  • The City of the Sun

    704 Words  | 2 Pages

    The City of the Sun In Tommaso Campanella’s document, The City of the Sun, a new social order is introduced amongst the Solarians. Campanella presents his readers with a utopian society that is ordered by rationality and reason. This ideal visionary is a redeemed world, free from injustice and competition in the market structure. Campanella, however, grew up in a society that was exploited and based on irrational principles. Campanella, therefore, reconstructs a society that operates in opposition

  • Meaning Of Illusions

    1446 Words  | 3 Pages

    The True Meaning of Our Illusions Every human being has illusions. Unfortunately, the majority of the time, we are unable to uncover their true meaning. This does not mean that our precious visionary images have no answer or meaning and that they make no sense. Our illusions are based and composed with the daily interaction that we have with our culture, personal pre-occupations and daily experiences that sometimes are hard to believe. These are constantly reflected throughout our lifes in a way

  • The Importance of Blake in Today’s World

    2208 Words  | 5 Pages

    saw visions from the age of four" (Mack 783). Frye, however, who seems to be one of the most influential Blake scholars, disagrees, saying that Blake was a visionary rather than a mystic. "'Mysticism' . . . means a certain kind of religious techniques difficult to reconcile with anyone's poetry," says Frye (Frye 8). He next says that "visionary" is "a word that Blake uses, and uses constantly" and cites the example of Plotinus, the mystic, who experienced a "direct apprehension of God" four times

  • Elijah Blake Thesis

    598 Words  | 2 Pages

    Discovering a great artist is like discovering a new restaurant that serves the best of your favorite meal. Sean Fenton, popularly known as Elijah Blake, is an American singer and songwriter born in the Dominican Republic. He has worked with big names in the industry like Usher, Trey Songz, J. Cole, and Rihanna among others. This alone gives you a sneak peek of how good he must be. You have to be vastly talented at creating the art of music to work with the best. The first thing that will capture

  • From Playwright to Production: the Process of Recreating Shakespeare

    3337 Words  | 7 Pages

    rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. (Act V.i.12-17) The poet is a visionary and his main tool is his imagination. Through his imagination he looks at heaven and earth and sees what the average person does not. The imagination gives 'bodies'; to and brings forth what cannot be seen by the naked eye. The poet is given insight

  • Simon as Christ in Lord of the Flies

    873 Words  | 2 Pages

    Simon as Christ in Lord of the Flies The role of the prophet changes with the society in which he lives. In modern society, a prophet is a visionary, telling people what they can become; in Biblical times, a prophet was the voice of God, telling his people what they had to become to fulfill their covenant with God.  In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, the prophet is a peaceful lad, Simon.  He alone saw that the jungle, which represented freedom and the lack of civilization, was not to

  • Cloudstreet by Tim Winton

    1166 Words  | 3 Pages

    compulsive gambler, more often than not short of cash. Although for Fish, losing his mental faculties and the ability to communicate to others, in his near drowning experience, gave way for his unimaginable bond with water and his abilities as a visionary. As Oriel Lamb said after Fish was rescued, "To the child who had hovered on the brink of drowning and who returned to life, though not all of Fish Lamb had come back," (found on Page 32) that other part of Fish Lamb it seems is the omniscient