Saturday, March 21, 2020

On The Universality Of Poetry Essays - Chapbooks,

On the Universality of Poetry Like any art form, poetry is considered universal. It ranks with music, dance, and fine arts as a form or process of expressing Man's thoughts and passions. Unlike other art forms, however, poetry -- and in fact literature -- has a peculiar characteristic. As a medium it uses language, and unlike other mediums -- like rocks, paints, beat -- language is not universal, it is cultural. Since culture varies according to geography, time, religion, and gender -- it is without doubt that there are multitudes of different languages. Thus poetry becomes cultural or non-universal in form, a characteristic that confines the production and reception of poetry to people that understand the form(language, symbolism, idiom etc etc) that poetry use ---a relatively small class of people. Some time ago, our English class read T.S. Elliot's "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock", a long poem in the form of a soliloquy on whether or not the persona should or should not approach a woman he loves, eat a peach, or part his hair. Critiques declared it as the modern Hamlet -- a reflection of the consciousness of the Modern Man. They exclaimed that the poem is a concise description of resent ideologies and philosophies. With a lot of difficulty and guidance, we understood and even appreciated the poem, primarily because we are familiar with the "language" that Elliot used. But would a farmer or just abut any individual unfamiliar with the nuances of poetry understand o appreciate it? Maybe, but the most probable scenario is that they would understand the major points of the poem, but t not recognize little details that make the poem great -- the fact that it contains excerpts from major English writers and that the images in the poem echoes its sense. It can also be noted that the allusions present in "Prufrock" are Western in origin. There are cuts from Chaucer, Donne, Shakespeare and about every other canonical English writers. This technique of alluding to the Masters is not present in Prufruck alone. In fact, this is prevalent in the literary works produced in the past four hundred years. Allusion in poetry is not only for aesthetic purposes but also a way of showing respect to someone/something great. That almost all allusions are to Western pieces, imply that literature is indeed or what is considered to be "great" literature are essentially Western. Consequently the standard for literature became that of the West's and the habit of Western-oriented poetry is established. It became increasingly more difficult for new and different to be accepted as great or even as poetry/literature. Thus Eastern writers -- in order to be great -- have to come up to this Western ideals and in the process become Western. The most common misconception is that poetry/literature is universal because it tackles the Human condition -- it is a reflection of Humanity. That even if an idea is stated in a different way, themes behind certain poems transcend culture, time, and therefore language. It is. That the indicission felt by Prufrock is no different from the indecision that Rama felt in Bhagavad Gita. Yes. But would an Indian appreciate the fact that Prufrock's internal conflict is about hair-parting and eating peach? Would an Englishman understand the Bhagavad Gita if it is written in Hindu or even understand the essentially Asian concern of wheter he should or should etc etc? The fact is that form and meaning come hand in hand. The form determines the meaning and vice versa. There cannot be one without the other. Thus if a person does not even go beyond understanding what the form expresses, what he sees is just a fragment of the piece of literature, a part of the whole. Since people are divided into classes of individuals with different colors, occupation, and gender each with their won way of expressing their already varying experiences even of the same events -- there can never be one unifying and universal language, form, and therefore nver be any kind of universal literature.

Thursday, March 5, 2020

BTK Strangler Dennis Rader Profile

BTK Strangler Dennis Rader Profile On Friday, February 25, 2005 suspected BTK Strangler, Dennis Lynn Rader, was arrested in Park City, Kansas and later charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder. The day following his arrest Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams announced in a press conference, the bottom line is that BTK has been arrested. Raders Early Years Rader was one of four sons to parents William and Dorothea Rader. The family lived in Wichita where Rader attended Wichita Heights High School. After a brief attendance in 1964 to Wichita State University, Rader joined the U.S. Air Force. He spent the next four years as a mechanic for the Air Force and was stationed abroad in South Korea, Turkey, Greece, and Okinawa. Rader Leaves the Air Force After the Air Force, he returned home and began working on obtaining his college degree. He first attended Butler County Community College in El Dorado then transferred to Kansas Wesleyan University in Salina. In the fall of 1973, he returned to Wichita State University where in 1979 he graduated with a major in Administration of Justice. A Work History With A Common Thread While at Wichita State he worked part-time in the meat department at an IGA in Park City.From 1970 to 1973 he was an assembler at the Coleman Company, assembling camping gear and equipment.From November 1974 to July 1988 he worked for a home security company, ADT Security Services, where he had access to homes as an installation manager. It has also been noted that the business increased as community fear of the BTK killer increased.From 1990 until his arrest in 2005, Rader was a supervisor of the Compliance Department at Park City, a two-maned, multi-functional department in charge of animal control, housing problems, zoning, general permit enforcement and a variety of nuisance cases. His performance in his position was described as overzealous and extremely strict by neighbors.He also served as a census field operations supervisor in 1989. Active in Church and a Cub Scout Leader Radar married Paula Dietz in May 1971 and had two children after the murders began. They had a son in 1975 and a daughter in 1978. For 30 years he was a member of the Christ Lutheran Church and was an elected president of the Congregation Council. He was also a Cub Scout leader and was remembered for teaching how to make secure knots. The Trail That Led Police To Raders Door Enclosed in a padded envelope sent to the KSAS-TV station in Wichita was a purple 1.44-megabyte Memorex computer disk that the FBI was able to trace to Rader. Also during this time a tissue sample of Raders daughter was seized and submitted for DNA testing. The sample was a familial match to the semen collected at one of the BTK crime scenes. The Arrest of Dennis Rader On February 25, 2005, Rader was stopped by authorities while in route to his home. At that point, several law enforcement agencies converged on Raders home and began searching for evidence to link Rader to the BTK murders. They also searched the church he belonged to and his office at City Hall. Computers were removed at both his office and his home along with a pair of black pantyhose and a cylindrical container. Rader is Charged With 10 BTK Murders On March 1, 2005, Dennis Rader was officially charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder and his bond set at $10 million. Rader appeared before Judge Gregory Waller via video conference from his jail cell and listened to the 10 counts of murder read against him, while family members of his victims and some of his neighbors watched from the courtroom. On June 27, 2005, Dennis Rader plead guilty to 10 counts of first-degree murder then calmly told the court the chilling details of the Bind, Torture, Kill slayings that terrorized the Wichita, Kansas area between 1974 and 1991. Family Response It is believed that Paula Rader, who has been described as a gentle and soft-spoken woman, was shocked and devastated by the events that transpired with the arrest of her husband as were her two children. As of this writing, Mrs. Rader has not been to visit Dennis Rader in prison and she and her daughter are reportedly out of state in seclusion. Source:Unholy Messenger by Stephen SingularInside the Mind of Btk by John Douglas