A LIFE IN FRAGMENTS: THOMAS COOPER'S CHARTISTBILDUNGSROMAN

2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Vargo
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
National Culture ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
School Teacher ◽  
Charles Kingsley ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
The World ◽  
A Minor

The improbable course of Thomas Cooper'slife (1805–1892) – from shoemaker and autodidact, to school teacher, to Methodist circuit rider, to Chartist activist, to prison poet, and finally to working-class lecturer and editor – encapsulates the tensions and contradictions of Victorian self-help. Fiercely devoted to projects of self-education and improvement, as an apprentice craftsman in Lincolnshire, Cooper memorizedHamletand significant portions ofParadise Lost, and taught himself Latin, French, and some Hebrew. The publication ofThe Purgatory of the Suicides, the epic poem for which he is best known, made Cooper a minor celebrity in the world of middle-class literary reformers, who praised his artistic and educational accomplishments. The novelist and Christian socialist Charles Kingsley discerned in his heroic commitment to “the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties” an alternative to political militancy and loosely basedAlton Locke, the story of a disillusioned Chartist hero's spiritual redemption, on Cooper's own life (Collins 3–4). Samuel Smiles, the Scottish reformer and author ofSelf-Help, celebrated Cooper's writing as part of a national culture which could help heal the country's social and economic divisions, arguing that his literary achievements placed him in “the same class as Burns, Ebenezer Elliot, Fox, the Norwich weaver-boy, to say nothing of the Arkwrights, Smeatons, Brindleys, Chantrys, and the like, all rising out of the labour-class into the class of the thinkers and builders-up of English greatness” (Smiles 244).

Translation as Resistance

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Rzepa
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Historical Account ◽  
Cultural Transfer ◽  
Polish Literature ◽  
Political Sovereignty ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
Complex Modes ◽  
The World ◽  
The Rich

This chapter offers a historical account of the presence of Paradise Lost in translation and Polish literature, especially how the poem’s reception in Poland has been shaped by complex modes of linguistic and cultural transfer. The chapter explores the historical and political contexts in which Paradise Lost was translated into Polish, discusses the most important actors involved in its publication, and analyses the strategies employed by the translators. It demonstrates that the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century translators of Milton, who worked at a time when Poland had lost its political sovereignty, focused specifically on the form of the poem, presenting models for a modern Polish epic poem that could help sustain Polish cultural identity. The focus of the twentieth-century translators, who lived through the world wars, shifted from the form to the rich imagery of Milton’s poem, in particular his exploration of the themes of vanity, destruction, and exile.

Sympathy for the Devil

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Dilan Tuysuz
Keyword(s):  
John Milton ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
The World ◽  
The Devil

John Milton, in his epic poem Paradise Lost, describes the expulsion of Adam and Eve from heaven, leading to the beginning of the oldest struggle. However, the representation of the devil in Milton's work, which is considered responsible for all evil in the world, is striking. The fact that Milton's devil's temptation has taken precedence over the story of expulsion of Adam and Eve is similar to Batman being overshadowed by the evil character Joker. Batman, who has many virtues and positive qualities as a superhero, has not impressed the audience as much as wicked Joker. But what makes the bad characters attractive to the reader/audience in Milton's Satan and the Joker? Is the Joker mentally ill? Is there a rebellion like the Satan's behind the Joker's malicious actions or is it possible to talk about a different motivation? The aim of this chapter is to explore the answers to these and similar questions by taking a journey through the psychology of evil. Thus, it will be possible to understand whether our admiration of bad characters is a reflection of the darkness within us.

scholarly journals Leisure, Loafing, and Life as Work

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-128
Author(s):  
Petar Bagarić
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
The Self ◽  
Total Work ◽  
The World ◽  
Free Moment ◽  
Life Work

Although leisure and idleness are promoted as a panacea for the problems of postmodern man, everyday logic of postindustrial societies is still subjected to the logic of “total work”. Throughout modernism, the discourse of leisure allowed for a certain separation of the worker from the work regime. However, this discourse lost its function in postmodernism due to the contemporary erasure of boundaries between life, work, and the self. The disappearance of these boundaries, due to technological development and newer forms of work organization, is an important element on the basis of which the contemporary middle class gradually assumes the position of the former working class within the system. Thus, it can be concluded that the fundamental way in which the avoidance of the world of total work is possible today is not leisure, free, fulfilled, and meaningful time, but shallow loafing, a stolen free moment otherwise scheduled for work.

scholarly journals Covid-19: Pandemonium in our time

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Bergquist ◽  
Laura Rinaldi
Keyword(s):  
Shock Wave ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Actual Data ◽  
Ground Zero ◽  
Nuclear Bomb ◽  
True Value ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
Bomb Test ◽  
The World ◽  
The Trinity

While pandemonium has come to mean wild and noisy disorder, the reference here is to John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost and the upheaval following Lucifer's banishment from Heaven and his construction of Pandæmonium as his hub. Today's avalanche of conflicting news on how to deal with the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) brings to mind the Trinity nuclear bomb test with Enrico Fermi estimating its strength by releasing small pieces of paper into the air and measuring their displacement by the shock wave. Fermi's result, in fact not far from the true value, emphasised his ability to make good approximations with few or no actual data. The current wave of Covid-19 presents just this kind of situation as it engulfs the world from ground zero in Wuhan, China. Much information is indeed missing, but datasets that might lead to useful ideas on how to handle this pandemic are steadily accumulating.

scholarly journals Små barns livsverdener: Klassespesifikke erfaringsrom?

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kari Stefansen
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Parenting Practices ◽  
Limited Attention ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Ways Of Being

Title: Young children’s life worlds: Class specific spaces of experienceAbstract: The significance of class for children’s everyday life has received limited attention in Norway. In recent years a number of studies from the UK and the US have explored this topic. This paper presents analysis from a research project inspired by this growing body of research. It explores classed patterns in parents’ interactions with the institution of formal day-care. The paper also discusses how parenting practices of different sorts contribute to the reproduction of classed ways of being in the world. Special attention is given to the life worlds of middle-class and working-class children, and what is perceived as parallels between these life worlds and parents' class experiences. 

CHARLES KINGSLEY, THE ROMANTIC LEGACY, AND THE UNMAKING OF THE WORKING-CLASS INTELLECTUAL

2001 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-65
Author(s):  
Evan M. Gottlieb
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
The Political ◽  
Charles Kingsley ◽  
Social Relevance ◽  
The World ◽  
Relative Status

Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.—Percy Shelley, “A Defence of Poetry”THESE WORDS, written in 1821, celebrate the figure of the poet as leader and prophet.1 By noting that this position is “unacknowledged,” however, Shelley intimates that the Industrial Revolution sweeping Britain threatens to shrink the political and social relevance of poets. While Shelley makes no mention of class distinctions in “A Defence of Poetry,” had he paused to consider the relative status of the poet in class terms, he would probably have admitted that his era’s working-class versifiers were, with a few exceptions, the most unacknowledged poets of all.

Friendly Societies and the Discourse of Respectability in Britain, 1825–1875

1995 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Cordery
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Social Power ◽  
External Control ◽  
State Control ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
Class Context ◽  
Friendly Societies

In nineteenth-century Britain, friendly societies (working-class mutual benefit clubs) and ruling elites contested definitions of respectability and independence in a struggle to delineate relations between societies and the state. This process was an important part of an ongoing set of negotiations by which working-class organizations influenced middle-class attitudes toward collective action. Pressure from friendly societies forced members of Parliament and bureaucrats to accept their claim to respectability and, with it, to independence from state control, changing the discourse of respectability in three stages. During the first quarter of the century, clergymen and landowners equated respectability with middle-class patronage and independence from the Poor Law. Around midcentury, the societies appropriated the discourse of respectability and, with qualified elite approval, used it to redefine independence as freedom from middle-class supervision. By the 1870s, however, friendly society leaders requested government assistance to limit the independence of rank-and-file members, whose autonomy they claimed was a threat to the societies' respectability.Friendly societies wanted, as one member wrote, “to do what is ‘respectable.’” This meant redefining respectability in a collective, working-class context. While middle-class definitions rested on the premise that individualism and self-help were the twin foundations of respectability, friendly societies gained access to the social power of respectability by offering an alternative definition based on collective self-help and independence from external control. Friendly societies were democratically managed insurance clubs offering sickness and burial coverage and sociable activities in return for regular payments. They often met in public houses, which they identified as respectable, contradicting middle-class attitudes.

Resistance

2021 ◽  
pp. 341-366
Author(s):  
Paul Watt
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Housing Associations ◽  
Politics Of Place ◽  
The World ◽  
The Right ◽  
Trench Warfare ◽  
The City

This chapter assesses the socio-spatial, organisational, and ideological nature of resistance to estate demolition in London. It begins by analysing housing activism with reference to council housing, and situates recent anti-demolition campaigns in relation to earlier campaigns against stock transfer to housing associations. The anti-demolition campaigns are not solely based on council tenants via a politics of tenure, but instead embrace owner-occupiers (in some cases middle-class) and exemplify a politics of place based upon maintaining existing homes and communities. Campaigners’ prior activism is assessed and these are revealed as being mainly novices to the world of housing politics. Despite such vibrant activism, lack of engagement was also prominent as some tenants felt that resistance was a waste of time, because ‘they’ (social landlords) had already decided that demolition will happen, indicative of felt working-class and tenant powerlessness. Contestation is often long-term – a form of trench warfare – reflecting the interminable nature of regeneration itself. The final section assesses what success might mean in these long-running campaigns, and illustrates this with reference to both ‘big wins’ and ‘little victories’. Anti-demolition campaigns have become prominent and are in the front-line of London’s struggles over the right to the city (Harvey).

Introduction to the Forum on Cluttering: Rays of Hope Shine Around the World

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 1566-1567
Author(s):  
Isabella Reichel
Keyword(s):  
Professional Preparation ◽  
Joint Effort ◽  
Feedback Training ◽  
Successful Communication ◽  
Self Help ◽  
The World ◽  
Common Thread ◽  
Evidence Based Treatments ◽  
Attention Performance ◽  
Self Help Groups

Purpose In the 10 years since the International Cluttering Association (ICA) was created, this organization has been growing in the scope of its initiatives, and in the variety of resources it makes available for people with cluttering (PWC). However, the awareness of this disorder and of the methods for its intervention remain limited in countries around the world. A celebration of the multinational and multicultural engagements of the ICA's Committee of the International Representatives is a common thread running through all the articles in this forum. The first article is a joint effort among international representatives from five continents and 15 countries, exploring various themes related to cluttering, such as awareness, research, professional preparation, intervention, and self-help groups. The second article, by Elizabeth Gosselin and David Ward, investigates attention performance in PWC. In the third article, Yvonne van Zaalen and Isabella Reichel explain how audiovisual feedback training can improve the monitoring skills of PWC, with both quantitative and qualitative benefits in cognitive, emotional, and social domains of communication. In the final article, Hilda Sønsterud examines whether the working alliance between the client and clinician may predict a successful cluttering therapy outcome. Conclusions Authors of this forum exchanged their expertise, creativity, and passion with the goal of solving the mystery of the disconcerting cluttering disorder with the hope that all PWC around the globe will have access to the most effective evidence-based treatments leading to blissful and successful communication.

Principles of Evolutionary Modernization of Transition Economies

2009 ◽  
pp. 85-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Rustamov
Keyword(s):  
National Culture ◽  
Transition Economies ◽  
Transition Economy ◽  
World Economic Forum ◽  
Governance Mechanisms ◽  
Beneficial Use ◽  
Strategic Issues ◽  
The World ◽  
Comparative Advantages ◽  
World Economic

The article considers strategic issues of modernization of the transition economy. The analysis is based on the methodology of the World Economic Forum where special attention is paid to the sequence of the transformation stages. The main conclusion is that modernization should combine implementation of the governance mechanisms with the beneficial use of comparative advantages of the national culture. In fact, modernization of the transition economy should be evolutionary. It is precisely this course of development that is relevant for Azerbaijan which has successfully upgraded its economy in the recent years.

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