Topic Areas

    Arnold Dover Beach Belonging Dover Beach - Arnold # Romantic Art flourished following the French Revolution, when all things seemed possible and life was on a trajectory of unlimited improvement heading towards perfectibility and the ultimate triumph of good. It believed that Nature was good and therefore the ideal of goodness was a natural state achievable by man. As in most areas of thinking, Hegel’s dialectic emerges where each dominant ideology (the thesis) is challenged by a reaction (The antithesis) resulting in a conflict resolved by a compromise (the synthesis) which eventually achieves domination to become the new thesis.

    Case Studies in Justice # This topic area is dedicated to examining the role of the state in adjudicating polemic disputes when all other avenues appear to have failed. It encompasses multiple aspects of Justice and how it impacts on families. Family courts could adopt the Hippocratic code of “do no harm”, lest the saying that “there is no family dispute so bad, that the intervention of the family court could not make it worse” applies to them.

    Change Changing Perspectives # Perpetual change is a universal phenomenon that has perplexed mankind throughout history. Everything in the universe is in motion and any concept of stability is an illusion. We may attempt to fortify ourselves by stabilising habits, conventions, institutions and traditions, however even these must adapt to a changing world. Flux and stasis have always created tension in every civilisation. Change is often resisted most strenuously by vested interests - those who have the greatest to lose.

    Clueless Emma Comparison Clueless, an updated, Americanised version of an 18^(th) C. English novel of manners, shares many of its precursor’s characteristics but also significant differences. The 1995 creation of Amy Heckerling as an appropriation of the plot of Jane Austen’s novel Emma. Heckerling does a magnificent performance of bringing Emma back to life in 20^(th) Century America. Heckerling was cashing in on a major revival of Austen in the mid 1990s as about five different adaptations of Austen’s novels were released within a two year period.

    Role of the Critic The Role of the Critic # Criticism is a pejorative misnomer for someone who describes, analyses and evaluates literature, food, art, music or any other human endeavour. Though they have been around since early times – even before Plato and Aristotle, their hey day began in the 1920’s to about the 1990’s when their influence was eroded by the proliferation of commentary on the internet.¹ Many scholars feel we suffer from an implosion of opinion that has smothered authoritative and informed criticism.

    Atwood'S Journey To The Interior Title: Journey to the Interior – Margaret Atwood # I. Sound Effects # Read the poem aloud. Comment on the Sound Effects, verbal music. It’s rhyme. Rhythm and melody. Assonance, alliteration. onomatopoeia. etc. (Blending repetition patterns. slow/fast movement, harsh, discordant, sibilance, sotto, allegro, Rhapsodic, lyrical, elegiac, upbeat, blue, staccato, dirge, ode, Melody. tone. mood. atmosphere. voice. This is a subtle, many layered poem with nuances that may be contradictory and therefore wide open to multiple interpretations.

    Justice, truth and peace # Justice is one of our most primal instincts (we are hard wired against an injustice) and our most fundamental cherished entitlement. Even as young children we have an instinctive sense of what is fair and just. We may not know anything about law, but we recognise an injustice immediately even if it doesn’t concern us directly. A layman’s definition of justice may be nothing more than us getting our comeuppance; deserved reward or just deserts.

    Objective Knowledge Objective knowledge and truth # Knowledge is gained by heuristic techniques such as logic, empiricism, imagination, inspiration, divination or by intuition - enabling a person to discover or learn something for themselves. a ‘hands-on’ or interactive heuristic approach to learning. Oscar Wilde maintains that anything worth learning cannot be taught. The French scientist Alexis Clairaut wrote in 1727, ‘a truth that is glimpsed’ must be verified by ‘a truth that is demonstrated’, This needs an empirical, rigorous and scrupulous process of discovery, sound inferences, valid assumptions and disciplined logic.

    Agamemnon And The Orestia Oresteia # In 458 B.C., Aeschylus produced the Oresteia, the greatest tragic drama in human history. It is a window into the evolution of Athenian justice, the principles underlying its law, and the threats to justice inherent in human passions. The play is a transcendental plea. For democratic justice. The third part of the trilogy its final act portrays a courtroom trial in which the mental state of the defendant is central with all the elements of what today we call legal insanity.