The Life Of Ludwig Van Beethoven Essays (1411 words) -

The Life of Ludwig Van Beethoven The Life of Ludwig Van Beethoven The rise of Ludwig van Beethoven into the ranks of history's greatest composers was parallelled by and in some ways a consequence of his own personal tragedy and despair. Beginning in the late 1790's, the increasing buzzing and humming in his ears sent Beethoven into a panic, searching for a cure from doctor to doctor. By October 1802 he had written the Heiligenstadt Testament confessing the certainty of his growing deafness, his consequent despair, and suicidal considerations. Yet, despite the personal tragedy caused by the "infirmity in the one sense which ought to be more perfect in [him] than in others, a sense which [he] once possessed in the highest perfection, a perfection such as few in [his] profession enjoy," it also served as a motivating force in that it challenged him to try and conquer the fate that was handed him. He would not surrender to that "jealous demon, my wretched health" before proving to himself and the world the extent of his skill. Thus, faced with such great impending loss, Beethoven, keeping faith in his art and ability, states in his Heiligenstadt Testament a promise of his greatness yet to be proven in the development of his heroic style. By about 1800, Beethoven was mastering the Viennese High-Classic style. Although the style had been first perfected by Mozart, Beethoven did extend it to some degree. He had unprecedently composed sonatas for the cello which in combination with the piano opened the era of the Classic-Romantic cello sonata. In addition, his sonatas for violin and piano became the cornerstone of the sonata duo repertory. His experimentation with additions to the standard forms likewise made it apparent that he had reached the limits of the high-Classic style. Having displayed the extended range of his piano writing he was also begining to forge a new voice for the violin. In 1800, Beethoven was additionally combining the sonata form with a full orchestra in his First Symphony, op. 2. In the arena of piano sonata, he had also gone beyond the three-movement design of Haydn and Mozart, applying sometimes the four-movement design reserved for symphonies and quartets through the addition of a minuet or scherzo. Having confidently proven the high-Classic phase of his sonata development with the "Grande Sonate," op. 22, Beethoven moved on to the fantasy sonata to allow himself freer expression. By 1802, he had evidently succeeded in mastering the high-Classic style within each of its major instrumental genres-the piano trio, string trio, string quartet and quintet, Classic piano concerto, duo sonata, piano sonata, and symphony. Having reached the end of the great Vienese tradition, he was then faced with either the unchallenging repetition of the tired style or going beyond it to new creations. At about the same time that Beethoven had exhausted the potentials of the high-Classic style, his increasing deafness landed him in a major cycle of depression, from which was to emerge his heroic period as exemplified in Symphony No. 3, op. 55 ("Eroica"). In Beethoven's Heiligenstadt Testament of October 1802, he reveals his malaise that was sending him to the edge of despair. He speaks of suicide in the same breath as a reluctance to die, expressing his helplessness against the inevitability of death. Having searched vainly for a cure, he seems to have lost all hope-"As the leaves of autumn fall and are withered-so likewise has my hope been blighted-I leave here-almost as I came-even the high courage-which often inspired me in the beautiful days of summer-has disappeared." There is somewhat of a parallel between his personal and professional life. He is at a dead end on both cases. There seems to be no more that he can do with the high-Classic style; his deafness seems poised inevitably to encumber and ultimately halt his musical career. However, despite it all, he reveals in the Testament a determination, though weak and exhausted, to carry on-"I would have ended my life-it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed to me impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me. So I endured this wretched existence..." Realizing his own potential which he expressed earlier after the completion of the Second Symphony-"I am only a little satisfied with my previous works"-and in an 1801 letter-"I will seize Fate by the throat; it shall certainly not bend and crush me completely"- he decides to go on. At a time when Beethoven had reached the end of the musical challenge of the day,

Edgar Allan Poe The Master Of Imagery English Literature Essay Essay Example

Edgar Allan Poe The Master Of Imagery English Literature Essay Essay Example Edgar Allan Poe The Master Of Imagery English Literature Essay Essay Edgar Allan Poe The Master Of Imagery English Literature Essay Essay Essay Topic: Eva Luna The Fall of the House Of Usher Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, over many a quaint and funny volume of disregarded traditional knowledge, while I nodded, about napping, all of a sudden there came a tapping, as of person gently knaping, knaping at my chamber door. T is some visitant, I muttered, tapping at my chamber door merely this, and nil more. ( Poe, The Raven, 1845 ) It is with this stanza that Edgar Allan Poe opens his heroic poem verse form The Raven ; and it is with this descriptive gap that the reader is thrown into a universe unbeknown to anything conceivable, the universe of Edgar Allan Poe the maestro of horror and imagination. Edgar Allen Poe was born January, 19th, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts to Parents David Poe Jr. and Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe. Edgar had a younger sister Rosalie Poe and an older brother William Henry Leonard Poe. When Edgar Poe was merely 1 twelvemonth old his male parent David Poe Jr. left Elizabeth to fight to care for Edgar and his siblings. It was in the clip following the going of his male parent that Edgar s female parent Elizabeth came down will tuberculosis. Being hapless Elizabeth had no pick but to cleaving to life at a embarkation house, all the piece immature Edgar watched impotently as his female parent easy sank into craze until eventually go throughing. Following the decease of his female parent Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe, Edgar and his siblings were scattered to three different Foster places throughout Richmond, Virginia. Edgar was eventfully cared for by John Allan, a affluent baccy merchandiser, who cared for Edgar as if he was his ain kid and welcomed Edgar in to his household with unfastened weaponries. ( Biography: Edgar Allen Poe, 1994 ) ( Who Is Edgar Allan Poe? ) It was during his younger old ages that Mrs. Allen would lavish Edgar with fondness, and at for Edgar things were good, but much like Edgar s early life things would non stay, much like Elizabeth Poe, Edgar s Foster female parent stricken with TB. During this clip a rift between Edgar and Mr. Allen grew. It was following this clip that Mr. Allen sent Edgar to go to the University of Virginia. It was during this clip that Edgar Allan Poe developed great chancing debt. During that clip debitors prison did be. Fearing being sent to prison, Edgar joined the United States ground forces in 1827 under an false name Edgar a Perry. After two twelvemonth in the ground forces Edgar Allan Poe was discharged in1829 following the decease of his Foster female parent Frances Allan on February 28, 1829 The Death of Frances Allan affected Edgar immensely and much like the decease of his female parent Edgar would transport her decease throughout life frequently idolizing itself in Poe s Hagiographas. ( Biography: Edgar Allen Poe, 1994 ) ( Who Is Edgar Allan Poe? ) After the decease of Frances Allan, Poe moved to Baltimore where he would finally get married his first cousin, 13 twelvemonth old Virginia Clemm. Their matrimony was a happy 1. That was until 1942 when his married woman Virginia devolved TB. The following five old ages were as Edgar was already accustomed to a life snake pit. Edgar would care for Virginia, up until her decease in 1847. During the clip after his married woman Virginia s decease Edgar Allan Poe would travel through great torture. He would imbibe to inebriation frequently and travel through periods of insanity. It was nt until 1849 that Edgar Allan Poe would eventually be relieved of the devils he found in his life. On October 7th 1949 Edgar Allan Poe died of unknown causes at the age of 40. ( Biography: Edgar Allen Poe, 1994 ) ( Who Is Edgar Allan Poe? ) Edgar Allan Poe was a antic author who would utilize assorted manners and elements to make every item nowadays in his work. Edgar Allan Poe would frequently take events that occurred in his life and transcribe them into his work. Such pieces of work as the ruddy decease and even the Corvus corax depict chilling devils found in the life of Edgar Allan Poe. ( Biography: Edgar Allen Poe, 1994 ) ( Who Is Edgar Allan Poe? ) One technique that he frequently used to portray a since of imagination is the integrity of consequence. The integrity of consequence is merely the entire amount of every item in the narrative combined to make the stoping. Edgar Allan Poe would utilize his characters, the scene, the temper, and assorted other facets to pull the reader into his narrative, and it was this integrity of consequence that universe finally lead the reader to experience a portion of the narrative and upon decision make the reader experience the general temper that Edgar Allan Poe wanted for his stoping. ( Poe, The Philosophy of Composition ) The integrity of consequence can be found in most of Edgar Allan Poe s authorship but none predominately as in The Fall of the House of Usher. To pull the reader into a dark universe where lamias exist, and where the effects of Roderick Ussher burying his sister Madeline Usher thrust Roderick into a province neer seen before, one of sorrow, enigma, and panic, Edgar Allan Poe used both imagination and the integrity of consequence. ( Poe, The Philosophy of Composition ) Edgar Allan Poe opens his short narrative The Fall of the House of Usher utilizing the integrity of consequence ; He does this by supplying the reader with a chilling word picture of the scene outside the house of Ussher. A dull, dark, and silent twenty-four hours in the fall of the twelvemonth, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the celestial spheres, I had been go throughing entirely, on horseback, through a singularly drab piece of land of state ( Poe, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, p. 738 ) . This gap sets the tone for the full narrative as you jump into the function of the Narrator a boyhood friend of Roderick ride ahorse thought a dark and glooming state side to assist Roderick in his clip of demand. Edgar Allan Poe farther uses the integrity of consequence in his description of the house of Ussher. ` With the first glance of the edifice, a sense of impossible somberness pervaded my spirit. I say impossible ; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the head normally receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or awful. I looked upon the scene before me upon the mere house, and the simple landscape characteristics of the sphere upon the bleak walls upon the vacant eye-like Windowss upon a few rank sedges and upon a few white short pantss of decayed trees with an arrant depression of psyche which I can compare to no earthly esthesis more decently than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium the acrimonious oversight into mundane life the horrid dropping off of the head covering. There was chill, a sinking, a sickening of the bosom an cursed boringness of idea which no prod of the imaginativeness could torment into nothing of the sublime. ( Poe, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, p. 738 ) This description of the house of usher creates a feeling of horror which casts down the readers spine and lies in the cavity of one s tummy, for as a reader I can now state that nil good remainders in the house of Ussher. Edgar Allan Poe besides uses the integrity of consequence in his description of the characters. I gazed upon him with a feeling half of commiseration, half of awe. Surely, adult male had neer earlier so awfully altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with trouble that I could convey myself to acknowledge the individuality of the wide area network being before me with the comrade of my early boyhood. Yet the character of his face had been at all times singular. A cadaverousness of skin color ; an oculus big, liquid, and aglow beyond comparing ; lips slightly thin and really pale, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve ; a olfactory organ of a delicate Hebrew theoretical account, but with a comprehensiveness of nostril unusual in similar formations ; a finely moulded mentum, speech production, in its privation of prominence, of a privation of moral energy ; hair of a more than web-like softness and thinness ; these characteristics, with an excessive enlargement above the parts of the temple, made up wholly a visage non easy to be forgotten. And now in the mer e hyperbole of the prevalent character of these characteristics, and of the look they were wont to convey, put so much of alteration that I doubted to whom I spoke. ( Poe, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, pp. 740-741 ) Edgar Allan Poe s description of Roderick Ussher helps the reader understand and experience what horrors Roderick has seen and what awaits the reader in his stay at the house of Ussher. Edgar Allan Poe uses the integrity of consequence in other manners such as the reading of the Mad Trist where you ( The storyteller ) and Roderick read the narrative merely to hear the noise emanating from outside your chamber door. It is in this portion of the narrative that the terminal of draws near, but non merely that of the narrative but perchance of you. It is in the terminal where Edgar Allan Poe completes his integrity of consequence and succeeds in coaction every facet of the narrative into one feeling at the terminal, that of panic. There did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes, and the grounds of some acrimonious battle upon every part of her bony frame. For a minute she remained trembling and staggering to and fro upon the threshold so, with a low moaning call, fell to a great extent inward upon the individual of her brother, and in her violent and now concluding death-agonies, bore him to the floor a cadaver, and a victim to the panics he had anticipated ( Poe, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, p. 750 ) Edgar Allan Poe s short narrative The Fall of the House of Usher uses the integrity of consequence in great lengths to assist the reader honkytonk into the function of the storyteller and genuinely experience the panic in which he felt. Edgar Allan Poe archives this through utilizing assorted descriptive techniques thought the narrative to associate every facet in some manner to the stoping. It is through that ; that Edgar Allan Poe archives his integrity of consequence in the short narrative The Fall of the House of Usher. Edgar Allan Poe used imagination in every one of his Hagiographas to let the reader to wholly plunge themselves into his Hagiographas. In reading any of Edgar Allan Poe s work it becomes obvious that Edgar Allan Poe is in many ways a maestro of imagination. His composing manner differs greatly from any other manner I have of all time seen. Edgar Allan Poe allows the reader to presume to take in each and every one of his plants. One such piece of work is the Corvus corax. In the verse form the Corvus corax, Edgar Allan Poe uses great imagination to portray a felling of horror, of heartache and of lunacy, lunacy brought on by the loss of a love, Lenore. The verse form the Corvus corax Tells of a adult male, a immature poet who is forenoon the loss of his love Lenore. When all of a sudden there was a knock on his door when he goes to inspect it, he shortly finds that there is nil at that place. This goes on repeatedly until the entryway of a Corvus corax, which utters but one word never again . It is with both the Corvus corax and his uttering of nevermore that the poet drives himself into insanity hardening, and pleading with the Corvus corax, that he believes is a courier from the hereafter. In the Corvus corax Edgar Allan Poe uses imagination to let the reader to come in the universe of the immature poet, to delight in the lunacy found within. It is in the 2nd and 3rd stanzas that Edgar Allan Poe uses imagination to portray both the scene and the first tone of horror found in the Corvus corax. Ah, clearly I remember it was in the black December, and each separate deceasing ember wrought its shade upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow ; in vain I had sought to borrow From my books cessation of sorrow sorrow for the lost Lenore For the rare and beaming maiden whom the angels named Lenore Nameless here for evermore. And the satiny sad unsure rustling of each purple drape Thrilled me filled me with antic panics neer felt before ; So that now, to still the whipping of my bosom, I stood reiterating `Tis some visitant biding entryway at my chamber door Some late visitant biding entryway at my chamber door ; This it is, and nil more, ( Poe, The Raven, 1845 ) In these stanzas Edgar Allan Poe begins to depict the scene, the descriptive nature in Edgar Allan Poe s the Corvus corax icinesss my castanetss. In the Corvus corax Edgar Allan Poe used assorted symbols and intimations to take the reader to make an image in their caput and let them to go the poet. One such symbol is the verse form being set in December. December is a cold month, its darkness and its cold, breaths decease. The iciness of the winter dark allows the reader to conceive of a dark cold windy dark, the coals of the fire gently glowing on the floor ; the purple curtains fliting in the air current, each symbol bring you further into the universe of the Corvus corax. This is what Edgar Allan Poe does best ; he used great imagination to portray his overall tone. In the raven each and every line brings the reader deeper and deeper into lunacy. Edgar Allan Poe non merely uses imagination to let the reader to come in a physical image in their head but to besides let the reader to come in an emotional image every bit good. One such illustration is in Edgar Allan Poe s verse form Annabel Lee. In this verse form Edgar Allan Poe describes his love for Virginia dubbed Annabel Lee and the bosom aching brought approximately from her ill-timed decease. It was many and many a twelvemonth ago, In a land by the sea, That a maiden at that place lived whom you may cognize By the name of ANNABEL LEE ; And this inaugural she lived with no other idea Than to love and be loved by me. ( Poe, Annabel Lee, 1849 ) Lines 1-6 ) The Opening stanza in Annabel Lee creates a feeling of love. The repeat of the line In a land by the sea creates a felling of solidarity of importance, that the love between you and Annabel Lee is all that affairs and the love you two portion is in its ain manner a land by the sea, that your love creates a universe a land your land by the sea. The angels, non half so happy in Eden, Went envying her and me- Yes! that was the ground ( as all work forces know, In this land by the sea ) That the air current came out of the cloud by dark, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. ( Poe, Annabel Lee, 1849 ) ( Lines 21-26 ) This stanza in Annabel Lee creates the image of a conflict between the celestial spheres and your Annabel Lee. This stanza let the reader to conceive of angels looking down from heaven at your Annabel Lee looking with such hatred, so envy, that they had no other pick but to kill her taking your Annabel Lee. Another thing that this stanza portrays the overall compulsion Edgar Allan Poe had with Virginia ( Annabel Lee ) . To Justify Annabel Lee s decease by saying that the angels envy your love for each other so in bend they took Annabel Lee s life. It is in the verse form Annabel Lee that Edgar Allan Poe allows the reader to place themselves with Poe himself. It is with Annabel Lee that Poe creates a vision within himself one that portrays his life with Virginia and how even in decease Virginia and he will be together. But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we- Of many far wiser than we- And neither the angels in Eden above, Nor the devils down under the sea, Can of all time divide my psyche from the psyche Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. For the Moon neer beams without conveying me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee ; And the stars neer rise but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee ; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride, In the burial chamber at that place by the sea, In her grave by the sounding sea. ( Poe, Annabel Lee, 1849 ) ( Lines 27- 42 ) From looking at Edgar Allan Poe s life and from analysing Annabel Lee I can clearly see how Edgar Allan Poe uses imagination to make a feeling of an ageless love. It can besides be said that Annabel Lee creates an image of Poe that is all but blandishing, one that portrays Poe and an over obsessional hubby. Who even through decease will both love and be with Annabel Lee. From analysing his life and lifes one can state that Edgar Allan Poe was frantically in love with Virginia, and in composing Annabel Lee, Edgar Allan Poe clearly depicts both his love and compulsion for Virginia. There are many lines in Annabel Lee that show this. Edgar Allan Poe lived a life unlike any other. His life was that of decease and sorrow, of grief and wretchedness. Edgar Allan Poe uses his tragic life as a Muse in all of his pieces of work. The Red Mask of Death, The Raven, Annabel Lee, The Fall of the house of Usher, Etc all of these pieces of work represent a tragic event in Edgar Allan Poe s life. It is in utilizing this Muse that Edgar Allan Poe can make an image so strong that the reader forgets what is existent and what fiction is. It is in making this feeling that Edgar Allan Poe genuinely earns his rubric as a maestro if imagination. So in decision Edgar Allan Poe uses great description, imagination and the integrity of consequence to make a universe for the reader. A universe of horror, of sorrow, of long lost long, that in which none could of all time conceive of a universe of Edgar Allan Poe.