Nature in Literature Essay Example for Free

Nature in Literature Essay Nature is one of the most powerful forces that has ran through literature throughout human history. Ever since the first recorded dramas and philosophical works, man could not avoid being in contact with the world around him, and so his connection to the earth must inevitably be part of his story. In literature, when nature is addressed, it is often in praise or awe, of its terror or of its beauty. Nature can represent the real and visceral as well as the sublime and the mystic. If one examines the work of the Transcendentalists, the Romantic Poets, and certain novelists, it is evident that the underlying feeling is that Nature provides inspiration and bliss, as well as a much-needed refuge from society. One of the best known schools of thought which dealt with Nature in literature is Transcendentalism. The Transcendentalist movement began in America in the 1800s. Transcendentalists believed that the divine could be reached through nature, by any man. The hallmark work of the movement was Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature. The most famous section of the work is when Emerson recalls an experience he had in the woods, and says I become a transparent eye-ball. . . . I see all. The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. (Cromphout 210) Emerson tapped into an experience of non-being, connecting on a purely spiritual level through nature, without need of church or religion. Equally famed is Henry David Thoreau’s work Walden. In this classic, Thoreau captures the spirit of nature, solitude, and finding joy in both. As an experiment, Thoreau left society and went to live in a cabin on Walden Pond. In this famous statement, Thoreau sums up the mission of his experiment: I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. .. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms. † (Thoreau 5)He was making a stand against the materialism and convoluted nature of society- â€Å"Our life is frittered away by detail, simplify, simplify,† he says. For him nature represented the bare essentials- trees, rock, hunger, thirst; the things that lay behind the trappings of society. He took immense joy in the solitude and beauty of his life at Walden Pond. He farmed, observed, and lived in harmony with nature. Walden opened people’s eyes and inspired them, and might be the most classic example of nature in literature. Another Transcendentalist, the most radical and wonderfully incendiary, was Walt Whitman. His most famous work, Leaves of Grass, was written in free verse and was seen as controversial and even obscene by the uptight intellectuals of the day. The essence of his work is a deep oneness with nature, having no shame in being, and joy in what can be seen and felt. In Song of Myself, he says, â€Å"I am satisfied†¦ I see, dance, laugh, sing. † â€Å"The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag†¦ The feeling of health†¦ the full-noon trill†¦ the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun. † (Whitman 12) For Whitman, nature is all he needs, he takes endless joy in being, tempering the intellect with natural physical pleasures. An equally important school of thought was the Romantic movement in Europe. Romanticism grew out of a rebellion against the Enlightenment and its stark intellectualism. Instead, romanticism revolves around passion, emotion, nature, mystery, turmoil, and all the qualities of life that were not constrained by reason. â€Å"Nature mysticism† was one of the most important aspects of the movement. (Micale 140) The romantics preferred the country and the wilderness to the city, and loved both gentle, pastoral landscapes as well as the turbulent, sublime, dramatic, and exotic. (Micale 150) Of course, literature was at the core of the Romantic movement, and the love of nature is reflected in its works. An excellent example of the â€Å"sublime† side of nature is found in the work of the mysterious literary figure Ossian, who influenced so many of the romantic writers. Ossian was actually the Scottish poet James Macpherson(1736-1796) who wrote a collection of ancient Scottish poems, claiming to be word-of-mouth folk tales, but it is supposed that he wrote them himself. (Simonsuuri 192) The poems involved misty, windblown, rocky landscapes and moonlight, and the romantic images and ideas he brought about captured the imagination of society and of individuals such as Goethe, Napoleon, and Jefferson. (Simonsuuri 287) People were drawn to this exotic, wild side of nature and the worlds that it conjured. An example of the green, pastoral side of nature in romantic literature is found in William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience. In the poem Laughing Song, he says:â€Å"When the green woods laugh with the voice of joyAnd the dimpling stream runs laughing by,When the air does laugh with our merry wit,And the green hill laughs with the noise of it. † (Blake 28) In Songs of Innocence, Blake connects the lovely landscape with youth, joy, and happiness. In his poetry, the countryside represents â€Å"innocence† and all things good, while the city represents â€Å"experience† and disillusionment. In conclusion, nature is one of the strongest forces found in literature. Men have written about the natural world and how it affects them for centuries, and will continue to do so. In Europe, Nature was at the core of the Romantic movement. Their works reflect both the stormy and sublime side of nature as well as the peaceful and pastoral. Either way, the romantics were moved to bliss and rapture by the beauties they saw around them. In America, a similar movement took place with the Transcendentalists, who believed that the unifying spirit in all things could be reached directly through nature. In literature, nature is often perceived with some amount of mysticism. To man, nature represents all that is not machine and society, it represents a state of freedom, passion, and beauty. If one examines the work of the Transcendentalists, the Romantic Poets, and certain novelists, it is evident that the underlying feeling is that Nature provides inspiration and bliss, as well as a much-needed refuge from society. Word count: 1100.

Theistic Evolution :: essays research papers

I do not wish to change anyone’s beliefs about Creation or Evolution, but wrote this in defense for people who tell me I am wrong unless I believe exactly what they do. This paper is short, incomplete, and is not in-depth. I am willing to provide more information, and hear arguments from your side of the story if you find this paper unacceptable. It is my opinion that the theories of Biblical Creationism and Evolution do not contradict each other. I believe that God gave this world a complete set of laws which are constant, unchanging, not limited to the moral laws given to us, and were as present in the beginning as they are today. I do not think that the idea of evolution takes away from the glory of God, but rather emphasizes it. I do not think it is an attempt to "explain" away the miracle God has done, for he has given us this observation in plain sight. Before giving the reasons for my belief, an assumption must be made that the Bible is meant to be interpreted instead of taken literally. Aside from the fact that there are already two different stories of creation found in the Bible (Gen 1 and Gen 2); I will support the idea of interpretation with two short examples which should be sufficient: Jesus said, "I am the vine, you are the branches" to His disciples (John 15:5). This is not to be taken literally. PSA 145:9 The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. JER 13:14 And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the LORD: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them. My faith accepts no contradictions; so again, this is an example of how the Bible was meant to be interpreted. According to the Bible, the Earth is flat. How can Young Earth Creationists accept this? They don’t. Why they selectively choose to believe certain parts of the Bible and not others is beyond me. Bishop Ussher calculated 6,000 years old, and the Flood at 2348 BC by using references from the Bible. Because there are so many written historical references of civilization before 6,000 years, Creationists conveniently extend the age of the Earth to 10,000 years. Which is it? By calculating dates from the Bible, is the Earth 6,000 years old or not?

Organisational Behavior Assignment

Groups and Organizational Dynamics Assignment Prof. Nafisa Kattarwala Submitted by – Ryan Pereira PT-MBA Div. B Roll No. 39 What are the types of groups you have worked with in an organization, what are the conflicts that had arisen and how did you resolve them? A group is defined as two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, who have come together to achieve particular objectives. Groups can be either formal or informal. Formal groups are those groups that are defined by the organization’s structure, with designated work assignments establishing tasks.Informal groups are alliances that are neither formally structured nor organizationally determined. Informal groups are natural formations in the work environment that appear in response to the need for social contact. Formal groups are further classified into command groups, task groups and functional groups whereas informal groups are classified into interest groups and friendship groups. As an employee of JPMorgan, I had the privilege of working with a wide variety of groups ranging from functional (formal) groups to interest and friendship (informal) oriented groups.The formal functional group which I was associated with had been formed in order to achieve the organizational objective. As a part of the corporate actions and income processing team, my groups’ primary function was to ensure corporate action notices were sent out to clients in a timely fashion and ensuring payment of incomes (dividends and coupons) to all entitled JPMorgan clients were completed as per the specified deadlines. We were a group of 5 individuals (4 males and 1 female). The conflict that had initially risen within this formal functional group was the work allocation to males and females.As the team was usually heavily burden with volumes throughout the major part of the week and as the female in the group had to leave early to take care of household activities, she had informed the group that she w ould not accept additional work and will be working for only a fixed number of hours. This did not go well with the rest of the male employees who had to put in extra hours in order to complete the work. The male employees felt that she was taking undue advantage of the fact that she was a female and taking on less work and responsibilities as compared to them.As the team leader was on an extended leave, it was the operations analyst’s responsibility to handle the situation and maintain order in the group. As I was the operations analyst in the group, I ensured that the interests of all the parties in the group were met by requesting the female member of the group to do an early shift (early morning 7 AM to 5 PM) so that she could handle a majority of the workload in the morning and could leave at her scheduled time so that she could also complete her household activities.In this way the interests of the female employee was met as well as that of her male colleagues who had r elatively less workload at the latter part of the day as compared to before the conflict. The second group that I was associated with was informal in nature and was an interest group. JPMorgan has a wide variety of hobby groups that an employee can join, in order to enrich the employees’ interest in certain hobbies like reading, trekking, etc.I had enrolled myself in the reading group as I am an avid reader and knew that JPMorgan has an extensive collection of books and literature and could benefit extensively from my associations with the group. The group used to give out books (novels of all genres – management, science fiction, adventure, autobiographies, crime, detective, etc. ) to employees for a period of two weeks after which the employee would be requested to return the book to the group so that the group could lend the books to others.The group used to also hold book reviews and discussions on many occasions. The conflict that arose in this group was that a fe w group members felt that only they were actively participating in the reading group and the others were just there for name sake and were like sleeping partners. The members felt that there were individuals in the group who were not even responsible for the books lent by them to employees nor did they keep accurate tabs on those who had taken the books and had not yet returned the books as per the scheduled deadlines.As a result of this irresponsibility, the group had lost/ misplaced several titles from its collection and the books could not be replaced as the group was formed as a recreational group without any funding from senior management for purchasing books. The books that were in possession with the group were donated by employees and colleagues over the years and the collection had amassed to an impressive one.The group decided that as there were indeed individuals who were contributing relatively less as compared to the other individuals in the group, the group should list down all the activities that it entails and should allocate jobs/ tasks to each individual in the group. There should be primary, secondary and tertiary roles assigned to individuals so that no task/ group activity is left unchecked if one or two employees of the group were absent on a particular day.This way each individual in the group is given the responsibility of a certain group activity or task and no individual is sitting idle in the group without any work or with making any contribution in the group. Furthermore, it was decided that the tasks/ group activities would be rotated amongst the group members so that no one individual gets bored/ uninterested with the same activity and so that all the members in the group gets a hands on approach to all the activities of the group. The rotation was done on a month to month basis and quarter basis depending on the activity.The third group that I was associated with was an informal friendship group. In JPMorgan, I had the privilege of meeting some amazing and extremely talented people. I was fortunate enough to form a lasting bond of friendship with such individuals. These individuals were from different backgrounds and had different thought processes and hence I was able to learn a lot from them. We were a total of seven friends at JPMorgan – four males and 3 females. All of us were from different departments and used to sit on different floors of the same building, but we used to meet up to have lunch together as a group.We used to co-ordinate amongst ourselves and used to meet in the office cafeteria. In a span of one year we had become really good friends and had some truly memorable times with each other. One day when the entire group was seated for lunch at the office cafeteria, a conflict of sorts broke out amongst the group when one of the guys in the group made a general statement and one of the girls in the group took the statement personally and felt that the statement was directed at her as an insult.The guy in the group did not intentionally want to insult the girl but the girl took the statement in that manner. Due to this miscommunication, there was a cold war between the girl and the guy and those that were around them. The rest of the friends in the group did not understand why the two were behaving in such a negative manner towards each other. All those who were part of the group started acting differently around each other as they too were friends with the guy and the girl in some way or the other and they could not take sides.Due to this there were a lot of petty issues which were brought up and made into big issues as the group started fighting amongst themselves. In the end, we all split up and are no longer in touch with each other. We decided to stay apart as the incident created a riff in the friendship which could not be bridged. These are some of the groups that I was associated with along with the conflicts that had been faced and how they were resolved .

Dred Scott V. Sandford Case Of 1857 - 1203 Words

Dred Scott (c. 1799 – September 17, 1858) was an enslaved African American man in the United States who unsuccessfully sued for his freedom and that of his wife and their two daughters in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857, popularly known as the Dred Scott Decision. Scott claimed that he and his wife should be granted their freedom because they had lived in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory for four years, where slavery was illegal. The United States Supreme Court decided 7–2 against Scott, finding that neither he nor any other person of African ancestry could claim citizenship in the United States, and therefore Scott could not bring suit in federal court under diversity of citizenship rules. Moreover, Scott s temporary†¦show more content†¦Louis, Missouri, where they ran a boarding house.[6] Dred Scott was sold to Dr. John Emerson, a surgeon serving in the United States Army. After Scott learned he would be sold to Dr. Emerson and relocated to Rock I sland, Illinois, he attempted to run away. His decision to do so was spurred by a distaste he had previously developed for Dr. Emerson. Scott was temporarily successful in his escape as he, much like many other runaway slaves during this time period, never tried to distance his pursuers, but dodged around among his fellow slaves as long as possible. Eventually, he was captured in the Lucas Swamps of Missouri and taken back.[7] Blow died in 1832, and historians debate whether Scott was sold to Emerson before or after Blow s death. Some believe that Scott was sold in 1831, while others point to a number of slaves in Blow s estate after his death were sold to Emerson, among them was one with a name given as Sam, who may be the same person as Scott.[1] As an army officer, Dr. Emerson moved frequently, taking Scott with him to each new army posting. In 1836, Emerson and Scott went to Fort Armstrong, in the free state of Illinois. In 1837, Emerson took Scott to Fort Snelling, in what is now the state of Minnesota and was then in the free territory of Wisconsin. There, Scott met and married Harriet Robinson, a slave owned by Lawrence Taliaferro. The marriage was formalized in a civil ceremony presidedShow MoreRelatedEssay on Dred Scott v. Sandford1088 Words   |  5 PagesDred Scott v. Sandford Dred Scott was born a slave in the state of Virginia around the 1800s. Around 1833 he was purchased from his original owner, Peter Blow, by John Emerson, an officer in the United States Army. Dr. Emerson took Dred Scott to the free state of Illinois to live, and under its constitution, he was eligible to be free. In around 1836, Dred Scott and his owner moved to Wisconsin territory, a territory that was free under the Missouri compromise. It was in Wisconsin thatRead MoreDred Scott V. Sanford Case1718 Words   |  7 PagesProfessor Young Political Science 22 July 2016 Dred Scott v. Sanford Supreme Court Case According to William A. Darity, Duke University Professor, â€Å"Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) was a major U.S. Supreme Court case dealing with the status of slaves in the United States.† Britannica.com states that â€Å"Dred Scott decision, formally Dred Scott v. John F.A. Sandford, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on March 6, 1857, ruled (7–2) that a slave (Dred Scott) who had resided in a free state and territoryRead MoreDred Scott V. Sandford Essay829 Words   |  4 PagesAmanda Turnbull Ms. Miller U.S. History I Enriched 25 February 2013 Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) 　　　　Slavery was at the root of the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford. Dred Scott sued his master to obtain freedom for himself and his family. His argument was that he had lived in a territory where slavery was illegal; therefore he should be considered a free man. Dred Scott was born a slave in Virginia around 1800. Scott and his family were slaves owned by Peter Blow and his family. He moved toRead MoreDred Scott V. Sandford was a lawsuit filed in 1846 by Dred Scott, an African- American slave800 Words   |  4 PagesDred Scott V. Sandford was a lawsuit filed in 1846 by Dred Scott, an African- American slave because he wanted to gain freedom not only for himself but for his family. This case became a landmark legal case in the United States history. Dred Scott was basically arguing that because his owner had taken him into a free state where African Americans were free. The United states Supreme court said that since he was a slave now he could not become free. Slaves were not considered as United States citizensRead MoreDred Scott Is Not Reasonable Or Logical?799 Words   |  4 PagesThe decision that was made in the 1857 by the Supreme Court about Dred Scott becoming a freeman was not reasonable or logical. In the 1850’s the nation was faced with a struggle over slavery that would threaten to tear the West apart; the free states from the slave states. The main question that Dred Scott argued was whether a slave’s status overrode his previous situation when he entered a free state or territory. During the course of time, slaves had slave owners. Slaves were not considered peopleRead MoreThe Dred Scott Case Against Slavery1124 Words   |  5 Pagesterritories to threaten the Union. Throughout the decades, many compromises were made to avoid disunion. But the Constitution was not clear on this subject which created quite the discussion nationwide when raised in 1857 before the Supreme Court in the form of the Dred Scott case. The Dred Scott decision was an eye-opener to Northerners that believed slavery was acceptable as long as it stayed in the South. If the decision took away any power Congress once had to regulate slavery in new territories, slaveryRead MoreEssay about Chief Justice Taney and Slavery1745 Words   |  7 Pagesfunctions of an impartial judicature.†[1] The 1857 Dred Scott decision proved that Chief Justice Roger Taney’s sadistic racism could be eclipsed only by his unbounded arrogance. Using outright lies regarding the intentions of the Framers, he temporarily sacrificed the entire African race, and directed the Supreme Court to move in and illegitimate and supercede the powers vested to Congress by the Constitution. Dred Scott brought the integrity of the court into question as Taney twistedRead MoreDiscrimination And Its Effects On Today s Society1331 Words   |  6 Pagesfirst formed by the harsh language used present during slavery in the cases of Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) assisting in the mortality gap between â€Å"blacks† and â€Å"whites†. However, what we neglect to recall are the stark reasons why inequality exists: the social roles of subordinates and dominates. By evaluating the exclusionary and dehumanizing language present in both Dred Scott v. S andford and Plessy v. Ferguson that shapes the negative perspective projected on peopleRead MoreDred Scott and Slavery623 Words   |  2 PagesDred Scott was a man that grew up in the tough times of slavery. Scott was born around the year 1800 and died in 1858. As a young man and all the way up to his death he tried several times to gain freedom for his family and himself through the Missouri court system, but failed. Scott then took his case to a court in Missouri, where he won only to have the final decision revoked by the Supreme Court (â€Å"Dred Scott Biography†). The notorious outcome of Dred Scott v. Sandford case embarked the start ofRead MoreEssay on American Slavery967 Words   |  4 Pagesincident was taking place that would anger Northerners; the Dred Scott Case. Dred Scott v. Sandford was a case that was brought before the Supreme Court in 1857, in which Dared Scott a former slave tried to buy his family’s freedom after their master died. Irene Sandford , the wife of Dred Scott’s master, refused to let Dred Scoot buy his family. Eventually the Supreme Court decided in favor of Irene Sandford based on the grounds that Scott was African and not a citizen of the US which meant he did