Lake

Geologically speaking, most lakes are young. The natural results of erosion will tend to wear away one of the basin sides containing the lake, such as the shores of Lake Baikal in Russia which is estimated to be 25 – 30 million years old. There are a number of natural processes that can form lakes. A recent tectonic uplift of a mountain range can create bowl-shaped depressions that accumulate water and form lakes. The advance and retreat of glaciers can scrape depressions in the surface where lakes accumulate; such lakes are common in Scandinavia, Patagonia, Siberia and Canada. Lakes can also form by means of landslides or by glacial blockages. An example of the latter occurred during the last ice age in the US state of Washington, when a huge lake formed behind a glacial flow; when the ice retreated, the result was an immense flood that created the Dry Falls at Sun Lakes, Washington.
Salt crystals, on the shore of Lake Urmia, Iran
Salt crystals, on the shore of Lake Urmia, Iran

Salt lakes (also called saline lakes) can form where there is no natural outlet or where the water evaporates rapidly, and the drainage surface of the water table has a higher than normal salt content. Examples of salt lakes include Great Salt Lake, the Caspian Sea, the Aral Sea and the Dead Sea.

Small, crescent-shaped lakes called oxbow lakes can form in river valleys as the result of meandering. The slow-moving river forms a sinuous shape as the outer side of bends are eroded away more rapidly than the inner side. Eventually a horseshoe bend is formed and the river cuts through the narrow neck. This new passage then forms the main passage for the river and the ends of the bend become silted up, thus forming a bow-shaped lake.

Lake Vostok is a subglacial lake in Antarctica, possibly the largest in the world. The pressure from ice and the internal chemical composition means that if the lake were drilled into, it may result in a fissure which would spray in a similar fashion to a geyser.

Some lakes, such as Lake Baikal and Lake Tanganyika lie along continental rift zones, and are created by the crust's subsidence as two plates are pulled apart. These lakes are the oldest and deepest in the world, and may be destined over millions of years to become oceans. The Red Sea is thought to have originated as a rift valley lake.

Crater Lake in Oregon, USA is a lake located within the caldera of Mount Mazama. The caldera was created in a massive volcanic eruption that lead to the subsidence of Mount Mazama around 4860 BC. Since that time, all eruptions on Mazama have been confined to the caldera.

Some lakes, such as Lake Jackson, USA come into existence as a result of sinkhole activity.

[edit] Types of lakes
One of the many artificial lakes in Arizona at sunset.
One of the many artificial lakes in Arizona at sunset.

* Periglacial: Part of the lake's margin is formed by an ice sheet, ice cap or glacier, the ice having obstructed the natural drainage of the land.
* Subglacial: A lake which is permanently covered by ice. They can occur under glaciers and ice caps or ice sheets. There are many such lakes, but Lake Vostok in Antarctica is by far the largest. They are kept liquid because the overlying ice acts as a thermal insulator retaining energy introduced to its underside by friction, water percolating through crevasses, by the pressure from the mass of the ice sheet above or by geothermal heating below.
* Artificial, also called a reservoir: A lake created by flooding land behind a dam, by human excavation, or by the flooding of an open pit mine. Some of the world's largest lakes are reservoirs. Husain Sagar is a reservoir in India built in 1562.
* Endorheic, also called terminal or closed: A lake which has no significant outflow, either through rivers, or underground diffusion. Any water within an endorheic basin leaves the system only through evaporation. These lakes are most common in desert locations, such as Lake Eyre in central Australia or the Aral Sea in central Asia.
* Meromictic: A lake which has layers of water which do not intermix. The deepest layer of water in such a lake does not contain any dissolved oxygen. The layers of sediment at the bottom of a meromictic lake remain relatively undisturbed because there are no living organisms to stir them up.
* Fjord lake: A lake in a glacially eroded valley, which has been eroded below sea level.
* Oxbow: A lake which is formed when a wide meander from a stream or a river is cut off to form a lake. They are called oxbow lakes due to the distinctive curved shape that results from this process.
* Rift lakes: A lake which forms as a result of subsidence along a geological fault in the Earth's tectonic plates. Examples include the Rift Valley lakes of eastern Africa and Lake Baikal in Siberia.
* Underground: A lake which is formed under the surface of the Earth's crust. Such a lake may be associated with caves and aquifers and springs.

The crater lake of Volcán Irazú, Costa Rica.
The crater lake of Volcán Irazú, Costa Rica.

* Crater: A lake which forms in volcanic calderas or craters after the volcano has been inactive for some time. Water in these types of lakes may be fresh, or highly acidic, and may contain various dissolved minerals. Some also have geothermal activity, especially if the volcano is merely dormant rather than extinct.
* Lava: A pool of molten lava contained in a volcanic crater or other depression. Lava lakes that have partly or completely solidified are also referred to as lava lakes.
* Former: A lake which is no longer in existence. Such lakes include prehistoric lakes, and lakes which have permanently dried up through evaporation or human intervention. Owens Lake in California, USA is an example of a former lake. Former lakes are a common feature of the Basin and Range area of south-western North America.
* Shrunken: Closely related to former lakes, a shrunken lake is one which has drastically decreased in size over geological time. Lake Agassiz is a good example of a shrunken lake, which covered much of central North America. Some notable remnants of this lake are Lake Winnipeg, and Lake Winnipegosis.

[edit] Characteristics
Lake Mapourika, New Zealand
Lake Mapourika, New Zealand

Lakes have numerous features in addition to lake type, such as (but not limited to) drainage basin (also known as catchment area), inflow, and outflow, nutrient content, dissolved oxygen, pollutants, pH, and sedimentation.

The change in level of a lake is controlled by the difference between the sources of inflow and outflow, compared to the total volume of the lake. The significant input sources are precipitation onto the lake; runoff carried by streams and channels from the lake's catchment area; groundwater channels and aquifers; and artificial sources from outside the catchment area. Output sources are evaporation from the lake; surface and groundwater flows; and any extraction of lake water by humans. As climate conditions and human water requirements vary, these will create fluctuations in the lake level.

Lakes can be also categorized on the basis of their richness of nutrients, which typically affects plant growth. Nutrient-poor lakes are said to be oligotrophic and are generally clear, having a low concentration of plant life. Mesotrophic lakes have good clarity and an average level of nutrients. Eutrophic lakes are enriched with nutrients, resulting in good plant growth and possible algal blooms. And hypertrophic lakes are bodies of water that have been excessively enriched with nutrients. These lakes typically have poor clarity and are subject to devastating algal blooms. Lakes typically reach this condition due to human activities, such as heavy use of fertilizers in the lake catchment area. Such lakes are of little use to humans, and have a poor ecosystem due to decreased dissolved oxygen.
Lake Teletskoye, Siberia.
Lake Teletskoye, Siberia.

Due to the unusual relationship between water's temperature and its density, lakes form layers called thermoclines which are layers of drastically varying temperature relative to depth. Fresh water is most dense at about 4 degrees Celsius (39.2 °F) at sea level. When the temperature of the water at the surface of a lake reaches the same temperature as deeper water (such as during the cooler months in temperate climates), the water in the lake can mix, bringing oxygen starved water up from the depths, and bringing oxygen down to decomposing sediments. Deep temperate lakes can maintain a reservoir of cold water year-round which allows some cities to tap that reservoir for deep lake water cooling.

Since the surface water of deep tropical lakes never reaches the temperature where water reaches its maximum density, there is no process that makes the water mix. The deeper layer becomes oxygen starved, and can become saturated with carbon dioxide, or other gases such as sulfur dioxide if there is even a trace of volcanic activity. Exceptional events, such as earthquakes or landslides, can cause mixing which rapidly brings up the deep layers, and can release a vast cloud of toxic gases which lay trapped at the bottom of the lake. An example of such a release is Lake Nyos in Cameroon. The amount of gas that can be dissolved in water is directly related to pressure. As the previously deep water surfaces, the pressure drops, and a vast amount of gas comes out of solution. Under these circumstances even carbon dioxide is toxic because it is heavier than air and displaces oxygen, so it may flow down the river valley to human or livestock settlements and cause mass asphyxiation.

The material at the bottom of a lake or lake bed may be composed of a wide variety of materials, including inorganics such as silt or sand sediments, and organic material such as decaying plant or animal matter. The composition of the lake bed has a significant impact on the flora and fauna found within the lake's environs by contributing to the amounts and the types of nutrients available.

[edit] Limnology

Main article: Limnology

Lake Billy Chinook, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon.
Lake Billy Chinook, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon.

Limnology is the study of inland bodies of water and related ecosystems, and divides lakes in three zones: littoral zone, which is a sloped area that is close to land; photic or open-water zone, where sunlight is abundant; and deep-water profundal or benthic zone, where little sunlight can reach. The depth which light can reach in lakes depends on the density and motion of particles. These particles can be sedimentary or biological in origin and are responsible for the color of the water. Decaying plant matter, for instance, may be responsible for a yellow or brown color, while algae may result in greenish water. In very shallow water bodies, iron oxides make water reddish brown. Biological particles are algae and detritus. A sediment particle is in suspension if its weight is less than the random turbidity forces acting upon it. The turbidity is a decisive factor in the transparency of the water. Bottom-dwelling detritivorous fish are responsible for turbid waters, because they stir the mud in search for food. Piscivorous fish eat plant-eating (planktonivorous) fish, thus increasing the amount of algae (see aquatic trophic cascade). The light depth or transparency is measured by using a Secchi disk. This is a 20 cm (8 in) disk with alternating white and black quadrants. The depth at which the disk is no longer visible, is the Secchi depth, and is a measure for transparency. It is commonly used to test eutrophication. For a detailed look at these processes, see lentic system ecology.

A lake moderates the surrounding region's temperature and climate because water has a very high specific heat capacity (4,186 J·kg−1·K−1). In the daytime, the lake can cool the land beside it with local winds, resulting in a sea breeze; in the night, it can warm it, forming a land breeze.

[edit] How lakes disappear
Lake Chad in a 2001 satellite image, with the actual lake in blue, and vegetation on top of the old lake bed in green. Above that, the changes from 1973 to 1997 are shown.
Lake Chad in a 2001 satellite image, with the actual lake in blue, and vegetation on top of the old lake bed in green. Above that, the changes from 1973 to 1997 are shown.

A lake may be infilled with deposited sediment, and gradually, the lake becomes a wetland, such as a swamp or marsh. An important difference exists between lowland and highland lakes: lowland lakes are more placid, are less rocky/more sedimentary, have a less sloping bottom, and generally contain more plant life. Large water plants (typically reeds) accelerate this closing process significantly because they partially decompose to form peat soils that fill shallows of lakes. Conversely a peat soils in a marsh can naturally burn and reverse this process to recreate a shallow lake. Turbid lakes, and lakes with much plant-eating fish, tend to disappear slower. A "disappearing" lake (barely noticeable on a human timescale) typically has a water's edge with extensive plant mats. They become a new habitat for other plants (like peat moss, when conditions are right) and animals, many of which are very rare. Gradually, the lake closes, and young peat may form, forming a fen. In lowland river valleys (allowing the river to meander), the presence of peat is explained by the closing of historical oxbow lakes. In the very last stages of succession, more trees would grow in, eventually turning the wetland into a forest.

Some lakes can also disappear seasonally; they are called intermittent lakes and are typical of karstic terrain. A prime example of this is Lake Cerknica in Slovenia. On 3 June 2005 in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia, a lake called Lake Beloye vanished in a short period of time (minutes). News sources reported government officials theorized that this strange phenomena may have been caused by a shift on soil underneath the lake which drained water to channels leading to Oka River.[1]

The presence of ground permafrost is also important to lake persistence. According to research published in the journal Science ("Disappearing Arctic Lakes," June 2005), thawing permafrost may explain the shrinking or disappearance of hundreds of large Arctic lakes across western Siberia. The idea here is that rising air and soil temperatures thaw permafrost, allowing the lakes to drain away into the ground.

Neusiedler See, located in Austria and Hungary, dried up several times for a number years during the past centuries. As of 2005, it is again rapidly losing water, giving rise to the fear that it will be completely dried up by 2010.

Some lakes disappear because of human development factors. The shrinking Aral Sea is described as being "murdered" by the intended diversion of rivers feeding the lake for irrigation.

See also: Prairie Lake

[edit] Extraterrestrial lakes
Io exhibits extraordinary variations in color and brightness as shown in this color-enhanced image.
Io exhibits extraordinary variations in color and brightness as shown in this color-enhanced image.

At present the surface of the planet Mars is too cold and has too little atmospheric pressure to permit pooling of liquid water on the surface. However geologic evidence appears to confirm that ancient lakes once formed on the surface. It is also possible that volcanic activity on Mars will occasionally melt the subsurface ice, forming large lakes. Under current conditions this water will quickly evaporate or freeze unless insulated in some manner, such as by a coating of volcanic ash.

Jupiter's small moon Io is volcanically active due to tidal stresses, and as a result sulfur deposits have accumulated on the surface. Some photographs taken during the Galileo mission appear to show lakes of liquid sulfur on the surface.

There are dark basaltic plains on the Moon, similar to lunar maria but smaller, that are called lacus (singular lacus, Latin for "lake"). They were once thought by early astronomers to be literal lakes.

On July 24, 2006 photos brought in by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft give a strong evidence for the existence of methane or ethane lakes on Titan.

[edit] Notable lakes
Lakes on Titan
Lakes on Titan

* The largest lake in the world by surface area is the Caspian Sea. With a surface area of 394,299 km², it has a surface area greater than the next six largest lakes combined.
* The deepest lake is Lake Baikal in Siberia, with a bottom at 1,637 m (5,371 ft.) and is the world's largest freshwater lake by volume.
* The world's oldest lake is Lake Baikal, followed by Lake Tanganyika (Tanzania).
* The world's highest lake is an unnamed pool on Ojos del Salado at 6390m, [2] the Lhagba Pool in Tibet at 6,368 m comes second.[3]
* The world's highest commercially navigable lake is Lake Titicaca in Bolivia at 3,812 m. It is also the largest freshwater (and second largest overall) lake in South America.
* The world's lowest lake is the Dead Sea bordering Israel, Jordan and the West Bank at 418 m (1,371 ft) below sea level. It is also one of the lakes with highest salt concentration.
* The largest freshwater lake by surface area, and third largest by volume, is Lake Superior with a surface area of 82,414 km². However, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan form a single hydrological system with surface area 117,350 km², sometimes designated Lake Michigan-Huron. All these are part of the Great Lakes of North America.
* The largest island in a freshwater lake is Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, with a surface area of 2,766 km². Lake Manitou, located on Manitoulin Island, is the largest lake on an island in a freshwater lake.
* The largest lake located on an island is Nettilling Lake on Baffin Island.
* The largest lake in the world that drains naturally in two directions is Wollaston Lake.
* Lake Toba on the island of Sumatra is located in what is probably the largest resurgent caldera on Earth.
* The largest lake located completely within the boundaries of a single city is Lake Wanapitei in the city of Greater Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Before the current city boundaries came into effect in 2001, this status was held by Lake Ramsey, also in Sudbury.
* Lake Enriquillo in Dominican Republic is the only saltwater lake in the world inhabited by crocodiles.

[edit] Largest by continent

The largest lakes (surface area) by continent are:

* Africa - Lake Victoria, also the second largest freshwater lake on Earth. It is one of the Great Lakes of Africa.
* Antarctica - Lake Vostok (subglacial)
* Asia - Caspian Sea, also the largest on Earth.
* Australia - Lake Eyre
* Europe - Lake Ladoga, followed by Lake Onega, both located in northwestern Russia.
* North America - Lake Superior
* South America - Lake Titicaca, which is also the highest navigable body of water on Earth at 3,821 m above sea level.

Friendship

Friendship is considered one of the central human experiences, and has been sanctified by all major religions. The Epic of Gilgamesh, a Babylonian poem that is among the earliest known literary works in history, chronicles in great depth the friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu. The Greco-Roman had, as a paramount example, the friendship of Orestes and Pylades. The Abrahamic faiths have the story of David and Jonathan. The Christian Gospels state that Jesus Christ declared, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."(John 15:13)

In philosophy, Aristotle is perhaps best known for his discussion (in the Nicomachean Ethics) of philia, which is usually (somewhat misleadingly) translated as "friendship", and certainly included friendship, though is a much broader concept.

[edit] Cultural variations
This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

A group of friends consists of two or more people who are in a mutually pleasing relationship engendering a sentiment of camaraderie, exclusivity and mutual trust. There are varying degrees of "closeness" between friends. Hence, some people choose to differentiate and categorize friendships based on this sentiment.

[edit] Russia

The relationship is constructed differently in different cultures. In Russia, for example, one typically accords very few people the status of "friend". These friendships however make up in intensity what they lack in number. Friends are entitled to call each other by their first names alone, and to use diminutives. A norm of polite behaviour is addressing "acquaintances" by full first name plus patronymic. These could include relationships which elsewhere would be qualified as real friendships, such as workplace relationships of long standing, neighbors with whom one shares an occasional meal and visit, and so on. Physical contact between friends is expected, and friends, whether or not of the same sex, will embrace, sometimes kiss and walk in public with their arms around each other, or arm-in-arm, or hand-in-hand (like kids often do), without the slightest embarrassment or sexual connotation — this is not often seen in the modern Russia, and may be some highly outdated norm.

According to Oleg Kharkhordin in a paper on the politics of friendship, in Soviet society, friendships were "a suspect value for the Stalinist regime" in that they presented a stronger allegiance that could stand in possible opposition to allegiance to the Communist party. "By definition, a friend was an individual who would not let you down even under direct menace to him- or herself; a person to whom one could securely entrust one's controversial thoughts since he or she would never betray them, even under pressure. Friendship thus in a sense became an ultimate value produced in resistance struggles in the Soviet Union". [1]

Greece

In Ancient Greece, in a text in defence of pederasty, Plato asserts: "the interests of rulers require that their subjects should be poor in spirit, and that there should be no strong bond of friendship or society among them, which love, above all other motives, is likely to inspire, as our Athenian tyrants learned by experience; for the love of Aristogeiton and the constancy of Harmodius had a strength which undid their power." (Symposium; 182c)

For Aristotle's position, see Philia.

Asia

In the Middle East and Central Asia male friendships, while less restricted than in Russia, tend also to be reserved and respectable in nature.

Modern west

In the Western world, intimate physical contact has been sexualised in the public mind over the last one hundred years and is considered taboo in friendship, especially between two males. However, stylized hugging or kissing may be considered acceptable, depending on the context (see, for example, the kiss the tramp gives the kid in The Kid). In Spain and other Mediterranean countries men may embrace each other in public and kiss each other on the cheek. This is not limited solely to older generations but rather is present throughout all generations. In Young children throughout the modern western world, friendship, usually of a homosocial nature, typically exhibits elements of a closeness and intimacy suppressed later in life in order to conform to societal standards.

Decline of friendship

The number and quality of friendships for the average American has been declining since at least 1985, according to a 2006 study.[1] The study states that 25% of Americans have no close confidants, and that the total number of confidants per person has dropped to 2.

In recent times, some thinkers have postulated that modern friendships have lost the force and importance that they had in antiquity. C. S. Lewis for example, in his The Four Loves, writes:

"To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it. We admit of course that besides a wife and family a man needs a few 'friends'. But the very tone of the admission, and the sort of acquaintanceships which those who make it would describe as 'friendships', show clearly that what they are talking about has very little to do with that Philia which Aristotle classified among the virtues or that Amicitia on which Cicero wrote a book."

Likewise, Paul Halsall claims that:

"The intense emotional and affective relationships described in the past as "non-sexual" cannot be said to exist today: modern heterosexual men can be buddies, but unless drunk they cannot touch each other, or regularly sleep together. They cannot affirm that an emotional affective relationship with another man is the centrally important relationship in their lives. It is not going too far, is it, to claim that friendship – if used to translate Greek philia or Latin amicitia – hardly exists among heterosexual men in modern Western society."

Mark McLelland, writing in the Western Buddhist Review under his Buddhist name of Dharmachari Jñanavira (Article), more directly points to homophobia being at the root of a modern decline in the western tradition of friendship:

"Hence, in our cultural context where homosexual desire has for centuries been considered sinful, unnatural and a great evil, the experience of homoerotic desire can be very traumatic for some individuals and severely limit the potential for same-sex friendship. The Danish sociologist Henning Bech, for instance, writes of the anxiety which often accompanies developing intimacy between male friends:

"'The more one has to assure oneself that one's relationship with another man is not homosexual, the more conscious one becomes that it might be, and the more necessary it becomes to protect oneself against it. The result is that friendship gradually becomes impossible.'"

Their opinion that fear of being, or being seen as, homosexual has killed off western man's ability to form close friendships with other men is shared by Japanese psychologist Doi Takeo, who claims that male friendships in American society are fraught with homosexual anxiety and thus homophobia is a limiting factor stopping men from establishing deep friendships with other men.

The suggestion that friendship contains an ineluctable element of erotic desire is not new, but has been advanced by students of friendship ever since the time of the ancient Greeks, where it comes up in the writings of Plato. More recently, the Austrian philosopher Otto Weininger claimed that:

"There is no friendship between men that has not an element of sexuality in it, however little accentuated it may be in the nature of the friendship, and however painful the idea of the sexual element would be. But it is enough to remember that there can be no friendship unless there has been some attraction to draw the men together. Much of the affection, protection, and nepotism between men is due to the presence of unsuspected sexual compatibility." (Sex and Character, 1903)

Recent western scholarship in gender theory and feminism concurs, as reflected in the writings of Eve Sedgwick in her The Epistemology of the Closet, and Jonathan Dollimore in his Sexual Dissidence and Cultural Change: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucaul|


Developmental issues

In the sequence of the emotional development of the individual, friendships come after parental bonding and before the pair bonding engaged in at the approach of maturity. In the intervening period between the end of early childhood and the onset of full adulthood, friendships are often the most important relationships in the emotional life of the adolescent, and are often more intense than relationships later in life. However making friends seems to trouble lots of people; sometimes going years without a single friend can lead to suicide.

Poetry

Poetry

Poetry (from the Greek "ποίησις," poiesis, a "making" or "creating") is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning. Poetry may be written independently, as discrete poems, or may occur in conjunction with other arts, as in poetic drama, hymns or lyrics.

Poetry, and discussions of it, have a long history. Early attempts to define poetry, such as Aristotle's Poetics, focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song and comedy.[1] Later attempts concentrated on features such as repetition and rhyme, and emphasised the aesthetics which distinguish poetry from prose.[2] From the mid-20th century, poetry has sometimes been more loosely defined as a fundamental creative act using language.[3]

Poetry often uses particular forms and conventions to expand the literal meaning of the words, or to evoke emotional or sensual responses. Devices such as assonance, alliteration and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects. Poetry's use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony and other stylistic elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly, metaphor and simile create a resonance between otherwise disparate images—a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between individual verses, in their patterns of rhyme or rhythm.

Some forms of poetry are specific to particular cultures and genres, responding to the characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. While readers accustomed to identifying poetry with Dante, Goethe, Mickiewicz and Rumi may think of it as being written in rhyming lines and regular meter, there are traditions, such as those of Du Fu and Beowulf, that use other approaches to achieve rhythm and euphony. In today's globalized world, poets often borrow styles, techniques and forms from diverse cultures and languages.


History


Poetry as an art form may predate literacy.[4] Many ancient works, from the Vedas (1700–1200 BC) to the Odyssey (800–675 BC), appear to have been composed in poetic form to aid memorization and oral transmission, in prehistoric and ancient societies.[5] Poetry appears among the earliest records of most literate cultures, with poetic fragments found on early monoliths, rune stones and stelae.

The oldest surviving poem is the Epic of Gilgamesh, from the 3rd millennium BC in Sumer (in Iraq/Mesopotamia), which was written in cuneiform script on clay tablets and, later, papyrus.[6] Other ancient epic poetry includes the Greek epics, Iliad and Odyssey, and the Indian epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata.

The efforts of ancient thinkers to determine what makes poetry distinctive as a form, and what distinguishes good poetry from bad, resulted in "poetics" — the study of the aesthetics of poetry. Some ancient societies, such as the Chinese through the Shi Jing, one of the Five Classics of Confucianism, developed canons of poetic works that had ritual as well as aesthetic importance. More recently, thinkers have struggled to find a definition that could encompass formal differences as great as those between Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Matsuo Bashō's Oku no Hosomichi, as well as differences in context spanning Tanakh religious poetry, love poetry, and rap.[7]
Paul Valéry, drawn by himself.
Paul Valéry, drawn by himself.

Context can be critical to poetics and to the development of poetic genres and forms. Poetry that records historic events in epics, such as Gilgamesh or Ferdowsi's Shahnameh,[8] will necessarily be lengthy and narrative, while poetry used for liturgical purposes (hymns, psalms, suras and hadiths) is likely to have an inspirational tone, whereas elegy and tragedy are meant to evoke deep emotional responses. Other contexts include Gregorian chants, formal or diplomatic speech,[9] political rhetoric and invective,[10] light-hearted nursery and nonsense rhymes, and even medical texts.[11]

The Polish historian of aesthetics, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, in a paper on "The Concept of Poetry," traces the evolution of what is in fact two concepts of poetry. Tatarkiewicz points out that the term is applied to two distinct things that, as the poet Paul Valéry observes, "at a certain point find union. Poetry [...] is an art based on language. But poetry also has a more general meaning [...] that is difficult to define because it is less determinate: poetry expresses a certain state of mind."

Western traditions

Classical thinkers employed classification as a way to define and assess the quality of poetry. Notably, the existing fragments of Aristotle's Poetics describe three genres of poetry — the epic, the comic, and the tragic — and develop rules to distinguish the highest-quality poetry in each genre, based on the underlying purposes of the genre.[13] Later aestheticians identified three major genres: epic poetry, lyric poetry and dramatic poetry, treating comedy and tragedy as subgenres of dramatic poetry.

Aristotle's work was influential throughout the Middle East during the Islamic Golden Age,[14] as well as in Europe during the Renaissance.[15] Later poets and aestheticians often distinguished poetry from, and defined it in opposition to, prose, which was generally understood as writing with a proclivity to logical explication and a linear narrative structure.

This does not imply that poetry is illogical or lacks narration, but rather that poetry is an attempt to render the beautiful or sublime without the burden of engaging the logical or narrative thought process. English Romantic poet John Keats termed this escape from logic, "Negative Capability."[17] This "romantic" approach views form as a key element of successful poetry because form is abstract and distinct from the underlying notional logic. This approach remained influential into the twentieth century.

During this period, there was also substantially more interaction among the various poetic traditions, in part due to the spread of European colonialism and the attendant rise in global trade. In addition to a boom in translation, during the Romantic period numerous ancient works were rediscovered.

Twentieth-century disputes

Some 20th-century literary theorists, relying less on the opposition of prose and poetry, focused on the poet as simply one who creates using language, and poetry as what the poet creates. The underlying concept of the poet as creator is not uncommon, and some modernist poets essentially do not distinguish between the creation of a poem with words, and creative acts in other media such as carpentry.[18] Yet other modernists challenge the very attempt to define poetry as misguided, as when Archibald MacLeish concludes his paradoxical poem, "Ars Poetica," with the lines: "A poem should not mean / but be."[19]

Disputes over the definition of poetry, and over poetry's distinction from other genres of literature, have been inextricably intertwined with the debate over the role of poetic form. The rejection of traditional forms and structures for poetry that began in the first half of the twentieth century, coincided with a questioning of the purpose and meaning of traditional definitions of poetry and of distinctions between poetry and prose, particularly given examples of poetic prose and prosaic "poetry". Numerous modernist poets have written in non-traditional forms or in what traditionally would have been considered prose, although their writing was generally infused with poetic diction and often with rhythm and tone established by non-metrical means.[20] While there was a substantial formalist reaction within the modernist schools to the breakdown of structure, this reaction focused as much on the development of new formal structures and syntheses as on the revival of older forms and structures.[21]

More recently, postmodernism has fully embraced MacLeish's concept and come to regard boundaries between prose and poetry, and also among genres of poetry, as having meaning only as cultural artifacts. Postmodernism goes beyond modernism's emphasis on the creative role of the poet, to emphasize the role of the reader of a text, and to highlight the complex cultural web within which a poem is read.[22] Today, throughout the world, poetry often incorporates poetic form and diction from other cultures and from the past, further confounding attempts at definition and classification that were once sensible within a tradition such as the Western canon.

American and British English spelling differences

American and British English spelling differences are one aspect of American and British English differences. In the early 18th century, English spelling was not standardised. Different standards became noticeable after the publishing of influential dictionaries. Current British English spellings follow, for the most part, those of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755). Many of the now characteristic American English spellings were introduced, although often not created, by Noah Webster (An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)).

Webster was a strong proponent of spelling reform for reasons both philological and nationalistic. Many spelling changes proposed in the U.S. by Webster himself, and in the early 20th century by the Simplified Spelling Board, never caught on. Among the advocates of spelling reform in England, the influences of those who preferred the Norman (or Anglo-French) spellings of certain words proved decisive. Subsequent spelling adjustments in Britain had little effect on present-day U.S. spelling, and vice versa. While in many cases American English deviated in the 19th century from mainstream British spelling, on the other hand it has also often retained older forms.

The spelling systems of Commonwealth countries closely resemble the British system. In Canada, many "American" spellings are also used, often alongside "British" spellings. Detailed information on Canadian and Australian spelling is provided throughout the article.

American and British English differences

American English in its written form is standardized across the U.S. (and in schools abroad specializing in American English). Though not devoid of regional variations, particularly in pronunciation and vernacular vocabulary, American speech is somewhat uniform throughout the country, largely because of the influence of mass communication and geographical and social mobility in the United States. After the American Civil War, the settlement of the western territories by migrants from the east led to dialect mixing and levelling, so that regional dialects are most strongly differentiated in the eastern part of the country that were settled earlier. The General American accent and dialect (sometimes called 'Standard Midwestern'), often used by newscasters, are traditionally regarded as the unofficial standard for American English.

British English has a reasonable degree of uniformity in its formal written form. On the other hand, the forms of spoken English – dialects, accents and vocabulary – used across the British Isles vary considerably more than in any other English-speaking areas of the world, and more so than in the United States, because of a much longer history of dialect development in the English speaking areas of Great Britain and Ireland. Dialects and accents vary, not only between England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales (which constitute the United Kingdom), and the Republic of Ireland, but also within these individual countries. There are also differences in the English spoken by different socio-economic groups in any particular region. Received Pronunciation (RP) (also referred to as BBC English or the Queen's English) has traditionally been regarded as 'proper English' – 'the educated spoken English of south-east England'. The BBC and other broadcasters now intentionally use a mix of presenters with a variety of British accents and dialects, and the concept of 'proper English' is now far less prevalent.

British and American English are the reference norms for English as spoken, written, and taught in the rest of the world; for instance, the English-speaking members of the Commonwealth of Nations often (if not usually) closely follow British orthography, and many new Americanisms quickly become familiar outside of the United States. Although the dialects of English used in the former British Empire are often, to various extents, fairly close to standard British English, most of the countries concerned have developed their own unique dialects, particularly with respect to pronunciation, idioms, and vocabulary; chief among them are, at least for number of first-language speakers, Australian English and Canadian English.

high rollers

Although there are detail differences between the stage and movie versions, the plot is essentially based around the activities of New York petty criminals and professional gamblers. Nathan Detroit makes a living by running an (illegal) "floating crap game", despite constant encouragement to "go straight" by Miss Adelaide, a nightclub singer to whom he has been engaged for fourteen years.

When a surge of "high-rollers" comes to town, Nathan is pressured to find a place to hold his floating craps game. Due to strong police activity, he's able to only find one spot, the Biltmore garage. The owner's requirement however, is a $1000 deposit for security.

Trying to obtain the money, Nathan comes across Sky Masterson, a gambler willing to bet on virtually anything. Nathan proposes a bet which seems impossible to lose. Take Sarah Brown, a straight-walking sister at the Save a Soul Mission, to dinner... in Havana, Cuba.

Surprisingly, Sky manages to get Sarah to agree to the date, putting Nathan in even worse condition. Over the course of their date, Sky manages to break down Sarah's social barriers, and they begin to fall for each other.

Returning to New York, and to their regular lives, Sarah and Sky face the reality of trying to justify their love while retaining their opposing lifestyles.