Literature - A Mirror Of Society :: essays research papers

The literature of a country is affected and influenced by how the people of that country live. This paper will prove that The French Revolution greatly influenced 19th Century French Romanticism. First, the cultural values of the revolution will be identified. Then, the different aspects of Romanticism will be presented. The cultural values of The French Revolution and Romanticism will then be linked. Finally, literary examples will be shown to support this connection between the two movements. Before the Revolution, the citizens of France lived in a strict, confined society with no freedom to express their feelings. Government had imposed strong, unfair laws on the common people (Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia â€Å"French Revolution†). They wanted a voice in a stable government with a strong economy (Johnson 105) and a strong sense of individuality and independence within the people. (Moss and Wilson 180) Eighteenth- century literature was much like the society in which it was produced, restrained. Society was divided into privileged and unprivileged classes, (Leinward 452) with Eighteenth- century writers focusing on the lives of the upper class. (Thompson 857) These writers followed â€Å"formal rules†(Thorlby 282), and based their works on scientific observations and logic (Thompson 895). The Revolution gave the common people and writers more freedom to express feelings and stimulated them to use reason. According to Thompson, The Revolution â€Å"had a major impact on Nineteenth- Century European Life.† (895) It sent a strong wave of emotion and revival throughout France (Peyre 59). This lead to new laws and standards for the citizens, including newer, less imposing literary standards. Romanticism marked a profound change in both literature and thought. Romanticism, according to Webster’s Dictionary, is defined as â€Å"a literary movement (as in early 19th century Europe) marked especially by an emphasis on the imagination and emotions and by the use of autobiographical material.† Although this may be true, there is no single commonly accepted definition of Romanticism, but it has some features upon which there is general agreement. First, it emphasized upon human reason, feeling, emotion, and expression (Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia, â€Å"Romanticism†) while emphasizing the love of nature, beauty, and liberty. (Leinward 528-529) Thompson defines Romanticism as â€Å" a major literary and cultural movement† that was inspired by the imaginations, inner feelings, and emotions of the Romantics. (895) If one term can be used to describe the forces that have shaped the modern world, it is Romanticism. (Peyre, 2) Romanticism has had such a profound effect on the world since the late 18th century that one author has called it â€Å"the profoundest cultural transformation in human history since the invention of the city.† (Compton’s Encyclopedia, â€Å"Romanticism†) Harvey and Heseltine state that â€Å"The outstanding characteristic of 18th-century French literature had been attached to

Robespierre’s Justification for State Terror

Robespierre’s Justification for State Terror Maximilien Robespierre states, â€Å"What is the goal toward which we are heading? The peaceful enjoyment of liberty and equality. † (Bienvenu, p. 1, para. 1) The laws that have been passed by the royalty that are meant to bring long lasting righteousness, are laws that are recognized; these laws are not written any where but in the essence of all individuals. Robespierre was elected as the representative of the National Convention and joined a political club called the radical Jacobin party.Being apart of the Convention and the Jacobins, Robespierre took over the administrative power of the Republic. Because the Jacobins believed that France was in need of change and restructuring, and Robespierre was now the head of the Convention, he can develop such change. By doing so he argues that in the land, the use of ethics must be replaced with the use of pride, proposition for traditions, self-regard for arrogance, magnificence f or narcissism, prestige for money, and immorality of the sovereign for virtues and the phenomenon.He believed in democracy and the Republic of virtue. He felt that in order to set the basis of democracy within the people, the merge of both ending the war of independence and oppression must take place in order to put an end to the revolt. The essences of the Republic are virtue and equality. He explains how it is the development of virtue and the maintenance of equality that creates the Republic. Therefore, it is embraced or founded by an individual.He believed that the quality of being an admired government would be an advantage in gaining the trust of the citizens in order to create a strict and rigorous government, â€Å"†¦be trustful towards the people and severe towards itself. † (Bienvenu, p. 2, para. 2) Robespierre states the strengths and weaknesses of this theory: the strength being the triumph of truth rather than dishonesty, and the rights of the community†™s interests than the private. The purpose of both virtue and terror was that without terror it can be deadly, and if it is deadly, virtue is strong.If one did not hated crime, they were presumed to detest virtue. Social protection is for the passive citizens, and the ones who are violent are the ones who are the ones who to be apart of England and Austria. Towards the end, Robespierre mentions an idea of Aristocracy, in which he creates secret illicit laws instead of vigorously supporting his own country. He ends by saying that a cruel government can kill, being free is not for everyone, and if anyone disagreed with his ideas, they would be considered an enemy or traitor.Robespierre structures his argument by introducing the points he wants to make step by step. He starts off by informing the audience of what he thinks the land should contain, and how it should run. He gives examples of ideas, and substitutes them with what he thinks it should be instead. For instance, he would s ay, â€Å"good people in place of good society,† meaning he would replace a good society, and choose to have good citizens instead. (Bienvenu, p. 1, para. 2) Robespierre defines democracy in his own way, then goes on to describe how â€Å"the soul of the Republic is virtue [and] equality† (Bienvenu, p. , para. 6) is in his eyes. He mentions social protection, which is only for citizens who are passive. As this speech ends, Robespierre uses questions to bring the audience to a realization of the point[s] he was trying to bring out throughout the speech. He uses Aristocracy to back up his ideas. Towards the end, he leaves the audience with a riddle they must figure out in order to understand what he meant. Maximilien Robespierre violates all 17 articles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789.He did not give the citizens to participate in the making of the law or the government. They were not given the freedom to speak, write or print, and not everyone had equal rights. The ones that followed his ideas received special treatment, whereas, the ones who disagreed, were considered conspirators. They were sometimes imprisoned and other times killed. He did the opposite of of Article 5, and acts in a way that it hurt society. He killed 40,000 people and locked up 3,000. He did not allow society to use of public agents when required.Laws were created even though the people, and society did not agree. This is why, in 1794, Robespierre was sentence to death with the use of the guillotine, something he like to use for his executions. During the French Revolution, no one has caused as much dilemma as Maximilien Robespierre did. He believed in equality and virtue, however, he contradicted himself and was not aware that he was, in fact, biased. If he thought, heard or was even told that someone descended, they would have fell into the category of an enemy or traitor.He is represents the later Adolf Hitler, who was a dictator, in seve ral different ways. Two being that he tried to promote his beliefs to the people of his land, by infusing fear into the people of the land, and killing or injuring who ever would disagree with him. However, he did not discriminate as viciously as Hitler did. If Robespierre was to do what he did in the present society, he may have been sentenced to life in prison or capital punishment for attempting to corrupt the minds of others, and for killing as many people as he did.

Art Propaganda - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 2 Words: 623 Downloads: 2 Date added: 2017/09/17 Category Art Essay Type Argumentative essay Did you like this example? Propaganda Art Propaganda is defined as information disseminated by an organization or government to promote a policy, idea or cause. All nations throughout history have used propaganda to instill the beliefs of their government on their citizens. When a nation is at war, they need their citizens to support their cause. Just as Germany used exhibitions such as the â€Å"Degenerate Art† exhibition as well the â€Å"Great German Art† exhibition to influence their citizens to believe in the principals instilled by the Nazi party, so has the United States done throughout their times of change and war. The piece of art I chose to use was a poster I created during my junior year while obtaining my BFA. It is a poster created to incite enthusiasm in recruitment for the Iraq War. It is an appropriation of the idea behind the poster created by James Montgomery Flagg in 1917 used for recruitment purposes in WW1 and WW2. It shows a picture of President Bush pointing at the viewer surrounded by pictures of our soldiers already in Iraq. I put the pictures in grayscale and added a splash of blue and red covering parts of the poster. The colors instill an idea of nationalism as these are the colors of our flag and whenever we see red, white and blue, we automatically think of the United States. This is propaganda meant to entice excitement and support for a war that so many felt (and still feel) should have never been fought. But this nonetheless is still important to try to encourage people for a cause that is immensely important in our country right now. Propaganda isn’t always used by governments to instill good ideals and morals. As mentioned before, the Nazi’s used propaganda to inspire ideals based on Hitler’s principals. People are easily influenced when people that are supposed to take care of our nation twist their ideas and principals to influence an unsuspecting public of their bad ideals. Just as the Germans did, the Chinese used propaganda in the 1960s to convey the communist ideals. This art portrayed healthy peasants working on happily, colorful posters, to influence the masses. These images were the complete opposite of the actuality of what really happened. â€Å"The Great Leap Forward† caused nationwide starvation and death. We have used propaganda art throughout history for multiple reasons and throughout multiple forums. The TRUTH campaign is a national anti-smoking campaign, which uses different forms of propaganda visuals to influence and inform people of the harmful affects of smoking. PETA uses propaganda to convince people killing and eating animals is wrong and unhealthy for our environment. Some of these forms of propaganda are helpful and some are hurtful. Propaganda isn’t always in the form of art, but also in the form of actions and words. Extremists use their influences throughout the masses to manipulate groups of people into believing what they belie ve. They only remain important if people believe in what they want them to. Without support from the people of our nation, important actions would not take place. Wars would not be fought with success; ideals would not be spread with accomplishment. It is important to use the governments’ influence to instill support in their principles. The poster I use in this project shows the effort to spread this influence. With the spread of technology, there are many forms and ways to get our ideas out to others. It is more difficult nowadays to keep the interest of people with the massive amounts of information floating around. Propaganda art use by the government is important because it reaches out to the public to influence them to support their nation in whatever time of need they may be in. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Art Propaganda" essay for you Create order