Wallace Stevens and Emile Durkheim
To more fully understand Stevens' poem "The Idea of Order at Key West," one can look at the ideas of the poem in context of social-philosophical thought. Emile Durkheim's theories on religion closely parallel those of Stevens. Both men believe that there is no supreme greater being, or God, that gives things order and meaning. But both men also believe that humans need to read order and meaning into the world to understand it, even if the meaning humans imply is false because there is no God. Since this aspect of both men's ideas is so similar, Durkheim's outline of ideas on religion can form a model by which Stevens' poem can be analyzed. Furthermore, although there is no way to prove that Steven's poem is based on Durkheim's ideas, there are enough similarities that the two sets of ideas can be compared.
Both Stevens and Durkheim believe that humans read order into the world to aid in understanding. In general, Durkheim believed that humans create religion as a way to give events meaning and explain why things happen. In "Origin of the Idea of the Totemic Principle," Durkheim elaborates on these ideas.
Men know well that they are acted upon, but they do not know by whom. So they must invent by themselves the idea of these powers with which they feel themselves in connection, and from that, we are able to catch a glimpse of the way by which they are led to represent them under forms that are really foreign to their nature and to transfigure them by thought. (172)
The idea that society, which is created by people, can in turn act upon people is a difficult concept for humans to grasp. Instead, it is easier for humans to realize that actions happen by forces external to themselves and...
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...kheim's theories about religious thought and Wallace Stevens' poem "The Idea of Order at Key West" seem unrelated, they actually focus on similar points and come to a similar conclusion. In the end, both men realize humans create meaning and order to put abstract ideas into forms humans can comprehend. Therefore, by understanding what Durkheim's ideas about religion are, one better understands the principle that Stevens is trying to convey in his poem.
Works Cited
Durkheim, Emile. On Morality and Society. Ed. Robert Bellah. The University of Chicago Press, 1973.
Stevens, Wallace. "Sunday Morning." The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry. Editor: Jay Parini. Columbia University Press, 1995. 330-331.
Stevens, Wallace. "The Idea of Order at Key West." The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry. Editor: Jay Parini. Columbia University Press, 1995. 334-335.
His text offers philosophical and cultural meaning that is completely original. Certain beliefs are threaded through out the content of the
...world. Even though Mogadishu was seen as a failure and Grenada was seen as a success they both equally changed the way our world looks today and the way our military is ran.
... type, for the reason that this is what actual reasoning is. In the end, Durkheim's sociology of wisdom seems at risk to as a minimum as many experiential doubts as his sociology of religion. This may be further elucidated by the following words: “Yet if there is one truth that history has incontrovertibly settled, it is that religion extends over an ever-diminishing area of social life. Originally, it extended to everything; everything social was religious-- the two words were synonymous. ... This [weakening of religion] did not begin at any precise moment in history, but one can follow the phases of its development from the very origins of social evolution…. [Meaning] that the average intensity of the common consciousness is itself weakening" Reference "Elementary Forms of the Religion Life” by Emile Durkheim in High Points in Anthropology Second Edition, page 254
Is adolescence really about fitting in or not standing out? Do you have any responsibility to those students who do not fit in? Do you hear that? Hush, and listen closely. Do you hear it now? The cries for help of the kids who don’t fit in with the crowd. The cries aren’t always loud. Sometimes they don’t make a sound. Stop and listen to them. Take responsibility for those kids and stand up for those kids who won’t stand up for themselves.
Hayao Miyazaki has been revolutionary in Japanese animation. A mangaka (an artist/writer/creator of manga, Japanese comics), an animator, and storyteller, Miyazaki has not only been very successful in his work, well known and loved by many, but has changed the world of anime with his unique style of drawing. Through passion and hard work, Miyazaki has become one of the most successful animators in all of Japan.
Getting inspired is something that can happen unexpectedly. A single thing can just set the stage for an amazing creation to come about. Much of what people are exposed to due to the media and also literature can really affect someone’s life. Hayao Miyazaki is a film director, animator, screenwriter and also producer. He is someone who’s work really changed my perspective on animation and also the conventional idea of a hero.
Desfor Edles, Laura and Scott Appelrouth. 2010. “Émile Durkheim (1858-1917).” Pp. 100 and 122-134 in Sociological Theory in the Classical Era. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
Belasco, Susan, and Linck Johnson, eds. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 1, 2nd Ed., Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 1190-1203. Print.
Foreign aid is financial help given by a country to another for purposes of economic stabilization, poverty and living standard. This essay will elaborate an issue that it is necessary to spend money on foreign aid. There are three premises supporting the main conclusion, the first reason is that aid saves lives, while the premises that aid improves education and aid reduces poverty rate both can be objected and rebuttal are also given. Furthermore, there are also two objection given which can be rebutted.
...ause it is more costly or goes through more steps. Often this is true but when it comes to the consumer they often want just what they pay for and not what they don't need. These new tests don't have any electronic parts, screens, or even words on them. All they have are the bare minimum of parts and materials being used to do exactly what its meant to, save lives. Simplicity also doesn't pay the people who help it along. With production costs so low and then giving them away for free to people who have no money makes it a non-profit organization which does get funding, but no one gets paid a salary. Unfortunately many people would never devote their job to something they wouldn’t get paid for but most people can’t give up their old jobs to work somewhere new. So, this boils down to being a volunteer organization which I hope grows into a world changing organization.
Cooper, Mary H. “Reassessing Foreign Aid.” CQ Researcher 27 Sept. 1996: 841-64. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.
- - - . "America". Contemporary American Poetry-5th Edition. Ed. A.Poulin Jr.. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991. 182-184.
Mar. 1972: 86-100. pp. 86-100. Major, Clarence. American Poetry Review.
The resulting poems, "On the Beach at Night" and "Sunday Morning," express similar beliefs about the cyclical nature of life. Their similar structures, of a doubting character and persuasively responding narrator, allow the poets to profess their beliefs about the character of mortal life. And although Stevens focuses on refuting his contemporary religious practices and Whitman centers on acknowledging his personal theology, the poems equally address the search for immortality in the human world.
In William Wordsworth’s poems, the role of nature plays a more reassuring and pivotal r ole within them. To Wordsworth’s poetry, interacting with nature represents the forces of the natural world. Throughout the three poems, Resolution and Independence, Tintern Abbey, and Michael, which will be discussed in this essay, nature is seen prominently as an everlasting- individual figure, which gives his audience as well as Wordsworth, himself, a sense of console. In all three poems, Wordsworth views nature and human beings as complementary elements of a sum of a whole, recognizing that humans are a sum of nature. Therefore, looking at the world as a soothing being of which he is a part of, Wordsworth looks at nature and sees the benevolence of the divinity aspects behind them. For Wordsworth, the world itself, in all its glory, can be a place of suffering, which surely occurs within the world; Wordsworth is still comforted with the belief that all things happen by the hands of the divinity and the just and divine order of nature, itself.