The Baroque Style in English Prose and Poetry

In literary studies and rhetoric, a style of writing that is extravagant, heavily ornamented, and/or bizarre. A term more commonly used to characterize the visual arts and music, baroque (sometimes capitalized) can also refer to a highly ornate style of prose or poetry. Etymology From the  Portuguese  barroco  imperfect pearl Examples and Observations: Today the word [baroque] is applied to any creation that is exceedingly ornate, intricate, or elaborate. Saying a politician delivered a baroque speech wouldnt necessarily be a compliment.  (Elizabeth Webber and Mike Feinsilber, Merriam-Websters Dictionary of Allusions. Merriam-Webster, 1999) Characteristics of Baroque Literary Style Baroque literary style is generally marked by rhetorical sophistication, excess, and play. Self-consciously remaking and thus critiquing the rhetoric and poetics of the Petrarchan, pastoral, Senecan, and epic traditions, baroque writers challenge conventional notions of decorum by using and abusing such tropes and figures as metaphor, hyperbole, paradox, anaphora, hyperbaton, hypotaxis and parataxis, paronomasia, and oxymoron. Producing copia and variety (varietas) is valued, as is the cultivation of concordia discors and antithesis--strategies often culminating in allegory or the conceit.(The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 4th ed., ed. by Roland Green et al. Princeton University Press, 2012) Cautionary Notes to Writers Very skilled writers will sometimes use baroque prose to good effect, but even among successful literary authors, the vast majority avoid flowery writing. Writing is not like figure skating, where flashier tricks are required to move up in competition. Ornate prose is an idiosyncrasy of certain writers rather than a pinnacle all writers are working toward. (Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman, How Not to Write a Novel. HarperCollins, 2008)[B]aroque prose demands tremendous rigor from the writer. If you stuff a sentence, you must know how to do so with complementary ingredients--ideas that do not compete but play off one another. Above all, as you edit, concentrate on determining when enough is enough. (Susan Bell, The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself. W.W. Norton, 2007) Baroque Journalism When Walter Brookins flew a Wright plane from Chicago to Spingfield in 1910, a writer for the Chicago Record Herald reported that the plane drew out great crowds at every town along the way ... In baroque prose that captured the excitement of an era, he wrote: The sky-gazers looked on in astonishment as the great artificial bird bore down the heavens. . .  Wonderment, surprise, absorption were written on every visage . . . a machine of travel that combined the speed of the locomotive with the comfort of the automobile, and in addition, sped through an element until now navigated only by the feathered kind. It was, in truth, the poetry of motion, and its appeal to the imagination was evident in every upturned face. (Roger E. Bilstein, Flight in America: From the Wrights to the Astronauts, 3rd ed. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) The Baroque Period Students of literature may encounter the term [baroque] (in its older English sense) applied unfavorably to a writers literary style; or they may read of the baroque period or Age of Baroque (late 16th, 17th, and early 18th centuries); or they may find it applied descriptively and respectfully to certain stylistic features of the baroque period. Thus, the broken rhythms of [John] Donnes verse and the verbal subtleties of the English metaphysical poets have been called baroque elements. . . . Baroque Age is often used to designate the period between 1580 and 1680 in the literature of Western Europe, between the decline of the Renaissance and the rise of the Enlightenment.​  (William Harmon and Hugh Holman, A Handbook to Literature, 10th ed. Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006) Renà © Wellek on Baroque Clichà ©s One must, at least, admit that stylistic devices can be imitated very successfully and that their possible original expressive function can disappear. They can become, as they did frequently in the Baroque, mere empty husks, decorative tricks, craftsmans clichà ©s...If I seem to end on a negative note, unconvinced that we can define Baroque either in terms of stylistic devices or a particular worldview or even a peculiar relationship of style and belief, I would not like to be understood as offering a parallel to Arthur Lovejoys paper on the Discrimination of Romanticisms. I hope that baroque is not quite in the position of romantic and that we do not have to conclude that it has come to mean so many things, that by itself, it means nothing...Whatever the defects of the term baroque, it is a term which prepares for synthesis, draws our minds away from the mere accumulation of observations and facts, and paves the way for a future history of literature as a fine art.(Renà © Wellek, The Concept of Baroque in Literary Scholarship, 1946, rev. 1963; rpt. in Baroque New Worlds: Representation, Transculturation, Counterconquest, ed. by Lois Parkinson Zamora and Monika Kaup. Duke University Press, 2010) The Lighter Side of Baroque Mr. Schidtler: Now can anyone give me an example of a Baroque writer?Justin Cammy: Oh, sir.​​Mr. Schidtler: Mm-hm?Justin Cammy: I thought all writers were broke.(Literature. You Cant Do That on Television, 1985)

The Criminal Justice System and its Corrections Essay

The criminal justice system is composed of four categories: law enforcement, legal counsel, courts, and corrections. I am going to focus on one of these subjects and the problems or issues that are within the corrections part of criminal justice usually refers to the events that occur after being sentenced in a court of law. During the past few decades many problems have arisen in this area, solutions have been discussed and put into use over the years as well. However, there are still problems that are being dealt with in today’s corrections. One problem that is faced in the corrections system today is overpopulation in the prisons. Prisons all over the United States are becoming overcrowded and that leads to many other problems such as†¦show more content†¦(Stelloh, 2013) Many programs have been initiated to help the problems of overcrowding and negligence. These include education, rehabilitation programs, work-release programs, and other preventative measures. Numerous education programs are offered to inmates. Some prisons even mandate the completion of a GED if the offender never finished high school. Many colleges in the prison’s community partner together with each other to enable higher learning as a possibility for offenders to obtain college credit. These services help inmates succeed in an inmate’s preparation to reintegrate into society with less chances of being arrested again. Offenders that are more prepared to leave prison are not as likely to commit a crime which improves the safety of the public and also saves money from taxpayers. (Office of Vocational Adult Education, 2009) Vocational programs are offered along with educational programs in many prisons. Vocational programs consist of training inmates different trades and teach skills that will benefit the inmate upon their release. Learning how to build something out of wood inside a workshop and learning how to repair a car are both types of vocational programming. Job training and apprenticeships in areas such as carpentry and electrical skills areShow MoreRelatedCorrections and the Criminal Justice System1166 Words   |  5 PagesCorrections describes the punishment of offenders for the crimes they have committed. Corrections does not always mean punishment; in the United States they expect their inmates to read the bible to reflect on their wrongdoings. In the criminal justice system there are three major components: police, courts, and corrections. The police investigate crimes and arrest suspects handing over the evidence and investigative information to the court system. Prosecutors determine wh ether a crime has beenRead MoreCorrections And The Criminal Justice System2445 Words   |  10 PagesCorrections Corrections is a component of the criminal justice system and refers to the array of programs, services, facilities and organizations responsible for managing offenders or those who have been accused of committing a crime. 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Essay on Homer’s Odyssey Free Essays

In the tenth book of the Odyssey Odysseus and his companions find themselves trapped in the cave if the Cyclops Polyphemos. After their monstrous host has munched his way through several of his guests, the remainder take action. Odysseus makes a sharp, wooden stake, cutting it from the massive cudgel discovered in the cave; then together with four of his men he plunges the stake into the eye of the drunken, sleeping Polyphemos. We will write a custom essay sample on Essay on Homer’s Odyssey or any similar topic only for you Order Now Snodgrass, however, would dissent. His whole book is devoted to proving that not only did early Greek art rarely illustrate Homer, it was rarely even inspired by it. This theory is not a new one. Many other scholar have thought and pondered the same ideas. Snodgrass meticulously studies examples of scene often thought to be illustrations of Homer. Geometric art, he argues, offers nothing that can be identified as Homeric; indeed, there is only one Trojan war scene and that is Ajax’s rescue of the body of Achilles, a scene which occurs in neither the Odyssey nor the Iliad. One of the more bizarre apparitions of geometric art takes the form of a pair of Siamese twins, warriors with two heads, four legs, four arms and one torso and the subject of some fascinating pages in Snodgrass’s book. They were especially popular in early Greek art, but there is no clear Homeric influence here. Twice does the Iliad does refer to the twins, yet significantly he does not mention their rather striking deformity. It is preferable to understand both the artist and Homer as drawing on the same body of legendary material. By the mid seventh century figures on vases are beginning to be identified by captions. This at least makes it easier to determine whether the scene is from the Trojan war. Instead of two warriors fighting over a body we can be sure that we are looking at Menealos and Hektor fighting over the body of Euphorbos, as found on a famous Rhodian plate of the late seventh century, a picture that makes an impressive and appropriate cover for the book. This could very well be an illustration of the Iliad book where Menealos abandons his attempt to strip the corpse. Evidence for this tradition can be found in the shield of Euphorbos by Menealos himself. This is certainly plausible and helps to show that common subject matter is insufficient to prove influence. On the other hand, where a minor character is names, such as ‘Odios’ in the embassy to Achilles, then we can be more confident that the artist had Homer in mind. This is a book of enormous leaning and subtlety, and it conclusion is surely right, yet at the same time it seems something of a missed opportunity. It is devoted to a negative and tightly-argued thesis, that Homer’s epic poems had only minimal influence on early Greek at. Snodgrass is re-thinking early Greek art as he goes, but he is re-thinking it within the restrictions imposed by the very narrow focus of the book as a whole. Thus, the positive, for instance the illuminating chapter on synoptic narrative and on composition, can be rather swapped in the relentless negative arguments. Other will now need to work through the implications of his thesis, for example the role that must be assigned to oral tradition and all its local variations. Perhaps it is no conscience that his book should appear at a time when the literary culture of the recent past is being eroded by an increasing emphasis on the visual. How to cite Essay on Homer’s Odyssey, Essays