Reforming an existing order is one of the most dangerous and difficult things a prince can do. «In wishing new laws and yet seeing danger in them Machiavelli was not himself an innovator» wrote Gilbert (1938:39), because this idea was traditional and could be found in Aristotle. But Machiavelli went much further than any other author in his emphasis on this aim, and Gilbert associates Machiavelli’s emphasis upon such drastic aims with the level of corruption... 

John Donne's Songs and Sonnets do not describe a single unchanging view of love; they express a wide variety of emotions and attitudes, as if Donne himself were trying to define his experience of love through his poetry. Love can be an experience of the body, the soul, or both; it can be a religious experience, or merely a sensual one, and it can give rise to emotions ranging from ecstasy to despair. Taking any one poem in isolation will give us a limited view... 

They also commend her witty use of metaphor to comment on society and the natural world and her ability to create and sustain her personal perspective in her poems. In addition, her stylistic and thematic variety is held in high regard. Fever, and Other Poems Writing of Fever, and Other Poems, Rosemary Neiswender notes that Akhmadulina’s ‘‘frequent subject [is] the soul in the winter of its discontent. No socialist realist, she is preoccupied with the... 

A 'valediction' means a parting, leave-taking, and saying goodbye. In both 'A Valediction: of Weeping' and 'A Valediction: forbidding mourning' Donne is taking leave of a lover, but while having many similarities characteristic of Metaphysical poetry, the two poems convey very different moods. 'A Valediction: of Weeping' is a passionate plea, while 'A Valediction: forbidding mourning' is a gentle confident persuasion. On first reading 'A Valediction: of Weeping'... 

The Prince starts by describing the subject matter it will handle. In the first sentence Machiavelli uses the word «state» (Italian «Stato» which could also mean «status») in order to neutrally cover «all forms of organization of supreme political power, whether republican or princely». The way in which the word state came to acquire this modern type of meaning during the Renaissance has been the subject of many academic discussions, with this sentence... 

There are some topics I save up because they'll be so much fun to write about. This is one of them: a list of my heroes. I'm not claiming this is a list of the N most admirable people. Who could make such a list, even if they wanted to? Einstein isn't on the list, for example, even though he probably deserves to be on any shortlist of admirable people. I once asked a physicist friend if Einstein was really as smart as his fame implies, and she said that yes,... 

Browning fully accepted the Victorian domestic ideology that exalted women as ministering angels—pure, compassionate, spiritual—but her effective strategy in exploiting that ideology was to reposition it in the public sphere, as I have begun to argue. She wrote poems on politics, social issues, serious religious controversies, and women’s literary ambitions that never relinquish, but instead deliberately employ, Victorian ideals of female subjectivity....