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People relate to landscapes through tactile and visual experience of surfaces around them, beneath their feet and in their hands. Textures are most immediate and close physical contact with the landscape. Ploughing, grazing, clearance – create distinctive textures of surface, some of them deliberately created for the properties of the texture itself. Textures incorporate time; they are result of a slow but constant change of the very texture of surface. Mundane practices which might have a minimum impact on the surface can in a long term combine to form a distinctive textures. Aerial photographs and high resolution topographic data is full of textures. We tend to ignore them and focus solely on "features", traces. What can we do with textures? How can they be harnessed for deciphering the biography of surfaces and the way people interacted with the land in close physical contact? In the modern, Western, world the visual sense has primacy over the other senses. Since sixteenth century, vision has become increasingly important in how we engage with and understand our world, with the other senses marginalised. The visual became considered the most reliable form of representation. Archaeology, and especially aerial archaeology, has come to rely almost solely on vision for both the collection of data and the dissemination of information. Visual sense turns us into spectators, detached and distanced from the object of study. Landscape becomes a particular way of seeing and representing the world from an elevated, detached and even ‘objective’ vantage point, --- as an artistic genre and a culturally conditioned habit of visual perception, unique to European, Western societies. In this way visual technologies (photographs,... ...worth exploring. Textures offer access into the richness and immediacy of the perceivable world and allow us to enmesh with it. When we turn the eye in the organ of touch, we are able to see the â€Å"stuff† of landscape rather than its â€Å"things.† It is highly subjective, embodied view of the world, but one that helps us to "understands materiality" of the landscape. Dwelling in the landscape is about the rich intimate, ongoing â€Å"togetherness† of beings and things which make up textures and which, over time, bind together nature and culture. Textures blur the nature/culture divide and emphasise the material and temporal nature of landscape. In this way, landscape is a never finished process of weaving, â€Å"entanglement", of materials and activities. And they can perhaps to help us to reflect what we really see when we interpret aerophotos and lidar imagery.

The tale of Beowulf

The tale of Beowulf begins and ends with the funeral of great kings. The funerals represented in this tale are decorated with rites that derive from the cultural traditions of the kings being laid to rest. Scyld Scefing is entombed within a barge decorated with signs of his accomplishments, while com/beowulf-as-an-epic-hero/">Beowulf is enshrined within a barrow filled with relics of his rule. Yet within these traditional burials one can find traces of the men themselves as each makes requests that lead to the distinctiveness of their burials.This allows the funerals to become particularly distinctive as the author makes use of the elements, such as earth, fire, and water (Smith). Each funeral defines the symbolic ideas of motion versus grounded-ness represented in the lives of these two men, and the method in which each is carried out emphasizes the opposite ways in which they entered their lands and mounted their thrones. The funerals of both men are representative of their persona lities as shown through their deeds and the ways in which they lived their lives. Though both men were valiant warriors and kings, their lives as youths and kings appear to be very different.The movement characteristic of Scyld Scefing’s funeral represents a continuation of the boldness and vigor with which he sailed through life. His life was continually one of forward motion from low to high estate, and he does not cease this motion in his death. The poem continues, â€Å"Forth he fared at the fated moment, sturdy Scyld to the shelter of God† (lines 26-27). His clansmen and subjects seem determined that their king should keep moving though he has been cut off from life, as they immediately â€Å"bore him over to ocean’s billow† (line 28).He is placed on a barge that is taken by the floods to an even higher and more celebrated place, and the words used by the author to describe this continue this motif of motion to an even higher estate. Such words and p hrases as â€Å"outbound† highlight this motion, and as â€Å"No man is able to say in sooth [†¦] who harbored that freight,† his burial demonstrates that his resting place could mean yet another promotion for this king who had risen from foundling to royalty. The funeral given Beowulf differs greatly from that granted Scyld Scefing.Beowulf’s rites represent that of a more grounded king who had been home grown and bred specifically to become royalty. His funeral demonstrates no great motion, as his lineage is anchored and steeped in royalty. The rites take place within the land of his birth, and his tomb is laid upon a foundation of the soil upon which his ancestors walked. The writer establishes this in his recounting of the events: â€Å"They fashioned for him the folk of Geats firm on the earth a funeral-pile† (line 2821). The firmness with which this tomb is established upon the earth symbolizes the strength of Beowulf’s roots within his h omeland.Around this is erected a wall, and this further strengthen’s Beowulf’s position as a foundational leader of his land. The monuments given to house this leader are built into the ground of the kingdom and given foundations akin to the roots that one finds in Beowulf’s lineage. His burial is akin to burying treasure (gold and precious stones), â€Å"trusting the ground with treasures of earls, gold in the earth† (2850), and this is in essence an act of giving back to the earth the treasure it has afforded. The funerals of Scefing and Beowulf also differ in the elements that attend each.According to critic George Clark in his essay â€Å"Beowulf’s Armor, † â€Å"Each funeral places the final offering of arms and armor and treasure in the context of one of the elements, water, fire, or earth† (429). While water is the dominant element in Scefing’s funeral, fire is used to herald the burial of Beowulf. The significance of th e water for Scefing derives mainly from his history, as he was borne to the Danes on a small vessel as an abandoned infant. The water represents the deep, the void from which the king came and to which he is allowed to return.The story comes full circle for this king, as he is again borne away at the end of his life, given back to the water that offered him to the Danes. This is done on purpose by his clansmen, and highlighted by the narrator who writes, â€Å"No less these loaded the lordly gifts, thanes' huge treasure, than those had done who in former time forth had sent him sole on the seas, a suckling child† (lines 43-46). He is again sent by himself â€Å"on the seas† into the unknown belly of the flood which had offered him up as a child.The fire for Beowulf is the opposite of this water, and this might also be seen as a reference to difference in his birth and youth. However, the narrative continues, â€Å"Wood-smoke rose black over blaze, and blent was the ro ar of flame with weeping (the wind was still), till the fire had broken the frame of bones† (2827-30). While the water takes Scefing away from the land, Beowulf’s fire offers up incense that rises and, as the ashes fall, remains forever mingled with the soil in the land of his birth.The narrator mentions that the wind was still, emphasizing the idea that no part of Beowulf’s burnt body or ashes is allowed to fly beyond the land of his birth and rule. He utterly belongs to this land, and the roaring of the fire becomes a dirge that rises and mingles with the sound of his subjects’ weeping. Yet the reader gets the feeling that Beowulf is not lost to his people. This fire is allowed to burn beyond Beowulf’s bones, consuming his flesh and, as â€Å"the smoke was by the sky devoured† (2838), the fire sends up Beowulf’s essence as a protection and covering for his land and people.Though the lives of Scefing and Beowulf were similar in many w ays, they also differed in some very significant areas that have to do with how they came to be king. While Scefing begins life as a foundling and sustains upward motion that raises him to the estate of ruler, Beowulf is born a prince whose roots are grounded in his homeland. The elements used to represent these two men are also representative of their origins. Water is used to symbolize the rootless Scefing, while fire and earth symbolize Beowulf’s grounded ancestry.Both men are treasured by their people, yet allowed to fulfill their destinies by drifting or remaining rooted as has been their custom. Works Cited Beowulf. The Harvard Classics, Volume 49. Frances B. Grummere (Trans. ) 1910. P. F. Collier & Son, 1993. Clark, George. â€Å"Beowulf’s Armor. † ELH. Vol. 32. No. 4. Dec. 1965. pp. 409-441. Smith, Jennifer. â€Å"Paradise Lost and Beowulf: The Christian/Pagan Hybrids of the Epic Tradition. † Department of English. Long Beach: California State University. http://www. csulb. edu/~jsmith10/miltbeow. htm

The English Bildungsroman Essay - 1678 Words

The English Bildungsroman The novel has a strong tradition in English literature. In Great Britain, it can trace its roots back to Daniel Defoes Robinson Crusoe in 1719 (Kroll 23). Since then, the British novel has grown in popularity. It was especially popular in Victorian England. The type of novel that was particularly popular in Victorian England was the novel of youth. Many authors of the time were producing works focused on the journey from childhood to adulthood: Charlotte Bronte wrote Jane Eyre, George Eliot wrote The Mill on the Floss, and Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield and Great Expectations. All of these novels trace the growth of a child. In this respect, some of the most popular novels of the nineteenth†¦show more content†¦Similarly, the Bildungsroman is characterized by the growth, education, and development of a character both in the world and ultimately within himself. The Bildungsroman is subcategorized into very specific types of the genre, most often found in German literature. There is the Entwicklungsroman, which can be defined as a chronicle of a young mans general growth rather than his specific quest for self-culture (Buckley 13). In other words, a story recounting a mans life rather than focusing on the inner changes that contribute to his maturity. Another form within German literature is the Erziehungsroman; this form is primarily concerned with the protagonists actual educational process (Buckley 13). Again, the concern is not the overall development of the main character, but a specific aspect of that characters life. Finally, there is the Kunstlerroman. The root Kunstler translates as artist in English. Therefore, this is the development of the artist from childhood until his artistic maturity, focusing on the man as artist rather than the man in general. Dickens David Copperfield and James Joyces A Portrait of the Artist as a Young M an are both examples of English Kunstlerroman, as the protagonists of both books are writers (Buckley 13). These categories, while strict within German literature, are more free within English literature. For the most part, it is (within English literature) aShow MoreRelatedBildungsroman Essay658 Words   |  3 PagesBildungsroman After studying the term Bildungsroman, I have drawn the conclusion that the novel Oranges are not the Only Fruit would fall directly underneath this genre of literature. Bildungsroman is defined as a novel of formation or a novel of someones growth from childhood to maturity. (Lynch) In this formation, there are a few key elements that must be present for a novel to fall under this specific genre. 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