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Within the poem of the yellow paln

Explore the connotations of the title

English Controlled Assessment

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

In this controlled assessment I will be discussing and analysing deeply the themes of love and hate within Shakespeare’s poem ‘Caesar’ and a range of Robert Browning’s poetry such as, Soliloquy of The Spanish Cloister, Porphyria’s Lover and A Woman’s Last Word’. I will analyse how the themes of love and hate are linked between the two authors and what devices are used to present the themes.

Shakespeare uses personification and symbolism within Act 2 Scene 1 to present the imagery of the theme hate. This is shown in the quotation where Brutus says:

‘And therefore think him as a serpent’s egg…And kill him in the shell’

By Shakespeare using Brutus to say the word ‘Serpents egg’ it signifies personification as he describes Caesar as an animal of such and in this specific case a ‘serpent’. Through Brutus describing Caesar as a ‘serpent’ it gives us an indication that there is a sense of symbolism due to the description of Caesar. I think this because a serpent is thought to be a biblical meaning of Betrayal which is depicted from the bible story of Adam and Eve, when the serpent persuaded Eve to eat the apple even after when God told Adam and Eve not to eat that apple. The Serpent is thought to be a malicious animal that is very sinister and would attack you behind your back with ought you to even realise, or even now the term mostly used to indicate a serpent/snake is ‘Snake in the grass’ which connotes a deceitful or treacherous person. However, the biblical meaning of the serpent is most likely to be why Shakespeare used it to describe Caesar because back in the late 16th Century (when Shakespeare was born) religion was not just taken seriously but it informed every aspect of life and the way people perceived it.

Moreover, if we analyse the quotation in-depth we see that Shakespeare did not only use personification and symbolism to present the theme of hate but he also uses powerful verbs to create imagery to the audience. This is shown in the quote:

‘And kill him in the shell’

We can draw from this that when Shakespeare uses the verb ‘kill’ the implication is that it indicates a harsh sense of hate towards Caesar. This is because the connotations of ‘kill’ is ending a living being’s life. But we can also see that Shakespeare says ‘in the shell’, by using this term it providers us an imagery of a cold-blooded murder. I believe this because when something is killed in its ‘shell’ its purpose is to ‘kill’ it before it reaches its full potential and the fact that ‘eggs can be spoiled’. To include this connotation within the context, what Shakespeare tries to imply through Brutus is that he wants to kill Caesar before it’s too late and before Caesar reaches his final stage.

I think that this part of the play links to Robert Browning’s poetry named ‘‘The Laboratory-Ancien Regime’ because both authors have used the similar technique of using verbs to create an imagery of the theme hate.

Robert Browning’s poem ‘The Laboratory-Ancien Regime’ is a poem that presents the theme of love and hate, but mostly hate is circulated around the poem. Robert Browning achieves this theme of hate throughout the poem by using verbs in order to create an imagery for the reader, it is shown in paragraph 10 (X), line 2. The quotation that shows this is when the Narrator says:

‘Let death be felt and the proof remain: Brand, burn up, bite into its grace— He is sure to remember her dying face ‘

By Robert Browning using the narrator to state harsh verbs such as ‘Brand, burn up, bite into its grace’ it presents the reader with a vivid imagery of hate. The harsh verbs of ‘Brand, burn up and bite’ suggest to us that she wants this painful, terrible death to burn and scar and chew on this woman’s face, to destroy all her “grace.” Not only because she wants to hurt her, but because she wants her former lover to remember his new girlfriend’s agonised “dying face.” The connotations of the verbs are clear – they bring a sense of evilness and hate and you would expect a quite cold-hearted person to exclaim these things. These verbs used, create a vivid imagery of hate and pure evil to the audience because they connote very harsh meanings of death, and when she states to ‘bite into its grace’ it means that she wants the girlfriend’s elegance to be ravaged and poisoned. However, some may argue the fact that there is love and hate shown but there is unrequited love shown towards the narrator. This is because the narrator wants pain to be felt to her former lover by creating a poison to kill his new girlfriend, although she still loves him there is less love shown towards the narrator. We can see that the narrator wants her former lover to feel pain as she indicates in the quote:

‘Let death be felt and proof remain’

Within this quotation we can come to a conclusion that Robert Browning’s main theme exploited is hate. I believe this, as not only does Robert Browning use a collection of verbs to display the theme of hate, similar to what Shakespeare used in Caesar but Browning also uses hyperbole in order to emphasise the characteristics of the narrator. It is shown when the narrator says ‘Let death be felt’ towards her former lover, but we as the audience know that it is exaggerated because death cannot be felt towards her former lover but she intends to use it so that the audience are caught between which character is suffering.

Concluding this point, I believe that Robert Browning’s intriguing poem ‘The Laboratory-Ancien Regime’ links massively with Shakespeare play of ‘Caesar’ because both authors use the same similar language devices to emphasise the theme of hate.

Shakespeare uses Cassius as a base in order to convey hate towards Caesar as way to ensure that the audience are aware of their unrequited love. Moreover, Shakespeare uses personification and descriptive language within the play. This is shown within Act 1 Scene 2 where Cassius talks about his past memories with Caesar and when ‘Caesar cried’:

‘Help me, or I sink!… His coward lips did from their colour fly’

This quotation was said by Cassius explaining to Brutus why Caesar is no god, indicates to us that there is unrequited love shown towards Caesar and we can analyse that Cassius and Caesar once were friends as shown in the quotation ‘Help me, or I sink’. We can guess that they were once friends because only them two went swimming and when Caesar plunged in first, we assume that he was drowning in the water and needed some assistance from his ‘loyal’ friend Cassius. Although Cassius helped Caesar out of the water, he then explains to Brutus how ‘His coward lips did from their colour fly’. Within this quotation we can see that Shakespeare has used personification as a language device to imply the theme of hate towards Caesar because what the quote suggests in the context is that Caesar’s lips were fading out of colour and turning blue.

Additionally, by Cassius using the term ‘Coward’ we can deduce that his opinion on Caesar has changed immensely and the hate towards him is massively shown. This is because the connotations of a ‘coward’ is someone who does not have the courage to face any danger or obstacle. This is useful to my argument as throughout the play Caesar is seemed to be a god like figure, someone who is immortal and a prophet to the gods, but from this quotation we can realise that Caesar is clearly a coward and is a human like the rest of Rome.

Furthermore, analysing the speech in-depth we realise that Cassius describes Caesar:

‘As a sick girl’

This clear description of Caesar completes the theme of hate which runs through the act, and the unrequited love displayed. This is because the clear imagery presented by Shakespeare through Cassius allows that audience to come to a halt that Cassius has lost all his respect and love for Caesar and that hate has taken over his feelings towards him. When describing him as a ‘sick girl’ it creates an imagery of a vulnerable king laying in the hands of Cassius and on top of that, the effect of describing Caesar as a ‘girl’ we assume that he is weak and when insulating a male with the opposite gender it indicates he is seen not as tough enough due to the gender stereotypes.

I believe that Shakespeare’s play of ‘Caesar’ links to Robert Browning’s poem of the ‘Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister’ because there is unrequited love shown there aswell and the language devices are similar to create the imagery of hate.

The Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister written by Robert Browning is one of the few ways where both love and hate are presented in the poem. Although, there is the constant theme of hate through the poem, i also think that there is some unrequited love shown, similar to Shakespeare’s play ‘Caesar’. Browning reveals the themes of hate and unrequited love through the use of personification and symbolism. This is displayed in the first stanza on-line number three to four when the narrator exclaims:

‘If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, God’s blood, would not mine kill you!’

In this quotation we see that the narrators hate towards ‘Brother Lawrence’ is pretty clear because Browning has used personification to enhance the meaning of hate and we see that giving the emotion ‘hate’ a human action e.g. ‘killed’ has created a clear imagery of hate towards the audience. We know that they were once friends because they were both monks and as we know monks are very spiritual and loving but we now see that from this quotation hate is brewing towards Brother Lawrence. The quotation within the context explains to us that the narrators hate has grown so much that if hate could kill a man his hate would kill brother Lawrence. What surprised me is how the love that contrasted between the narrator and Brother Lawrence changed so drastically and how the hate grew onto the narrator like an infection. Furthermore, down the poem on stanza two we see some symbolism brought out by Browning in the quotation of:

‘Whats the greek name for Swine’s Snout?’

By looking at this quotation we see a sense of symbolism is unravelled because Browning has used the narrator to describe Brother Lawrence as a ‘Swine’ (in other contexts a pig) to covey the hate. We know there is hate portrayed because a ‘swine’ is known to be a filthy animal and when Brother Lawrence is described as this the audience realises to what extremities the narrators details are towards Brother Lawrence.

The similarities between Robert Browning’s poem of the ‘Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister’ and Shakespeare’s play of ‘Caesar’ are very alike as they had both presented the themes of hate and unrequited love through the narrators and used identical literacy devices such as personification.

Coming to a close, I think that although there has been a major time gap between Browning and Shakespeare the two authors use a very similar way to convey the themes of hate and love through the writings of poems and plays. Both authors have went into depth in order to explore the great extremes of these two emotions and the language they have use has had a large impact on the audience in a way where some sort of imagery is portrayed. Although, they both came from completely different eras and the themes of love and hate were both perceived differently due to the morality they lived by, the two authors used language and literary devices to push the boundaries of the concepts of love and hate taking us into a sphere of challenging our assumptions about these themes.

Nine years ago in September 2007, a newspaper article was published titled “I h8 txt msgs” arguing how texting is wrecking our language, claiming texters are “ravaging our vocabulary”. He discussed a valid point concerning how abbreviations are taking over, but I believe that John Humphrey is afraid of change and it seems to me he wants society to also stay the same.

Our technology is constantly evolving, humans constantly finding new methods to make life a bit easier. The mobile phone for example, invented in 1979, by Douglas Han is one of the many ways that has changed the way our society communicates with each other. New technology is circulating around us and we have become dependent on it, there’s not a day a human with a type of handheld device does not text. The way humans text with each other has changed since the start of text messaging and John Humphreys argues the fact that our English language is slowly fading through the forms of constant abbreviations used within our texts. An astonishing amount of 1,424 abbreviations are circulating around our texting society today and it seems that texting has evolved immensely, phrases such as “LOL” meaning laugh out loud and “K” meaning okay. I understand John Humphreys’ argument but I believe that although abbreviations are being used, it doesn’t necessarily mean the English language is dying.

While texting helps people communicate worldwide in a quick simplistic, it is a massive difference from actually talking to someone face to face. As humans we are social beings, years ago we were used to meeting each other and exchanging feelings face to face not via social media communication or “txting”. It is found that many feelings and expressions are lost through messaging when things such as emojis or abbreveations replace feelings and emotions. Whilst researching this topic I found that in 2013, in response to do you use emoji’s in message apps? 74 percent of people in the U.S. and 82 percent in China responded that they have.

Yes, some words stated in person and written through text can have immensely different meanings but I guess society are used to it now and its revolutionized our ways of communicating and has made it simplistic and precise. John Humphreys needs to realize that having a conversation through the phone is cost expensive and meeting someone face to face depending where they live is also cost expensive. An alternative to this is online messaging such as the most influential texting app of our generation WhatsApp.

World figures for texting went from 17bn in 2000 to 250bn in 2001. They passed a trillion in 2005, and now the monthly average is 26 billion messages a month, according to Verizon Wireless. Texting is gradually growing higher and higher every year and I don’t blame anyone as it has added a new dimension to language use. People have been made to believe that the dangers of texting is suffocating our use of the English language but they have been misplaced. “In one American study, it was seen that less than 20% of the text messages exchanged looked at showed abbreviation’s of any kind”. This statistic was extracted from David Crystals article.

Sending a message on a mobile phone has changed hugely. When it was first introduced, we had to press a button more than once to get to our desired letter. But now mobile phones have honestly taken a turn in the right direction and changed the texting game in a whole, with its touch-screen and qwerty keypads it has made our lives a lot easier. With our use of texts in everyday life I think our knowledge of language increases, we learn different words via auto correct, learn how to punctuate and develop our grammar, develop our spelling skills and many more. Ultimately the need to save time and energy is the whole use of texting.

The future is growing, texting has changed our lifestyle massively no doubt about it and the growing ideas we can bring to it will be more useful and educating to the way we communicate without the fear of losing our English language. Within the years that texting was introduced it seemed to develop a new aspect in life. In short, it’s simple.

The themes of love and hate occur in one of Shakespeares most famous plays named “Ceasar”. It was seen that these themes were presented numerous times in the play, and the most significant part of when it was shown was in Act 3 Scene, where Ceasar was previously murdered by Brutus and now they contemplate about his death.

Task two: Who is the speaker of this poem and what is their story? Select at least one quotation from each stanza and justify. How does each quotation help to tell the story of the speaker?

– In this poem i think the speaker is a mother that has been affected by the war and her story is depicting how war Has affected her and how she is trying to recall memories of her beloved son. This is shown in the last stanza where she says “I listened, hoping to hear your playground voice catching on the wind”. This makes the reader feel sympathy for the speaker because it shows how she is missing her son and to feel some comfort, she wants to remember the memories she experienced with her son. I have the idea that this is a mothers son because only close siblings and parents can recall the memories of their children and the fact that the setting is set in a playground supports my idea that this is a mothers child lost or killed in the war.

English Coursework
CREATIVE WRITING

It is Winter, 5 am in the morning, pitch black, and not a sight to be seen. My eyes try to familiarise with the darkness and my senses become alert as if I were prey and was being hunted. Within, the cabin is a distinctive mahogany smell and as I get up my ears are deafened by the creakiness of the bed and the sound of floor board underneath the carpet. Slowly opening the door, I am blinded by the bright light of the fire which was burning overnight, there was something about this cabin that didn’t feel right, yet I avoided that strange feeling.

All the people of the dumbfounded town are sleeping now and it seemed like I was the only human being awake in this world. The only thing that felt right was if I went for a run. Usally my morning routine starts off depending on what season it is, and because its winter, its slightly more difficult to contain the shivers in your body dancing about. Winter mornings are the worst, no light to be seen in the morning and less light to enjoy in the day. In Winter it only seems that happiness is temporary.

Now 5:30 and tiredly putting my robe on I see some red eyes peeking through the door. Thinking it’s an intruder, my heart starts firing up like an engine and then stupidly realizing it’s the stray cat that wonders around the lost town and surprisingly ends up in my cabin stranded like an island in the woods. Now only The cat and I are awake while all the teachers, postman, children, farmers, dressmakers are encaptured by their dreams. Horses lay in the hay, cows in their byres and the cats and dogs in the tight alley ways where they lay innocently.

Ten minutes, from my cabin is the most beautiful area in these woods. It is the only place where the sound of the waves gently clashing together and the astonishing scenery would bring back the chilhood memories. It is 7:00 now and I can hear the sun rising and the hushed town yawning. I decide to put aside my breakfast which was still sizzling on the plate and go out into the coast.

Wandering around this place, engulfed by my thick robe, I stare around me with dissapointment. The once crystal clear and dazzling sea is now ravaged by the pollution and waste created by the corrupt government and manipulated society. However, the coast was a place where everything is still and silent and is a childhood memory that will last a lifetime. There is a chill breeze in the air which makes the Goosebumps on my body stand up like soldiers. Looking over the coast I see the old abandoned shops that once used to ravage with people and now the scenery that it holds seems like a horror story. My eyes look over this scenery while I reminisce about happier times spent on the diving board, and how I used to fly through the air, just like a dolphin gliding through the ocean. My eyes fade in and out of focus as my vision is replaced by one from a long time ago. With a heartfelt sigh, I look around this deserted coast and start my way back to the cabin.

In Act3 Scene2 Antony is at Ceasars funeral.Throughout the funeral Brutus tries to persuade the public that the killing of Caesar was for the greater good as he states that although he loved Caesar but he loved “rome more”. After Brutus’s speech trying to manipulate the crowd that the death of Caesar was the right thing for Rome, Antony then starts a rebellion against the conspiritors that the killing of Ceasar was wrong and Antony then takes Ceasars side. Antohny states his grief by saying “my heart is in the coffin with ceasar, and i must pause till it come back to me”.

Caeasar’s hubris is used against him in Act 2 Scene 2 by Decius Brutus, where he is speaking to Calpurnia and gave his word that he will not go to the senates house because she feels that something bad is on its way and fears that caeser will get hurt. However, when the conspirators send Decius Brutus Caesar’s promise to his wife may broken because Decius tells him that ‘the senate have concluded to this day a crown to might Caesar.

Task three: How does shakespeare present the intentions of Brutus or Cassius?

Shakespeare presents Brutus’s intentions as guilty, as he does not feel that he should kill ceaser and anthohny but feels like he cannot betray cassius to this point of time. He wants to persuade the others by using less cold blooded terms for killing them. Cassius says “let us be sacrificers, but not butchers” and a few lines later he says “lets kill him boldly, not wrathfully”from these quotation we can see that not only does brutus not want to kill them but he dosent want to make the death seem murderous and bloody