Tennysons Ulysses and The Lotos Eaters Essay examples -- Poetry Tenny

Tennyson's "Ulysses" and "The Lotos Eaters" The great hero Odysseus has captivated readers throughout the ages. It is no surprise that the Victorian poet Tennyson not only read the Odyssey but wrote poetry about Odysseus as well. In the poems 'The Lotos Eaters' and 'Ulysses,' Tennyson remains true to the legends, but he infuses the characters with the ethos of his own day and his own experiences. 'The Lotos Eaters' recalls the Homeric legend that has Odysseus and his men passing through an island that grew magical fruit. Anyone who ate of the fruit would ?forget the way home? (Bk 1X, line 97). Odysseus sent three men to scout the land. They tasted the fruit and had to be dragged back to the ship protesting and crying, by Odysseus. No word is mentioned about why the sailors had to be dragged back to the ship, weeping. No word of what they wanted so badly to forget. Tennyson, in 'The Lotos Eaters,' fills us in on why he thinks the sailors were bone-tired and why they wanted rest. ?All things have rest and ripen towards the grave/ in silence; ripen, fall, and cease: / Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.? It serves as a parenthetic explanation to Homer?s legend. However, the specific nature of and reason for their weariness is Tennyson?s own creation. ?Why should we toil alone, / we only toil, who are the first of all things? while the ?flower ripens in its place, / ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, fast-rooted in the fruitful soil?? The speaker rages against the human condition that has humans seek endlessly for the path to their fruition. It isn?t encrypted into their soul as it is in the soul of the fruit which blossoms and ripens without effort. For the... ...es of nature, and not his own soul. Both heroes are victorious through the powers of their intellect, but what they seek to overcome, and what they seek to understand, is vastly different. Though Homer wrote his epic over two thousand years ago, it still excites the modern reader; though Dante wrote his poetry nearly one thousand years ago, his language and sinful characterization are captivating; and though Tennyson wrote his poetry over one hundred years ago, its pain is fresh and was a precursor to the existential pain of the modern man. Works Cited: Tennyson, Alfred. "Ulysses." The Norton Introduction to Literature. Eds. Jerome Beaty and J. Paul Hunter. 7th ed. New York: Norton, 1998. 1139-41. Tennyson, Alfred, Lord. ?The Lotus Eaters.? The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000. 1208-1213.

Compare Human Brain and the Computer

Over the past years we have seen how computers are becoming more and more advance, challenging the abilities of the human brain. We have seen computers doing complex assignments like launching of a rocket or analysis from outer space. But the human brain is responsible for, thought, feelings, creativity, and other qualities that make us humans. So the brain has to be more complex and more complete than any computer. Besides if the brain created the computer, the computer cannot be better than the brain.There are many differences between the human brain and the computer, for example, the capacity to learn new things. Even the most advance computer can never learn like a human does. While we might be able to install new information onto a computer it can never learn new material by itself. Also computers are limited to what they â€Å"learn†, depending on the memory left or space in the hard disk not like the human brain which is constantly learning everyday.Computers can neithe r make judgments on what they are â€Å"learning† or disagree with the new material. They must accept into their memory what it’s being programmed onto them. Besides everything that is found in a computer is based on what the human brain has acquired though experience. Another difference between the human brain and the computer is, the creativity of the human brain. For instance humans can create art, act in plays, or write stories and songs but computers can only help us in these activities not come up with them.While computers can help us solve math problems and find answers to certain questions it can never think of new solutions until they have been programmed into them. Furthermore computers cannot create new games or produce anything they desire like humans. In fact, the human brain is the one who comes up with new ideas or theories not taught before. But in a computer, everything that is there has being taught out by the human brain. Although the computer brain and the human brain have many differences they also have a couple similarities.Both can increase their memory storage capacity. Computer memory grows by adding computer chips. Memories in the brain grow by stronger synaptic connections. Both computers and brain have repair and â€Å"backup† systems. The brain has â€Å"built-in back up systems† in some cases. If one pathway in the brain is damaged, there is often another pathway that will take over this function of the damaged pathway. Both can degrade. Computers break down and brain cells deteriorate. Like all machinery, computers break down with time.Brains also deteriorate with age, losing their functions and slowing down because of lower counts of chemicals and hormones. Both are used for storage of information, to process information and to run tasks. In terms of the functions, both are used for mathematical calculations, carrying out complex algorithms and to storing of crucial information. Counting all the simil arities and differences of the brain and the computer brain, you would now see that the computer and the brain do have somethings in common, but in many more ways they are actually more different than they are similar.

The Effects Of Extreme Stress On Billy Pilgrim s...

How would one feel if he woke up one morning and couldn’t decipher what was real and what was his imagination? He would feel confused. But how would people react if he confused his imagination with reality? They would suspect that he is going crazy. This is actually quite similar to the character Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse- Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Billy was a prisoner of war and witnessed the bombing of Dresden. After what he had witnessed, Billy shows signs of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder throughout the novel. He had trouble sleeping, he had nightmares, and he was constantly looking back at time and reliving the trauma he faced. According to the article Who Develops Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, â€Å"the effects of extreme stress has a long history, primarily focused on the effects of war† (Ozer and Weiss 1). One can assume that Billy developed PTSD after the war because of the way he acted. After seeing so many deaths from the war, Billy no longer has emotions towards death and sadness. By witnessing these horrible deaths and the bombing of Dresden, nothing seems horrific to Billy anymore. He shows no emotion when someone dies. He then confuses his life with science fiction novels and people begin to think he’s going crazy. After the war, his life was never the same. Ultimately, Billy Pilgrim is unable to live a normal life due to his traumatic memories from the war. Through several examples within the novel, Billy Pilgrim constantly relives his war memories. While heShow MoreRelatedSlaughterhouse Five Are Obvious And Piercing As One1139 Words   |  5 PagesSo It Goes Kurt Vonnegut’s anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse Five, illustrates the ghastly experiences within World War II and the journey through the universe and time of the main character, Billy Pilgrim. Although war is a sensitive subject in most cases, Vonnegut’s sarcastic, dark humor on the matter helps bring light to the fact that war is horrendous. Slaughterhouse Five demonstrates the reality of war throughout its major themes, historical accuracy, and Kurt Vonnegut’s personal experiences withinRead MoreThe Yellow Wallpaper, By Charlotte Perkins Gilman2534 Words   |  11 Pagescertain that Gilman’s own experiences of mental health problems and subsequent inadequate attempts at treatment provided the mainstay of her inspiration for the novel. In her autobiography Gilman stated that the real purpose of the story was to reach Dr. S. Weir Mitchell [her doctor], and convince him of the error of his ways’. Gilman’s use of such a forwardly unreliable n arrator was not ground-breaking, the technique has been utilised by authors from Chaucer to Sterne. Yet Gilman’s choice utilisation