Showing posts with label bards and minstrels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bards and minstrels. Show all posts

Buy Cheap Spanish Stories / Cuentos Españoles (A Dual-Language Book) (English and Spanish Edition) Review

Spanish Stories / Cuentos Españoles (A Dual-Language Book) (English and Spanish Edition)

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Spanish Stories / Cuentos Españoles (A Dual-Language Book) (English and Spanish Edition) Review

This book includes several excellent stories by many of the finest Spanish authors starting from the 16th century to the 20th. I recommend it highly for the intermediate Spanish student.
When I started reading book I had to regularly refer to the english page for a translation. At the end of the book, I seldom need to check the translation.
I assume that the stories written in the 16th and 17th centuries were re-written to update them into current Spanish, as I would think the older Spanish would be much more difficult to understand. As a result, this made the stories easy to read at the same time I could appreciate the skill of the writers.

Spanish Stories / Cuentos Españoles (A Dual-Language Book) (English and Spanish Edition) Overview



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Lowest Price Knights of the Round Table (A Stepping Stone Book) Review

Knights of the Round Table (A Stepping Stone Book)

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Knights of the Round Table (A Stepping Stone Book) Review

This is an overly simplistic and poorly written introduction to the Arthur legend. If there weren't many better presentations of these tales for young readers, there might be an excuse for such a substandard rendering. Unless you want your kids to think that writing sentence fragments is preferable to constructing clear complex sentences, you might want to stay away from the entire "Bullseye Step Into Classic" series.

Knights of the Round Table (A Stepping Stone Book) Overview



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29% Off Discounts: Lowest Price The Glass Menagerie Review

The Glass Menagerie

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The Glass Menagerie Review

Amanda Wingfield, the matriarch of "The Glass Menagerie," always tells her daughter, Laura, that she should look nice and pretty for gentleman callers, even though Laura has never had any callers at their St. Louis apartment. Laura, who limps because of a slight physical deformity, would rather spend her time playing with the animals in her glass menagerie and listening to old phonograph records instead of learning shorthand and typing so she can be employable. When she learns Laura has only been pretending to go to secretarial school, Amanda decides Laura must have a real gentleman caller and insists her son Tom, who works at a shoe factory, find one immediately. After a few days, Tom tells Amanda he has invited a young man named Jim O'Connor home for dinner and at long last Laura will have her first gentleman caller.
The night of the dinner Amanda does every thing she can to make sure Laura looks more attractive. However, when Laura realizes that the Jim O'Connor who is visiting is possibly the same Jim on whom she had a crush in high school, she does not want to go through with the dinner. Although she has to be excused from the dinner because she has made herself physically ill, Laura is able to impress Jim with her quiet charm when the two of them keep company in the living room and she finally loses some of her shyness. When Jim gives Laura her first kiss, it looks as if Amanda's plans for Laura's happiness might actually come true. But no one has ever accused Tennessee Williams of being a romantic.
"The Glass Menagerie" was the first big success in the long and storied career of playwright Tennessee Williams. Written in 1944, the drama consists of reworked material from one of Williams' short stories, "Portrait of a Girl in Glass," and his screenplay, "The Gentleman Caller." In many ways it is an atypical drama from Williams, with the character of Tom (a role I will confess to playing on stage) serving as a narrator who breaks the "fourth wall" and addresses the audience, which evinces Williams' affinity for Eugene O'Neill (e.g., "The Emperor Jones") at this point in his career. Tom tells the audience that this play offers truth dressed up as illusion, and in his stage directions (which are usually not taken full advantage of in the various performances I have seen because what was cutting edge in 1944 is overly quaint today) he uses not only monologues but also music and projections to enhance the memories on display. Williams also explicitly tells his audience that the gentleman call is the symbol of "the expects something that we live for."
This "memory play" tells of a family trapped in destructive patterns. After being abandoned by her husband, Amanda Wingfield, a woman of the Great Depression, has become trapped between worlds of illusion and reality. She says she wants what is best for her children, but seems incapable of acknowledging what that would be or actually providing it for them. Tom, tired of only watching adventure at the movies, is determined to break away from his dominating mother, but stays only for the sake of his sister. Laura may not be the glamorous belle of the ball her mothers wants, but she has her own inner charm and when confronted with Jim, a visitor from the normal world, there is the chance that she will finally claim her life as her own. This is a poignant drama on the importance of love and it represents a memory of not only family but also of loss.

The Glass Menagerie Overview


No play in the modern theatre has so captured the imagination and heart of the American public as Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie.
Menagerie was Williams's first popular success and launched the brilliant, if somewhat controversial, career of our pre-eminent lyric playwright. Since its premiere in Chicago in 1944, with the legendary Laurette Taylor in the role of Amanda, the play has been the bravura piece for great actresses from Jessica Tandy to Joanne Woodward, and is studied and performed in classrooms and theatres around the world. The Glass Menagerie (in the reading text the author preferred) is now available only in its New Directions Paperbook edition. A new introduction by prominent Williams scholar Robert Bray, editor of The Tennessee Williams Annual Review, reappraises the play more than half a century after it won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award: "More than fifty years after telling his story of a family whose lives form a triangle of quiet desperation, Williams's mellifluous voice still resonates deeply and universally." This edition of The Glass Menagerie also includes Williams's essay on the impact of sudden fame on a struggling writer, "The Catastrophe of Success," as well as a short section of Williams's own "Production Notes." The cover features the classic line drawing by Alvin Lustig, originally done for the 1949 New Directions edition.

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32% Off Discounts: Lowest Price Classic Fairy Stories: Traditional Tales (Classic Literature With Classical Music. Junior Classics) Review

Classic Fairy Stories: Traditional Tales (Classic Literature With Classical Music. Junior Classics)

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Classic Fairy Stories: Traditional Tales (Classic Literature With Classical Music. Junior Classics) Review

A wonderful telling of fabulous stories while remaining true to a rich linguistic tradition. These stories are not dumbed down in the least and the narrator is a pleasure to listen to.
My three and five year old have listened to these stories over and over again! I also read "Dick Whittington and His Cat" (retold by Marcia Brown) to my girls. This combination quickly became a favorite of my three year old. I can't recommend this cd highly enough if you are a fan of well written literature for children.

Classic Fairy Stories: Traditional Tales (Classic Literature With Classical Music. Junior Classics) Overview

A selection of some of the most famous fairy stories which every child needs to foster their imagination. "Three Little Pigs"; "Dick Whittington"; "Beauty and the Beast"; "Goldilocks and the Three Bears"; and "Puss in Boots" are all included.

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Buy Cheap Othello (Folger Shakespeare Library) Review

Othello (Folger Shakespeare Library)

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Othello (Folger Shakespeare Library) Review

Is there any other character in all of literature who is as calculatingly evil as Shakespeare's Iago? His jealousy over being passed over in favor of Cassio engenders a revengeful scheme that turns jealousy into a weapon used to destroy the noble Othello. Here innocence and trust is contrasted with pure manipulation and evil in what is one of Shakespeare's most revealing tragedies. The characters act exactly as they would be expected to based on the overriding quality that they represent. Othello is wonderful Shakespearean drama that ranks among his greatest works.
The Folger Library editions are my favorite. Each page has a facing page that explains obscure terms and helps as a handy reference to make reading the plays pleasurable and educational. These paperback editions of Shakespeare's works are a great value and fit in your pocket.

Othello (Folger Shakespeare Library) Overview

Each edition includes: • Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play • Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play • Scene-by-scene plot summaries • A key to famous lines and phrases • An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language • An essay by an outstanding scholar providing a modern perspective on the play • Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books Essay by Susan Snyder The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit www.folger.edu.

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Lowest Price Antigone Review

Antigone

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Antigone Review

I read Sophocles Antigone for graduate Humanities class. It is an essential reading to understand Greek Tragedy. It is also a foundation stone of literature in studying Western Civilization.
Antigone, daughter of Oedipus in 3-cycle play, faces capital punishment for burying her brother who rebelled against Thebes. Obeying instincts of loyalty of love and the divine law, she defies Creon, the King and her uncle. Creon says laws of states outweigh all other laws, and family loyalty, when he finally relents it's too late.
Over the centuries there has been a great deal made about the conflicts played out in the play, law of state vs. law of goods, personal vs. state duties. Loves knowledge vs. state knowledge. Greek understanding of tragedy- Aristotle lays down understanding of Greek tragedy. He based it on Sophocles. Tragedy- most important thing for tragedy is plot, it is all essential. Tragedy defined as- is imitation of an action that is serious, complete and of a certain magnitude in language embellished with incidents arousing pity and fear ant to the audience it accomplishes catharsis of such emotions. Every tragedy must have six parts that determine its quality. 1. plot 2. character 3. diction 4. fault 5. spectacle and 6. melody.
According to Aristotle, tragedy is higher and more philosophical than history or poetry; it is one of the highest expressive forms because it dramatizes what may happen. History is a narrative that tells you what has happened tragedy shows what is possible. History deals with particulars, tragedy deals with the universal. Tragedy creates a cause and effect chain and shows how the world operates. It frames human experience in universal discourse, tragedy is central in this effort. Tragedy arouses pity and fear in audience because we can envision ourselves caught in this cause and effect chain. Plot most important feature, the arrangement of incidents, the way incidents, and action is structured. Tragedies outcome depends on the outcome of these cause and effect changes not on being character driven. Plot must be whole, beginning middle and end. Beginning must have a motivation that starts the cause and effect chain of events must be a center or climax that is caused by earlier incidents. There must be an end some kind of closure caused by earlier events in tragedy. This is all part of the complication of the tragedy all must be connected. You can't have a dues ex machnia in a superior tragedy.
In tragedy, the hero or heroine walks knowingly towards the fate that is written and can't be changed. Unity of action plot must be structurally self-contained, each action leading invariably to the next without outside intervention. The worst kinds of plots are episodic, like a Jerry Seinfeld sitcom, can't be something about nothing, must have unity of action. Magnitude, quantatively meaning length, and quality of action, it must be serious. Must be of universal significance, depth, and richness. Character- most important feature is the fatal flaw. Motivations of characters are important but character is there to support the plot. Character must be a prosperous renowned personage. Change of fortune from good to bad will really matter and bring fear and pity to the audience. In ideal tragedy, the hero will mistakenly bring about his own downfall. Because they make a mistake, because knowledge of our selves is always partial, we can't have complete knowledge of ourselves. Hall quotes Descartes in the article, "The limited error prone perspective of the individual. Subject is always imperfect and human and these limitations include our ability to know in any reliable way ourselves." The fact that we as subjects, as agents can never fully know ourselves means that we are always prone to error, error is the essence of the tragic hero, tragedy is the essential drama of human subjectivity.
What is Hegel's understanding of concept of tragedy? He revises Aristotelian principals and logic. Immensely influential German philosopher, he writes about; tragedy in the Aesthete 1820-29, he proposes, "the suffering of the tragic hero are merely the means of reconciling the opposing moral clients." According to Hegel's account of Greek tragedy, the conflict isn't between good and evil, but between competing goods, all is good. Between two entirely ethical worlds that clash and can't come together. Both characters have an ethical vision or belief that they have to follow it is there one-sidedness of their vision that clashes with the one-sidedness of the other character. Both sides of contradiction are justified. Conflict of irreconcilable justifiable ethical worlds, ethical visions. Just as his dialectic must lead to an ultimate synthesis, so to must tragedy lead to a synthesis. This is dramatized in the death of the tragic actor, which becomes the synthesis. Hegel says; "the characters are too good to live." They are too good to live in this world. What is interesting is that Hegel so wants to correct moral imbalances his emphasis is on moral balances.
Greek tragedy is great reading for people interested in aesthetics, history, psychology, and philosophy.

Antigone Overview

To make this quintessential Greek drama more accessible to the modern reader, this Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition™ includes a glossary of difficult terms, a list of vocabulary words, and convenient sidebar notes. By providing these, it is our intention that readers will more fully enjoy the beauty, wisdom, and intent of the play.The curse placed on Oedipus lingers and haunts a younger generation in this new and brilliant translation of Sophocles' classic drama. The daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, Antigone is an unconventional heroine who pits her beliefs against the King of Thebes in a bloody test of wills that leaves few unharmed. Emotions fly as she challenges the king for the right to bury her own brother. Determined but doomed, Antigone shows her inner strength throughout the play.Antigone raises issues of law and morality that are just as relevant today as they were more than two thousand years ago. Whether this is your first reading or your twentieth, Antigone will move you as few pieces of literature can.

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41% Off Discounts: Buy Cheap A Streetcar Named Desire Review

A Streetcar Named Desire

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A Streetcar Named Desire Review

Tennessee Williams's masterfully written drama explores the extremes of fantasy versus reality, the Old South versus the New South, and primitive desire versus civilized restraint. Its meager 142 page spine is no indication of the complexity and significance that Williams achieves in his remarkable work. A strong aspect of the play is Williams's amazingly vivid portrayal of desperate and forsaken characters who symbolize and presumably resolve his battles between extremes. He created and immortal woman in the character of Blanche DuBois, the haggard and fragile southern beauty whose pathetic last grasp at happiness is cruelly destroyed. She represents fantasy for her many outrageous attempts to elude herself, and she likewise represents the Old South with only her manners and pretentions remaining after the foreclosure of her family's estate. The movie version of A Streetcar Named Desire shot Marlon Brando to fame as Stanley Kowalski, a sweat-shirted barbarian and crudely sensual brother-in-law who precipitated Blanche's tragedy. He symbolizes unrestrained desire with the recurring animal motif that follows him throughout the play. A third major character, Stella Kowalski, acts as mediator between her constantly conflicting husband and older sister. She magnifies the New South in her renounce of the Old pretentions by marrying a blue collar immigrant. Conflicts between these and other vividly colorful characters always in light of the cultural New Orleans backdrop provide a reader with a lasting impression and an awe for Williams's impeccable style and intense dialogue.

A Streetcar Named Desire Overview


The Pulitzer Prize and Drama Critics Circle Award winning play-reissued with an introduction by Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman and The Crucible), and Williams' essay "The World I Live In."
It is a very short list of 20th-century American plays that continueto have the same power and impact as when they first appeared-57 yearsafter its Broadway premiere, Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desireis one of those plays. The story famously recounts how the faded andpromiscuous Blanche DuBois is pushed over the edge by her sexy andbrutal brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski. Streetcar launched thecareers of Marlon Brando, Jessica Tandy, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden,and solidified the position of Tennessee Williams as one of the mostimportant young playwrights of his generation, as well as that of EliaKazan as the greatest American stage director of the '40s and '50s.Whobetter than America's elder statesman of the theater, Williams'contemporary Arthur Miller, to write as a witness to the lightning thatstruck American culture in the form of A Streetcar Named Desire?Miller's rich perspective on Williams' singular style of poeticdialogue, sensitive characters, and dramatic violence makes this aunique and valuable new edition of A Streetcar Named Desire.This definitive new edition will also include Williams' essay "TheWorld I Live In," and a brief chronology of the author's life.

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