Portugal

Portugal is located in the Northern and Westernhemispheres. Portugal's geographic coordinates are 38 degrees 42 minutes North latitude and 9 degrees 11 minutes West longitude. The Northern Hemisphere is the half-sphere of the Earth that lies North of the Equator. Portugal is located 38 degrees North of the Equator.

The Western Hemisphere is the half-sphere of the Earth that lies West of the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, England. Portugal is located 9 degrees West of the Prime Meridian.

Specifically, the Northwestern hemispheric quadrant.

12:00 GMT (Greenwich Mean Time; UTC) =

• 08:00 AMT (Amazon Time; UTC -4)
• 09:00 AMST (Amazon Summer Time; UTC -3)
• 09:00 BRT (Brasilia Time; UTC -3)
• 10:00 BRST (Brasilia Summer Time; UTC -2)

12:00 BST (British Summer Time; UTC +1) =

• 07:00 AMT (Amazon Time; UTC -4)
• 08:00 AMST (Amazon Summer Time; UTC -3)
• 08:00 BRT (Brasilia Time; UTC -3)
• 09:00 BRST (Brasilia Summer Time; UTC -2)

England observes summer time from late March through late October.

Some southern parts of Brazil observe summer time from mid-October through late February.

A president named Cavaco Silva and the prime minister Jose Socrates


Jose Sócrates, from the Portuguese Socialist Party, its the Portuguese Prime-Minister.

The President is Cavaco Silva, from the Portuguese Social-Democracy Party

Literary texts often deal with the human condition, capturing the experiences that people go through regardless of their backgrounds. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, both authors represent one's belief in the form of love, where love is portrayed as a transformative power. Browning's relationship with her husband liberates from her past sorrows while Gatsby is motivated by his love for Daisy to pursue a materialistic lifestyle. With the use of literary devices, it is evident that the idea of love being transformative is embedded into these two texts, where both protagonists undergo great change after they experienced love. However, the readers' own contexts affect the way in which they receive these texts, and we realize that despite the timeless characteristic of literature, a work of literature can convey different messages when interpreted by readers of different social backgrounds.
To understand Sonnets from the Portuguese, one must learn about the social background in which it is written in. Born in the Victorian era, Browning had to deal with illness and strict paternal control when she was young, where women had to obey their fathers or husbands. It was her relationship of being loved by her husband Robert which liberated her from the past restrictions and sadness of her life, as reflected by the transformation of the voice in Sonnets from the Portuguese. Traditionally, the Petrarchan sonnets are written in a male voice, yet by composing The Sonnets from the Portuguese in her own voice, Browning subverts the gender roles. Browning's modification of the sonnet form symbolizes her own transformation of being liberated from traditional female gender roles in the 19th century, where instead of her staying silent, she asks the man to be silent to express his love.

Sonnet 1 in particular focuses on Browning's earlier phase in life and the sorrow in which she endures. By describing the years of the past as "sweet"Â, "sad" and "melancholy"Â, the readers from that era get the sense that while she looks upon her past with some nostalgia, she is clouded with loneliness and boredom. This is further emphasized with the verb "weeping"Â, where this "shadow" continues to bother her and inflict emotional suffering despite that she has moved on to the present. However, by including a dialogue with the Shape, Browning allows the readers to realize that she is starting to move on from her shadowy past. When the voice asks her "guess now who holds thee?", she replies with "death"Â, which illustrates that she only expects her life to get worse, yet when the voice says "not death, but love"ÂÂ, the readers get the sense that what follows in her life is going to be positive, with love acting as the driving force of this change. Browning undergoes a self-transformative process when she is being courted by Robert, where she gradually frees herself from her "melancholy years". Browning further includes imageries of the arrival of spring in Sonnet 2. While the arrival of this season can justify her call to hear "I love you" from Robert, it also allows us to associate her relationship with Robert as one which brings positive changes into her life. By including the imageries of a "valley" and a "wood without her cuckoo-strain"Â, Browning gives her sonnet a sense of joy and hope and we link this with her being happy about her relationship with Robert, where he provides her with companionship and love.

Additionally, Browning's faith in love is presented as "religious" and "pure" in her sonnets. One must remember that the 19th century is an era where religion plays a huge role in daily life. Sonnet 22 in particular contains many religious references and imageries, and its readers are reminded that even though Browning is not following the conventions of courtly love, she still needs to adhere to the religious values of her era. The imagery of "two souls standing up" and "wings" portray the relationship between them two as almost divine-like, where their faith in love will bond them together eternally. With the metaphor of "angels"‚ and heaven, Browning reflects upon the religious belief that believers go to heaven when they die. Readers will get the impression that love in the 19th century is inseparable from religious faith, where lovers undergo a spiritual experience when they fall in love.

Composed in the 20th century, The Great Gatsby is written in a very different context compared to Sonnets from the Portuguese. The 1920s is a post-war era characterized by rapid economic growth, a period of cultural dynamism in America which is often called the Jazz Age. The modernization of society is evident in the "hydroplane"Â, "cabs" and Gatsby's "Rolls-Royce" which appear in the novel. Gatsby's pursuit of Daisy can be seen as an extension of the American dream. Even though his "perfect girl" is now married to Tom Buchanan, Gatsby strongly believes that he can win her over with his wealth, believing that any goal is achievable as long as you reach towards it with faith.

Similar to Browning, Gatsby's love for Daisy transforms him. Gatsby was born into the working class, evident in the descriptions of his teenage days as a "clam-digger". It is Gatsby's love for Daisy that partially drives him to pursue a hedonistic lifestyle to impress her, leading him to become one of the wealthiest men in America. With the imagery of an "enormous garden"Â and an orchestra that is "no thin five-piece affair"Â in his "dazzling parties", Fitzgerald illustrates the extent to which Gatsby is willing to go to pursue Daisy. His "mansion in the East Egg"Â further serves as a symbol for his obsession with material wealth. Fitzgerald further captures Gatsby's faith in winning over Daisy with his action of constantly staring at "the green light"Â at the shorelines of the West Egg regularly, and readers understand that Gatsby's life is transformed so that it revolves around pursuing Daisy, and that although his background from a working-class family still bothers him at times, it generally lurks far away in the past.

However, The Great Gatsby is different from Sonnets from the Portuguese in that the love affairs in the novel are not governed by religious faith. Not only is there a lack of religious imageries in the novel, but the plot of the novel revolves around activities that are frowned upon by religious people who stick to traditional beliefs. The plot of the novel involves much infidelity and this is deemed as immoral by the religious community. By characterizing Gatsby as "some big bootlegger"‚ who "owns some drug-stores", the readers see Gatsby as a man who lacks social responsibility, one that is willing to break the law in order to earn a lot of profit. Furthermore, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg serve as a symbol for God staring down upon the American society. With the imageries of "grotesque garden" and"ash-grey men" in the Valley of Ashes, the readers associate the American society of that era as a moral wasteland, juxtaposing with the prosperous and materialistic lifestyle that Gatsby enjoys.

As readers of the 21st century, we interpret both texts differently compared to their origin intended audiences due to our own backgrounds. We still see faith in love as a transformative force where both Elizabeth and Gatsby undergo great changes when they experience love. While Elizabeth's love for Robert liberates her from the restrictions of her society and childhood, Gatsby is transformed from a working class boy to one of the wealthiest man in America in his pursuit of Daisy. However, as modern audiences, we see the role of religious faith in love similar to that portrayed in The Great Gatsby. While people strongly adhere to religious values during the Victorian era in all aspects of life, we can pursue love in a more nonrestrictive manner like the characters of The Great Gatsby, where religion does not shape our romantic relationships. While the religious imageries in Sonnets of the Portuguese do not directly relate to us, we can still understand them by learning about the context in which the poems are composed in. Through examining these two texts, we realize that while the some qualities of a text are interpreted in the same way for all audiences, some may vary in the meantime. We can yet an insight into the significance into what the creators are trying to express after understanding the background of the works. This just goes to illustrate the timeless nature of literature. While literary works may be interpreted different by audiences of different social contexts, they appeal to readers of all backgrounds and they can hence transcend their original contexts and convey different messages.

Literary texts often deal with the human condition, capturing the experiences that people go through regardless of their backgrounds. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald in the 1920s and The Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning in the 19th century are both about the human desire to strive towards what we define as perfection. While Gatsby becomes a businessman to pursue his ideal hedonistic lifestyle, Browning builds a romantic relationship with Robert to liberate herself from her past sorrows. Although the two tests are very different in nature, it is evident that the idea of the pursuit of perfection being a trans formative experience is embedded into these two tests where both protagonists undergo great change when they improve their lives.

In The Great Gatsby, we learn about the human desire to pursue perfection to improve our state of living. Although Gatsby is introduced to us as one of the wealthiest men in America, it is revealed that Gatsby was originally from a working-class background with descriptions of his teenage days as a "clam-digger". Fitzgerald gives James Gatz the name "Jay Gatsby" for the new identity that Gatsby creates for himself as well as the title "the son of God" to capture his desire to change his socio-economical status. The phrase "son of God" particularly brings the impression that Gatsby wants to become perfect and deity-like in the future where he has the money and social influence to do and buy anything that he wants in society. The imageries of what Gatsby owns later in his life such as his "hydroplane" and his "Rolls-Royce" juxtapose with his harsh childhood experience and emphasizes how his pursuit of wealth changes his quality of life, where he gets to live the hedonistic lifestyle of his dreams. By mentioning location names, we know that Gatsby moved from "Detroit", an area where the working-class lives, to "East Egg", one of the most expensive districts of New York. This reveals that Gatsby's desire to become "the son of God" successfully allows him to improve himself, a trans formative experience which liberates him from poverty.

In the meantime, Gatsby's obsession with Daisy illustrates that we may desire to become perfect in order to impress someone we love. In fact, Daisy herself can be interpreted as a symbol for perfection as Fitzgerald describes her with the adjective "perfect". Gatsby's action of buying a "mansion in East Egg" symbolizes his obsession with pursuing Daisy, where he is willing to invest millions of dollars to move near the girl of his dreams. With the imagery of an "enormous garden" and an orchestra that is "no thin five-piece affair" in his "dazzling parties", Fitzgerald captures Gatsby's desire to win Daisy's love. Gatsby's love for Daisy is one that drives him to pursue material wealth, and we understand that the human condition of falling in love is one that can motivate us to create a perfect image for ourselves.

Similar to The Great Gatsby, we can see that Browning strives to improve her own life in The Sonnets from the Portuguese yet in a manner which is not as extreme as Gatsby. Browning's idea of perfection can be interpreted as liberating herself from the sorrow she faced earlier on in her life, which is similar to Gatsby's desire to change his socio-economical status. By describing her past years as "sweet", "sad" and "melancholy", Sonnet 1 allows us to form the impression that while she looks at her past with nostalgia, the miseries from the past continues to bother her by inflicting emotion harm on her. Elizabeth's desire to be with Robert is one that enables her to be free from her past sorrows. With the arrival of spring, a season where life flourishes, Elizabeth justifies her call to hear "I love you" from Robert in Sonnet 21. This allows us to associate her relationship with Robert as one which brings positive changes into her life. By including imageries of spring such as a "valley" and a "wood without her cuckoo-strain", Browning gives her sonnet a sense of hope and joy and we link this with her being happy about her relationship with Robert, where he provides her with love and companionship. As readers, we understand that Elizabeth's pursuit of a relationship with a partner which she sees as perfect-like is a transformative experience, one that improves her quality of life similar to Gatsby's pursuit of wealth and status.

However, The Sonnets from the Portuguese are very different from The Great Gatsby as Elizabeth is willing to give up perfection just to be with the one she loves. The imageries of "angels" and "two souls standing up erect and strong" in Sonnet 22 remind us that the sonnets are composed in an era where people strongly adhered to religious beliefs where they believe that followers of God can go to heaven after they pass away, a perfect place which is free of sin and suffering. The adjective of the orb being "golden and the angels' song being "perfect" further emphasizes that the heaven is viewed as a flawless place of purity by believers. However, this is immediately juxtaposed with Elizabeth's statement of "let us stay rather on earth, Beloved". Readers of the 19th century would be surprised that she chooses to reject heaven just to be with Robert. The imagery of "darkness rounding [their time together]" further points out that she is sacrificing an eternal afterlife for a brief time on earth with her lover as she believes that their love must be experienced in the mortal world. With Elizabeth's rejection of heaven, we understand that love can be more important than our pursuit of perfection at times, where we are willing to make sacrifices just to be happy together with our dearest ones.

As contemporary readers, we see the pursuit of perfection as a transformative force where Elizabeth and Gatsby undergo great changes when they strive to improve their own lives. While Gatsby becomes one of the wealthiest men in his country, Elizabeth finds love and companionship. However, a fundamental difference between the two texts is that while Gatsby strives towards creating a perfect image of himself as a millionaire to impress Daisy, Elizabeth deliberately chooses to reject the idea of going to heaven just to be with Robert in a physically intimate manner. Both of the two texts are composed in different contexts, yet both allow us to learn that humans often desire to change their own lives in a positive manner. In the meantime, we understand that love may play a greater role in our lives. While some may want to create a perfect image of oneself to win over a lover's affection, others may sacrifice eternal afterlife to be with a loved one in a physically close manner. This just goes to illustrate that the human experience of being motivated to improve oneself and pursuing love seems universal to us all. It is this universal nature of the human experience which enables literature to be timeless, where they can transcend their original contexts and appeal to audiences from different backgrounds.