Literature
7. What
have you read form English and American literatures?
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare is considered to be the
greatest of all dramatists all over the world. He lived and worked in the 16th
century - Renaissance England.
He was born on the 23rd
of April in 1564 in
William went to the local grammar school and was
brought up as an orhtodox Protestant. When he was 18, he married Ann Hathway
who was eight years older. They had three children, but their son died at the
age of 11.
Shakespeare, despite of his love for his family went
to London, as it was only there that his talent could develop. In London he
started as an actor. He joined a group of actors called Lord Chamberlain`s Men.
When Elizabeth I died and James I came to the throne, Shakespeare`s company
became the leading group of actors and from those times they were known as the
King`s Men. But William`s voice wasn`t enought loud, so he started to write.
The Bible was a constant source of inspiration for
him, yet his plays don`t comprise the rigidity of dogma.
Shakespeare with his companions founded the Globe
Theatre. It was an outdoor theatre where the actors played in open air. But it
was destroyed by fire. Now, we can visit a replica, which was bulit near the
spot of anicient theatre.
Shakespeare started to be very successful and known.
He made enough money to have a comfortable life. After some years he went back
to Stratford and lived there till his death. He died on the day of his birthday
in 1616 at the age of 52. He`s buried at the local Trinity Church, where he was
baptized.
He wrote 37 dramas. He wrote tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, Hamlet.
He wrote comedies:
The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night`s Dream,
Twelfth Night, Much Ado about Nothing, The Marchant of Venice.
He wrote historical
plays: Julius Caesar, Henry VI, Henry V, Richard III, Richard II, King
John, Titus Andronicus.
He wrote also romances:
Winter`s Tale, The Tampest, Cymbeline and he also wrote sonnets.
His works are still topical, as they are realistic and
depict characteristic features of man. He`s appricated because of his love of
man and his understanding of human weaknesses.
I`d like to retell you one of his tragedies, King
Lear:
King
Lear reveals the tragedy of the father who asks his three daughters how much
they love him. Two older flatter him and says that they love him very, very
much. But the youngest daughter Cordelia says that she loves him according to
her duty. He punishes her by giving her no property and banishes her out of his
kingdom. A kind Prince marries her, although she`s poor. King Lear is later
banishes himself. He divides his kingdom and all property between his two
daughters. Now he has nothing and one daughter sends him to the other because
he`s old and makes troubles. Finally they order to him not to visit their
houses again. He`s left in cruel storm alone and becomes a fool. After all
suffering, when Cordelia learns about that she comes with her army to help him.
But she`s imprisoned and hanged by her sisters and King Lear dies of terrible
grief.
Helen
Fielding: The Bridget Jone´s Diary
Bridget Jone´s Diary is a romantic comedy. It was
written in 1995, when the British could read about Bridget in British newspaper
The Independant. The book was written in 1996 by Helen Fielding. It was one of
the most popular and the best selling books, so there was no obstacle
(překážka) to shoot it. The director of the movie is Fielding´s friend.
The storry took place in London. Tha main character is
Bridget Jones, a chubby single woman in her thirties, who has a lot of wishes.
New year has just started and Bridget takes her many resolutions: stop smoking
and drinking, loose some weight, don´t flirt with boss, don´t meet alcoholics,
workaholics etc... unfortunately she starts to write a diary about all facts of
her life, which becomes full of tragedies.
Her mother wants to acquaint (seznámit) Bridget with
some man, but it lawas finishes in a sticky situation (trapas). On a New Year´s
party Bridget meets a lawyer Marc Darcy. She starts to hate him and hate
herselfs, too. But fortunately they meet again and several times. It seems that
Mark wants to join Bridget but at that time she starts to date with her
handsome boss Daniel. After a short love affair with him, their weak relationship
breaks and Bridget becomes lonely again, with a bottle of Chardonnay and a
package of cigarettes.
She leaves a job in a publishing company and starts to
work for televison. Suddenly, she meets Mark again and he helps Bridget with
one reportage. When she has her birthday he comes to visit her and she asks him
to stay with her and some friends for dinner. There´re other chance meetings in
the movie, but the most important and the last comes in the end. It´s
Christmas, Bridget should go to Paris with her friends, but Mark comes to see
her again and they kiss. It´s a happyending.
I know it´s not any sofisticated plot and it´s only a
funny story about a woman´s life. In my opinion it´s really good for relaxing.
The reason, why I really enjoy it, is likness with my life, my similarity to
Bridget.
What I like best is the part when Bridget dates Daniel
and also the part about her success in media. What I don´t like so much is
Mark. He´s arrogant, distant, cold. But his figure develops and he becomes kind
and nice.
Theodore
Dreiser
American
realist, living in the break of the 19th and the 20th century. He was born as a
child of a German immigrant. First their family was wll-off, they had a
spinning-factory. But it burnt away and the family broke down. Dreiser wanted
to become a journalist, what he managed. He focused on senzations, murders,
assassinations. His job and the tragedy of his family influenced his creation.
His works are naturalistic and psychological novels.
Novels:
Sister Carrie, Tragical America, Save America
“American tragedy”
main
characters: Clyde Griffiths –
young man from the poor catholic family
Gilbert –
Clyde´s cousin
Roberta Alden
– poor girl who loves Clyde
Sondra
Finchley – a girl from high society
Dreiser
shows lives of different walks of American society at the beginning of the 20th
century.
The
novel was written according to the real event – assassination by the lake which
the author met during his journalese career. It should be a criticism of the
soceity, which made Clyde to murder because of some differences in this
society.
In the childhood,
Clyde hated the poverty and he wanted to change his life. He found a job, where
he earned some money and he tried to
come in the highest society. Soon he got a better job and new friends. Once he
takes part in a group of young people, who make a trip with a stolen car and
they have an accident. They kill a small girl and they run away from the town
and from the state. Clyde escapes in
Chicago. He starts use a new name and he finds a new job in a hotel. Suddenly,
he meets his rich uncle, who offers him the job in his factory. Clyde move to his
uncle´s town and thinks, that he will get in the local royality. But he got inferior
(podřadný) job. Six months later he has the same position as he had, when he
came there. The uncle provides him better job, what clyde admits. He falls in
love with a poor girl from the factory but he still tries to go higher, so they
meet only in the evening and it must be at some desert place. Once he meets a
girl, who hates his cousin. This girl – Sondra – wants to make some badness
(špatnost) to his cousin so she thinks up the plot. She starts to invite Clyde
to the parties. Clyde finally comes to the high society, falls in love with
Sondra and he wants to leave Roberta, but Roberta says him that she's pregnant.
Clyde is desparate and he tries to get rid of Roberta and her child. He offers
her money or some medicines but finaly the doctor forbids to abort the
pregnancy.
One
day Clyde reads an article about a pair of lovers, who have drown in one of the
near lakes. He still tries to get rid of Roberta, but when she press him to
marry her, he decides. He promises her the wedding and takes her to the lakes,
when he wants to drown her. It all happenes very quickly. He invited Roberta
for a boat and there, he strike her with a camera and Roberta is dead. Clyde goes
to Sondra's summer-house and enjoys her riches. Roberta's body is shortly
founded and Clyde is indicted (obviněn) of beeing the murder. The law-suit
(soudní proces) takes more than one year and Clyde is convicted to the death in
the electric chair. He lose all his hopes because he never see Sondra again. In
the prison he confesses to a priest and he find out that he didn´t strike
Roberta with the camera, but it was some higer power. So it was not the
assassination, but the accident.
Poe
is known as the father of the American short story and father of the detective
story. To understand the literary contributions of Edgar Allan Poe, one must
look at his early life, his literary life, and a summary of two of his famous
works.
Edgar
Allan Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809. He was born to a southern
family that were in a traveling company of actors. His father, David Poe, was
from a Baltimore family. He was an actor by profession and a heavy drinker.
Soon after Edgar Allan Poe was born, he left his family. Poe's mother,
Elizabeth Arnold Poe, was a widow at the age of eighteen. Two years after his
birth, she died of tuberculosis. When his mother died, Poe was adopted by John
Allan. In 1815, John Allan moved his family to England. While there, Poe was
sent to private schools.
In
the spring of 1826, Poe entered the University of Virginia. There he studied
Spanish, French, Italian, and Latin. He had an excellent scholastic record. He
got into difficulties almost at once. Mr. Allan did not provide him with the
money to pay for his
fees and other necessities. Poe was confused and homesick. He learned to play
cards and started drinking. Soon he was in debt in excess of two thousand
dollars. Poe discovered that he could not depend upon Allan for financial
support. His foster father refused to pay his debts, and Poe had to withdraw
from the University.
In
May of 1827, Poe enlisted in the army as a common soldier. He did this under
the name of Edgar A. Perry. He was stationed on Sullivan's Island in Charleston
Harbor for over a year. Poe adapted very well to military discipline and
quickly rose to the rank of regimental sergeant major. After a while, he got
tired of the same daily routine involved in military life. Poe wrote regularly
to Mr. Allan. He met with Mr. Allan after the death of Mrs. Allan in February
of 1829. With Allan's support, he received his discharge and enlisted in West
Point on July 1, l830. While at West Point, Mr. Allan, who had remarried,
continued in not providing Poe with enough money. Poe decided to have himself
kicked out of school. Cutting classes and disregarding orders were his
solutions. He was court-martialed for neglect of duties in January, 1831, and
left West Point the following month.
Poe
was great in three different fields , and in each one he made a reputation that
would give any man a high place in literary history. Poe wrote great short
stories, famous not only in his own country, but all over the world. Hawthorne,
Irving, Balzac, Bierce, Crane, Hemingway and other writers have given us
memorable short stories; but none of them has produced so great a number of
famous and unforgettable examples, so many tales that continue, despite
changing standards to be read and reprinted again and again throughout the
world. Poe was the father of the modern short story, and the modern detective
story. With the possible exception of Guy de Maupassant, no other writer is so
universally known and esteemed for so large of a corpus of excellent tales as
Edgar Allan Poe.
In
1831, Poe succeeded in publishing a new edition of his poems entitled “Poems“.
Poe was now in great difficulty. He went to New York, but could find no job
there. Eventually he took refuge with his aunt, Mrs. Clemm, in Baltimore. There
he decided to seek employment and make his living by writing. Failing to get
attention with his poems, he decided to start writing short stories. Poe
competed in a contest for the best short story in 1831. The prize was offered
by Phil-Saturday Courier. Because he did not win the prize, Poe started on an
ambitious project. He decided to plan a series of tales told by members of a
literary group. He found no publisher for his stories, and entered the contest
again in June of 1835. This time he sent one poem and six stories. His story,
"Ms. Found in a Bottle," won , and he received one hundred dollars for
it. Through the influence of one of the judges, John P. Kennedy, Poe became
employed as an editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, published in
Richmond. Under Poe's editorship, the Messenger 's circulation rose from 500 to
3500. While in Richmond, Poe married his cousin, Virginia, who was not quite
fourteen years old. Poe was fired from the Messenger in January of 1837.
Poe
then went to New York, where he was unsuccessful. In the summer of 1838, he
moved to Philadelphia. While in Philadelphia, he worked as the editor of both
Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and Graham's Magazine. Even though he won a one
hundred dollar prize for "The Gold Bug", he moved to New York. Poe
found a job in New York as an assistant editor for the Evening Mirror. This was
where "The Raven" first appeared on January 29, 1845. The poem
immediately caught the imagination of the public and was reprinted all over the
country and even abroad in all kinds of newspapers and magazines, but Poe
pocketed only a few dollars for his poems. The year of 1845 was a lucky year
for Poe. He published a collection of his Tales and an edition of his poems
named “The Raven and Other Poems“. He also became the editor of the weekly
Broadway Journal. Poe broke down when Virginia died in January of 1848. In
1849, Poe died in Baltimore. Instead of really living, he took refuge from the
physical world in the private world of his dreams-in other words-in the world
of his tales.
In the "Masque of the Red Death", Poe uses his imagination throughout
the story. A plague has devastated the entire country. It takes only half an
hour to for the course of the disease to run. At first one feels sharp pains
and dizziness. Then one starts bleeding at the pores. The disease results in
death. Prince Prospero has ordered one thousand lords and ladies to the deep
seclusion of one of his abbeys. The building was built by the Prince and is
filled with his exotic ornaments. It is sealed from the outside world by a huge
wall with iron gates. Inside the building are dancers, musicians, and everything
they need in order to stay secluded until the plague runs its course. After six
months of seclusion, the Prince decides to hold a masked ball. The ball is held
in a suite with seven rooms. Each room is decorated in a single color. The last
room is decorated in red. Within this room stands a huge clock that strikes the
hour with a heavy clang. The rooms are very crowded for the ball. At the stroke
of midnight, a guest is seen in a costume of the red death itself and this
frightens the other guests. The Prince is angered at what he believes to be a
practical joke. He orders the stranger seized and hanged from the battlements.
Prince Prospero follows the stranger into the red chamber. It is there that
Prince Prospero falls dead at the feet of the stranger. The others capture the
unknown person in the costume. To their horror they find there is no living
form in the costume. One by one they die until no one else remains. Death is
king of all.
The
horror abysmal darkness, and absolute helplessness befalling the victims are
described with vivid accuracy in tales such as 'The Fall of the House of
Usher,' 'The Cask of Amontillado,' and 'The Premature Burial'. In "The
Fall of the House of Usher," the narrator visits his insane friend,
Roderick Usher. Usher's house is huge and gloomy. His twin sister, Madeline,
gets sick and dies. The narrator and Usher place her in a tomb in the basement
of Usher's house. What they do not realize is that she is still barely alive.
Usher keeps on hearing sounds over the next couple of days. The seventh day
after Madeline's death, a bad storm appears. The narrator and Usher open the
door of the narrator's room and Madeline falls on Usher . They both die. The
narrator then leaves the house. As he rides away, the house collapses to the
floor.
Edgar
Allan Poe is one of the most famous writers all over the world. He is mostly
known for his short stories and tales. He is considered to be a father of
modern detective story and horror. His work is still known and popular. He
inspired many following authors.