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Mutability (poem)
"Mutability" is a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley which appeared in the 1816 collection '' Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude: And Other Poems''. Half of the poem is quoted in his wife Mary Shelley's novel '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818) although his authorship is not acknowledged, while the 1816 poem by Leigh Hunt is acknowledged with the name of the author given. Only Percy Bysshe Shelley is not acknowledged as an author. There is also a prose version or further elaboration of the same themes of the poem in ''Frankenstein'' that immediately precedes the quotation of the poem. The eight lines from "Mutability" which are quoted in ''Frankenstein'' occur in Chapter 10 when Victor Frankenstein climbs Glacier Montanvert in the Swiss Alps and encounters the Creature. Frankenstein recites: "We rest. – A dream has power to poison sleep; :We rise. – One wandering thought pollutes the day; We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep; :Embrace fond woe, or cast our ...
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Alastor
Alastor (; Ancient Greek: Ἀλάστωρ, English translation: "avenger") refers to a number of people and concepts in Greek mythology: *Alastor, an epithet of the Greek God Zeus, according to Hesychius of Alexandria and the ''Etymologicum Magnum'', which described him as the avenger of evil deeds, specifically familial bloodshed. As the personification of a curse, it was also a sidekick of the Erinyes. The name is also used, especially by the tragic writers, to designate any deity or demon who avenges wrongs committed by men. In Euripides' play ''Electra'', Orestes questions an oracle who calls upon him to kill his mother, and wonders if the oracle was not from Apollo, but some malicious ''alastor''. There was an altar to Zeus Alastor just outside the city walls of Thasos. **By the time of the 4th century BC, ''alastor'' in Greek had degraded to a generic type of insult, with the approximate meaning of "scoundrel". *Alastor, a prince of Pylos and son of King Neleus and Chlo ...
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The Cloud (poem)
"The Cloud" is a major 1820 poem written by Percy Bysshe Shelley. "The Cloud" was written during late 1819 or early 1820, and submitted for publication on 12 July 1820. The work was published in the 1820 collection '' Prometheus Unbound, A Lyrical Drama, in Four Acts, With Other Poems'' by Charles and James Ollier in London in August 1820. The work was proof-read by John Gisborne. There were multiple drafts of the poem. The poem consists of six stanzas in anapestic or antidactylus meter, a foot with two unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable. Analysis The cloud is a metaphor for the unending cycle of nature: "I silently laugh at my own cenotaph/ ... I arise and unbuild it again." As with the wind and the leaves in "Ode to the West Wind", the skylark in "To a Skylark", and the plant in "The Sensitive Plant", Shelley endows the cloud with sentient traits that personify the forces of nature. In "The Cloud", Shelley relies on the imagery of transformation or metam ...
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Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism, clandestine literature, paganism, idealization of nature, suspicion of science and industrialization, and glorification of the past with a strong preference for the medieval rather than the classical. It was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, the social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, and the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education, chess, social sciences, and the natural sciences. It had a significant and complex effect on politics, with romantic thinkers influencing conservatism, libe ...
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1816 Poems
This year was known as the ''Year Without a Summer'', because of low temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere, possibly the result of the Mount Tambora volcano, volcanic eruption in Indonesia in 1815, causing severe global cooling, catastrophic in some locations. Events January–March * December 25 1815–January 6 – Tsar Alexander I of Russia signs an order, expelling the Society of Jesus, Jesuits from St. Petersburg and Moscow. * January 9 – Sir Humphry Davy's Davy lamp is first tested underground as a coal mining safety lamp, at Hebburn Colliery in northeast England. * January 17 – Fire nearly destroys the city of St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John's, Newfoundland. * February 10 – Friedrich Karl Ludwig, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck, dies and is succeeded by Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, Friedrich Wilhelm, his son and founder of the House of Glücksburg. * February 20 &nd ...
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Poetry By Percy Bysshe Shelley
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, a prosaic ostensible meaning. A poem is a literary composition, written by a poet, using this principle. Poetry has a long and varied history, evolving differentially across the globe. It dates back at least to prehistoric times with hunting poetry in Africa and to panegyric and elegiac court poetry of the empires of the Nile, Niger, and Volta River valleys. Some of the earliest written poetry in Africa occurs among the Pyramid Texts written during the 25th century BCE. The earliest surviving Western Asian epic poetry, the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', was written in Sumerian. Early poems in the Eurasian continent evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese ''Shijing'', as well as religious hymns (the Sanskrit '' ...
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Prometheus Unbound (Shelley)
''Prometheus Unbound'' is a four-act lyrical drama by Percy Bysshe Shelley, first published in 1820. It is concerned with the torments of the Greek mythological figure Prometheus, who defies the gods and gives fire to humanity, for which he is subjected to eternal punishment and suffering at the hands of Zeus. It is inspired by the classical ''Prometheia'', a trilogy of plays attributed to Aeschylus. Shelley's play concerns Prometheus' release from captivity, but unlike Aeschylus' version, there is no reconciliation between Prometheus and Jupiter (Zeus). Instead, Jupiter is abandoned by his supportive elements and falls from power, which allows Prometheus to be released. Shelley's play is a closet drama, meaning it was not intended to be produced on the stage. In the tradition of Romantic poetry, Shelley wrote for the imagination, intending his play's stage to reside in the imaginations of his readers. However, the play is filled with suspense, mystery and other dramatic effect ...
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Aeolian Harp
An Aeolian harp (also wind harp) is a musical instrument that is played by the wind. Named for Aeolus, the ancient Greek god of the wind, the traditional Aeolian harp is essentially a wooden box including a sounding board, with strings stretched lengthwise across two bridges. It is often placed in a slightly opened window where the wind can blow across the strings to produce sounds. The strings can be made of different materials (or thicknesses) and all be tuned to the same pitch, or identical strings can be tuned to different pitches. Besides being the only string instrument played solely by the wind, the Aeolian harp is also the only string instrument that plays solely harmonic frequencies. They are recognizable by the sound which is a result of this property, which has been described as eerie and ethereal. The Aeolian harp – already known in the ancient world – was first described by Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) in his books ''Musurgia Universalis'' (1650) and ''Phonu ...
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Lyres
Yoke lutes, commonly called lyres, are a class of string instruments, subfamily of lutes, indicated with the code 321.2 in the Hornbostel–Sachs classification. Description Yoke lutes are defined as instruments with one or more strings, arranged parallel to the sound board and attached to a yoke lying on the same plane as the sound table, composed of two arms and a crosspiece. Most of the instruments of the lyre family are played by plucking the strings, but some involve the use of a bow instead. The sound box can be either bowl-shaped (321.21) or box-shaped (321.22). In the first case, the resonator is often a turtle shell, while the sound board is made of leather. In the second case, usually both the body and the sound board are made of wood. Examples Examples of yoke lutes are the lyre, the ''cithara'' and the ''phorminx'' from Ancient Greece, the biblical ''kinnor'' and the African ''nyatiti''. However, there are other instruments called "lyra" or "lira" that do not b ...
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Ozymandias
"Ozymandias" ( ) is a sonnet written by the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822). It was first published in the 11 January 1818 issue of '' The Examiner'' of London. The poem was included the following year in Shelley's collection '' Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue; with Other Poems,'' and in a posthumous compilation of his poems published in 1826. Shelley wrote the poem in friendly competition with his friend and fellow poet Horace Smith (1779–1849), who also wrote a sonnet on the same topic with the same title. The poem explores the worldly fate of history and the ravages of time: even the greatest men and the empires they forge are impermanent, their legacies fated to decay into oblivion. Origin In antiquity, ''Ozymandias'' was a Greek name for the pharaoh Ramesses II (r. 1279–1213 BC), derived from a part of his throne name, ''Usermaatre''. In 1817, Shelley began writing the poem "Ozymandias", after the British Museum acquired the Younge ...
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Mutability Frankenstein 1818
The principle of mutability is the notion that any physical property which appears to follow a conservation law may undergo some physical process that violates its conservation. John Archibald Wheeler offered this speculative principle after Stephen Hawking predicted the evaporation of black holes which violates baryon number conservation. See also * Philosophy of physics In philosophy, philosophy of physics deals with conceptual and interpretational issues in modern physics, many of which overlap with research done by certain kinds of theoretical physicists. Philosophy of physics can be broadly divided into thr ... References Philosophy of physics Theoretical physics Conservation laws {{theoretical-physics-stub ...
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Swiss Alps
The Alpine region of Switzerland, conventionally referred to as the Swiss Alps (german: Schweizer Alpen, french: Alpes suisses, it, Alpi svizzere, rm, Alps svizras), represents a major natural feature of the country and is, along with the Swiss Plateau and the Swiss portion of the Jura Mountains, one of its three main physiographic regions. The Swiss Alps extend over both the Western Alps and the Eastern Alps, encompassing an area sometimes called Central Alps. While the northern ranges from the Bernese Alps to the Appenzell Alps are entirely in Switzerland, the southern ranges from the Mont Blanc massif to the Bernina massif are shared with other countries such as France, Italy, Austria and Liechtenstein. The Swiss Alps comprise almost all the highest mountains of the Alps, such as Dufourspitze (4,634 m), the Dom (4,545 m), the Liskamm (4,527 m), the Weisshorn (4,506 m) and the Matterhorn (4,478 m). The other following major summits can be found in this list of mountains of S ...
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Glacier Montanvert
Glacier Montanvert was the common name in the 18th century for a portion of the Alps glacier, now known as Mer de Glace, on the northern slopes of the Mont Blanc massif. Alternative spellings of Montanvert include Montainvert and Montvers. The Glacier Montanvert was a popular tourist destination of European travellers and is referenced in numerous travel writings and novels of the time. In literature ''South-eastern France including Corsica: handbook for travellers'' by Karl Baedeker *Travel writer Karl Baedeker includes Montanvert in his 1898 travel guide ''South-eastern France including Corsica: handbook for travellers''. In his guide Bauedeker suggests visitors to Chamonix devote at least one day to ascending the Montanvert and to crossing the Mer de Glace, a journey he claims takes about four hours. Baedeker describes Montanvert as, ::"an eminence on the E. side of the valley, is visited for the view is affords of the vast ‘sea of ice’ which fills the highest basins of th ...
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