English 106 4 December 1996 Hamlet Analyzed In Terms Of Aristotles Poe

English 106 4 December 1996 Hamlet Analyzed in Terms of Aristotle's Poetics Aristotle's Poetics is considered the guide to a well written tragedy; his methods have been used for centuries. In Aristotle's opinion, plot is the most important aspect of the tragedy, all other parts such as character, diction, and thought stem from the plot. Aristotle defines a tragedy as an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions?(p. 22). Shakespeare's Hamlet follows this definition for the most part, and even though it is not always in agreement with Aristotle's guidelines, it is still a great and effective tragedy. Aristotle states that tragedy is ?an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude?(p. 22) . Hamlet is an excellent example of this. The play centers around Hamlet's quest to avenge his father's death, this is a serious action. It is also complete in the sense that all the loose ends are tied together in a sensible, believable manner. Hamlet is able to avenge his father's death by killing his uncle. Shakespeare also follows Aristotle's idea of the tragedy being of a certain magnitude. The characters are supposed to be the most perfect people whom the audience can still relate to. Hamlet is a wealthy prince, however he deals with the same problems as the common man. He is confused, paranoid, and angered about the circumstances surrounding his father's death. He is also unsure of himself and how he should handle the situation. The audience can relate to this uncertain feeling and they are able to empathize with Hamlet. Aristotle believes that in order for a tragedy to be effective, it must convey pity and fear. He defines pity as a felling that is aroused by ?unmerited misf ortune? (p. 27). Hamlet undoubtedly suffers this unmerited misfortune. He has done nothing to bring about his father's death. To make the situation even more painful, his mother has married his uncle whom he suspects is responsible for the tragedy. These circumstances illicit pity from the audience. The fear of impending evil is also prevalent in the play. As the plot progresses, it becomes clear that the king is plotting to kill Hamlet and Hamlet is planning to kill the king. Hamlet's plot is what Aristotle considers complex. It is accompanied by Recognition, which is ?a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate between the persons destined by the poet for good or bad fortune?(p. 26). The Recognition occurs when the play within the play is staged for the king. The play is a reenactment of what Hamlet believes happened to his father. His uncle is so upset and flustered by the play that he runs from the room. This action indicates to Hamlet that his suspicions were correct and his uncle is indeed responsible for King Hamlet's death. Hamlet later finds the king in a church praying and is tempted to kill him there, but decides against it because he will go to heaven since he is praying. From this, the audience is able to infer that Hamlet will attempt to kill his uncle later in the play. Aristotle stresses that diction is important to make the tragedy believable. Shakespeare utilizes diction perfectly and everything his characters say is appropriate for them to be saying. For instance, the king speaks like a king, he always dodges like a true politician. There is an obvious and necessary difference between the way he speaks and the way the gravediggers speak. The gravediggers are common men and therefor, speak as thought they are common men. There are some aspects of Poetics that Shakespeare does not follow. For instance, Aristotle states that in a great tragedy, there should be unity of time, place, and action. By this he means the action of th e play should take place in the amount of time it takes to perform it, it should occur in one setting, and there should be one

Clone essays

Clone essays The biological definition of a clone is an organism that has the same genetic information as another organism or organisms, where else cloning is any process in which production of a clone is successful. These are facts that many people don't want them to become a reality within our humanity. On the other hand, other people support and want produce human clones. Who's right? Should we not let science advance freely? Should we take the power of God and mess around with it? Cloning is a big issue these days; the opinion of our community comes into conflict when debating this serious issue. Amazingly, the first attempts at artificial cloning were as early as the beginning of this century. Adolph Eduard Driesch allowed the eggs of a sea urchin develop into the two-blastomere stage. Then he separated it by shaking it in a flask and allowing them to grow. The cells developed into dwarf sea urchins. Driesch could not explain his experiments and gave up embryology for philosophy (McKinnel, 1979). The first implantation of a nucleus into an egg cell occurred in 1952 by Robert Briggs and Thomas J. King in Philadelphia. They had transferred the nuclei of Leopard Frogs' eggs (McKinnel, 1979). The egg cells did not develop. Successful cloning of embryo cells was accomplished later in the 1970's by Dr. John Gurdon. During the late seventies and early eighties, there were few scientists still studying cloning. Many had predicted that it was impossible to clone embryonic mammal cells. Few continued with research. Many gave up and went into other fields. However, some persisted and were rewarded for their efforts. In 1984, Dr. Steene Willadsen announced that he had successfully transferred nuclei from embryos of sheep to produce clones (Kolata, 1997). More exciting was when Dr. Neal First produced cows by nuclear transfer from more developed embryos in 1994 (Kolata, 3 June 1997). Dr. First produced four calves. Two years later, Dr. ...

Position paper base on a recent issue related to the constitution and Research

Position base on a recent issue related to the constitution and the executive branch - Research Paper Example d effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized† (Dahl, 2003). It is all about privacy in the search and seizure provisions of the 4th amendment. The amendment simply provides protection against searches and seizures in criminal investigations by federal or state law enforcers that are unreasonable in nature. Any evidence obtained in a criminal investigation case in the course of search for seizure is unlawful if it cannot be of use at the court trial of the individual from whom the evidence was confiscated (Billias, 2009). In the Fourth Amendment, for an arrest or search to take place, the warrant must be approved judicially. Basically, searches must plainly be reasonable and the warrant necessity ought to have been clearly stressed and pointed out. The Fourth Amendment is only applicable to governmental searches and seizures in criminal investigations but not to the ones done by private establishments or nationals who are not acting on behalf of a government. I am in support of the Fourth Amendment due to a number of reasons. Firstly, the amendment is beneficial to citizens because it offers them protection against governmental actions that are unreasonable in nature (Harper, 2007). For instance, particular guidelines have to be met in the issuance of a warrant for it to be considered legal and must be strictly complied to protect the citizen and the law enforcer. Those who framed the constitution saw that intrusions by governmental agencies in cases involving criminal investigation encroached on the rights of the public. In previous times, it was common for officials to harass average citizens who had no means of preventing searches and seizures that were unwarranted. The 4th Amendment is of great importance as it constitutes legal representation of