Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an american author and poet who's work is very famous today. Poe's poems are known for being dark and creepy or dealing with the supernatural. The pieces Poe wrote fit the ideas that were common during the romanticism period in United States. I would think that Poe's poems were not only influenced by the new ideas of his time but also the life he lived. I think what Edgar Poe has been through during his lifetime (along with his intelligence) enabled him to write his stories.
Poe didnt live the easiest life but rather a life of hardship and loneliness. A lot of the events and circumstances that he endured in his life were reflected in his poems. For starters, his mother died before he was even 3 years old then he was adopted by a married couple. His new mother also eventually died while he was in his teens and his "father" didnt really like him. Poe had to deal with the absence of a loving womanly figure on several occasion in his life and so did subjects in his poems. In The Raven the narrator is mourning the lost of his beloved Lenore and in Ligeia the main character loses his love interest twice. Isolation was another recurring factor in Edgar Poe's life. Poe lost two sets of parents and grew up with few friends so isolation was probably his closest companion. In The Raven the narrator seems to be isolated from society due to his mood and in The Fall of the House of Usher the narrators friend is very seclusive. Also in the Fall of the House of Usher the partaking of incest is suggested and Edgar Allan Poe married his 13 year old cousin (he was 27 at the time). Im not sure if that was normal at the time or not.
I think Edgar's life really shaped the themes in his poems and it just so happened to accommodate the new ideas being developed by other artist of his time. Many of the things Edgar Allan Poe lived through can be seen in his poems.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Thursday, October 17, 2013
What It Means To Be American
Americans are known for many things around the world like being lazy and being rude. Americans are also known to be very close to their electronics. America has no set culture attached to it so it doesn't take much to be considered an American.
America is supposedly the "melting pot" of the world because it has so many different types of people living in it. America has people of different races, religions, and cultures living in it so you could say it is pretty diverse. This same diversity makes it almost impossible to define what an american is. How do you create a definition or classification for millions of different people? The fact that America doesn't really have a culture only makes it that much harder to call someone an American based on a definition. Most people identify with the culture their family practices and uses that to define "what" they are even if they weren't born there. On technical terms, if you're born in America, you are American but where a person is born often doesn't define who they are as well as the traditions they practice. Since America doesn't really have any cultural traditions people don't usually deem themselves Americans as often as they use their ancestors to define who they are.
I would say that there is no real way to explain what it means to be American other than the literal meaning of being born in America. America is a younger country and lacks the distinctive cultural characteristics that a lot of other countries have. America's mixture of races and cultures also makes it hard to specify what an American is. I think any U.S citizen who claims the title of an American is an American.
Americans are known for many things around the world like being lazy and being rude. Americans are also known to be very close to their electronics. America has no set culture attached to it so it doesn't take much to be considered an American.
America is supposedly the "melting pot" of the world because it has so many different types of people living in it. America has people of different races, religions, and cultures living in it so you could say it is pretty diverse. This same diversity makes it almost impossible to define what an american is. How do you create a definition or classification for millions of different people? The fact that America doesn't really have a culture only makes it that much harder to call someone an American based on a definition. Most people identify with the culture their family practices and uses that to define "what" they are even if they weren't born there. On technical terms, if you're born in America, you are American but where a person is born often doesn't define who they are as well as the traditions they practice. Since America doesn't really have any cultural traditions people don't usually deem themselves Americans as often as they use their ancestors to define who they are.
I would say that there is no real way to explain what it means to be American other than the literal meaning of being born in America. America is a younger country and lacks the distinctive cultural characteristics that a lot of other countries have. America's mixture of races and cultures also makes it hard to specify what an American is. I think any U.S citizen who claims the title of an American is an American.
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