The supernatural in the poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston UniversityThe poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge is characterized by the supernatural. The word comes from the Latin super meaning above and naturo meaning nature. The etymology of the word, however, helps us in no way to understand the connotation of the word in literature. Contrasted with the natural, the supernatural is apprehended as opposed to comprehended. In fact a thing is apprehended when we can know its existence without understanding it. The natural, we can know and understand because it is material, physical- but the supernatural is beyond the grasp of the physical senses- it is imaterial, spiritual. The natural acts in accordance with physical laws, and departures from these laws are physically impossible, but they are not absolutely impossible for the natural, being created, depends upon the power and the will of its creator. The Creator of the physical universe is above nature and is spiritual and imaterial. We know he exists; but, being beyond the grasp of our senses we can only apprehend him and not comprehend him. Our notion of his being, then since we are so deeply rooted in the physical can only be measured with material images, which we provided with our imaginations and our dreams. The supernatural, then, is a superior force, both spiritual and divine, that has power over the physical universe to change the nature of created things, either in themselves or in their modes of action, and either directly through himself or indirectly through angels or demons or departed spirits. Coleridge is thoroughly romantic in this conception of the supernatural. He creates a new and exotic beauty from the images stored in his imagination. It "lives and breathes before the eyes" and yet it is fantastic, improbable, even impossible. One important factor in understanding the exotic and fantastic nature of the supernatural in his poems is to realize the The Ancient Mariner and Christabel were indirectly influenced by his opium dreams and Kubla Khan was the direct result of an opium dream- proof of this is found in both his Biographia Literaria and Letters written to his wife and friends throughout his opium days. The fact that The Ancient Mariner and Christabel were influenced by his opium dreams does not eliminate the possibility that they were the result of a plan, however- Coleridge himself in his Biographia Literaria assures us that they were- "It was agreed that my endeavors should be directed to persons and characters supernatural." In addition the account of his walk with Wordsworth and Dorothy as well as the argument that precedes the poem provide the external evidence that the Ancient Mariner deals with the supernatural. Spectral persecutions, tutelary spirits and dead men navigating a ship are to be the main elements. In fact the spectral persecution by the tutelary spirits which we find to be at first daemonic and later angelic is most evident throughout the Ancient Mariner. The Christabel, Coleridge called "nothing more than a common Fairy Tale." In fact the poem itself is exotic, deals with enchantment and evil spirits "masking in human forms." Geraldine is weird, unreal, unworldly- she provides the evil influence in the poem- Christabel's mother, who watches from beyond the grave provides the good influence- Geraldine is present throughout the poem, we see her, and through her actions, realize what she is. Christabel's mother is only alluded to; yet, we feel her presence. Unfortunately like Kubla Khan, Christabel is a mere fragment. Had he finished it I cannot but feel that Christabel's mother would have held a more prominent part in the conclusion. Kubla Khan is a dream picture or a rather a part of a dream picture for it was never finished- the background with its supernatural atmosphere of "caverns, measureless to men" "sunless sea" "woman wailing for her demon lover," and "dancing rocks," foreshadows great possibilities. Unfortunately because of the fact that it was never finished, we can only guess, if even that, what might have resulted had not that man from Porlock broken in upon Coleridge's translation into words of this dream picture. Of his three supernatural poems, the Ancient Mariner is his sole poetic literary masterpiece. Coleridge was not a great poet, but he was nevertheless an interesting one- his great merit lies in the utter facility with which he combined the concrete with the abstract, the neutral with the supernatural, in his complete grip of the concrete and facile manipulation of impossibilities. There, he provided both the elements of belief and interest that makes the success of such poems. It is the simplicity and effect woven in the mingling of the concrete with the abstract. That helps us in receiving these abnormal impressions as facts, and in our accepting these lines as facts. Coleridge has verily accomplished his poetic creed

Development and evaluation of a 9K SNP array for peach by internationally coordinated SNP detection and validation in breeding germplasm

Although a large number of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers covering the entire genome are needed to enable molecular breeding efforts such as genome wide association studies, fine mapping, genomic selection and marker-assisted selection in peach [Prunus persica (L.) Batsch] and related Prunus species, only a limited number of genetic markers, including simple sequence repeats (SSRs), have been available to date. To address this need, an international consortium (The International Peach SNP Consortium; IPSC) has pursued a coordinated effort to perform genome-scale SNP discovery in peach using next generation sequencing platforms to develop and characterize a high-throughput Illumina Infinium® SNP genotyping array platform. We performed whole genome re-sequencing of 56 peach breeding accessions using the Illumina and Roche/454 sequencing technologies. Polymorphism detection algorithms identified a total of 1,022,354 SNPs. Validation with the Illumina GoldenGate® assay was performed on a subset of the predicted SNPs, verifying ∼75% of genic (exonic and intronic) SNPs, whereas only about a third of intergenic SNPs were verified. Conservative filtering was applied to arrive at a set of 8,144 SNPs that were included on the IPSC peach SNP array v1, distributed over all eight peach chromosomes with an average spacing of 26.7 kb between SNPs. Use of this platform to screen a total of 709 accessions of peach in two separate evaluation panels identified a total of 6,869 (84.3%) polymorphic SNPs.The almost 7,000 SNPs verified as polymorphic through extensive empirical evaluation represent an excellent source of markers for future studies in genetic relatedness, genetic mapping, and dissecting the genetic architecture of complex agricultural traits. The IPSC peach SNP array v1 is commercially available and we expect that it will be used worldwide for genetic studies in peach and related stone fruit and nut species

Genetic diversity, linkage disequilibrium and power of a large grapevine (Vitis vinifera L) diversity panel newly designed for association studies

UMR-AGAP Equipe DAVV (Diversité, adaptation et amélioration de la vigne) ; équipe ID (Intégration de Données)International audienceAbstractBackgroundAs for many crops, new high-quality grapevine varieties requiring less pesticide and adapted to climate change are needed. In perennial species, breeding is a long process which can be speeded up by gaining knowledge about quantitative trait loci linked to agronomic traits variation. However, due to the long juvenile period of these species, establishing numerous highly recombinant populations for high resolution mapping is both costly and time-consuming. Genome wide association studies in germplasm panels is an alternative method of choice, since it allows identifying the main quantitative trait loci with high resolution by exploiting past recombination events between cultivars. Such studies require adequate panel design to represent most of the available genetic and phenotypic diversity. Assessing linkage disequilibrium extent and panel power is also needed to determine the marker density required for association studies.ResultsStarting from the largest grapevine collection worldwide maintained in Vassal (France), we designed a diversity panel of 279 cultivars with limited relatedness, reflecting the low structuration in three genetic pools resulting from different uses (table vs wine) and geographical origin (East vs West), and including the major founders of modern cultivars. With 20 simple sequence repeat markers and five quantitative traits, we showed that our panel adequately captured most of the genetic and phenotypic diversity existing within the entire Vassal collection. To assess linkage disequilibrium extent and panel power, we genotyped single nucleotide polymorphisms: 372 over four genomic regions and 129 distributed over the whole genome. Linkage disequilibrium, measured by correlation corrected for kinship, reached 0.2 for a physical distance between 9 and 458 Kb depending on genetic pool and genomic region, with varying size of linkage disequilibrium blocks. This panel achieved reasonable power to detect associations between traits with high broad-sense heritability (> 0.7) and causal loci with intermediate allelic frequency and strong effect (explaining > 10 % of total variance).ConclusionsOur association panel constitutes a new, highly valuable resource for genetic association studies in grapevine, and deserves dissemination to diverse field and greenhouse trials to gain more insight into the genetic control of many agronomic traits and their interaction with the environment

Bridging the legitimacy gap—translating theory into practical signposts for legitimate flood risk governance

Legitimacy is widely regarded as a founding principle of ‘good’ and effective governance, yet despite intense academic debate and policy discourse, the concept remains conceptually confusing and poorly articulated in practice. To bridge this gap, this research performed an interpretive thematic analysis of academic scholarship across public administration, public policy, law, political science and geography. Three core themes were identified in relation to representative deliberation, procedural and distributive equity and justice, and socio-political acceptability, with numerous sub-themes therein. In an attempt to clarify conceptual confusion, this paper grounds these theoretical debates in the context of flood risk governance where numerous legitimacy dilemmas exist. A number of questions are presented as conceptual ‘sign posts’ to encourage reflexive governance in the future. Thus, more broadly, we assert the importance of bringing legitimacy to the forefront of contemporary flood risk governance discourse and practice, moving beyond the realm of academic reflection

A Set of 100 Chloroplast DNA Primer Pairs to Study Population Genetics and Phylogeny in Monocotyledons

Chloroplast DNA sequences are of great interest for population genetics and phylogenetic studies. However, only a small set of markers are commonly used. Most of them have been designed for amplification in a large range of Angiosperms and are located in the Large Single Copy (LSC). Here we developed a new set of 100 primer pairs optimized for amplification in Monocotyledons. Primer pairs amplify coding (exon) and non-coding regions (intron and intergenic spacer). They span the different chloroplast regions: 72 are located in the LSC, 13 in the Small Single Copy (SSC) and 15 in the Inverted Repeat region (IR). Amplification and sequencing were tested in 13 species of Monocotyledons: Dioscorea abyssinica, D. praehensilis, D. rotundata, D. dumetorum, D. bulbifera, Trichopus sempervirens (Dioscoreaceae), Phoenix canariensis, P. dactylifera, Astrocaryum scopatum, A. murumuru, Ceroxylon echinulatum (Arecaceae), Digitaria excilis and Pennisetum glaucum (Poaceae). The diversity found in Dioscorea, Digitaria and Pennisetum mainly corresponded to Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) while the diversity found in Arecaceae also comprises Variable Number Tandem Repeat (VNTR). We observed that the most variable loci (rps15-ycf1, rpl32-ccsA, ndhF-rpl32, ndhG-ndhI and ccsA) are located in the SSC. Through the analysis of the genetic structure of a wild-cultivated species complex in Dioscorea, we demonstrated that this new set of primers is of great interest for population genetics and we anticipate that it will also be useful for phylogeny and bar-coding studies

Can the intake of antiparasitic secondary metabolites explain the low prevalence of hemoparasites among wild Psittaciformes?

Background: Parasites can exert selection pressure on their hosts through effects on survival, on reproductive success, on sexually selected ornament, with important ecological and evolutionary consequences, such as changes in population viability. Consequently, hemoparasites have become the focus of recent avian studies. Infection varies significantly among taxa. Various factors might explain the differences in infection among taxa, including habitat, climate, host density, the presence of vectors, life history and immune defence. Feeding behaviour can also be relevant both through increased exposure to vectors and consumption of secondary metabolites with preventative or therapeutic effects that can reduce parasite load. However, the latter has been little investigated. Psittaciformes (parrots and cockatoos) are a good model to investigate these topics, as they are known to use biological control against ectoparasites and to feed on toxic food. We investigated the presence of avian malaria parasites (Plasmodium), intracellular haemosporidians (Haemoproteus, Leucocytozoon), unicellular flagellate protozoans (Trypanosoma) and microfilariae in 19 Psittaciformes species from a range of habitats in the Indo-Malayan, Australasian and Neotropical regions. We gathered additional data on hemoparasites in wild Psittaciformes from the literature. We considered factors that may control the presence of hemoparasites in the Psittaciformes, compiling information on diet, habitat, and climate. Furthermore, we investigated the role of diet in providing antiparasitic secondary metabolites that could be used as self-medication to reduce parasite load. Results: We found hemoparasites in only two of 19 species sampled. Among them, all species that consume at least one food item known for its secondary metabolites with antimalarial, trypanocidal or general antiparasitic properties, were free from hemoparasites. In contrast, the infected parrots do not consume food items with antimalarial or even general antiparasitic properties. We found that the two infected species in this study consumed omnivorous diets. When we combined our data with data from studies previously investigating blood parasites in wild parrots, the positive relationship between omnivorous diets and hemoparasite infestation was confirmed. Individuals from open habitats were less infected than those from forests. Conclusions: The consumption of food items known for their secondary metabolites with antimalarial, trypanocidal or general antiparasitic properties, as well as the higher proportion of infected species among omnivorous parrots, could explain the low prevalence of hemoparasites reported in many vertebrates