Its A Restoration and Neoclassical Blog, Dog

Freedom and government are two terms that stay together in the same hand. Without government we would have no freedom... right? John Locke makes mention of the idea that man under government is "having a standing rule to live by" (3015) Locke argues that due to man's inability to feel safe with their property, they resort to joining a group that lives under the rule of government. Their hopes are that the rule of these people will be enough to keep their property safe: that when alone, they can do very little to deter threats away. https://i.imgflip.com/m1rv0.jpg Today, this can be seen quite clearly. Unless you are from another country, it is impossible to truly grasp the concept of living without government. Life in the United States is ruled by laws, codes, and government. More often than not, this keeps criminals from breaking the law. The threat of punishment, years lost in a prison cell, or the occasional death penalty. The majority of Americans have no idea w

If Jonathan Swift and Henry Fielding were alive today and active users of social media, I would imagine the following situations to play out: Henry Fielding would try and make money, (pg. 2437 of our text discusses his lack of wealth due to his father) and thus would write for someone that pays a good bit. His later founding of the Bow Street Runners would/could potentially get him somewhere, "his literary output" reflecting his knowledge and experience with "nobility" and "street criminals" (2437). I imagine whoever publishes the work of Stephen King so frequently could make do with someone like Fielding. His work reflects different areas of social injustice (the housemaid in Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded ). Lifetime could make some of his stories into daytime movies or perhaps he could work in a theater with his experience. I would see Fielding using social media to observe people rather than use it himself. If he was on something like Twitter, he would

The question in the prompt for this weeks blog post reads: "Have you noticed a difference in your writing voice when you write for the public vs writing for an assignment dropbox?" My answer is "no", only because I write a dropbox assignment with the idea that my work could potentially  be shared with a larger audience than I anticipate (although I doubt any piece of mine has been that good). The next question was about the advancement of the news since the 18th century. The very little "journalism" I do follow today is very simple, which to me is something that older journalism would avoid. My generation has b.s. sites like Buzzfeed or VICE. I hate VICE because their articles are always these trendy/hipster/nonsense like: "I Sat Beside a Vietnamese-North Korean Warlord and Showed Him How to Enjoy the Films of Quentin Tarantino". Of course VICE is not representative of all 21st century news sources, but the trendy stuff aimed at my generat

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7003933878689261222#editor/target=post;postID=1909209783324943871 The above quote I used in the title is the mantra of Jake Gyllenhaal's character in the 2014 film Nightcralwer . In the movie, Gyllenhaal plays a man looking to get a start up in the local news business of Los Angeles by filming crimes and car accidents in an effort to shock viewers and thus, increase the popularity of the station he works for. This is not a new idea, by any means. In fact, the portrayal of this idea has only gotten larger. If that sentence seems vague then allow me to clarify: film and television continually push the bounds of what can and cannot be shown to an audience. A horror movie may come out next week that has to do with rape and murder, shown in graphic detail, but a film in the 1930's never would have crossed that line. To go back and look at a shift in the public perception: Vietnam war footage was first broadcast on American televisions i

I picked this image by comic book artist David Mack for the Anonymous Lady. It is not her or even an attempt on Mack's behalf to recreate her, I just find the image fitting.  An image of Martha Fowke was unavailable in my initial attempts to find one. After reading "On Being Charged with Writing Incorrectly" and discussing it in class, I thoroughly enjoyed her attack on the standards of writing. She calls out Busby and his "Slaves", the students he taught the correct form of writing to. Her work is being criticised by the "mighty dull, these mighty wise" and I like her play on words here, too. The "Wise" because of their knowledge obtained from Busby but dull because their own creative voices have been silenced due to being deemed incorrect. She does not have a concern with her work being critiqued because it is her  work, not theirs. "Any punishment sustain, to 'scape the labour of my brain" is a brilliant line, as well

After reading "Captains and Slaves: Aphra Behn and the Rhetoric of Republicanism", I think it is important to address the following points. "There is of course no more intrinsic improbability in the classicizing eloquence of Oroonoko... in his physical description in conformity with Western ideas of beauty..." (Chernaik, 98) Here, Chernaik would argue that Oroonoko has been constructed by Behn to be fit into the ideas of English readers. It is easier to gain sympathy with a character that is more familiar to you than if you were reading about a slave. Oroonoko is supposed to be educated, charismatic, and handsome: concepts that were never really given to slave characters. Chernaik makes another interesting point of interest on page 97 where he suggests that perhaps Behn may have written a story that does not address slavery as a whole as much as it addresses wrongful enslavement of one prince. To address this idea, my opinion is that Behn did not mean for this to