Month: January 2016

How are love and/or hate presented in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and a range of poetry you have studied?

Robert Browning and Shakespeare show love and hate as two similar emotions but very contrasting. Love and hate are both similar as they both are felt with strong emotion. Love and Hate are alike but are portrayed as two completely different feelings. Love is shown with positivity and hate is shown with negativity. This is presented in Julius Caesar and many of Robert Browning’s poems. In this essay I will be comparing Julius Caesar (written by William Shakespeare) and many poems written by Robert Browning to show how love and hate are portrayed. I will be using Porphyria’s Lover, The Laboratory-Ancien Regime and Soliloquy of the Spanish cloister and I will compare them with Julius Caesar to show how love and hate is presented by Robert Browning and William Shakespeare.

In The Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, Robert Branning presents us with a speaker who is filled with hate. Our speaker, a monk, has such hatred for Brother Lawrence, his colleague, that he declares ‘if hate killed men brother Lawrence… would not mine kill you!’ With this line, Browning has personified the speakers hate.

Calpurnia could also be seen as someone who shows love in Julius Caesar. Shakespeare compares love with death. This could also be connoted as love being compared with hate as death is seen as something negative. In Act 2, Scene 2 she tells Caesar not to go out as she witnessed him dying in her dreams. ‘Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies, yet now they fright me’. In this quote, Calpurnia talks about how she never believes what she see in her dreams, but she believes this dream. In her sleep, she saw Julius Caesar dying. She warned him and told him not to go to the Capitol. ‘Your wisdom is consumed in confidence. Do not go forth today’. In this quote Calpurnia warns Julius Caesar again not to go to the Capitol again. Shakespeare uses comparison to show love in this scene. Shakespeare uses Calpurnia to talk about how she never believed in dreams, but she believed in this dream. This could also be seen as symbolism. In the second quote Shakespeare also uses figurative language to show love in Julius Caesar. Shakespeare uses a metaphor. ‘Your wisdom is consumed in confidence’. This is a metaphor as ‘wisdom’ cannot be ‘consumed’. Shakespeare uses a lot of language techniques to show how love and hate is shown in Julius Caesar.

Love and hate are also shown as very similar emotions in the poem ‘The Laboratory-Ancien Regime’ written by poet Robert Browning. Browning also uses love to compare it with death. In this poem the speaker Pauline finds out that her lover is being unfaithful by cheating on her with another women called ‘Elise’. Her lover is also not just being unfaithful to her but is also fully aware that Pauline knows of it. Pauline decides to make a poison that will kill not just her lover, but will also kill Elise to ensure both are dead.  ‘He is sure to remember her dying face’ Robert Browning uses figurative language in this quote as once someone dies they no longer have the ability to remember recent events. This is a metaphor as the phrase ‘…remember her dying face’ shows that Pauline’s lover will remember Elise’s face. However, he will not be able to recall her looks as when someone dies they cannot do things they could do when they were alive such as recalling someone else’s looks. Robert Browning shows hate as a very powerful emotion. This is because he uses death to show how much Pauline hates her lover.

Robert Browning also shows hate as a very strong emotion in another one of his poems (Soliloquy of the Spanish cloister). In Soliloquy of the Spanish cloister the main character is a monk. The monk talks about his hate to Brother Lawrence. “If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, God’s blood, would not mine kill you!” Robert Browning uses figurative language to show how deep the monk’s hate is towards Brother Lawrence. Robert Browning uses personification to show this. This is because hate is given life. ‘If hate killed men…’. Hate is an emotion and cannot kill as it doesn’t have any life. This shows the reader how deep the hate is for Brother Lawrence from the monk. In the last stanza, the monk considers selling his soul to Satan to ensure Brother Lawrence encounter death. ‘Or, there’s Satan!–one might venture Pledge one’s soul to him,’. The monk shows his deep hate for Brother Lawrence by saying that he will even sell is soul, to make sure Brother Lawrence is dead.

To conclude, I believe William Shakespeare and Robert Browning use many language techniques to show what they both think of love and hate. Shakespeare shows love and hate as very confusing emotions as love can be seen as hate or vice versa. This can be seen in Act 3, Scene 2 where Brutus kills Julius Caesar as he loves Rome more than Julius Caesar. Robert Browning shows love and hate as very deep emotions. Browning shows hate as a very deep emotion as he uses death to link in with hate. In Pophyria’s lover, he links hate with death as Pophyria’s lover wants to kill Pophyria because he believes she is too beautiful for him. In ‘The Laboratory-Anciene Regime’ Pauline wants kill Elise and her lover because her lover was cheating on her with Elise, this shows the reader how deep Pauline’s hate is for Elise and her lover. In Soliloquy of the Spanish cloister, the Spanish monk is willing to sell his soul to Satan to ensure Brother Lawrence dies, this shows the reader how deep his hate is for Brother Lawrence. I also believe Shakespeare and Browning use language techniques such as figurative language to show that love and hate are both very similar emotions. This is because they are both felt with very strong emotions, however they are both very contrasting. Love is shown with positivity and hate is shown with negativity. This is why I believe love and hate can be seen as similar emotions but very contrasting emotions.

Recently in the Champions League, three of England’s best football clubs were all wiped out after the first stage of the knockouts. The Premier League’s glory days are over. After Arsenal and Chelsea losing to French sides Monaco and Paris-Saint Germain, does this mean the Premier League is declining or does it mean the French division is rising to become another dominant force in Europe? Whatever the answer, we can still agree that England’s top teams are not producing the magic they do in England in Europe’s biggest competition, The Champions League. But why?

Homegrown talent is something every winning side in the Champions League possesses. With the likes of Xavi and Iniesta of Barcelona, Ramos and Casillas of Real Madrid, Schweinsteiger and Lahm of Bayern Munich and even Neville and  Rooney of Manchester United. Homegrown talent is one of the key ingredients to a Champions League winning side, however this is lacking in the top Premier League sides nowadays. You can argue that John Terry is someone who came from the ranks of Chelsea football club, but you have to agree with the fact that he has become old and has lost his touch. Manchester City and Arsenal have no youngsters who are worth bragging about. Domestic players are beneficial as they play for the pride of their nation as well as their club, whereas the players who have been signed from overseas play for the fame and the fortune. If English teams do not have enough of the home-grown talent to be bragging about, they will not be able to compete with some of Europe’s best sides.

One other reason why Premier League teams are not as good as other big European sides is because of the run of games they have to play. In recent events, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp talked about how he is struggling in England because of the amount of games his side have to play. “The number of games is the biggest difference,” he protested. English teams have no winter break, whereas other leagues in Europe (such as La Liga, Ligue 1 and Serie A) have one. The winter break is beneficial as players need to have a rest to ensure they are ready for the games they need to play in the new year. In one of the country’s domestic cups (The FA Cup), if teams draw, instead of playing extra time, they will have to play the same fixture on a different day. In other leagues, like the La Liga or Ligue 1, they will play extra time. As they do not play another game on another day, they will get more rest than the players in England. In the Capital One Cup, teams will have to play two rounds in the semi-finals. Liverpool manager, Jurgen Klopp admitted, “When I came here, I didn’t know there were two rounds [legs] in the semi-final of the Capital One Cup”.

The Ballon d’Or, one of the most prestigious events viewed by people all over the world, rewards players for their remarkable ability to play the beautiful game. The main event awards one player with being the best player in the world. If you look at the past winners of the Ballon d’Or, there has never been an English player who has won the Ballon d’Or, or who has even come second or third in the listings. This could mean that there is not enough fire power in England. There are no superstars who could be seen as one of the greatest legends once they retire. This could be why English teams are not as fierce as they are in Europe as other European sides are. If you also look at the national team, you start to realise how mediocre the nation is compared to other national football teams such as Spain, Germany or Italy. The three lions are well-known for always failing in the big stages and never doing what is expected of them. The Premier League is lacking fire power and fire power is the catalyst for a dominant side in Europe.

In conclusion, I believe the Football Association need to do a lot to ensure England do well in the Champions League as well as international competitions such as the World Cup or the Euros. A winter break will need to be enforced to ensure players receive enough rest to be ready for big competitions. But above all, the academies in England should be more strict on young and upcoming players to ensure that they do well as professionals and that they have the aspiration of being known as one of the greatest players England has ever produced. This will help England to become a dominant force in Europe again.

Dear John Humphrys,

Eight years ago, you wrote an interesting article arguing that ‘texting is wrecking our language’. I strongly disagree with this as I believe language cannot be wrecked, however I do believe language can be changed. And this change isn’t a negative change, this change is a positive change. Change helps language to become even stronger. Your article was written in 2007, so I understand why you feared that negative change might occur.

You said that texters are ‘…pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary.’ I disagree with you as I believe texting is just a form of quick communication from one person to another. And if texting is changing the way we speak or write, so what? Language is changing every day and if it didn’t change, the way we communicate would be boring. That’s the beauty of language. We get bored with using the same word over and over again, so we decide to add more words that mean exactly the same. This is why vocabulary will never be tedious and dull. Language will forever stay exciting and enjoyable, and will never get to the stage where you don’t enjoy it anymore. This is why I believe language is changing, but is not becoming ‘wrecked’.

You argued that texting has caused the Oxford English Dictionary to remove the hyphen from no fewer than 16,000 words. I agree with you that texting is the main cause for this but this isn’t a negative cause like the way you are portraying it. I believe that removing the hyphen from 16,000 words is best as it is quicker and more efficient. Life is too short for you to be worrying about extra hyphens. I understand that you are a journalist but does a footballer worry about what colour his laces are? I don’t think so. Your article even backs up my argument. You showed me that you prefer typing with faster and more efficient shortcuts. You used the abbreviation ‘OED’, instead of saying ‘Oxford English Dictionary’. Why do you think this is? The answer is simple. You just want quicker ways of getting your point across. In response, I would argue that quicker and more efficient shortcuts do not change language negatively but actually change language positively.

Now, my next and final point. I’m not going to counter argue with another one of you arguments because I believe I’ve done that enough. I would like to bring something else to the table. The Latin language; a language that has died out because of upcoming languages. One of them being the English Language. Mr. John Humphrys, don’t you believe that what  texting is doing to English, is what English did to Latin? And don’t you think English is a better language than Latin? Well, this backs up my opinion on language being changed to be improved. Language can never be wrecked. Language is changing day by day. But does this mean language is becoming more wrecked day by day? NO. In fact, language is actually becoming better and better everyday.

To conclude, language will never become wrecked. Whether that means texting is affecting language, or new forms of the language are being made or even hyphens or other types of punctuation get removed from the Oxford English Dictionary (or OED as you like to call it), language will still never ever become wrecked. I believe language just changes constantly. Language evolves day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute and even second by second. However, these added changes enhance the beauty of language and if language doesn’t change, language would be boring, tedious and dull. Because of change language is actually beautiful, interesting and compelling.