English Lyceum

“Sinners judging sinners for sinning differently” .

"Imagination is every thing. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions"... Albert Einstein

“The mind is furnished with ideas by experience alone” – John Locke

I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more,
The best and the last!
Robert Browning

Wonders of Life

There are about 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (7 octillion) atoms in your body...

The heaviest element within us is oxygen, which accounts for about 65% of our body mass. Oxygen atoms exist mostly as water molecules, in combination with the lighter (and more ancient) element hydrogen, whose origins stretch back to the Big Bang.

About 50-70% of our biology is made up of water. Every time you eat, drink or breathe in air you are absorbing atoms that will become "you."

We also release atoms daily, in fact about 98% of the atoms in our body are replaced each year. That means that "you" are quite literally a completely different person every New Year.

We exchange our atoms with the air, with the clouds, rivers, trees, flowers, insects and animals. We also take in energy every day, photons captured by plant leaves (through photosynthesis) as they stream to the Earth from the sun. We are 100% solar powered.

Paradoxically, while our bodies renew themselves constantly, at the deepest level we are ancient cosmic beings. Every atom of "you" is billions of years old, formed either in the Big Bang (over 13 billion years ago) or in stars that burst as supernovas approximately 5 to 12 billion years back, before our planet and solar system formed.

While oxygen (created in super nova explosions billions of years ago) accounts for most of our body mass it is actually hydrogen atoms (from the Big Bang) that are most plentiful, accounting for over half of the number of atoms in your body.

In a very deep sense we are the Universe, in human form. Something worth contemplating and celebrating? Wishing cosmic "you" a very Happy Holiday and New Year...

~Christopher::

"You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe, an intrinsic part of it. Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself. What an amazing miracle.” ~Eckhart Tolle

"We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree... Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of Nature, a unique action of the total Universe." ~Alan Watts

Cosmic Recipe for Earthlings | DiscoverMagazine.com Stars cook up nearly all of the approximately 60 atomic elements in people’s bodies. But exactly how that works remains a mystery. Astrophysicists have developed cutting-edge computer simulations to grapple with an array of related puzzles:

WHY I LOVE
I love those things that receive my least attention and yet they never ignore me, never leave, never ask questions, never complain, never show that they have been there for me, and they are there to remain there till death!
Wonder who they are?I wonder too that what they are and why they are.
One of them is the tree on my way; bigger than me, taller, larger. He doesn't need me. I'm of no use to him. But he is still there, remains there spring after spring, autumn after autumn. Just for me. I pass him daily, sometimes passing a look at him yet often without acknowledging even his presence. I'm sure that he doesn't need me. He, however, knows that ' I ' need him . He is sure that I need him even when I don't bother to have a single look at him. I ain't talking biologically. Anyway despite his angelic duty he's never demanding!
Then there are those tender, little blades of grass on my way, too small to be noticed. Why are they there without fear of being trampled down upon? No doubt they know that I'm futile for them . But somehow they have come to know that I need them most. It's not that by being there they are doing a favour to me . No . It's in their nature to be there for me.So they are (a lot of them) my love, my passion!!!

Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.” —Percy Bysshe Shelley

Nemesis

Definition:

In literature, the use of a nemesis refers to a situation of poetic justice wherein the positive characters are rewarded and the negative characters are penalized. The word also sometimes refers to the character or medium by which this justice is brought about as Nemesis was the patron goddess of vengeance according to classical mythology.

Example:

In the popular book series Harry Potter, the protagonist Harry Potter is the nemesis of the evil Lord Voldemort.

Polysyndeton

Definition:

Polysyndeton refers to the process of using conjunctions or connecting words frequently in a sentence, placed very close to one another. Opposed to the usual norm of using them sparsely, only where they are technically needed. The use of polysyndetons is primarily for adding dramatic effect as they have a strong rhetorical presence.

Example:

For example:

a) Saying “here and there and everywhere”, instead of simply saying “here, there and everywhere”.

Portmanteau

Definition:

In literature, this device refers to the practice of joining together two or more words in order to create an entirely new word. This is often done in order to create a name or word for something by combining the individual characteristics of 2 or more other words.

Example:

1. The word “smog” is a portmanteau that was built combining “fog” and “smoke” and “smog” has the properties of both fog and smoke.

2. Liger= Lion + Tiger= A hybrid of the two feline species, possessing characteristics of both.

Periphrasis

Definition:

The term ‘periphrasis’ refers to the use of excessive language and surplus words to convey a meaning that could otherwise be conveyed with fewer words and in more direct a manner. The use of this literary device can be to embellish a sentence, to create a grander effect, to beat around the bush and to draw attention away from the crux of the message being conveyed.

Example:

Instead of simply saying “I am displeased with your behavior”, one can say, “the manner in which you have conducted yourself in my presence of late has caused me to feel uncomfortable and has resulted in my feeling disgruntled and disappointed with you”.

Inversion

Definition:

The term ‘inversion’ refers to the practice of changing the conventional placement of words. It is a literary practice typical of the older classical poetry genre. In present day literature it is usually used for the purpose of laying emphasis this literary device is more prevalent in poetry than prose because it helps to arrange the poem in a manner that catches the attention of the reader not only with its content but also with its physical appearance; a result of the peculiar structuring.

Example:

In the much known and read Paradise Lost, Milton wrote:

“Of Man's First Disobedience, and the Fruit

Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste

Spoonerism

Definition:

Spoonerism refers to the practice of interchanging the first letters of some words in order to create new words or even to create nonsensical words in order to create a humorous setting. While they are often unintentional and known as a “slip of the tongue”, in literature they are welcomed as witty wordplay.

Example:

The phrase “flesh and blood” being spoken as a character as “blesh and flood” in urgency and heightened emotion.

Synecdoche

Definition:

A synecdoche is a literary devices that uses a part of something to refer to the whole or vice versa. It is somewhat rhetorical in nature, where the entire object is represented by way of a fraction of it or a fraction of the object is symbolized by the whole.

Example:

“Weary feet in the walk of life”, does not refer to the feet actually being tired or painful; it is symbolic of a long, hard struggle through the journey of life and feeling low, tired, unoptimistic and ‘the walk of life’ does not represent an actual path or distance covered, instead refers to the entire sequence of life events that has made the person tired.

Anthropomorphism

Definition:

Anthropomorphism can be understood to be the act of lending a human quality, emotion or ambition to a non-human object or being. This act of lending a human element to a non-human subject is often employed in order to endear the latter to the readers or audience and increase the level of relativity between the two while also lending character to the subject.

Example:

The raging storm brought with it howling winds and fierce lightning as the residents of the village looked up at the angry skies in alarm.

“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance” – Socrates