Canadian Federalism Threatened essays

Canadian Federalism Threatened essays The Issues of Quebec Nationalism and Regionalism The Issues of Quebec Nationalism and Regionalism When it was it first conceived in 1867, Canada was founded as a state that would create a government structure based on federalism. Federalism is defined as: A political system in which legislative power is distributed between a national, central, or federal legislature and a level of state or provincial legislatures. The relationship between the two different governments in Canada is characterized by a National government in Ottawa and 10 Provincial governments across the country. Federalism is also characterized in Canada by the constant problems that plague Canadian federalism. Major problems of Canadian federalism (defining the authority structure, drawing out responsibilities, control over spending and raising revenues, outlining standards, and a growing threat of the country splitting up), are among countless other minor problems. However, these problems are all attributed to the fundamental problem of Canadian federalism: the conflict between central Canada and the periphe ral regions. In order to trace the fundamental problem of Canadian federalism, it is important to first define what is central Canada and to note that the problem of federalism is both regionalist and nationalist in nature. Central Canada is comprised of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, but more specifically always includes the national government in Ottawa and its preference to these two provinces. The problem of Canadian federalism is regionalist in nature in that it pits the peripheral regions against central Canada: All of the non-central provinces have grievances with Central Canada and its governments in Ottawa, Ontario and Quebec. It is also nationalist in nature in that although Quebec makes up part of Central Canada, Quebec presents the problem of nationalism to Canadian federalism. Throughout Can...

An Introduction to the Romantic Period

An Introduction to the Romantic Period The categories which it has become customary to use in distinguishing and classifying movements in literature or philosophy and in describing the nature of the significant transitions which have taken place in taste and in opinion, are far too rough, crude, undiscriminating- and none of them so hopelessly as the category Romantic   Arthur O. Lovejoy,  On the Discriminations of Romanticisms (1924) Many scholars say that the Romantic period began with the publication of Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge in 1798. The volume contained some of the best-known works from these two poets including Coleridges The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Wordsworths Lines Written a Few Miles from Tintern Abbey. Of course, other Literary scholars place the start the Romantic period much earlier (around 1785), since Robert Burnss Poems (1786), William Blakes Songs of Innocence (1789), Mary Wollstonecrafts A Vindication of the Rights of Women, and other works already demonstrate that a change has taken placein political thought and literary expression. Other first generation Romantic writers include Charles Lamb, Jane Austen, and Sir Walter Scott. The Second Generation A discussion of the period is also somewhat more complicated since there was a second generation of Romantics (made up of poets Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and John Keats). Of course, the main members of this second generation- though geniusesdied young and were outlived by the first generation of Romantics. Of course, Mary Shelleystill famous for Frankenstein (1818)- was also a member of this second generation of Romantics. While there is some disagreement about when the period began, the general consensus is... the Romantic period ended with the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1837, and the beginning of the Victorian Period. So, here we are in the Romantic era. We stumble upon Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats on the heels of the Neoclassical era. We saw amazing wit and satire (with Pope and Swift) as a part of the last age, but the Romantic Period dawned with a different poetic in the air. In the backdrop of those new Romantic writers, penning their way into literary history, we are on the cusp the Industrial Revolution and writers were affected by the French Revolution. William Hazlitt, who published a book called The Spirit of the Age, says that the Wordsworth school of poetry had its origin in the French Revolution... It was a time of promise, a renewal of the world - and of letters. Instead of embracing politics as writers of some other eras might have (and indeed some writers of the Romantic era did) the Romantics turned to Nature for self-fulfillment. They were turning away from the values and ideas of the previous era, embracing new ways of expressing their imagination and feelings. Instead of a concentration on head, the intellectual focus of reason, they preferred to rely on the self, in the radical idea of individual freedom. Instead of striving for perfection, the Romantics preferred the glory of the imperfect. The American Romantic Period In American literature, famous writers like Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, and  Nathaniel Hawthorne  created fiction during the Romantic Period in the United States.