1.
First Folio
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Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies is the 1623 published collection of William Shakespeares plays. Modern scholars commonly refer to it as the First Folio, printed in folio format and containing 36 plays, it was prepared by Shakespeares colleagues John Heminges and Henry Condell. It was dedicated to the pair of brethren William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke and his brother Philip Herbert. The paper industry in England was then in its infancy and the quantity of quality rag paper for the book was imported from France. It is thought that the typesetting and printing of the First Folio was such a job that the Kings Men simply needed the capacities of the Jaggards shop. William Jaggard was old, infirm and blind by 1623, and died a month before the book went on sale, most of the work in the project must have been done by his son Isaac. The First Folios publishing syndicate also included two stationers who owned the rights to some of the plays that had been previously printed, William Aspley. Smethwick had been a partner of another Jaggard, Williams brother John. The printing of the Folio was probably done between February 1622 and early November 1623, the printer originally expected to have the book ready early, since it was listed in the Frankfurt Book Fair catalogue as a book to appear between April and October 1622. The thirty-six plays of the First Folio occur in the order given below, each play is followed by the type of source used, as determined by bibliographical research. Comedies 1 The Tempest * – the play was set into type from a prepared by Ralph Crane. Crane produced a high-quality result, with formal act/scene divisions, frequent use of parentheses and hyphenated forms,2 The Two Gentlemen of Verona * – another transcript by Ralph Crane. 3 The Merry Wives of Windsor – another transcript by Ralph Crane,4 Measure for Measure * – probably another Ralph Crane transcript. 5 The Comedy of Errors * – probably typeset from Shakespeares foul papers,6 Much Ado About Nothing – typeset from a copy of the quarto, lightly annotated. 7 Loves Labours Lost – typeset from a copy of Q1. 8 A Midsummer Nights Dream – typeset from a copy of Q2, well-annotated,9 The Merchant of Venice – typeset from a lightly edited and corrected copy of Q1. 10 As You Like It * – from a quality manuscript,11 The Taming of the Shrew * – typeset from Shakespeares foul papers, somewhat annotated, perhaps as preparation for use as a prompt-book. 12 Alls Well That Ends Well * – probably from Shakespeares foul papers or a manuscript of them,13 Twelfth Night * – typeset either from a prompt-book or a transcript of one
2.
Pastoral
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A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, a pastoral is a work of this genre, also known as bucolic, from the Greek βουκολικόν, from βουκόλος, meaning a cowherd. Pastoral is a mode of literature in which the author employs various techniques to place the life into a simple one. Thus, pastoral as a mode occurs in many types of literature as well as genres, terry Gifford, a prominent literary theorist, defines pastoral in three ways in his critical book Pastoral. The first way emphasizes the historical perspective of the pastoral in which authors recognize and discuss life in the country. This is summed up by Leo Marx with the phrase No shepherd, the second type of the pastoral is literature that describes the country with an implicit or explicit contrast to the urban. The third type of pastoral depicts the life with derogative classifications. Hesiods Works and Days presents a golden age when people lived together in harmony with nature and this Golden Age shows that even before Alexandria, ancient Greeks had sentiments of an ideal pastoral life that they had already lost. This is the first example of literature that has pastoral sentiments, ovids Metamorphoses is much like the Works and Days with the description of ages but with more ages to discuss and less emphasis on the gods and their punishments. In this artificially constructed world, nature acts as the main punisher, another example of this perfect relationship between man and nature is evident in the encounter of a shepherd and a goatherd who meet in the pastures in Theocritus poem Idylls 1. Traditionally, pastoral refers to the lives of herdsmen in a romanticized, exaggerated, the pastoral life is usually characterized as being closer to the Golden age than the rest of human life. The setting is a Locus Amoenus, or a place in nature. An example of the use of the genre is the poem by the 15th-century Scottish makar Robert Henryson Robene and Makyne which also contains the conflicted emotions often present in the genre. There will we sit upon the rocks And see the shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow rivers, the Passionate Shepherd to His Love exhibits the concept of Giffords second definition of pastoral. The speaker of the poem, who is the titled shepherd and this can be seen in the listed items, lined slippers, purest gold, silver dishes, and ivory table. The speaker takes on a point of view with his love. Pastoral shepherds and maidens usually have Greek names like Corydon or Philomela and this makes them available for embodying perpetual erotic fantasies. The shepherds spend their time chasing pretty girls — or, at least in the Greek and Roman versions, Pastoral literature continued after Hesiod with the poetry of the Hellenistic Greek Theocritus, several of whose Idylls are set in the countryside and involve dialogues between herdsmen
3.
William Shakespeare
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William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the worlds pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called Englands national poet, and the Bard of Avon and his extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays,154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright, Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children, Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a career in London as an actor, writer. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, at age 49, Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories, which are regarded as some of the best work ever produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, in his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and it was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as not of an age, but for all time. In the 20th and 21st centuries, his works have been adapted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship. His plays remain highly popular and are studied, performed. William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden and he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26 April 1564. His actual date of birth unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23 April. This date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholars mistake, has proved appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616 and he was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son. At the age of 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, the consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next day, two of Hathaways neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage, twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596, after the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in the bill of a law case before the Queens Bench court at Westminster dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9 October 1589
4.
Wilton House
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Wilton House is an English country house situated at Wilton near Salisbury in Wiltshire. It has been the seat of the Earls of Pembroke for over 400 years. The first recorded building on the site of Wilton House was a founded by King Egbert circa 871. Through the munificence of King Alfred, the priory was granted lands and manors until it became wealthy, however, by the time Wilton Abbey was dissolved in the Dissolution of the Monasteries set in motion by King Henry VIII, its prosperity was already on the wane. Following the seizure of the abbey, Henry presented it and its estates to William Herbert. William Herbert, the scion of a family in the Welsh marches, was a favourite of the king. Following a recommendation to King Henry by King Francis I of France, in 1538, Herbert married Anne Parr, daughter of Sir Thomas Parr of Kendal and sister of the future queen consort Catherine Parr and Sir William Parr, 1st Baron Parr of Kendal. The granting of a such as the Abbey of Wilton to Herbert was an accolade. The first grants dated March and April 1542, include the site of the late monastery and these were given to William Herbert, Esquire and Anne his wife for the term of their lives with certain reserved rents to King Henry VIII. Lady Anne had been a joint creator of the enterprise, Herbert immediately began to transform the deserted abbey into a fine house and symbol of his wealth. It has long claimed, without proof, that Hans Holbein the Younger re-designed the abbey as a rectangular house around a central courtyard. Holbein died in 1543, so his designs for the new house would have to have been very speedily executed indeed, if not by Holbein, it is certainly by the hand of a great master. Whoever the architect, nevertheless a great mansion arose, today only one other part of the Tudor mansion survives, the great tower in the centre of the east facade. With its central arch and three floors of windows above, the tower is slightly reminiscent of the entrance at Hampton Court. The Tudor house built by William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, on the succession of the 4th Earl in 1630, he decided to pull down the southern wing and erect a new complex of staterooms in its place. It is now that the great name associated with Wilton appears. While the remainder of the house is on three floors of equal value in the English style, the front has a low rusticated ground floor. Three small porches project at this level only, one at the centre, the next floor is the piano nobile, at its centre the great double-height Venetian window, ornamented at second floor level by the Pembroke arms in stone relief
5.
Rosalind (As You Like It)
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Rosalind is the heroine and protagonist of the play As You Like It by William Shakespeare. She is the daughter of the exiled Duke Senior and niece to his usurping brother Duke Frederick. Her father is banished from the kingdom which breaks her heart and she then meets Orlando, one of her fathers friends son and falls in love with him. After angering her uncle, she leaves his court for exile in the Forest of Arden, disguised as a shepherd named Ganymede, Rosalind lives with her sweet and devoted cousin, Celia, and Duke Fredericks fool Touchstone. Eventually, Rosalind is reunited with her father and married to her faithful lover, Rosalind is one of Shakespeares most recognized heroines. Admired for her intelligence, quick wit, and beauty, Rosalind is a character in As You Like It. Most commonly seen next to her beloved cousin Celia, Rosalind is also a friend, leader. She stays true to her family and friends throughout the entire story and she is the main character of the play who extracts the clarity of important traits in other characters. American actress Patti LuPone played the role at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis and this caused much speculation because LuPone was leaving the Broadway stage and moving to regional work. Adrian Lester won a Time Out Award for his performance as Rosalind in Cheek by Jowls 1991 production of As You Like It. A male actor in the role underlines the confusion of roles within the play, at one point. Rosalynde is the heroine of Lodges Euphues Golden Legacy, faire Rosalind had, however, at this time, acquired a fresh poetic fame as the object of Spensers attachment, celebrated in his Shepheardes Calendar,1579, and Colin Clouts Come Home Againe,1595
6.
Celia (As You Like It)
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Celia is one of the important characters of Shakespeares As You Like It. Celia is the daughter of Duke Frederick and niece of the banished Duke Senior, Celia and Rosalind are cousins but they have sisterly affection. Celia is beautiful, but with a beauty less sparkling than that of Rosalind, orlando describes both of them as fair and excellent ladies. Celia is shorter than her cousin and less majestic in appearance and she has a gentle expression combined with a habitual serious appearance. Hence Rosalind addresses her at one time as my pretty little coz, Celias love for Rosalind knows no limits and is frequently referred to in the play. Charles, the wrestler, relates that Celia loves her cousin so much that she would have followed Rosalind into exile in case Rosalind too had been banished along with her father, le Beau, the courtier, describes their love as dearer than the natural bond of sisters. This shows that her love for cousin is pure and supreme and she is more conventional than Rosalind and hence more worldly and prudent. Her silence is in contrast to Rosalinds talkative nature, however, Celia, by her prudence, exercises command over herself as well as over others. When the two cousins are alone, Celia is full of life and humour, but in the presence of others she is content to play the part of a spectator and she first listens and judges what to speak, exactly opposite to Rosalind. Some consider that Celias individual character has been overlooked by critics in favour of the more central character of Rosalind. Celias love for Oliver is sudden, intense and uncontrollable, despite the knowledge of Olivers past wicked deeds, in this connection, it should be remembered that love in Shakespeare is an irrational passion. Celias marriage with Oliver has been criticised by many critics, stopford Brooke opines that this marriage is against probability because it looks strange that Oliver should change in a moment from the scoundrel. But her marriage with Oliver does not bring disgrace to her character, Oliver was a bad character but has changed into a good one by a sudden stroke. So Celias marriage with Oliver is not a blot on her character and it has been suggested that Celias role in the play is subversive, in the sense that she adds to the sexual complications of the plot by her friendship with the cross-dressing Rosalind. Celia has been played by various notable actresses on screen, in a 1985 production by the Royal Shakespeare Company, Celia was played by Fiona Shaw. Sophie Thompson played Celia with the Renaissance Theatre Company, and in 1989 it was her first role with the RSC
7.
Jaques (As You Like It)
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Jaques is one of the main characters in Shakespeares As You Like It. The Melancholy Jaques as hes always being called is one of Duke Seniors noblemen who lives with him in the Forest of Arden, the role has long been a favorite for famous Shakespearean actors. Jaques distinguishing characteristic is his unmitigated cynicism and he is the only purely contemplative character in Shakespeare. His whole occupation is to amuse his mind, and he is regardless of his body. Hazlitt describes him as the prince of philosophical idler, his passion is thought, he sets no value upon anything. Jaques role in the play is more of an observer than an actor, early in the play, Jaques remains a mystery to the audience, being discussed extensively by fellow characters. Though much about Jaques past is obscure, his conversations with Rosalind show that he lost his optimism while traveling the world, whatever the root of his bitterness, Jaques always places himself outside the group of happy characters who populate Arden. His function seems to be to provide a foil for the wit of other characters. Duke Senior is particularly interested in Jaques as he finds Jaques as a philosopher when hes in a melancholic mood. Jaques on the other hand constantly criticises the Duke and he humorously curses the Duke because he and the other noblemen had to lose their wealth and comfort to please the stubborn Duke and live an uncomfortable life in the Forest of Arden. Jaques leaves the Duke, as soon as he is restored to his sovereignty, to seek his brother, Duke Frederick, who has stepped down and turned hermit
8.
All the world's a stage
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All the worlds a stage is the phrase that begins a monologue from William Shakespeares As You Like It, spoken by the melancholy Jaques in Act II Scene VII. It is one of Shakespeares most frequently quoted passages, the comparison of the world to a stage and people long predated Shakespeare. When it was founded in 1599 Shakespeares own theatre, The Globe, may have used the motto Totus mundus agit histrionem, ultimately the words derive from quod fere totus mundus exercet histrionem attributed to Petronius, a phrase which had wide circulation in England at the time. Likewise the division of life into a series of ages was a commonplace of art and literature. The number of varied, three and four being the most common among ancient writers such as Aristotle. The concept of seven ages derives from medieval philosophy, which constructed groups of seven, as in the seven deadly sins, the seven ages model dates from the 12th century. King Henry V had a tapestry illustrating the seven ages of man and he also takes elements from Ovid and other sources known to him. The Seven Ages of Man Ages of Man Riddle of the Sphinx Six Ages of the World Solomon Grundy The dictionary definition of all the worlds a stage at Wiktionary
9.
Vanessa Redgrave
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Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist. She is a 2003 American Theatre Hall of Fame inductee, and she also received Tony nominations for The Year of Magical Thinking and Driving Miss Daisy. On screen, she has starred in scores of films and is a six-time Oscar nominee and her other nominations were for Morgan, A Suitable Case for Treatment, Isadora, Mary, Queen of Scots, The Bostonians and Howards End. Among her other films are A Man for All Seasons, Blowup, Camelot, The Devils, Murder on the Orient Express, Prick Up Your Ears, Mission, Impossible, Atonement, Coriolanus and The Butler. Redgrave was born in Greenwich, London, the daughter of actors Sir Michael Redgrave, laurence Olivier announced her birth to the audience at a performance of Hamlet at the Old Vic, when he said that Laertes had a daughter. She was educated at the Alice Ottley School, Worcester, and Queens Gate School, London and her siblings, Lynn Redgrave and Corin Redgrave, were also acclaimed actors. Vanessa Redgrave entered the Central School of Speech and Drama in 1954 and she first appeared in the West End, playing opposite her brother, in 1958. In 1960, Redgrave had her first starring role in Robert Bolts The Tiger, in 1961, she played Rosalind in As You Like It for the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1962, she played Imogen in William Gaskills production of Cymbeline for the RSC. In 1966, Redgrave created the role of Jean Brodie in the Donald Albery production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and she won four Evening Standard Awards for Best Actress in four decades. In 2003 she won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in the Broadway revival of Eugene ONeills Long Days Journey Into Night. In January 2006, Redgrave was presented the Ibsen Centennial Award for her work in interpreting many of Henrik Ibsens works over the last decades. Previous recipients of the award include Liv Ullmann, Glenda Jackson, for this, she won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play. She reprised the role at the Lyttelton Theatre at the Royal National Theatre in London to mixed reviews and she also spent a week performing the work at the Theatre Royal in Bath in September 2008. She once again performed the role of Joan Didion for a benefit at New Yorks Cathedral of Saint John the Divine on 26 October 2009. The performance was originally slated to debut on 27 April, but was pushed due to the death of Redgraves daughter Natasha, the proceeds for the benefit were donated to the United Nations Childrens Fund and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Both charities work to help for the children of Gaza. In October 2010, she starred in the Broadway premiere of Driving Miss Daisy starring in the role opposite James Earl Jones
10.
Juliet Stevenson
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Juliet Anne Virginia Stevenson, CBE is an English actor of stage and screen. She is known for her role in the film Truly, Madly, Deeply and her other film appearances include Emma, Bend It Like Beckham, Mona Lisa Smile, Being Julia, and Infamous. Stevenson has starred in numerous Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre productions, including Olivier Award nominated roles in Measure for Measure, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, for her role as Paulina in Death and the Maiden, she won the 1992 Olivier Award for Best Actress. Her fifth Olivier nomination was for her work in the 2009 revival of Duet for One and she has also received three nominations for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress, for A Dolls House, The Politicians Wife and Accused. Other stage roles include The Heretic and Happy Days, Stevenson was born in Kelvedon, Essex, England, the daughter of Virginia Ruth, a teacher, and Michael Guy Stevenson, an army officer. Stevensons father was assigned a new posting every two and a half years, Stevenson was part of the new wave’ of actors to emerge from the Academy. Others included Jonathan Pryce, Bruce Payne, Alan Rickman, Anton Lesser, Kenneth Branagh, Imelda Staunton and this led to a stage career starting in 1978 with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Although she has gained fame through her television and film work, for the latter, she was awarded the 1992 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress. In the 1987 TV film Life Story, Stevenson played the part of scientist Rosalind Franklin and she played the leading role in the Anthony Minghella film Truly, Madly, Deeply and her roles in The Secret Rapture, Emma, Bend It Like Beckham and Mona Lisa Smile. She has more recently starred in Pierrepoint, Infamous as Diana Vreeland and Breaking and Entering as Rosemary, the film and Stevenson were criticised for trying to influence parents against MMR and dressing up science as entertainment. In 2009, she starred in ITVs A Place of Execution, the role won her the Best Actress Dagger at the 2009 Crime Thriller Awards. Stevenson lives with anthropologist Hugh Brody, her partner since 1993, the couple live in Highgate, North London. They have two children, both born in Camden, London, Rosalind Hannah Brody and Gabriel Jonathan Brody and she is an atheist but considers herself a spiritual and superstitious person. In 1992, she appeared in a political broadcast for the Labour Party, in 2008, she campaigned on behalf of refugee women with a reading of Motherland at the Young Vic. A partial list of Stevensons audio recordings, Man and Superman, production featured Juliet Stevenson, Ralph Fiennes and Judi Dench. Unabridged, Naxos audiobook,7 CDs Persuasion by Jane Austen, Unabridged, Naxos audiobook,7 CDs Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. Unabridged, Naxos audiobook,14 CDs Emma by Jane Austen, Unabridged, Naxos audiobook,13 CDs Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, Naxos audiobook, Unabridged Lady Audleys Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. M. Forster The London Tapes, by Juliet Stevenson Ancient and Modern, by Sue Gee Alentejo Blue by Monica Ali, the Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
11.
Maggie Smith
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Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, CH, DBE, known as Maggie Smith, is an English actress. She has had an extensive, varied career in stage, film, Smith has appeared in over 50 films and is one of Britains most recognisable actresses. Smith began her career on stage at the Oxford Playhouse in 1952 and she received Tony Award nominations for Private Lives and Night and Day, before winning the 1990 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for Lettice and Lovage. Other stage roles include Stratford Shakespeare Festival productions of Antony and Cleopatra and Macbeth, on screen, Smith first drew praise for the crime film Nowhere to Go, for which she received her first BAFTA Award nomination. She has won two Academy Awards, winning Best Actress for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Best Supporting Actress for California Suite and she is one of only six actresses to have won in both categories. She has won a record four BAFTA Awards for Best Actress, a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress, a six-time Oscar nominee, her other nominations were for Othello, Travels with My Aunt, A Room with a View, and Gosford Park. Smith played Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series and her honorary awards include the BAFTA Special Award, the BAFTA Fellowship, and the Special Olivier Award. She received the Stratford Shakespeare Festivals Legacy Award in 2012, Smith was born in Ilford, Essex, but moved with her family to Oxford when she was four years old. She is the daughter of Nathaniel Smith, a Newcastle-born public health pathologist who worked at Oxford University, and Margaret, as a child, her parents used to tell Smith the romantic story of how they had met on the train from Glasgow to London via Newcastle. She has older twin brothers, Alistair and Ian, who went to architecture school and she attended Oxford High School until age sixteen, when she left to study acting at the Oxford Playhouse. In 1952, aged 17, under the auspices of the Oxford University Dramatic Society, in 1954, she appeared in the television programme Oxford Accents produced by Ned Sherrin. In 1957, she starred opposite Kenneth Williams in the musical comedy Share My Lettuce, in 1958, she received the first of her 18 BAFTA Film and TV nominations for her role in the film Nowhere to Go. In 1962, Smith won the first of a record five Best Actress Evening Standard Awards for her roles in Peter Shaffers plays The Private Ear and The Public Eye, again opposite Kenneth Williams. She appeared opposite Olivier in Ibsens The Master Builder and played roles in The Recruiting Officer. Her other films at this time included Go to Blazes, The V. I. P. s, The Pumpkin Eater, Hot Millions and Oh. Smith won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the role of the 1969 film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Vanessa Redgrave had originated the role on stage in London and Zoe Caldwell won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, the role also won Smith her first BAFTA Award. In 1970, she played the role in Ingmar Bergmans London production of the Ibsen play Hedda Gabler
12.
Rebecca Hall
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Rebecca Maria Hall is an English-American actress. In 2003, she won the Ian Charleson Award for her stage performance in a production of Mrs. Warrens Profession. She has appeared in the films The Prestige, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, The Town, The Awakening, Frost/Nixon, Iron Man 3, Transcendence, in 2016, Hall portrayed the troubled news anchor Christine Chubbuck in the critically acclaimed drama Christine. In June 2010, Hall won the Supporting Actress BAFTA for her portrayal of Paula Garland in the 2009 Channel 4 production Red Riding, In the Year of Our Lord 1974. She was also nominated for the Leading Actress Television BAFTA in 2013 for her role as socialite Sylvia Tietjens in BBC Twos Parades End, opposite Benedict Cumberbatch. Hall was born on 3 May 1982 in London, the daughter of English stage director and Royal Shakespeare Company founder Peter Hall and her mother is of African American, Dutch, Scottish, and Sioux origin. Her parents separated when she was young, eventually divorcing in 1990. Hall has five half-siblings, stage director Edward Hall, producer Christopher Hall, Jennifer Caron Hall and actress Emma Hall, Christopher and Jennifer are Peter Halls children with his first wife, French actress Leslie Caron. Hall attended Roedean School, where she became head girl and she studied English Literature at St Catharines College, Cambridge, before dropping out in 2002 just before her final year. During her time at Cambridge, she was active in the student theatre scene and she was a member of the Marlowe Society and starred alongside housemate Dan Stevens, who was an English literature student at Emmanuel College, in several critically acclaimed productions. Halls first professional role came in 1992, when she appeared as young Sophy in her fathers television adaptation of Mary Wesleys The Camomile Lawn at the age of 10 and her feature film debut came in 2006 as Rebecca Epstein in the film adaptation of David Nichollss Starter for Ten. She got her breakthrough with the role of Sarah Borden in Christopher Nolans film The Prestige and she then appeared in Stephen Poliakoffs Joes Palace in 2007, as well as appearing in several other television films including Wide Sargasso Sea and Rubberheart. Halls Hollywood fame grew when she starred in the Woody Allen film Vicky Cristina Barcelona as one of the title characters and she was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. In 2008 she appeared in Frost/Nixon as the girlfriend of Michael Sheens David Frost, Hall was cast with Ben Barnes in the film Dorian Gray in 2009. She appeared in Please Give with Catherine Keener and Amanda Peet and The Town with Ben Affleck and she is the female lead role in the British ghost film The Awakening, released in September 2011. She played the role of Sylvia Tietjens in the BBC/HBO/VRT production of Parades End in 2012 opposite Benedict Cumberbatch and she replaced Jessica Chastain as Maya Hansen in the superhero film Iron Man 3. She also starred as Claudia Simmons Howe in the thriller Closed Circuit, in October 2013, she was engaged in promoting her latest film, the espionage thriller Closed Circuit, in which one commentator described her as good. better than Eric Bana. In 2015, Hall starred in the romantic comedy Tumbledown, opposite Jason Sudeikis, Halls professional stage debut came in 2002 when she starred as Vivie in her fathers production of Mrs Warrens Profession at the Strand Theatre in London
13.
Helen Mirren
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Dame Helen Lydia Mirren DBE is an English actor. The Audience was written by Peter Morgan, who also wrote The Queen, Tingle, Gosford Park, Calendar Girls, The Last Station, Hitchcock, and The Hundred-Foot Journey. She played Victoria Winslow in the action-comedy films Red and Red 2, in 2003, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for Services to the Performing Arts. In 2013, Mirren was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and she was born Helen Lydia Mironoff at Queen Charlottes and Chelsea Hospital in Hammersmith, west London, the daughter of Kathleen Kitty Alexandrina Eva Matilda and Vasily Petrovich Mironoff. Her mother was English and her father was Russian, originally from Kuryanovo, Mirrens paternal grandfather, Colonel Pyotr Vasilievich Mironov, was in the Imperial Russian Army and fought in the 1904 Russo-Japanese War. He later became a diplomat, and was negotiating a deal in Britain when he. The former diplomat became a London cab driver to support his family and his son, Helen Mirrens father, anglicised the family name to Mirren in the 1950s and changed his name to Basil Mirren. He played the viola with the London Philharmonic before World War II, Mirrens mother was a working-class Londoner from West Ham, East London, and was the 13th of 14 children born to a butcher whose own father had been the butcher to Queen Victoria. Mirren considers her upbringing to have been very anti-monarchist, Mirren was the second of three children, she was born three years after her older sister, Katherine, and also had a younger brother, Peter Basil. Mirren was brought up in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, aged eighteen, she auditioned for the National Youth Theatre and was accepted. By the time she was 20, she was playing Cleopatra in the NYT production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Old Vic, as a result of her work for the National Youth Theatre, Mirren was invited to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. She also appeared in four productions, directed by Braham Murray for Century Theatre at the University Theatre in Manchester, in 1970, the director/producer John Goldschmidt made a documentary film, Doing Her Own Thing, about Mirren during her time with the Royal Shakespeare Company. The film was made for ATV and shown on the ITV Network in the UK and she then rejoined the RSC, playing Lady Macbeth at Stratford in 1974 and at the Aldwych Theatre in 1975. According to Beauman, there were no repercussions for this rebuke of the RSC. Her performance earned her the London critics Plays & Players Best Actress award, beginning in November 1975, Mirren played in West End repertory with the Lyric Theatre Company as Nina in The Seagull and Ella in Ben Travers new farce The Bed Before Yesterday. In 1981, she returned to the Royal Court for the London premiere of Brian Friels Faith Healer, – Michael Coveney, Financial Times, April 1983. On 15 February 2013, at the West Ends Gielgud Theatre she began a turn as Elizabeth II in the World Premiere of Peter Morgans The Audience, the show was directed by Stephen Daldry. In April she was named best actress at the Olivier Awards for her role, a further stage breakthrough came in 1994, in an Yvonne Arnaud Theatre production bound for the West End, when Bill Bryden cast her as Natalya Petrovna in Ivan Turgenevs A Month in the Country
14.
Patti LuPone
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Patti Ann LuPone is an American actress and singer, best known for her work in stage musicals. She is a two-time Grammy Award winner and a two-time Tony Award winner and she is also a 2006 American Theater Hall of Fame inductee. LuPone began her career with The Acting Company in 1972. She received the first of six Tony Award nominations for the 1975 musical The Robber Bridegroom and she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role as Eva Perón in the 1979 original Broadway production of Evita. She played Fantine in the original London cast of Les Misérables and Moll in The Cradle Will Rock and she won a second Tony Award for her role as Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy. She also won two Grammy Awards for the recording of the 2007 Los Angeles Opera production of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny in categories of Best Classical Album and Best Opera Recording. On television, she starred in the drama series Life Goes On and she is known to voice Yellow Diamond in Steven Universe. She also had a role in the season of the FX thriller series American Horror Story. Her film appearances include Witness, Driving Miss Daisy, State and Main, LuPone was born April 21,1949, in Northport, New York, on Long Island, the daughter of Angela Louise, a college library administrator, and Orlando Joseph LuPone, a school administrator. Her great-grand-aunt was 19th-century opera singer Adelina Patti and her older brother Robert LuPone is an actor, dancer, and director who originated the role of Zach the director in A Chorus Line. LuPone was part of the first graduating class of Juilliards Drama Division and she graduated from Juilliard in 1972 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. In 1972, LuPone became one of the members of The Acting Company. The Acting Company is a touring repertory theater company. She made her Broadway debut in the play The Three Sisters as Irina in 1973, for her work in The Robber Bridegroom she received her first Tony Award nomination, for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. The Acting Company honored LuPone on March 12,2012 in an event called Pattis Turn at the Kaye Playhouse, in 1976, producer David Merrick hired LuPone as a replacement to play Genevieve, the title role of the troubled pre-Broadway production of The Bakers Wife. The production toured at length but Merrick deemed it unworthy of Broadway, since 1977, LuPone has been a frequent collaborator with David Mamet, appearing in his plays The Woods, All Men are Whores, The Blue Hour, The Water Engine, Edmond and The Old Neighborhood. The New York Times reviewer wrote of LuPone in The Old Neighborhood Those who know Ms. LuPone only as a comedy star will be stunned by the naturalistic fire she delivers here. As Jolly, an inspired by Mr. Mamets real-life sister and his realized female character, Ms. LuPone finds conflicting layers of past
15.
Alan Rickman
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Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman was an English actor and director known for playing a variety of roles on stage and on screen. Rickman trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and his first big television part came in 1982, but his big break was as the Vicomte de Valmont in the stage production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses in 1985, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award. Rickman gained wider notice for his performances as Hans Gruber in Die Hard. L. OHara in An Awfully Big Adventure, Dr. Rickman died of cancer on 14 January 2016 at the age of 69. His final film roles are as Lieutenant General Frank Benson in the thriller Eye in the Sky, and the voice of Absolem, Rickman was born in West London, to a working-class family, the son of Margaret Doreen Rose, a housewife, and Bernard William Rickman. Rickmans father was a worker, house painter and decorator. His ancestry was English, Irish and Welsh, his father was Catholic, Rickmans family also included brothers David and Michael, and sister Sheila. When he was eight years old, Rickmans father died of cancer, leaving his mother to raise him. She married again in 1960, but divorced Rickmans stepfather after three years, before he met Rima Horton at 19, he stated that his first crush was at 10 years old to a girl named Amanda at sports day. As a child, he excelled at calligraphy and watercolour painting, after leaving Latymer, he attended Chelsea College of Art and Design and then the Royal College of Art. He wrote to request an audition with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, while there, he studied Shakespeare and supported himself by working as a dresser for Sir Nigel Hawthorne and Sir Ralph Richardson. In 1978, he performed with the Court Drama Group, gaining parts in Romeo and Juliet and A View from the Bridge, while working with the Royal Shakespeare Company, he was cast in As You Like It. He appeared in The Barchester Chronicles, the BBCs adaptation of Trollopes first two Barchester novels, as the Reverend Obadiah Slope. Rickman was given the lead, the Vicomte de Valmont, in the 1985 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Christopher Hamptons adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. After the RSC production transferred to Broadway in 1987, Rickman received both a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award nomination for his performance, Rickmans career was filled with a wide range of roles. Alfred Blalock in HBOs Something the Lord Made and the mad monk Rasputin in the HBO biopic Rasputin, Dark Servant of Destiny, for which he won a Golden Globe and an Emmy. His performance as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves also earned him praise as one of the best actors to portray a villain in films, Rickman took issue with being typecast as a villain, even though he was known for playing unsympathetic characters. His portrayal of Severus Snape, the master in the Harry Potter series, was dark
16.
Kevin Kline
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Kevin Delaney Kline is an American film and stage actor and singer. He has won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards and is a 2003 American Theatre Hall of Fame inductee, Kline began his career on stage in 1972 with The Acting Company. He made his debut the following year, opposite Meryl Streep in Sophies Choice. For his role in the 1988 comedy hit A Fish Called Wanda, in 2003, he starred as Falstaff in the Broadway production of Henry IV, for which he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play. He has been nominated for an Emmy Award, two BAFTA Awards and five Golden Globe Awards. His other films include The Big Chill, Silverado, Cry Freedom, Dave, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Ice Storm, In & Out, The Road to El Dorado, De-Lovely, My Old Lady, and Beauty and the Beast. Since 2011, Kline has had a role on the animated comedy series Bobs Burgers. Kline was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Margaret Agnes Kirk, Kline has described his mother as the dramatic theatrical character in our family. Klines father was Jewish, from a family that had emigrated from Germany, klines mother was a Roman Catholic of Irish descent, the daughter of an immigrant from County Louth. Kline was raised in his mothers Catholic faith and he has three siblings, Alex, Christopher, and Kate. He graduated from the Saint Louis Priory School in 1965, in 1997, the school named its new auditorium the Kevin Kline Theater, and Kline did a benefit performance of selections from Shakespeare at the dedication. He attended Indiana University, Bloomington, where he was a classmate of actor Jonathan Banks and he began studying composing and conducting music, but switched to a theater and speech major for his last two years, graduating in 1970. Kline remembers, When I switched to the Theater Department, all I did was theater. I could barely make it to class because this was my passion, while an undergraduate, he was a co-founder of the Vest Pocket Players, an off-campus theatrical troupe. In 1970, Kline was awarded a scholarship to the newly formed Drama Division at the Juilliard School in New York. In 1972, he joined with fellow Juilliard graduates, including Patti LuPone and David Ogden Stiers, at Juilliard, he studied singing with Beverley Peck Johnson. In 1976, Kline left The Acting Company and settled in New York City, in 1978, he played the role of Bruce Granit, a matinée idol caricature, in Harold Princes On the Twentieth Century, for which he won his first Tony Award. In 1983, he played the role in a version of the musical, also with Ronstadt, Smith and Angela Lansbury. He also appeared in a Lincoln Center production that combined the two parts of Henry IV on Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in 2003 as Falstaff, Kline was nominated for the 2004 Tony Award, Actor in a Play
17.
Stephen Dillane
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Stephen John Dillane is an English actor. His television work has garnered him BAFTA and International Emmy awards for best actor. Dillane was born in Kensington, London to an English mother, Bridget, the eldest of his siblings, he grew up in West Wickham, Kent. At school Dillane began performing in plays and had a certain facility for funny accents. As Rosencrantz while pointing at the audience was a thrilling thing to be able to do. He studied history and politics at the University of Exeter, concentrating on the Russian Revolution, during his early acting career, he was known as Stephen Dillon but reverted to his birth name in the 1990s. He has also performed T. S. Eliots Four Quartets in London and New York City, Dillane also portrayed Horatio in the 1990 film adaptation of Hamlet. He played Michael Henderson in Welcome to Sarajevo, a based on British journalist Michael Nicholson. Dillane is also known for his portrayal of Leonard Woolf in The Hours, legendary English professional golfer Harry Vardon in The Greatest Game Ever Played and he also starred in John Adams as Thomas Jefferson. In recent years Dillane has worked frequently in television, professing himself to be a little lost on stage at the moment and he joined the cast of Game of Thrones in 2011 as Stannis Baratheon, a major contender for the throne of the fictional realm of Westeros. In 2012 he also played Rupert Keel, head of the security agency Byzantium. The following year he went on to take the lead, opposite Clémence Poésy, in the crime drama series The Tunnel. Dillane, who had not seen the series, plays Karl Roebuck. His performance won him an International Emmy Award for Best Actor, in a second series in 2016, titled The Tunnel, Sabotage, he reprised his role alongside Poésy for a new case involving a deadly airliner crash in the English Channel. His son, Frank Dillane, plays his son in the film and that same year he also had roles in the films Zero Dark Thirty and Twenty8k. Offscreen, the actor in 2014 collaborated with visual artist Tacita Dean for the Sydney Biennale, the work, performed live and later adapted for radio broadcast and film, explored the process of filmmaking and the concept of artifice on the stage through a single actor, Dillane. The performance encompassed readings from texts as well as his personal reflections on acting, theatre,2015 saw Dillane making other brief returns to stage including a reprise of his reading of Four Quartets in London and a one-off appearance in Tim Crouchs An Oak Tree at the National Theatre. In 2016, besides appearing in the series of The Tunnel
18.
Ellen Burstyn
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Ellen Burstyn is an American actress. Her career began in theatre during the late 1950s, and over the decade included several films. Burstyn is one of the few performers to have won the Triple Crown of Acting, in 2013, she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Burstyn was born Edna Rae Gillooly in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of Correine Marie and she has described her ancestry as Irish, French, Pennsylvania Dutch, a little Canadian Indian. Burstyn has a brother, Jack, and a younger brother. Her parents divorced when she was young, and her brothers and she attended Cass Technical High School, a university-preparatory school which allowed students to choose a specific field of study. In high school, she was a cheerleader, a member of the student council and she dropped out of high school during her senior year after failing her classes. After dropping out of school, Burstyn got a job as a model in a Detroit department store and she later relocated to Dallas, where she continued modeling before traveling to New York City. From 1955 to 1956, Burstyn appeared as an away we go dancing girl on The Jackie Gleason Show under the name Erica Dean. Burstyn then decided to become an actress and chose the name Ellen McRae as her professional name, Burstyn debuted on Broadway in 1957 and joined Lee Strasbergs The Actors Studio in New York City in 1967. In 1975, she won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for her performance in the comedy Same Time, during 1964-1965, she had a recurring role as Dr. Kate Bartok on the NBC daytime television soap opera The Doctors. In 1967-1968, she co-starred as Julie Parsons opposite Dale Robertson in the ABC Western The Iron Horse and she was credited as Ellen McRae until 1967, when she and her then-husband Neil Nephew both changed their surname to Burstyn and she began to be credited as Ellen Burstyn. In 1971, Burstyn received Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the drama film The Last Picture Show, during the filming of The Exorcist, she injured her coccyx, which led to permanent injury to her spine. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1974 for her performance in the drama Alice Doesnt Live Here Anymore, directed by Martin Scorsese. She also received Best Actress nominations in 1978 for Same Time, Next Year, in 1980 for the drama Resurrection, and for the drama Requiem for a Dream in 2000. In 1977, she was a member of the jury at the 27th Berlin International Film Festival, Burstyn hosted NBCs Saturday Night Live, a late-night sketch comedy and variety show, in December 1980. In 1990, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre, from 2000 to 2002, Burstyn appeared in the CBS television drama Thats Life. In January 2006, she starred as an Episcopal bishop in the NBC comedy-drama series The Book of Daniel, conservative groups including American Family Association and Focus on the Family urged supporters to complain to NBC affiliates that carried the show
19.
Touchstone (As You Like It)
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Touchstone is a fictional character in Shakespeares play As You Like It. Touchstone is the jester of Duke Frederick, the usurpers court. Throughout the play he comments on the characters and thus contributes to a better understanding of the play. Touchstone falls in love with a dull-witted goat girl named Audrey, william, an oafish country boy, makes clumsy attempts to woo her as well, but is driven off by Touchstone, who threatens to kill him a hundred and fifty ways. Eventually Touchstone marries Audrey, but a prediction is made that the relationship will not last, Audrey doesnt love Touchstone in the real sense of the feeling but only to become a courtly lady. Touchstone is thought to be a witty or clever fool, although Rosalind, often he tries to show off his wit and intelligence by making some wise comments and references. Touchstone compares himself to Ovid and Jaques likens him to Jove in Ovids Metamorphoses, the word touchstone appears in Book II of the second 1575 edition of Arthur Goldings translation of this work. In which Mercury tricks Battus into revealing the whereabouts of the cattle of Apollo which Mercury himself has stolen, in Shakespeares Clown, David Wiles suggests that Robert Armin played the part of Touchstone in the first productions of As You Like It. The earlier fools of this period were often nothing but stooges
20.
Shakespearean fool
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The Shakespearean fool is a recurring character type in the works of William Shakespeare. Shakespearean fools are usually clever peasants or commoners that use their wits to outdo people of social standing. In this sense, they are similar to the real fools, and jesters of the time. The groundlings that frequented the Globe Theatre were more likely to be drawn to these Shakespearean fools, however they were also favoured by the nobility. Most notably, Queen Elizabeth I was an admirer of the popular actor who portrayed fools. For Shakespeare himself, however, actor Robert Armin may have proved vital to the cultivation of the character in his many plays. Fools have entertained a varied public from Roman through Medieval times, the fool perhaps reached its pre-Shakespearean heights as the jester in aristocratic courts across Europe. Shakespeare not only borrowed from this multi-talented jester tradition, but contributed significantly to its rethinking, like Shakespeares other characters, the fool began to speak outside of the narrow confines of exemplary morality. Shakespeares fools address themes of love, psychic turmoil, personal identity, and many other themes that arise in Shakespeare. Shakespeares earlier fools often seem to be written for the talents of famous Elizabethan actor. After Kempe left the troupe, Shakespeares comic characters changed dramatically, Kempe was known for his improvising, and Hamlet contains a famous complaint at improvisational clowning. Perhaps central to the Bards redrawing of the fool was the actor Robert Armin, Shakespeare created a whole series of domestic fools for. Shakespeare began to write well-developed sub-plots expressly for Armins talents, a balance between the order of the play and the carnivalised inversion factor of festive energy was achieved. Ar-min was an intellectual influence on Shakespeares fools. He was attuned to the tradition of the Renaissance fool yet intellectual enough to understand the power of the medieval tradition. Armins fool is a presence rather than a solo artist. His major skills were mime and mimicry, even his improvisational material had to be reworked and rehearsed and his greatest asset was as a foil to the other stage actors. Armin offered the audience an idiosyncratic response to the idiosyncrasies of each spectator and that, of course, is the great secret of the successful fool – that he is no fool at all
21.
Orlando (As You Like It)
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Orlando is a fictional character and the male lead in the comedy As You Like It by William Shakespeare. Orlando is the son of the deceased Sir Rowland de Boys. He is brave, chivalrous, tender, modest, smart, strong, handsome and he resents the harsh treatment he receives at Olivers hands and complains that Oliver is neglecting to educate him, Orlando feels that he is being kept like livestock. Despite this neglect, Orlandos talents and his aristocratic nature reveal themselves and he has a will to attain knowledge and wanted to go to school. Nevertheless, he is not successful in expressing his love for Rosalind to her and he is portrayed as exceptionally strong in both body and in his devotion to love. It is these qualities that make Rosalind fall for him as well, after angering Olivers crony Duke Frederick, Orlando flees his familiar surroundings to live in exile in the Forest of Arden. There, he is accepted into the circle of the usurped Duke Senior and is united in marriage with Duke Seniors daughter. Actor Laurence Olivier played the character in a 1936 film with Elizabeth Bergner opposite him as Rosalind, according to at least one legend, the character is the namesake for the city of Orlando, Florida
22.
Hymen (god)
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Hymen, Hymenaios or Hymenaeus, in ancient Greece, was a god of marriage ceremonies, inspiring feasts and song. He was one of the winged love gods, Erotes and he was the son of a muse, Clio or Calliope or Urania or Terpsichore. Hymen was supposed to attend every wedding, if he didnt, then the marriage would supposedly prove disastrous, so the Greeks would run about calling his name aloud. He presided over many of the weddings in Greek mythology, for all the deities, Hymen was celebrated in the ancient marriage song of unknown origin Hymen o Hymenae, Hymen delivered by G. Valerius Catullus. At least since the Italian Renaissance, Hymen was generally represented in art as a man wearing a garland of flowers. Honour, high honour, and renown, To Hymen, god of every town, Hymen also appears in the work of the 7th- to 6th-century BCE Greek poet Sappho, High must be the chamber – Hymenaeum. Like the War-god himself, the tallest of the tall and he was the son of Dionysus/Bacchus and Aphrodite, or, in some traditions, Apollo and one of the Muses. Other stories give him a legendary origin, in one of the surviving fragments of the Megalai Ehoiai attributed to Hesiod, its told that Magnes had a son of remarkable beauty, Hymenaeus. And when Apollo saw the boy, he was seized with love for him, aristophanes Peace ends with Trygaeus and the Chorus singing the wedding song, with the repeated phrase Oh Hymen. A typical refrain for a wedding song, Hymen is also mentioned in chapter 20 of Vanity Fair by William Makepiece Thackeray. According to a later Romance, Hymen was an Athenian youth of great beauty, since he couldnt speak to her or court her, due to his social standing, he instead followed her wherever she went. Hymen disguised himself as a woman in order to one of these processions. The assemblage was captured by pirates, Hymen included and he encouraged the women and plotted strategy with them, and together they killed their captors. He then agreed with the women to go back to Athens and win their freedom and he thus succeeded in both the mission and the marriage, and his marriage was so happy that Athenians instituted festivals in his honour and he came to be associated with marriage. A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, William Smith, P. Maas, Hymenaios REF9 pp. 130–34
23.
Francis Hayman
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Francis Hayman RA was an English painter and illustrator who became one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768, and later its first librarian. Born in Exeter, Devon, Hayman begun his career as a scene painter in Londons Drury Lane theatre before establishing a studio in St Martins Lane. A versatile artist influenced by the French Rococo style, he achieved some note during the 1740s through decorative paintings executed for the boxes at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in London. Hayman was also a successful portraitist and history painter and he also illustrated Pamela, a novel by Samuel Richardson, Miltons Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, Smollets translation of Don Quixote, and other well-known works. His pupils included Mason Chamberlin, Nathaniel Dance-Holland, Thomas Seton and Lemuel Francis Abbott, with Joshua Reynolds, Hayman was actively involved in the formation of the Society of Artists, a forerunner of the Royal Academy, during the early 1760s. London, Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 296–7, the Surrender of Montreal to General Amherst de Francis Hayman et l’identité impériale britannique Mens, revue dhistoire intellectuelle et culturelle, Volume 12, numéro 1, automne 2011, p. 91-135. Francis Hayman online Portrait of Hayman by Joshua Reynolds
24.
Ardennes
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The Ardennes is a region of extensive forests, rough terrain, rolling hills and ridges formed by the geological features of the Ardennes mountain range and the Moselle and Meuse River basins. Geologically, the range is a extension of the Eifel. The eastern part of the Ardennes forms the northernmost third of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, also called Oesling, the greater region maintained an industrial eminence into the 20th century after coal replaced charcoal in metallurgy. The region is typified by steep-sided valleys carved by swift-flowing rivers and its most populous cities are Verviers in Belgium and Charleville-Mézières in France, both exceeding 50,000 inhabitants. The Ardennes is otherwise relatively sparsely populated, with few of the cities exceeding 10,000 inhabitants with a few exceptions like Eupen or Bastogne. The Eifel range in Germany adjoins the Ardennes and is part of the geological formation. N. B. the Belgian Province of Luxembourg in the above list is not to be confused with the known as the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The Ardennes is an old mountain formed during the Hercynian orogeny, in France similar formations are the Armorican Massif, the Massif Central, the low interior of such old mountains often contain coal, plus iron, zinc and other metals in the sub-soil. This geologic fact explains the greatest part of the geography of Wallonia, the region was uplifted by a mantle plume during the last few hundred thousand years, as measured from the present elevation of old river terraces. This geological region is important in the history of Wallonia because this old mountain is at the origin of the economy, the history, Wallonia presents a wide range of rocks of various ages. Some geological stages internationally recognized were defined from rock sites located in Wallonia, except for the Tournaisian, all these rocks are within the Ardennes geological area. Before the 19th century industrialization, the first furnaces in the four Walloon provinces and in the French Ardennes used charcoal for fuel and this industry was also in the extreme south of the present-day Belgian province of Luxembourg, in the region called Gaume. Wallonia became the industrial power area of the world in proportion to its territory. The rugged terrain of the Ardennes limits the scope for agriculture, arable, the region is rich in timber and minerals, and Liège and Namur are both major industrial centres. The extensive forests have an abundant population of wild game, the scenic beauty of the region and its wide variety of outdoor activities, including hunting, cycling, walking and canoeing, make it a popular tourist destination. The region took its name from the ancient Silva, a vast forest in Roman times called Arduenna Silva, the modern Ardennes covers a much smaller area. The Song of Roland describes Charlemagne as having a nightmare the night before the Battle of Roncevaux Pass of 778 and this nightmare took place in the Ardennes forest, where his most important battles occurred. Another song about Charlemagne, the Old French 12th-century chanson de geste Quatre Fils Aymon, mentions many of Wallonias rivers, villages and other places
25.
Arden, Warwickshire
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Arden is an area, located mainly in Warwickshire, England, and also part of Staffordshire and Worcestershire traditionally regarded as extending from the River Avon to the River Tame. It was once wooded, giving rise to the name Forest of Arden. It does not seem that the area was subject to forest law however, believed to be derived from a Brythonic word ardu- high, by extension highland, the area was formerly thickly forested and known as the Forest of Arden. The most important and largest settlement in the forest was the town Henley-in-Arden, an ancient mark stone known as Coughton Cross is still present at the south western corner of the forest, at the junction of Icknield Street and the salt track. It is located at the end of the frontage of Coughton Court and is owned by the National Trust. According to local tradition, travellers prayed here for passage through the forest. From around 1162, until the suppression of the order in 1312, the property then passed to the Knights Hospitaller, who held it until the Reformation during the 16th century. Robert Catesby, leader of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, was a native of Lapworth and it is believed that many local families had resisted the Reformation and retained Catholic sympathies, possibly including the family of Shakespeare, whose paternal ancestors were from Temple Balsall. Mary Arden, mother of William Shakespeare, was a member, towns in the area include Hampton-in-Arden, Henley-in-Arden, and Tanworth-in-Arden. The Countryside Commission considered creating a new national forest in the area in 1989, a national forest has been established in the northern midlands however. Publisher Felix Dennis planted substantial areas of woodland in the area, known as the Heart of England Forest,3000 acres have been planted in Spernall, Dorsington and Honeybourne. Hampton-in-Arden Henley-in-Arden Tanworth-in-Arden Arden family Shapiro, James,1599, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare. Landowners and their Estates in the Forest of Arden in the Fifteenth Century, about the Forest About Mary Arden
26.
Exile
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To be in exile means to be away from ones home, while either being explicitly refused permission to return or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return. It can be a form of punishment and solitude and it is common to distinguish between internal exile, i. e. forced resettlement within the country of residence, and external exile, which is deportation outside the country of residence. Although most commonly used to describe a situation, the term is also used for groups. Exile can also be a departure from ones homeland. Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. In some cases the head of state is allowed to go into exile following a coup or other change of government. A wealthy citizen who departs from an abode for a lower tax jurisdiction in order to reduce his/her tax burden is termed a tax exile. Creative people such as authors and musicians who achieve sudden wealth sometimes find themselves among this group, in 2012, Eduardo Saverin, one of the founders of Facebook, made headlines by renouncing his U. S. citizenship before his companys IPO. In some cases a person lives in exile to avoid legal issues. For example, nuns were exiled following the Communist coup détat of 1948 in Czechoslovakia, many Jewish prayers include a yearning to return to Jerusalem and the Jewish homeland. The entire population of Crimean Tatars that remained in their homeland Crimea was exiled on 18 May 1944 to Central Asia as a form of ethnic cleansing and collective punishment on false accusations. At Diego Garcia, between 1967 and 1973 the British Government forcibly removed some 2,000 Chagossian resident islanders to make way for a military base today jointly operated by the US, since the Cuban Revolution over one million Cubans have left Cuba. Most of these self-identify as exiles as their motivation for leaving the island is political in nature, most of the exiles children also consider themselves to be Cuban exiles. It is to be noted that under Cuban law, children of Cubans born abroad are considered Cuban citizens, during a foreign occupation or after a coup détat, a government in exile of a such afflicted country may be established abroad. Exile is a motif in ancient Greek tragedy. In the ancient Greek world, this was seen as a worse than death. The motif reaches its peak on the play Medea, written by Euripides in the fifth century BC, euripides’ Medea has remained the most frequently performed Greek tragedy through the 20th century. After Medea was abandoned by Jason and had become a murderer out of revenge, she fled to Athens and married king Aigeus there, due to a conflict with him, she must leave the Polis and go away into exile
27.
Jupiter (mythology)
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Jupiter, also Jove, is the god of sky and thunder and king of the gods in Ancient Roman religion and mythology. Jupiter was the deity of Roman state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras. In Roman mythology, he negotiates with Numa Pompilius, the king of Rome, to establish principles of Roman religion such as offering. Jupiter is usually thought to have originated as a sky god, the two emblems were often combined to represent the god in the form of an eagle holding in its claws a thunderbolt, frequently seen on Greek and Roman coins. As the sky-god, he was a witness to oaths. Many of his functions were focused on the Capitoline Hill, where the citadel was located and he was the chief deity of the early Capitoline Triad with Mars and Quirinus. In the later Capitoline Triad, he was the guardian of the state with Juno. His sacred tree was the oak, the Romans regarded Jupiter as the equivalent of the Greek Zeus, and in Latin literature and Roman art, the myths and iconography of Zeus are adapted under the name Iuppiter. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Jupiter was the brother of Neptune, each presided over one of the three realms of the universe, sky, the waters, and the underworld. The Italic Diespiter was also a sky god who manifested himself in the daylight, usually, Tinia is usually regarded as his Etruscan counterpart. The Romans believed that Jupiter granted them supremacy because they had honoured him more than any other people had, Jupiter was the fount of the auspices upon which the relationship of the city with the gods rested. He personified the divine authority of Romes highest offices, internal organization and his image in the Republican and Imperial Capitol bore regalia associated with Romes ancient kings and the highest consular and Imperial honours. The consuls swore their oath of office in Jupiters name, to thank him for his help, they offered him a white ox with gilded horns. A similar offering was made by generals, who surrendered the tokens of their victory at the feet of Jupiters statue in the Capitol. Some scholars have viewed the triumphator as embodying Jupiter in the triumphal procession, Jupiters association with kingship and sovereignty was reinterpreted as Romes form of government changed. Originally, Rome was ruled by kings, after the monarchy was abolished and the Republic established, religious prerogatives were transferred to the patres, nostalgia for the kingship was considered treasonous. Those suspected of harbouring monarchical ambitions were punished, regardless of their service to the state, in the 5th century BC, the triumphator Camillus was sent into exile after he drove a chariot with a team of four white horses —an honour reserved for Jupiter himself. His house on the Capitoline Hill was razed, and it was decreed that no patrician should ever be allowed to live there, during the Conflict of the Orders, Romes plebeians demanded the right to hold political and religious office
28.
Arcadia (utopia)
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Arcadia refers to a vision of pastoralism and harmony with nature. Arcadia is a poetic shaped space associated with bountiful natural splendor, the Garden is often inhabited by shepherds. The concept also figures in Renaissance mythology, although commonly thought of as being in line with Utopian ideals, Arcadia differs from that tradition in that it is more often specifically regarded as unattainable. Furthermore, it is seen as a lost, Edenic form of life, the inhabitants were often regarded as having continued to live after the manner of the Golden Age, without the pride and avarice that corrupted other regions. It is also referred to in English poetry as Arcady. The inhabitants of this region bear a connection to the figure of the noble savage. According to Greek mythology, Arcadia of Peloponnesus was the domain of Pan and it was one version of paradise, though only in the sense of being the abode of supernatural entities, not an afterlife for deceased mortals. Greek mythology inspired the Roman poet Virgil to write his Eclogues, Arcadia has remained a popular artistic subject since antiquity, both in visual arts and literature. Images of beautiful nymphs frolicking in forests have been a frequent source of inspiration for painters and sculptors. As a result of the influence of Virgil in medieval European literature, European Renaissance writers often revisited the theme, and the name came to apply to any idyllic location or paradise. Unlike the word utopia, Arcadia does not carry the connotation of a civilization, Arcadia is presented as the spontaneous result of life lived naturally. Of particular note is Et in Arcadia ego by Nicholas Poussin, in 1502 Jacopo Sannazaro published his long poem Arcadia that fixed the Early Modern perception of Arcadia as a lost world of idyllic bliss, remembered in regretful dirges. The Spanish playwright and poet Lope de Vega also published in 1598 his Arcadia, Prose and Verse, does not the pleasantness of this place carry in itself sufficient reward for any time lost in it, or for any such danger that might ensue. Do you not see how everything conspires together to make this place a heavenly dwelling, do you not see the grass, how in color they excel the emeralds. Do not these stately trees seem to maintain their old age, with the only happiness of their seat being clothed with a continual spring. Doth not the air breathe health which the birds do daily solemnize with the consent of their voices. Is not every echo here a perfect music, though depicted as contemporary, this pastoral form is often connected with the Golden Age. Arcadia is now the name of cities and towns around the world
29.
Forest of Arden
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Arden is an area, located mainly in Warwickshire, England, and also part of Staffordshire and Worcestershire traditionally regarded as extending from the River Avon to the River Tame. It was once wooded, giving rise to the name Forest of Arden. It does not seem that the area was subject to forest law however, believed to be derived from a Brythonic word ardu- high, by extension highland, the area was formerly thickly forested and known as the Forest of Arden. The most important and largest settlement in the forest was the town Henley-in-Arden, an ancient mark stone known as Coughton Cross is still present at the south western corner of the forest, at the junction of Icknield Street and the salt track. It is located at the end of the frontage of Coughton Court and is owned by the National Trust. According to local tradition, travellers prayed here for passage through the forest. From around 1162, until the suppression of the order in 1312, the property then passed to the Knights Hospitaller, who held it until the Reformation during the 16th century. Robert Catesby, leader of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, was a native of Lapworth and it is believed that many local families had resisted the Reformation and retained Catholic sympathies, possibly including the family of Shakespeare, whose paternal ancestors were from Temple Balsall. Mary Arden, mother of William Shakespeare, was a member, towns in the area include Hampton-in-Arden, Henley-in-Arden, and Tanworth-in-Arden. The Countryside Commission considered creating a new national forest in the area in 1989, a national forest has been established in the northern midlands however. Publisher Felix Dennis planted substantial areas of woodland in the area, known as the Heart of England Forest,3000 acres have been planted in Spernall, Dorsington and Honeybourne. Hampton-in-Arden Henley-in-Arden Tanworth-in-Arden Arden family Shapiro, James,1599, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare. Landowners and their Estates in the Forest of Arden in the Fifteenth Century, about the Forest About Mary Arden
30.
Deer
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Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the deer and the chital, and the Capreolinae, including the elk, reindeer, the Western roe deer. Female reindeer, and male deer of all species, grow, in this they differ from permanently horned antelope, which are in the same order, Artiodactyla. The musk deer of Asia and water chevrotain of tropical African and Asian forests are not usually regarded as true deer and form their own families, Moschidae and Tragulidae, respectively. Deer appear in art from Palaeolithic cave paintings onwards, and they have played a role in mythology, religion and their economic importance includes the use of their meat as venison, their skins as soft, strong buckskin, and their antlers as handles for knives. Deer hunting has been a sport since at least the Middle Ages. Deer live in a variety of biomes, ranging from tundra to the tropical rainforest, while often associated with forests, many deer are ecotone species that live in transitional areas between forests and thickets and prairie and savanna. The majority of deer species inhabit temperate mixed deciduous forest, mountain mixed coniferous forest, tropical seasonal/dry forest. Clearing open areas within forests to some extent may actually benefit deer populations by exposing the understory and allowing the types of grasses, weeds, additionally, access to adjacent croplands may also benefit deer. However, adequate forest or brush cover must still be provided for populations to grow, however, fallow deer have been introduced to South Africa. There are also species of deer that are highly specialized, and live almost exclusively in mountains, grasslands, swamps. Some deer have a distribution in both North America and Eurasia. Examples include the caribou that live in Arctic tundra and taiga and moose that inhabit taiga, huemul deer of South Americas Andes fill the ecological niches of the ibex and wild goat, with the fawns behaving more like goat kids. Mountain slope habitats vary from moist coniferous/mixed forested habitats to dry forests with alpine meadows higher up. The foothills and river valleys between the mountain provide a mosaic of cropland and deciduous parklands. The rare woodland caribou have the most restricted range living at altitudes in the subalpine meadows. Elk and mule deer both migrate between the alpine meadows and lower coniferous forests and tend to be most common in this region, elk also inhabit river valley bottomlands, which they share with White-tailed deer. They also live in the aspen parklands north of Calgary and Edmonton, the adjacent Great Plains grassland habitats are left to herds of elk, American bison, and pronghorn antelope
31.
Philip Richard Morris
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Philip Richard Morris ARA was an English painter of genre and maritime scenes, Holman Hunt-influenced religious paintings and portraits. At the latter, he used the travelling studentship he won for his The Good Samaritan to fund a journey to Italy and France and he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1877, though he resigned it in 1900. In 1878 he married a widow, Catherine Sargeantson, the daughter of J. Evans of Llangollen, philip Morris and Family at www. bfronline. biz Biography of Gladys Hill Morris at www. bfronline. biz Profile on Royal Academy of Arts Collections
32.
Poetry
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Poetry has a long history, dating back to the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. Early poems evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese Shijing, or from a need to retell oral epics, as with the Sanskrit Vedas, Zoroastrian Gathas, and the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Ancient attempts to define poetry, such as Aristotles Poetics, focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song and comedy. Later attempts concentrated on such as repetition, verse form and rhyme. From the mid-20th century, poetry has sometimes been more generally regarded as a creative act employing language. Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretation to words, devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects. The use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony and other elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly figures of such as metaphor, simile and metonymy create a resonance between otherwise disparate images—a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between verses, in their patterns of rhyme or rhythm. Some poetry types are specific to cultures and genres and respond to characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. Much modern poetry reflects a critique of poetic tradition, playing with and testing, among other things, in todays increasingly globalized world, poets often adapt forms, styles and techniques from diverse cultures and languages. Some scholars believe that the art of poetry may predate literacy, others, however, suggest that poetry did not necessarily predate writing. The oldest surviving poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, comes from the 3rd millennium BCE in Sumer. An example of Egyptian epic poetry is The Story of Sinuhe, other forms of poetry developed directly from folk songs. The earliest entries in the oldest extant collection of Chinese poetry, the efforts of ancient thinkers to determine what makes poetry distinctive as a form, and what distinguishes good poetry from bad, resulted in poetics—the study of the aesthetics of poetry. Some ancient societies, such as Chinas through her Shijing, developed canons of poetic works that had ritual as well as aesthetic importance, Classical thinkers employed classification as a way to define and assess the quality of poetry. Later aestheticians identified three major genres, epic poetry, lyric poetry, and dramatic poetry, treating comedy and tragedy as subgenres of dramatic poetry, Aristotles work was influential throughout the Middle East during the Islamic Golden Age, as well as in Europe during the Renaissance. English Romantic poet John Keats termed this escape from logic Negative Capability and this romantic approach views form as a key element of successful poetry because form is abstract and distinct from the underlying notional logic
33.
Duke
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A duke or duchess can either be a monarch ruling over a duchy or a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch. During the Middle Ages the title signified first among the Germanic monarchies, Dukes were the rulers of the provinces and the superiors of the counts in the cities and later, in the feudal monarchies, the highest-ranking peers of the king. During the 19th century many of the smaller German and Italian states were ruled by Dukes or Grand Dukes, but at present, with the exception of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, there are no dukes ruling as monarchs. Duke remains the highest hereditary title in Portugal, Spain, in Sweden, members of the Royal Family are given a personal dukedom at birth. The Pope, as a sovereign, has also, though rarely. In some realms the relative status of duke and prince, as borne by the nobility rather than by members of reigning dynasties, varied—e. g. in Italy. A woman who holds in her own right the title to such duchy or dukedom, Queen Elizabeth II, however, is known by tradition as Duke of Normandy in the Channel Islands and Duke of Lancaster in Lancashire. A duchy is the territory or geopolitical entity ruled by a duke, a dukedom is the title or status of a duke, a rank in the present or past nobility, and is not necessarily attached to a duchy. A few examples exist today, The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is a independent state and its head. In Scotland the male heir apparent to the British crown is always the Duke of Rothesay as well, the Channel Islands are two of the three remaining Crown Dependencies, the last vestiges of the lands of the Duchy of Normandy. The Islanders in their loyal toast will say La Reine, notre Duc, however, the Channel Islands, part of the lost Duchy, remained a self-governing possession of the English Crown. While the islands today retain autonomy in government, they owe allegiance to The Queen in her role as Duke of Normandy. During the Middle Ages, after Roman power in Western Europe collapsed, in 1332, Robert of Taranto succeeded his father, Philip. John took the style of Duke of Durazzo, in 1368, Durazzo fell to Karl Thopia, who was recognized by Venice as Prince of Albania. The Visigoths retained the Roman divisions of their kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula and they were the most powerful landowners and, along with the bishops, elected the king, usually from their own midst. They were the commanders and in this capacity often acted independently from the king. The army was structured decimally with the highest unit, the thiufa, the cities were commanded by counts, who were in turn answerable to the dukes, who called up the thiufae when necessary. When the Lombards entered Italy, the Latin chroniclers called their war leaders duces in the old fashion and these leaders eventually became the provincial rulers, each with a recognized seat of government
34.
Thomas Lodge
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Thomas Lodge was an English physician and author during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Thomas Lodge, born about 1558 in west Ham, was the son of Sir Thomas Lodge, Lord Mayor of London. He was educated at Merchant Taylors School and Trinity College, Oxford, taking his BA in 1577, in 1578 he entered Lincolns Inn, where, as in the other Inns of Court, a love of letters and a crop of debts were common. Lodge, disregarding the wishes of his family, took up literature, when the penitent Stephen Gosson had published his Schoole of Abuse, Lodge responded with Defence of Poetry, Music and Stage Plays, which shows a certain restraint, though both forceful and learned. The pamphlet was banned, but appears to have been circulated privately and it was answered by Gosson in his Playes Confuted in Five Actions, and Lodge retorted with his Alarum Against Usurers —a tract for the times which may have resulted from personal experience. In the same year he produced the first tale written by him on his own account in prose and verse, The Delectable History of Forbonius and Prisceria, both published and reprinted with the Alarum. From 1587 onwards he seems to have made a series of attempts at play writing, though most of those attributed to him are mainly conjectural. Having been to sea with Captain Clarke in his expedition to Terceira and the Canaries, Lodge in 1591 made a voyage with Thomas Cavendish to Brazil and the Straits of Magellan, returning home by 1593. Another romance in the manner of Lyly, Euphues Shadow, the Battaile of the Sences, two years afterwards he received the degree of M. D. from Oxford University. He was abroad on urgent private affairs of one kind and another in 1616, from this time to his death nothing further concerning him remains to be noted. Lodge while practising medicine in London lived first in Warwick Lane, afterwards in Lambert Hill and he died in Old Fish Street in 1625, apparently in the Roman Catholic communion. Lodges known dramatic work is small in quantity, in conjunction with Robert Greene he, probably in 1590, produced in a popular vein the odd but far from feeble play, A Looking Glass for London and England. He had already written The Wounds of Civil War, a good second-rate piece in the fashion of its age. That Lodge is the Young Juvenal of Greenes Groatsworth of Wit is no longer a generally accepted hypothesis and his second historical romance, the Life and Death of William Longbeard, was more successful than the first. Lodge also brought back with him from the new world A Margarite of America, to this tale Shakespeare was possibly indebted for the idea of Venus and Adonis. In a lost work, the Sailors Kalendar, he must in one way or another have recounted his sea adventures. After Lodge received his M. D. Lodge seems to have married his first wife Joan in or before 1583 and that his family viewed his conduct at the time with disfavour may be inferred from the absence of his name from his fathers will in 1583. Lodge and Joan had a daughter Mary and he married secondly Jane, widow of Solomon Aldred, at one time a Roman Catholic agent of Francis Walsingham in Rome
35.
The Tale of Gamelyn
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The Tale of Gamelyn is a romance written in c.1350 in a dialect of Middle English, considered part of the Matter of England. The tale confronts the corruption of the law, illuminating a lack of moral and political consistency. There is no indication as to exactly this story takes place, given that the text itself has no place names. Though there is no known author, Geoffrey Chaucer had included the character of Gamelyn among his papers and it is thought to have been possible that he wanted to construct a version of it for use as the Cooks tale. The Tale of Gamelyn shares similarities with other stories from English literary and it is of particular interest for its similarities with the English ballad of the legendary outlaw Robin Hood. It was also a source for Thomas Lodge’s prose romance Rosalynde, the Tale of Gamelyn is thought to provide a transition between the mid 14th century and the late 15th century world of early romances and Robin Hood ballads. The tale begins with Sir John of Boundys on his death bed, knowing the end is near, Sir John calls upon wise knights to assist him in dividing his land among his three sons. He specifically mentions to give an amount of land to his son Gamelyn. However, the knights ignore his wishes and decide to all his estate to the two elder sons, excluding Gamelyn on the premise that he is too young. When the knights disclose their decision to Sir John, he is outraged, as time passes, Gamelyn realizes he’s fallen victim to foolery and that this deal with his brother is unbearably unfair. When Gamelyn confronts Johan about his injustice, A fight breaks out and this is Gamelyn’s opportunity to show his worth, for the winner will receive a ram and a ring of gold. Gamelyn overcomes this challenge and accepts his winnings, a surprised Johan panics, bolting the castle doors and locking Gamelyn out. Gamelyn proceeds to knock the door down and tell the servants that he has an abundance of wine and he enjoys this high rank for eight days, then Johan finally retaliates. He commands the servants to bind Gamelyn in chains and have him stand for two days without any food or drink, Gamelyn grows quite weak and sickly, a servant in the house, Adam Spencer, becomes aware of Gamelyns struggling and decides to help him. He brings him into a room, feeds him. He tells Gamelyn that Johan is holding a feast on Sunday and he purposes that Gamelyn should stand before them, while still bound in chains, and beg them to release him. The day of the feast comes and Gamelyn executes this plan, however, no one complies with his desperate request to be released. Gamelyn grows angry and violent, ripping off his chains and rushing into the hall in search of a weapon and he grabs a staff and begins viciously attacking the churchmen, beating and battering them significantly
36.
Geoffrey Chaucer
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Geoffrey Chaucer, known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages. He was the first poet to be buried in Poets Corner of Westminster Abbey, among his many works are The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde. He is best known today for The Canterbury Tales, Chaucers work was crucial in legitimizing the literary use of the Middle English vernacular at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were French and Latin. Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London sometime around 1343, though the precise date and his father and grandfather were both London vintners, several previous generations had been merchants in Ipswich. In 1324 John Chaucer, Geoffreys father, was kidnapped by an aunt in the hope of marrying the boy to her daughter in an attempt to keep property in Ipswich. The aunt was imprisoned and the fine levied suggests that the family was financially secure. In the City Hustings Roll 110,5, Ric II, dated June 1380, Geoffrey Chaucer refers to himself as me Galfridum Chaucer, filium Johannis Chaucer, Vinetarii, Londonie. He also worked as a courtier, a diplomat, and a civil servant, as well as working for the king from 1389 to 1391 as Clerk of the Kings Works. In 1359, in the stages of the Hundred Years War, Edward III invaded France and Chaucer travelled with Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, Elizabeths husband. In 1360, he was captured during the siege of Rheims, Edward paid £16 for his ransom, a considerable sum, and Chaucer was released. After this, Chaucers life is uncertain, but he seems to have travelled in France, Spain, around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa Roet. She was a lady-in-waiting to Edward IIIs queen, Philippa of Hainault, and a sister of Katherine Swynford and it is uncertain how many children Chaucer and Philippa had, but three or four are most commonly cited. His son, Thomas Chaucer, had a career, as chief butler to four kings, envoy to France. Thomass daughter, Alice, married the Duke of Suffolk, thomass great-grandson, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, was the heir to the throne designated by Richard III before he was deposed. Geoffreys other children probably included Elizabeth Chaucy, a nun at Barking Abbey, Agnes, an attendant at Henry IVs coronation, Chaucers Treatise on the Astrolabe was written for Lewis. According to tradition, Chaucer studied law in the Inner Temple at this time and he became a member of the royal court of Edward III as a valet de chambre, yeoman, or esquire on 20 June 1367, a position which could entail a wide variety of tasks. His wife also received a pension for court employment and he travelled abroad many times, at least some of them in his role as a valet. In 1368, he may have attended the wedding of Lionel of Antwerp to Violante Visconti, daughter of Galeazzo II Visconti, two other literary stars of the era were in attendance, Jean Froissart and Petrarch
37.
The Canterbury Tales
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The Canterbury Tales is a collection of 24 stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387–1400. In 1386, Chaucer became Controller of Customs and Justice of Peace and and it was during these years that Chaucer began working on his most famous text, The Canterbury Tales. The prize for this contest is a meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return. He uses the tales and descriptions of its characters to paint an ironic and critical portrait of English society at the time, Chaucers use of such a wide range of classes and types of people was without precedent in English. Although the characters are fictional, they offer a variety of insights into customs. Often, such insight leads to a variety of discussions and disagreements among people in the 14th century, structurally, the collection resembles The Decameron, which Chaucer may have read during his first diplomatic mission to Italy in 1372. It is unclear to what extent Chaucer was seminal in this evolution of literary preference, while Chaucer clearly states the addressees of many of his poems, the intended audience of The Canterbury Tales is more difficult to determine. Chaucer was a courtier, leading some to believe that he was mainly a court poet who wrote exclusively for nobility, the Canterbury Tales is generally thought to have been incomplete at the end of Chaucers life. In the General Prologue, some thirty pilgrims are introduced, according to the Prologue, Chaucers intention was to write two stories from the perspective of each pilgrim on the way to and from their ultimate destination, St. Thomas Beckets shrine. Although perhaps incomplete, The Canterbury Tales is revered as one of the most important works in English literature, not only do readers find it entertaining, but it is also open to a wide range of interpretations. The question of whether The Canterbury Tales is finished has not yet been answered, there are 83 known manuscripts of the work from the late medieval and early Renaissance periods, more than any other vernacular literary text with the exception of The Prick of Conscience. This is taken as evidence of the popularity during the century after Chaucers death. Fifty-five of these manuscripts are thought to have been complete at one time, even the earliest surviving manuscripts are not Chaucers originals, the oldest being MS Peniarth 392 D, compiled by a scribe shortly after Chaucers death. The most beautiful of the manuscripts of the tales is the Ellesmere Manuscript, the first version of The Canterbury Tales to be published in print was William Caxtons 1478 edition. Only 10 copies of this edition are known to exist, including one held by the British Library, since this print edition was created from a now-lost manuscript, it is counted as among the 83 manuscripts. In 2004, Professor Linne Mooney claimed that she was able to identify the scrivener who worked for Chaucer as an Adam Pinkhurst. No authorial, arguably complete version of the Tales exists and no consensus has been reached regarding the order in which Chaucer intended the stories to be placed, textual and manuscript clues have been adduced to support the two most popular modern methods of ordering the tales. Some scholarly editions divide the Tales into ten Fragments, however, between Fragments, the connection is less obvious
38.
Michael Drayton
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Michael Drayton was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era. Drayton was born at Hartshill, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England, almost nothing is known about his early life, beyond the fact that in 1580 he was in the service of Thomas Goodere of Collingham, Nottinghamshire. More recent work has cast doubt on those speculations, in 1590 he produced his first book, The Harmony of the Church, a volume of spiritual poems, dedicated to Lady Devereux. It is notable for a version of the Song of Solomon, however, with the exception of forty copies, seized by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the whole edition was destroyed by public order. Nevertheless, Drayton published a vast amount within the few years. In 1593 appeared Idea, The Shepherds Garland, a collection of nine pastorals, in which he celebrated his own love-sorrows under the poetic name of Rowland. The basic idea was expanded in a cycle of sonnets, published in 1594, under the title of Ideas Mirror. It appears that he failed to win his Idea, and lived and died a bachelor. It has been said Draytons sonnets possess a direct, instant, and universal appeal, by reason of their simple straightforward ring and foreshadowed the style of Fairfax, Waller. Drayton was the first to bring the term ode, for a poem, to popularity in England and was a master of the short. Also in 1593 there appeared the first of Draytons historical poems, The Legend of Piers Gaveston, and the year saw the publication of Matilda. In his Fig for Momus, Lodge reciprocated these friendly courtesies, in 1596 Drayton published his long and important poem Mortimeriados, a very serious production in ottava rima. He later enlarged and modified this poem, and republished it in 1603 under the title of The Barons Wars, in 1596 also appeared another historical poem, The Legend of Robert, Duke of Normandy, with which Piers Gaveston was reprinted. In 1597 appeared Englands Heroical Epistles, a series of historical studies and these last poems, written in the heroic couplet, contain some of the finest passages in Draytons writings. By 1597, the poet was resting on his laurels and it seems that he was much favoured at the court of Elizabeth, and he hoped that it would be the same with her successor. But when, in 1603, he addressed a poem of compliment to James I, on his accession, it was ridiculed and his bitterness found expression in a satire, The Owl, but he had no talent in this kind of composition. Not much more entertaining was his scriptural narrative of Moses in a Map of his Miracles, in 1605 Drayton reprinted his most important works, his historical poems and the Idea, in a single volume which ran through eight editions during his lifetime. Some of the odes are extremely spirited, in this volume he printed for the first time the famous Ballad of Agincourt
39.
Poly-Olbion
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The Poly-Olbion is a topographical poem describing England and Wales. Written by Michael Drayton and published in 1612, it was reprinted with a part in 1622. Drayton had been working on the project since at least 1598, the Poly-Olbion is divided into thirty songs, written in alexandrine couplets, consisting in total of almost 15,000 lines of verse. Drayton intended to compose a part to cover Scotland. Each song describes between one and three counties, describing their topography, traditions and histories, copies were illustrated with maps of each county, drawn by William Hole, whereon places were depicted anthropomorphically. The first book was accompanied by historical and philological summaries written by John Selden, because of its length and its authors conflicting goals the Poly-Olbion was almost never read as a whole, but is an important source for the period nevertheless. 1612 in poetry 1622 in poetry William H. Moore, Poly-Olbion Summary Oliver Elton, Michael Drayton, a Critical Study, with a Bibliography Poly-Olbion in The Complete Works of Michael Drayton, vol
As You Like It public domain audiobook at LibriVox
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