Two hundred years ago, a revolution hit the literature world. This revolution was a reformation movement against the predominating belief in science and the power of mankind. This movement was coined as period of Romanticism and chief among the romantic leaders was the poet William Wordsworth. Wordsworth's was inspired by his overwhelming love for nature and his belief that following the heart was the most important decision making skill a person could possess.
In the poem "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey", William Wordsworth reveals his unfathomable love for nature. He has elevated nature to a stage beyond his mere aesthetic appreciation to one of total devotion. He even informs the reader that he has become "a worshiper of Nature" and how nature to him was "his all in all." He also gives constant reference of his love through explicit descriptions and metaphors of Nature's beautiful features. However, beyond that he shows evidence that he has developed this love to the point of blind sightedness. As I read further into the poem, I noticed that Wordsworth is extremely biased just as he berates the civilized world for the evils it has brought upon mankind; he then extols Nature for being perfect and for "never betray[ing] the heart that loved her." Wordsworth aspires to a cult of aesthetics where beauty alone is holy.
As a critical reader, I thought to myself, has Wordsworth ever been in a natural catastrophe before or ever really spent any significant time in outdoors? Because I have, and I know that nature is not quite as loving as Wordsworth makes it to be. Typhoons, tornados, earthquakes, large predators preying upon weaker life forms are just a few of the many hazards of nature which reveal another side to nature's bubbling brooks that Wordsworth sees.
In my opinion the nature Wordsworth speaks of only exists in Walt Disney's creations and federal funded national parks. Therefore, I do not believe that nature is such a venerable force to be worshiped. It is very impressive, true, but it should not be held in reverence in of its own self. I don't wish to criticize Wordsworth. However, I also believe that this form of thinking, which he made popular through his poetry, has affected our view of nature even today. For example many people automatically and ignorantly assume that because a healthcare product is "all natural" or "made from all natural ingredients" the product is completely harmless and likely to be very beneficial to the consumer. However, most poisons used to murder people are also all natural or made from natural ingredients. I am not saying that Wordsworth is wrong in having a love for nature. I just believe that the romantic ideal of total adulation has severe adverse effects upon society.
In the poem "We Are Seven," Wordsworth's narrator has a dialogue with a pretty little girl who has lost two of her siblings. The narrator asks her how many siblings she has and the girl tells him over and over that she has seven (including herself.) No matter how many times the girl is told that she only has five siblings since two are dead, she refuses to repudiate and declares that there are still seven. This poem does a very good job of illustrating another romantic principle. The thesis of the poem is imagination equals reality. Wordsworth makes her the hero of the poem because she is young, noble, and refuses to let go of the past. Though her brother and sister are buried, she still believes that they are with her and will not recant because somehow by believing she is able to make them alive again. The girl also has an unbreakable will which is strengthened by her innocent demeanor and makes her even more appealing to the romantic reader.
Upon reading this poem, I came to the conclusion that Wordsworth was a man who lived in the past and lost someone dear to him. This poem has a very touching atmosphere where the reader wants to believe that the girl is right that because she is holding on to the memories of her siblings they are still with her. However, no matter how much you believe, when people are dead they are gone and no amount of belief will erase that fact. I also noticed that this poem is almost a debate between the classical and romantic humanist points of view. The narrator in a way represents the classical humanism of thought and is counting the number of siblings and rationalizing through the numbers. The girl, however, is a champion for the romantic humanism of feelings and by her beliefs shrugs off the rationality of the narrator. I believe that Wordsworth believes that through the girl in the poem he has won this debate. However, I want to know how you can argue feelings over rational thought, because it is impossible to counter a point using rational thinking over a feeling in the heart. You cannot debate the two. I can imagine that if the dialogue in the poem took place in actuality, the narrator would leave shaking his head in disgust and the girl would gloat in victory because the narrator could not break her indomitable will.
William Wordsworth was a superior poet and the imagery in his poetry is astonishingly vivid. In many ways, his verse helped to change and deepen mankind's appreciation for the beauty of nature. However, there is a problem when you take Wordsworth too far and make a religion out of nature and feelings. A person who uses only his heart to view the world is seeing only half the picture. Just the same, a person who uses only his brain to analyze everything is every bit as blind sighted. Therefore, classical and romantic humanism are both incomplete approaches to life. To understand and really appreciate life in reality a well rounded person thinks with his mind, but also feels with his heart.

'We are Seven' is based on an actual encounter Wordsworth had with a child near the River Wye in 1793.

To say he idolises an imaginary idea of Nature that doesn't exist except in Disney Land is not right. The kind of Nature he writes about exists in the Lake District.

Wordsworth writes about the harsh side of Nature as much as the unambiguously positive sides of it.

This book is most recommended and readers should dispell all those cliches that are stated about the 'Romantic' poets. The term 'Romantic' wasn't used until a long time after most of these poems were written.

Those readers of poetry who discount Wordsworth as merely a poet who "worships" Nature and holds emotion over rational thought are giving him only a shallow reading and relying on the obvious. When Wordsworth's work is read as a whole, and in context with his contemporaries and historical events, then one can begin to appreciate the depth and significance of the philosophical thought behind his poetry.
His reliance on Nature comes not from a worship of it, rather from the belief that philosophical and social issues can be found and answered in Nature. This does not contradict modern scientific thought, which relies upon the observation of the natural world through experimentation. It also eliminates the need for a rigid religious structure, because divinity can be found in Nature. Wordsworth teaches us that we learn, and grow, once we accept that we are part of the natural world, and that Nature does not exist to be conquered.
The feeling and emotion is a "natural" reaction, and therefore should not be discounted and inhibited. His poetry is an expression of this. It is not an attack on rational thought--it is a belief that one can learn through observation of the natural universe, not merely the reading of books and "dead forms."
Wordsworth was a master poet and a genius. he is well-worth the time it takes to study him.

I used this book for a paper I wrote on Stoicism.

Stoicism is a complex philosophical school. However, its ideas have come to be validated by modern psychology.

Everyone in America has to buck up, and not dwell on their problems. They need to realize that they do not need love, sex, money or friendship. The only thing you need is virtue. We need to stop whining about fairness; and try our best to be good people. These are some things Stoicism has to offer.

It is form of christianity

I came across this book last summer when I was in Stratford, Ontario, attending their annual Shakespeare festival. I had just seen Henry V so this title caught my eye. A glance through the table of contents made me think this book might be a real eye-opener. Unfortunately, I ended up being a bit disappointed.

Sutherland and Watts take turns addressing what they call different "puzzles" in various Shakespearean plays. The problem is, except for the rare exception, most of these questions can be answered in various ways depending on how the play is performed. For example, is Malvolio vengeful or reconciled at the end of Twelfth Night? Or, does Bottom actually sleep with Titania in Midsummer Nights Dream? In both cases the ultimate answer is, it depends on how you play it. There is no one answer fixed in the text.

Even questions that seem like they should have a specific answer like, who killed Woodstock in Richard II?, are given waffling answers. There's simply no way to know. Again, the ultimate answer will lie in how the play is performed. Different companies will lead their audience to different answers depending on what they decide to focus.

Ultimately, this book has value in the sense that it points out what some of the issues are with various plays. On the other hand, the writing here is not very dynamic. The authors rarely take a position and, when they do, they approach it so weakly that they do not inspire a response in the reader. Perhaps the authors felt that they didn't want to provoke any controversy with their readers but, if they had, it might have made for a more readable book.

Shakespeare wrote plays that were to be seen only as performances before live audiences, running around two and a half hours, on a rather small stage. And he probably wrote pretty fast. Are the numerous inconsistencies (or apparent inconsistencies) one finds in the plays genuine errors of oversight, deliberate toying with the audience, unavoidable given the physical limitations of actors and stage, or part of some grand artistic design? For any given play, the answer can be any or all of the above.

The authors discuss about 30 such "glitches," and seem to derive most of their fun from summarizing how various Shakespearian commentators (few distinguished for intellect) have dealt with the glitches over the past 350 years. Sometimes, the authors appear to me to be deliberately obtuse about an issue, perhaps because they had some trouble finding as many as 30 genuinely puzzling glitches to comment upon.

One comment I have about the whole matter, which the authors do not make: Shakespeare's intellectual and artistic depths seem virtually boundless, and every seeming inconsistency might well have a reason for being other than carelessness or a schedule that didn't allow complete revision. The authors are aware of this, even when they don't state it explicitly.

Among the questions discussed: Why does Shakespeare's Henry V during the battle of Agincourt twice order all French prisoners to be slaughtered in cold blood, yet have "full fifteen hundred" prisoners "of good sort" left after the battle, not to mention a like number of "common men"?

Why does Juliet say, "Oh, Romeo, Romeo, wherefore (why) art thou Romeo," when the problem is that he is a Montague? Why do so many of the plays end with nothing resolved, everything hanging in suspension? [Notorious examples are Troilus and Cressida, and Love's Labour's Lost. The answer here is probably, oh say can you see, a sequel being demanded by audiences.] How is Desdemona able to deliver several lines of dialogue after being strangled or smothered by Othello? How can King Lear be more than 80 and Juliet only 13? And so on.

Some of the answers were fairly obvious to me, although apparently not so to the authors. Juliet falls in love with Romeo when they are both in disguise, and it is the revelation that he is who he is that is upsetting. He could be referred to as Romeo, Romeo Montague, or Montague, and the sense would be the same. The action of Richard II would cover 30 years or so in real time, yet the performers would have looked the same and worn the same costumes throughout the play, so Shakespeare has the characters proclaim themselves as "lusty, young" in the early scenes, and having "worn so many winters out" in the last scenes. Further tipoff to this necessary compression is that where ever the dialogue would naturally refer to "years," it instead refers to "minutes" and "hours." As the authors put it, Shakespeare has invented "Warp Time."

The book is a great pleasure to read, and will greatly deepen your knowledge of Shakespearean drama, and your viewing of any Shakespearean film. Highly recommended.

This was an assigned book for my college History course, and I can say that I pity all those poor students who have to read this book too. While the content is actually pretty decent, each section is far too long. I had to drink two cups of coffee for every essay, and even then if I didn't have notes I wouldn't have remembered a word. All I can say is highlight what's important, and learn to speed-read!

This popular two-volume collection of secondary sources explores America's social and political history from pre-Revolutionary times through the present. Oates takes a biographical approach, portraying our history as the struggle of real people who have sometimes triumphed and sometimes failed. Each chapter contains two or three articles that provide different perspectives on an historical period or question. Each selection was carefully chosen for its literary merit, importance to historical scholarship, and potential to excite students' interest. Many of the selections and authors represented have won Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, and other honors.

This book was not a good study guide for the middle grade content test 0146. It was very misleading and I ended up studying things I did not need. The information I needed for the test was not in this book!!!

This book has a couple different subjects for you to read on. For each of the subjects it has reviews and practice tests. It explains everything very clearly and gives you a great idea of how to prepare.

A previous reviewer asks why, since this book has been published, has no one refuted it? Look a little more. "Intelligent Design Creationism and It's Critics" includes reviews by some of the formost scientists in the world. Essentially, Behe's argument is the same as William Paley's and fails the same way. After 150 years, Darwin's idea has become solid fact. Over time the holes keep getting filled in with more knowledge but there will always be new details to understand. Arguing that the idea is wrong because you don't understand a detail is disingenous at best.

If you want to know what is at the core of intelligent design, this is the book. With essays by Behe, Meyer & Dembski, this offers a rare multi-author volume that still fits in a cargo-pocket.

Want to know why ID critics never talk about this volume? It is too solid--they can't touch it. Plus Behe successfully responds to his critics. Instead, they have to resort to name calling and warnings of danger lest someone read this. But don't let them tell you what to think. Evaluate ID for youself.

...P>It's about S-C-I-E-N-C-E. It's about following the scientific evidence wherever it leads, even if it knocks over your favorite sacred cow. Seems to me that the scientists doing objective science these days, at least in the area of microbiology, are all on Behe's side. The rest are stuck back in the paradigm of the 1850's, and can do nothing constructive, only try to suppress his ideas.

Galileo would recognize these tactics in a heartbeat.

The author is trying to jump around on the concept he is trying to explain. Sometime, author used a long paragraph to explain a concept while at the end the point is still not clear.Examples in the text are not given in a consistent manner which causes lots of confusion to reader.
Some important concepts are not presented in the text, unsymmetrical substitution in the conjugated system for example.
I would recommend reader to read the book critically and do expect that things in the book are not 100% correct.

The second edition contained incredible errors regarding mechanistic organic chemistry, many of which were corrected by the third edition. No doubt, these errors were taught to a significant number of students, and have resulted in some ribbing of the authors by their peers. Nonetheless, the third edition still contains significant errors. Bright students will find those errors confusing, as they contradict what they learn about pKa's and acid/base chemistry within the text.

Text information states pKa values are for the conjugate acids of bases listed in tables, and this further confuses students, who assume the molecules listed are the acids themselves.

Incredible leaps of logic must be required for students to take sparse detail in the text and apply them to complex problems in the problem sets. Although the problems are enjoyable for Ph.D.'s in the field, they miss the mark regarding beginning students. I find the problems relevant and amusing, but they are often advanced or graduate level. In contrast,example problems in the text are quite simplistic.

It appears that the text attempts to address biochemistry, polymer and medicinal chemistry to some level - but must sacrifice content in the core areas of organic chemistry in order to satisfy the unwritten rule of a book of dimensions of 1.5" x 8" x 10" for the publisher.

The sidebars were a reasonable attempt to humanize chemistry. University academics are still scratching their heads as to why they continue to have trouble interesting students in chemistry - they need to look close to home regarding text and laboratory material. Both seem to provide an exercise in futility for U.S. students. Scientific method is taught in high school, and promptly forgotten. Logic and flow is missing today.

Good luck with the next edition!

Of all the Organic Chemistry text books I have reviewed, this one is at the top of the pile. It is logically organized and figures are well done. Brown & Foote do a great job of presenting the difficult subject matter.

It seems to me that much of this material is made up by the author. I could not understand how private facts of Crane's life would be known in this way. I find this book very disturbing because of this. I think Crane is a great author but this book did not help me understand his work at all.

Stephen Crane wrote some great books and lead a fascinating life, but this day to day rehash of every trivial detail with none of the excitement of this great author's life is terrible! This book does a disservice to Crane and his memory...confusing, loooong, and boring.

The Crane Log is a wonderful book which I have been reading over the past few days. I am surprised by the many underserved poor reviews this book has gotten. It must be stressed that this is a reference work, and one that is probably best read in snatches, and not in chronological order. includes day by day accounts, including fascinating liberal excerpts from memoirs of the people who knew him that allows you to form your own conception of Crane as he lived. For the first time we have a biographical work of Crane that is free of the fictions of Crane's first biographer, Thomas Beer. That is not something to grouse about.

William Diehl (Sharky's Machine, 27, Primal Fear, Show of Evil, etc) does it Again!

Pitting Vail first against a bunch of power hungery business men who think only of the bottem line and not the people they are killing. Then against the Sanctuary of the Lord, a group of bible thumping maniacs hell bent on destorying the US Goverment.

Vail and his "Wild Bunch" are hired to Bring the Sanctuary down using the RICO statutes, but will they run out of time?

As if this wasn't enough for Martin to deal with Aaron Stampler is thrown into the mix, adding to Vail's troubles.

Diehl, pulls this massive work together well explaining enough about the RICO statutes so even legal laymen can see what is happening, while adding more than enough action to make this a real page turner.

I however, only gave this book a 9, as there is very little interaction between Martin and Aaron which in the end disappointed me.

Martin Veil returns for his third book from Diehl. In this one, Martin wins a RICO case in small town America, then is offered a chance to be Asst. Attorney General of the U.S. to set up a RICO case against a hate group called The Sanctuary. The majority of the story is about the members of The Sactuary and how they got to be where they are. A lot of action filled robberies and military expeditions flavor this novel. And Aaron Stampler does return. This piece is written more in the style and research of Tom Clancy. A lot of politics and military aspects are covered. Diehl's back stories and flashbacks to flesh out the characters and their motivations is a strong point. The conclusion is sad , true and too frequently real.

A different Diehl but a great book.

REIGN IN HELL is the third book in a series about Martin Vail and his nemisis Aaron Stampler (serial killer and all around evil SOB). Reader's will remember that Martin Vail is a Chicago attorney: first -- defense, then DA, now Consitutional. Vail takes on a right-wing, religious militia (the Montana Patriots, not a professional sports team) for the Federal Government. Vail is called upon by the President to do this as a special favor. Vail intends to bring up the Montana Patriots on federal racketeering charges (RICO). The plot is beautifully conceived and executed; the story extremely well researched; the chracters are well drawn and developed, and the imagery is as good as any written (including that of Stephen King's). Aaron Stampler has become a "blind" religious nut-case -- Brother Transgression . In the first chapter, he uses poisonous snakes in his traveling tent show. He is approached by the Montana milita and is offered a paid "gig" on National radio. He takes the job. Aaron fumes, raves, blathers and spews hate over the air waves, all in the name of Jesus, the Bible, and everything else the right-wingers hold holy. I won't be giving away the plot by telling you Vail brings these militia bad guys and other nut cases to their respective knees before the final page. It is how Vail does it, that is beautiful. And Aaron Stampler (Brother T)? What happens to this evil spawn of the devil --does he die or not? Well, let's not spoil the for the reader. This is the best book Diehl has written (including his mega-hit SHARKEY'S MACHANE). While it is the third "franchise" book coming behind PRIMAL FEAR and SHOW OF EVIL, it is easily read as a stand-alone book. One doesn't need to read either of the previous tow books to enjoy this one. Of couse, it would be better if you were familar with the main characters. Martin Vail fans will be flocking to the stores (and the NET) to see what Diehl has him doing now. I hope you have a goodly supply of the book when it comes out (4 Oct. 1997

I picked up the Slavitt translation of Aeschylus Oresteia off a publisher's overstock rack at a bookstore. I have enjoyed reading these plays, however, Slavitt's translation leaves me wanting.

Some have complained that Slavitt is too modern and a bit too, well, guteral. My greek is admittedly weak, but the Greeks were certainly not prudes and often this aspect is covered up in our translations.

After seeing a few complaints on the web, I tried comparing a few other translations at the local library. In almost all cases I found Ted Hughes's version to be both more interesting and also clearer. Hughes, like Slavitt is not the most "literal" translation, but he makes it a great read.

I am not enough of a Greek Scholar to recomend a more literal version, but it looks like people have good things to say about Fagles's version.

Ancient Greece is a topic that once bored me, but after I read this book, I suddenly became interested in the Ancient World and the great many achievements of the Greeks. I know many people may not read books on Ancient topics, but this one is definately not one to pass by

A bit uneven in spots, the translation is overall easy to read and highly recommended for highschool or lower level university classes. Students unfamiliar with this material need modern diction and syntax, despite what the reviewer from Japan opines, and this translation provides them.