Tuesday 10 September 2013

Group 10 - Comments here :)

Guys! So you saw the video today in Felix Sir's class! Pour in all your comments :) We hope you guys liked it :D

Group 3 - Add your comments :)

Hello everyone! This is a post to allow all of you to comment on our project. Well we worked really hard  on the graphics work and Mishanka did a fantastic job with the poetry and well everyone in the group have put in great efforts. I'm sure all you other groups did too. Your suggestions, criticisms, appreciations etc everything will be valuable to us. Thank you! :)

Members:
Isha S. (1313229)
Meghna (1313235)
Isha M. (1313276)
Mishanka (1313237)
Aishani (1313214)
Sneha E. (1313249)
Shrikari (1313285)
Christina(1313224)
Leader - Nikhil (1313211)

Monday 9 September 2013

Group 9 - Brit Lit CIA 3

Group 9 - Neoclassical Literature

Sorry for the delay, we had a lot of technical difficulties. Unfortunately, we are unable to post the video on this blog, or upload it on youtube.

We have uploaded it on google drive of our CLASS ID and on google drive of this id.Please view it and post your comments here!.We are sorry for the inconvenience caused.

The video is a bit lengthy, so sit back, relax and enjoy!

And don't forget to comment!




GROUP 2







Our topic is Renaissance Literature! Hope you enjoy it!
Group 3 :)

Sunday 8 September 2013

Group 11 Victorian Today: Victorian Age with a contemporary touch (Part II)

Guys here is the song by Nathaniel (1313298) and Nischay (1313255) which we couldn't post due to technical difficulties previously.

SONG

ENJOY.

- Group 11.



Group 8

Metaphysical Poetry

Group 5 : Shakespeare Drama 

History of Shakespeare
Parents – John Shakespeare and Mary Arden
Shakespeare was born on April 26, 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. Died on April 23, 1616
At the age of 18, he got married to Anne Hathway in 1582
He had three children; the eldest being Sussan and twins Hamnet and Judith.
He wrote sonnets, 38 plays and two narratives.


Genres of his plays 

         It is not easy to categorically say whether a Shakespeare play is a tragedy, comedy or history because the Shakespeare blurred the boundaries between these genres. For example, Much Ado About Nothing begins like a comedy, but soon descends into tragedy – leading some critics to describe the play as a tragi-comedy.
Tragicomedy is a literary genre that blends aspects of both tragic and comic forms. Most often seen in dramatic literature, the term can variously describe either a tragic play which contains enough comic elements to lighten the overall mood or, often, a serious play with a happy ending
Shakespeare's tragicomedy plays are sometimes refered to as a Romance, a Tragedy and a Comedy. The List of Shakespeare Tragicomedies includes Hamlet, Pericles, Prince of Tyre , Cymbelline, The Winter's, The Tempest ,Othello, Macbeth and Lear presumably, Condell and Heminges grouped Cymbeline with the tragedies and The Winter's Tale and The Tempest with the comedies because they felt that tragic elements predominated in the former and comic elements in the latter.
Due to the fact that romances combine both tragic and comic elements, Fletcher called them "tragi-comedies" (a term which he coined in the preface to The Faithful Shepherdess, 1608; According to Fletcher, a tragi-comedy "wants deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedy, yet brings some near it, which is enough to make it no comedy."  Like comedy, romance includes a love-intrigue and culminates in a happy ending. Like tragedy, romance has a serious plot-line (betrayals, tyrants, usurpers of thrones) and treats serious themes; it is darker in tone (more serious) than comedy.  While emphasizes evil, and comedy minimizes it, romance acknowledges evil -- the reality of human suffering

1) In the early eighteenth century, the critics most loyal to what Pope calls "the model of the Ancients" * have lamented Shakespeare's lack of taste in inserting comedy in his tragedies.
2)They admire Shakespeare's genius, they acknowledge that the comic passages "wou'd be good anywhere else,"and they are forced to admit that, in the words of Nicholas Rowe (1709), "the generality of our audiences seem to be better pleased with it [tragi-comedy] than with exact tragedy." But, says Rowe,"the severer Critiques among us cannot bear it."
3) "Grief and Laughter," wrote Charles Gildon (1710) "are so very incompatible that to join these two . . . wou'd be monstrous . .
And yet this Absurdity ... is what our Shakespear himself has frequently been guilty of..
References
1.      http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/27530731.pdf?acceptTC=true
4.      http://youtu.be/pw-J7GbwNV4
5.      http://youtu.be/IONNCf1zgg4 ....

Now we have a video to present to you. Mashing up two plays of Shakespeare we have a tragic romantic and slightly comical play, a climax which even Shakespeare would be proud of .....



Saturday 7 September 2013

Group 1: Anglo Saxon Literature

Group members: Aastha Khanna, Keerthana Ullas, Mridula Hari, Sanjana Susan., Priyanka Iyer, Pratyusha D.V., Kirthana Ganesh, Sneha C.S.

We have covered some parts of the Anglo Saxon literature in the form of a book. Please read and comment!

The link to the book is here - http://issuu.com/pratyushadwivedi/docs/b.l.oggers.docx_c332f6b65a456b

- Pratyusha D.V. 

Victorian Today: Victorian Era with a Contemporary Touch (Group 11)

We are group 11. Since we made an E Magazine and Radio talk show and a song, it is inconvenient to blog it. So instead, we will post links.

Here is the link to the E-Mag:

E-Magazine

Here is the link to the Radio Talk show:

Radio Talk Show


SKETCH ON RESTORATION DRAMA (GROUP 7)

SKETCH ON RESTORATION DRAMA



BY VAGISHA AGRAWAL (1313252)
Group 7 



CHANGES IN RESTORATION DRAMA (GROUP 7)

CHANGES IN RESTORATION DRAMA

The age of restoration is popularly known as the age of Dryden and the age before it was known as the age of Shakespeare.

There is a considerable difference that took place when drama was restored. At first came the heroic drama, popularized by Dryden. He wrote about the heroic deeds of men who fought against injustice. In one sense these writings were a reflection of an ideal king like Charles. It focused on actions of men and their qualities that made them a natural leader.

The Restoration age saw the reinterpretation of olden plays, mostly Shakespearean. The plays of the Elizabethan age were turned into semi-operas – singing and dancing. Performances were revised and altered so as to appeal to the larger audience. Women entered and were allowed to participate unlike in the olden times.

One important change noticed in the restoration age is the improvement in technology- structurally and visually. The design and architecture of the stage gave way to a flourishing age. There was a more elaborate set design. It was by far the most elaborate theatre England had seen.

While Elizabethan era plays tended to blend tragedy and comedy, restoration writers kept the two apart.  In fact, the drama of the period can be divided into two- tragedies and comedies. While tragedies covered heroic drama, comedies would mock the upper-class and use vulgar language
.

~ Written by Sakshi Aggarwal (1313284); Edited by Srishti Banerjee (1313287)
Group 7

WOMEN IN RESTORATION DRAMA (GROUP 7)

WOMEN IN RESTORATION DRAMA

After restoration in 1660, there was one additional change made in theatre. For the first time women were allowed to act by Charles II. However, more than acting many women went on to become mistresses to many elite people. Charles II himself had Nell Gwyn, one of the famous actresses as his mistress. Many actresses purposely used their position to increase their meager income. The idea of having women on stage was at first opposed to, but young men favored it for their own pleasure. Soon, actresses used this stage as market for their own benefit. On the other hand this era also witnessed the rise of the finest actresses who have left a big mark in the field of theatre. Aphra Behn made her way into theater through family connections. She managed to create strong, independent female characters even while working within the constraints of the Restoration's male dominated society.

Despite their fame, women did not enjoy the same status as men did in theatre. They received lesser pay than men. Of many actresses and play writers, there were many women who managed theatres. For example Charlotte Charke, who followed Henry Fielding as the manager of the Little Theatre in Haymarket.


~ Written by Zainab Wahid (1313289)      
Group 7

FEATURES OF RESTORATION DRAMA (GROUP 7)

FEATURES OF RESTORATION DRAMA

Theaters were closed during the puritan period. During the restoration, they re-opened with new types of plays and performances which were different than before. The theaters which were indoor were much smaller than the Elizabethan ones. They didn’t have a platform but there was a picture frame stage with different sceneries. The lighting was artificial and the actors would enter from the side. The audience was of middlemen and upper class people. Most of the features of restoration drama is seen even today.

A typical type of restoration drama was the heroic play. These plays were called “tragedies” or “histories” but Dryden termed these plays as “Heroic drama”. These plays were written in the classical model of the rhymed heroic couplet and later in blank verse. This drama was of tragic comedy, where there would be a happy ending. The heroes and heroines would show great strength and nobility. This would create admiration by the audience. The plays would make people wonder and also excite the imagination. The rhymed verses elevated the play above everyday reality to grandeur. There is a hero, heroine and villain. The villain is the dominating character from 1660 onwards, the plays were male dominated but in the 1670s and 1680s the focus shifted from hero to heroine.

The success of the plays of the Restoration period is dependent on exotic staging devices, strange plots and exaggerated language. Heroic dramas of the time abound in allusions to the political crises of the polish plot, the bill of exclusion and the revolution of 1688. In the eighteenth century revival of heroic drama was attempted but it was not successful.


~Written by Lovanxa Gomes (1313260); Edited by Srishti Banerjee (1313287)
Group 7

RESTORATION COMEDY (GROUP 7)

RESTORATION COMEDY

Restoration comedy is well-known for its sexual distinctiveness and was encouraged by Charles II and his jaunty aristocratic ethos of his court. This period saw the first professional woman playwright,Aphra Behn. The well-known plays of the early restoration period are the ''hard' comedies of William Wycherley, George Etherege, and John Dryden. Those comedies echoed the atmosphere at court, and represented virile lifestyle of unceasing sexual fascination and conquest. The Earl of Rochester, real-life Restoration decadent, courtier and poet, and is portrayed in Etherege's Man of Mode (1676) as a riotous, intellectual, and sexually irresistible patrician, a model for future generations. Wycherley's The Plain Dealer (1676), was highly considered for its unbending satire. It earned Wycherly the denomination ''Plain Dealer" Wycherley or "Manly'' Wycherey, after the plays important character Manly. During the Restoration period in 1690s, the ''softer" comedies of John Vanbrugh and William Congreve mirrored mutating cultural comprehensions and social change. These playwrights written in the 1960s were to attract socially diverse audiences with a strong middle-class element, and to female audience, for example by including the differences between the sexes from the arena of fascination into that of marriage. The socially diverse audiences included both patricians, their servants and the middle-class. These common audiences were attracted to the comedies by crowded and bustling plots, by the introduction of the first professional actresses, and by the rise of the first celebrity actors. It focuses on marital relations after the wedding rather than young lovers outwitting the older generation. Restoration literature had a bad reputation for three centuries. The "inappropriate" mixing of comedy and tragedy beloved by Restoration audiences was denounced. The Victorians decried restoration comedies as too obscene for the stage.

~ Written by Taniya George (1313251)
Group 7

HISTORY OF RESTORATION DRAMA (GROUP 7)

HISTORY OF RESTORATION DRAMA

With Puritan reign in England, from 1642, the theatres of England remained closed. Plays were banned for the next eighteen years and although there was evasion of the law and underground playhouses like the ‘Red Bull’ continued to flourish, the period between 1642 and 1660 was mostly sans theatre.

In 1660 the Stuart dynasty was restored to the throne of England and with Charles II as king, the revival of theatre gradually came about. During his exile in France, he had enjoyed French theatre, and on his return to England, made sure theatre was restored. “Grasping the ideological value of the stage, Charles took an active interest in Restoration theatre from the start” Hence, as we see, one of the main factors that led to the success of Restoration theatre was the support of Charles II.

 In August, 1660, Charles II issued patents for two companies of actors and the performances began immediately. The period of Restoration was known as the renewal of British theatre and led by the companies of William Davenant and Thomas Killigrew, theatre in England was revived.

Due to the patents issued to them by the king, Killigrew and Davenant were given the right to build a theatre in London or Westminster and to establish and manage a company of actors to perform in it; Killigrew's actors were named the King's Company, and Davenant's were known as the Duke of York's. For a long time, these two companies monopolized theatre of the Restoration period.

~ Written by Srishti Banerjee (1313287)
Group 7










DRAWINGS ON RESTORATION DRAMA (GROUP 7)


DRAWINGS ON RESTORATION DRAMA






- BY SYEDA ZAINAB AKBAR (1313288)
GROUP 7