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Lord Byron Essays

Lord Byron Essays Lord Byron Paper Lord Byron Paper Kelsey May Mrs. Donaldson English 12, Period 1 10 November 2011 Comparisons of Lord Byron’s Poetry Lord Byron wrote poetry during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when Romanticism flourished worldwide. Influences were far and wide for Byron’s poetry; from religious-biblical events to his beautiful female cousin’s marriage, he wrote about any subject matter he found interesting at that time. â€Å"She Walks in Beauty† and â€Å"The Destruction of the Sennacherib† are two of Byron’s poems that are well known in literature. She Walks in Beauty† caught the attention of many people as one of Byron’s best poems; it is considered to be a Hebrew melody written from a third person narrative point of view. â€Å"The Destruction of Sennacherib† is also a Hebrew melody in which Byron replicated the measures taken by the Assyrian king Sennacherib to capture Jerusalem. Although these two poems are similar in their use of literary devices, they are vastly different in theme, tone, and context. Literary devices are used by Byron all throughout these two poems. He uses literary devices such as prepositional phrases, similes, and symbolism along with consonance and assonance to paint the vivid pictures he tries to portray. â€Å"She Walks in Beauty† begins with a simile comparing the women who is the subject of the poem to a cloudless night with bright stars. Together the lack of clouds and bright stars combine to symbolize the beauty of the woman’s talent to â€Å"contain opposite forces within her† (Hacht 269). â€Å"The Destruction of the Sennacherib† opens in a similar way, referencing to a Biblical battle in terms of good and evil. During the battle, the Assyrian king Sennacherib and his army act as the evil trying to defeat Israel which portrays good. Byron uses a simile to compare Sennacherib to a wolf invading Israel which Byron also uses simile to compare to a flock of sheep. Byron uses his â€Å"word pictures† to create an incredibly amazing scene so that the destruction of Israel is more evident later in the poem (Napierkowski and Ruby 39). Symbolism is also one of Byron’s chosen literary devices in these two poems. The symbolism seen in these two poems heavily connects with is perspective of life as it is what he leans on to write his poetry (Kelsall 171). In â€Å"The Destruction of Sennacherib† color plays a huge role in symbolism; green symbolizes the energy, life, and maybe even confidence of Assyrian troops. The color green, Brent Goodman says, â€Å"usually reminds us of vitality, freshness, and life. † A few lines later the color quickly fades from green color of spring to colors of the fall symbolizing the death brought upon Sennacherib along with the death of his horse and troops. The color sets a dull and lifeless scene for the rest of Byron’s poem. In â€Å"She Walks in Beauty,† Byron uses physical features of the woman to symbolize the beauty of her inner self. Eyes are often thought of as simply an attractive feature of a person, but in this sense Byron is saying eyes but meaning soul. As Anne Marie Hacht points out, â€Å"in literature . . . the eyes reveal the heart† (269). Although â€Å"She Walks in Beauty† and â€Å"The Destruction of Sennacherib† are both works of Lord Byron, they are different in all sorts of ways; one being theme. The major theme of â€Å"She Walks in Beauty† is quite obviously beauty. In this poem he expresses this woman’s beauty so in depth it almost seems unfathomable. Byron compliments the lightness with darkness in order to compare the woman’s physical beauty and inner beauty (Hacht 270). Howard Needler says in his critique that â€Å"’Beauty† seems problematical from the poem’s opening line, where it literarily denotes an ambience that enfolds the motion of both night and the lady† (19+). This statement takes note that the atmosphere of the poem is split between the beauty of the darkness and the beauty of the women. This issue leads to Kant’s statement in the Critique of Judgment: Two kinds of beauty, free beauty . . . r merely dependent beauty . . . . The first presupposes no concept of what the object ought to be; the second does presuppose such a concept and the perfection of the object in accordance therewith. The first is called the self-subsistent beauty of this or that thing; the second, as dependent upon a concept (conditioned beauty), is ascribed to objects which come under the concept of a part icular purpose. (Qtd. Needler 19+) Looking at the poem with this incite, the light and dark meeting is more of a self-subsistent beauty where the beauty of the woman is more conditioned beauty. Byron makes use of the dark/light comparison in order to try and articulate the beauty of the woman, making the beauty of the woman dependent upon the free beauty of the stars. The theme of death in â€Å"The Destruction of the Sennacherib† is quite different than the eloquent theme of beauty in â€Å"She Walks in Beauty. † Death is the major theme in this poem for two reason; one being the fall of the Assyrian king and his troops and the second being the fall of pagan worship. The soldiers, the horse, and the king all die in respective order throughout the poem. The soldiers, listed first, seem to have the least affect on the poem with their deaths. Next the horse, stronger than any man, has a bit more of an affect as the poem zooms in as his desperate attempts to breathe as he dies. The death of the king had the most affect on his people because the death of him meant the death of paganism. The death of Sennacherib proves that the Christian God is far more powerful than any earthy king ever could be. Sennacherib dying did not only signify the death of the Assyrian king, it also signified the death of the Assyrian culture. A culture, as Mary K. Ruby and Marie Rose Napierkowski would say, â€Å"that worshiped Baal, the beleaguered pagan god of the Old Testament† (40). Yet this poem stands to be fiction because the Assyrian king Sennacherib was murdered by his own flesh and blood (Napierkowski and Ruby 40). â€Å"She Walks in Beauty† and â€Å"The Destruction of Sennacherib† differ in theme but they also differ in tone. The tone of â€Å"She Walks in Beauty† is one of serious nature; Byron is very passionate about this woman and all of her beauty. For this reason, â€Å"She Walks in Beauty† does not have a tone that is extremely flamboyant. Byron focuses on the complexity of this woman as though she is multi-faceted; he is as infatuated with her inner beauty as he is with her physical beauty. Byron notes that â€Å"One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace,† meaning if this woman had one more or one less inquisitive characteristic her whole demeanor would not be that of this perfect being. This idea of â€Å"nameless grace† is brought onto this woman from heaven, which goes along with the expression â€Å"she is graced by beauty. † (Hacht 270). The seriousness of this poem can be seen through Byron’s attempt to overstate the characteristics of this woman both physically and internally in order to create the image of a woman so amazing is the epitome of perfection (Hacht 272).

Shell Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Shell - Essay Example There is no laid out rule that clearly states what and how the reserves of oil is to be estimated, though there are guidelines given by SEC for the purpose. SEC guidelines were also not met by the reserves estimation that was declared by the executives of the company and they knew it all along. Continuing pressure on non-declaration of the actual reserve estimation in line with the law, made them to come out and accept a revision in their reserves. This made the share prices tumble and the company started losing its standing in the market place. Whereas compared to its competitors the company should have been rated low even in 1997, but the executives of the company for holding up their company's performance, raised the reserves ratio and other key performance indicators of the company. This could be looked at as the pressure on the company to really escalate figures. Though this cannot be construed to be a valid reason for artificial escalation of the figures, it is the predominant reason why the reserves were shown bloated. The corporate governance at the company has been lacking the guts face up to the situation. The major cause of the problem is that the executives could not stand up for a loss of face in the initial run and still thought even after knowing that wrong representation has happened, the second note from Vijver to Watts on 22 Jul 2002 indicates that the company executives were planning really to cover up this even in the last minute. They expected to cover up the entire additional reserves indicated using either of the project maturation, license extensions and new exploration successes. It is important therefore, to note that the corporate governance in the company at its top level had sinister views. The overall company performance itself was in a quandary and to hide the same these fictitious reserves have been brought up. The lack of appropriate planning to counter the fall of reserves, the lack of judgment on the part of the executives to bring about changes in the company so that such performance degrading would not have happened are the major causes for the failure of the company. This is essentially a failure of the corporate governance. Secondly, a well governed organization will have its own corporate correcting and auditing mechanism that will bring even the top management under its purview. If someone should direct the company in a wrong direction, then the company should have a mechanism to throw it up early on or immediately after its occurrence. This will be the ideal control mechanism. In a well governed company that will be the case. A failure of corporate governance is obvious here since such a mechanism has failed to exist in the company or has failed to be active. b) After 2000-01, Shell management decided to come out because of the constant nagging fear that they might really be caught making this mistake and lying to people consistently. Vijver, the CEO of the Shell EP, was also of the view that the RRR of the company has to be maintained since it would a major performance index that share holders will look at when deciding on the price in the market. The disclosure of the reserves had to happen since because of the disclosure that was done in a memorandum prepared by the staff of the EP. There was also an observation in the memorandum by the law firm, Cravaith, Swaine & Moore that the