文學作品導讀 week16

u  Drama:

1.       Plot

2.       Character

3.       Dialogue

4.       Stage

5.       Audience

·         Drama- a literary genre consisting of works in which action is performed and all words are spoken before an audience by an actor or actors impersonating the characters. 

·         Drama: comedy & tragedy

Altar

Orchestra

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. 

Pagan- In former times, pagans were people who did not believe in Christianity and who many Christians considered being inferior people.  

·        magn- stands for the big prefix

      For example:

      magnify

      magnitude

      magnanimous

·         Dramatist

·         Playwright

·         Tragedian

A playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or drama.

       Tragedian is a writer who writes tragedies

u  Tragedy:

Agamemnon (Aeschylus) – Man must learn from suffering.

Oedipus (Sophocles)- hamartia, hubris

       Medea (Euripides)- The position of women, Revenge

u  The Midsummer Night’s Dream

It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and Hippolyta. These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six amateur actors, who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies that inhabit the forest in which most of the play is set.

Conflicts:

Titania and Oberon are quarrelling, Lysander and Hermia have run off together and gotten lost in the woods, and Demetrius and Helena have followed.

Comic relief is an amusing scene or incident in a serious or tragic setting, as in a play, providing temporary relief from tension or dramatic action.

·         Demetrius

Helena

·         Lysander

Hermia

·         Oberon

Titania

·         Hippolyta

Puck

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Midsummer_Night's_Dream

u  Apollo

-Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and

the sun.

 

Cupid &Psyche

love at the first sight

Cupid (Eros)

àCupid carries two kinds of arrows, one with a sharp golden point, and the other with a blunt tip of lead. A person wounded by the golden arrow is filled with uncontrollable desire, but the one struck by the lead feels aversion and desires only to flee.

·         ant- stands for the people suffix

For example:

flight attendant

accountant

protestant (Protestant)

applicant

al- stands for the noun suffix

For example:

rehearsal

approval

P1303

·         William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.

·         Anne Hathaway was the wife of William Shakespeare.

·         The Cherry Orchard is the last play by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. 

Even as you laugh at the characters’ foibles, you’re unnerved anew by their anxieties about life, death, and the universe. It’s a treatment Beckett might have enjoyed.

u  Four tragedies of William Shakespeare:

1.       Hamlet

Set in the Kingdom of Denmark, the play dramatizes the revenge Prince Hamlet is instructed to enact on his uncle Claudius. Claudius had murdered his own brother, Hamlet's father King Hamlet and then taken the throne, marrying his deceased brother's widow, Hamlet's mother Gertrude.

2.       Othello

              The work revolves around four central characters: Othello, a 

              Moorish general in the Venetian army; his new wife, Desdemona; 

              his lieutenant, Cassio; and his trusted ensign, Iago. 

·         "O. J." Simpson nicknamed "The Juice", is a retired American football player, broadcaster, actor and convicted felon. O. J. Simpson was tried on two counts of murder after the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson.

·         Iago is a fictional character in Shakespeare’s Othello. The play's main antagonist, Iago is the 'Ancient' of General Othello as well as being husband of Emilia, who is in turn the attendant of Othello's

       wife Desdemona. 

Iago is the murder of Othello.

·         Desdemona is a character in William Shakespeare’ s plays Othello. Desdemona is a Venetian beauty that enrages and disappoints her father, a Venetian senator, when she elopes with Othello, a man several years her senior. 

3.       Macbeth

A tragedy written by William Shakespeare and is considered one of his darkest and most powerful works. Set in Scotland, the play dramatizes the corrosive psychological and political effects produced when evil is chosen as a way to fulfill the ambition for power.

4.       King Lear

The titular character descends into madness after disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Lear of Britain, a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king.

·         Garment- a garment is a piece of clothing.

·         Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is a musical with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The story is based on the "coat of many colors" story of Joseph from the Bible's Book of Genesis.

·         Potiphar’s wife-

Potiphar is a person in the Book of Genesis's account of Joseph. Joseph, sold into slavery by his brothers, is taken to Egypt where he is sold to Potiphar as a household slave. Potiphar makes Joseph the head of his household, but Potiphar's wife, furious at Joseph for resisting her attempts to seduce him, accuses him falsely of attempted rape.

·         Theseus- Theseus was the mythical founder-king of Athens. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were identified with an archaic religious and social order.

·         The twelve labors of Hercules are a series of episodes concerning a penance carried out by Heracles, the greatest of the Greek heroes, whose name was later Romanized as Hercules.

·         Demigod- In mythology, a demigod is a less important god, especially one who is half god and half human. 

       se- away from
       For example:
       separate
       select
       secede