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Modern Drama Essay Restoration literature Restoration literature is the English literature written during the historical period commonly referred to as the English Restoration (1660–1689), which corresponds to the last years of the direct Stuart reign in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. In general, the term is used to denote roughly homogeneous styles of literature that center on a celebration of or reaction to the restored court of Charles II. It is a literature that includes extremes, for it encompasses both Paradise Lost and the Earl of Rochesters Sodom, the high-spirited sexual comedy of The Country Wife and the moral wisdom of The Pilgrims Progress. It saw Lockes Treatises of Government, the founding of the Royal Society, the experiments and holy meditations of Robert Boyle, the hysterical attacks on theaters from Jeremy Collier, and the pioneering of literary criticism from John Dryden and John Dennis. The period witnessed news become a commodity, the essay developed into a periodical art form, and the beginnings of textual criticism. The dates for Restoration literature are a matter of convention, and they differ markedly from genre to genre. Thus, the Restoration in dramamay last until 1700, while in poetry it may last only until 1666 (see 1666 in poetry) and the annus mirabilis; and in prose it might end in 1688, with the increasing tensions over succession and the corresponding rise in journalism and periodicals, or not until 1700, when those periodicals grew more stabilized. In general, scholars use the term Restoration to denote the literature that began and flourished under Charles II, whether that literature was the laudatory ode that gained a new life with restored aristocracy, the eschatological literature that showed an increasing despair among Puritans, or the literature of rapid communication and trade that followed in the wake of Englands mercantile empire. Theatre The return of the stage-struck Charles II to power in 1660 was a major event in English theatre history. As soon as the previous Puritan regimes ban on public stage representations was lifted, the drama recreated itself quickly and abundantly. Two theatre companies, the Kings and the Dukes Company, were established in London, with two luxurious playhouses built to designs by Christopher Wren and fitted with moveable scenery and thunder and lightning machines.[10] Traditionally, Restoration plays have been studied by genre rather than chronology, more or less as if they were all contemporary, but scholars today insist on the rapid evolvement of drama in the period and on the importance of social and political factors affecting it. (Unless otherwise indicated, the account below is based on Humes influential Development of English Drama in the Late Seventeenth Century, 1976.) The influence of theatre company competition and playhouse economics is also acknowledged, as is the significance of the appearance of the first professional actresses (see Howe). In the 1660s and 1670s, the London scene was vitalised by the competition between the two patent companies. The need to rise to the challenges of the other house made playwrights and managers extremely responsive to public taste, and theatrical fashions fluctuated almost week by week. The mid-1670s were a high point of both quantity and quality, with John Drydens Aureng-zebe (1675), William Wycherleys The Country Wife (1675) and The Plain Dealer(1676), George Ethereges The Man of Mode (1676), and Aphra Behns The Rover (1677), all within a few seasons. From 1682 the production of new plays dropped sharply, affected both by a merger between the two companies and by the political turmoil of the Popish Plot (1678) and the Exclusion crisis (1682). The 1680s were especially lean years for comedy, the only exception being the remarkable career of Aphra Behn, whose achievement as the first professional British woman dramatist has been the subject of much recent study. There was a swing away from comedy to serious political drama, reflecting preoccupations and divisions following on the political crisis. The few comedies produced also tended to be political in focus, the whig dramatist Thomas Shadwell sparring with the tories John Dryden and Aphra Behn. In the calmer times after 1688, Londoners were again ready to be amused by stage performance, but the single United Company was not well prepared to offer it. No longer powered by competition, the company had lost momentum and been taken over by predatory investors (Adventurers), while mana gement in the form of the autocratic Christopher Rich attempted to finance a tangle of farmed shares and sleeping partners by slashing actors salaries. The upshot of this mismanagement was that the disgruntled actors set up their own co-operative company in 1695.[11]A few years of re-invigorated two-company competition followed which allowed a brief second flowering of the drama, especially comedy. Comedies like William Congreves Love For Love (1695) and The Way of the World (1700), and John Vanbrughs The Relapse (1696) and The Provoked Wife (1697) were softer and more middle class in ethos, very different from the aristocratic extravaganza twenty years earlier, and aimed at a wider audience. If Restoration literature is the literature that reflects and reflects upon the court of Charles II, Restoration drama arguably ends before Charles IIs death, as the playhouse moved rapidly from the domain of courtiers to the domain of the city middle classes. On the other hand, Restoration drama shows altogether more fluidity and rapidity than other types of literature, and so, even more than in other types of literature, its movements should never be viewed as absolute. Each decade has brilliant exceptions to every rule and entirely forgettable confirmations of it. [edit]Drama Main article: Heroic drama See also: She-tragedy Genre in Restoration drama is peculiar. Authors labelled their works according to the old tags, comedy and drama and, especially, history, but these plays defied the old categories. From 1660 onwards, new dramatic genres arose, mutated, and intermixed very rapidly. In tragedy, the leading style in the early Restoration period was the male-dominated heroic drama, exemplified by John Drydens The Conquest of Granada (1670) and Aureng-Zebe (1675) which celebrated powerful, aggressively masculine heroes and their pursuit of glory both as rulers and conquerors, and as lovers. These plays were sometimes called by their authors histories or tragedies, and contemporary critics will call them after Drydens term of Heroic drama. Heroic dramas centred on the actions of men of decisive natures, men whose physical and (sometimes) intellectual qualities made them natural leaders. In one sense, this was a reflection of an idealised king such as Charles or Charless courtiers might have imagined. However, such dashing heroes were also seen by the audiences as occasionally standing in for noble rebels who would redress injustice with the sword. The plays were, however, tragic in the strictest definition, even though they were not necessarily sad. In the 1670s and 1680s, a gradual shift occurred from heroic to pathetic tragedy, where the focus was on love and domestic concerns, even though the main characters might often be public figures. After the phenomenal success of Elizabeth Barry in moving the audience to tears in the role of Monimia in Thomas Otways The Orphan (1680), she-tragedies (a term coined by Nicholas Rowe), which focused on the sufferings of an innocent and virtuous woman, became the dominant form of pathetic tragedy. Elizabeth Howe has argued that the most important explanation for the shift in taste was the emergence of tragic actresses whose popularity made it unavoidable for dramatists to create major roles for them. With the conjunction of the playwright master of pathos Thomas Otway and the great tragedienne Elizabeth Barry in The Orphan, the focus shifted from hero to heroine. Prominent she-tragedies include John Bankss Virtue Betrayed, or, Anna Bullen(1682) (about the execution of Anne Boleyn), Thomas Southernes The Fatal Marriage (1694), and Nicholas Rowes The Fair Penitent (1703) and Lady Jane Grey, 1715. While she-tragedies were more comfortably tragic, in that they showed women who suffered for no fault of their own and featured tragic flaws that were emotional rather than moral or intellectual, their success did not mean that more overtly political tragedy was not staged. The Exclusion crisis brought with it a number of tragic implications in real politics, and therefore any treatment of, for example, the Earl of Essex (several versions of which were circulated and briefly acted at non-patent theatres) could be read as seditious. Thomas Otways Venice Preservd of 1682 was a royalist political play that, like Drydens Absalom and Achitophel, seemed to praise the king for his actions in the meal tub plot. Otways play had the floating city of Venice stand in for the river town ofLondon, and it had the dark senatorial plotters of the play stand in for the Earl of Shaftesbury. It even managed to figure in the Duke of Monmouth, Charless illegitimate, war-hero son who was favoured by many as Charless successor over the Roman Catholic James. Venice Preservd is, in a sense, the perfect synthesis of the older politically royalist tragedies and histories of Dryden and the newer she-tragedies of feminine suffering, for, although the plot seems to be a political allegory, the action centres on a woman who cares for a man in conflict, and most of the scenes and dialogue concern her pitiable sufferings at his hands. Comedy Main article: Restoration comedy Restoration comedy is notorious for its sexual explicitness, a quality encouraged by Charles II personally and by the rakish aristocratic ethos of his court. The best-known plays of the early Restoration period are the unsentimental or hard comedies of John Dryden, William Wycherley, and George Etherege, which reflect the atmosphere at Court, and celebrate an aristocratic macholifestyle of unremitting sexual intrigue and conquest. The Earl of Rochester, real-life Restoration rake, courtier and poet, is flatteringly portrayed in Ethereges Man of Mode (1676) as a riotous, witty, intellectual, and sexually irresistible aristocrat, a template for posterity.s idea of the glamorous Restoration rake (actually never a very common character in Restoration comedy). Wycherleys The Plain Dealer (1676), a variation on the theme of Molià ¨res Le misanthrope, was highly regarded for its uncompromising satire and earned Wycherley the appellation Plain Dealer Wycherley or Manly Wycherley, after the plays main character Manly. The single writer who most supports the charge of obscenity levelled then and now at Restoration comedy is probably Wycherley. During the second wave of Restoration comedy in the 1690s, the softer comedies of William Congreve and John Vanbrugh reflected mutating cultural perceptions and great social change. The playwrights of the 1690s set out to appeal to more socially mixed audiences with a strong middle-class element, and to female spectators, for instance by moving the war between the sexes from the arena of intrigue into that of marriage. The focus in comedy is less on young lovers outwitting the older generation, more on marital relations after the wedding bells. In Congreves plays, the give-and-take set pieces of couples still testing their attraction for each other have mutated into witty prenuptial debates on the eve of marriage, as in the famous Proviso scene in The Way of the World (1700). Restoration drama had a bad reputation for three centuries. The incongruous mixing of comedy and tragedy beloved by Restoration audiences was decried. The Victorians denounced the comedy as too indecent for the stage,[12] and the standard reference work of the early 20th century, The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, dismissed the tragedy as being of a level of dulness and lubricity never surpassed before or since.[13] Today, the Restoration total theatre experience is again valued, both by postmodern literary critics and on the stage. The comedies of Aphra Behn in particular, long condemned as especially offensive in coming from a womans pen, have become academic and repertory favourites.

Humming Birds :: essays research papers

Hummingbirds in Flight   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Hummingbirds are fascinating birds that are always fun to watch. These birds are able to hover in mid-air, dart from side to side, go straight up or down, or even backwards. They can out-fly and out-maneuver birds hundreds of times their size. There are many factors that contribute to the hummingbirds’ ability to fly so easily through the air.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A hummingbird’s wings are shaped so that they are slightly rounded on the top. Bernoulli’s Principle explains why this helps the bird to fly. The air passing over the top of the wing must travel further than the air going under the wing. As the hummingbird moves forward, the velocity of the fluid increases over the wing and the pressure above the wing is reduced. The higher pressure under the hummingbird’s wing provides lift for the bird.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Hummingbirds have unusually strong muscles that enable them to raise and lower their wings with great power. As the Hummingbirds thrust their wings up and down, they fly into the air with amazing agility and speed. The sleek outline of the bird and smooth feathers create little drag as the bird darts through the air. Hummingbirds have even been seen flying upside down!   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Another factor that helps explain how hummingbirds fly is called Archimedes Principle. The hummingbird stays in the air at a high altitude because it is held up by a buoyant force. The buoyant force is equal to the weight of the volume of fluid it displaces. The Venturi effect is evident when the hummingbird holds it’s wings close to it’s body.

National economic policy

On the issue of the global war on terror there are various effects which come along with the paying for the long-term war on terror. The huge amounts spent on this kind of war are spent through the government, through the private and other indirect means in the economy and these costs will need to be paid in the years to come.The policy or programs recommended addressing the likely effects of paying for the war on terrorWorld trade organization The world trade organization as an international organization promotes liberalization by encouraging all the nations to lower their existing trade barriers. In addressing the issue of the global war on terror the world trade organization has a mechanism by which it settles and also resolves various disputes without the result of any costly trade wars. Since the United States is a member of the world trade organization the country’s markets have been liberalized (William D. Orpheus 2002)Social securityThe social security program is highl y recommended in addressing the likely effects of war on terror. This ensures that the country has provided its citizens with the security that is needed against the attacks from the country’s enemies. Through the social security program the American citizens are given internal as well as the external security and they are also made to feel very safe in their own country.This is achieved by the continual; manning of the country’s entry points such as the airports and the sea. Ports. On the other hand there is lot of surveillance in the country and this prevents any possible attacks from the terrorists. The social security fund similarly ensures that the social welfare of the country’s citizen is well catered for and the citizens are well aware of their social security in terms of their social welfare. (U.S. Department of Justice 2002)Medicare and Medicaid spendingThe Medicare and also the medic aid spending are also recommended in addressing the likely effects o f paying for the long term war on terror. This provides the soldiers and also those who are involved in the war on terrorism a cover on their medical spending.The long-term financial strategy and the unique fiscal challenges of paying for the long term war on terrorThe American national security highly depends on the country’s financial security. There has been a revolutionary war debt in America and this and this has been a very huge threat to the nation’s creditworthiness and also its very existence. There has been an establishment of various financial principles in order to further secure the country. The country has been borrowing a lot so that it can pay for the war in Iraq as well as the short sighted tax cuts in the face of the long term war on terror which has been running against the American tradition thus placing the country into a security peril. (Daniel McGinnis with Suzanne Smalley 2003)This has led the American government to further realign its economic policies on the country’s taxes, the social security, Medicare, and also the country’s oil dependency so as to safeguard the American liberty as well as its future. The need to pay for the war on terror in America has driven the country to a financial innovation the American common duties for instance have often fallen off with the existing hostilities and this has further led to the increased reliance on the consumption and also the excise taxes.This has highly cut the civilians demand and freeing up the war resources but it has been very burdensome on the poor Americans. On the other hand the taxes on the businesses in America and also the wealthy people are very popular however they do not this do not reduce the consumption in the country and they also discourage an energetic investment in the country’s war industries. If it is broad based the financial debt can cement the support on the war but if it is not then it could lead to a class of creditors who have excessive political power.The shortsighted fiscal policyThe forging of the American fiscal policy has not been very simple since most of the American president’s have been frequently facing the congressional resistance to the country’s massive tax and its borrowing requests on several occasions. It has been found that the fiscal policy can not be only about the raising of very huge sums of money even though this is very important for the country as it addresses the issue of war on terror. But the fiscal policy could also be about finding several ways in resolving the country’s internal differences so as to unite the country behind the war effort as well as maximizing the productive output in the country’s economy.The American fiscal policy is short sighted since it is viewed by large portions of the country’s populations as unfair since the methods employed by the political leaders for securing funds for the war are also not fair. This will howeve r make the efforts for the support for the war to greatly suffer. On the other hand the methods used to raise money for the war on terror have weakened the country’s economy and also the country’s foundation of the military power.America has been faced with a major challenge of financing the war on terrorism since the long war has been fought is being fought in parallel with the ground wars which are prolonged in Iraq and also Afghanistan. The fiscal policy will limit and also prevent the government’s ability to pay for the threats of the catastrophic attacks from the country’s unknown enemies. This is because the policy has led to the elimination, postponement or even the reduction of funding for the low priority domestic projects so that there can be room for the high priority military spending in the budget.How to successfully prosecute the global war on terror while at the same time meeting the growing cost of retirement and the healthcare benefitsThe American leaders can successfully prosecute the global war on terror while at the same time meet the growing cost of the population’s retirements and the healthcare benefits of all the Americans. This could be achieved by finding ways which meet the crucial security needs while at the same time addressing the country’s healthcare costs of the aging population and the escalating retirement benefits.The country’s administration should adapt a long-term fiscal strategy which will allow for such needs to be met. The country’s budget on the other hand should encompass and also as set aside some amounts of money which will cater for the social security demands, together with the healthcare benefits and the growing costs of retirement for the aging population in America. Similarly the strategy should include more thorough prioritization on the allocation of the country’s resources.This will allow the curbing of the non essential spending in the country. On the other hand there should be a tax policy which will help in the avoidance of the country’s chronic deficits. Similarly the American government should adapt fiscal policies and strategies which will match the payouts in the prerogative programs at a closer look to the money which is flowing into the country. (Robert D. Hormat. 2007)The country should also reduce its dependence on the on the foreign capitals as this aggravate s the financial threat which is facing America as a nation. So that there could be a successful prosecution on both the war on terrorism and at the same time meeting the growing cost of retirement and the healthcare benefits the fiscal policy should be consistent and not in any way undermine the American national security.Reference:William D. Orpheus (2002): Iraq, The Economic Consequences of the War.   New YorkReview of Books, December 5,U.S. Department of Justice. (2002):   Explanation of the Process for Computing Presumed Economic Loss. Retrie ved fromAccessed on 12th December 2007Daniel McGinnis with Suzanne Smalley (2003): Now Families Face the Cost of War.Newsweek, April 21, 2003, p. 11..Robert D. Hormat. (2007): The Price of Liberty: Paying for Americas Wars. Published by Henry and Holt Company

Violence in Dantes Inferno and Ovids Metamorphoses

Wright 1 1960 words Julian E. Wright Dr. Sharon Fulton Literature Humanities/Essay 1 27 February 2014 Violence in Dante’s Inferno and Ovid’s Metamorphoses Scenes of great violence, as the prompt says, are often written into dynamic narratives of great literary merit. From Dante Alighieri’s Inferno to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the inclusion of violence as a literary technique is used to propel the narrative forward, all while adding action, intrigue, and engaging the reader. Despite it’s validity as a literary technique, the inclusion of violent scenes in literature serve much more than the simple purpose of pushing a plot along a set of structured points. Scenes of violence provoke thought in areas ranging from human nature to the nature of†¦show more content†¦(XXIII, 61 ­65)† As this is a subtle form of a violent attack on their bodies, Dante creates this Wright 3 1960 words consequence as a method to show the sinners what it feels like to be deceived as they did to the world in their lives. There is one sinner, however, that suffers more than the others. Caiaphas, who was a high priest in his life on Earth, is violently crucified to the ground as a symbol for betraying the church in hypocrisy. The way he is crucified forces him to lay on the ground directly in the path of the other robed sinners, in a manner so that they are forced to walk on him whilst donning their heavy robes. The subtle violence of the consequences contrived to see the effects of hypocrisy that the sinners caused to their friends, family and strangers was ultimately done unto themselves. Seeing the pain they caused other people causes great pain to the sinners physically as well as emotionally. Throughout the Inferno there are numerous examples of violence and brutality, presenting Dante’s purpose with clarity and precision. The violence is placed in the poem specifically for reason, to show that the souls that are in Hell are there for a good reason. It also shows that the worse the sin was, the worse the sinner’s punishment would be, causing them the pain that they caused the world through different ways of violence. Some of these are physical and others mental violence. However, most of theShow MoreRelatedThe Divine Perfection Of God s Justice Essay1857 Words   |  8 Pagesserves to illuminate one among Dante’s major themes: the perfection of God’s justice. The inscription over the gates of Hell in Canto III expressly states that God was affected to make Hell by Justice (III.7). Hell exists to penalize sin, and also the quality of Hell’s specific punishments testifies to the divine perfection that each one sin violates. This notion of the quality of God’s punishments figures considerably in Dante’s larger ethical messages and structures Dante’s Hell. To trendy readers,Read MoreThe Waste Land: a critical view Essay1624 Words   |  7 PagesThese two books have been identified by Eliot himself, along with a number of vegetation and fertility myths and rituals, especially those connected with ‘Attis, Adonis and Osiris‘. However, we do read the echoes of Ovid’s – ‘Metamorphoses’, St. Augustine’s ‘Confession’, Dante’s- ‘Inferno’ and ‘Pargatorio’, baudelaire’s ‘Paris La Forgue’s ‘City’ ,Wanger’s opera- ‘Tristan and Isolde’, Chaucer and Spenser’s writing , Shakespeare’s- ‘Antony and Cleopatra’, and ‘The Tempest’, Milton’s- ‘Paradise Lost’,Read MoreThings That Go Bump In the Night: Wh y They Are Scary2198 Words   |  9 PagesWerewolves are creatures that we find in many different cultures around the world. The most classically known origin story for the beasts comes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In it’s first book, Jupiter goes to Earth to observe humans after hearing of their evil nature. He reveals himself to the Arcadians who immediately start worshipping, all except their king, Lycaon. He does not believe the god’s immortality and seeks to put it to the test. Lycaon kills a messenger from another city and cooks himRead More Myth and Violence in The Waste Land Essay2655 Words   |  11 Pagescommon thought. These structures include concepts of life and death cycles; degeneration, death, and decay; purgation, purification, and rebirth; and creation and destruction. A common thread throughout the various mythic structures is that of violence. Violence is necessary for the completion of mythic processes. A simple example of this idea is the a xiom that destruction (an intrinsically violent act) is a pre-requisite for creation. Furthermore, myth entails specific, violent acts against the human