test 1 WL2 Flashcards
Irony
a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated.
Fable
a brief story showing human tendencies through animal characters. Talking animals or animated objects are the characters of fables.
Personification
giving human abilities, traits or reactions to abstractions, inanimate objects, or animals.
Exemplum
We learn by example.
Allegory
a system of interconnected symbols.
Blank verse
unrhymed iambic pentameter (Shakespeare
Heroic couplet
Two lines of rhyming iambic pentameter
Alexandrine
rhyming couplets of twelve syllable lines. Each line usually breaks into two six-syllable phrases.
Commedia Dell’Arte
Humorous Italian theatrical style employed by traveling troupes of actors
Combined music, dance, acrobatics and witty dialogue
Staging was minimal but props were important. Slapstick!
Humor was physical! Improvisational!
Costumes and masks helped the audience quickly identify the roles.Stock characters represented fixed social types.
Helpless young girl in love
Her witty maid
Young man in love
The old miser, a dupe
The crafty servant, a pleasure-seeker
The know-it-all
Deus ex machina
Latin phrase, refers to a device used in Greek theatre, in which an impossible problem is solved suddenly by the intervention of some new event, character, ability or object.
Literally “god from the machine”: Actors playing Greek gods were lowered onto the stage by crane or rose up through a trapdoor to intervene at the last possible moment to rescue the threatened characters.
Why was it called the “Enlightenment?” Who called it that?
Writers of the time believed they were emerging from a period of darkness (ignorance, tyranny, and superstition).
They were continuing a Renaissance tradition of humanism, celebrating human capacity. They proclaimed the rule of reason, science and a respect for humanity.
By the application of reason one can arrive at truth and improve conditions.
Deism
A depersonalized deity: the watchmaker had created a (reasonable) orderly world and left it to work on its own.
God created nature, therefore the study of nature is worship. Mankind’s dominance of nature is emphasized.
Empiricists
knowledge by experience (Locke, Berkeley, Hume)
rationalists:
knowledge by reason alone (Leibniz, Spinoza, Descartes)
Historical events specifically referenced in Tartuffe
1664: Presented before the King Louis XIV. Three acts only. Censured by those close to the King. It is forbidden.
1667: Second presentation. Revised to “The Impostor,” religious symbolism in the dress of Tartuffe is absent. The king is not present and the court members/Parliament again forbid its production.
1669: Third presentation is allowed by King, under the original costume and name “Tartuffe” which designates a false devout man in French.
themes in the worksPower relationships (role of authority, abuse of power)
- Power relationships (role of authority, abuse of power)
- Knowledge (how we know truth)
- The struggle of passion v. reason
- The idea of destiny or fate and man’s struggle against it
- Hypocrisy, Flattery and pride
- Trickster characters and how they deceive
- Naive characters and how they are deceived
- Other character faults that may be common to the texts and serve as lessons to readers
types of irony
- dramatic,
- situational,
- verbal
Structure of tragedy
- Inciteing incident-
- complications-
- climax-
- denouncement
Unities of time
the action in a play should take place over no more than 24 hours.
Unities of place
a play should cover a single physical space and should not attempt to compress geography, nor should the stage represent more than one place.
Unities of action
a play should have one main action that it follows, with no or few subplots.
HAMARTIA
Tragic flaw
Catharsis
“a purging or sweeping away of the pity and fear aroused by the tragic action” (Melani)
Pathos
the quality or power in an actual life experience or in literature, music, speech, or other forms of expression, of evoking a feeling of pity or compassion.
Another name for this time period:
Neoclassical era
The role of science
Mathematicians and scientists challenge the traditional views of the church and create the scientific method.
The view of nature
Scientific discovery reveals order in the universe. (Newton’s laws)
This order reflects the presence of a creator God who may or may not be active in daily life.
Human beings acting rationally would act in accordance with nature.
Organized religion interferes with man’s natural (rational) impulses.
Faith in nature & human progress (potential), but not necessarily in organized religion.
Organization of society
Organized, hierarchical: aristocracy, educated gentry (clergyman, lawyers, men of leisure with property), the workers (many illiterate).
Women of upper classes were recognized as being capable of reason. In France, they spread new ideas in “salons” where both intellectual and frivolous conversation occurred. These women began writing novels.
Society operated by conventions that masked their true nature, their passions. Social norms were both necessary and dangerous.
In literature, marriage and family are a context for examining individual behavior as well as societal norms.
The role of Greek and Roman literature (Neoclassicism)
Return to classics: the literature of Greece and Rome
Natural order of the universe yields a constant unchanged human nature. Racine’s Phaedre, Greek tragedy, as a subject for his time.
Authority found in tradition: classical forms & classical illusions.
Conventions inherited from classical literature, eg. Theatre: unity of time and place (one location, an insistence on real time=1hr play=1hr in the life of its characters)
The purpose of literature in this society
examining individual behavior as well as societal norms.
Literary convention
Society operated on conventions, as did literature. They may seem outdated to modern readers.
Belief in literature’s purpose to delight and instruct readers.
“Realism” is not part of their conventions. Passions become stylized in verse.
Struggle between those embracing the past (innovate by making the old new again) and those looking for progress (celebrate originality for its own sake).
Optimism
the belief that good ultimately predominates over evil in the world.
Molière
Their original names?
Important events and people in their lives
Groups they belonged to
1622-1673
Son of a furniture merchant and upholsterer to the King
Studied law, proficient in Greek and Latin.
Began acting at 23, forming the Illustre Théâtre with the Béjart family.
After an unsuccessful season in Paris and bankrupty, they toured the country from 1646-1658. Molière was actor, playwright, director and administrator.
In 1658, they returned to Paris and performed for the King Louis XIV.
His first play, les Précieuses Ridicules (The High-Brow Ladies), was performed in 1659. He wrote 32 plays in his lifetime.
He married a younger woman in 1662 and had one child.
Jean de la Fontaine
Their original names?
Important events and people in their lives
Groups they belonged to
Born 1621 at Château-Thierry, in Northern France to a middle-class family
Studied religion and law, but loved poetry.
Married in 1647, one child, separated from his wife in 1671.
Had a literary and artistic circle of friends, including playwrights Jean Racine, Molière, Boileau, Mme de Lafayette, Corneille.
Dependent on patronage for financial support.
Nicolas Fouquet (1657)
Duchess of Orléans (1664-1672)
Mme de la Sablière (1673-1693)
M. and Mme. D’Hervant (1693-death)
After a long wait, he is elected to the Académie Française in 1683 at the same time as Boileau.
In the debate of Ancients and Moderns, he took the side of the Ancients.
He converted later in life and renounced his questionable works, dying in 1695.
Jean Racine
Their original names?
Important events and people in their lives
Groups they belonged to
One of the three great French playwrights of the 17th century (with Corneille and Molière)
Orphaned at age 4
Attended Jansenist school in Port Royal where he learns Latin, Greek and studies works of Antiquity
Decided to study theology, but loved literature and theatre.
Began writing poems for members of the court.
Molière befriended the young poet and produced his plays La Thébiade (1664) and Alexandre le Grand (1665). Convinced that another troupe could act his tragedies better, Racine allowed the Hôtel de Bourgogne Troupe to produce Alexandre le Grand while also stealing a brilliant actress, Mlle du Parc. Molière and Racine never talked again.
Racine went on to write more neoclassical dramas, inspired by Greek theatre and mythology
Iambic pentameter
a brief story showing human tendencies through animal characters. Talking animals or animated objects are the characters of fables.
Parable
a short allegorical story designed to illustrate or teach some truth, religious principle, or moral lesson.
Free verse
verse that does not follow a fixed metrical pattern.
2
- Choice of form
- Language differences
- Cultural changes
- Changes in word meaning/use (specific to the time period)
“I love, I own, a heart that’s never bowed / Beneath Love’s yoke, but stayed aloof and proud.”
speaker: Hippolytus
context: he is saying that before he has tried to keep his heart from love in the romantic way but he goes on to say that he cannot help loving aricia
significance within the work: Aricia is the daughter of an enemy of Hippolytus’s father
“Doesn’t it seem to you a trifle grim / To give a girl like her to a man like him?/ When two are so ill-suited, can’t you see / What sad consequence is bound to be? /A young girl’s virtue is imperiled, Sir, / When such a marriage is imposed on her; / For if one’s bridegroom isn’t to one’s taste, / It’s hardly an inducement to be chaste.”
speaker: Dorine
context: trying to talk orgon out of forcinf marianne from marrying tartuffe
significance within the work:marianne loves valere
“Singing, did you say? / I’m delighted to hear it. Now you can dance!”
speaker: The ant
context: he is responding to the grasshopper asking for food
significance within the work:those who do not work shall not eat
Rennaissance
(1500-1650)
Enlightenment or Age of Reason/ Neoclassical
(1650-1789)
Romanticism
(1785-1830)
Realism
(1830-1900)
Modernism
(1900-1950)
Postmodernism
(1950-)
Scientific Revolution
(1550-1700)
HUBRIS
THE tragic flaw
dramatic irony
irony that is inherent in speeches or a situation of a drama and is understood by the audience but not grasped by the characters in the play.
situational irony
irony involving a situation in which actions have an effect that is opposite from what was intended, so that the outcome is contrary to what was expected.
verbal irony
irony in which a person says or writes one thing and means another, or uses words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of the literal meaning.
