...Foils in King Lear: Kent and Oswald Matin Shariatian Shakespeare’s plays are always rich in complex and interconnected characters which compare and contrast in such a way that an analysis of these characters reveals the themes of the play. King Lear is no exception to that. This play’s foils reveal the main themes carried in the story such as loyalty, nature, identity, love, etc… This essay will focus mainly on the theme of loyalty as it is the main theme carried by the characters that will be compared and contrasted in this text, Kent and Oswald, two servants with mostly, but not always, opposite natures. Kent and Oswald’s characters quite clearly contrast each other in many levels. Kent’s line “No contraries hold more antipathy/Than I and such a knave” (7, 84-85) is well representative of the connection of these two characters in the play. The most obvious contrast between the two is the people they serve. Kent’s master, King Lear, and Oswald’s master, Gonoril, are enemies in the story as the motivations and actions of one bring the other one down. This marks the most superficial difference between Kent and Oswald. Another aspect in which these two servants differ is their morality and values. Kent, an extremely loyal servant, motivated by defending his values, confronts Lear after the King banishes his daughter for being truthful. He explains “To plainness honour’s bound/ When majesty stoops to folly” (1, 139-140) meaning that he honors his value, plainness,...
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...Kazi 1 Fahad Ali Kazi S. Pedersen ENG4U1 8 May 2013 A Study of Similar Motifs and Conventions Huxley uses several concepts from Shakespeare’s plays, especially King Lear, in Brave New World .Often times both authors use Aristotelian conventions like reversal or recognition or they use motifs like those about clothes and God. They use these concepts to inform their respective audiences of the irony in the words “civilization” and “nobility”. They relay to the audience that nobility and baseness are not determined by birth, but rather by action. The writers juxtapose opposing concepts like savagery and civilization or nobility and baseness to allow the audience to understand that these terms are ironic. Similarly, they use techniques like reversal and recognition with motifs like those concerning clothes to express the same message. Initially Huxley uses the motif of nobility to show that his views on nobility are similar to those of Shakespeare, as he believes nobility should be based on ones actions. In King Lear Shakespeare repeatedly refers to Burgundy as “noble Burgundy” (1.1.223). He does this in order to show the irony in calling him noble as Burgundy is noble by birth, but not by action. This is obvious when Burgundy dismisses the idea of marrying Cordelia, once Lear removes her dowry, which in his eyes makes her worthless while in the eyes of France her worth does not change. Huxley uses the same motif to emphasize that there is a lack of nobility in the World State...
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...Title: The Tragedy of King Lear Author: William Shakespeare DOP: 1606 Genre: Shakespearean tragedy Writing Style: Play Setting: King Lear's castle in Albion England. Goneril's home. Gloucester's castle. The Cliffs of Dover Plot: Act I. Shakespeare's dark tragedy, King Lear begins with the fictional King of England, King Lear, handing over his kingdom to daughters Regan and Goneril whom he believes truly love him. King Lear intends to stay with each daughter consecutively, accompanied by one hundred loyal knights. Angry that Cordelia his youngest daughter does not appear to love him as do Goneril and Regan, Lear banishes his youngest daughter Cordelia, and Kent, the servant who attempts to defend her. Cordelia leaves and is taken by the King of France as his Queen. Edmund, the loved but illegitimate son of the Earl of Gloucester plots to have his elder brother Edgar's reputation ruined. Edmund tricks his father Gloucester into believing that Edgar wanted to kill him. The disrespectful Goneril conspires to have her guest and father, King Lear, driven out of her house. Kent, who has now disguised his identity to serve King Lear, earns King Lear's respect by defending his name. Goneril offends King Lear and dismisses fifty of his knights. Lear starts to realize Cordelia was not so disrespecting. Lear decides to leave for Regan where he is sure to be treated properly. Lear instructs Kent to deliver several letters to Gloucester. The Fool teaches Lear several riddles. Act II....
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...Compare and Contrast the theme of violence in William Shakespeare’s King Lear and Second Generation by Neil Biswas Although there is an immense gap in time between the work of William Shakespeare and Neil Biswas, it can be justified that there are various points of comparisons that can be made between their interpretations and presentations of the key theme of violence in their plays King Lear and Second Generation. Written between 1603 and 1606, Shakespeare’s King Lear is one of the most celebrated tragedies. King Lear is among the most complex and contradictory of Shakespeare’s works. True to Shakespearean tradition, King Lear borrows its tragic elements from several types of tragedies that were popular during the Jacobean Renaissance. It is a play about the dysfunctional relationships between fathers and their children, and how a foolish father in old age can misread his kids. Whereas Second Generation is a is the epic British Asian love story by Neil Biswas, controversially is a modern re-making of King Lear based in East London. Biswas describes in an article called ‘Conflict between Cultures Can Be Positive’ the social factors that influenced his desire to produce the screenplay. Biswas passively describes himself as ‘second generation of Asians’ who like their parents can relate to the 1977 TV show ‘Mind Your Language’ Biswas based Second Generation in East London in the Bengali Community and used his very own personal experiences, things he has seen or imagined...
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...Character Analysis Lear, the King of Britain, is a powerful and important man. But he's getting near retirement age. Lear thinks he can hand over the hard work of ruling the kingdom to his children and relax. He wants to enjoy the power of still being king without any of the responsibility. That's Lear's first mistake, separating power and responsibility. His two eldest daughters are ready to run their own lives – and their own kingdoms. They resent Lear acting as if he is still in charge. Yet the King is shocked when his daughters assert their independence from him. After all, he gave them everything they have. Lear's second mistake is to exile the people who love him the most. He chooses to stage a "love test" among his three daughters so he can give the biggest slice of the kingdom to the one who loves him most of all. When Cordelia refuses to participate, Lear is so angry that he orders her out of the kingdom. And when his advisor, Kent, warns him that this is a terrible idea, Lear throws him out, too. So Lear has to deal with the power struggle his retirement sparked without two of the people who could have smoothed the transition. (Kent does come back disguised as Caius, a peasant, but this means he only has a peasant's power – enough to take care of Lear, but not enough to soothe his political worries.) Lear realizes his stupidity soon enough. His retirement starts a series of conflicts that lead the whole country to civil war. Two of Lear's own children turn...
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...Who was William Shakespeare? Shakespeare is William Shakespeare, one of the English-speaking world's greatest playwrights and poets, who possessed a great knowledge of human nature and transformed the English theatre. Yet many facts of his life remain a mystery. Some have been acquired from painstaking looks at the records of the time, so that this summary is based on generally agreed facts. It has been said that we only know three things about Shakespeare: that he was born, married and died. He was baptised on April 26, 1564; we do not know his birth date, but many scholars believe it was April 23, 1564. His father was John Shakespeare (who was a glover and leather merchant) and his mother Mary Arden (who was a landed local heiress). John had a remarkable run of success as a merchant, alderman, and high bailiff of Stratford, during William's early childhood. His fortunes declined, however, in the late 1570s. William lived for most of his early life in Stratford-upon-Avon. We do not know exactly when he went to London but he is said to have arrived in 1592. There is great conjecture about Shakespeare's childhood years, especially regarding his education. It is surmised by scholars that Shakespeare attended the free grammar school in Stratford, which at the time had a reputation to rival that of Eton. While there are no records extant to prove this claim, Shakespeare's knowledge of Latin and Classical Greek would tend to support this theory. In addition, Shakespeare's...
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...KING LEAR Act One The play opens at Lear’s court, where we meet the main characters. The opening scene is in itself shocking, as Lear forces his daughters to declare their love for him. The one who loves him the most will receive the largest part of his kingdom, which he intends to divide between the three. Lear himself wishes to hand over the ruling of the kingdom to his daughters, while retaining the ‘Pre-eminence, and all the large effects / That troop with majesty’ (Scene 1, Lines 131-2). Goneril and Regan acquit themselves well at this love test. Cordelia, however, dismayed by her sisters’ ponderous words, refuses to take part in the ‘contest’ and tells Lear that she loves him as her duty instructs her. When Cordelia refuses to speak again, Lear casts her off without a moment’s hesitation. Ken attempts to argue with the King, accusing him of ‘hideous rashness’ (Scene 1, Line 151). When Kent further warns Lear that his elder daughters are false flatterers, Kent too is banished. Lear invests Albany and Cornwall with power, and, after Burgundy refuses to take Cordelia as his wife, now that she is without dowry, France takes her for her virtues alone. Goneril and Regan complain, in private, about Lear’s harsh judgement and unpredictable behaviour and worry that they too may be treated unfairly. Edmund, Gloucester’s bastard son, soliloquises about his own situation, revealing his devious intentions towards his brother. When his father enters, Edmund’s...
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...represented is specifically the author’s, and not a fictional narrator’s, the story is autobiographical and may be nonfictional (see Common Literary Forms and Genres below). Third-person narration: The narrator remains outside the story and describes the characters in the story using proper names and the third-person pronouns “he,” “she,” “it,” and “they.” • Omniscient narration: The narrator knows all of the actions, feelings, and motivations of all of the characters. For example, the narrator of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina seems to know everything about all the characters and events in the story. • Limited omniscient narration: The narrator knows the actions, feelings, and motivations of only one or a handful of characters. For example, the narrator of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has full knowledge of only Alice. • Free indirect discourse: The narrator conveys a character’s inner thoughts while staying in the third person. Gustave Flaubert pioneered this style in Madame Bovary, as in this passage: “Sometimes she thought that these were after all the best days of her life, the honeymoon, so-called.” Objective narration: A style in which the narrator reports neutrally on the outward behavior of the characters but offers no interpretation of their actions or their inner states....
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...UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA, EMERITUS and ARTHEA J. S. REED, PH.D., UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, RETIRED A Teacher’s Guide to the Signet Classic Edition of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet 2 INTRODUCTION William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is an excellent introduction to Shakespearean drama; teenagers can relate to its plot, characters, and themes. The play’s action is easily understood, the character’s motives are clear, and many of the themes are as current today as they were in Shakespeare’s time. Therefore, it can be read on a variety of levels, allowing all students to enjoy it. Less able readers can experience the swash-buckling action and investigate the themes of parent-child conflict, sexuality, friendship, and suicide. Because of the play’s accessibility to teenagers, able readers can view the play from a more literary perspective, examining the themes of hostility ad its effect on the innocent, the use of deception and its consequences, and the effects of faulty decision making. They can study how the characters function within the drama and how Shakespeare uses language to develop plot, characters, and themes. The most able students can develop skills involved in literary criticism by delving into the play’s comic and tragic elements and its classically tragic themes: the role of fate and fortune, the inevitable nature of tragedy, and the isolation of the tragic hero. This teacher’s guide will be divided into several parts: (1) a brief...
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... UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA, EMERITUS and UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, RETIRED A Teacher’s Guide to the Signet Classic Edition of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth 2 INTRODUCTION William Shakespeare developed many stories into excellent dramatizations for the Elizabethan stage. Shakespeare knew how to entertain and involve an audience with fast-paced plots, creative imagery, and multi-faceted characters. Macbeth is an action-packed, psychological thriller that has not lost its impact in nearly four hundred years. The politically ambitious character of Macbeth is as timely today as he was to Shakespeare's audience. Mary McCarthy says in her essay about Macbeth, "It is a troubling thought that Macbeth, of all Shakespeare's characters, should seem the most 'modern,' the only one you could transpose into contemporary battle dress or a sport shirt and slacks." (Signet Classic Macbeth) Audiences today quickly become interested in the plot of a blindly ambitious general with a strong-willed wife who must try to cope with the guilt engendered by their murder of an innocent king in order to further their power. The elements of superstition, ghosts, and witchcraft, though more readily a part of everyday life for the Renaissance audience, remain intriguing to modern teenagers. The action-packed plot, elements of the occult, modern characterizations, and themes of import to today's world make Macbeth an excellent choice for teaching to high school students. This study guide offers...
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...Bloom’s Classic Critical Views W i l l ia m Sha k e Sp e a r e Bloom's Classic Critical Views alfred, lord Tennyson Benjamin Franklin The Brontës Charles Dickens edgar allan poe Geoffrey Chaucer George eliot George Gordon, lord Byron henry David Thoreau herman melville Jane austen John Donne and the metaphysical poets John milton Jonathan Swift mark Twain mary Shelley Nathaniel hawthorne Oscar Wilde percy Shelley ralph Waldo emerson robert Browning Samuel Taylor Coleridge Stephen Crane Walt Whitman William Blake William Shakespeare William Wordsworth Bloom’s Classic Critical Views W i l l ia m Sha k e Sp e a r e Edited and with an Introduction by Sterling professor of the humanities Yale University harold Bloom Bloom’s Classic Critical Views: William Shakespeare Copyright © 2010 Infobase Publishing Introduction © 2010 by Harold Bloom All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For more information contact: Bloom’s Literary Criticism An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data William Shakespeare / edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom : Neil Heims, volume editor. p. cm. — (Bloom’s classic critical views) Includes bibliographical references...
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...SECOND DRAFT Contents Preamble Chapter 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Background Rationale Aims Interface with the Junior Secondary Curriculum Principles of Curriculum Design Chapter 2 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 1 Introduction Literature in English Curriculum Framework Strands and Learning Targets Learning Objectives Generic Skills Values and Attitudes Broad Learning Outcomes Chapter 3 5 7 9 10 11 11 13 Curriculum Planning 3.1 Planning a Balanced and Flexible Curriculum 3.2 Central Curriculum and School-based Curriculum Development 3.2.1 Integrating Classroom Learning and Independent Learning 3.2.2 Maximizing Learning Opportunities 3.2.3 Cross-curricular Planning 3.2.4 Building a Learning Community through Flexible Class Organization 3.3 Collaboration within the English Language Education KLA and Cross KLA Links 3.4 Time Allocation 3.5 Progression of Studies 3.6 Managing the Curriculum – Role of Curriculum Leaders Chapter 4 1 2 2 3 3 13 14 14 15 15 16 16 17 17 18 21 Learning and Teaching 4.1 Approaches to Learning and Teaching 4.1.1 Introductory Comments 4.1.2 Prose Fiction 4.1.3 Poetry i 21 21 23 32 SECOND DRAFT 4.1.4 Drama 4.1.5 Films 4.1.6 Literary Appreciation 4.1.7 Schools of Literary Criticism 4.2 Catering for Learner Diversity 4.3 Meaningful Homework 4.4 Role of Learners Chapter 5 41 45 52 69 71 72 73 74 Assessment 5.1 Guiding Principles 5.2 Internal Assessment 5.2.1 Formative Assessment 5.2.2 Summative Assessment 5.3 Public Assessment 5.3.1 Standards-referenced...
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...Center, Washington, DC; Lyric Theatre, London; Royal Lyceum Theatre Company, Edinburgh; Yale Repertory Theatre, New Haven, CT. © 2010 Weston Playhouse Theatre Company, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) educational and cultural institution. WPTC Performance Guides may be duplicated at no charge for educational purposes only. They may not be sold or used in other publications without the express written consent of the Weston Playhouse Theatre Company. Weston Playhouse Theatre Company Weston Playhouse Theatre Company DEATH OF A SALESMAN Study Guide for Teachers TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Interview with Director Steve Stettler The Playwright Arthur Miller in his own words Inspiration for Death of a Salesman Writing Death of a Salesman The Characters Synopsis The Setting Themes Motifs...
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... 10000 general knowledge questions and answers www.cartiaz.ro No Questions Quiz 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 Carl and the Passions changed band name to what How many rings on the Olympic flag What colour is vermilion a shade of King Zog ruled which country What colour is Spock's blood Where in your body is your patella Where can you find London bridge today What spirit is mixed with ginger beer in a Moscow mule Who was the first man in space What would you do with a Yashmak Who betrayed Jesus to the Romans Which animal lays eggs On television what was Flipper Who's band was The Quarrymen Which was the most successful Grand National horse Who starred as the Six Million Dollar Man In the song Waltzing Matilda - What is a Jumbuck Who was Dan Dare's greatest enemy in the Eagle What is Dick Grayson better known as What was given on the fourth day of Christmas What was Skippy ( on TV ) What does a funambulist do What is the name of Dennis the Menace's dog What are bactrians and dromedaries Who played The Fugitive Who was the King of Swing Who was the first man to fly across the channel Who starred as Rocky Balboa In which war was the charge of the Light Brigade Who invented the television Who would use a mashie niblick In the song who killed Cock Robin What do deciduous trees do In golf what name is given to the No 3 wood If you has caries who would you consult What other...
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...Beginning theory An introduction to literary and cultural theory Second edition Peter Barry © Peter Barry 1995, 2002 ISBN: 0719062683 Contents Acknowledgements - page x Preface to the second edition - xii Introduction - 1 About this book - 1 Approaching theory - 6 Slop and think: reviewing your study of literature to date - 8 My own 'stock-taking' - 9 1 Theory before 'theory' - liberal humanism - 11 The history of English studies - 11 Stop and think - 11 Ten tenets of liberal humanism - 16 Literary theorising from Aristotle to Leavis some key moments - 21 Liberal humanism in practice - 31 The transition to 'theory' - 32 Some recurrent ideas in critical theory - 34 Selected reading - 36 2 Structuralism - 39 Structuralist chickens and liberal humanist eggs Signs of the fathers - Saussure - 41 Stop and think - 45 The scope of structuralism - 46 What structuralist critics do - 49 Structuralist criticism: examples - 50 Stop and think - 53 Stop and think - 55 39 Stop and think - 57 Selected reading - 60 3 Post-structuralism and deconstruction - 61 Some theoretical differences between structuralism and post-structuralism - 61 Post-structuralism - life on a decentred planet - 65 Stop and think - 68 Structuralism and post-structuralism - some practical differences - 70 What post-structuralist critics do - 73 Deconstruction: an example - 73 Selected reading - 79 4 Postmodernism - 81 What is postmodernism? What was modernism? -...
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