How is Romeo impetuous?

Romeo's impetuosity can be seen in the astonishing ease with which he falls in love. It's a standing joke among his friends—especially Mercutio—who rib him mercilessly over it. It helps to explain why they find it so hard to accept Romeo's love for Juliet; they think she's just another brief infatuation like Rosaline.
But this time it's the real thing, as Romeo shows—somewhat ironically—by his impetuosity in the famous balcony scene. There's something about Romeo's impetuosity here that stands apart from previous instances. One certainly can't imagine him serenading Rosaline in this way. While Romeo is declaring his undying love for Juliet, using the most flowery romantic language imaginable, Juliet, though no less smitten, is much more grounded, trying to get Romeo to see the dangerous consequences of the two young love-birds going against the wishes of their warring families.

I would say the height of Romeo's impetuousness is contained within act 5, scene 3, when he commits suicide. Juliet took a sleeping potion in order to fake her death and Romeo believes she is actually dead. He immediately goes to the apothecary to acquire poison, then returns to Juliet's tomb. Romeo kills himself in order to join Juliet in death. Romeo and Juliet have only known each other for a short time period. Their love progresses at a shocking pace and Romeo chooses to give up the entire rest of his life for Juliet. Juliet wakes up shortly after Romeo poisons himself, then stabs herself with a dagger. Had Romeo not acted so rashly, they would have both lived. Given this ending, Romeo's impetuousness is his tragic flaw and leads to his (and Juliet's) downfall.

Romeo had to be characterized as unusually impetuous, even for a young man. Everything in the play has to happen within a limited time frame, and Romeo is the instigator. He sees and falls madly in love with Juliet in a matter of minutes--or seconds. He also forgets Rosaline within a short time. Then he arranges to be married to Juliet with the same impetuous haste. By Act III, Scene 5, they have already spent the night in each other's arms. Romeo's impetuosity seems infectious. It influences Juliet to marry Romeo without any engagement period and without her parents' knowledge, much less their consent. It also influences Friar Laurence to perform the wedding immediately and in secret. Perhaps Shakespeare decided to make Juliet such a young girl to make it plausible that she could be so easily swept away. A lot happens in Romeo and Juliet within a very short time frame. It seems as if they have lived out their whole lifetimes on "fast forward," so to speak.

The octave "London, 1802" describes England as having lost its values. What is meant by this statement?

This sonnet was composed by William Wordsworth in 1802. One afternoon, his sister Dorothy read to him some sonnets of Milton, and Wordsworth, on hearing those sonnets calls upon the noble spirit of Milton, who despite having lived in troubled times, led a puritan life of strength and character, and served his nation well.
A writer's age is always mirrored in his work. This poem also reflects the undercurrents of the poet's admiration for the French revolution that proved to be a harbinger of joy, hope and equality for the French against the shackles of oppression and tyranny of the masses. But Wordsworth believed in reformation rather than revolution and this poem bears a testimony to this fact.
In times of social and political deterioration, we yearn for a messiah to put an end to our trials and tribulations. In this Octave (lines 1-8), Wordsworth dejected because of social stagnation, political upheaval and moral degeneration of the English nation, invokes the spirit of Milton to lead them to the pinnacles of glory. He believes that the progress in England has come to a standstill owing to the political upheavals, moral degeneration and exploitation of the poor, labouring classes at the hands of the landlords. England may have gained material wealth but there seem to be no prospects for its poor. He laments the fact that all the English classes __________ the clergy, the soldiers, the commoners, even the men of letters have lost their old heritage of happiness and contentment, and have now become a selfish nation. So, he appeals to Milton to be amongst them in these trying times in order to teach them the noble values of virtue, freedom, power and strength of character.

William Wordsworth uses his poem “London, 1802” to lament the loss of virtue and values that he has seen in British society. There are several things he mentions in particular, bemoaning their disappearance and wishing they were restored.
The main virtues he is saddened by losing are happiness, religion, chivalry, and artistry. He believes the people of London are bitter and greedy and therefore are unhappy in their lives. Additionally, many have forsaken religion and turned to secularism. He also mentions the lack of justice and chivalry in the nation, which is deeply troubling considering the nation’s history as a chivalrous one full of knights and kings. The disappearance of art and literature are mentioned because Wordsworth believes they would encourage the other values to grow again, and losing them has destroyed these virtues.

What lines inform of Annabel’s death in "Annabel Lee"?

In Edgar Allan Poe's poem "Annabel Lee," there are actually a few lines that convey the death of his beloved maiden whose only thought was to "love and be loved by" the speaker.
In stanza three, the tone shifts from one of adoration to a more somber reflection. In lines three and four in this stanza, he recalls,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;

A wind here is used symbolically to represent death. Clouds often represent an ominous force in nature, and this force chills, or takes the life from, Annabel Lee.

Next, the speaker notes the immediate course of action taken by her family:


So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,



Annabel Lee was from a prominent family, and it is conveyed in these lines that they do not look with favor upon the speaker. Note that he is not allowed to accompany them or follow his beloved. Instead, she is simply taken from him.

The end of this stanza explains what her family does with the body:


To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.



She is sealed in a tomb by the sea, and the speaker spends his nights at this tomb remembering the love he once shared with his beautiful Annabel Lee.

Consider the character of Jocasta. Is she a "flat" character—a generalized queen figure—or an individual with distinctive traits or personality? Point to speeches or details in the play to back up your opinion.

Jocasta is more than a generalized queen figure. While she does have noble bearing, she is made distinct by her love of her family. In her first appearance, she calms a dispute between Oedipus and her brother Creon, reminding Oedipus of Creon's loyalty to them in the past.
Her most distinctive trait is her disbelief in the power of prophecy or fate. When Oedipus shares his concerns about the prophecy claiming he will kill his father and marry his mother, she tells him not to worry, prefacing her story with, "Listen and I'll convince thee that no man / Hath scot or lot in the prophetic art." She tells him the story of how her former husband, Laius, sought to defeat a prophecy that his own son would kill him by abandoning their then–three-day-old child on the mountainside. Later, she even laughs off the idea of the prophecy in full, telling Oedipus:

This wedlock with thy mother fear not thou. How oft it chances that in dreams a man Has wed his mother! He who least regards Such brainsick phantasies lives most at ease.

Unfortunately, Jocasta's confidence (some might even say arrogance) is shattered. Ironically, she learns Oedipus's true identity before he does. When he becomes more fervent to learn the truth of his origins, she begs him not to or else he will be "miserable" for the rest of his days.
Unable to handle the fact that she slept with and conceived children with her own child, Jocasta hangs herself—not to save the state from the curse or atone for the incest, but to escape her own pain. And this detail further disproves the idea that Jocasta is merely a queen figure. She is very human, experiencing the same shame and horror any person would in such a situation.
http://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/oedipus.html

What evidence is there that Grandfather enjoyed his early years as a soldier?

Mattie's grandfather, William Farnsworth Cook, served under George Washington in the Pennsylvania Fifth Regiment. He's one of Mattie's mentors and readily passes on some of the skills he learned as a soldier, which prove vital to Mattie at various points throughout the story. Many old soldiers refuse to talk about the conflicts in which they've served, on account of the horrific sights they've witnessed and the deep trauma they've suffered. But Mattie's grandfather appears to have enjoyed his years as a soldier. He shows this, for example, by dressing up in his old army uniform when he escorts Mattie to the countryside. As mentioned earlier, he also teaches Mattie some of his old soldiering skills. Serving as a soldier under Washington gave Grandfather William a real sense of direction in life. To some extent, his work at the Bush Hill Hospital gives his life as a civilian a similar overriding purpose.

How did the character transform in "Diving into the Wreck"?

The main character in this poem is also the speaker. She begins the poem feeling anxious about the deep sea dive she is about to undertake. She says, for example, that she is having to dive "not like Cousteau with his / assiduous team . . . but here alone." As she descends into the water, the speaker also remarks that her "flippers cripple" her, and she reflects again on the fact that she is alone, with "no one / to tell (her) when the ocean / will begin."
Towards the end of the poem, however, the speaker transforms in that her anxiety is replaced with wonder, fascination, and a sense of calmness. She is almost bewitched by "the treasures that prevail" at the bottom of the sea, and she becomes completely at one with the time and place. "This is the place," she says, "And I am here." She also thinks of herself as "the mermaid" and "the merman." In other words, she feels that she belongs in this place and is in harmony with it. This is in stark contrast to the speaker's state of mind at the beginning of the poem, when she contemplated the dive ahead with trepidation. By the end of the poem, the speaker is much calmer, even though she is surrounded by "the ribs of the disaster" and "the tentative haunters."

What is the moral of the book Kim?

The moral of the novel Kim is that one should be loyal to his or her country. Kim, the protagonist, is raised in Lahore, India, but he is the son of Irish parents. His father, now dead, was a soldier who passed along a prophecy to Kim—that he will find fortune when he encounters a red bull on a green field. Later, Kim finds this red bull, which is the flag of his father's unit in the British military. Ultimately, though Kim is raised so that he can seem like a native-born person in India and can speak Urdu, he joins the British Secret Service to help the British win the "Great Game." This is the battle that the British fought against Russia to gain control of Central Asia. In the end, Kim aids in this quest. Though he feels a sense of kinship with the Buddhist lama he meets, Kim is ultimately loyal to the British people, as his parents were.

The moral of Kim, perhaps unsettling to modern sensibilities, is that British imperialism is good for India. What most fully brings peace and unity to the land is for it to be ruled by the white British, who have lived there most of their lives and been brought up in India's ways. They can then rule with understanding. For example, an older Indian woman has an exchange with a British police constable. The woman asks him who nursed him as an infant. He responds it was an Indian, then jokingly tells the ugly woman who asked him the question to hide her "beauty":

'A pahareen—a hillwoman of Dalhousie, my mother. Keep thy beauty under a shade—O Dispenser of Delights,' and he was gone.

The Indian woman then says that it is constables like this one, raised in India, who are best fit to "oversee justice," i.e. rule:

'These be the sort'—she took a fine judicial tone, and stuffed her mouth with pan—'These be the sort to oversee justice. They know the land and the customs of the land.

Kim, too, an Irish person raised among the Indians, represents the ideal of an India prospering under British rule and guidance. There is no sense in the novel that the Indians might be better off ruling themselves.