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Poe's Poetry Summary and Analysis "The Conqueror Worm" An audience of angels gathers to watch a play. Mimes fly around the stage, seemingly as puppets driven by invisible forces, and the plot describes sin, madness, and horror. The crawling Conqueror |
Worm then appears, writhing as it eats the mimes. The curtain falls, and the distressed angels affirm that the play is a tragedy called "Man" and that the Conqueror Worm is the hero. In its relatively brief five stanzas, "The |
Conqueror Worm" seeks to tell the allegorical history of mankind. The work acts as a frame story, where the outside frame is that of a throng of angels watching a play, and the inside frame is that of the play |
itself. As a narrative poem, "The Conqueror Worm" also contains a typical plot construction. The first stanza serves as the exposition, placing the angels at night in the setting of a theatre, while the second and third stanzas provide the |
rising action. The climax comes with the entrance and triumph of the Conqueror Worm, and the last stanza returns to the outside frame for the falling action and denouement. Poe believed strongly in the aesthetic benefits of ensuring a unified |
mood throughout a poetic work, and he establishes the tone of his poem in the first stanza, as he introduces the image of angels "bedight in veils, and drowned in tears." The angels are associated with goodness and with Heaven, |
and their sorrow provides an early indication that the play will be a tragedy, although the protagonist has yet to enter the stage. As the play progresses to its completion, we find that humanity is merely a mass of faceless |
puppets who are victims to the true protagonist, the Conqueror Worm. In this tragedy called "Man," the Worm acts both as a particularly bloody Grim Reaper and as an interpretation of the evil serpent from the Biblical Garden of Eden. |
Unlike in most tragedies, however, the hero does not die but instead achieves victory, and the angels cannot help but mourn. In Poe's understanding of humanity in "The Conqueror Worm," people are controlled by unseen and mysterious forces. Consequently, "Madness," |
"Sin," and "Horror" constitute the majority of the plot, a fact emphasized by the capitalization of these words within the poem. Curiously, for Poe, part of the tragedy of man is that the angels cannot help them but instead merely |
watch and witness as the Conqueror Worm devours. The last stanza turns the curtain into a metaphorical funeral pall, and the lines juxtapose the "rush of a storm" of the curtain with the "pallid and wan" exteriors of the angels. |
Death, as signaled by the curtain, has finality and a power that the angels lack. After Poe authored "The Conqueror Worm," he chose to add it to his Gothic short story "Ligeia." In "Ligeia," the eponymous character writes the poem |
and shows it to her husband prior to her death. After he recites it for her, she screams at the injustice of the poem's suggestions about existence and quotes the epigraph of the story, which is supposedly written by Joseph |
Glanvill and which states that man only dies because of his lack of will. The sense of despair in the poem contrasts with Ligeia's resistance, and by the end of the story, Ligeia has seemingly found the will to return |
from the dead by taking over another woman's body. Nevertheless, Poe leaves open the question of whether her return is merely her husband's hallucination, and the inclusion of the poem complicates the truth of the visions of both the poem |
and the story. In terms of structure, the poem adheres to a strict rhyme scheme, where each eight-line stanza takes an ABABCBCB pattern. The rigidity of this construction proves a harsh framework for the internal rhymes and the irregular, albeit |
melodic, rhythms of the poem. Meanwhile, Poe uses exclamations to break the rhythm into cacophonous explosions of sound. For instance, the phrase "It writhes! - it writhes!" continues the iambic rhythm that predominates in the fourth stanza, but the hyphens |
and exclamation points indicates pauses which disturb the poem's flow. Finally, the alliteration within phrases such as "lonesome latter years" and "mutter and mumble low" generally serves to emphasize the gloomy mood of the poem while adding to the lyrical |
effect. Poe's Poetry Essays and Related Content - Poe's Poetry: Major Themes - Poe's Poetry: Essays - Poe's Poetry: E-Text - Poe's Poetry: Questions - Poe's Poetry: Purchase the Novel and Related Material - Edgar Allan Poe: Biography - Poe's |
Poetry Summary - About Poe's Poetry - Character List - Glossary of Terms - Major Themes - Quotes and Analysis - Summary and Analysis of "Tamerlane" - Summary and Analysis of "Sonnet - To Science" - Summary and Analysis of |
"To Helen" (1831) - Summary and Analysis of "Lenore" - Summary and Analysis of "The Conqueror Worm" - Summary and Analysis of "A Dream Within a Dream" - Summary and Analysis of "The City in the Sea" - Summary and |
Analysis of "The Raven" - Summary and Analysis of "Ulalume" - Summary and Analysis of "The Bells" - Summary and Analysis of "Eldorado" - Summary and Analysis of "Annabel Lee" - The Unreliable Narrator in Poe's Fiction - Related Links |
on Poe's Poetry - Suggested Essay Questions - Test Yourself! - Quiz 1 - Test Yourself! - Quiz 2 - Test Yourself! - Quiz 3 - Test Yourself! - Quiz 4 - Author of ClassicNote and Sources |
All foods contain calories. The body burns them for fuel. The more you eat, the more calories you consume; the more active you are, the more calories you burn. If you consume more calories than you burn, they’re stored as |
fat which can make you overweight. If you choose calories carefully, you’ll find you can actually eat much more and get more nutrients. For example, this entire meal has fewer calories and more nutrients than a single cinnamon bun from |
the local mall. When making healthier food choices you can also choose to eat less of certain items. A healthy adult can eat up to 2,400 milligrams of sodium, or salt, per day. Most of us eat a lot more. |
And we’re not even aware of how much sodium we’re eating because it’s hidden in prepared foods. So eating more fresh, unprocessed foods is a healthy choice. In some people, eating too much sodium, or salt, can lead to high |
blood pressure. Alcohol can be tricky. It can have healthy benefits, especially red wine. But, it’s high in calories and people who drink excessively have a high rate of health problems. So if you choose to drink, drink in moderation. |
That means men should have no more than two drinks per day, and women one drink per day. One drink is a twelve-ounce beer, five ounces of wine, or one-and-a-half ounces of liquor. Calories, salt and alcohol - three things |
Dr. Laurie Hess of the Veterinary Center for Birds & Exotics, an AAHA-accredited referral practice in Bedford Hills, NY, is joined by Aiden, the ferret, who was diagnosed with cancer. |
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The education of the young is one of humanity’s greatest communal undertakings. Through it, culture, history, science, art, values, and countless other priceless discoveries, insights, inventions and achievements are conveyed. And at the center of it all is the human being in his or her full humanity. As Wendell Berry reminds us, it is the humanity of our students that |
is being shaped through a compact between teachers, students, and others in the academic community. The Heart of Higher Education began as a conversation between Parker Palmer and me, but grew into a book full of questions and explorations, probes and proposals, visions and hopes. We sought to uncover, at least in part, the heart of higher education -- that |
which gives learning life and grants to teaching its deepest satisfaction. Parker and I have tried to express, perhaps with only limited success, what we take to be some of education’s essential characteristics. We have drawn from the sciences to argue for the primacy of experience, relationship, and the interconnectedness of humanity and the earth. We have looked through the |
lenses of psychology and neuroscience to investigate the stages of human unfolding. We have evoked the spiritual and religious traditions to help us craft pedagogies of attention, equanimity, and contemplative knowing. Our greatest challenge has been to convey in discursive, linear sentences what is, in truth, an integrated, holistic reality. Education is a vital, demanding and precious undertaking, and much |
depends on how well it is done. If it is true to the human being, education must reflect our nature in all its subtlety and complexity. Every human faculty must be taken seriously, including the intellect, emotions, and our capacity for relational, contemplative and bodily knowing. An integrative education is one that offers curricula and pedagogies that employ and deploy |
all these faculties, delights in their interactions, and is spacious enough to allow for their creative conflict. Values such as compassion, social justice, and the search for truth, which animate and give purpose to the lives of students, faculty, and staff, are honored and strengthened by an integrative education. But to be truly integrative, such an education must go beyond |
a ”values curriculum“ to create a comprehensive learning environment that reflects a holistic vision of humanity, giving attention to every dimension of the human self. Integrative education honors communal as well as individual values, cultivates silent reflection, and encourages vigorous dialogue as well as ethical action. The geometry of the human soul is dense with such antinomies. They are essential |
to our nature, and real teaching and learning must reflect that inner complexity. In our book, we end by calling for “collegial conversations.” They can only take place within a context -- and the particular context required for the renewal of higher education is an integrative philosophy of education made in the image of the human being. That is why |
we have attempted to articulate some features of an integrative educational philosophy that can support conversations about the heart of higher education and provide a loom for weaving together diverse pedagogical methods. The ideas, insights and actions that flow from collegial conversations will be integrative only to the extent that the conversation partners share a full and rich image of |
what it means to be human. That circle of rocking chairs at the Highlander Folk School is itself a symbol of what we are calling for. The Highlander conversations were grounded in an image of the human being and the human future that was not partial, but whole. Had the image been fragmented, then the conversations and their consequences would |
have reflected that brokenness. But the words spoken in that circle were drawn from an aquifer of human wholeness that simultaneously honored and transcended race. As a result, the civil rights movement that flowed from the Highlander conversations helped give American history a more human shape. While we are unlikely to have the pleasure of sitting in a circle and |
exploring these matters with more than a few of you, we hope you will feel led to initiate such conversations with colleagues on your campus. As individuals we often reflect, understand, and act in solitude. But we thrive on what arises between us -- and never more so than when we are thinking and speaking together about ideas and people |
for whom we care deeply. The renewal we advocate will germinate first in the soil of these caring and collegial conversations. We believe that the current generation of educators possesses all that is needed to take on the great adventure of remaking higher education in the fullness and beauty it deserves. To those who might see our suggestions as utopian, |
we reply that every challenge we face as a society -- social, environmental, or economic -- calls for an integrative response, one that draws on our most comprehensive understanding and ethical sensibility. Only integrative answers will suffice, and only an integrative education will equip our students to meet those challenges. Educate our students as whole people, and they will bring |
all of who they are to the demands of being human in private and public life. The present and future well-being of humankind asks nothing less of us. Job Seekers, Sign In Seeking the Heart of Higher Education Tuesday, February 22, 2011 Rate This Article The Heart of Higher Education, written by Parker Palmer and Arthur Zajonc, inspires the reader |
to look beyond the traditional thinking of higher education and examine the student as a whole. View Full Blog Instructions for Posting Comments: - If logged into either your My HigherEdJobs account or Employer Account, the name fleld will be automatically pre-populated. - Enter your comment and name in the corresponding form fields and click the "Post Comment" button. - |
A single tornado travels 150 miles through Louisiana and Mississippi, leaving 143 dead in its wake. In total, 311 people lost their lives to twisters during the deadly month of April 1908 in the southeastern United States. Another 1,600 were seriously injured. Two of the locations worst hit by the single extraordinary tornado on this day were Amite, Louisiana, and |
Purvis, Mississippi. In Amite, the tornado was 2.5 miles wide as it touched the ground, killing 29 residents. In Purvis, 55 people were killed and 400 were injured. Tornadoes on average travel four to eight miles along the ground at about 60 miles per hour. This one traveled more than 150 miles. Though large, it is not nearly the most |
impressive on record—a 200-mile-long tornado was recorded on one occasion. In the United States, it is rare that a single tornado kills more than 50 people, although a series or grouping of related tornadoes sometimes causes such damage. The death rate from tornadoes has plunged since this 1908 disaster. Until the World War II era, public warnings were very rare. |
During the war, spotters were used to protect ammunition plants and, when the war ended, this system was adapted for use as a civilian-warning system. It is estimated that 15,000 people in the United States lost their lives to tornadoes in the 20th century. The most deadly twisters now take place in the densely populated nations of India and Bangladesh, |
Continued fighting in eastern DRC throughout 2004 and early 2005 was a stark reminder of the fragility of the peace process. During the first two years of the transitional government, the international community focused on short-term crisis management and failed to provide consistent diplomatic assistance to implement the peace process. |
While timely intervention from the U.K., U.S.A. and South African governments twice pulled Rwanda back from new military operations in Congo, such efforts were sporadic and in the end Rwanda temporarily sent its troops back across the border in November 2004. Key international actors paid little attention to tackling the |
underlying causes of the conflict. While most international governments acknowledged that resource exploitation played a central role in exacerbating and prolonging the conflict in the DRC as a result of the U.N. panel of experts reports, few efforts were made to deal with the issue. The DRC example of conflict |
and resources raised broader questions of corporate accountability in the developing world, particularly in conflict zones where the exploitation of natural resources could help fund military operations and fuel war. The U. N. Security Council first expressed concern about the link between conflict and natural resources in the DRC in |
June 2000 when it appointed an independent panel of experts to research and analyze the matter.430 The U.N. panel of experts produced a series of reports, the last in October 2003 that detailed how the exploitation of resources had funded many of the different armed groups (local and foreign) fighting |
in eastern DRC, enriching individual officers of the Rwandan, Ugandan and Zimbabwean armies that intervened in the conflict, as well as elite Congolese actors.431 The U.N. panel of experts not only documented the link between resource exploitation and conflict in the region, but also considered the connection between the exploitation |
of resources and international business. The minerals and other resources from Congo were predominantly destined for multinational companies based in Europe and North America. In an unprecedented step, the U.N. panel of experts in its October 2002 report listed twenty-nine companies and fifty-four individuals against whom it recommended the Security |
Council impose financial restrictions and travel bans including a list of eighty-five other companies, which it declared to be in violation of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.432 The naming of companies by the U.N. panel of experts resulted in considerable controversy. Some governments criticized the panel for basing its |
allegations on evidence that was not always solid or well-explained. The panel lumped together companies against which it had strong proof together with others for which it did not, thus casting doubts on the whole effort. Companies and civil society groups criticized the panel for its failure to provide more |
detailed information on the activities of certain companies. Numerous corporations responded to the report with swift denials and lobbied governments to ensure their names were removed from the panels list, a process which lacked transparency and may have been subject to abuse.433 The Security Council requested the panel to open |
dialogue with the named companies. In their final report published in October 2003, the U.N. panel of experts annexed a list of companies categorizing them according to whether the allegations against them had been resolved to the panels satisfaction. In this final report the panel claimed that the cases of |
forty-one companies were now resolved, though it provided no information on how it had come to such a decision. To complicate matters further, the panel added an important caveat stressing that the category of resolved should not be seen as invalidating their earlier findings.434 This left the question of whether |
companies had breached the OECD guidelines hanging. Speaking to a British parliamentary group, some companies expressed concern about the categorization process claiming that those companies who had breached the guidelines had got away with it, while others who had not were unable to clear their names with certainty.435 The parliamentary |
committee recommended that the panels categorization process should not be relied upon to determine whether a case had been resolved.436 The experience of the U.N. panel of experts in the DRC illustrates that there should be stricter guidelines used by U.N. panels to ensure an adequate level of proof is |
obtained, that such investigations are thorough and that transparency is assured. But as this report has shown, corporations like AngloGold Ashanti have violated international business norms and did breach the OECD guidelines. Lack of thorough investigations may indeed exonerate those whose behavior ought to be questioned. Despite the controversy about |
the named companies, the U.N. panel of experts reports contributed to a growing consensus amongst U.N. Security Council members and other international actors that resource exploitation was a key factor in the DRC war. The council passed four presidential statements and two resolutions drawing attention to the natural resource exploitation |
in the DRC and its link with the conflict.437 In Resolution 1457 the council strongly condemned the illegal exploitation of natural resources in the DRC, noted its concern that this plunder fuelled the conflict, and demanded that all states act immediately to end these illegal activities. It urged all States |
to conduct their own investigations as appropriate through judicial means, in order to clarify credibly the findings of the Panel adding that exploitation should occur transparently, legally and on a fair commercial basis, to benefit the country and its people.438 The panels reports raised the expectation that U.N. member states |
would hold to account those companies that were responsible for misconduct, but these hopes were misplaced. After the publication of their final report in 2003, its mandate of the U.N. panel of experts was ended and the information uncovered by the panel was archived for 25 years. The failure of |
the U.N. to follow up on the panels recommendations has been a major blow to further progress on the critical issue of the link between conflict and natural resources in the DRC and beyond. The U.N. panel of experts reports significantly increased the profile of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational |
Enterprises for monitoring corporate behavior in conflict zones. The OECD Guidelines, adopted by governments in all thirty OECD member countries and by eight non-members, are recommendations addressed directly to companies setting down shared expectations for business conduct.They are the first international instrument on corporate social responsibility to provide a government-supported |
(though voluntary) mechanism for monitoring and influencing corporate behavior. The guidelines provide standards of conduct for all key aspects of company operations including respect for human rights and sustainable development amongst others that are to be observed wherever a company operates.439 The guidelines are not directly binding on companies. Adhering |
governments who have signed up the guidelines, however, are required to set up an implementation procedure. These governments are obliged to set up National Contact Points (NCPs) to promote the guidelines and to examine specific instances of company misconduct.440 The U.N. panel of experts recommended that NCPs conduct follow up |
investigations of companies whose cases were listed by the panel as unresolved. With the exception of Belgium and the U.K., no other OECD member state launched investigations into any of the companies mentioned. Governments and their NCPs repeatedly blamed the panel for failing to forward the relevant evidence to them |
and claimed they could carry out no fact finding investigations of their own, despite provisions for such activity under the implementing rules of the guidelines. NGO consortiums in the U.K., Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, USA and Canada filed complaints to the relevant NCPs on specific breaches to the guidelines by |
companies listed by the panel. In countries like the U.K. where the NCP did attempt to take cases forward, a parliamentary committee found that progress by the British government had been slow. The committee added that it was concerned civil society groups had been excluded from the complaints procedure despite |
practices to the contrary by other national NCPs and clear guidance on their right to be included as set out in the implementation procedures.441 The NCP procedure for dealing with these complaints in all relevant countries has been slow and ineffective. Most government representatives have chosen to use the most |
narrow, and sometimes unjustified, interpretations of the guidelines. In a complaint brought by civil society in the Netherlands, the NCP decided the guidelines did not cover trading relationships, only companies that invest, rendering the guidelines inapplicable in this type of common business activity.442 As a result of the narrow interpretations, |
civil society groups and trade unions have questioned the political will of member states to use them as a corporate accountability instrument.443 The British parliamentary committee recommend in their report that more resources and a higher ranking civil servant be appointed to deal with the outstanding British cases, a recommendation |
that could be picked up by other governments.444 The parliamentary committee added that there should be more international attention focused on how the take the [whole] process forward.445 The DRC example illustrated that governments have shown a minimal commitment to fully tackling the causes of conflicts. Following the first report |
by the U.N. panel of experts,the Ugandan government established the Porter Commission to look into allegations of Ugandan involvement in illegal exploitation of resources from the DRC. It produced its final report in November 2002. The mandate of the Porter Commission was narrow and it was only allowed to investigate |
allegations made by the U.N. panel of experts. From the start of its work, the Commission was hampered by lack of funds for investigation. General James Kazini, in charge of Ugandan forces in the DRC, blocked the commission from going to Ituri to speak with witnesses according to Mr. Justice |
Porter, and claimed there was no transportation available for commission members.446 On the basis of its hearings, the Porter Commission report exonerated the Ugandan government and its army of any official involvement in the exploitation but supported the U.N. panel of experts findings in relation to senior Ugandan army officers |
who, said the Commission, had lied to protect themselves.447 It particularly singled out General Kazini for having shamed the name of Uganda448 and it recommended disciplinary action against him. It also recommended further criminal investigations into Salim Saleh, the brother of President Museveni, who had violated the Ugandan Companies Act.449 |
To date no judicial action has been taken against either of these two senior officers mentioned above. The supporting documentation sent twice on different occasions by the Commission to the Ugandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs was lost.450 In 2003 General Kazini was sent for retraining in Nigeria and in 2004 |
Salim Saleh went back to school. Although the Ugandan army withdrew its forces from northeastern DRC in May 2003, it continued to provide support to armed groups in the DRC. A confidential supplement from the U.N. panel of experts to the U.N. Security Council in 2003 stated direct transfers of |
funds were made from the Ugandan Office of the Presidency to support armed groups in Ituri and further claimed arms and military supplies were provided to these groups on a coordinated, institutional-basis.451 In a move to continue to protect his allies, President Museveni wrote on August 26, 2004 to the |
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan requesting provisional immunity from prosecution for Ituri armed group leaders and the suspension of investigations by the International Criminal Court.452 Rwanda responded to both the October 2002 and October 2003 reports of the U.N. panel of experts which accused it of organized mass scale looting |
through a centralized apparatus in the armed forces known as the Congo desk.453 In its response to the October 2002 report, the Government of Rwanda said that the panels report lacked credibility and was biased, subjective and not based on credible evidence.454 In response to the final panel report a |
year later, the Rwandan Government objected to the panels methodology, suggesting it was being unfairly targeted calling the report a deliberate effort to tarnish Rwandas image, while denying it the opportunity to defend itself.455 In October 2003, Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles Murigande pledged that his government would set up a |
commission of inquiry under the Office of the Prosecutor General to investigate two cases of alleged illegal exploitation of DRC resources by Rwandan companies and individuals.456 To date, there have been no results published of this inquiry. Meanwhile, numerous witnesses and a confidential supplement to the U.N. panel of experts |
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