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Hedda Gabler (Henrik Ibsen)

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Cover of Hedda Gabler (Plays for Performance) “There is not one of the Ibsen’s characters who is not, in the old phrase, the temple of the Holy Ghost, and who does not move you at the movement by the sense of that mystery.” (G. B. Shaw) In a gallery of startling portraits of female character, Henrik Ibsen ’s Hedda Gabler nonetheless stands out. Mercurial, attractive, and cursed with frustrated ambition, Hedda is both victim and victimizer. Arguably, no other female character that makes the role of Hedda so challenging for actresses and directors. To audiences she presents a similar challenge, showing us several faces that, while different, are harmonized within the complexity of her character. Hedda is study in psycho-social repression. She is also Circe, a demonic force. Ibsen, at the height of his dramatic powers when he wrote the play, resists easy explanation for the various catastrophes Hedda engenders. Like Shakespeare, he teases us with too many motives or, ...

RESTORATION LITERATURE

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Cover of Milton's Paradise Lost Milton's Paradise Lost tells a story of pride and rebellion. Restoration literature includes both Paradise Lost and the Earl of Rochester's Sodom, the high spirited sexual comedy of The Country Wife and the moral wisdom of Pilgrim's Progress . It saw Locke's Treatises on Government, the founding of the Royal Society, the experiments of Robert Boyle and the holy meditations of Boyle, the hysterical attacks on theaters from Jeremy Collier, the pioneering of literary criticism from Dryden, and the first newspapers. The official break in literary culture caused by censorship and radically moralist standards under Cromwell's Puritan regime created a gap in literary tradition, allowing a seemingly fresh start for all forms of literature after the Restoration. During the Interregnum, the royalist forces attached to the court of Charles I went into exile with the twenty-year old Charles II. The nobility who travelled with Charles II...

EARLY MODERN (RENAISSANCE)

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Image via Wikipedia Following the introduction of a printing press into England by William Caxton in 1476, vernacular literature flourished. The Reformation inspired the production of vernacular liturgy which led to the Book of Common Prayer, a lasting influence on literary English language. The poetry, drama, and prose produced under both Queen Elizabeth I and King James I constitute what is today labelled as Early modern (or Renaissance). The Elizabethan era saw a great flourishing of literature, especially in the field of drama. The Italian Renaissance had rediscovered the ancient Greek and Roman theatre, and this was instrumental in the development of the new drama, which was then beginning to evolve apart from the old mystery and miracle plays of the Middle Ages. The Italians were particularly inspired by Seneca (a major tragic playwright and philosopher, the tutor of Nero) and Plautus (its comic clichés, especially that of the boasting soldier had a powerful influence on the ...

ENGLISH LITERATURE(Middle Ages)

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The term English literature refers to literature written in the English language , including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was Polish, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, Salman Rushdie is Indian, V.S. Naipaul is American, Vladimir Nabokov was Russian. In other words, English literature is as diverse as the varieties and dialects of English spoken around the world. are academia, the term often labels departments and programmed practicing English studies in secondary and tertiary educational systems. This article primarily deals with literature from Britain written in English. For literature from specific English-speaking regions, see the see also section at the bottom of the page. The first works in English, written in the Cecilia-LaFrance dialect now called Old English, appeared in the early Middle Ages (the oldest surviving text is Cædmon's Hymn). The ...

Violence Against Women (Rape)

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Image by B. Sandman via Flickr Women are the soft creation of Allah who have been sent in this world to make it colorful. This soft creation is continuously facing several horrible problems including rape. In this research report, we have tried to evaluate what rape actually is. Rape means illegal relation with the girl without her consent. The main cause of the rape is sexual desire of man. Before 1979, rape was not crime but in ZIA’s reign, rape had been included in the crime list and considered a very harsh act. Hadh and TAZIR are the particular terms for punishment of rape. This report also takes a comprehensive look at the way the criminal justice system deals with cases of rape, focusing on the interaction between the police and legal establishment and the medico legal system. This assault leaves a permanent effect on victim’s mind and it is difficult for a girl to regain her trust and confidence despite the alarmingly high rate of rape incidents, the government appea...

JOHN KEATS (Romantic, Escapist and Pure Poet of Nature)

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“First the realm I’ll pass Of Flora of Pan, sleep in the grass, Feed upon apples and strawberries And choose each pleasure my fancy sees.” (Sleep and Beauty) Like all romantic poets, Keats seeks an escape in the past. His imagination is attracted by the ancient Greeks as well as by the glory and splendour of Middle Ages . He rarely devotes himself to the pressing problems of the present. Hyperion, Endymion and Lamia are all classical in theme, though romantic in style. Keats this finds an escape into the past from the oppressive realities of the present. Also Keats’ themes are romantic in nature. Most of his poetry is devoted to the quest of beauty. Love, chivalry, adventure, pathos --- these are some of the themes of his poems. Another strain that runs through his poetry is the constant fear of death, which finds very beautiful expression in his sonnet, ‘When I Have Fears’. Another theme of his poetry is disappointment in love, which can be seen in ‘La Belle Dam Sans...

Waiting for Godot (Samuel Beckett)

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“The subject of the play is not Godot, but  waiting .” (Melvin J. Friedom) In addition to the themes implicit in the title itself, that is, the theme of waiting, there are several other themes in “ Waiting for Godot ”, which have captured critical attention. Some of these are triviality and boredom of human life, the theme of prevalence of suffering, the theme of ignorance, the theme of economic and intellectual exploitation and the theme of meaninglessness of space, time and identity. Then there is theme of Nothing to be Done. The production of Waiting for Godot was regarded by some critics as a great landmark in the history of the English theatre, although other looked at it as one more example of the literary anarchy of the present century. Beckett’s subsequent plays made this initial conflict of opinion even sharper and fiercer, and indeed his development since Waiting for Godot made that play seem almost traditional in its methods and hopeful in its philosophy. One ...