Essays on Prologue

Since the dawn of our human civilization, people have been trying to find the most effective way of building their behavior. Historically, the patterns of people’s activity have been directly connected to the society itself. Therefore, the social and political utility of the human operations is one of the determining factors. As a result, the behavior of the community, formed by the patterns of personalities, has become an extremely complex system of reasons and consequence. Hannah Arendt addresses the topic of the human being’s behavior in the context of the political history. The Human Condition is her ...

Paper Due Date

Introduction Oedipus Rex is a play written by Greek dramatist Sophocles. It is among the most celebrated classical plays in the world. Oedipus Rex belongs to the genre of tragedy, as the central characters of the play undergo hardships at the hands of the fate, despite their integrity of characters and honest of intentions. The play follows all the components of an ideal plot outlined under classical dramatic structure – exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement. The current essay discusses the presence of each of these components within the plot narrative of Oedipus Rex.

Exposition

Before the plot begins, ...

In “Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: A Review,” C.S. Lewis famously said: “The value of myth is that it takes all the things you know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by the veil of familiarity” (Lewis). The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and The Fellowship of the Ring, are two examples of fantasy novels that support this statement. The former tells the story of some children who are evacuated to the countryside, only to discover the land of Narnia in a wardrobe. The book evokes themes such as good vs. ...

Discussion and Journal Questions

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s tale and her prologue are deemed by many to be some of the best parts of The Canterbury Tales. The story vividly describes the role of a woman in the Middle Ages through the character of Alison. However, her position does not seem to be very typical for that period of time, as she believed her experience in marriage matters could dominate the male authority. This idea is constantly expressed with the help of the notion of woman’s “sovereignty” over her husband. In The Wife of Bath’s tale, the ...

Discussion Board Posts

What is the miracle of Caedmon’s hymn? Consider the poem itself as well as Bede’s account of its genesis The miracle of Caedmon’s Hymn according to the Venerable Bede is that while Bede had always known Caedmon as a great poet of unmatched skill. He did not always possess such a talent. Bede contended that the gift of song that Caedmon had could have only come from God. The reason for this was so Caedmon could bring the people that come to listen to him away from evil. For much of Caedmon’s life he had ...

IDENTIFY AND DISCUSS THE PREDOMINANT THEMES OF ROMEO AND JULIET

Introduction Kenneth Branagh’s, 2016 play, presents Romeo & Juliet in a brilliantly new and expressionistic manner. The play starts with an assumption that live cannot exist without hate, and according to the many critics this indeed does not signify two opposites but the notion becomes merely depicted as two sides of a coin (Rowe, 2008). The opposite of this peculiar union is exactly the opposite of love and hatred, which is known as indifference. Indifference perhaps is the theme less explored in the play since Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet comes with the notion of fate and its tragically beautiful ...

Nature is an important element in many of the early texts. Both Beowulf and Canterbury Tales, written in very early English, use and personify Nature. It can be useful, therefore, to discuss the persona and action of nature in both texts, in an exploration of the use of nature in early fiction. This paper will, therefore, compare and contrast nature in the works of Beowulf and Canterbury Tales. The imagery in the opening prologue of the Canterbury Tales is expressly related to nature. It describes the rebirth of spring, but the verbiage, specifically, that is used by Chaucer to ...

The convention at Seneca Falls New York was the initial convention for women’s rights. It took place in 1848 between July 19-20. The convention’s purpose was to speak about the civil, religious and social rights of women. By 1850 there was the initiation of a series of National Women’s Rights Conventions that met in Worcester, Massachusetts. These events would continue until the Civil War began in 1861. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and local Quaker women organized the event. They had planned the event to take place during the time that the female orator Lucretia Mott was going ...

Module

Matriculation Number Study Programme The Great Vowel Shift in the English Language is one of the most important events in the evolution of modern English phonetics and pronunciation. It occurred towards the end of the Middle Ages and carried on into the English Renaissance, culminating in the seventeenth century when vowel usage was more or less consolidated. The event was likely caused due to a complex combination of socio-economic factors as well as cultural and technological change, but its effects are of more immediate concern. The Great Vowel Shift is responsible for creating many of the rules of written ...

In this paper I will look at the character of Alyson, the Wife of Bath from the Canterbury Tales. She is a very wealthy, well-traveled woman as she has traveled around Europe and she has traveled on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem a total of three times Alyson is a very talkative, brash and sexual woman, who is a seamstress by vocation. Throughout her prologue she brags about the number of affairs and marriages that she has had. She has been married a total of five times and her current husband is half of her age. Besides her affinity for ...

[Client’s name] Discuss how the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales and one of the tales themselves could function as a criticism of the three estates of medieval culture; that is, the social hierarchy of the 14th century. How do Chaucer’s descriptions of the pilgrims in the prologue contribute to this? In the Medieval Culture there were three estates of the society. There were those, who prayed, those who fought and those who worked. In Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer the representatives of each estate go into the journey, and right from the Prologue each participant starts ...

Classical English literature studies

Comedy – a professional entertainment consisting of jokes and satirical sketches, intended to make an audience laugh. Late Middle English (as a genre of drama, also denoting a narrative poem with a happy ending, as in Dante’s Divine Comedy): from Old French comedie, via Latin from Greek kōmōidia, from kōmōidos 'comic poet', from kōmos 'revel' + aoidos 'singer'. ("Comedy: Definition Of Comedy in Oxford Dictionary (American English)"). Aristotle defines comedy as an imitation of men, who is worse than the average, but not in their perversities, but in hilarious sense. Comedy, as a genre ...

Vincent van Gogh was born as the son of a middle class family in 1853; his style of painting created a maelstrom of rejection, panic, and curiosity from the late 19th century public. The famous Van Gogh scholar named Zola previously stated that no other artist had ever exceeded Van Gogh; his immense popularity as a result of his insanely beautiful artworks made him a champion of the rejected artists who crafter genius masterpieces that are all timeless, hysterical, and eccentrically beautiful at the same time. (Naifeh and Smith Ch. 1, n.p.). Throughout history, Van Gogh is probably one ...

Introduction

The objective of this paper is to compare and contrast two tales that are available in the Canterbury Tales. There were some twenty four titles to choose from and the two tales chosen were The Knight’s Tale and the Cook’s Tale.

Comparison Proper

In the Knight’s tale, the setting was in Greece at a time when the knights’ battle against Creon was just finished. It focused on the story of knighthood. There were two knights in the story named Palamon and Arcite. Knights have been known for their various typical aspects such as respect, morals, ethics, chivalry, piety, ...

INTRODUCTION

Franklin D. Roosevelt won presidential campaign in 1932 because H. Hoover was unable to lead the country out of the economic crisis of 1929-33. The policy of President Roosevelt in 1933-1941, became known under the name “New Deal”. It was an attempt to overcome the crisis and alleviate social tension in society, through deep reforms. In the presidential race, Roosevelt emphasized the need of the help to the millions of disadvantaged citizens; he promised that the American people would get the “New Deal”! Roosevelt did everything to maintain and develop the existing socioeconomic system in the country and strengthen ...

Tar Baby was one of Toni Morrison’s novels that demonstrated how she perceived the African American experience. Right at the start of the novel, the reader is introduced to a yet unnamed man who jumped from the Stor Konigsgaarten, intent on reaching the shore of Queen of France. It was a tough decision for him, as swimming through the current proved to be difficult, such as the instance when he was yanked by the water into an empty tunnel and turned three times when he struggled to rise out of it (Morrison, 4). He found an alternative in ...

[Client’s name] Discuss how the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales and one of the tales themselves could function as a criticism of the three estates of medieval culture; that is, the social hierarchy of the 14th century. How do Chaucer’s descriptions of the pilgrims in the prologue contribute to this? In the Medieval Culture there were three estates of the society. There were those, who prayed, those who fought and those who worked. All the representatives went into the journey, and right from the Prologue each participant starts to tell the stories that show all the ...

Hurston uses a lot of folk sayings while writing about black people from the south. Darwin. T. Turner in his book, “ Zora Neale Hurston: The Wandering Minstrel” writes that “Gifted with an ear for dialect, an appreciation of the folktale, a lively imaginationshe interwove these materials in deceptively simple stories which exhibit increasing artistic consciousness (Turner 98-99).” “As she approached Blue Sink she all but turned back. It was a dark night but the lake shimmered and glowed like phosphorous near the shore. It seemed that figures moved about on the quiet surface. She remembered that folks said Blue ...

The Review of ‘The Glory and the Dream’ by William Manchester

Describe the central theme and objective of this reading. Cite examples from the reading. Recently I’ve read the book on history called ‘The Glory and the Dream’ by William Manchester. ‘One more boring history book,’ you may say. But you shouldn’t draw any firm conclusions at once. Let me prove you that even history books can be interesting and absorbing. Are you ready? So, let’s go. There are two volumes of this book which the author called a narrative history of America. It comprises the information about the years from 1932 to 1972. And, unlike other ...

The question of whether the narrator, in Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath is reliable or not, can be called due to the narrator and the Wife herself, being one and the same voice. The Wife of Bath and the prologue are amongst Chaucer’s most famous tales: the prologue tells the tale of ‘Alyson’ (or ‘Alys’) who claims to be an expert on marriage, having been married five times: “For, masters since I was twelve years of age … Oh husbands at church door have I had five.” (Chaucer) The ‘bragging’ tone of the narrator instantly calls into question ...

Based on your reading of The General Prologue, what do you believe are some of the predominant aspects of English society that Chaucer intends to write about in The Canterbury Tales? Chaucer’s opening 12 lines are a celebration of spring and new life, so we might expect the Tales which follow to show the variety and sheer vitality of different human experiences.

Am important aspect of English society at the time was the class system and this is shown in The General Prologue. Chaucer begins his descriptions of his fellow pilgrims with a description of the Knight (becauae he ...