Literature
A linguistics class reflection
(1102 Words)
Six days of attending linguistic lectures spread over three weeks can not be a major amount of time to achieve a solid and complete knowledge of linguistics, but all the same, this essay will try to establish how I accomplished a relative level of understanding through my studies. I tried hard to combine items raised in these lectures, my classmates’ comments, further reading away from the class, and clarity added by my focus group. I will try to highlight some of the points that stuck in my mind regarding linguistics while giving a little insight into the further ideas into the subject.
To begin with, would be to give my general view of linguistics. So, as I researched I found that linguistics is the study of human languages, where within this the science examines not only the structure of language but also its use and the structure in the mind. A layman may think that a linguist, the person who is skilled in linguistics, only looks at rules and grammar, but it is so much more than this. The subject takes in such fields as humanity, science, society, philosophy and literary criticism. Language is not as routine as some may think, and it is astonishing to think that language came from one source which spread across the world to create 6000 more. A learner of linguistics then would be amazed how many branches of linguistics have been created. So, without language where would we be?
My first recognisable factor about the classes was the highlighting of daily use of language which has to be the main dynamic in anyone’s scaffolding of knowledge. The more any speaker uses it, the more they will be able to use their fresh available knowledge of language. The lecturer actually mentioned that reading and writing inspire to make you more creative with your writing and speaking. This, I found to be a sensible choice to further one’s linguistic knowledge. The path that I followed on this course was not the one that I thought and as such I would like to draw attention to some of the further points.
I feel my reading has taken in many factors and has shown me that linguistics is a broad church. I was asked yesterday where the word ‘Santa Claus’ came from, and then I remembered I read about it in a book called the Power of Babel by John McWhorter who is famous for studying creoles. In it, he spoke about how it was a Dutch word, Sinterklaas, where immigrants coming to America and following their tradition they spoke about it and Americans misheard the word to be Santa Claus. This field of study in linguistics is actually called ‘Etymology’ where it recognises the origins of words and sees how they have changed over time. I actually picked up the Power of Babel book because I had read one of my group’s summaries from the book ‘Introduction to Linguistics’.
Moreover, the chapter in the Introduction to Linguistics book spoke about how words have changed through time. They called it variation; this means that languages take on their own route. English people especially in the northern region took the word ‘butter’ and pronounced it with the ‘er’. Other regions say ‘butta’ but other words are not so easy to understand such as ‘Owt and Nowt’. For me, this course has highlighted that linguistics is not just about grammar. Language takes on its own form and even one language like English below the surface lies a myriad of factors that are distinguished by linguists. For example, I read that language which was described by Ronald Langacker who is a founder of the field of cognitive linguistics, makes three fundamental assumptions: ‘that language is symbolic in nature that a linguistic community creates linguistic conventions, and that grammar is a speaker’s knowledge of linguistic conventions’. So, this gave me a better insight into the linguistic community creating the language and grammar. The speaker uses sentences that are built by selecting appropriate words from their vast lexicon that are learnt from his local language community.
Furthermore, if we are to talk about language communities, I can think back to watching the movie Sense and Sensibility in one class. The students were faced with sociolinguistics and the use of language around 1800 in England. A pioneering sociolinguist was William Labov who recognised the value of society, cultural norms and expectations on language. As for the film, it has a language of propriety of upper-class England. What people say and what they mean can be of different meanings. People had to behave properly and women were kept in place. There is a great scene where the daughter of the deceased father has to move to another residence where the owner speaks his mind to the disgust of the quiet and proper sisters. The movie certainly purports this as the characters are higher social standing and speak rather eloquently.
In addition, for this class to I had to look up the meaning of some of the branches of linguistics and as such, I read up about sociolinguistics. I recognised that language is seen as being used in a social context and isn’t this thing that is external to human beings but something that makes who we are. We could also add the branch of linguistics called Historical Linguistics which actually started around the same time as Jane Austin wrote her book. This field of study grew philology which is the study of ancient texts and documents. Not all fields of linguistics started that long ago. While studying this class, the name Noam Chomsky was mentioned a few times. He is an American linguist among other positions. In the 1950s, his branch of linguistics was generative grammar which is a particular approach to syntax. He came up with ‘universal grammar’ which highlights innate properties in the brain. This means that any person born to parents from one background (i.e. China) can easily be brought up to speak another language if they were immersed in another country (i.e. America) from an early age which means that the brain is programmed to accept speech at any level. This idea went against the behavioural idea that BF Skinner proposed.
To conclude, I have deepened my knowledge of linguistics and found that language works in many ways. It is interesting to see the use of English that has spread over the world and the variety of new words added. I think the main factor when studying linguistics is to take it on how it is used, not how it should be used, because maybe there is no clear right or wrong way. What matters is meaning.
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Consider the importance of setting in any one text – The Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness is not a story without its settings; the nightmarish journey of Charlie Marlowe (our narrator) into the unknown where we find ourselves traveling by boat to and in the Belgium Congo in 1890. The use of this setting shows and explains the exploitation of a colonial country and challenges the basic ethical question of good and evil of mankind. Marlowe’s setting is perfectly placed to give the reader a glimpse of the political environment of the Congo and the African exploration that was quite popular in Conrad’s day.
Although most of the action in The Heart of Darkness is set in the uncivilized jungles of the African Congo, the tale itself is narrated by Charlie, an experienced sailor aboard a pleasure boat with four other Englishmen as they lounge on the deck at the mouth of the Thames River outside London. Charlie sits Buddha-like to narrate his story. Here, the reader gets a glimpse of the Thames as a mighty river at sunset with the gauzy radiant lights of civilized London, which reflect on the river’s surface. This is represented where both the time of day and the spot are significant. It’s sunset. As the tale turns gloomier, images of darkness get more and more pervasive. The evening grows gradually darker, so that by the time Marlow finishes, late in the night, his listeners have literally been enveloped in darkness.
Consider how criticism might engage with race and religion (through two texts)
(889 Words)
Race and religion can form vital parts of any play or novel; history has proved that tension, be it through different religions/ races of people, has stirred up many conflicts. In this essay, I will refer to two texts namely ‘The Jew of Malta’ by Christopher Marlowe and ‘The Heart of Darkness’ by Joseph Conrad. I would like to show how criticism can engage from a story and that we can see the undertones of the text that shows racial and religious streams of thought and action. These narratives both show the act of colonialism/countries powers, which are true accounts of the Christian colonizers and the Turkish Siege of Malta as well as King Leopold and the Belgium Congo.
Initially, The Jew of Malta resonates with themes of religious tension, which was a parallel to the time, in the sixteenth century. There were not many Jews in England during this time. Jews in England secretly practiced. Many Jews who were born into the Jewish faith either converted or pretended to be Christians. Criticism can be pointed not only towards the non-secular people in England but also where this play tries to deal with the anti-semitic feeling that was rife throughout the whole of Europe. The Jewish people did not believe in Christianity, so they were a threat to social order. English Protestants felt that Jews were outsiders as well as Muslims and Catholics. Marlowe forces the reader to re-examine the factors that were the start of internationalism. It makes the reader comment about the internal affairs at that time. The subject of commerce and internationalism had a role in the unfolding drama that could be equal to the effects of antisemitism.
Furthermore, in 1594 the Queens physician Roderigo Lopez, a Portuguese Jew was tried and executed for treason on charges that included conspiring to poison the queen. The Lopez case inspired a wave of anti-Jewish feeling and was probably responsible for the appearance of several dramas dealing with Jewish characters including the revival of the Jew of Malta. At that time, Marlowe’s story would have assessed the Jewish implication as much as we do now. Barbaras is a Jewish merchant he is angered by the passage of law requiring all Jews to either convert to Christianity or give up one-half of their wealth. Barbaras’ daughter is also in love with a Christian. He commits crimes for revenge because he hates Christian race.
Marlowe wrote it about a Jew, of another religion, and let the reader see Barbaras as someone that is capable of any heinous crime, a factor brought on by other people’s motives. He is a wealthy Jewish man that cannot be trusted. Marlowe shows us a character of a Jew (Barbaras) and gives us that experience and thus forms the reader’s opinion. The main character Barbaras displays the kind of strategic cunning that is at odds with the Christian notions of altruism, but he shares much with Machiavellian self-advancement. There was anti-Machiavellian feeling that was widespread in Elizabethan England. In all do we admire or criticize Barbaras for his fight against the invaders?
In Conrad’s novel, we find a certain racial tension, which is documented throughout the novel, with reference to black and white with the insinuation to bad and good. The white race has the strong hold on the black. We find arguments with the whites who exploit the blacks though the whites are seen as dark souled. You feel pity for the blacks who are taken over. Europe at the time of the late 1900’s was generally thought a place of light or enlightenment and Africa was generally thought as a place of darkness. Conrad finds disparagement with the history of colonialism as it was applied in the Belgium Congo. We find criticism in the ways of the whites. He writes about the sociological investigation of those who conquer and those who are conquered and the complicated way between the two races.
King Leopold founded the ‘International Association for the Suppression of Slavery and the Opening up of Central Africa’ where he attempted to impose civilization and order. This colonial greed just fostered widespread abuse; so much for racial alliance! Conrad’s disparagement not only festered when he visited the Congo but also saw that exploitation suppurate everywhere. Again, we have reason to analyses; we find a race of people with their own motives trying to take over another country. Essentially, we come to evaluate the white race for their love of spreading salvation, religion, culture and commerce and not letting the blacks have their own. Do we admire or criticise the whites invaders for this?
To conclude, we find motivation for criticism because of some heinous acts from people of dissimilar races and religions. The height of racial tension must be thought to come from the colonialists who then thought that they were of superior wealth and knowledge that they would bring great ideas and make everything for the better although we find that they are not of the right knowledge to see the problems that they are causing. Here we have to challenge their motives. Racial and religious tension is made from acts that will not be forgotten with the passage of time, and we see here what mistakes each race of people could have made and the reactions that are born from them.
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Discuss the ways in which attraction and revulsion are linked in one text
(789 Words)
In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, we find the protagonist Marlow, a man of adventure having sailed many a sea living in an era of the Victorian explorer David Livingstone who had not long returned from his African expedition in 1890. This is where tales of African exploration were told of different lands; those inquisitive minds couldn’t help but see the attraction of Livingstone’s journeys to this continent. Accompanied with this, is this new found land that is the reverse of Marlowe’s attraction to see Africa, it is where he gets a candid look at the reality of colonisation and imperialism. The journey for him finds the attraction and revulsion of it all.
In the opening scene, we see Marlow as the only one on the boat who still “follows the sea”. This seaman still sees the appeal of the open rivers and seas. He is a “wanderer”. Maps have always fascinated him, the blank spots, and those places yet explored. He wants to explore the inner Africa, the place associated with darkness. He wants to travel further into the long Congo, a captivating and extremely life-threatening river that lies like an immense snake. He remarks of the river that it is like traveling to the earliest beginnings of the world, the brilliant sunlit land offers ‘no joy’ but a “treacherous appeal”.
Even early on we get an idea of the revulsion Marlow experienced as he sits on the boat in London. He allegorises to the Ancient Romans who came to conquer England when it was untamed with Pagan natives running about, how they would have felt with the immense darkness and the abomination of Celtic England. He imagines this making the Romans want to escape. His allegory points to the mess of the Congo where Marlowe sees colonisation as “robbery with violence”.
The Congo is a jungle wilderness, the object of attraction. Ivory is the new gold, hardly a necessary item for survival. A desolate land far removed from the Industrialisation of white man England. Marlow’s view of the people he knows, the white race, those people who should be sophisticated are that of ones insane and pointless. How could people change so much? It is, however ‘reality’ for the men and that is all that civilisation cares about. The wilderness shows the greed and brutality that lie under the noblest of ideals.
On a more personal level, Marlow does see an attraction to the black man. He remarks they wanted no excuse for being there. He shows his attitude towards the black Africans where he says “the worst of it is suspecting they are not being inhuman”. Then there is Kurtz, an ivory trader sent by a Belgium company into the heart of the Congo, who on the other hand succumbs to the savagery of the wilderness. His aspiration is gone and he has “kicked himself loose of the earth”. The wilderness brings out the darkness and brutality in his heart. The natives didn’t invite the imperialists; they just turned up and gave orders.
Marlow continues his journey where some people would have given up; the desolation of it all is strange to see. Here you find the attraction for Marlow, he battles on to the “inner station”, there must be something inside him that wants an answer, that wants to see more, although at the same time repulsed by the sights he sees. Going up the river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, a past remembered: “in the shape of an unrestful and noisy dream.” The brilliant sunlit land offers “no joy” but a “treacherous appeal to a hidden evil, to the profound darkness of its heart.” The rape of the land is revulsive to Marlow, as he travels past the settlements of the white man with their inefficiency and brutality.
Marlowe certainly develops a strong purpose up the river, past the native villages and colonial agents in their settlements, to see and talk with Kurtz, the supposed beacon of civilisation, that it becomes somewhat of an obsession with him. He wants to see the darkness in man, which has developed his ardent resolve. Along the way, Conrad’s main purpose in this story is the discovery and analysis of the black and white man. His search is for the inner truth. The black man typifies truth and reality which is an attraction while the revulsion can be pointed at the white people.
Marlow after his long battled journey finds Kurtz, a so-called god at the Inner Station. Kurtz on his deathbed blurts ‘the horror, the horror’. Marlow has achieved his goal, the attraction of it all has reached its peak and the revulsion of the inner station has been seen.
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Consider the treatment of one or more of the Seven Deadly Sins
(1133 Words)
As seekers of knowledge, individuals may strive relentlessly, employing whatever means they deem necessary to achieve intellectual or spiritual enlightenment. However, the pursuit of knowledge can become excessive when it transgresses moral, theological, or human limitations. Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus dramatises precisely this tension. Faustus is an intellectual explorer whose desire for knowledge and power exceeds what is considered appropriate or permissible for human beings. His relentless pursuit of forbidden knowledge ultimately becomes an act of transgression: he embraces mortal sin and, within the play’s Christian moral framework, is condemned to Hell.
Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus engages closely with the Renaissance ideal of the ‘aspiring mind’, embodying the period’s fascination with intellectual expansion, individual ambition, and the possibility of transcending established boundaries. Faustus represents this aspiration in its most extreme form. Yet his pursuit of knowledge is characterised by a striking lack of discrimination. Rather than directing his intellectual abilities towards morally or intellectually valuable ends, he becomes fascinated by pleasure, wealth, power, and the supernatural. His response to the personification of the Seven Deadly Sins—“O, this feeds my soul”—is particularly revealing. The statement suggests that Faustus has begun to derive intellectual and emotional gratification from transgression itself. During the twenty-four years granted to him through his pact with Lucifer, he seeks experiences of every kind, seemingly embodying the Renaissance desire for exploration and discovery. Paradoxically, however, the supernatural power he acquires does not produce genuine freedom; instead, it ultimately leads to anxiety, despair, and spiritual destruction.
Foremost among Faustus’s characteristics is his ambitious desire to experience the fullest possible range of human existence. As a figure associated with Renaissance humanism, he seeks to transcend conventional limitations and enter a new intellectual and experiential world. His ambition is ultimately expressed through his desire to approach the status of a deity: “A sound magician is a mighty god.” The statement demonstrates the extent to which his intellectual curiosity has developed into an aspiration for absolute power. Faustus no longer wishes merely to understand the world; he wishes to control it. His desire therefore shifts from knowledge to mastery, revealing the dangerous consequences of an intellect that recognises no ethical boundaries.
Faustus’s declaration, “How am I glutted with conceit,” further illustrates the destructive effects of excessive pride. The language of ‘glutted’ suggests an appetite that has become excessive and insatiable, while his repeated emphasis on the first-person pronoun reinforces his egocentricity. Faustus increasingly imagines himself as autonomous and self-determining, attempting to construct his own destiny independently of conventional religious authority. His ambitions are also explicitly materialistic. He dreams of “flying to India for gold” and “ransacking the ocean for orient pearl,” revealing that his intellectual aspirations are inseparable from greed and acquisitiveness. His pursuit of knowledge therefore becomes corrupted by cupidity: what initially appears to be intellectual curiosity develops into a desire to possess wealth, pleasure, and power without limitation. His apparent liberation from conventional restrictions consequently becomes another form of enslavement—to appetite, pride, and sin.
Faustus’s rejection of human and divine limitations also resonates with the biblical condemnation of pride and covetousness. In this respect, his character can be understood through the moral framework of the Book of Psalms, particularly its association of pride, greed, and the rejection of God with spiritual corruption. Faustus similarly attempts to place himself beyond divine authority. God is effectively displaced from his intellectual universe, while his own desires become the principal measure of value. His tragedy therefore emerges not simply from his possession of supernatural power, but from his refusal to recognise any authority greater than himself. His intellectual independence becomes spiritually destructive because it is accompanied by an unwillingness to accept moral limits.
Furthermore, Faustus can be considered in relation to Aristotle’s conception of the tragic hero. In Poetics, Aristotle argues that tragedy centres upon a figure who is neither wholly virtuous nor wholly corrupt, but whose downfall arises from an error or weakness inherent in human nature. Faustus embodies this model through several interconnected flaws. His pride, his relentless intellectual curiosity, and his desire to transcend the limitations of humanity all contribute to his eventual destruction. His pride constitutes a form of hubris: he seeks to elevate himself beyond the position assigned to human beings. From a Christian perspective, his aspiration to become godlike represents an even more profound transgression, since it challenges the fundamental distinction between the human and the divine. At the same time, his restless intellect and dissatisfaction with ordinary existence prevent him from accepting the boundaries imposed by religion, morality, and mortality. His tragedy consequently emerges from the interaction between intellectual ambition and moral blindness.
Nevertheless, Faustus’s aspirations cannot be dismissed as entirely reprehensible. His desire for knowledge reflects one of the most significant intellectual characteristics of the Renaissance: the elevation of human curiosity, individual potential, and intellectual inquiry. In this respect, Faustus can be interpreted as a representative of the ‘new man’ emerging from the intellectual culture of the Middle Ages. The authority of the medieval Church, which had exercised considerable influence over intellectual and social life, was increasingly challenged by new forms of humanist thought, scientific inquiry, geographical exploration, and political individualism. The Renaissance consequently witnessed a growing emphasis on human agency and the capacity of individuals to investigate and understand the world independently.
Marlowe’s engagement with classical thought is also significant in this context. The classical world offered Renaissance thinkers alternative models of intellectual and cultural authority, while Greek literature frequently presented human beings who challenged established boundaries and confronted the power of the gods. Although Marlowe’s play is ultimately shaped by a Christian moral framework, its protagonist possesses a distinctly Renaissance fascination with inquiry, experience, and self-determination. This creates a fundamental tension at the centre of the drama: Faustus embodies the intellectual freedom of the Renaissance while simultaneously being judged according to the theological values of the medieval Christian worldview.
Ultimately, Marlowe presents Faustus as a quintessentially Renaissance figure whose intellectual ambition develops into an ultimately destructive desire for absolute knowledge and power. He surveys a world whose horizons appear to be expanding through geographical exploration, scientific inquiry, and renewed engagement with classical learning. His aspiration to exceed conventional human limitations is therefore both admirable and dangerous. Faustus represents the possibility of intellectual liberation, but he also demonstrates the consequences of pursuing that liberation without ethical restraint. His tragedy lies precisely in this contradiction: he possesses the curiosity and ambition associated with the Renaissance ‘aspiring mind’, yet his inability to reconcile those aspirations with the moral limitations of his Christian world leads ultimately to his damnation. In this sense, Doctor Faustus concludes with a distinctly medieval warning about the dangers of Renaissance ambition: the desire to know more may be intellectually admirable, but when knowledge becomes indistinguishable from pride, greed, and the desire for godlike power, aspiration becomes transgression.
