Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Essay -- essays research papers fc

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born January 27, 1756, in Salzburg, Austria. He was christened Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus, but he preferred Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. His father, Leopold, began teaching him to play minuets on the harpsichord before he was four years old. It only took him half an hour to learn each minuet. Before he was six, he had composed sonatas and a concerto for the harpsichord. Mozart learned to play the violin without being taught. He had watched his father and developed and intuition for playing. As a child, Mozart was so serious and thoughtful that at times he appeared older than he was. However, he was still a boyish boy and had a happy contentment about him. At age 6, Mozart began touring with his family where he played for the Emperor and Empress in Vienna, and Marie Antoinette, the future Queen of France. In 1763 Mozart went to Paris where he wrote four sonatas that were published. Next, Mozart traveled to England and played for the King and Queen. Then at the age of nine he wrote his first symphonies for orchestra. In 1766, he returned to Salzburg. By this time Mozart could play music at first sight on the piano, harpsichord, clavichord, and organ. He was also talented on the violin and viola. It wasn’t long before he was traveling again. In 1770, while in Milan, Mozart wrote the opera â€Å"Mitridate† and then another opera â€Å"Lucio Silla†. While in Italy, Mozart passed a composition test and became a member of the Bologna Philharmonic So...

Smiling These Days

Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and How to Influence People is the veritable how-to guide of relationships, full of tips regarding interpersonal relationship ranging from how to appease the saleslady who has been on her feet all day into letting you see just one more box of shoes, to becoming a leader of your select group without raising any ire or offense, even the suspicion that you’re vying for that administrative spot. The book teaches the reader about handling people, to making them like you, and to swaying people to your thinking.Handed to me some years ago by a well-meaning adult, I thumbed through the book rather dubiously, nonetheless eager to get from it what I can. Dale Carnegie’s self-help book changed my life, in that it realized more than its promise of winning me friends and influencing people – the book allowed me to see, quite clearly, that people nowadays are not so open to your smiles and your and your interpersonal maneuvering, no ma tter how sincere and well-meaning you may be.Subliminal messages of kindness and camaraderie don’t go too well with people these days, compared to the in-text testimonials of people from fifty years before. To paraphrase a popular saying, the road to good intentions is paved with practiced smiles and the inevitable ire you’ll raise with all those smiles. Do not offend, says the book, be sincere about this. For example, the book encourages the reader to, well, smile, and do it with your heart and the purest of your intentions shining through.Take that saleslady for example: at the end of both your days, you give her a smile, and she forgets herself and scowls at you, perhaps thinking that you are another demanding customer, before she puts up the trained facade of fake cheerfulness and asks you, â€Å"What can I do for you, ma’am? † You attempt to finagle the cooperation of a colleague by underscoring his achievements, and then glossing over your own. Most ambitious individuals think of your praise as their right, and nod their acknowledgement, and move on, uninfluenced. It seems that any act of kindness will be misconstrued as one with dubious intentions.It becomes more apparent than ever before how cynical, jaded and world-weary human beings have become, until you smile at their direction for no apparent reason, with no agenda in mind. You are immediately treated with speculation and doubt, that with one smile, people see a wealth of malevolent planning and less-than-decent intentions behind it. And you can’t blame your skeptical audience. Practice the tenets of the book all you want, but then, you still end up following dictates regarding how to treat people better, mostly because you want something from them – be it friendship, agreement, respect or obedience.Ironically, in our desire to reach out to people with no malice, we do so motivated by our needs and demands from them. Basically, How to Win Friends and Influ ence People is the benevolent person’s guide to taking over the world, in his own way. And maybe therein lies the basic flaw in my character, and in all the other people I know who say that this book has â€Å"failed† them too, that perhaps I am not well-meaning enough for this, not considerate, not kind enough. And maybe, I, too, am far too cynical to believe that this book could actually work.But then the book can teach you to transcend this, as it claims to be a guide to making friends, to ensuring harmonious relationships between strangers, colleagues, friends and family. It enumerates and elaborates techniques and devices, from that sincere smile, to appreciation and praise, to downplaying your own merits in order to encourage the productivity of others – it is a self-help book about proper interaction with your fellow man. And perhaps that is the book’s ultimate failure, allowing us to see how cynical and jaded this world has become: that we actuall y need a self-help book to teach us how to be decent human beings.

Essay about The Odyssey - Gender Roles - 893 Words

The Odyssey is the product of a society in which the dominant role was played by men. In ancient Greece, just as in the whole of the ancient world, and in America and Western Europe until the last century, women occupied a subservient position. Society was organized and directed by men, and all of the most important enterprises were those which men arranged and implemented. Women were valued, but they participated in the affairs of the world only when they had the tacit or open approval and permission of the men who directed their lives. The literature of this sort of masculine society, of which the Iliad and Odyssey are examples, aptly illustrates these social conventions. The themes of these works are subjects which are of interest to†¦show more content†¦Finally, there is Athene, the goddess, who more than any other of these women, has the intelligence, sophistication, and independence that the modern world expects of a woman. The influential feminine strain in the Odysse y also has important effects upon the whole flavor of the poem. Many other early epics are characterized by coldness, morbidity, and brutality, caused by the subjects with which they deal. The virtues, such as courage and martial prowess, which are seen in the Iliad are impressive, but they are undistinguished and limited, for they exist in a world of mas-culine competition and warfare. It is only in the Odyssey, among early Greek works, that such familiar ideas as love, family loyalty, and devotion, and other such important ethical attitudes, are both illustrated and advocated. It is the presence of these unconscious moral lessons that makes the Odyssey so unique in its genre and produces its humanitarian and optimistic outlook. The nature of the events described in the Odyssey and the character of Odysseus necessitated that many women had to be present in its verses. Beyond this, however, the poet had a rather free hand in choosing how to deal with them. The women of the Odyssey c ould have been treated as casually and cavalierly as Andromache and Helen were in the Iliad. Homer, however, made another choice. In a way, the Odyssey is not just the tale of the wanderings of Odysseus. The poet has made it, also, into a type ofShow MoreRelatedAthena And Gender Roles During The Odyssey1776 Words   |  8 Pagesand work cited Athena and Gender Roles in the Odyssey The expectations of gender roles had a great impact on women in classical Greek society. In Ancient Greece, women were banned from entering the battlefield because warfare was seen more suitable for men, it is where they would show their strengths, physical courage and power. Women had no power or say as far as giving orders, their role was to stand behind their men. Homer shows that mortal men and women had exact roles to follow and were treatedRead MoreGender Roles Throughout History : The Odyssey, Romeo And Juliet1515 Words   |  7 Pages TITLE: STUDENT: GRADE: YEAR: SUBJECTS:  First Tesina Draft: Gender Roles throughout History Have you ever been told you couldn’t do something because of who you were? Have you ever felt inferior to someone else for something that was out of your control? Women have always rebelled against their traditional role in society. An illustration of this is how women have succeeded in a male dominated field such as science. We today have evolved greatly socially from the periods of ancientRead MoreFemale Characters Of Women During The Odyssey By F. Scott Fitzgerald1499 Words   |  6 Pagestranscribed The Odyssey, women were not even allowed to participate in the theatrical performances; male actors played the female characters. Despite these conditions, female characters are very prevalent in the epic, and many of them even exert their independence outside of traditional gender norms at the time. At the same time, however, these women still exhibit a level of subservience, representative of the social constraints. Even though various women play strong, importa nt roles in The Odyssey, theirRead MoreThe s The Odyssey, Lysistrata, And Clytemnestra1530 Words   |  7 Pagesliving within the society s norms fulfilling mostly guided roles like housework. While some works of the time presented women as mere housewives, others often put them in the position of political leaders, heroines, and murderers. The women that receive major roles in the stories such as Penelope in Homer s The Odyssey, Lysistrata in Aristophanes Lysistrata, and Clytemnestra in Aeschylus Agamemnon are major characters with important roles, thus breaking the traditions of normal culture during thisRead MoreMale Stereotypes In The Odyssey Of Homer701 Words   |  3 PagesMale Gender Stereotypes Gender stereotypes has been around for many decades, and have been passed on from generation to generation. These gender stereotypes play a big role in how people are looked upon in society. The ancient Greeks portrayed masculinity as being brave, strong, powerful, superior to women, and in no way feminine. Some of these male expectations are still maintained in society today. In the book â€Å"The Odyssey of Homer† written by Richmond Lattimore, there are many of the male expectationsRead MoreThe Penelopiad Analysis958 Words   |  4 Pagesnovel ‘The Odyssey’ . In an interview, Atwood explained her beliefs on the gender roles surround The Odyssey thus incorporating this as well as other materials into ‘The Penelopiad’ by stating: â€Å"There is an argument that has been made quite thoroughly that The Iliad and The Odyssey were written by two different people, and that the person who wrote The Odyssey was a woman.’ Atwood then carries on to explain her argument stating how several people have made the argument of how ‘The Odyssey’ was writtenRead MoreEssay on Gender in the Odyssey1002 Words   |  5 PagesX, Line 297) However, these traits and Odysseus ability are constantly challenged by the temptation of women. In the Odyssey, myriad examples of such temptation reflect the importance of gender and the role of women. Odysseus numerous interactions with women make this influence clear. A prime example of the importance of the roles of women in the Odyssey is their roles as seductresses. When Odysseus crew arrives on Circes island, they are attracted to Circes house because of the alluringRead MoreHelen Of The And The Odyssey1342 Words   |  6 Pagesnarrator is constantly trying to fit her into the box created the legacy of Helen of Tory/Odyssey. However, Helen of Omeros’ strong will and personality and overall uniqueness is still able to shine through, despite the narrator’s biases, and we are able to see the individual differences between the two women and their connection to the evolution of Helen throughout history. We only catch a glimpse of Helen in the Odyssey, but Helen in Walcott’s Omeros is portrayed much deeper. The word/name Helen, in generalRead MoreEast Vs. West Literature Essay931 Words   |  4 PagesThe Odyssey, and similar characteristics are also in Gilgamesh.   These types of literatures are so rich in their text and have so many different beliefs.   The Eastern and Western Literature compares throughout topics like gender roles, the influence of family, and afterlife beliefs. A stereotype or a set of normal that one does and is appropriate for their sexuality, gender roles. Comparing gender roles between the East and West, there are epics that prove this culture, such as, The Odyssey, BeowulfRead MoreThe Odyssey : The Role Of Women In Homers Odyssey966 Words   |  4 Pagesstory that showed different kinds of human interactions. The Odyssey portrays what is right or wrong in relationships between god and mortal, father and son, and man and woman. In the epic poem, the role of women is a vital demonstration of Ancient Greece. The women in the epic are unique in their personality, motives, and relationships towards men. In Homers, The Odyssey, all women are different, but all of them help to represent the role of the ideal woman. Homers epic describes the world of women