...Analysis of the Function of Speed in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet is an avalanche. As a loose pebble in the snowcapped mountain wobbles in the wind, Romeo yodels to Juliet in the cliffs just to send it tumbling, lightly, down a vertical abyss. It does not end there, of course, for this pebble held back the rocks and boulders constituting the height of the peak, and the reaction now begins as each individual stone rolls with momentum. They pick up speed and snow, growing in velocity and size until the inevitable occurs and Romeo and Juliet are engulfed in the upheaval and finished forever. William Shakespeare’s version of the play Romeo and Juliet, taken from Arthur Brooke’s play similarly titled Romeus and Juliet, is a fast paced tragedy in which a boy and girl from two feuding families meet, fall in love, bond in matrimony, and commit suicide in a matter of four days. Compared to the nine-month romance that takes place in Brooke’s play, Shakespeare’s version is a consciously hastened piece of work during which the most significant parts of a young couple’s lives begin and end in less than one week. Speed, a well-utilized literary tool in Shakespeare’s play, serves to emphasize emotion, as opposed to reason, in the characters’ decisions. Through this device, Shakespeare demonstrates his skills as a playwright by showing control of time in the play. Perhaps the most well known episode in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the balcony scene is a prime example...
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...knowledge in his writings. One of Shakespeare’s most famous plays is Romeo and Juliet, a tragic story of two minors who fall in love in the midst of their families’ rivalry. In this story, one of Shakespeare’s characters is Capulet who plays the important role of Juliet’s father. Capulet is a dynamic character in Romeo and Juliet. Capulet is dynamic because he loves his daughter, is a good host and is easily angered. In the second scene of the first act, Capulet demonstrates his love for his daughter Juliet. Paris asks for her hand in marriage, but Capulet refuses to allow her to marry at age thirteen and tells Paris to “Let two more summers wither in their pride/ Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride” (I, ii, 10-11). When Paris protests that girls thirteen-years-old are already mothers, Capulet replies that “…too soon marred are those so early made” (I, ii, 13). He worries that she will die in childbirth at such a young age. Juliet is Capulet’s only living child and his hope for the future. Another positive trait is Capulet is a cordial party host. Capulet greets all his guests with a warm welcome in scene five. He keeps his guests loose and comfortable. “Ladies that have their toes/ Unplagued with corns will walk a bout (dance) with you” (I, v, 15-16), Capulet teases his female visitors. Moreover, Capulet is found to be a civil master of the house. He sets aside his disagreements with the Montagues in order to avoid starting a fight when Romeo crashes the party. He says, “A...
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...ENG 2D1 Patrick Poplawski Tuesday, May 29, 2012 Romeo and Juliet In Shakespeare’s, “Romeo and Juliet,” one can see the contrast between plot, character development and theme; three important elements of literature that are ongoing throughout the book. In Act 2 Scene 5, specifically, there are many factors adding to the plot, such as Romeos descriptive orders involving his marriage with Juliet. This scene also shows a new side of the character Juliet, as her mood changes and her thoughts portray a darker side of her. The audience experiences a different side to the beloved Juliet, as well as the Nurse. Then the theme of haste and delay continues for the duration of the scene which is very important. Act 2, scene 5 greatly contributes to the book and shouldn’t be cut out. This scene is very rich with suspense, making it entertaining as we watch the plot unfold between Romeo and Juliet who are to be married. The Nurse does not tell Juliet the news she brings her right away, causing serious frustration for Juliet. “I am aweary, give me leave awhile. Fir, how my bones ache! What a jaunce have I!” (Act 2,Sc 5, II 25-26) The Nurse makes it obvious that she is sneaky, using her age as a poor excuse to buy her time with Juliet. This builds up the suspense as Juliet becomes impatient and leaves the audience waiting to see what happens next. The Nurse explains to Juliet, what is to happen for her marriage, “Then hie you hence...
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...ROMEO & JULIET Prologue (ACT 1) As a prologue to the play, the Chorus enters. In a fourteen-line sonnet, the Chorus describes two noble households (called “houses”) in the city of Verona. The houses hold an “ancient grudge” (Prologue.2) against each other that remains a source of violent and bloody conflict. The Chorus states that from these two houses, two “star-crossed” (Prologue.6) lovers will appear. These lovers will mend the quarrel between their families by dying. The story of these two lovers, and of the terrible strife between their families, will be the topic of this play. ANALYSIS This opening speech by the Chorus serves as an introduction to Romeo and Juliet. We are provided with information about where the play takes place, and given some background information about its principal characters. The obvious function of the Prologue as introduction to the Verona of Romeo and Juliet can obscure its deeper, more important function. The Prologue does not merely set the scene of Romeo and Juliet, it tells the audience exactly what is going to happen in the play. The Prologue refers to an ill-fated couple with its use of the word “star-crossed,” which means, literally, against the stars. Stars were thought to control people’s destinies. But the Prologue itself creates this sense of fate by providing the audience with the knowledge that Romeo and Juliet will die even before the play has begun. The audience therefore watches the play with the expectation that it must...
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... A marriage that restarted the old feud between the Hindu-Indians and Muslim-Pakistanis. The two superstars had fallen in love, and decided to get married, but their decision caused a lot of discussion and many problems, just because of their different nationalities. This has lead me to my main question, “Is marrying across boarders still a problem, in our modern society?” Chamberlain presents the conflict in a very informing, clever and neutral way, and thereby giving the reader a chance to create their own attitude upon the matter. He starts by introducing the main people, Shoaib and Sania, and then describes the conflict their marriage has sparked. By making a simple comparison to the Capulets and Montagues from Shakespeare’s famous tragedy “Romeo and Juliet”, he describes the severity of the conflict to people who do not know of the fierce feud that has been raging since the partition of India, between Pakistan and...
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...the ending of King Lear is ‘unbearably pessimistic’. How far do you agree that there is no hope at the end of this play? The origins of Shakespeare’s play came from a variety of sources and, in particular, an old Pagan folktale, of another King Leir of Britain. It reveals that Shakespeare purposely turned these sources which offer a happy ending where Cordelia and Leir are left alive and together at the end and where everything is resolved, leaving the audience with a sense of relief and justice, into a bleak and sinister play where many of the virtuous die, including Cordelia and Lear, or are left in despair like Kent. Shakespeare’s change of ending appears to hint at a message of pessimism, darkness and no hope. Some people believe that it was Shakespeare’s intention to create a hopeless and pessimistic ending and leave the audience overwhelmed with tragedy. Indeed, W.R. Elton supports this final interpretation: ‘No redemption stirs at this world’s end; only suffering, tears, pity and loss and illusion.’ However, others believe that Shakespeare leaves little glimmers of optimism flickering in this ‘gored state.’ Shakespeare carefully structures that play to build a mood of pessimism as the play unravels towards its climax. Kent’s character plays a vital role in helping create this final bleak mood. Throughout the play Kent has been a positive, hopeful character devoted to his King: ‘let me still remain the true blank of thine eye.’ By this final scene he is presented as a character...
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...society downplays the real necessity for genuine affection. By this I mean that we, as a society, spend so much time focusing on only one level of love (passion) that we tend to neglect and not recognize the need for closeness and trust (friendship). Love is an all-encompassing emotion that can be powerful and demanding, but also rewarding and pleasurable. What is the one emotion that has everyone mystified? What is the one emotion that has started as many wars as it has ended? What emotion has had more plays, songs, and stories written about it than anything else? Love, that one emotion that makes enemies into friends and friends into enemies. So many legends surround this emotion, from the goddess Athena and Helen of Troy to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved. *-(* George Sand *)*- Love is the greatest gift we can ever hope to give or receive. Love is the one thing that can overcome so many of the difficult times that we are faced with in life. Love is so powerful - it can turn frowns into smiles. It can help mend the most broken heart. It can even turn all of the ugliness in the world into the most beautiful portrait we could ever have the pleasure to behold. Love comes in so many different levels, that it doesn't appear to be the same emotion at all, but it is. There is so much to love, that it will be hard to put into this simple essay. It can tear people apart and make us do irrational things to bringing...
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...Othello the Shakespearean Tragic Hero The Tragedy of Othello is considered to be William Shakespeare’s most popular tragic plays but there are distinct differences in Shakespeare’s tragic heroes, and other tragic heroes. A Tragic hero is usually a character that makes a mistake that leads to his failure, but a Shakespearean tragic hero is initially one, who is born noble, but not necessarily virtuous; there are some great aspects of personality that he has in excess which would often also be his weakness which creates a conflict for the character. His own destruction brings out the principle or moral of the play. Scholars argues that Othello is not a hero but a murder that commits a crime of passion, but just as every Shakespearean tragic characters, Othello is a person that has made an error of judgment, had a fatal flaw and was destined for defeat; which when combined with external forces, will bring on a tragedies like Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and Macbeth. Like many other characters in Shakespearean tragic plays, Othello is not a weak character nor is he a person of failure, but he is the captain of the Venice army, he is married to one of the most beautiful woman of Venice named Desdemona, and he is very well known even though he was of a different ethnicity. When Brabantio accuses him of putting a spell on his daughter Desdemona; in front of the Venetian senate, no one believes the charges because of his outstanding reputation "Here comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor...
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...Religion is one of the oldest institutions on Earth, and is therefore of key cultural and historical importance to a large group of people. However the real question is whether religion serves to benefit both the individual and society in this ever evolving postmodern world. One perspective that suggests that religion does serve to benefit both the individual and society as a whole is Functionalism, which believes that religion maintains value consensus by creating social solidarity and keeping social order in place. Marxism however believes religion creates class division in society, by acting as an “opium of the people” and a “spiritual gin”, which in turn creates the false class consciousness and illusory happiness, which leads to people being subordinate and not challenging their place in society, as religion helps to explain their place and maintains social order. A core argument from the Functionalist perspective, put forward by Durkheim, was society’s distinction between the “sacred” (things set apart,special,inspire feelings of awe and wonder) and the “profane” (things that have no special significance,ordinary or mundane). Durkheim argued that the reason why scared symbols or festivals in religion evoke such powerful feelings in individuals is because they represent a greater power, this in Durkheim’s opinion could only be society itself. Therefore in Durkheim's view when members of society are worshipping sacred symbols, they’re merely worshipping society and all...
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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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...themselves torn between the bonds of male friendship and romance. (If you're thinking all this sounds like a modern day "bromantic comedy," you're right. Two Gentlemen of Verona is the great, great grandfather of buddy flicks like the 2009 comedy I Love You Man.) Written as early as 1590-91, Two Gentlemen appears to be William Shakespeare's first play. (As usual, some literary critics are divided over this issue, but we're going with the editors of The Norton Shakespeare and the editors of The Oxford Shakespeare on this one.) As Shakespeare's first theatrical effort, Two Gentlemenhas been referred to as a "limping forerunner" of Shakespeare's later works. Even famous literary scholar Harold Bloom says it's "the weakest of all Shakespeare's comedies." We, on the other hand, prefer to think of Two Gentlemen as Shakespeare's test kitchen, where a budding young playwright begins to work out the recipe for his "comedies" and begins to explore themes and conventions that he'll develop more fully in later works – particularly the themes of male friendship and heterosexual love, which come into conflict in plays like The Merchant of Veniceand also in Shakespeare's collection of Sonnets. Like all test kitchen creations, Two Gentlemen is far from perfect – there are multiple plot inconsistencies and many scenes feature only a couple of speakers at a time. On this latter point, Jean Howard notes that it's "as if Shakespeare had not yet mastered the skill of orchestrating a full complement...
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...On Love and The Human Condition Devin Conway Philosophy In Film 06/11/2015 In mankind’s never-ending search for truth, purpose, and meaning, at the very center of the human experience, lies a universal longing for an unconditional love; bound not by circumstance or subject to change, an exclusive relationship to be molded by acceptance and solidified by an impenetrable barrier of trust and understanding. Our personal relationships, in reality, do not reflect this perversely romanticized notion of true love. Generally speaking, people are emotionally volatile beings with ideas and desires that are constantly evolving to accommodate newly processed information and experiences. When you combine this emotional instability with the continuous adjustments being made to our basic dispositions, you get individuals who rarely compliment one another in any compatible manner, let alone in a functional intimate relationship. Given these circumstances, it’s easy to see why so many people cling desperately to the love that they do happen to find in this world, that the search for love serves as fuel for our endlessly burning desires, and how the pain of a love lost can twist an innocent soul, driving many towards radical and even reckless behavior, often in the direction of a maddening state of emotional oblivion. Since the earliest developments in man’s creative pursuits, the concept of love has played an essential role in...
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...INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CIVIL WAR IN EARLY FILM One Film To Rule Them All In 1915, the blockbuster film, The Birth of a Nation swept the nation. In a pivotal scene, the attractive daughter of a former slave owner, whose cotton business had been ruined by the war, is stalked by a menacing looking black soldier, named Gus. He is shown with his shirt wide open and bare-chested. Flora, the stereotypical southern belle, notices the voyeur and is visibly shaken. Flora tries to hide from Gus, but Gus corners her and tells her that he wants her and that he is not married. Since the end of the Civil War, Flora has noticed several black soldiers in the area in the past few months harassing her family and other upstanding families. Gus forces Flora closer and tries to kiss her. In a panic, Flora slaps him and pushes him away. Flora flees into the woods. The ensuing pursuit shows Gus as a sex-crazed maniacal troll chasing down the seemingly innocent virginal fairy. Gus follows her absorbedly intent on raping her. Flora winds up on a cliff overlooking a series of jagged rocks. She stares at Gus and motions for him to leave her alone. In a silent ultimatum, she gesticulates that if he doesn’t leave then she’ll leap from the cliff to the rocks below. Gus is exposed as a beast, sweating and pulsating lustful desires. He moves closer to Flora to stop her from leaping. Unwilling to give herself to a black man and death being the only alternative, Flora jumps from the...
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...ENGLISH HANDBOOK -“Welcome to my evil lair…” -Mr. Braiman Brooklyn High School of the Arts www.mrbraiman.com http://handbook.mrbraiman.com “EVIL” Welcome to my evil classroom lair. In order to become full-fledged evil “minions,” you need to read this handbook carefully. It explains everything you need to know. “English,” as you may know, is shorthand for “English Language Arts.” Being that we are in an Arts school, but one where academics must and always do come first, it is important that we approach the subject as what it is: an art form. How does one study the arts? What exactly do we do when we study drawing, sculpture, music, or dance? Well, anyone who has studied the arts will tell you that studying the arts essentially involves two things: • Learning about, and developing an awareness of and appreciation for, existing works of art in that particular form; • Developing the skills and techniques associated with the art form, in order to create our own works. In the case of language arts, much like any other art form, we will be studying existing works of art (i.e., reading books, stories and poems), and developing the skills to produce our own (i.e., writing). That’s what English Language Arts is. We will also be preparing ourselves for New York State’s Regents Comprehensive Examination in English, which we’ll all be taking in June. This two-day, six-hour, four-part exam requires no specific knowledge or content, but it does require the skills to listen, read,...
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...The Elements of Style Strunk, W., Jr. and White, E.B. CONTENTS I. II. III. IV. V. VI. INTRODUCTORY.................................................................................................. 2 ELEMENTARY RULES OF USAGE..................................................................... 2 1. Form the possessive singular of nouns with 's................................................ 2 2. In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last.......................................................................... 3 3. Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas.......................................... 3 4. Place a comma before and or but introducing an independent clause.............. 4 5. Do not join independent clauses by a comma. ................................................ 5 6. Do not break sentences in two. ....................................................................... 5 7. A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject......................................................................................... 6 8. Divide words at line-ends, in accordance with their formation and pronunciation.................................................................................................. 7 a. Divide the word according to its formation: ............................................. 7 b. Divide "on the vowel:" ...................
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