Immortal Books

As a webmaster,I am always doing my best to attract more vistors to my sites.However,it is not easy at all becuase you need to find a way which can totally meet your needs.So,do you know how to increase traffic to your website? Let me give you a conclusion here.First of all,you can place backlinks on other websites.Other than bring you much traffic,it also do great help in improving pageranks.I like this way very much because it is very cheap.There are many agents providing those services online.Just find one and register on it.Second,joining in Google adwords is also very reasonable for webmasters.As is known to us that Google is one of the biggest companies in the world.Of course,you can rely on their services.Generally,I tend to cost more than 400 dollars on it.From my point of view,you can not miss it.Third,you need to lay emphasis on SEO.SEO,which is short for search engine optimization,can help you get a lot of Continue reading »

Most of the tragedies written by Shakespeare are revenge and ambition tragedies. For instance, Othello, Hamlet, King Lear and Macbeth are the dark tragedies showing revenge and ambition. However, there is an exception to this in the form of a romantic tragedy, rather the only romantic tragedy written by Shakespeare and that is Romeo and Juliet. Unlike the revenge/ambition tragedy, there are two tragic characters in Romeo and Juliet. Romeo becomes impulsive and acts without thinking about the consequences which brings in the separation and ultimately the death of the two lovers. Coming back to the revenge/ambition tragedies, there are some noticeable features which are dealt within the following part.

Tragic/Fatal Flaw

O farewell,
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, th’ ear-piercing fife;
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
And O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
Th’ immortal Jove’s dread clamors counterfeit,
Farewell! Othello’s occupation’s gone. – Othello

A ‘tragic flaw’, by definition, is a personality trait that leads to the downfall of the protagonist. It can also be a wrong action performed by the protagonist that results in his own ruin. It is the most important element in the tragedy and almost every hero/heroine of a Shakespearean tragedy possesses a tragic flaw. Examples of tragic flaw in Shakespearean tragedy are: Macbeth’s obsession with power, Othello’s jealousy and Hamlet’s indecisiveness.

Supernatural Elements

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes. [Knocking]
Open locks,
Whoever knocks! – Macbeth Continue reading »

During his early career, Eliade was a prominent journalist and essayist. He was a follower of the far-right journalist and philosopher named Nae Ionescu; he was a member of the “Criterion” literary society. He also had the position of cultural attaché to Portugal and UK. During the 1930s, Eliade often expressed his sympathy towards a Romanian fascist and anti-Semitic political organization called “The Iron Guard.” These early political involvements became the subject of criticism towards Eliade after the 2nd World War. Despite his controversial early-life political views, Eliade was and still is highly appreciated all over the world due to his vast erudition, fine intelligence and deepness of spirit. Eliade knew very well 5 languages – Romanian, English, French, Italian and German. He could also read in Hebrew, Persian and Sanskrit.

His prodigious memory enabled him to acquire such impressive amount of knowledge. But his memory also helped him remember many childhood episodes that he referred to in some of his writings. Here is a quotation of his referring to such unusual childhood episode: “I practiced for many years [the] exercise of recapturing that epiphanic moment, and I would always find again the same plenitude. I would slip into it as into a fragment of time devoid of duration – without beginning, middle, or end. During my last years of lycée, when I struggled with profound attacks of melancholy, I still succeeded at times in returning to the golden green light of that afternoon. [...] But even though the beatitude was the same, it was now impossible to bear because it aggravated my sadness too much. By this time I knew the world to which the drawing room belonged [...] was a world forever lost.” Indeed, this understanding of the impossibility to return to the childhood and adolescent state of mind and experience might have inspired his myth of Eternal Return.

When the Communist regime began to show signs of taking hold of Romania, Eliade decided not to return to his native country. Thus, in 1945, he moved to France also taking his adopted daughter Giza there. Arrived there, Eliade came again into contact with Dumézil, who enabled him to recover his academic position. Following Dumézil’s recommendation, Eliade began teaching at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Practical School of High-Studies) in Paris. At that time, he is said to work even 15 hours per day. In France, Eliade married the second time to Cristinel Cotescu, a Romanian exile. There in France Eliade rallied with some Romanian expatriates including Emil Cioran and Alexandru Busuioceanu, who helped him publicize his anti-communist point of view to the eyes of the Western European readers. Eliade also got briefly involved in the publication of “Luceafarul” (“The Morning Star”), a magazine written in the Romanian language. Continue reading »

Did your teen fawn over Twilight? Did she read that entire brick of a book in one night? This could be because she loves the idea of vampires, but it is more likely because it is a compelling romance. Romance novels for teens are a huge hit because so many of them are just trying out their first romances and they want to know how it’s done. Plus, many of these couples in young adult romance novels face situations that just aren’t fair and that keep them apart unnecessarily, and young adult readers tend to really respond to those themes. If your student devours romance novels, some titles to consider are the Perfect Chemistry books by Simone Elkeles, Forget You by Jennifer Echols, and The Truth about Forever by Sarah Dessen.

Science Fiction/Fantasy

If your teenager grew up with Harry Potter, there’s a good chance, he or she is mourning the end of the series as well as the final movie that came out this year. Rather than read the whole series again, there are some great science fiction and fantasy novels out there that will have your students taken away to a new world in no time. The best thing about science fiction and fantasy novels is that they usually come in series of multiple books, so it is really easy for your child to pick up the next book in the series when he or she is done with the first. Some books in this genre include The Dark Side of Nowhere by Neal Shusterman, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, and Graceling by Kristin Cashore.

Memoirs Continue reading »

A poetry slam is an event during which several poets perform original poetry to an audience. These slam poets compete against each other for points, though there isn’t usually much of a prize to be won, and the judges are randomly selected audience members. In this way, slam poets need to be really good at crowd appeal. They can’t just get up to the stage and read a poem; rather, they must include a performance aspect to catch the audience’s attention. Props are not allowed in poetry slams, however, so the performance must be about the poet and the poem. Poems are sometimes sung, rapped, shouted, or whispered depending on the poet’s style and the tone of the poem. During a poetry slam, poets compete in three rounds. The first round is usually all-inclusive with as many as eight poets performing. The second round has four participants, and the final round has two. There are usually five randomly selected judges, and they score the poets between zero and ten. The lowest and highest score are dropped to give the poets each a score out of thirty. The highest scoring poets advance to the next round, in which they perform different poems than their first rounds.

How Poetry Slams Started?

In Chicago in 1984, Marc Smith started an open mic at the Get Me High lounge where poets started performing poems rather than just reading them. Despite the poetry community scoffing at the idea of poets performing rather than reading, this method gained popularity. Two years later, in 1986, the poetry slams moved to their current home at the Green Mill Jazz Club in Chicago. It didn’t take long for poetry slams to gain national attention; the first national poetry slam was held in 1990 – just four years later – in San Francisco. Since then, poetry slams have taken place across the country and around the world, and slam poets have been featured on HBO, in films and books, and in some English classrooms.

Responses to Poetry Slams

Academic poets and poetry teachers have had mixed responses to poetry slams. Some of them look down on the idea of performing poetry because, they believe, poems were meant to be written or simply read. Incorporating pop culture and hip-hop reduces the integrity of the poems, some say. Others truly enjoy this revitalization of the poetry community and are excited about the opportunity to use slam poetry to get young students interested in poetry when they might otherwise be unmotivated to study it.