Essays on Nobility

Ancient pieces of art collection are usually hard to find. However, courtesy of the world’s leading museums, one can find assembled pieces of artwork that date back to over a thousand years ago. Among these museums is the famous Norton Simon Museum in California – United States. My visit to the museum was an amazing experience as an Art & Architecture student. This is because I happen to find and learn more about its history and the stellar collection of not only ancient European, US and Asian art but also the modern works that industrialist Norton Simon assembled. The Triumph ...

Book Review: The Village of Cannibals, Rage and Murder in France

Corbin, Alain. The Village of Cannibals: Rage and Murder in France, 1870. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1992.

Introduction

Historian Alain Corbin explores the political and social significance of the killing of a young French nobleman in the remote village of Hautefaye in France. Corbin’s chronicle describes the gruesome event that happened in broad daylight involving the villagers accusing the young nobleman of shouting republican slogans that angered the villagers. What followed in the trail of events is the sparked indignation of the entire country. Rumors of cannibalism have circulated in the country and the author’s fascination of ...

Emma Williams’s Case

Arbitration is a formal process for determining a grievance between parties in a conflict. A labor arbitration process involves an employment-related dispute between an employer and employee. The authority of an arbitral award comes from the binding arbitral clause in a contract of employment or the authority given by the parties through the appointment (Walras, 2013). An arbitrator has quasi-judicial powers to investigate, listen to the grievances of the parties and provide a decision, which is binding on all parties involved in dispute. However, arbitration must be launched on time to have a force of law. The dispute in ...

In closed societies, people’s economic, social and political personality is determined by their birth rather than their abilities and activities. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the validity of this view by critiquing the changes and modifications to political and economic standings of people in Tsarist Russia before, during and after the 1861 Emancipation Manifesto.

Russian Culture before the Emancipation Proposal

Russia’s history since the 16th Century involves of potentates who ruled through various alliances with nobles who controlled sub-units of the state and pledged allegiance to the monarch. The Russian nobility was made up of a number of serfdoms that ...

Formalist Criticism of My Last Duchess

My Last Duchess is probably the best example of the dramatic monologue, a poetical form that was invented and applied essentially by one of the foremost Victorian poets, Robert Browning. A dramatic monologue should certainly have a character who speaks to some particular person, mainly certain silent listener, in the manner of a dramatic speech and has to take place in specific physical setting like that of a drama. The poem My Last Duchess definitely belongs to the dramatic monologue because it, at first, possesses three formal elements, such as an occasion, a speaker, and a hearer. Secondly, the ...

“Et tu, Brute?” Many people recognize this pithy question as Julius Caesar’s last words upon seeing Roman senator Marcus Julius Brutus, with whom he had a relationship akin to that of a father and son, among his murderers on March 15, 44 BC. The phrase roughly translates to, “You too, Brutus?”. However, there is no historical evidence these were Caesar’s last words; more likely; they were popularized by William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in the sixteenth century. Known as the Ides of March, Caesar’s death is one of the most famous political overthrows in all of ...

Abstract

Jade has been an important part of Chinese culture since Ancient times, when it was used to make various weapons and tools. The reason for this is because it is believed to have positive powers. Some of the attributes attributed to jade are purity, gentlemanliness, the ability to send one’s soul on a positive journey and to prevent misfortune from befalling a person. This is why jade was used in burial rituals, sacrifices and other religious ceremonies. Nevertheless, despite the importance of jade to the Chinese culture for many centuries only the very wealthy were permitted to own ...

The Atlantic Revolutions were a wave of social breakthroughs taking place between the 1770s and the 1820s in the Atlantic World, empires having the access to the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic Revolutions stroke Europe as well as South and North America, mainly influencing the social life in the United States, France and French-controlled Europe, Spanish America. Smaller revolutionary acts arose in Switzerland, Brazil, and Russia. Being the strong push factor The Atlantic Revolutions gave a start to the independence movements in the New World, which began with the American Revolution in 1775–1783 and finished with gaining independence by ...

The French Revolution was one of the most important moments in world history. The French Revolution symbolized that the ideologies and methods of the Enlightenment were no longer only the work of philosophes, academics and of the salons of Paris. The French Revolution was the moment when all of this theoretical knowledge regarding the way societies and governments should be organized left the pages and entered the streets, the cafes and the political clubs.  The French Revolution was the result of a crisis in France’s ancien regime and its assertion of the division of the state, the polity, ...

Epic poem Aeneid composed by Virgil presents reader with legendary adventures of ancestor of the Romans – Aeneas. It reveals all the hardships and tricks of fortune that Aeneas had to overcome in order to get to Italy. Gods` intricacies along with glorious battles illuminate not only Aeneas`s thorny path to fulfill his duty but also shows characters` diversity and complexity. It should be mentioned that almost all characters in this poem are controversial and cannot be fully considered as positive or negative. Therefore, their actions may be considered to bear dichotomy which complicates their interpretation as well as ...

Neoclassical art fundamentally depends on an agreement with a group of work that has achieved significant status. Neoclassical artists were comfortable and familiar with the classics and synthesized the traditions to a new form in each of their work as opposed to repeating work in lifeless reproductions (Palmer 2011, 16). Each neoclassical work selects some models among the various possible classics which best suit their intentions. Some of the major neoclassical arts are paintings by Jacques-Louis David and Gilbert Stuart. Various neoclassic and naturalist works demonstrate the blending of inspiration of the past with relevance to contemporary life. Among ...

In Coriolanus, the titular character’s mother tells him “You are too absolute” (Shakespeare). Volumnia, in this case, is trying to convince her son to approach the common plebeians for their votes to the Senate. Coriolanus is a proud man and an excellent soldier, but he struggles throughout the text with problems associated with his pride and his unwillingness to engage in political maneuvering. His mother, who ostensibly wants to see her son elected and placed in power, tries her hardest to convince him that he should participate in the process of trying to woo the people (Shakespeare). By “ ...

Introduction

Moby Dick is considered the great American novel. There are many reasons Moby Dick has earned this award, from the accolades of English critics in Melville’s day to the positive commentary by Literary critics and theorists today. Melville was a master of sentence style, and wrote many complex and highly structured sentences in the novel. Likewise, he filled his text with allusions and references to the greatest works of literature, including the Bible, Paradise Lost, King Lear, and the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. While all of these elements contribute to the greatness of Moby Dick they are ...

Before I watched the adaptation of the eponymous novel by Jane Austen, I had the opportunity to know directly the product. I love syllable of Austin, her brushwork, irony and subtle English humor, behind which lies the limitless depth: the philosophical view of things, the principles of steel and tender feelings, capable of sacrifice. Her works are distinguished by a certain purity and innocence. It is touching for me, the representative of pampering generation and frankness in the relationship between men and women, invisible thread between Emma and her chosen one held in the exciting voltage. Jane Austen is ...

Francisco De Goya, the great Spanish artist, was born on 30th March 1746 in a place called Fuendetodos, which is located in the province of Saragozza. He moved to Saragozza later with his father who was guilder by profession and studied at a school called “Escuelas Pias de San Anton.” Goya started learning art when he was 13 years old and became an apprentice to a local painter in Saragozza (Felisati and Sperati 264).Initially, Goya copied the work of different artists such as Diego Rodriguez de Silva Velazquez and Rembrandt Van Rijn. He developed a friendship with a ...

For the social fabric of the society to be in the required equilibrium state of balance, various documents in the form of regulatory constitutions are laid down in any society to govern the day-to-day human and state interactions. However, no particular government body can abridge or limit her citizens through judicial mechanisms. Although the scope of the freedom, rights and responsibilities is explained differently in different countries today, there are many universal rights enshrined in the international bills of rights. Many early writers and thinkers such as Rousseau, Kant, Marquis de Sade, and Sieyes espoused different opinions on the ...

The Tempest by William Shakespeare is interestingly simple yet complex in its own way. It has the complete recipe that categorizes it as a true Shakesperian play written during his time, with its magical theme as opposed to what ‘s real, the conflict between a father and his dhild, or between the old and the new, and the most apparent struggle for power. The play, with its constant reference to power and culture, appears to be an elucidation on European colonization. There were so much indication in the text, such as the arrival of Prospero and his daughter, Miranda, ...

Introduction

It has become difficult to distinguish once traditional media from the new media, as the former have integrated all the capabilities of the latter. In such a scenario, it would help to compare a traditional medium of communication with a relatively modern/new medium with respect to the circumstances around their origin, and how did they facilitate interpersonal and mass communication. This essay will discuss and analyze two cases: coffee houses as really old media, and podcasts as new media. While the coffee houses gained importance in Europe the mid-1600, and have been around since then, their importance as facilitators ...

Introduction

Use of colors is vast and are applied in a different field for various purposes. The uses of color did not come into existence in the near past, but its use began centuries ago. There is a different example where colors are useful like in medical therapy, and it is critical in assisting the patient depending on the problem the patient is having. However, the use of the color is not universal as each and every community has different utilization and understanding of different colors. However, there is a global phenomenon denoted by individual colors worldwide. For instance, red ...

Ge Hong’s seminal fourth-century work Baopuzi is a fundamentally important work for understanding Chinese late-antiquity religion and its practices. Chief among the concerns of the Baopuzi is the achievement of immortality and the cultivation of the self, which Ge Hong explores in excruciating detail to demonstrate the distinctions between what is of earth and what is of heaven. Along the way, Hong also showcases his immense fealty to, and support of, Confucian ideals of cultivating the self through study and political action within the Baopuzi. As a result, Ge Hong’s Baopuzi focuses on ways to fix the ...

Chivalry is a term based on the medieval institution which has an aristocratic military origin of training Individual and offering service to others. Normally it is associated with ideas of knightly, honor, courtly love and virtues. Orders of Chivalry are primarily, a phenomenal history, strange to Christendom of Western Union of the middle ages. Categorically, several institutions have been placed overtime in the order of Chivalry .It is possible to differentiate several phrases in the history of those institutions. The original form of institution in the time of crusade was worthy its name of order since it consisted of people who ...