Rembrandt Essays (417 words) - Rembrandt, Arts, Visual Arts

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a baroque artist, who ranks as one of the greatest painters in the history of Western art. He understood the human nature very well, and with his outstanding ability, made him a painter that is very famous. Not only was Rembrandt a superb painter but he was also very good in drawing and etching. It is said that no painter has ever equaled Rembrandt's ability to use a different variety of shading and color contrast. He was born in Leiden, a city in the west Netherlands, on July 15, 1606. Rembrandt's parents thought it was very important for Rembrandt to get a good education. He began his studies at the Latin School, and at the age of 14 he was enrolled at the Leiden University. The program did not interest him, and he soon left to study art. His first apprentice was a local master, Jacob van Swanenburch. Then he moved on in Amsterdam, with Pieter Lastman, known for his historical paintings. After six months, having mastered everything he had been taught, Rembrandt returned to Leiden. In Leiden, Rembrandt was well respected even though he was barely 22 years old. So he started teaching people to paint to make a living. Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam in 1631. He married in 1634 to Saskia van Uylenburgh. She cousin of a successful art dealer and this enhanced his career by bringing him in contact with wealthy patrons who eagerly commissioned portraits. Rembrandt's mythological and religious works were much in demand. Because of he was well known as a teacher, his studio was filled with pupils, some of whom were already trained artists. In contrast to his successful public career, Rembrandt's family life was was just the opposite. Between 1635 and 1641 Saskia gave birth to four children. Only the last, Titus, survived. She died in 1642 which upset Rembrandt because he loved her very much. Hendrickje Stoffels, became his housekeeper in 1649, and eventually became his common-law wife. She modeled for many of his pictures. Despite Rembrandt's financial success as an artist, teacher, and art dealer, his love for the life of luxurious living, forced him to file for bankruptcy in 1656. Much of his works were auctioned off to pay his debts which was very saddening to him. In this auction he also sold his house. These problems in no way affected Rembrandt's work, if anything, it motivated him. His personal life, however, continued to be disturbed. His beloved Hendrickje died in 1663, and his son, Titus, in 1668. Eleven months later, on October 4, 1669, Rembrandt died in Amsterdam. Biographies

The Effect of Outsourcing on Public Sector Organizations Essays

The Effect of Outsourcing on Public Sector Organizations Essays The Effect of Outsourcing on Public Sector Organizations Essay The Effect of Outsourcing on Public Sector Organizations Essay The Effect of Outsourcing on Public Sector Organizations JOHN H HANNAH III UNIVERSITY OF PHOENIX The Effect of Outsourcing on Public Sector Organizations This paper will examine the particular issues associated with the impact of outsourcing on public sector organization’s performance and employee commitment. As the move to outsourcing is part of a wider phenonom for flexibility in the organizational, structure, development and change paradigms of public sector organizations. This paper begins by examining the problems associated with an outsourcing strategy in public sector organization. Many counties within the US, have chosen to outsource the investment and operation of non-competitive public services, such as water and waste management, public transports, mail services, information and communication technology services, facilities management and road infrastructures. Outsourcing today has become an essential revenue and growth strategy for almost every existing corporation. It creates flexibility in the company, ensuring the maximum utilization of available resources within the company. It also offers corporations cost advantages and help free up their management resources. Orange county government-anywhere USA, requested the services of a Home Land Security Specialist to assist in the collaborative, assessment, development and strategic enhancement of it municipality’s Information Technology (IT) and Critical Facilities’ (CF) upgrades and security. Upon the completion of plan, expectations and deliverables, a series of introductions with Directors, Managers and Supervisors, it was apparent the federal dollars associated with the project was indeed the motive for the invitation. In my initial general assessment and development of a strategy, the organization handbook was the first critical reading which uncovered a mission statement, values, ethical guidelines and the organizational cultural premise. â€Å"The Mayor’s outline the vision, values and mission as simple – to serve. You have an important job to do as we work to meet the needs of our citizens. We ensure that roads are built and maintained; we protect environmental resources; we respond to crisis and emergency situations; we staff facilities that care for people; and we ensure that the quality of life of our citizens is protected our challenge is to build on the strengths of our diverse community so that everyone can enjoy the very best Orange County has to offer. We are committed to maintaining an organization where citizens are engaged in civic affairs, take ownership in their government and have input in the decision making process†. The following core values serve as our foundation: 1. FAIRNESS, 2. WORK ETHIC 3. INTEGRITY AND CHARACTER 4. EXCELLENCE AND INNOVATION: 5. PROFESSIONALISM AND ACCOUNTABILITY (Orange County Government, 2012) . The role of the Security Specialist in this public sector organization is to examine the particular issues associated with the impact of outsourcing on public sector organization’s performance and employee commitment and develop a strategy to move this organization toward outsourcing initially in the areas of IT and CF. Provide an assessment and evaluation of the organizational readiness for change in the area of outsourcing. This paper begins by examining the problems associated with an outsourcing strategy in public sector organization in the form of an assessment. As public sector moves to outsourcing as part of a wider strategy to increase flexibility in the organizational, structure, development and change paradigms of public sector organization. Outsourcing helps organizations to be focused. Since the most valuable resource within management is time, once a process is successfully outsourced, the management gets more and effective time to explore new revenue streams, time to accelerate other projects and time to focus on customers. Traditionally executives spend 80 percent of their time managing details, and only 20 percent on planning and customer relations, in other words, a successful outsourcing process can help reverse this ratio. Outsourcing can also help companies to have access to new technologies that might not be used in their company. This is mainly because the outsourcers use the latest state-of-the art technologies to serve their private sector clients. And this might also increase the change paradigm shift and rapid migration of these companies to new technology. Outsourcing also helps multi functional areas and department of a public sector providing the benefit of 24-hour operational cycles and providing necessary services to their customer. The ever- growing pressure for increased productivity and profitability of city, county and state governments thus, the pressures to reduce costs and improve productivity are the main factors that influenced the beginning of offshore outsourcing. For example, the main advantages to move production to private contracting of products and services to reduce in-house human resources management cost. Hence, today outsourcing has become an attractive and powerful strategy for companies to reduce cost and improve performance. These models provide theoretical guidelines upon which valid and reliable organizational assessments should be based. All of these models provide value to management and human resource organizational leaders performing organizational assessments based on a internal aspects or a system theory evaluation approach (Erwin Garman, 2010). The McKinsey 7S Framework model is used as a tool to assess and monitor changes in the internal situation of an organization closed system assessment. The model is based on the theory that, for an organization to perform well, these seven elements need to be aligned and mutually reinforcing. So, the model can be used to help identify what needs to be realigned to improve performance, or to maintain alignment (and performance) during other types of change. The basic premise of the model is that there are seven internal aspects of an organization that need to be aligned if it is to be successful evaluation and assessment tool. The Seven Interdependent Elements of the 7s model are Hard elements (strategy, structure and systems) and the Soft Elements (shared values, skills, style and staff) (Waterman, Peters, Phillips, 1980) Burke Litwin Model (The Casual Model of Organizational Performance Change) – The Burke Litwin Model, suggests linkages that hypothesize how performance is affected by internal and external factors. It provides a framework to assess organizational and environmental dimensions that are keys to successful change and it demonstrates how these dimensions should be linked causally to achieve a change in performance. According to Burke-Litwin’s model, an organization may conduct a change intervention in stages as they relate to a specific focus in two stages â€Å"First order and Second order† changes. If an OD intervention is directed toward structure, systems, and management practice result, it can be considered a first order change, if interventions are directed toward mission, strategy, leadership, and organizational culture then result in second order change (Burke Litwin, 1992). The Marvin Weisbord-Six-Box Model (Weisbord’s Model) is designed to assess the functioning of organizations based mainly on the techniques and assumptions of the field of organizational development. The model represents a particular way of looking at organizational structure and design. It gives attention to issues such as planning, incentives and rewards, the role of support functions such as personnel, internal competitions among organizational units, standards for remuneration, partnerships, hierarchies and the delegation of authority, organizational control, accountability and performance assessment. The model also follows the basic systems approach to organizational functioning including the well-known inputs and outputs categories. The six-box model is comprised of the following components (boxes): (1). Purposes, (2). Structure, (3) relationships; (4). Rewards, (5). Leadership, (6). Coordinating technologies. The only disadvantage to this model is it s design to only address internal environments (Weisbord, 1978). An open system organizational development theory and (Burke Litwin) model will be utilized to conduct a diagnosis analysis planned change assessment to the organization. These changes are usually designed to address an organization problem or to help an organization prepare for future. It is the one method of quickly bringing change, which focus on human and social aspects of the organization as a way to improve organization’s ability to adapt and solve problems. The best theory is developed from practice; the best practice should be grounded in theory (Seeger, 2006; Brown, 2011). The Burke Litwin Model hypothesizes’ how performance is affected by internal and external factors. Public sector management occurs within a complex, dynamic system involving stakeholders, coupled with informational and resource material flows and behaviour that is characterized by interactions related to internal and external environments. According to Burke-Litwin’s model, an organization may conduct a change intervention in stages as they relate to a specific focus in two stages â€Å"First order and Second order† changes. If an OD intervention is directed toward structure, systems, and management practice result, it can be considered a first order change, if interventions are directed toward mission, strategy, leadership, and organizational culture then result in second order change (Burke Litwin, 1992). The theory of Organizational readiness for change is considered a multi-level, multi-faceted construct. From and organization-level construct, readiness for change refers to organizational members shared resolve to implement a change (change commitment) and shared belief in their collective capability to do so (change efficacy). Organizational readiness for change varies as a function of how much organizational member’s value the change and how favorably they appraise three key determinants of implementation capability: task demands, resource availability, and situational factors. When organizational readiness for change is high, organizational members are more likely to initiate change, exert greater effort, exhibit greater persistence, and display more cooperative behavior (Weiner, 2009). References Bateman, T. S. , Snell, S. A. (2007). Management: Leading collaboratiing in a competitive world (7th ed. . New York, NY: McGraw Hill Irwin. Boland, T. , Fowler, A. (2000). A systems perspective of performance management in public sector management. The International Journal of Public Sector organizations, 13(5), 417-446. doi:10. 1108/09513550010350832 Brown, D. R. (2011). An experiential approach to organization development (8th ed. ). Boston, MA: Prentice Hall. Burke, W. W. , Litwin, G. H. (1992). Causal model of organization performance and change’. Journal Management, 18(3), 523-545. doi:10. 1177/014920639201800306 Erwin, D. G. , Garman, A. N. (2010). Resistance to organizational change: Linking research and practice,. Leadership Organization Development Journal, 31(1), 39-56. doi:10. 1108/01437731011010371 Harrison, M. I. , Shirom, A. (1999). Organizational diagnosis and assessment: Bridging theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kotter, J. (1995). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, 59-67. Retrieved from http://89. 248. 0. 102/upload/Topplederprogrammet/Kotter. pdf Lewin, K. (1951). Field Theory in Social Science. London, England: Harper Row. Orange County Government. 2012, April). Employee Handbook. Fl. Retrieved from ocfl. net/Portals/0/resourcelibrary/employment-employehandbook. pdf Waterman, R. , Peters, T. J. , Phillips, J. R. (1980). Structure is not organization. Mckinsey Quarterly, 2-20. Retrieved from tompeters. com/docs/Structure_Is_Not_Organization. pdf Weisbord, M. (1978). Organizational Diagnosis: A Workbook of Theory and Practice. Addison-wesley. Wiener, B. J. (2009 ). A theory of organizational readiness for change. Implementation Science, 4, 67. doi:10. 1186/1748-5908-4-67

Twitter Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Twitter - Essay Example Twitter emerged as a side project for a number of board members at the blogging and podcasting company Odeo. The original inventors included Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Evan Williams, and Biz Stone. The original name for the project was twttr. The first product utilization functioned within the Odeo Company, with the full version finishing development a number of months later ("The real history," 2011) . After the product was completed the original Twitter founders created Obvious Corporation and through investor funds purchased Odeo and all of its subsequent assets. In April 2007 Twitter spinoff from Odeo and became its own company. In terms of popularity the company gained perhaps its greatest boost at the Interactive portion of the South by Southwest festival; at this festival user-ship expanded from 20,000 to 60,000 (Picard, 2011). There were a number of early development elements that occurred throughout the product’s orientation. In large part the structural dimensions of the product have remained the same since its 2006 incarnation. Many of the early development elements occurred in terms of the company’s management and organizational structure. In 2007 co-founder Noah Glass was fired ("The real history," 2011). In 2008 Williams assumed company leadership in terms of becoming the chief executive officer and Jack Dorsey became chairman of the board. Williams would remain in this capacity until 2010 when Dick Costolo would assume the position. 2010 also witnessed a slight change in the company logo. Twitter has experimented with a number of modern development changes in the last two years. Perhaps most prominent among these is the inclusion of a trending sidebar that indicates the most popularly tweeted topics ("A visual history," 2011). Twitter has implemented this service as a means of advertising as specific companies are given the opportunity to have their subject of choice featured as a

MARKETTING Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

MARKETTING - Essay Example Moreover, IKEA’s designs and variety were superb and the company always had the ability to adapt to the local environment (Gordon, 2004). 2. IKEA’s marketing strategy revolves around getting closer to the customers. IKEA often invites customers to its stores, makes them spend some time there in return of gifts and let them have a unique enjoyable experience instead of a shopping chore. When the story picks up in the press, it attracts more shoppers, more sales and more buzz. This cycle ensures the success of IKEA’s marketing strategy (Bloomberg, 2005). 3. IKEA’s target market segment in U.S. is the middle class people who aspire to be stylish and cool. IKEA’s products are not about tradition or conservatism. This cool quotient can be noticed in the design and layout of its products and stores (Bloomberg, 2005). 4. IKEA should position its stores in the United States as places for great shopping experience for middle classes and especially youngsters. Its aim should not be to overhaul current players in the furniture or other industries. IKEA should rather try and create a special space or niche for itself. 5. Till now IKEA has faced a few issues in expansion in the US market. This has primarily been because the US customers in general prefer ready to made products and can’t wait for a few days for them to be assembled. This is contradictory to IKEA’s core business philosophy and manufacturing strategy. IKEA has tackled this challenge by adapting a fifth of its product range according to US customers’ needs (Gordon,

Abu Dhabi Police Essay Example for Free

Abu Dhabi Police Essay The focal point of this paper is to develop a plan that would be successfully implementing an organizational change management system within Abu Dhabi Police department in order to increase its efficiency, development and achieving future objectives. It should be stated that at the moment there are several problems related to the issue and it is needed to overcome those in order to gain more mileage in the long run. The main aspect of this problem lies in the traditional form of police and investigation procedures that are taken into account and executed with comparatively lesser efficiency. This could also be sated that the functionality of the Abu Dhabi police department is more ancient in approach and there is an essential need for the department to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of technology implementation and efficiency evaluation. Furthermore, it is also essential to look into the aspects of administrative reconstruction as the department is unable to work up to its true potential with the administrative structure located at a medieval scenario. (Lamb, 2004, 69) Thus it can well be stated that the problem with Abu Dhabi police is not only with it’s below the par utility and efficiency but also is related to the ill formulation of the administrative system. Quite logically, the department is in extreme necessity of finding solutions for negating these problems. It should be stated that at the moment there is a five step remedy to this malady. Firstly, it is essential to understand the present management of Abu Dhabi police department and identify the key areas of improvement. Similarly, it is important in the aspect of researching the past to get an understanding about Abu Dhabi Police department’s status and importantly eliminating the risk of following the old mistakes. Then, it should be noted that a wide study is incorporated with a variety of methods of change management practices and their applicability in Abu Dhabi Police department. Furthermore, it is important to investigate the potential of alternative methods of change management and the most advantageous will be launched. Lastly, a strategy would be created with prospective enhancement that can be introduced, understanding the structure and working culture currently present in Abu Dhabi police department. It should be mentioned that the theoretical framework will involve police and public interviews, police and public’s strategic interview, historical records, secondary research through the Internet and university database, it will also use strategic analysis tools for development of the evaluation of the best method between coercive and consensual policing. In this context it should also be mentioned that the purpose of the project is formulated in a mutually beneficial way such that from an academic perspective there would be a huge gain in the context of valuable experience, and simultaneously add value by providing insights as well as a fresh objective outlook on any matter relevant to the social context. Research design will follow the following method or schedule. Firstly the participants will be trained about data collection techniques and tools to be used to collect the relevant information. The participants will be including police officers, data collection officers, team leaders and other resourceful personnel. Secondly the areas to be interviewed will be identified and accessibility determined. These areas to be sampled for the research can range from 10-16 of these areas, say 5 will be where coercive policing will be imposed and other five consensual policing can be applied. The period of the research can take a period of minimum 3 months and a maximum of 6 months of which during this period data will be collected. Thirdly the data so collected will be prepared as a report of findings. Finally, the final reports will be analyzed and evaluation for determination of the difference between consensual and coercive forms of policy. The different is supposed to put more emphasis on the difference. In order to attain the objectives it is essential to recognize the existing practices in Abu Dhabi police department and also in the modern police departments of countries like USA, Germany, UK, Australia etc. This will be done by individual interviews of the officials in Abu Dhabi and the through questionnaires from other corners of the world. Primary research will be persistent on personal interviews with Abu Dhabi Police department officials that will give an inner view of the present positing and future goals. This will also be a key basis of understanding the indolence for change. This will help in bringing out the indication of the present managed system in Abu Dhabi police department organization. Ultimately the clients will help in providing the true print of Abu Dhabi Police department’s working and key areas of improvement. Data presented from this research will assist to evaluate the best practices model and the actual working. This will help in indicating the difference and the reason for Abu Dhabi police department organization to implement a successful change management. Abu Dhabi Police higher officials will be randomly selected with favorable time and place for the interviews to be carried out. Finally the research will be focused on the historical data by looking at the Abu Dhabi Police department’s strategy in the past. If any failure or any glitches are to be found in companies strategy they will be pointed in this research. This will help the writer to understand the Abu Dhabi Police department’s goals in the past and their implementation process. It is necessary to design a new experiment that test the statistical method. For the purpose it is necessary to collect a complete data of the site that would include different religion, ethnicity or gender. An open meeting with police as well as the general mass or public would be very relevant in this context in the initial stages. The mixed gender of male and female Police and public could well be excluded as that would complicate matters in the context of gender variable juxtaposed with other pre mentioned variables but considering other dependable factors sustaining it would yield to be fruitful in the long run. Data would be collected in relation to the gender, color, religion of the potential customers in respect to the composition of the management under the same parameters. All these variables are considered as very relevant and important features of the statistical method and it is to be seen if these aspects are fundamentally acceptable in practical world and it could well be mentioned that social service, especially security service industry, are a very relevant manifestation of the social dimensions. As a result if the test is carried out in a proper manner with proper calculations of the population involved then there is no reason that the results would be both logical and true at the end consideration. In accordance to the basic test selected it could be stated that it could be possible that the outcome would be relatively logical in the sense that it would ultimately follow the trends of social facilitation theory in marketing and thus it would be agreeable with the statistical method and thus a well formulated marketing strategy can be constructed for the benefit of the Police and public alike as a definite method can be chosen between coercive and consensual policing. However, it should be stated that there would be few independent variables in the context of the test that could not be explained by the statistical method statements. Here the ethical consideration of the potential Police and public or the ethnic background of the potential Police and public may not be a very relevant factor. Thus there could be some flaws to the collection of the population but if these aspects are kept in mind then the shortcomings would easily be negotiated during the ultimate computations. As a result the test would appear to be a full proofed measure that would be able to define and prove the fundamental aspects and statistical method applied. It should be noted that the access to the research participants is both easy and hard. In terms of the public interview it would be relatively easy to identify and access but the difficult part would be to frame the questioner in accordance to the color and creed of the participants in general. In case of the police interview there would be more homogenous pattern in terms of the questioner but the difficult part would be to gain access. For the purpose it would be arranged to acquire permission from the hope department. Data will be collected using two different methods. The first will be interviews, which involve citizens, police officers from the sampled areas. This is an advantage in that feedback can be obtained instantly. The second will be use of questionnaires, which will be administered to the sampled areas. The questionnaire to be used will be the opened type. The advantage of this method is that the information obtained can be quantified to reflect that the sampled group as part of the entire population. The advantage is that it is easier to analyze data collected through questionnaire method. It should be noted that reliability for the researcher was achieved in the assurance that only a specified group of men and women were utilized in regard to the research. That group was focused mostly on customers and retails along with administrative personnel. This gave the research a more focused view of the research goal. The validity was managed as a result of this focus and emphasized in the considerations involved in the data collection, variables, and sampling methods. Privacy and confidentiality methods included assigning numeric and alphabetic coding to each responding questionnaire. This ensured anonymity in regard to the researcher and the subjects of the research process and a thorough qualitative method would be used during data analysis. The basic advantages of qualitative measures are multifold. Firstly, it presents a completely realistic approach that the statistical analysis and numerical data used in research based on quantitative research cannot provide. Another advantage of qualitative measures is that it is more flexible in nature in terms of collected information interpretation, subsequent analysis and data collection. It also presents a holistic point of view of the investigation. Furthermore this approach of research allows the subjects to be comfortable thus be more accurate as research is carried on in accordance to the subject’s own terms. The best statistical method would be to interview long well formulated day to day working procedure at a specific and well selected location. Throughout the procedure, it should be noticed whether there are specific variables within the testable population or not. These variables would be extremely important while evaluating the basic data in the final stages where the adjustments would be made to the formulated data in accordance to the observations. As a conclusion to the outline of this paper it can always be stated that Qualitative research is a process that includes interpretative paradigm under the measures of theoretical assumptions and the entire approach is based on sustainability that is depended on people’s experience in terms of communication. It can also be mentioned that the total approach is based on the fact that reality is created on the social formulations. It can also be mentioned that the basic target of qualitative research is instrumented towards social context under normal circumstances where it would be possible to interpret, decode and describe the significances of a phenomenon. The entire process is operational under the parameter of interpretative paradigm that can minimize illusion and share subjectivity under contextualization, authenticity and complexity of the investigation. References: Lamb, Davis; (2004); Cult to Culture: The Development of Civilization on the Strategic Strata; National Book Trust; Wellington

The Treasure of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pisan Essay

The Treasure of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pisan Christine de Pisan’s book, The Treasure of the City of Ladies, explains in detail the various aspects of women’s lives during the late Medieval and Renaissance culture. She addresses all women of this time from those with power and authority to the poorest peasant women. Christine de Pisan focuses on three main areas of a women’s life during this time period. First she discusses the role of knowledge and education in the lives of the various women. Then she offers her advice to all the different women of varied backgrounds and social standards. She relates how all of these women are in fact connected due to common concerns. Finally, she depicts how men and women interact with one another. By describing the way in which women are treated by the men during this time, she portrays the typical relationship between men and women during Renaissance times. Women were expected to lead a very specific life, focusing on the men of their society. Throughout Christine de Pisan’s book, she refers to the three ladies of Virtue: Reason, Rectitude, and Justice. These ladies are the foundations of her teachings. She uses them to explain the relationship between men and women and how they view one another. The lady Prudence teaches all the women of that society about the â€Å"rules† they should follow in order to be good Renaissance women, specifically in their relations with men. â€Å"Now we would like to advance for their edification seven principal teachings, which according to Prudence are necessary to those who desire to live wisely and wish to have honour† (62). These teachings say that the women should love their husbands; they should live in peace with men. If they f... ...d the chance to lead a respectable life according to the â€Å"rules† of the ladies of Virtue. In the late Medieval and Renaissance time period, women had a strict standard to live up to. They should love their husbands, respect them, and obey their commands. The men in return fulfilled the women’s needs by supplying them with whatever they needed. The men and women lived with a mutual respect between themselves. Works Cited Author: Christine, de Pisan, ca. 1364-ca. 1431 Uniform Title: Livre des trois vertus. English Title: The treasure of the city of ladies, or, The book of the three virtues / Christine de Pisan ; translated with an introduction by Sarah Lawson. Published: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England ; New York, N.Y., U.S.A. : Penguin, 1985. ISBN: 014044453X (pbk.)

Beowulf Assignment Essay

1) Leslie Webster: Archaeology and Beowulf 2) There are many difficulties incorporated throughout Beowulf which challenge the modern day reader but which are also significant factors in the overall literary experience of the text. One of the main challenges that presents itself, according to 1925 Watt and Chambers, is the translation of Beowulf, the oldest English epic, from archaic Anglo-Saxon English into modern day English, applied with the reader’s already established, own contemporary knowledge and conceptions of the language. Leslie Webster declares it is also possible to be led into a manifold of misinterpretations when combining the important elements of poetic description, complex historical features and archaeological accounts along with our own current preconceptions. For example, it could be seen as an advantage for the reader to have an academic knowledge of early medieval north-western Europe prior to reading Beowulf. However, Webster argues that this may very well act as a disadvantage, since this could influence and shape the reader’s comprehension of the poem as they try to apply and relate their own knowledge to the text. This will cause difficulties for the reader in understanding when the poetic description does not correspond with their knowledge of hard archaeological facts. Webster claims that archaeology is a ‘fragile and incomplete witness’ and can therefore not to be entirely accepted as truth. The reality is there is no firm evidence therefore only conjectures can be made about what really occurred in the past. Furthermore, over centuries various archaeologists and editors have interpreted Beowulf differently and this indicates that the accuracy of the translation and its criticisms are questionable, consequently adding difficulty to our understanding of the text. The most apparent complication of Beowulf however, is understanding the significance of material possessions in the warrior culture during its time. They collected their spears in a seafarers’ stook, a stand of grayish tampering ash. And the troops themselves were as good as their weapons. (323-331) Physical objects such as weapons and armour are explicitly referred to continuously and consistently throughout the text and are obviously one of its most prominent features. This is difficult and unusual for the reader because in today’s society a person’s worth is not usually marked by their weaponry. 2 3) Leslie Webster’s essay helps the reader grasp the concepts of Beowulf by expressing it as ‘a poem, not an archaeological textbook.’ The carefully constructed poetic descriptions should therefore not always be taken literally word for word, but be looked upon as a symbolic story or moral for the respective audience of its time. Webster articulates in order to understand this text it is vital to put our own leaning preconceptions aside and study the differing forms of evidence with consideration. We must realise Beowulf is set in the past for this is important in perceiving that Anglo-Saxons’ history played a huge role in their lives and governed the way in which they lived. This is demonstrated in the text by repeated references to ancestors, heirlooms and legends. My lord, the conquering king of the Danes, bids me announce that he knows your ancestry; also that he welcomes you here to Heorot and salutes your arrival from across the sea. (391-394) During Anglo-Saxon times, the nature of a person’s ancestry judged their character and how they were treated in society. Beowulf was son of Ecgtheow, the later King of the Geats and was consequently a well respected, trusted and admired individual. The endless kennings can be confusing but one of its benefits is helping the reader remember the character’s ancestry and hence, their value in society. To a modern day reader monsters and legends are considered to be allegories or fables but Webster distinguishes that they are not uncommon to the Anglo-Saxons and were a normal part of life. We must accept this if we want the poem’s real meaning to be revealed. Beowulf is from an entirely different cultural context and we distinguish between the two realms of fiction and nonfiction by our innate ability to decouple. Although Heaney has brought in modern day equivalents in translating Anglo-Saxon English into Ulster English for the modern day reader to interpret and relate to, it is still not strictly precise and inevitably some of the previous, intentional meaning is lost. Webster’s distinct descriptions of weaponry also aid the reader into understanding the status of a character and this is not uncommon in archaeological contexts. Only a character of the highest status could manage to own the best defence weapons for the great time, effort and money involved in making them. However, Webster is undecided whether the difference between the highest/lowest characters is a fictional, poetic convention or if it resembles genuine, Anglo-Saxon rank divisions. 3 4) I have decided that Leslie Webster’s essay does solve the problem of difficulties involved throughout the text however, I believe these difficulties are also an important factor in achieving its literary effects. It could be said that the reader’s most eminent obstacle is attempting to connect with the old fashioned language and unfamiliarity of Anglo-Saxon attitudes and ways of life. In Heaney’s translation the reader is given the opportunity to get a real insight into what the Anglo-Saxons were like because of the language he uses. In addition to this, once this concept is understood, the language used becomes an authentic literal exercise for which understanding the text becomes all the more pleasurable and appreciated. If the carefully constructed, poetic descriptions were easy and effortless for us to comprehend then this would cause the whole meaning, purpose and originality of the poem to be lost. The various difficulties immersed in Beowulf have the subtle effect of drawing the reader in closer to the text, maintaining their concentration and once it is understood, a real sense of achievement is gained. I believe the explicit descriptions of weaponry are also a significant component in Beowulf and should not be considered lightly when looking at the way in which the text achieves its literary effects. The manner in which Heaney uses literary techniques when interpreting weaponry not only describes what they are made of, but also how they were skilfully and intricately formed and even how they sound when they move. Their mail-shirts glinted, hard and hand-linked; the high-gloss iron of their armor rang. (321-323) When Heaney’s descriptions are combined with Webster’s explanations, it becomes clear cut that the literal effect is intriguing and fascinating the reader and at the same time showing the importance and relevance of weaponry. Webster concludes by remarking that Heaney’s clever approach in adapting archaeological evidence in Beowulf united together with the merging of past and present, has the literal effect of capturing the poem’s extreme depth, attribute and quality. This is a unique poem which its layers and characteristics make it a difficult but interesting and different read.