The City of Ladies
Christine de Pesan can be considered the world's first professional female writer. During the fourteenth century, pre-dominant male authors wrote negatively about females. In her book, The Book of the City of Ladies, de Pesan confronts misogyny and defends women's virtue by providing many historical examples. The book begins with Christine, cast as one of the main characters, who is upset after reading a book by Matheolus about women's inferiority. She ponders on the subject, unconvinced by his claims but also doubtful because many scholars support his ideas. She despairs in a monologue to God asking him why women were made imperfect and if she could have been born a man. Three celestial figures appear to her; allegorically portraying Reason, Rectitude, and Justice. The rest of the book is a conversation between Christine and the three symbolic ladies that circulates around the goodness and nobility of ancient females, building of the City of Ladies, and defense against the misogyny by sexist male writers. The Book of the City of Ladies is Christine's portrayal of womanhood. She shows that females are equal to men in intellect, spirit, and physical attributes. She cites various achievements of warriors, pious wives, devoted daughters, scholars, and poets from mythology, literature, and the Bible whom uphold the reputation and good nature of women. These women of the past and
An Analysis of an Advertisement
Introduction to Semiotics and Communication Course Assignment - An Analysis of an Advertisement August 6, 2002 The advertisement is one for 'Silken Vodka' (a made up company). The Vodka bottle was taken from the 'Smirnoff' website and the model for the ad was taken from 'Cosmopolitan' magazine (June 2000 issue). Additionally, the slogan was taken from the 'Find Your Voice' campaign for 'Virginia Slims'. The meaning that is being sent out is a statement of female independence and self-sufficiency while still retaining the exterior beauty and luxury associated with being female. 'Silken Vodka' attempts to make the advertisement as ambiguous as possible in order to add power to the ad. Through minimalization of the positive space, the negative space (and its lack of detail) enhances the subject. The first impression of the ad implies any number of suggestions that discreetly hint at every possible product targeting women, including makeup, perfume, jewelry, or beauty aids. However, upon closer inspection, the article is in fact an advertisement for alcohol. Initially the viewer's eye is first drawn to the face of the women. From there, a subtle string of font leads the viewer's eye to towards the product name and slogan. This small line of words acts as a visual guide (an index), rather than as text, finally pointing the way to the iconic signifier (i.e. the vodka bottle).
Critical Review of 2 articles
Dissertation Critical Review The first article that I discovered by using the MLA Database was "Teaching Shakespeare in the Context of Renaissance Women's Culture", by Jane Donawerth.1 Jane Donawerth is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Maryland at College Park, where she teaches Renaissance literature, history of rhetorical theory, and science fiction and utopias by women. In this particular article she explores the issues around teaching the subject of Shakespeare and the frameworks in which it is taught. Donawerth wants to "build a course from a feminist standpoint in which students possess such authority."2 Donawerth describes the content of her course and how she taught it, "I organized the content of the course in concentric circles of kinds of knowledge, rather than in linear fashion, and I limited to four the number of plays all students read."3 The idea of using only four plays to focus on relates to my dissertation topic, as I intend on only using a small number of plays to analyse and explore my topic, therefore enabling a greater depth of research than as if I was to study more plays. Also, the idea of the concentric circles as a method of teaching and studying would be a very constructive approach to use for the dissertation, as it will help break themes down into certain categories, making it easier to look at and more straightforward to
Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba: Visual and Aural Cues Contributing to an Appreciation of Interaction
James S. Bowling Professor Leonard MALS 775 29 March 2005 Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba: Visual and Aural Cues Contributing to an Appreciation of Interaction "She... died a virgin. Do you hear me? !Silencio!, !Silencio!, I said. !Silencio!"-Bernarda Alba, The House of Bernarda Alba Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) belongs to that class of Spanish poets and artists (e.g., Dali, Picasso) that came to prominence in the inter-war period.¹ If their antecedents in the latter years of the 19th century retain a sometimes wry perspective of the human condition - Ibsen plays, even in their darkest moments, retain an element of whimsy - Lorca's so-called "rural" trilogy most assuredly do not.2 Arguably, the massive number of military and civilian casualties incurred during World War I, combined with the social and political upheavals such a disaster fosters, can produce a type of self-destructive nihilism within the human psyche.3 Unlike Ibsen, in Lorca that destructive impulse does not so much arise out of the actions - however innocent - of others, but rather, manifests itself sui generis, an implacable, chthonic urge to reorder the human condition into something it naturally is not. In Lorca's grimly claustrophobic drama, The House of Bernarda Alba, for example, the protagonist is determined to organize her progeny into an enclosed society at variance from normative
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
The years preceding the American Civil War were rife with tensions between the South and the North. The abolitionist movement was gaining popularity, and slaveholders were being increasingly criticised. A number of slaves who had managed to escape their masters were writing autobiographies, denouncing the treatment to which they were submitted. One of them was Frederick Douglass, who published the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave - Written by Himself in May 1845, seven years after his escape to the North. The passage I will discuss in this essay is taken from Chapter IX. In his Narrative, Frederick Douglass takes a look back on his life in slavery. He begins by writing about his birth and goes on to tell the reader about his life, in a chronological order. He writes mostly in the first person, and sometimes uses 'we': 'We seldom called him "master"...'. In Chapter IX, Douglass is approximately fifteen years old and is still held captive as a slave. Obviously, using 'they' would not have been correct: the group of slaves he is referring to included him. Douglass, even though he is now emancipated, does not distance himself from the slaves he once worked with. He uses 'we' as a solidarity marker. As mentioned above, Douglass was not the only escaped slave writing an autobiography. Other slave narratives include the Narrative of Henry Watson, a
Discuss the significance of narrative perspective in Melvilles Benito Cereno and Douglass Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Discuss the significance of narrative perspective in Melville's Benito Cereno and Douglass' Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Herman Melville's Benito Cereno and Frederick Douglass' Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself are two very different texts, both dealing with aspects of slavery in the early 19th century. The first is a work of fiction, told from a third person perspective whereas the latter: an autobiography, following the author's life from childhood to his state of affairs at the time of writing. The narrative structures in both these novels are significant within their own texts but are also interesting to compare because of the way they both portray the theme of slavery. The narrative perspective of Benito Cereno is that of Captain Amasa Delano, of the Bachelor's Delight. However, he is not the protagonist of the tale, but merely a naive spectator of the events that mainly concern the eponymous Benito Cereno. His naivety is parallel to that of the first time reader. There is a mystery on board the San Dominick, one that is both obvious and yet so well hidden that it is difficult to figure out. For first time readers, this mystery is so frustrating because it seems obvious that there is something gone amiss on board the San Dominick but Delano, dismisses them so as to throw off readers from probing the truth.
Assess the artistic and religious purpose and significance of the book of Kells.
Assess the artistic and religious purpose and significance of the book of Kells. The Book of Kells is an ancient Irish manuscript that contains elaborately decorated versions of the four gospels. The book has a deep significance and as well as being a crowning glory of the Celtic Art form1 many deem it to be one of the most beautiful religious manuscripts in the world. It is evident that when the book was created it would have been viewed as a consecrated object and one that paid tribute to the word of God through its lavish and elaborate decorations. The book also helps convey to convey the fundamental message of Christianity, as well as symbolically portraying Christ by various different artistic techniques. Yet, despite the books reputation, surprisingly little can be said conclusively about its history. Although tradition states that the book is the work of St Columba, an Irish saint who died at the end of the sixth century, this is seen as rather unlikely by modern day scholars, who do not believe the book to have been written any earlier than the end of the seventh century due to its style of wording and decorations. Due to these beliefs, the book would have been more commonly referred to as the 'Book of Columba' and such a reference can be found in the 'Annals of Ulster' in 1007. Here, it is documented how the book was stolen from the Great Stone Church of Kells and
Mother/Daughter Relationships and Their Effects on the Daughter(TM)s Understanding of Herself in Breath, Eyes, Memory and The Woman Warrior
Olga Mir Dr. Sika Dagbovie LIT 4383: Women in Literature 25 April 2007 Mother/Daughter Relationships and Their Effects on the Daughter's Understanding of Herself in Breath, Eyes, Memory and The Woman Warrior Mother/daughter relationships are hardly ever simple, and the relationships in Breath, Eyes, Memory and The Woman Warrior are no exception. Breath, Eyes, Memory's Martine and Sophie begin with a rocky start. Sophie is thrown into the Bronx head first after spending the first part of her childhood with her aunt in her homeland of Haiti. She must develop and deepen her relationship with her mother, Martine. In contrast, The Woman Warrior's Maxine and Brave Orchid have always lived in the same household, but rather than growing closer together from the sharing of Chinese culture, their cultural differences, such as Maxine being more "Americanized," drive them apart and alienate the two in separate corners of the cultural spectrum. In both novels the daughter is raised to conform to her native country's, and thus her mother's, idea of what role a respectable woman should play in the community. Usually this role involves submitting to a male-dominated society. The end result of this type of rearing is the inevitable desertion of, in Sophie's case, Haitian or, in Maxine's case, Chinese values and traditions. Sophie and Maxine are left confused in trying to define
Comparing Works of Thomas Mann and George Eliot.
PART 1 In this essay, I shall explore the ways in which music can influence the way a literary text is constructed. Looking at the works of Thomas Mann and George Eliot, and considering their influences, I shall discuss to what extent they have drawn on music to structure and enhance their writing, and examine how effective this has been. Throughout literary history, writers have drawn on the methods adopted by composers when structuring their works. This seems to have been much more prevalent since Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" pioneered a whole new method of composing and writing, utilising leitmotifs and carefully chosen text to emphasise key moments and develop characters in the story. ("...Wagner affected the subsequent production of both musical and literary artworks to a profound extent") Samuels, R. P.84 Stories became much more character driven, and were very much attempting to mirror true life, in fact, to represent true life, and to express the deeper emotions and motivations of the characters - Wagner believed that dramatic action should arise primarily from the portrayal of character - and music was carefully written to respect the "natural rise and fall of expressive speech" (Samuels, R. p 93). The relationship of music and words became very important, and writers began to realise that they could use the same methods in their work and both write about music
What is Literature?
What is Literature? While the definition of literature has been widely disputed throughout history, British literary theorist, Terrence Eagleton, attempts to make sense of it all during the introduction of his 1983 book, What is Literature. Eagleton walks the reader through time, discussing definitions from the Shakespearean era all the way up to the modern world's understanding. So who has really defined literature? In the opening paragraphs of the article, Eagleton explains how a 'distinction between fact and fiction' falls short of answering the age old question: What is literature? Fact versus fiction fails because, what is fact and what is fiction was once and still is 'questionable,' he explains. The word 'novel,' he continues, introduced around the end of the English late sixteenth century, was given to both factual and fictional matters and thus is not representative of the definition of literature. Eagleton then switches to a different philosophy at the beginning of page two, pointing out that perhaps the peculiar or uncommon use of a language is what defines literature. A Formalist, Russian critic Roman Jakobson, remarked that literature was an, "'organized violence committed on ordinary speech'" (Eagleton 2). This implies that literature diverges from the everyday words of the everyday man. This is what the Formalists believed. They thought literary work was