The Dawn is Coming “Frost at Midnight’s” Hope for the Next Generation - Literature Essay Samples

It’s a common hope in the life of parents that their children will go on and live more successful lives. That their child will learn the lessons their parents taught them and the road their parents laid out for them to lead them to a more promising future. In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem â€Å"The Frost at Midnight,† we see the hopeful parent theme in Coleridge’s use of opposites, context, and word choice. Even within the title we immediately see literary archetypes at work. Frost is a naturally occurring phenomenon that works rather slowly, has a tendency to kill living things, and usually only works at night or better said at the close of the day. Frost’s definition in this sense can almost exactly be exchanged with the death if we are to personify it formally as Death. Death is a naturally occurring thing, Death tends to end one’s life, and Death usually takes it’s time and comes for them at the end of their life. So the very first word in the title of the poem suggests death. The second part of the title is naming a very unique time of day. In all the minutes and hour in the day Coleridge chooses the exact minute of the day when one day dies and a brand new day begins. So the title alludes that Death is coming and it is the end of a day, or someone’s day. We aren’t sure exactly who from the title alone, but the context gives us more as to whose da y is over. On line four of Coleridge’s poem the speaker makes a point to the reader that the â€Å"inmates† of his cottage are all at rest, except for the speaker who addresses themselves on line five. The only other member of the household that the speaker calls out in the poem is their infant. So through the context it is obvious who the two important characters are within this poem. This is important because it is clear that the infant specifically is the speakers which means it is a succeeding generation. The infant is mentioned only once more in detail until line forty four. On line forty-four the poem becomes a letter filled with optimism. The language used to describe the sleeping infant becomes words of softness and frailty as opposed to the imagery from the beginning of the poem and the previous stanza. At the beginning of the poem the author talks about an extreme silence but notes that the dying fire is companionable and that it understands and sympathizes with him. The speaker talks in the next stanza of being stuck behind bars, and items from the speaker’s childhood that â€Å"Haunted him† (line 31), and â€Å"so I brooded all the following morn,† (line 36), and lines thirty-nine through line forty-three suggests that the speaker was anxiously waiting for someone who never came. The entirety of this stanza’s focus and specific word choice allows Coleridge to give the reader a certain level of anxiety. Starting with line forty five we see words like â€Å"gentle,† and â€Å"deep calm,† and immediately the reader is brought back down to this level of tranquility. We see for the first time that this is a message of hope to the speaker’s infant with line forty-eight where the speaker says, â€Å"My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart/ with tender gladness, thus to look at thee,/ And think that thou shalt learn far other lore/ And in far other spaces! For I was reared/ in the great city, pent ‘mid cloisters dim†¦Ã¢â‚¬  At this point it makes sense to the reader that everything leading up to this stanza was the speaker essentially saying in long hand that he regretted being raised in a large stone city. He wanted to be in the countryside alongside nature who is later referred to as â€Å"the Great Universal Teacher.† Coleridge uses opposites not only in these two stanzas but in several other instances in the poem to further illustrate this idea of hopefulness for his infant’s future. Coleridge uses opposites throughout the whole poem. The first opposite that we see is Coleridge using the cold and the fire. The cold is slowly creeping across the outside and covering everything and the fire is dying. Even though frost and fire are opposites, they complement each other in this poem. The main contrast in the poem is the tone an language concerning the second and third stanza. Especially concerning the idea that the speaker has a hopeful outlook for their son. The biggest contrast comes from the word choice and contextual evidence the speaker gives us. The other big contrast is with the start and end of the poem. At the beginning the speaker makes a point that only this small part of nature, a dying flame, understands and sympathizes with him, but with his kid, God himself and nature in its entirety from great mountains and deep crags are here to aid and teach the young infant. The tone starts dark and solemn but ends light and hopeful. In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem â€Å"The Frost at Midnight,† we see the hopeful parent theme in Coleridge’s use of opposites, context, and word choice. Coleridge uses context to illustrate that the speaker feels hopeful for their infant’s up bringing in the country. He uses opposites to contrast his dim life in a city with the openness of the country and his word choice specifically in stanzas two and three help drive Coleridge’s points home.

The Myth Of Abraham Lincoln - 1291 Words

Lincoln was a man of many talents that helped form the myths we know today and that most of those myths are well justified. With Lincoln being a man solidified into history and mythology, have the myths overshadowed the facts that truly made his life historically worthy or is it that within every myth lies an element of fact? The myths about Abraham Lincoln are ones of much debate leaving some to say that they accurately depict what Lincoln was and some see them as an embellishment of the truth causing the real man to be lost in translation. This paper will explore this topic delving into what events leading to the formulation of one of the greatest and most heavily debated myths such which is â€Å"The Great Emancipator†. (Peterson, 1994,†¦show more content†¦The ideas we have come to know today about Abraham Lincoln were not even a thought in his head during this period nor was anyone writing down myths about him. While the years toiled on for Lincoln he was bec oming a man of much knowledge and one who had set his sights on making something great of himself. So he inspired to be a lawyer which he accomplished laying the ground work for his well-documented abundance of patients and strategy (Philips Dr., 2015). Both of which are contributors to some of the myths about him. Lincoln ads on to his legacy when he decides to enter into politics but surges the larger than life mantra of his personality when confronted with the great debates between him and Stephen A. Douglas (Peterson, 1994). These debates were a defining moment in the beginnings of Lincoln’s political career as well as a defining moment in his mythology. Here stood this man towering over Douglas debating word for word with him in a twang stricken accent but articulating far better than most. Lincoln’s appearance and speech was something to behold which had a lasting effect on the people who viewed him. These individuals would continue to speak about the man that they saw as if he were a giant due to the fact that in this time most men did not achieve six feet in height. These tails rang through the country in a fairly short amount of time as if they were a Greek mythological tail of some cyclops or

Postmodernism And Adolescence The Outsiders - 1196 Words

Postmodernism refuses to be pinned down and defined by a set of definitive characteristics or parameters. Its fluid definition begs to be poked and prodded, unwilling to offer a solid answer of what constitutes a Postmodern text. Similarly, the construct of adolescent identity ebbs and flows, now influenced by the advent of social media and its new genre of storytelling. Postmodernism and adolescence together form an interesting perspective that has been catalyzed by Young Adult Literature. The disregard for Young Adult Literature as a substantive genre worthy of critical study mirrors the cultural disregard for adolescence as a valid human experience, a tension that can be alleviated by a Postmodern reading of YA texts. Postmodern themes have been creeping into Young Adult Literature for decades, testing the water to see if this genre could host its disruptive behaviors and outlandish ideas. S.E. Hinton’s 1967 novel, The Outsiders, plays with tenets of Postmodern fiction but does not fully submerse itself in the chaos of the theory. Hinton’s book toes the line between a traditional linear text and that of a full-on Postmodern novel, such as W.D. Myers’s turn of the century publication Monster. Evidenced by scholarly studies of the novel’s tropes and themes, Monster embodies YAL’s embrace of Postmodernism and fits snugly within the generally agreed upon characteristics of the theory both in form and content. More recent and less critically studied, John Green’s The Fault inShow MoreRelatedChildren Of Dust : A Memoir Of Pakistan1362 Words   |  6 Pagesveneration and determination for his religion. Likewise this agreement did without a doubt control his life for the accompanying thirty years. As a child encountering youth in a Pakistan desert town, he cheerfully gets a handle on the sweetness of his adolescence and young manliness among his mother and father, Ammi and Pops, with all the fondness and strictness of a Muslim family in a Muslim country, enveloped by diverse grandparents, close relatives, uncles, and cousins. I especially loved his delineationsRead MoreThe Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao : Gender And Identity1837 Words   |  8 Pagesa nerd which leads to the lack of romance in his adolescence and adulthood. In an article by Joori Joyce Lee it says: â€Å"Growing up as a ghetto nerd, or a smart kid in a poor-ass community, Diaz felt like a mutant because he found himself to be an outsider in both the Dominican subculture and mainstream white American society.† (Lee, pg 23). Oscar could never really fit in with his peers or even with Dominicans, he is always considered an outsider to them. â€Å"Everybody noticed his lack of game and

Censorship Of Art Essay Example For Students

Censorship Of Art Essay In an act of self-censorship and under the influence of Fra Savanarolla, Sandro Botticelli destroyed many of his works in the bonfire of the vanities. Under what conditions would you censor art? Should certain subjects remain taboo? If so, which ones? Why? Who should censor? What should be the penalties for producing the art that is censored? Is there a difference in private and public art? Expand your consideration to the availability of visual images on the internet. Respond I believe that are, unlike certain literature and media, should rarely if ever be censored. I dont believe that something like a statue or a painting can have the effect over people that a 2000 page book can, or a powerful public speaker for instance. I dont believe that any single piece of art should ever need to be censored, and I dont believe that there are many subjects that are taboo anymore. Art in our society plays a much smaller role then literature and media, and even though it can have a powerful effect on its viewers, I dont believe that that effect is ever going to be powerful enough that we need to censor art. I believe that the patrons and the consumers are basically responsible for deciding for themselves rather to buy or view a piece of art, and therefore censorship isnt necessary because it exists within the consumer. I believe that there is very distasteful art that is intentionally distasteful and many artists attempt this just to get a rise out of people. While I think that this practice is semi-absurd and quite juvenile I dont believe that these people should be stifled by the government, we should just allow them to continue to be rejected by a society that quite probably has already rejected them anyways. With that aside, I believe that such distasteful art, while being allowed to exist and be created, should remain in private. In this case, I do believe that a sort of censorship should exist in that something that is blatantly offensive to a large number of people has no necessary reason to be displayed in public, and I believe that our local, state, and national governments do a decent job of deciding what is appropriate and what is not. In the instance of internet pornography or material available on the internet, I believe that it is up to the consumer not to access material they dont want to observe, and in the instance of a child or minor surfing the net, the parents or guardian should decide through parental controls what they deem appropriate vs. nappropriate. I believe that censorship is more of a common sense thing, and that as long as radical leftists dont whine about everything and radical rightist dont try to censor everything, we can meet somewhere in the middle and everyone that wants to see distasteful art can have as much of it as they want, while still keeping it away from those who dont.