A Brief View Of Early Western Civilization In The 18Th Century Essays

A Brief View Of Early Western Civilization In The 18Th Century The area of early western civilization just following the feudal period was a very interesting time in Europe. There were many new innovations and problems in the way of life of the people of that time. Agriculture was still the main occupation of the time for most people. Two big problems that the people faced were those of war and poor harvest. It was said that perhaps the largest problem was the problem with poor grain. For the majority of people there was also the problem of land. For these people they either had no land of their own or insufficient amounts of it to support a family even when times were good. Poor harvests also had an effect on government as well. Bad harvests tended to cause the taxes to fall and couldn't provide sufficient provisions for the army. One thing that did seem certain, however, was that monarchs didn't help much with their pursuits of glory by means of war and food consumption. Serfs were the main labor forces in the feudal period. However in the ?legal? sense there were really no serfs in Germany. That could be why the freeing of the serfs made minimal progress in Germany. The state needed the flourishing peasants for recruits for the army and for their houses and barns for lodging for the soldiers. For the peasants there were really no luxuries in their lives. They had little furniture and clothing and basically survived on what they or their neighbors could grow. Also what little money they had could only have been spent on items that they could not be dispensed with. Most of their dwellings were also not as clean as those of other areas since the women worked more in the fields. The schools for the common people were very poor. Most of the teachers were not competent enough to teach, the school houses were in disrepair, often the teachers would have to live in the school houses, there were often no separate classes, and the curriculum was extremely narr ow. Transportation was also a big issue of that time. Things moved very slowly at this time, especially goods. Canals and achievements in roads only provided moderate improvements. The real ?Revolution? in transportation did not come until the invention of the railroad. The busiest and most used roads of the time were the footpaths, mule path and local roads of which the best credited to the Romans. Their networks were well adapted to life and needs at the time since there was seldom travel outside a four or five mile radius which the family, the market or the court was located in the ?Main? roads that were used where the ?Kings Highways.? These roads were not used for peasants but for merchants carrying costly goods. Also carried on these roads traveled ?Well-to-do? travelers and letters and packages of Royal Mail. Besides the cargo and persona the only difference in these roads were that they were wider dirt paths. Rivers and waterways were important and vulnerable sources of transport ation. Those that could accommodate boats were used to their maximum potential. Transportation at that time was small scaled, irregular, expensive, and unsafe. Overall, transportation was very poor. Villages in the 18th century England was mainly self- contained and inbred. The villages pretty much had to provide themselves. The women did most of the sewing and cloth making. Men of the village had to make their own equipment also. As for children they were strong enough to pick up a broom. To put it simply, work was very hard for these were almost non- existent. The housing was also very primitive. The houses were small, usually having only one to two rooms for the entire family. Even though they seemed very tough, English villages compared very well to those villages on the continent. It was said in the book that the countrymen produce while the townsman consumes. Originally the nobles were in control of the towns. They however later withdrew and the Crown quickly filled their void. The towns tended to become areas of resistance to the noble power and also had a large amount of independence under

My Last Duchess Essays

My Last Duchess Essays My Last Duchess Paper My Last Duchess Paper Robert Browning’s â€Å"My Last Duchess† Published 1842 Our world is changing and evolving at an astounding rate. Within the last 200 years, we have seen two World Wars and countless disputes over false borders created by colonialists, slavery, and every horrid form of human suffering imaginable!! Human lifestyles and cultures are changing every minute. While our grandparents and ancestors were growing up, do you ever think they imagined the world we live in today? What is to come is almost inconceivable to us now. In this world, the only thing we can be sure of is that things will change. With all of these transformations occurring, it is a wonder that a great poet like Robert Browning may write words so many years ago, that are still relevant to you and I in todays modern society. Browning’s first dramatic monologue â€Å"My last duchess† was written during the Italian Renaissance when egotism, marriage and aristocracy influenced the society. The monologue is loosely based on historical events involving Alfonso, the Duke of Ferrara, who lived in the 16th century. The Duke is the reciter of the monologue, and tells us he is entertaining an emissary who has come to negotiate the Duke’s marriage (he has recently been widowed) to the daughter of another powerful family. As he shows the visitor through his palace, he stops before a portrait of the late Duchess, apparently a young and lovely girl. The Duke begins reminiscing about the portrait sessions, then about the Duchess herself. His musings give way to a diatribe on her disgraceful behaviour: he claims she flirted with everyone and did not appreciate his â€Å"gift of a nine-hundred-years- old name. † As his monologue continues, the reader realizes with ever-more chilling certainty that the Duke in fact caused the Duchess’s early demise: when her behaviour escalated, â€Å"[he] gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together. † But Browning has more in mind than simply creating a colourful character and placing him in a picturesque historical scene. Rather, the specific historical setting of the poem harbours much significance: the Italian Renaissance held a particular fascination for Browning and his contemporaries, for it represented the flowering of the aesthetic and the human alongside, or in some cases in the place of, the religious and the moral. Thus the temporal setting allows Browning to again explore sex, violence, and aesthetics as all entangled, complicating and confusing each other: the lushness of the language belies the fact that the Duchess was punished for her natural sexuality. The Duke’s ravings suggest that most of the supposed transgressions took place only in his mind. Like some of Browning’s fellow Victorians, the Duke sees sin lurking in every corner. The reason the speaker here gives for killing the Duchess ostensibly differs from that given by the speaker of â€Å"Porphyria’s Lover† for murder Porphyria; however, both women are nevertheless victims of a male desire to inscribe and fix female sexuality. The desperate need to do this mirrors the efforts of Victorian society to mould the behaviour- sexual and otherwise- of individuals. For people confronted with an increasingly complex and anonymous modern world, this impulse comes naturally: to control would seem to be to conserve and stabilize. The Renaissance was a time when morally dissolute men like the Duke exercised absolute power, and as such it is a fascinating study for the Victorians: works like this imply that, surely, a time that produced magnificent art like t he Duchess’s portrait couldn’t have been entirely evil in its allocation of societal control- even though it put men like the Duke in power.