Assignment
An individual’s context influences the discoveries they make and ways they make discoveries.” Demonstrate how your prescribed text and 1 other related text of your own choosing represent this interpretation of discovery.

Response
An individual’s context is possibly their most defining aspect. It shapes who they are, the actions they take and how they will respond to the impacts of their actions. The influence of this context permeates their entire discovery making process. It displays itself to be an integral part, manipulating the discoveries made and the ways those discoveries are made. This notion is represented through the exploration of an individual’s historical, social and personal context in Rosemary Dobson’s poems, Painter of Antwerp and Cock Crow, and Paulo Coelho’s novel, The Alchemist.
The historical context of any individual will naturally manipulate them towards specific discoveries.
Dobson’s Painter of Antwerp utilizes the historical context of the persona (Pieter Brueghel) to highlight how an individual’s context can influence their discoveries. Historically, Brueghel the Elder was a Flemish Renaissance painter in search for new styles of art around Europe. The repetitive contextual references to “north-bound from Italy” and “painter at Padua” in the first stanza support the notion that Brueghel’s historical context has led him to Venice. However, the discoveries there fail to hold any substantial impact and instead, catalyse Brueghel into a more transformative discovery. He chooses to ‘reject the fanciful’ – representing the previous mentioned artworks – and embrace the contentedness of peasant farmers. This juxtaposes with the first stanza as he initially observes new styles of art only to later reject them. However, in doing so, Dobson also highlights an impetus for this new realisation. Although the frescoes at Venice were indeed magnificent, they held no permanent s...