The English Miscellany

Several quotations posted prior to witnessing the eclipse on this day, 20 March 2015, Smethwick, Birmigham, UK. "The sonne and mone eclipsen both." J. Gower, Confessio Amantis , 1393. "The Night-Hag .. comes ..to dance With Lapland Witches, while the labouring Moon Eclipses at thir charms" Milton, Paradise Lost Book 2, 666 "God oftentimes leaves the brightest men in an eclipse." Thomas Fuller, The Holy State , 1642 "Blind among enemies ... Irrecoverably dark, total Eclipse." John Milton, Samson Agonistes , 1671 " Þis eclipse . þat ouer-closeþ now þe sonne. " William Langland, Piers Plowman , 1393 "These late eclipses in the Sunne and Moone portend no good to us." Shakespeare, King Lear , 1608 Thy beams, so reverend and strong         Why shoulds't thou think? I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, John Donne, The Sunne Rising The Sun Rising         Busy old fool, unruly Sun,         Wh

Piero di Cosimo, The discovery of honey by Bacchus (1499) Book Review A Handbook to the Reception of Ovid . Edited by John F. Miller and Carole. E. Newlands. Wiley-Blackwell. 2014. 520pp. £120 (Cloth). £96.99 (ebook) ‘Antiquity is a closed system, providing a canon of texts whose perfection is beyond time: criticism of these texts is an eternal return, the rediscovery of the timeless verities that they contain.’ [....] ‘ No one, of course, has ever really believed this nonsense .’ (Fowler, 1994: 231) This new collection of thirty-one essays explores how Ovid’s works have presented a range of ways of thinking and feeling about desire, love and death; power and aggression; exile and alienation; self-reflexivity and transformation; aesthetic traditions and the artist’s journey. Clearly, the universality of Ovid’s major themes and preoccupations helps to explain his major influence on the arts of the two millennia since his death. As a result, it is not difficult

An Examination of the role of CHARACTER in literary texts Superficially ... “A person in a story, someone we can relate to, or identify with ...” But Note: Caricature – 2-dimensinal, simple, represents one value, e.g. the angry man, jealousy = related to allegory and satire = distortion for effect of one quality, or exaggeration of certain features; stereotypes Narrative functions – hero/villain, trickster, false hero, magician, father/son, mother/daughter, outcast, rebel. In real life people that we come to know well are seldom just functions or caricatures. Real living people in the media, or celebrities, often have an assumed character or role that might be quite different from how they are in their personal life. In texts, an assumed role is called a persona , in the media we even talk about ‘personalities’ to express the public projection of a role. Perceptions of role or character can also be manipulated e.g. spin doctors and propagandists ma

Drury Lane Theatre Researchers will find this nineteenth century reference work useful: John Genest, Some Account of the English Stage: From the Restoration in 1660 to 1830. Published in 1832. 10 volumes Individual volumes can be quite difficult to track down. Here are the links to the free Google-scanned copies. Volume 1 Volume 2   Volume 3   Volume 4 Volume 5 Volume 6 Volume 7 Volume 8 Volume 9 Volume 10 Map - Covent Garden A sample of the index/contents is shown below. ABBREVIATIONS IN INDEX. T. R. for Theatre Royal. L. I. F. for Lincoln's Inn Fields. D. G for Dorset Garden. Hay. for Haymarket. G. F. for Goodman's Fields. D. L. C for Drury Lane Company. C. G. C. for Covent Garden Company. EXAMPLES from the INDEX TO THE ENGLISH STAGE. This index appears at the beginning of Volume 1. N B. FOR THE FIRST APP. OF ANY PERFORMER OF CONSEQUENCE, SEE HIS. OR HER. CHARACTERS. A

The witty banter and rivalry that we encounter in the plays of William Shakespeare or Oscar Wilde, or the novels of Jane Austen, often presents difficulties for students who are unsure how to write about it. It's not enough just to say that a speech is funny or humorous. Even 'witty' is at times quite vague given the complexity of rhetoric and style that characters had available to them. First, there are the professed attitudes to love and relationships. Typical roles taken up by characters include the scorner of love, and the woman who rejects her suitors. Whether the underlying motivation is authentic, realistic, or psychologically coherent and credible often matters less than the sheer pleasure to be had from the verbal battles that ensue. Second, audiences are expected to enjoy the 'badinage' of witty courtiers. This is an opportunity for malicious sentiments to be expressed with wit. Communication shifts in mood and tone from shrewdness and wisdom to ext

You have probably come across the SMARTER model as a way of organising a project.  It works like this S          Specific              Significant, Stretching, Simple M         Measurable              Meaningful, Motivational, Manageable A         Attainable Appropriate, Achievable, Agreed, Assignable, Actionable, Ambitious, Aligned, Aspirational, Acceptable, Action-focused R          Relevant           Result-Based, Results-oriented, Resourced, Resonant, Realistic T          Timely Time-oriented, -framed, -based, -bound, -Specific, -tabled, -limited, Trackable, Tangible E          Evaluate, Ethical, Excitable, Enjoyable, Engaging, Ecological R          Reevaluate, Rewarded, Reassess, Revisit, Recordable, Rewarding In order to apply these practical strategies to your revision work for exams, I would also recommend: Short blocks of time for work A balanced workload between all subjects means variety  Days off work for leisure Writi