TO POSTERITY- POEM- LOUIS MACNEICE- ANALYSIS

Louis MacNeice was born on September 12, 1907, in Belfast, Ireland to parents originally from Connemara in the West of Ireland. In 1909 they moved to Carrickfergus due to the appointment of MacNeice’s father as rector for the Anglican Church in the town. His father later became a Bishop. At the age of ten he was sent to school in Dorset. MacNeice went on to study classics at Oxford, becoming a close friend and poetic contemporary of W.H. Auden. He majored in classics and philosophy. In 1930, he married Giovanna Ezra and accepted a post as classics lecturer at the University of Birmingham, a position he held until 1936, when he went on to teach Greek at Bedford College for Women, University of London. He earned his living as a university lecturer in Classics. The second world war found him in the United States - not an escaper or refugee, but an invited guest-lecturer in English at Cornell, because by 1939 he was indeed a famous poet, prolific, sought after for poems and opinions. He came back to England in 1941 and joined the BBC, where he spent more than 20 years in the legendary radio features department as writer/producer. Some of his best-known plays, including 'Christopher Columbus' (1944), and 'The Dark Tower' (1946), were originally written for radio and later published. 

Despite his association with young British poets Stephen Spender, W. H. Auden, writer Christopher Isherwood, and other left-wing poets, MacNeice was as mistrustful of political programs as he was of philosophical systems. He was never a member of the Communist Party or any other political groups, and he was quite candid about the ambiguities of his political attitudes. "My sympathies are Left," he wrote. "But not in my heart or my guts." Although he chose to live most of his adult life in London, MacNeice frequently returned to the landscapes of his childhood. His poetry is characterised by its familiar, sometimes humorous tone and its integration of contemporary ideas and images. In August of 1963, on location with a unit of the BBC, he went down in a mineshaft. The 'cold' he caught was not diagnosed as pneumonia until too late. He died a month after at 55 years old. He died on September 3, 1963, just before the publication of his last book of poems, The Burning Perch. Ironically, Louis MacNeice was born in the month of September (1907) and died in September.

About the Poem

 Traditionally, a book carved into a gravestone signified the Book of Life, awaiting review by the Heavenly Critic. MacNeice pays poetry and the written word a splendid compliment. When the world is no longer “framed in words,” when the best eyes and ears of the past are no longer consulted, when we presume to confront the world in all our arrogant solitude, what remains? A weirdly mutated world of “wingless birds.” Without words, grass is no longer “green” but something less. “If you read books of lasting value, you ought to study what you read, and if you study, you ought to take notes. And if you take notes, you owe it to yourself to assemble them into some sort of coherent commentary. What is the point of studious reading if not to evaluate critically what you read, assimilating the good while rejecting the bad? The forming of the mind is the name of the game. This won't occur from passive reading, but only by an active engagement with the material. The best way to do this is by writing up your own take on it.

The poem “To Posterity” by LouisMacNeice was first published in the volume “Visitations” in 1957. The meaning of the title of the poem “To Posterity” means, next generation. The poem is addressed not only to the generation of the speaker but also to ours. Now books are in their death bed situations, and some books have already gone to their graveyards. The speaker conveys to us the importance of reading good books and he also conveys his anxiety to a generation without reading and without books. MacNeice,

focuses on those matters which trouble us a lot, like the advent of the new medias and technology. Books the age-old friend of mankind has already bid goodbye to us. The coming of television and the internet has immersed us in a new world, forgetting our age-old friend the books. Now it’s the era of e books. So, studying literary works, we are the ones to analyse the importance of books in each one of our lives. In the present era library have vanished and if it does exist it is like an old monument. The new generation have already forgotten the importance of books and they have also forgotten the habit of reading which makes them intelligent brave and also provides us the courage to face life rather than running away from the harsh realities of life.

In 1957 MacNeice wrote the short poem To Posterity. A poem strangely professes our diminished world. This poem was written in the middle of 20th century, where the new medias were lightening the world or human minds like a star. During this time people were very much aware of the death bed situation of books, our age-old companion. As soon as the new medias and culture of globalisation took control of humanity, books and the reading habits went straight away to their graveyards. Here the poet foresees an era where e books and e library will dominate the world, we now live in. The poet ponders upon the questions like, the greenness of the grass and the blueness of the sky. So, he refers a world without books to that of a wingless bird. He concludes the poem with a lot many questions which the mere future will be able to answer. 

LOVE AND ITS BIOLOGYCAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL REASON

 

Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure.An example of this range of meanings is that the love of a mother differs from the love of a spouse, which differs from the love for food. Most commonly, love refers to a feeling of a strong attraction and emotional attachment.

Love is considered to be both positive and negative, with its virtue representing human kindness, compassion, and affection, as "the unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another" and its vice representing human moral flaw, akin to vanity, selfishness, amour-propre, and egotism, as potentially leading people into a type of mania, obsessiveness or codependency. It may also describe compassionate and affectionate actions towards other humans, one's self, or animals. In its various forms, love acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts. Love has been postulated to be a function that keeps human beings together against menaces and to facilitate the continuation of the species.

Ancient Greek philosophers identified six forms of love: essentially, familial love (in Greek, Storge), friendly love or platonic love (Philia), romantic love (Eros), self-love (Philautia), guest love (Xenia), and divine or unconditional love (Agape). Modern authors have distinguished further varieties of love: unrequited love, empty love, companionate love, consummate love, infatuated love, self-love, and courtly love. Numerous cultures have also distinguished Ren, Yuanfen, Mamihlapinatapai, Cafuné, Kama, Bhakti, Mettā, Ishq, Chesed, Amore, Charity, Saudade (and other variants or symbioses of these states), as culturally unique words, definitions, or expressions of love in regards to a specified "moments" currently lacking in the English language.

Scientific research on emotion has increased significantly over the past two decades. The color wheel theory of love defines three primary, three secondary and nine tertiary love styles, describing them in terms of the traditional color wheel. The triangular theory of love suggests "intimacy, passion and commitment" are core components of love. Love has additional religious or spiritual meaning. This diversity of uses and meanings combined with the complexity of the feelings involved makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, compared to other emotional states

Biological models of sex tend to view love as a mammalian drive, much like hunger or thirst. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist and human behavior researcher, divides the experience of love into three partly overlapping stages: lust, attraction, and attachment. Lust is the feeling of sexual desire; romantic attraction determines what partners mates find attractive and pursue, conserving time and energy by choosing; and attachment involves sharing a home, parental duties, mutual defense, and in humans involves feelings of safety and security. Three distinct neural circuitries, including neurotransmitters, and three behavioral patterns, are associated with these three romantic styles.

Lust is the initial passionate sexual desire that promotes mating, and involves the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and estrogen. These effects rarely last more than a few weeks or months. Attraction is the more individualized and romantic desire for a specific candidate for mating, which develops out of lust as commitment to an individual mate forms. Recent studies in neuroscience have indicated that as people fall in love, the brain consistently releases a certain set of chemicals, including the neurotransmitter hormones, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, the same compounds released by amphetamine, stimulating the brain's pleasure center and leading to side effects such as increased heart rate, loss of appetite and sleep, and an intense feeling of excitement. Research has indicated that this stage generally lasts from one and a half to three years.

Since the lust and attraction stages are both considered temporary, a third stage is needed to account for long-term relationships. Attachment is the bonding that promotes relationships lasting for many years and even decades. Attachment is generally based on commitments such as marriage and children, or mutual friendship based on things like shared interests. It has been linked to higher levels of the chemicals oxytocin and vasopressin to a greater degree than short-term relationships have. Enzo Emanuele and coworkers reported the protein molecule known as the nerve growth factor (NGF) has high levels when people first fall in love, but these return to previous levels after one year.

Psychology depicts love as a cognitive and social phenomenon. Psychologist Robert Sternberg formulated a triangular theory of love and argued that love has three different components: intimacy, commitment, and passion. Intimacy is a form in which two people share confidences and various details of their personal lives, and is usually shown in friendships and romantic love affairs. Commitment, on the other hand, is the expectation that the relationship is permanent. The last form of love is sexual attraction and passion. Passionate love is shown in infatuation as well as romantic love. All forms of love are viewed as varying combinations of these three components. Non-love does not include any of these components. Liking only includes intimacy. Infatuated love only includes passion. Empty love only includes commitment. Romantic love includes both intimacy and passion. Companionate love includes intimacy and commitment. Fatuous love includes passion and commitment. Lastly, consummate love includes all three components. American psychologist Zick Rubin sought to define love by psychometrics in the 1970s. His work states that three factors constitute love: attachment, caring, and intimacy.

Following developments in electrical theories such as Coulomb's law, which showed that positive and negative charges attract, analogs in human life were developed, such as "opposites attract". Over the last century, research on the nature of human mating has generally found this not to be true when it comes to character and personality—people tend to like people similar to themselves. However, in a few unusual and specific domains, such as immune systems, it seems that humans prefer others who are unlike themselves (e.g., with an orthogonal immune system), since this will lead to a baby that has the best of both worlds. In recent years, various human bonding theories have been developed, described in terms of attachments, ties, bonds, and affinities. Some Western authorities disaggregate into two main components, the altruistic and the narcissistic. This view is represented in the works of Scott Peck, whose work in the field of applied psychology explored the definitions of love and evil. Peck maintains that love is a combination of the "concern for the spiritual growth of another," and simple narcissism. In combination, love is an activity, not simply a feeling.

Psychologist Erich Fromm maintained in his book The Art of Loving that love is not merely a feeling but is also actions, and that in fact, the "feeling" of love is superficial in comparison to one's commitment to love via a series of loving actions over time. In this sense, Fromm held that love is ultimately not a feeling at all, but rather is a commitment to, and adherence to, loving actions towards another, oneself, or many others, over a sustained duration. Fromm also described love as a conscious choice that in its early stages might originate as an involuntary feeling, but which then later no longer depends on those feelings, but rather depends only on conscious commitment

BREASTFEEDING AND ITS NUTRITIONAL CONTENT

 Breastfeeding, or nursing, is the process by which human breast milk is fed to a child. Breast milk may be from the breast, or may be expressed by hand or pumped and fed to the infant. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that breastfeeding begin within the first hour of a baby's life and continue as often and as much as the baby wants. Health organizations, including the WHO, recommend breastfeeding exclusively for six months. This means that no other foods or drinks, other than vitamin D, are typically given. WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life, followed by continued breastfeeding with appropriate complementary foods for up to 2 years and beyond. Of the 135 million babies born every year, only 42% are breastfed within the first hour of life, only 38% of mothers practice exclusive breastfeeding during the first six months, and 58% of mothers continue breastfeeding up to the age of two years and beyond.

Breastfeeding has a number of benefits to both mother and baby that infant formula lacks. Increased breastfeeding to near-universal levels in low and medium income countries could prevent approximately 820,000 deaths of children under the age of five annually. Breastfeeding decreases the risk of respiratory tract infections, ear infections, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and diarrhea for the baby, both in developing and developed countries.  Other benefits have been proposed to include lower risks of asthma, food allergies, and diabetes. Breastfeeding may also improve cognitive development and decrease the risk of obesity in adulthood.

Benefits for the mother include less blood loss following delivery, better contraction of the uterus, and a decreased risk of postpartum depression. Breastfeeding delays the return of menstruation, and in very specific circumstances, fertility, a phenomenon known as lactational amenorrhea.[  Long-term benefits for the mother include decreased risk of breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and rheumatoid arthritis.  Breastfeeding is less expensive than infant formula, but its impact on mothers' ability to earn an income is not usually factored into calculations comparing the two feeding methods.

Feedings may last as long as 30–45 minutes each as milk supply develops and the infant learns the Suck-Swallow-Breathe pattern.  However, as milk supply increases and the infant becomes more efficient at feeding, the duration of feeds may shorten.  Older children may feed less often. When direct breastfeeding is not possible, expressing or pumping to empty the breasts can help mothers avoid plugged milk ducts and breast infection, maintain their milk supply, resolve engorgement, and provide milk to be fed to their infant at a later time. Medical conditions that do not allow breastfeeding are rare. Mothers who take certain recreational drugs should not breastfeed, however, most medications are compatible with breastfeeding. Current evidence indicates that it is unlikely that COVID-19 can be transmitted through breast milk. Smoking tobacco and consuming limited amounts of alcohol and/or coffee are not reasons to avoid breastfeeding.

The pattern of intended nutrient content in breast milk is relatively consistent. Breastmilk is made from nutrients in the mother's bloodstream and bodily stores. It has an optimal balance of fat, sugar, water, and protein that is needed for a baby's age appropriate growth and development. That being said, a variety of factors can influence the nutritional makeup of breastmilk, including gestational age, age of infant, maternal age, maternal smoking, and nutritional needs of the infant.: 10–14 

The first type of milk produced is called colostrum. The volume of colostrum produced during each feeding is appropriate for the size of the newborn stomach and is sufficient, calorically, for feeding a newborn during the first few days of life.: 27–34  Produced during pregnancy and the first days after childbirth, colostrum is rich in protein and Vitamins A, B12 and K, which supports infants' growth, brain development, vision, immune systems, red blood cells, and clotting cascade. The breast milk also has long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids which help with normal retinal and neural development.The caloric content of colostrum is about 54 Calories/100mL. The second type of milk is transitional milk, which is produced during the transition from colostrum to mature breast milk. As the breast milk matures over the course to several weeks, the protein content of the milk decreases on average.: 10–14  The caloric content of breastmilk is reflective of the caloric requirements of the infant, increasing steadily after 12 months.: 10–14  The caloric content of breastmilk in the first 12 months of breastfeeding is approximated to be 58-72 Calories/100mL. Comparatively, the caloric content after 48 months is approximately 83-129 Calories/100mL.

When a mother has her full milk supply and is feeding her infant, the first milk to be expressed is called the foremilk. Foremilk is typically thinner and less rich in calories. The hindmilk that follows is rich in calories and fat.

If the mother is not herself deficient in vitamins, breast milk normally supplies her baby's needs, with the exception of Vitamin D. The CDC, National Health Service (UK), Canadian Paediatric Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Academy of Family Physicians all agree that breast milk alone does not provide infants with an adequate amount of Vitamin D, thus they advise parents to supplement their infants with 400 IU Vitamin D daily. Providing this quantity of Vitamin D to breastfeeding infants has been shown to reduce rates of Vitamin D insufficiency (defined as 25‐OH vitamin D < 50 nmol/L). However, there was insufficient evidence in the most recent Cochrane Review, to determine if this quantity reduced rates of Vitamin D deficiency (defined as 25‐OH vitamin D < 30 nmol/L) or rickets. Term infants typically do not need iron supplementation. Delaying clamping of the cord at birth for at least one minute improves the infants' iron status for the first year.: 50–51 When complementary (solid) foods are introduced at about 6 months of age, parents should make sure to choose iron-rich foods to help maintain their children's iron stores.