5.3 Stanzas and verse

The poem ‘The literal and the metaphor’, which you read in Section 5.1, was divided into two sections. We call these verses or stanzas, and they are the poetic equivalent of paragraphs, but with more shape, weight and focus than the prose equivalent. Stanzas are like islands encircled by shores. Or,
Author(s): The Open University

1 What is poetry?: an introduction

Poems, unlike crosswords, don't have a straightforward solution. In fact, a careful examination of the clues laid by the poet may lead to more questions than answers. Let's start this unit, then, with a question: is poetry simply about expressing feelings? People do turn to poetry in extremis. Prison inmates, often famously, have expressed loneliness and communicated with absent loved ones through poetry. Maybe this accounts for the egalitarian view often held of poetry – a view which doesn
Author(s): The Open University

Introduction

This unit introduces common techniques underlying free verse and traditional forms of poetry, and how it is necessary to use these techniques in order to harness what T.S. Eliot called the ‘logic of the imagination’ (Eliot, 1975, p. 77). We discuss the possibility of using your own experience, but also the power of imagination, and of utilising different personae in your poems. You are also introduced to the basic terminology and practical elements of poetry – the line, line-breaks, sta
Author(s): The Open University

2.9.2 Searle's objection

In ‘What is a speech act?’, John Searle introduces a memorable example of an utterance in which Grice's conditions are all met for it to mean one thing, but where the words used suggest that the utterance means something quite different, if it means anything at all. The conclusion Searle invites us to draw is that what our utterances mean is not exhausted by the speaker's intentions alone. An additional consideration is the meaning of the expressions used. If they don't match the intentio
Author(s): The Open University

Learning outcomes

By the end of this section you should be able to:

• read closely – analyse a passage from the play;

• examine genre – what kind of play is Doctor Faustus?

• consider themes – what are the main themes or issues explored in the play?

• read historically – what are some of the connections between Doctor Faustus and the historical period in which it was written?

• read biographically – what, if any, ins
  Author(s): The Open University
  

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Introduction

This unit is on Christopher Marlowe's famous play Doctor Faustus. It considers the play in relation to Marlowe's own reputation as a rule-breaker and outsider and asks whether the play criticises or seeks to arouse audience sympathy for its protagonist, who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for 24 years of power and pleasure. Is this pioneering drama a medieval morality play or a tragedy?

This unit is an adapted extract from the Open University courseAuthor(s): The Open University

Acknowledgements

This unit was written by Dr Debbie Brunton

Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reprod
Author(s): The Open University

9 The factory reform movement

Owen's participation in the movement for factory reform was clearly much influenced by views expressed in the essays. This showed his continuing concern, first evidenced in Manchester, about the impact of industrialisation on society, a theme to which he consistently returned. His personal record on the employment of children at New Lanark was certainly an example of good practice in the cotton industry, which in Owen's words was invariably ‘destructive of health, morals, and social comfort
Author(s): The Open University

7 New Lanark as showpiece and text

Owen's partnership of 1814, consisting of Bentham and other enlightened individuals, mainly wealthy Quakers, paved the way for the rapid implementation of the innovations spelled out in the Statement of 1812 and subsequently in the essays. Two of the partners, William Allen (1770–1843), a chemist and businessman, and the wealthy and philanthropic John Walker (1767–1824), Owen's closest associate, were interested in education and had encouraged the establishment of schools adopting
Author(s): The Open University

4.4 Manchester Literary & Philosophical Society and Board of Health

In the meantime Owen joined the town's social and intellectual elite, which like its politics was largely dominated by Dissenters. They were prominent in the Manchester Literary & Philosophical Society which Owen joined in 1793. There he associated with some significant reformers, heard papers on a wide range of intellectual, industrial and social topics, and himself presented papers dealing with such issues, including one on education.

The society was founded in 1781, the co-founders b
Author(s): The Open University

4.3 Business and enlightenment: Manchester 1789–99

Manchester's dynamic business environment, particularly that of the new cotton industry, presented many opportunities for enterprise, even to those with modest capital. By 1790 Owen had joined John Jones, probably another Welshman, making spinning machinery. The next logical move was into cotton spinning itself, and very quickly Owen had established a reputation as a manufacturer of fine yarn, selling as far afield as London and Scotland. When in 1792 one of the town's leading merchant capita
Author(s): The Open University

Learning outcomes

By the end of this unit you should be able to understand:

• the Enlightenment ideas that underpinned Robert Owen's social reform agenda;

• how Owen's background and experience at New Lanark fed through into his thinking in the essays in A New View of Society;

• the main proposals in the essays;

• New Lanark's role as a model for social reform during this period.

Introduction

Robert Owen (1771–1858) (see Figure 1) was one of the most important and controversial figures of his generation. He lived through the ages of Enlightenment and Romanticism and was personally touched by the ideas and dramatic changes that characterised that era. Profiting enormously during the first half of his life from the prog
Author(s): The Open University

Acknowledgements

This unit was written by "Dr Mary-Catherine Garden (Battlefields) and Dr Rodney Harrison (Old and New Towns of Edinburgh)"

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission:

Figures

Figures 1, 2, 3 and 4 © Mary-Catherine Garden

Figures 5, 6 and 7 © Tim Benton.

2.7 Conclusion: Culloden in its wider context

Moving back out to look at Culloden in its wider context, what can we say that we have learned about the site and its meanings? For international visitors with few or no connections to the battle or to Scotland, it appears to be a site of pilgrimage that is functioning as a place to begin to decode the Scottish identity and the Scottish nation. At home, the major narrative of Culloden for Scots for more than two centuries has been one of tragedy, grief and loss. Once a signifier for the state
Author(s): The Open University

5.4 Hutton's geology: The Jedburgh unconformity

One concrete example from the Theory of the Earth will perhaps indicate the way in which Hutton could read features of the landscape as evidence of the action of forces acting over immeasurably long periods. He had been geologising in the valley of Jed Water, near Jedburgh, in the Borders area between England and Scotland. From his observations in the neighbouring Teviot valley, he expected the Jed to be running over a bed of horizontally laid, soft strata which were sometimes exposed
Author(s): The Open University