Wordsworth, William (1770-1850), is considered by many scholars to be the most important English romantic poet. In 1795, Wordsworth met Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The two men collaborated on Lyrical Ballads (1798), a collection of poems frequently regarded as the symbolic beginning of the English romantic movement. Wordsworth wrote most of the poems in the book.
In the preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800), Wordsworth outlined ideas about poetry that have since been identified with romanticism. He argued that serious poems could describe "situations from common life" and be written in the ordinary language "really used by men." He believed such poems could clarify "the primary laws of our nature." Wordsworth also insisted that poetry is "emotion recollected in tranquility" and that a poet is "a man speaking to men," different from his fellows only in the degree of his sensitivity but not in any essential way.
Wordsworth has frequently been praised for his descriptions of nature. However, he rightly claimed that his primary interest was the "mind of man." In fact, a key section of his poem The Prelude: or, Growth of a Poet's Mind insists that love of nature leads to the love of humanity. His finest poems, including the "Lucy" lyrics (1798-1799), "Michael" (1800), "Resolution and Independence" (1802), and "The Solitary Reaper" (1807), dramatize how imagination creates spiritual values out of the memory of sights and sounds in nature.
Early life. Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, which is now in the county of Cumbria. His mother died in 1778, his father in 1783. Relatives provided for his education. Wordsworth entered Cambridge University in 1787, the year he wrote his first significant poem. During a summer vacation in 1790, he visited France, then in turmoil because of the French Revolution. After graduating from Cambridge in 1791, he returned to France and became a supporter of the revolution. He returned to England in December 1792. Although liberal in his youth, he later became politically and religiously conservative. As a result, he was severely criticized by poets Lord Byron and Robert Browning and others as a traitor to his own youthful principles. Wordsworth was appointed poet laureate in 1843.
Later career. Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson in 1802. They had five children. Wordsworth was deeply saddened by the drowning death of his brother John in 1805. His sadness was reflected in his poem "Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle" (1806). This poem may have marked the end of Wordsworth's youthful creative period. It seems to reject his early optimistic belief, stated in "Tintern Abbey," that "nature never did betray the heart that loved her." In 1807, Wordsworth published one of the most famous poems in English literature, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality." In this piece, Wordsworth praised childhood and urged individuals to rely on intuition.
Wordsworth's masterpiece is his long autobiographical poem, The Prelude. He wrote it between 1798 and 1805, but he continued to revise it for the rest of his life. The poem was published in 1850, shortly after his death. The revisions that Wordsworth made in The Prelude between 1805 and 1850 clearly indicate how his values changed as he aged. In its best passages, The Prelude achieves a remarkable combination of simplicity and grandeur.
Wordsworth wrote most of his best poetry before 1807. But he wrote several important works, notably The Excursion (1814), later. This long poem discusses virtue, education, and religious faith. Wordsworth also wrote 523 sonnets, many of which compare with those of William Shakespeare and John Milton.
ARMENIA
Armenia is a country in southwestern Asia. It is a rugged, mountainous land that lies in the Caucasus Mountain region. Yerevan is the country's capital and largest city.
Present-day Armenia and what is now eastern Turkey make up historic Armenia, the original homeland of the Armenian people. This land was conquered many times in its long history. By 1915, the Turks had driven most Armenians out of western Armenia, which became eastern Turkey.
In 1920, Russian Communists took control of eastern Armenia. This area became part of the Transcaucasian Republic of the Soviet Union in 1922. In 1936, it became a separate Soviet republic called the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. Armenia remained under Soviet control until 1991, when the people voted to become an independent nation.
Several million Armenians live outside Armenia. The strong national identity of Armenians worldwide helped keep the Armenian culture alive during the years of Soviet control.
Government. In 1995, the Armenian people voted to adopt a new constitution. The most powerful official in Armenia's national government is the president, who is elected by the people to a five-year term. The president appoints a prime minister. The prime minister heads a cabinet, which helps carry out government functions. Cabinet members are appointed by the president. A one-house legislature called the National Assembly makes Armenia's laws.
Armenia's main units of local government are regions, cities, and city regions (regions within cities). Each of these political units has a governing council, whose members are elected by the people. All Armenians 18 years old or older may vote.
Armenia's highest court is called the Court of Cassation. There are also courts of appeal for criminal, military, civil, and economic cases.
About 60,000 people serve in Armenia's armed forces. All males must serve an 18-month term, starting at the age of 18.
People. About 90 percent of Armenia's people are Armenians. Kurds and Russians make up the country's largest minority ethnic groups.
Most of Armenia's people live in urban areas, in apartment buildings. Many people in smaller cities and villages live in single-family houses. Armenians place great importance on hospitality and on close family ties. Often, more than two generations of a family live together. In the cities, many women hold jobs outside the home, but they still do most of the housework and shopping.
Most people in Armenia speak the Armenian language. Armenian is unlike any other language and has its own alphabet.
Armenia was the first country in the world to make Christianity its official religion. It did so in the early 300's. Today, most Armenians belong to the Armenian Church, an Eastern Orthodox Church.
Armenians enjoy such foods as barbecued shish kebab, bean salads, a thin bread called lavash, and dolma (cabbage or grape leaves stuffed with rice and meat). Fruit juices, wine and cognac, and tan (a mixture of water, yogurt, and salt) are popular beverages.
Armenia has a rich artistic tradition. Its people have excelled at such crafts as rug weaving and metalwork. The making of decorative carved stone monuments called khatchkars is a purely Armenian art form. Armenian architecture through the ages has produced beautiful stone churches, many with domed roofs. Armenia also has a highly developed tradition of religious music dating to the Middle Ages. Many Armenian craftworkers and artists carry on old traditions today.
Nearly all adults in Armenia can read and write. The government requires children to attend school from the ages of 6 to 16. A student may then attend a technical school or go on to higher education at a university or specialized institute. Armenia has a number of schools of higher education.
Land and climate. Armenia lies on the Armenian Plateau, a rugged highland that extends from the Little Caucasus Mountains southwest into Turkey. The land is broken by mountains and deep gorges. Armenia has an average altitude of 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) above sea level. The highest mountain ranges stand in central Armenia. The country's highest point, Mount Aragats, rises 13,419 feet (4,090 meters). The lowest altitudes are in the northeast and southeast.
Much of the Armenian Plateau was formed millions of years ago by volcanic activity. For this reason, most of Armenia is covered with volcanic stones. Faults--fractures in the earth's rocky outer shell-- crisscross the plateau, and earthquakes sometimes occur in Armenia.
Armenia has about 100 mountain lakes. Lake Sevan, in the east, is the largest. It covers about 5 percent of Armenia. The country also has a number of small, fast-flowing rivers and streams. The longest river, the Aras, separates Armenia from Turkey on the west and from Iran on the south. The streams and rivers serve as a source for irrigation and energy. A chain of hydroelectric power stations stands along the Razdan River, between Lake Sevan and Yerevan.
Most of Armenia's vegetation consists of grasses and shrubs. Some forests of beech, hornbeam, juniper, and oak are found in the northeast and southeast.
The country's climate is dry, with long cold winters and short hot summers. January temperatures usually range from 10 to 23 °F (-12 to -5 °C) and can fall below -22 °F (-30 °C). July temperatures average about 50 °F (10 °C) in the mountains and about 77 °F (25 °C) elsewhere.
Armenia receives a yearly rainfall of about 8 to 31 inches (20 to 80 centimeters), rising with elevation. The highest peaks are snow-covered all year.
Economy. Manufacturing and mining account for about two-thirds of the value of Armenia's economic production. The chief industries make chemicals, electronic products, machinery, processed food, synthetic rubber, and textiles. Armenia is a leading distiller of cognac. The country's main industrial centers are Alaverdi, Kapan, Kirovakan, Gyumri, and Yerevan. Copper is Armenia's most important mineral. Armenian mines also produce gold, lead, and zinc.
Service industries account for about a fourth of Armenia's economic production. These industries include education, health care, and government activities.
Agriculture accounts for about 10 percent of the production. Farm products include apricots, barley, peaches, potatoes, quinces, walnuts, wheat, and wine grapes. Crop production benefits from Armenia's many areas of fertile black topsoils called chernozem soils. The Aras River Valley is the chief farming region. Herders raise cattle and sheep on mountain slopes.
Armenia has several railways and an extensive road and highway system. But relatively few people own cars. Buses and trolleys are the main forms of transportation in most cities and towns. Yerevan has a subway. An international airport also operates at Yerevan.
About 90 newspapers are published in Armenia. The country's radio and television studios are located in Yerevan.
History. People lived in historic Armenia by 6000 B.C. The earliest societies in the region were probably tribal groups that lived by farming or raising cattle. In the 800's B.C., a coalition of several tribes formed the kingdom of Urartu. The Urartians introduced irrigation and built fortresses, palaces, and temples. In the 600's B.C., ancestors of the Armenians migrated--probably from the west--to the Armenian Plateau. They settled with the native population. In the 500's B.C., Urartu was conquered by the Medes, a people from what is now Iran.
Soon after Urartu fell to the Medes, the Medes were conquered by the Persians. Armenia was under Persian and then Greek rule for hundreds of years. But it maintained a degree of independence.
King Tigran II, who came to power in 95 B.C., built an independent Armenian empire that reached from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. The Romans defeated Tigran in 55 B.C., and Armenia became part of the Roman Empire.
In the early A.D. 300's, Armenia became the first nation to adopt Christianity as its state religion. The Armenian alphabet was developed in the early 400's by an Armenian cleric. In 451, Armenians under Vartan Mamikonian defended their religion against the Persians in the Battle of Avarair.
Arabs conquered Armenia in the 600's. In 884, an independent Armenian kingdom was established in the northern part of the region. Seljuk Turks conquered Armenia in the mid-1000's, but Armenians established a new state in Cilicia on the Mediterranean coast. This last Armenian kingdom fell to Mameluke invaders in 1375.
Ottoman rule. By 1514, the Ottoman Empire had gained control of Armenia. The Ottomans ruled western Armenia until their defeat in World War I in 1918. Persians gained control of eastern Armenia in 1639. They ruled it until 1828, when it was annexed by Russia. During the 1800's, the growth of nationalism among Turks, Armenians, and other peoples caused conflicts.
During the late 1800's, Armenians under Ottoman rule suffered increasingly from discrimination, heavy taxation, and armed attacks. From 1894 through 1896, the Ottomans and Kurds, under Sultan Abdul-Hamid II, carried out a campaign to wipe out Armenians. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed.
Armenia became a battleground between the Ottoman Empire and Russia during World War I (1914 1918). The Ottomans feared that the Armenians would support the Russians. In 1915, the Ottoman government deported the Armenians who were living in western Armenia into the deserts of what is now Syria. About 1 million Armenians died from lack of water and starvation or were killed by Ottoman soldiers or Arabs and Kurds. A large number of survivors fled to Russian Armenia, where, in 1918, an Armenian republic was established.
Soviet rule. Conflicts resurfaced between the Armenian republic and the Ottoman Empire. Armenia's leaders reluctantly turned to Communist Russia for protection. In December 1920, eastern Armenia became a Communist republic. The Ottomans kept the rest of Armenia. In early 1922, Armenia joined Azerbaijan and Georgia to form the Transcaucasian Republic. This republic was one of four that joined to form the Soviet Union in late 1922. In 1936, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia became separate republics of the Soviet Union.
Joseph Stalin became dictator of the Soviet Union in 1929. He ruled by terror, allowed little expression by nationalist groups, and had many political and cultural leaders killed. After Stalin's death in 1953, the Soviet Union became more tolerant of national differences. Armenia began to develop into a more modern, European-style society while preserving its ethnic culture.
Nagorno-Karabakh, an autonomous oblast (self-governing region) in neighboring Azerbaijan, has long been a source of dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The region is separated from Armenia by a narrow strip of Azerbaijan's territory. Until the late 1980's, a large majority of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh were Armenians and a minority were Azerbaijanis. In 1988, large numbers of Armenians demonstrated in Yerevan and other cities, demanding that Nagorno-Karabakh be made part of Armenia. The protests soon led to fighting between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. After the fighting began, about 400,000 Armenians fled to Armenia from Azerbaijan. About 200,000 Azerbaijanis--almost all those who lived in Armenia--fled to Azerbaijan.
On Dec. 7, 1988, a severe earthquake struck Armenia. It killed about 25,000 people and destroyed much property. The destruction caused by the earthquake, along with the large number of refugees from Azerbaijan, led to a severe shortage of housing and jobs in Armenia.
Independence. In 1990, non-Communists won control of Armenia's government. The republic's legislature then declared that Armenia's laws took precedence over those of the Soviet Union. In early 1991, the Armenian legislature scheduled a referendum on independence to be held in September.
In August 1991, conservative Communist officials failed in an attempt to overthrow the Soviet Union's president, Mikhail S. Gorbachev. In the upheaval that followed, several republics declared their independence. In September, the Armenian people voted for independence from the Soviet Union. In October, Levon Ter-Petrosyan was elected president. In December, Armenia joined other former republics in an association called the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Soviet Union was formally dissolved on December 25.
During the Soviet period, the government owned most of Armenia's businesses, factories, and farmland. But in January 1991, the government began a program to introduce more elements of a free-enterprise system. By the time the Soviet Union broke up, the government had sold about three-fourths of the farmland to private owners. Today, most farmland and many small businesses are privately owned. The government is in the process of selling some medium-sized and large businesses and industries that are owned by the state.
Recent developments. In 1994, Armenia and Azerbaijan declared a cease-fire in the fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh. In 1996, Levon Ter-Petrosyan was reelected president of Armenia. However, many Armenians protested that the election had been marred by fraud. In February 1998, Ter- Petrosyan resigned, and Armenia's prime minister, Robert Kocharian, became acting president. In March 1998, Kocharian was elected to a term as president.
In October 1999, gunmen entered the parliament building and assassinated Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisyan and several other government officials. The gunmen were arrested, and Kocharian appointed replacements for the slain officials.
ZEUS
Zeus was the ruler of the gods in Greek mythology. Zeus was a sky and weather god, especially associated with rain, thunder, and lightning. The Greeks believed he was all-knowing and all-seeing. The Greeks considered Zeus a father figure and a protector, especially of guests and strangers. The Roman god Jupiter was equivalent to Zeus.
Zeus was the son of Cronus and Rhea, members of an earlier race of ruling gods called the Titans. Zeus and the other children of Cronus defeated the Titans. Zeus then took Cronus' place and ruled from his home on Mount Olympus. He headed a family of 12 major gods and goddesses called the Olympians. Some lesser gods also lived on Olympus. Zeus's brothers were the gods Hades and Poseidon. Hades ruled the underworld, and Poseidon ruled the seas. The goddesses Demeter, Hera, and Hestia were Zeus's sisters.
At the time Zeus was introduced in Greece, the religion of that area was based on fertility. Each community had a major fertility goddess and a male god associated with her. Zeus eventually took the place of many of these male gods, and became the husband or lover of the goddesses. Later, Hera became Zeus's wife, and other goddesses took a lesser status.
Zeus had many love affairs with goddesses and mortal women and fathered many children. His children included the goddess Aphrodite; the gods Apollo, Dionysus, and Hermes; and the mortal heroes Perseus and Heracles (Hercules in Latin). Zeus alone gave birth to the goddess Athena.
In art, Zeus is depicted as bearded and majestic, often holding a thunderbolt. The eagle and the oak tree were symbols associated with Zeus.
MIGRATION
Migration, in biology, is the movement of animals to a place that offers better living conditions. Many kinds of animals regularly migrate to avoid unfavorable changes in weather or food supply, or to take advantage of better living conditions elsewhere. Human beings also migrate, but they do so for political and social reasons as well as biological ones.
Biologists use the term migration to describe several types of movements. Some biologists, particularly those who study insects, refer to one-way journeys as migrations. Such movements take place when animals leave an area in search of better living conditions, and neither they nor their descendants necessarily return to the original area.
Other biologists refer to the long-term historical changes in the distribution of animals as migrations. But most biologists define migrations as regular, round-trip movements between two areas. Each area offers more favorable living conditions than the other at some point in the animals' lives. This article discusses such regular, round-trip migrations.
Migrations take place on land, in water, or in the air. Some animals migrate only short distances. For example, many frogs and toads make yearly migrations of only a few miles or kilometers between their breeding and nonbreeding homes. Other migrations cover thousands of miles or kilometers. Arctic terns rank among the animals that migrate farthest. These birds travel as much as 22,000 miles (35,400 kilometers) in a year.
Types of migrations. Most migratory animals make (1) daily migrations or (2) seasonal migrations.