What Should We Expect from Our Leaders?

I think the qualities of intelligence, working ethics, morality, courage, eloquence, charisma, and devotion are all important qualities. I think the most important quality would be the charisma of a leader. Sure is intelligence important. If a person does not have the quality of intelligence, he will she will never know what it the best policy to make and what is the best decision. However, with no charisma, even if a leader has the best policy to enforce, no one will trust or support the viability of the policy. Charisma is essential for a leader to persuade his or her citizens and to make his or her companions agreeable to his or her ruling.

 A great leader would be Gandhi. At a time when Indians were facing unfair treatments, Gandhi used his intelligence to think in the long term of what is best for all Indians. In his mind, Britain treating India unfairly is morally wrong. He then decided they should fight back for their own rights or else they would never get fait trade. At that time, no one dared to revolt against the powerful Great Britain. Gandhi had the courage and took the initiative and boycotted against British goods. He must have been a great speaker, too. He persuaded people to follow him at the risk of being punished by Britain.

Why is Memorizing the Sonnet harder than Memorizing Beowulf

Today my recitation did not go as smooth as I thought it would. I immediately thought that memorizing the sonnet is harder than memorizing Beowulf after trying to memorizing the first four lines of Sonnet 18. One of the reason is that Shakespeare uses a lot if unusual grammatical structures. For example, Shakespeare may alternate the usual structure of subject plus a verb to a clause that starts with a conjunction or a preposition. He used this to gain parallelism of the sentence structures. Another reason is the usage of really formal or old-fashioned words. I need to spend more time trying to define the words and apply it to the general meaning of the whole sonnet.I think it is harder for me to understand without the basic and direct sentence structure. Another reason is the lack of a story plot or story line. For Beowulf, other than the quite straightforward language, there is a story line that conveys its details in order. Conversely, in Sonnet 18, there is generally no story line that I can make it into a continuous “slideshow” of images in my head. It really helps me memorize. I think that a reason for me to do not as smoothly is my lack of sleep. Sleep can really determine the efficiency and amount a person can memorize. In conclusion, I think the many grammar and rhetoric usages combined with formal English words is the reason why it is harder than the relatively modern-day English Beowulf.

Can You Ever Be Too Ambitious

In my opinion, people can sometimes be too ambitious. In today’s society, competition is very fierce. Thus being successful is very important to many. However, this success can lead to overwhelming greed or ambition. Once people tasted the sweetness of victory, they tend to yearn for more and to want to achieve something even more advanced. One example is Napoleon’s loss of power. Initially, Napoleon is successful at gaining power over a few countries. However, he became too confident. He became too ambitious and tried to take over too many countries than he could handle. In the end, his people revolted against him and he spent the rest of his life in isolation. I think there are many failures, like the example of Napoleon, which resulted from being overly ambitious. Of course a little ambition is needed to achieve success. Nevertheless, if someone could not handle fame and praise well, they can become too confident and then lead to the state when they develop too much ambition. This is usually when bad decisions are made about actions that are often out of their lead. In conclusion, too much ambition can lead to failures.

Differences of The 13th Warrior and Beowulf

        The 13^th warriors, in my opinion, is not totally different from Beowulf. They have many similarities and differences. The two have generally the same central idea of trying to find an epic hero and trying to rescue people out of the monster’s atrocity. Firstable, one of the smaller difference are the names of the characters. Beowulf is called Buliwyf in the film and the addition of the 13^th warrior to fight with Beowulf called Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan. The perspective of the two is also different. The story of the 13^th warrior is filmed through the perspective of the 13^th warrior, Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan. However, in Beowulf, the story is described through a third person perspective. I would say that different form the poem Beowulf, the warriors in the film are somewhat confused about the goal of the journey and at times of decision making rather than devoted to whatever the decisions Beowulf made as in the poem. For example, the 13^th warrior is confused why he is chosen to fight, for he is not even a warrior. However, we can see the different personalities of the warriors. Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan is actually a sympathetic man because he saves the child who was running away from the attack and has a compassionate heart for those who are suffering. I will also say Beowulf in the film is more of a kind and sympathetic man who wishes to purge the monsters rather than like in the poem, he came to Herot to prove his almightiness in battling. In all, the film shows more of the parts of how each warrior show of their own personalities and physical strength rather than just Beowulf gaining the credits and fame himself.

        There are also small changes in characters. For example, in the film, there are more than one monster. There are others dragons who accompany Grendel rather than just Grendel who appears. It was like a race. Also, Beowulf in the film did not kill the monsters the first time compared to the poem. He only killed the monsters the second time and get scratched and poisoned by the mother monster. In the poem, Beowulf was hurt by another dragon ho guards treasure in the mountains. Another different fact is that the monsters only take away the dead man’s head rather dragging the whole body down to his den to devour, as in the poem, to devour themselves.