Lyric poetry
Lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings spoken in the first person. The term derives from a form of Ancient Greek literature, the lyric, defined by its musical accompaniment on a stringed instrument known as a lyre; the term owes its importance in literary theory to the division developed by Aristotle between three broad categories of poetry: lyrical and epic. Much lyric poetry depends on regular meter based either on stress; the most common meters are as follows: Iambic – two syllables, with the short or unstressed syllable followed by the long or stressed syllable. Trochaic – two syllables, with the long or stressed syllable followed by the short or unstressed syllable. In English, this metre is found entirely in lyric poetry. Pyrrhic – Two unstressed syllables Anapestic – three syllables, with the first two short or unstressed and the last long or stressed. Dactylic – three syllables, with the first one long or stressed and the other two short or unstressed.
Spondaic – two syllables, with two successive long or stressed syllables. Some forms have a combination of meters using a different meter for the refrain. For the ancient Greeks, lyric poetry had a precise technical meaning: verse, accompanied by a lyre, cithara, or barbitos; because such works were sung, it was known as melic poetry. The lyric or melic poet was distinguished from the writer of plays, the writer of trochaic and iambic verses, the writer of elegies and the writer of epic; the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria created a canon of nine lyric poets deemed worthy of critical study. These archaic and classical musician-poets included Sappho, Alcaeus and Pindar. Archaic lyric was characterized by live musical performance; some poets, like Pindar extended the metrical forms to a triad, including strophe and epode. Among the major extant Roman poets of the classical period, only Catullus and Horace wrote lyric poetry, which however was no longer meant to be sung but instead read or recited.
What remained were the forms, the lyric meters of the Greeks adapted to Latin. Catullus was influenced by both archaic and Hellenistic Greek verse and belonged to a group of Roman poets called the Neoteroi who spurned epic poetry following the lead of Callimachus. Instead, they composed brief polished poems in various thematic and metrical genres; the Roman love elegies of Tibullus and Ovid, with their personal phrasing and feeling, may be the thematic ancestor of much medieval, Renaissance and modern lyric poetry, but these works were composed in elegiac couplets and so were not lyric poetry in the ancient sense. During China's Warring States period, the Songs of Chu collected by Qu Yuan and Song Yu defined a new form of poetry that came from the exotic Yangtze Valley, far from the Wei and Yellow River homeland of the traditional four-character verses collected in the Book of Songs; the varying forms of the new Chu ci provided greater latitude of expression. Originating in 10th-century Persian, a ghazal is a poetic form consisting of couplets that share a rhyme and a refrain.
Formally, it consists of a short lyric composed in a single meter with a single rhyme throughout. The central subject is love. Notable authors include Hafiz, Amir Khusro, Auhadi of Maragheh, Alisher Navoi, Obeid e zakani, Khaqani Shirvani, Farid al-Din Attar, Omar Khayyam, Rudaki; the ghazal was introduced to European poetry in the early 19th century by the Germans Schlegel, Von Hammer-Purgstall, Goethe, who called Hafiz his "twin". Lyric in European literature of the medieval or Renaissance period means a poem written so that it could be set to music—whether or not it was. A poem's particular structure, function, or theme might all vary; the lyric poetry of Europe in this period was created by the pioneers of courtly poetry and courtly love without reference to the classical past. The troubadors, travelling composers and performers of songs, began to flourish towards the end of the 11th century and were imitated in successive centuries. Trouvères were poet-composers who were contemporary with and influenced by the troubadours but who composed their works in the northern dialects of France.
The first known trouvère was Chrétien de Troyes. The dominant form of German lyric poetry in the period was the minnesang, "a love lyric based on a fictitious relationship between a knight and his high-born lady". Imitating the lyrics of the French troubadours and trouvères, minnesang soon established a distinctive tradition. There was a large body of medieval Galician-Portuguese lyric. Hebrew singer-poets of the Middle Ages included Yehuda Halevi, Solomon ibn Gabirol, Abraham ibn Ezra. In Italy, Petrarch developed the sonnet form pioneered by Dante's Vita Nuova. In 1327, according to the poet, the sight of a woman called Laura in the church of Sainte-Claire d'Avignon awoke in him a lasting passion, celebrated in the Rime sparse. Renaissance poets who copied Petrarch's style named this collection of 366 poems Il Canzoniere. Laura is in many ways both the culmination of medieval courtly love poetry and the beginning of Renaissance love lyric. A bhajan or kirtan is a Hindu devotional song. Bhajans are simple songs in lyrical language expressing emotions of love for the Divine.
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Media (communication)
Media are the communication outlets or tools used to store and deliver information or data. The term refers to components of the mass media communications industry, such as print media, the news media, cinema and advertising; the term "medium" is defined as "one of the means or channels of general communication, information, or entertainment in society, as newspapers, radio, or television."The phrase "mass media" was, according to H. L. Mencken, used as early as 1923 in the United States; the term media in its modern application relating to communication channels was first used by Canadian communications theorist Marshall McLuhan, who stated in Counterblast: "The media are not toys. They can be entrusted only to new artists, because they are art forms." By the mid-1960s, the term had spread to general use in the United Kingdom. Writers such as Howard Rheingold have framed early forms of human communication as early forms of media, such as the Lascaux cave paintings and early writing. Another framing of the history of media starts with the Chauvet Cave paintings and continues with other ways to carry human communication beyond the short range of voice: smoke signals, trail markers, sculpture.
The development of early writing and paper enabled longer-distance communication systems such as mail, including in the Persian Empire and Roman Empire, which can be interpreted as early forms of media. In the last century, a revolution in telecommunications has altered communication by providing new media for long distance communication; the first transatlantic two-way radio broadcast occurred in 1906 and led to common communication via analog and digital media: Analog telecommunications include some radio systems, historical telephony systems, historical television broadcasts. Digital telecommunications allow for computer-mediated communication and computer networks. Modern communication media now allow for intense long-distance exchanges between larger numbers of people. On the other hand, many traditional broadcast media and mass media favor one-to-many communication. Electronic media usage is growing, although concern has arisen that it distracts youth from face-to-face contact with friends and family.
Research on the social engagement effect is mixed. One study by Wellman found that "33% of Internet users said that the Internet had improved their connections to friends'a lot', 23% said it had increased the quality of their communication with family members by a similar amount. Young people in particular took advantage of the social side of the Internet. Nearly half of the 18- to 29-year-olds said that the Internet had improved their connections to friends a lot. On the other hand, 19% of employed Internet users said that the Internet had increased the amount of time they spent working in home". Electronic media now comes in the forms of tablets, desktops, cell phones, mp3 players, DVDs, game systems and television. Technology has spiked to record highs within the last decade, thus changing the dynamic of communication; the spike in electronic media started to grow in 2007 when the release of the first iPhone came out. The meaning of electronic media, as it is known in various spheres, has changed with the passage of time.
The term media has achieved a broader meaning nowadays as compared to that given it a decade ago. Earlier, there was multimedia, once only a piece of software used to play video. Following this, it was CD and DVD camera of 3G applications in the field. In modern terms, the term "media" includes all the software which are used in PC or laptop or mobile phone installed for normal or better performance of the system; this type of hard disc is becoming smaller in size. The latest inclusion in the field is magnetic media whose application is common in the fastest growing information technology field. Modern day IT media is used in the banking sector and by the Income Tax Department for the purpose of providing the easiest and fastest possible services to consumers. In this magnetic strip, account information linking to all the data relating to a particular consumer is stored; the main features of these types of media are prepared unrecorded, data is stored at a stage as per the requirement of its user or consumer.
Media technology has made viewing easier as time has passed throughout history. Children today are encouraged to use media tools in school and are expected to have a general understanding of the various technologies available; the internet is arguably one of the most effective tools in media for communication tools such as e-mail and Facebook have brought people closer together and created new online communities. However, some may argue. Therefore, it is an important source of communication. In a large consumer-driven society, electronic media and print media are important for distributing advertisement media. More technologically advanced societies have access to goods and services through newer media than less technologically advanced societies. In addition to this "advertising" role
Erotic literature
Erotic literature comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of human sexual relationships which have the power to or are intended to arouse the reader sexually. Such erotica takes the form of novels, short stories, true-life memoirs, sex manuals. A common feature of the genre is sexual fantasies on such themes as prostitution, homosexuality and many other taboo subjects and fetishes, which may or may not be expressed in explicit language. Other common elements are social criticism. Despite cultural taboos on such material, circulation of erotic literature was not seen as a major problem before the invention of printing, as the costs of producing individual manuscripts limited distribution to a small group of readers; the invention of printing, in the 15th century, brought with it both a greater market and increasing restrictions, like censorship and legal restraints on publication on the grounds of obscenity. Because of this, much of the production of this type of material became clandestine.
Much erotic literature features erotic art. In ancient Sumer, a whole cycle of poems revolved around the erotic lovemaking between the goddess Inanna and her consort Dumuzid the Shepherd. Many erotic poems have survived from ancient Rome; the Greek poets Straton of Sardis and Sappho of Lesbos both wrote erotic lyric poems. The poet Archilochus wrote numerous satirical poems filled with erotic imagery. Erotic poems continued to be written in Hellenistic and Roman times by writers like Automedon and Marcus Argentarius. Notable Roman erotic poets included Catullus, Tibullus, Ovid and Juvenal, the anonymous Priapeia; some Latin authors such as Joannes Secundus wrote erotic verse. The Seven Beauties known as Bahramnameh is a romantic epic by the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi written in 1197; this poem is a part of the Nizami's Khamsa. The original title Haft Peykar can be translated as “seven portraits” with the figurative meaning of “seven beauties.” The poem is a masterpiece of erotic literature, but it is a profoundly moralistic work.
During the Renaissance period, many poems were not written for publication. This was the original method of circulation for the Sonnets of William Shakespeare, who wrote the erotic poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. In the 17th century, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester was notorious for obscene verses, many of which were published posthumously in compendiums of poetry by him and other Restoration rakes such as Sir Charles Sedley, Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset, George Etherege. Though many of the poems attributed to Rochester were by other authors, his reputation as a libertine was such that his name was used as a selling point by publishers of collections of erotic verse for centuries after. One poem, by him was "A Ramble in St. James's Park" in which the protagonist's quest for healthy exercise in the park uncovers instead "Bugg'ries and Incest" on ground polluted by debauchery from the time when "Ancient Pict began to Whore"; this poem was being censored from collections of Rochester's poetry as late as 1953, though, in line with a general change in attitudes to sexuality, it was dramatised as a scene in the film The Libertine about his life based on an existing play.
English collections of erotic verse by various hands, include the Drollery collections of the 17th century. French collections include Les Muses gaillardes Le Cabinet satyrique and La Parnasse des poetes satyriques. A famous collection of four erotic poems, was published in England in 1763, called An Essay on Woman; this included the title piece, an obscene parody of Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Man". These poems have been attributed to John Wilkes and/or Thomas Potter and receive the distinction of being the only works of erotic literature read out loud, in their entirety in the House of Lords—before being declared obscene and blasphemous by that august body and the supposed author, declared an outlaw. Robert Burns worked to collect and preserve Scottish folk songs, sometimes revising and adapting them. One of the better known of these collections is The Merry Muses of Caledonia, a collection of bawdy lyrics that were popular in the music halls of Scotland as late as the 20th century. One of the 19th century's foremost poets—Algernon Charles Swinburne—devoted much of his considerable talent to erotic verse, inter alia, twelve eclogues on flagellation titled The Flogging Block "by Rufus Rodworthy, annotated by Barebum Birchingly".
Another notorious anonymous 19th-century poem on the same subject is The Rodiad, ascribed to George Colman the Younger. John Camden Hotten wrote a pornographic comic opera, Lady Bumtickler’s Revels, on the theme of flagellation in 1872. Pierre Louÿs helped found a literary review, La Conque in
Theatre of ancient Rome
Theatre of ancient Rome refers to the time period of theatrical practice and performance in Rome beginning in the 4th century B. C. following the state’s transition from Monarchy to Republic. Theatre of the era is separated into the genres of tragedy and comedy; some works by Plautus and Seneca the Younger survive to this day. Theatre would represent an important aspect of Roman society because it would come to function as the primary means through which the Roman people could express their political emotions during the republican and imperial periods of Rome. Rome was founded in 753 B. C. E as a monarchy under Etruscan rule, remained as such throughout the first two and a half centuries of its existence. Following the expulsion of Rome's last king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, or "Tarquin the Proud," circa 509 B. C. E. Rome became a Republic, was henceforth led by a group of magistrates elected by the Roman people, it is believed that Roman theatre was born during the first two centuries of the Roman Republic, following the spread of Roman rule into a large area of the Italian peninsula, circa 364 B.
C. E. Following the devastation of widespread plague in 364 B. C. E, Roman citizens began including theatrical games as a supplement to the Lectisternium ceremonies being performed, in a stronger effort to pacify the gods. In the years following the establishment of these practices, actors began adapting these dances and games into performances by acting out texts set to music and simultaneous movement; as the era of the Roman Republic progressed, citizens began including professionally performed drama in the eclectic offerings of the ludi held throughout each year—the largest of these festivals being the Ludi Romani, held each September in honor of the Roman god Jupiter. It was as a part of the Ludi Romani in 240 B. C. E. that author and playwright Livius Adronicus became the first to produce translations of Greek plays to be performed on the Roman stage. The early drama that emerged was similar to the drama in Greece; this was due to extensive contact between the Romans and the Greeks, which allowed the Romans to develop an interest in a new form of expression.
Following the conclusion of the Third Macedonian War in 168 B. C. E; the Romans gained more access to Greek culture in the arts, allowing for the Romans to further develop a basis for drama in their own society. The development that occurred was first initiated by playwrights that were Greeks or half-Greeks living in Rome. While Greek literary tradition in drama influenced the Romans, the Romans chose to not adopt these traditions, instead the dominant local language of Latin was used; these Roman plays that were beginning to be performed were influenced by the Etruscan traditions regarding the importance of music and performance. The first important works of Roman literature were the tragedies and comedies written by Livius Andronicus beginning in 240 BC. Five years Gnaeus Naevius, a younger contemporary of Andronicus began to write drama, composing in both genres as well. No plays from either writer have survived. By the beginning of the 2nd century BC, drama had become established in Rome and a guild of writers had been formed.
No early Roman tragedy survives, though it was regarded in its day. One important aspect of tragedy that differed from other genres was the implementation of choruses that were included in the action on the stage during the performances of many tragedies. From the time of the empire, the work of two tragedians survives—one is an unknown author, while the other is the Stoic philosopher Seneca. Nine of Seneca's tragedies survive, all of. Seneca is well known for composing works which feature a heavy presence of horror. Seneca appears as a character in the tragedy Octavia, the only extant example of fabula praetexta, as a result, the play was mistakenly attributed as having been authored by Seneca himself. However, though historians have since confirmed that the play was not one of Seneca's works, the true author remains unknown. All Roman comedies that have survived can be categorized as fabula palliata and were written by two dramatists: Titus Maccius Plautus and Publius Terentius Afer. No fabula togata has survived.
In adapting Greek plays to be performed for Roman audiences, the Roman comic dramatists made several changes to the structure of the productions. Most notable is the removal of the prominent role of the chorus as a means of separating the action into distinct episodes. Additionally, musical accompaniment was added as a simultaneous supplement to the plays' dialogue; the action of all scenes took place in the streets outside the dwelling of the main characters, plot complications were a result of eavesdropping by a minor character. Plautus wrote between 205 and 184 B. C. and twenty of his comedies survive to present day. He was admired for his varied use of poetic meters; as a result of the growing popularity of Plautus' plays, as well as this new form of written comedy, scenic plays became a more prominent component in Roman festivals of the time, claiming their place in events which had only featured races, athletic competitions, gladiatorial battles. All six of the comedies that Terence composed between 166 and 160 BC have survived
Glossary of literary terms
The following is a list of literary terms. M. H. Abrams. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Thomson-Wadsworth, 2005. ISBN 1-4130-0456-3. Chris Baldick; the Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford Univ. Press, 2004. ISBN 0-19-860883-7. Chris Baldick; the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford Univ. Press, 2001. ISBN 0-19-280118-X. Edwin Barton & G. A. Hudson. Contemporary Guide To Literary Terms. Houghton-Mifflin, 2003. ISBN 0-618-34162-5. Mark Bauerlein. Literary Criticism: An Autopsy. Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8122-1625-3. Karl Beckson & Arthur Ganz. Literary Terms: A Dictionary. Farrar and Giroux, 1989. ISBN 0-374-52177-8. Peter Childs; the Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms. Routledge, 2005. ISBN 0-415-34017-9. J. A. Cuddon; the Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Penguin Books, 2000. ISBN 0-14-051363-9. Dana Gioia; the Longman Dictionary of Literary Terms: Vocabulary for the Informed Reader. Longman, 2005. ISBN 0-321-33194-X. Garner, Bryan. Garner's Modern English Usage.
Oxford University Press, 2016. ISBN 9780190491482 Sharon Hamilton. Essential Literary Terms: A Brief Norton Guide with Exercises. W. W. Norton, 2006. ISBN 0-393-92837-3. William Harmon. A Handbook to Literature. Prentice Hall, 2005. ISBN 0-13-134442-0. X. J. Kennedy, et al. Handbook of Literary Terms: Literature, Theory. Longman, 2004. ISBN 0-321-20207-4. V. B. Leitch; the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. W. W. Norton, 2001. ISBN 0-393-97429-4. Frank Lentricchia & Thomas McLaughlin. Critical Terms for Literary Study. Univ. of Chicago Press, 1995. ISBN 0-226-47203-5. David Mikics. A New Handbook of Literary Terms. Yale Univ. Press, 2007. ISBN 0-300-10636-X. Ross Murfin & S. M. Ray; the Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006. ISBN 0-312-25910-7. John Peck & Martin Coyle. Literary Terms and Criticism. Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. ISBN 0-333-96258-3. Edward Quinn. A Dictionary of Literary And Thematic Terms. Checkmark Books, 2006. ISBN 0-8160-6244-7. Lewis Turco; the Book of Literary Terms: The Genres of Fiction, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Scholarship.
Univ. Press of New England, 1999. ISBN 0-87451-955-1
Orlando Furioso
Orlando Furioso is an Italian epic poem by Ludovico Ariosto which has exerted a wide influence on culture. The earliest version appeared in 1516, although the poem was not published in its complete form until 1532. Orlando Furioso is a continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo's unfinished romance Orlando Innamorato. In its historical setting and characters, it shares some features with the Old French Chanson de Roland of the eleventh century, which tells of the death of Roland; the story is a chivalric romance which stemmed from a tradition beginning in the late Middle Ages and continuing in popularity in the 16th century and well into the 17th. Orlando is the Christian knight known in French as Roland; the story takes place against the background of the war between Charlemagne's Christian paladins and the Saracen army that has invaded Europe and is attempting to overthrow the Christian empire. The poem is the romantic ideal of chivalry, it mixes realism and fantasy and tragedy. The stage is a trip to the Moon.
The large cast of characters features Christians and Saracens and sorcerers, fantastic creatures including a gigantic sea monster called the orc and a flying horse called the hippogriff. Many themes are interwoven in its complicated episodic structure, but the most important are the paladin Orlando's unrequited love for the pagan princess Angelica, which drives him mad; the poem is divided into forty-six cantos, each containing a variable number of eight-line stanzas in ottava rima. Ottava rima had been used in previous Italian romantic epics, including Luigi Pulci's Morgante and Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato. Ariosto's work is 38,736 lines long in total, making it one of the longest poems in European literature. Ariosto began working on the poem around 1506, when he was 32; the first edition of the poem, in 40 cantos, was published in Ferrara in April 1516 and dedicated to the poet's patron Ippolito d'Este. A second edition appeared in 1521 with minor revisions. Ariosto continued to write more material for the poem and in the 1520s he produced five more cantos, marking a further development of his poetry, which he decided not to include in the final edition.
They were published after his death by his illegitimate son Virginio under the title Cinque canti and are regarded by some modern critics. The third and final version of Orlando Furioso, containing 46 cantos, appeared in 1532. Ariosto had sought stylistic advice from the humanist Pietro Bembo to give his verse the last degree of polish and this is the version known to posterity; the first English translation by John Harington was published in 1591 at the behest of Queen Elizabeth I, who banned Harington from court until the translation was complete. Ariosto's poem is a sequel to Matteo Maria Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato. One of Boiardo's main achievements was his fusion of the Matter of France with the Matter of Britain; the name Orlando is a translation of Roland from the 12th-century Song of Roland. The latter contained the magical elements and love interest that were lacking in the more austere and warlike poems about Carolingian heroes. Ariosto continued to mix these elements in his poem as well as adding material derived from Classical sources.
However, Ariosto has an ironic tone present in Boiardo, who treated the ideals of chivalry much more seriously. In Orlando Furioso, instead of chivalric ideals, no longer alive in the 16th century, a humanistic conception of man and life is vividly celebrated under the appearance of a fantastical world; the action of Orlando Furioso takes place against the background of the war between the Christian emperor Charlemagne and the Saracen king of Africa, who has invaded Europe to avenge the death of his father Traiano. Agramante and his allies – who include Marsilio, the King of Spain, the boastful warrior Rodomonte – besiege Charlemagne in Paris. Meanwhile, Charlemagne's most famous paladin, has been tempted to forget his duty to protect the emperor because of his love for the pagan princess Angelica. At the beginning of the poem, Angelica escapes from the castle of the Bavarian Duke Namo, Orlando sets off in pursuit; the two meet with various adventures until Angelica saves a wounded Saracen knight, falls in love, elopes with him to Cathay.
When Orlando learns the truth, he goes mad with despair and rampages through Europe and Africa destroying everything in his path. The English knight Astolfo journeys to Ethiopia on the hippogriff to find a cure for Orlando's madness, he flies up in Elijah's flaming chariot to the Moon, where everything lost on Earth is to be found, including Orlando's wits. He makes Orlando sniff them, thus restoring him to sanity. Orlando joins with Brandimart and Oliver to fight Agramante and Gradasso on the island of Lampedusa. There Orlando kills King Agramante. Another important plotline involves the love between the female Christian warrior Bradamante and the Saracen Ruggiero, they too have to endure many vicissitudes. Ruggiero is taken captive by the sorceress Alcina and has to be freed from her magic island
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