|
Shakespeare's Writing Style
William Shakespeare's style of writing was borrowed from the conventions of the day and adapted to his needs. Overview William Shakespeare's first plays were written in the conventional style of the day. He wrote them in a stylised language that does not always spring naturally from the needs of the characters or the drama. The poetry depends on extended, elaborate metaphors and conceits, and the language is often rhetorical—written for actors to declaim rather than speak. For example, the grand speeches in ''Titus Andronicus'', in the view of some critics, often hold up the action, while the verse in ''The Two Gentlemen of Verona'' has been described as stilted. Soon, however, William Shakespeare began to adapt the traditional styles to his own purposes. The opening soliloquy of '' Richard III'' has its roots in the self-declaration of Vice in medieval drama. At the same time, Richard's vivid self-awareness looks forward to the soliloquies of Shakespeare's mature plays. No ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shakespeare And His Contemporaries
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an act ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prince Hamlet
A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The female equivalent is a princess. The English word derives, via the French word ''prince'', from the Latin noun , from (first) and (head), meaning "the first, foremost, the chief, most distinguished, noble ruler, prince". Historical background The Latin word (older Latin *prīsmo-kaps, literally "the one who takes the first lace/position), became the usual title of the informal leader of the Roman senate some centuries before the transition to empire, the ''princeps senatus''. Emperor Augustus established the formal position of monarch on the basis of principate, not dominion. He also tasked his grandsons as summer rulers of the city when most of the government were on holiday in the country or attending religious rituals, and, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Bowdler
Thomas Bowdler, Royal College of Physicians, LRCP, Royal Society, FRS (; 11 July 1754 – 24 February 1825) was an English physician known for publishing ''The Family Shakespeare'', an expurgated edition of William Shakespeare's plays edited by his sister Henrietta Maria Bowdler. They sought a version they saw as more appropriate than the original for 19th-century women and children. Bowdler also published works reflecting an interested knowledge of continental Europe. His last work was an expurgation of Edward Gibbon's ''Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', published posthumously in 1826 under the supervision of his nephew and biographer, Thomas Bowdler the Younger. The term bowdlerise or bowdlerize links the name with expurgation or omission of elements deemed unsuited to children, in literature and films and on television. Biography Thomas Bowdler was born in Box, Wiltshire, Box, near Bath, Somerset, the youngest son of the six children of Thomas Bowdler (c. 1719–1785), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ribaldry
Ribaldry or blue comedy is humorous entertainment that ranges from bordering on indelicacy to indecency. Blue comedy is also referred to as "bawdiness" or being "bawdy". Sex is presented in ribald material more for the purpose of poking fun at the foibles and weaknesses that manifest themselves in human sexuality, rather than to present sexual stimulation either overtly or artistically. Also, ribaldry may use sex as a metaphor to illustrate some non-sexual concern, in which case ribaldry borders satire. Like any humour, ribaldry may be read as conventional or subversive. Ribaldry typically depends on a shared background of sexual conventions and values, and its comedy generally depends on seeing those conventions broken. The ritual taboo-breaking that is a usual counterpart of ribaldry underlies its controversial nature and explains why ribaldry is sometimes a subject of censorship. Ribaldry, whose usual aim is ''not'' "merely" to be sexually stimulating, often does address lar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Double Entendres
A double entendre (plural double entendres) is a figure of speech or a particular way of wording that is devised to have a double meaning, of which one is typically obvious, whereas the other often conveys a message that would be too socially awkward, sexually suggestive, or offensive to state directly. A double entendre may exploit puns or word play to convey the second meaning. Double entendres generally rely on multiple meanings of words, or different interpretations of the same primary meaning. They often exploit ambiguity and may be used to introduce it deliberately in a text. Sometimes a homophone can be used as a pun. When three or more meanings have been constructed, this is known as a "triple entendre", etc. Etymology According to the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary, the expression comes from the rare and obsolete French expression, which literally meant "double meaning" and was used in the senses of "double understanding" o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soliloquy
A soliloquy (, from Latin ''solo'' "to oneself" + ''loquor'' "I talk", plural ''soliloquies'') is a monologue addressed to oneself, thoughts spoken out loud without addressing another. Soliloquies are used as a device in drama to let a character make their thoughts known to the audience, address it directly or take it into their confidence. But sometimes that confidence may be partial--when characters share only part of their thoughts to the audience. English Renaissance drama used soliloquies to great effect, such as in the soliloquy "To be, or not to be", the centerpiece of Shakespeare's ''Hamlet''. See also * Aside *Backstory *Exposition (narrative) *Internal monologue *List of narrative techniques *Narration Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the ... References ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Couplet
A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the two lines is end-stopped, implying that there is a grammatical pause at the end of a line of verse. In a run-on (or open) couplet, the meaning of the first line continues to the second. Background The word "couplet" comes from the French word meaning "two pieces of iron riveted or hinged together". The term "couplet" was first used to describe successive lines of verse in Sir P. Sidney's '' Arcadia '' in 1590: "In singing some short coplets, whereto the one halfe beginning, the other halfe should answere." While couplets traditionally rhyme, not all do. Poems may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets in iambic pentameter are called ''heroic couplets''. John Dryden in the 17th century and Alexander Pope in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shakespeare's Late Romances
The late romances, often simply called the romances, are a grouping of William Shakespeare's last plays, comprising ''Pericles, Prince of Tyre''; ''Cymbeline''; ''The Winter's Tale''; and '' The Tempest''. ''The Two Noble Kinsmen'', of which Shakespeare was co-author, is sometimes also included in the grouping. The term "romances" was first used for these late works in Edward Dowden's ''Shakespeare: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art'' (1875). Later writers have generally been content to adopt Dowden's term. Shakespeare's plays cannot be precisely dated, but it is generally agreed that these comedies followed a series of tragedies including ''Othello'', ''King Lear'' and ''Macbeth''. Shakespeare wrote tragedies because their productions were financially successful, but he returned to comedy towards the end of his career, mixing it with tragic and mystical elements. Shakespeare's late romances were also influenced by the development of tragicomedy and the extreme elaboration of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holinshed
Raphael Holinshed ( – before 24 April 1582) was an English chronicler, who was most famous for his work on ''The Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande'', commonly known as ''Holinshed's Chronicles''. It was the "first complete printed history of England composed as a continuous narrative". The ''Holinshed Chronicles'' was a major influence on many Renaissances writers, such as Shakespeare, Spenser, Daniel, and Marlowe. Biography Little is known about Holinshed's life and for the most part his early years are primarily a matter of speculation. Holinshed was most likely born to Ralph Holinshed of Cophurst in Sutton Downes, Cheshire. The date of his birth is unknown. Holinshed is assumed to have received an education from student records from Christ's College in Cambridge, which show a student under the name Holinshed attending the school from 1544 to 1545. In his later years, he lived in London where he worked as a translator for the printer, Reginald Wolfe. Wolfe gav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited with initiating the 14th-century Italian Renaissance and the founding of Renaissance humanism. In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio, and, to a lesser extent, Dante Alighieri. Petrarch was later endorsed as a model for Italian style by the Accademia della Crusca. Petrarch's sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry. He is also known for being the first to develop the concept of the " Dark Ages".Renaissance or Prenaissan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macbeth (character)
Lord Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis and quickly the Thane of Cawdor, is the title character and main protagonist in William Shakespeare's ''Macbeth'' (c. 1603–1607). The character is loosely based on the historical king Macbeth of Scotland and is derived largely from the account in ''Holinshed's Chronicles'' (1577), a compilation of British history. A Scottish noble and an initially valiant military man, Macbeth, after a supernatural prophecy and the urging of his wife, Lady Macbeth, commits regicide, usurping the kingship of Scotland. He thereafter lives in anxiety and fear, unable to rest or to trust his nobles. He leads a reign of terror until defeated by his former ally Macduff. The throne is then restored to the rightful heir, the murdered King Duncan's son, Malcolm. Origin Shakespeare's version of Macbeth is based upon Macbeth of Scotland, as found in the narratives of the Kings Duff and Duncan in ''Holinshed's Chronicles'' (1587). In the play The tragedy begins am ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pity By William Blake 1795
Pity is a sympathetic sorrow evoked by the suffering of others, and is used in a comparable sense to ''compassion'', ''condolence'' or ''empathy'' – the word deriving from the Latin ''pietas'' (etymon also of ''piety''). Self-pity is pity directed towards oneself. Two different kinds of pity can be distinguished, "benevolent pity" and "contemptuous pity" (see Kimball), where, through insincere, pejorative usage, pity is used to connote feelings of superiority, condescension, or contempt. Psychological opinions Psychologists see pity arising in early childhood out of the infant's ability to identify with others. Psychoanalysis sees a more convoluted route to (at least some forms of) adult pity by way of the sublimation of aggression – pity serving as a kind of magic gesture intended to show how leniently one should oneself be treated by one's own conscience. Religious views *In the West, the religious concept of pity was reinforced after acceptance of Judeo-Christian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Macbeth (character)")
