Intimations of Immortality

In Wordsworth’s poetry, childhood is a magical, magnificent time of innocence. Children form an intense bond with nature, so much so that they appear to be a part of the natural world, rather than a part of the human, social world. Their relationship to nature is passionate and extreme: children feel joy at seeing a rainbow but great terror at seeing desolation or decay. The speaker in “Ode: Intimations of Immortality” believes that children delight in nature because they have access to a divine, immortal world. As children age and reach maturity, they lose this connection but gain an ability to feel emotions, both good and bad. Through the power of the human mind, particularly memory, adults can recollect the devoted connection to nature of their youth. Memory allows Wordsworth’s speakers to overcome the harshness of the contemporary world. Recollecting their childhoods gives adults a chance to reconnect with the visionary power and intense relationship they had with nature as children. In turn, these memories encourage adults to re-cultivate as close a relationship with nature as possible as an antidote to sadness, loneliness, and despair.

The speaker begins by declaring that there was a time when nature seemed mystical to him, like a dream, "Apparelled in celestial light." But now all of that is gone. No matter what he does, "The things which I have seen I now can see no more."

In the second stanza the speaker says that even though he can still see the rainbow, the rose, the moon, and the sun, and even though they are still beautiful, something is different .Something has been lost. But yet I know, where'er I go,  That there hath past away a glory from the earth." The speaker is saddened by the birds singing and the lambs jumping

In the third stanza. Soon, however, he resolves not to be depressed, because it will only put a damper on the beauty of the season. He declares that all of the earth is happy, and exhorts the shepherd boy to shout.

 In the fourth stanza the speaker continues to be a part of the joy of the season, saying that it would be wrong to be "sullen . While Earth herself in adorning,  And the Children are culling  On every side, In a thousand valleys far and wide." However, when he sees a tree, a field, and later a pansy at his feet, they again give him a strong feeling that something is amiss. He asks, "Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream?"

The fifth stanza contains arguably the most famous line of the poem: "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting." He goes on to say that as infants we have some memory of heaven, but as we grow we lose that connection: "Heaven lies about us in our infancy!" As children this connection with heaven causes us to experience nature's glory more clearly. Once we are grown, the connection is lost.

 In the sixth stanza, the speaker says that as soon as we get to earth, everything conspires to help us forget the place we came from: heaven. "Forget the glories he hath known, and that imperial palace whence he came."

In the seventh stanza the speaker sees (or imagines) a six-year-old boy, and foresees the rest of his life. He says that the child will learn from his experiences, but that he will spend most of his effort on imitation: "And with new joy and pride  The little Actor cons another part." It seems to the speaker that his whole life will essentially be "endless imitation."

 In the eighth stanza the speaker speaks directly to the child, calling him a philosopher. The speaker cannot understand why the child, who is so close to heaven in his youth, would rush to grow into an adult. He asks him, "Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke  The years to bring the inevitable yoke,  Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?"

In the ninth stanza (which is the longest at 38 lines) the speaker experiences a flood of joy when he realizes that through memory he will always be able to connect to his childhood, and through his childhood to nature

In the tenth stanza the speaker harkens back to the beginning of the poem, asking the same creatures that earlier made him sad with their sounds to sing out: "Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!" Even though he admits that he has lost some of the glory of nature as he has grown out of childhood, he is comforted by the knowledge that he can rely on his memory.

 In the final stanza the speaker says that nature is still the stem of everything is his life, bringing him insight, fueling his memories and his belief that his soul is immortal: "To me the meanest flower that blows can give  Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

The structure of the Immortality Ode is also unique in Wordsworth’s work; unlike his characteristically fluid, naturally spoken monologues, the Ode is written in a lilting, songlike cadence with frequent shifts in rhyme scheme and rhythm. Further, rather than progressively exploring a single idea from start to finish, the Ode jumps from idea to idea, always sticking close to the central scene, but frequently making surprising moves, as when the speaker begins to address the “Mighty Prophet” in the eighth stanza—only to reveal midway through his address that the mighty prophet is a six-year-old boy.

"Ode; Intimations of Immortality" is a long and rather complicated poem about Wordsworth's connection to nature and his struggle to understand humanity's failure to recognize the value of the natural world. The poem is elegiac in that it is about the regret of loss. Wordsworth is saddened by the fact that time has stripped away much of nature's glory, depriving him of the wild spontaneity he exhibited as a child

Saki's The Open Window

Saki's short story "The Open Window" is the story of a practical joke. Saki's work is an examination of the conflict between what the central character knows to be true (reality) and what he believes (imagination). Saki suggests that it is difficult to determine the difference between the two. It is Mr. Nuttel who falls for the practical joke, and also the reader. The story begins with Framton Nuttel coming to the Sappleton house; he needs to rest his nerves. His sister, who thinks he should socialise while he is there, has given him letters of introduction to families in the neighbourhood who she got to know when she was staying there a few years previously.Framton goes to visit a Mrs Stapleton, and while he is waiting for her to come down, he is entertained by her fifteen-year-old niece. The niece tells him that the French window is kept open, even though it is October, because her aunt's husband and her brothers were killed in a shooting accident three years ago, and Mrs Stapleton believes they will come back one day.

When Mrs Stapleton comes down she talks about her husband and brothers, and how they are going to come back from the shooting soon, and Frampton, believing she is derranged, tries to get her to distract her by talking about his health. Then, to his horror, Mrs Stapleton points out that her husband and brothers are coming, and he sees them walking towards the window, with their dog. He thinks he is seeing ghosts, and runs away. Mrs Stapleton can't understand why he has run away, and when her husband and brothers (who of course are not ghosts) come in, she tells them about the odd young man who has just left. The niece explains that Frampton Nuttal ran away because of the spaniel, he is afraid of dogs since being hunted by a pack of pariah dogs in India. The niece enjoys making up stories about people.

Themes:

Vera tells a very convincing story to Mr. Frampton Nuttel, she is so authentic in her description that his frame of reality about the family is created through her story. The point of this theme is that what Vera fabricates becomes his belief. Frampton Nuttel expected to see three ghosts come through the window, so when he saw the men coming towards the house, he could not get out of there fast enough.

Vera obviously deceives Frampton Nuttel when she tells him tall tale about her aunt who waits for the return of the hunting party lost in the marsh. She shows how her sweet and innocent nature is but she is actually a mischievous and slightly cruel character. Her imagination is brilliant and overpowering that everyone is tricked by her tall tale. Her quick thinking attitude.  Horror stories at short notice were her speciality. She is aided by her imagination to create the disturbing story to Mr. Nuttel. She also deceives Mrs. Sappleton by telling her the reason why Mr. Nuttel runs away when the hunting party comes back.

The author deliberately tries to confuse the readers into thinking that Mrs. Sappletonâs husband and children are ghosts. This adds mystery to the story as the readers attempt to find out what really happened in the story. Also, I think it explores how the correct use of foreshadowing techniques can make a story suspenseful and really believable.The most important symbol in âThe Open Windowâ is the open window itself. When Mrs. Sappletonâs niece tells Mr. Nuttel the story of the lost hunters, the open window comes to symbolize Mrs. Sappletonâs pain and heartbreak at the loss of her husband and younger brother and is a representation of the tragedy. When the truth is later revealed, the open window

"The Face of Judas Iscariot by Bonnie Chamberlain,

"The Face of Judas Iscariot" by Bonnie Chamberlain, is a story narrated to the author by an old prist. It is a story about humanity. Many centuries ago, a great  painter was asked to paint a mural for a Cathedral in a Sicilian town. The subject was the Life of Christ. The artist worked hard for many years. The painting was almost complete except for the two most important figures- the figures of the Christ Child and Judas Iscariot. He searched far and wide for people who could be models for these two figures. he began to search for a representative model of each. For Jesus, he naturally wanted to find a model that presented a very innocent and merciful image. He spent considerable time search-ing for a model for Jesus and finally found the innocence and peace he wanted to capture on the face of a boy that was playing at a nearby river bank .Although the boy's face was dirty, it was the face of an angel.

The artist now needed a model for the portrait of Judas. He was very worried that he would die before he completed his masterpiece.     He continued his search but he could not find anyone who fitted his imagination of Judas. . However, he could not easily find a representative model for Judah Iscariot. He was searching for a model that portrayed insincerity, vulgarity, and cruelty on a single face. The story of the incomplete masterpiece spread far and wide. Many men who believed that their appearance was wicked came forward to be models. But the artist was not satisfied. He wanted his judas to be a man whose life had been destroyed by greed and just.

One afternoon when the artist was at the tavern, he found his model. A lean, wretched- looking man staggered in, begging for wine. The man's face seemed to bear the mark of every sin known to mankind.     The artist was thrilled at having found his model. He inquired about him and discovered that he was both a thief and a murderer. He asked for the cooperation of a corrections officer in order to get this criminal to be a model for his painting. Eventually the artist was able to create the desired image of Judas Iscariot by using the prisoner as his model. He worked at great speed to complete his painting. As the work progressed, a change came over the model. The dazed, lazy look on his face was replaced with a strange tension. He was horrified to look at the evil in the face that was being painted. The painter wept bitterly and finally said that several years ago he had been the model for the Christ Child. Now he was the model for Judas also!

 It was indeed ironic that a man who as a child had the face of an angel, now has a face that was completely evil. The suggestion is that man is born innocent. But slowly he becomes wicked and losses his innocence. This is a story about all of us.

Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving

The Art of Loving begins with an attempt to determine what  is our  most basic  need  in  life.Many great thinkers have tried to answer this question and they have come up with many different answers.  Erich Fromm  feels that man’s greatest necessity  is to find union, or togetherness,  in order to escape  from the prison of  his loneliness.The experience of separateness, Fromm feels, is the fundamental cause of anxiety and despair.People  have  tried  many  different  ways  to  satisfy  this  need  for  togetherness.However, the only way that has ever been completely  successful  is through the  act of love.It is the  most fundamental passion; it  is the force which keeps the human race together.Without love  humanity could  not exist  for a  day..These  are strong words, but  if we think seriously about  it, most of us will agree  that  this  is true.   We sometimes tend to dwell on those  things with separate us such as war, hate, selfishness and greed, without realizing the underlying power of relationships.  The very fact that humanity continues to exist on this planet, in spite of all the destructive forces which divide it, is proof of the unifying power of love.
In order to determine why this  is true and how  it works, we  must examine some of the practical  aspects of  love.The  first of these  is the  fact that love demands something of us.Loving  is a  skill which  must be  learned and practiced  in  an active  fashion.Many of us  have grown up with the  idea that  it is our right to be  loved.  We therefore have a tendency to wait, passively, for someone to love us, and then we feel unjustly  treated  when  nobody  seems  to  care.However,  in  order  for  love  to  exist, someone  must act; someone  must do  the  loving.And that brings us to the second practical aspect of  love which  is that, since  love is active rather than passive,  it is also basically  giving.   This  is a point which  is often  misunderstood.Many people  interpret  this as  meaning that  love  is  “giving up,” that  it means  sacrificing,  or  being  deprived  of  something.First, love is not limited to giving in a material sense. The most important aspect of giving  is that we give of ourselves, of that which  is alive  in us, of our  joy and our sorrow,  our interest and our knowledge, our understanding  and our concern.Then, secondly, giving ourselves  in  love does not, as some people  fear,  mean sacrificing our freedom  as  an  individual.
               In addition to these basic aspects of love, Fromm also discusses other elements of love which are care, responsibility, respect and knowledge.  After talking about  these aspects of  love—giving, care,  responsibility, respect, knowledge and  faith—Fromm goes on to discuss the different  types of  love which are: brotherly love, motherly love, fatherly love, self love and erotic love. As he begins to discuss brotherly love, Fromm makes a rather startling statement.He says that unless we  love everybody, we don’t really  love  anybody.   This  is of course part of what is behind the difficult commandment that we must not only  love those who love us, but we must also love our enemies.  Real love  is based on an attitude, a way of thinking or  feeling, which  is directed toward the entire world and everything  in  it.  If I have developed the capacity  for  love, then I can’t help  loving  my  brother.  If a person says that he loves just one other person, or one group of persons, and is indifferent to the rest of his fellow men, this is not real love. Speaking of  motherly  and  fatherly  love  from the point of  view of the child,
He says that  in the  beginning the child  loves primarily  in response to being  loved.  He senses that he  is the object of unconditional  mother love. Another important  type  of love is self-love.It  may seem strange  to  talk  about self-love, since it appears to contradict much of what has been said about love being open and all  inclusive.Fromm  has  more to say about love, but  last point that  I want  to mention  here  is the importance of love in present-day society.

Existence precedes essence---Jean-Paul Sartre

Existentialism, a nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophical movement that stresses the radical extent of human freedom and attempts to deal seriously with its consequences for people's day-to- day lives, is the tradition most frequently associated with Jean-Paul Sartre. Born in Paris, Sartre pursued university studies in literature and philosophy. He was teaching in Paris when World War II began. Sent to the front, he was captured by the Germans and imprisoned for nine months. When he was returned to France in 1941, he served in the Resistance.As Sartre developed his version of existentialism, which he took to be optimistic even though many of its critics did not, there were accents on freedom, the difficulties it brings to human existence, and the chances we have to overcome them.
"Existence," proclaimed Sartre, "precedes essence." This formula is basic for understanding his view of human existence and freedom. By emphasizing the negating power of consciousness in relation to being-in-itself, Sartre interpreted consciousness as a form of being that always seeks to transcend itself but never fully finishes its task. It seemed to Sartre that we humans move to leave behind what we have been and to become what we are not. We are always headed somewhere; we are never fixed, complete, and static. Short of death, there is a perpetual process of negation and a continuous movement into a future of possibility and uncertainty.What one will become is indefinite until consciousness determines it. We are what we become more than we become what we are. In that sense, our existence precedes the formation of our essence. Sartre identified the negating power of consciousness with human freedom. The fact that we can move beyond what we are toward that which we are not, he argued, signifies freedom. Whenever we act freely, there is a sense in which we leave something behind. We negate what we have been to try to become what we are not. Hence, not only does existence precede essence but, Sartre claimed, "freedom is existence." According to Sartre, a person's life is characterized by freedom, by choosing what one will be and how one will see the world one inhabits. The determination of what one is results from our individual choices and not from a series of determined causes outside of or even within oneself. Did Sartre go too far in describing the degree of freedom that men and women possess? Far from having lives permeated by freedom, most persons feel restricted on every side. Many cannot find enough food, shelter, or work to make a decent living. Sartre was aware of such difficulties. His account emphasizes that human existence is always situated in particular times and places, and it is specified further by the relationships we establish with other persons. Many of these situations are full of pain and tragedy. Yet Sartre contended that the structure of human freedom remains, because we keep seeking to make something of ourselves. We may be prevented from achieving what we want, but, in Sartre's view, any kind of human seeking fundamentally involves the freedom he has in mind.

Ultimately, Sartre argued, our seeking leads us to try to achieve a complete self-identity in which we comprehend ourselves totally and are no longer constantly at a distance from ourselves. To accomplish this task, he contended, would be to become God but no person can succeed in this undertaking. In fact, Sartre claimed, the idea of God is contradictory (an outcome that makes his existentialism atheistic), for consciousness excludes self-identity, and self- identity also excludes consciousness. Consciousness always has the quality of being stretched out ahead of itself. If you became completely self-identical and unchanging, you would not be conscious any more. Where our drive to become self-identical is concerned, then, we are forever doomed to frustration. It is in this sense that human freedom makes our existence "a useless passion."

A River

A. K. Ramanujan was one of India's greatest modern poets.This is a really beautiful piece of cynical criticism aimed at poets who force themselves to look only at the beautiful things in life,and mindlessly ape the same lines quoted by poets, they tend to ignore the unpleasant facets of life, they never cares to write about a pregnant woman and a couple of cows.The poet uses irony to express the callousness of old and new poets who romanticize the floods and ignore the human aspect of loss and suffering caused by the floods.The poet has come to the conclusion that both the groups of the poets are indifferent to human sorrow and suffering. Their poetry dose not reflects the miseries of the human beings. He has proved this point in the present poem. the poet has compared and contrasted the attitudes of the old poets and those of the new poets to human suffering.Both the old and new poets have mentioned these things in their poems. But the way they have described these things in their poems shows that they were not much alive to or sympathetic with human suffering.

In this poem, the poet refers to the river Vaikai which flows through the city of Madurai As a matter of fact, this city is the center of Tamil culture and learning. It is also a holy city full of temples including the famous Minakshee temple.We get two pictures based upon two different kinds of description. In the summer, the river is almost empty. Only a very thin stream of water flows. So the sand ribs on the bed of the river are visible. The stones that lie on the bed of the river also exposed to view. The portion of the river under the bridge has also been described. We get a vivid picture of the river in the summer season.The tone of the poem is based on sarcasm and irony.The structure of the poem has been in paragraphs and single lines. There are four longer verse paragraphs and a shorter one in the beginning. There are only two single isolated lines. This kind of structural arrangement contributes to the effect of irony. It also helps to grasp the main points clearly. Secondly, a word can be said about the language used in the poem. It is very simple on account of which the thought sequence of the poem is presented unmistakably and clearly.