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Sycorax
Sycorax is an unseen character in William Shakespeare's play ''The Tempest'' (1611). She is a vicious and powerful witch and the mother of Caliban (character), Caliban, one of the few native inhabitants of the island on which Prospero, the hero of the play, is stranded. According to the history provided by the play, Sycorax, while pregnant with Caliban, was banished from her home in Algiers to the island on which the play takes place. Memories of Sycorax, who dies several years before the main action of the play begins, define several of the relationships in the play. Relying on his filial connection to Sycorax, Caliban claims ownership of the island. Prospero constantly reminds Ariel (Shakespeare), Ariel of Sycorax's cruel treatment to maintain the sprite (creature), sprite's service. Scholars generally agree that Sycorax, a foil (literature), foil for Prospero, is closely related to the Medea of Ovid's ''Metamorphoses''. Postcolonialist writers and critics see Sycorax as gi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caliban (character)
Caliban ( ), son of the witch Sycorax, is an important character in William Shakespeare's play '' The Tempest''. His character is one of the few Shakespearean figures to take on a life of its own "outside" Shakespeare's own work: as Russell Hoban put it, "Caliban is one of the hungry ideas, he's always looking for someone to word him into being ... Caliban is a necessary idea". Character Caliban is half human, half monster. After his island becomes occupied by Prospero and his daughter Miranda, Caliban is forced into slavery. While he is referred to as a calvaluna or mooncalf, a freckled monster, he is the only human inhabitant of the island that is otherwise "not honour'd with a human shape" (Prospero, I.2.283). In some traditions, he is depicted as a wild man, or a deformed man, or a beast man, or sometimes a mix of fish and man, a dwarf or even a tortoise. Banished from Algiers, Sycorax was left on the isle, pregnant with Caliban, and died before Prospero's arrival. Ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caliban
Caliban ( ), son of the witch Sycorax, is an important character in William Shakespeare's play '' The Tempest''. His character is one of the few Shakespearean figures to take on a life of its own "outside" Shakespeare's own work: as Russell Hoban put it, "Caliban is one of the hungry ideas, he's always looking for someone to word him into being ... Caliban is a necessary idea". Character Caliban is half human, half monster. After his island becomes occupied by Prospero and his daughter Miranda, Caliban is forced into slavery. While he is referred to as a calvaluna or mooncalf, a freckled monster, he is the only human inhabitant of the island that is otherwise "not honour'd with a human shape" (Prospero, I.2.283). In some traditions, he is depicted as a wild man, or a deformed man, or a beast man, or sometimes a mix of fish and man, a dwarf or even a tortoise. Banished from Algiers, Sycorax was left on the isle, pregnant with Caliban, and died before Prospero's arrival. C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ariel (Shakespeare)
Ariel is a spirit who appears in William Shakespeare's play '' The Tempest''. Ariel is bound to serve the magician Prospero, who rescued him from the tree in which he was imprisoned by Sycorax, the witch who previously inhabited the island. Prospero greets disobedience with a reminder that he saved Ariel from Sycorax's spell, and with promises to grant Ariel his freedom. Ariel is Prospero's eyes and ears throughout the play, using his magical abilities to cause the tempest in Act One which gives the play its name, and to foil other characters' plots to bring down their master. Ariel means "Lion of God" in the Hebrew language. Ariel may also be a simple play on the word "aerial". Scholars have compared Ariel to spirits depicted in other Elizabethan plays, and have managed to find several similarities between them, but one thing which makes Ariel unique is the human edge and personality given to Ariel by Shakespeare. The name is also phonetically similar to the word "areal", m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corax Of Syracuse
Corax ( el, Κόραξ, ''Korax''; fl. 5th century BC) was one of the founders (along with Tisias) of ancient Greek rhetoric. Some scholars contend that both founders are merely legendary personages, others that Corax and Tisias were the same person, described in one fragment as "Tisias, the Crow" (''corax'' is ancient Greek for "crow"). And according to Aristotle, Empedocles was the actual founder of rhetoric, but this is also unlikely. It is believed that William Shakespeare derived the name Sycorax from Corax of Syracuse. Corax is said to have lived in Sicily in the 5th century BC, when Thrasybulus, tyrant of Syracuse, was overthrown and a democracy formed. Contributions to rhetorical study Corax originated some of the basic principles and laid the groundwork for the Greek scholars to follow – particularly Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. They took these properties and applied them to other rhetorical uses, particularly in government. However, Corax developed these methods sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prospero
Prospero ( ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of William Shakespeare's play '' The Tempest''. Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan, whose usurping brother, Antonio, had put him (with his three-year-old daughter, Miranda) to sea on a "rotten carcass" of a boat to die, twelve years before the play begins. Prospero and Miranda had survived and found exile on a small island. He has learned sorcery from books, and uses it while on the island to protect Miranda and control the other characters. Before the play has begun, Prospero has freed the magical spirit Ariel from entrapment within "a cloven pine". Ariel is beholden to Prospero after he is freed from his imprisonment inside the pine tree. Prospero then takes Ariel as a slave. Prospero's sorcery is sufficiently powerful to control Ariel and other spirits, as well as to alter weather and even raise the dead: "Graves at my command have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth, by my so potent Art." - Act V, scen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Circe
Circe (; grc, , ) is an Magician (paranormal), enchantress and a minor goddess in ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion, religion. She is either a daughter of the Titans, Titan Helios and the Oceanid nymph Perse (mythology), Perse or the goddess Hecate and Aeëtes. Circe was renowned for her vast knowledge of potions and herbs. Through the use of these and a magic wand or staff, she would Shapeshifting, transform her enemies, or those who offended her, into animals. The best known of her legends is told in Homer's ''Odyssey'' when Odysseus visits her island of Aeaea on the way back from the Trojan War and she changes most of his crew into swine. He manages to persuade her to return them to human shape, lives with her for a year and has sons by her, including Latinus and Telegonus (son of Odysseus), Telegonus. Her ability to change others into animals is further highlighted by the story of Picus, an Italian king whom she turns into a woodpecker for resisting her adv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scythians
The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Eastern Iranian languages, Eastern * : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Central Asia and Eastern Turkestan to distinguish them from the related Massagetae of the Aral region and the Scythians of the Pontic steppes. These tribes spoke Iranian languages, and their chief occupation was nomadic pastoralism." * : "Near the end of the 19th century V.F. Miller (1886, 1887) theorized that the Scythians and their kindred, the Sauromatians, were Iranian-speaking peoples. This has been a popular point of view and continues to be accepted in linguistics and historical science [...]" * : "From the end of the 7th century B.C. to the 4th century B.C. the Central- Eurasian steppes were inhabited by two large groups of kin Iranian-speaking tribes – the Scythians and Sarmatians [.. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Batman
Stephen or Stephan Batman or Bateman (died 1584) was an English translator and author. Life Batman was born at Bruton, Somerset, and, after a preliminary education in the school of his native town, went to Cambridge, where he had the reputation of being a learned man and an excellent preacher. It is supposed he was the Bateman who in 1534 took the degree of LL.B., being at that time a priest and a student of six years' standing. Afterwards Archbishop Parker selected him as one of his domestic chaplains, and employed him in the collection of the library now deposited in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Batman asserts that he collected 6,700 books for the archbishop, though this is probably an exaggeration. In 1573 he was rector of Merstham, Surrey. He was also Doctor of Divinity and parson of Newington Butts in the same county. In 1582 he was one of the domestic chaplains of Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon. He resided for some time at Leeds, Kent. His death occurred in 1584. Publicati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bartholomeus Anglicus
Bartholomaeus Anglicus (before 1203–1272), also known as Bartholomew the Englishman and Berthelet, was an early 13th-century Scholastic of Paris, a member of the Franciscan order. He was the author of the compendium ''De proprietatibus rerum'' ("On the Properties of Things"), dated c.1240, an early forerunner of the encyclopedia and a widely cited book in the Middle Ages. Bartholomew also held senior positions within the church and was appointed Bishop of Łuków in what is now Poland, although he was not consecrated to that position. Early life Little is known of Bartholomew's early life. He is believed to have been born around the turn of the 13th century to unknown parents. The first record of him was in 1224 in Paris as a teacher, although he is also believed to have studied at Oxford University. Encyclopedia The work ''De proprietatibus rerum'' was written at the school of Magdeburg in Saxonia and intended for the use of students and the general public. Bartholomew c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homophone
A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, as in ''rain'', ''reign'', and ''rein''. The term ''homophone'' may also apply to units longer or shorter than words, for example a phrase, letter, or groups of letters which are pronounced the same as another phrase, letter, or group of letters. Any unit with this property is said to be ''homophonous'' (). Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms, e.g. the word ''read'', as in "He is well ''read''" (he is very learned) vs. the sentence "I ''read'' that book" (I have finished reading that book). Homophones that are spelled differently are also called heterographs, e.g. ''to'', ''too'', and ''two''. Etymology "Homophone" derives from Greek ''homo-'' (ὁμο ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas East
Thomas East, (also spelled Easte, Est, or Este) (''c.''1540 – January 1609), was an English printer who specialised in music. He has been described as a publisher, but that claim is debatable (the specialties of printer and bookseller/publisher were usually practiced separately). He nevertheless made an important contribution to musical life in England. He printed the significant madrigal collection, ''Musica Transalpina'', which appeared in 1588. His career was complicated by the existence of patents, monopolies granted by the crown to William Byrd and Thomas Morley. East had a close association with William Byrd. He printed religious compositions by Byrd (including some clearly intended for Roman Catholic services, masses and ''Gradualia''). Career East was made a freeman of the Stationers' Company on 6 December 1565. The first appearance of his name as a printer occurs in the registers of the company in 1576, when he issued Robinson's '. After this date his name is of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
