ESSAY CEMETERY

Anglo-Saxon England saw over two hundred years of Viking attacks at the turn of the first millennium. By the end of the tenth century, Anglo-Saxon England had become Anglo-Scandinavian England (Frank 23). The Scandinavian presence in England is the subject of much Early Medieval poetry, prose and historical literature. The Danes, a geographically foreign and pagan people, emerge as an Other against which the Anglo-Saxons struggle to maintain their ideological integrity. In the poem “The Battle of Maldon” the warfare waged against the Vikings exposes weakness within the ranks of the English. In the “Life of St. Edmund”, an Anglo-Saxon defeat in a battle against the Vikings gives rise to a saint who works miracles from beyond the grave. Even though both texts were written within decades of one another, the recentness of the events depicted and the thematic focus of their authors result in two very different treatments of a similar historical setting. Ælfric’s “Life of St. Edmund” is an e...

Characters Gabriel Conroy - The main character of the story. Teacher at a college Kate Morkan (more vivacious) and Julia Morkan (not aware of her environment so much) - Elderly sisters who throw a party during Christmas time. Gabriel's aunts Mary Jane Morkan - Niece of Kate and Julia Morkan. Lily - Maid, insulted by Gabriel Conroy when he asks about her love life. Gretta Conroy - Gabriel's wife. Molly Ivors - Colleague of Gabriel's, very patriotic about Ireland. Mr. Browne - Only Protestant guest at the party. Freddy Malins - A drunk and friend of Gabriel. Bartell D'Arcy - A famous, retired tenor. Themes Party, dancing, food Propriety Gabriel's self importance Gabriel's self excessive self awareness Irish Politics Singing and playing music Opera Gretta scorns Gabriel

Beowulf is the oldest long poem written in English. It was composed in England in the early 8th century, and put into manuscript form, in Old English, in the late 10th. A fire damaged the only copy of the poem in 1731 and so some of its content is missing. Beowulf deals with events that took place two centuries before the poem was composed. It tells of the Germanic forebears of the Englishmen of that period, particularly two south Scandinavian tribes, the Danes and the Geats (to whom Beowulf belonged), who invaded England in 449. The audience probably considered themselves descendants of the Geats. This, along with the tradition of ancient epic poems which were probably well known in that era, indicates that Beowulf was an important heroic poem and served to glorify and immortalize the origin of the audience of the poem. It is thought that the writer of the manuscript was a Christian, as there are many references to God and Old Testament. However there are no references to the New Test...

Tom Stoppard's 1982 play The Real Thing and Patrick Marber's Closer , written fifteen years later, have much in common. The plays are structured in two acts and twelve scenes. Both feature two principal couples who exchange partners, one of whom is a writer; the characters frequently lie, cheat and make false assumptions about one another; meta-literary and self-reflexive techniques are often used to endow both works with additional depth. The Real Thing and Closer are also both set in London. Although the plays share the same urban setting, the backdrop of the city is utilized in different ways, and with a very different effect.             Closer is set almost entirely in public spaces. Alice, Dan, Larry and Anna move between a hospital, an aquarium, a gallery and a museum, a restaurant and a public park. In all of these, of course, privacy is out of the question. When the characters are situated in locations inaccessible t...

Featuring exclusively female characters, Caryl Churchill's Top Girls is indeed filled with remarkable women. The 1988 play contains women from across the globe who have distinguished themselves over the span of a thousand years, from Joan, the ninth-century pope, to Marlene, a twentieth-century career woman. The women, despite their vastly diverse backgrounds, have all had to sacrifice their femininity, freedom, and their families in order to pursue their individual goals in a male-dominated, male-oriented world. Churchill cleverly uses historical figures to create powerful criticism of contemporary feminism, particularly of that present in 1980s England, and explores what it really means to be a "top girl". With disorienting theatrical and linguistic technique, she ensures the audience's active participation and encourages critical socio-political thinking and self-reflexivity.             From its very beginning, the play diso...

Themes ·        Art ·        Popularity ·        Money ·        Metaliterary criticism ·        Suspicion ·        Tension Style and devices ·        Answering a question with a question ·        Repression/ reluctance to deal ·        The scenes are ordered backwards in time, except for scenes 5, 6, 7 which are in chronological order. ·        Dialogue that occurs on two levels because the knowledge of both sides doesn’t agree. Response ·        Tension regarding intellectual things – Emma has an inferiority complex? ROBERT: Oh… not much more to say on that subject, really, is there? EMMA: What do you consider the su...

Scene I The play begins in a pub in the spring of 1977. Emma and Jerry are drinking together. Emma is friendly and tries to get Jerry to be friendly. Jerry opens up when he's had a couple of drinks. They are both married with kids; they had a marital affair for seven years. Jerry is a literary agent and Emma's husband Robert is a publisher. Emma shares that she might separate from her husband, because he has been cheating on her. Robert and Jerry are friends. They recall when they used to be in love. Jerry had bought a house to which they would sneak off. Jerry brings up Casey, a man with whom Emma is rumored to have been having an affair. Emma says she told Robert about the affair during a long conversation of the night before. Jerry feels bad because of his friendship with Robert. Scene II Robert and Jerry are in Jerry's house. It is still the spring of 1977. Jerry has invited Robert. He has a hard time saying anything and Robert brings up the issue...

Style and devices ·        Ambiguous responses SEPTIMUS: Ah. Yes, I am ashamed. Carnal embrace is sexual congress, which is the insertion of the male genital organ into the female genital organ for purposes of procreation and pleasure.  Fermat's last theorem, by contrast, asserts that when x, y and z are whole numbers each raised to power of n, the sum of the first two can never equal the third when n  is greater than 2.        (Pause.) THOMASINA: Eurghhh! SEPTIMUS: Nevertheless, that is the theorem. ·        Paradoxical statements – he says free will but points to it being unchangeable, that is, predetermined THOMASINA: Well, I do. You cannot stir things apart. SEPTIMUS: No more you can, time must needs run backward, and since it will not, we must stir our way onward mixing as we go, disorder out of disorder into disorder un...