Category: Littérature | Page 5

A Midsummer Night’s Dream : synopsis

16 décembre 2018 by Matt Biscay · Lecture: 3 minutes

Act I

Scene 1

Theseus and Hippolyta look ahead to their wedding day, in four days’ time. Hermia plans to defy her father and elope with Lysander, but Helena reveals their plan to Lysander’s rival, Demetrius.

The scene takes place in Athens. The characters are :

Duke Theseus
Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons.
Egeus and his daughter Hermia
Two suitors : Lysander and Demetrius

Hermia is in love with Lysander. Egeus wants her to marry Demetrius or die. Helena loves Demetrius.

Scene 2

A group of craftsmen from Athens have decided to stage a play, “Pyramus and Thisbe”, to celebrate the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. They cast the play and plan the rehearsal.

Peter Quince is a carpenter. He wrote the play and organized the rehearsal. Nick Bottom is a weaver. He wants to play every part of the play.

The secret rehearsal takes place in the wood.

Act II

Scene 1

The King and Queen of the Fairies, Oberon and Titania, quarrel in the wood over possession of a human boy. In revenge, Oberon sends his helper Robin for magic juice to put on Titania’s eyes, which will make her fall in love with the first creature she sees. When Oberon observes Demetrius spurning Helena, he decides that the magic juice should be applied to Demetrius’ eyes too, so that he would fall in love with her.

Scene 2

Oberon anoints the eyes of the sleeping Titania. Robin, however, mistakenly applies the juice to Lysander, who suddenly falls in love with Helena and abandons Hermia.

Act III

Scene 1

The craftsmen arrive in the wood to rehearse their play but their performance is disrupted by the mischievous Robin who uses magic to give Bottom the head of an ass. After the others have fled from him in terror, Titania awakens and, under the spell of the magic juice, falls in love with the transformed Bottom.

Scene 2

Demetrius has met with Hermia, who continues to reject his love. Oberon observes them quarreling and realizes that Robin’s intervention has misfired. Trying to put the situation right, he applies the juice to Demetrius’ eyes when Helena is nearby : as a consequence, Demetrius and Lysander become rivals for Helena’s love.

Helena believes both of them are tormenting her, with the connivence of Hermia. To prevent violence, Oberon orders Robin to intervene, drawing the lovers apart. Once they have grown weary and fallen asleep, Robin puts an antidote juice on Lysander’s eyes to take away his love for Helena. There is no fear of tragic ending.

Act IV

Scene 1

Oberon and Robin remove the magic spells from Titania and Bottom, and the King and Queen of Fairies are reunited. Theseus and his companions, out early in the morning, discover the four lovers, who explain their changed feelings. Theseus overrules Egeus’ objections and declares that the two young couples shall be married alongside Hippolyta and him. When everyone has left, Bottom awakens and reflects on his strange “dream”.

Scene 2

The other craftsmen are lamenting Bottom’s loss and the consequent cancellation of their play, when he arrives to announce that all is well and their play may be staged after all.

Act V

Scene 1

On the evening of the three marriages, Theseus agrees to the staging of “Pyramus and Thisbe”. The play is badly written and acted but this increases people’s entertainment.

When all the humans have gone to bed, the fairies enter the house and bless those who reside there and their children to come.

Robin stays behind to deliver an epilogue. The play concludes where it started, in Athens.

Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee : chapter analysis

25 February 202417 juillet 2018 by Matt Biscay · Lecture: 10 minutes

This is post 1 of 2 in the series “Cider with Rosie” Comprehensive literary analysis articles delving into the depths of the novel Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee.

Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee : chapter analysis
Relatives in “Cider With Rosie” by Laurie Lee

Here is an analysis of each chapter in Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee.

A general summary

In Cider with Rosie, Laurie Lee recalls his childhood and adolescence. He was one of seven children in a close family headed by his mother: he grew up in England, in a Cotswold village governed by tradition.

The book is organised in accord with his early exploration of his widening world. He examines his infant sensations, his cottage, his yard, his village and Cotswold Valley, then local superstitions, village education, his neighbours, public tragedies, private life stories, his childhood games, village celebrations, sexual initiations, and the eventual changes as his childhood, his close family life, and the traditional village life pass away forever.

Chapter 1: First Light

In this chapter, Lee gives a three-year-old’s perceptions and misconceptions: small about objects around him, Laurie crawls among “forests” of household objects and he believes autumn is a season and the war’s end means the end of the world. Lee uses metaphors and similes (often of water) to communicate the child’s sense of adventure.

This chapter introduces most of the themes that will be developed in the story throughout the different episodes of Laurie’s childhood: the importance of family ties, the constant presence and role of the women in his own development and the absence of a father, the magic in the world surrounding him causing numerous fears, the importance of the seasons and the overwhelming presence of nature and death.

Chapter 2: First Names

The second chapter is divided into three sections. It begins in a dark winter with peace and the men returning from war and it ends in the “long hot summer of 1921”. It roughly has to do with night-time feelings: dreams, terrors and superstitions.

The village legends: ignorance and superstition were common features shared by all the people of the village, and they led them to fear a world which seemed unpredictable and was governed by magic laws. Some animals or natural phenomena were given a particular meaning and there were ill omens that brought bad luck to those who crossed their path.

The village freaks: the freaks such as Cabbage Stump Charlie, Albert the Devil, Percy from Painswick… were all more or less physically or mentally peculiar. The reader might be surprised at the number of handicapped people who populate the area.

This phenomenon could be explained by the fact that there was so great mixing of the population, which led to the problem of consanguinity. Besides, diseases and malnutrition must have led to further handicaps. These freaks with their “cartoon” nicknames were probably the most striking and frightening people whom the little boy had heard of or seen in his narrow world.

The flood: the chapter ends then with another apocalyptic scene: the flood following a particularly dry summer. This part enables the narrator to emphasize the role religion played for the villagers at that time.

In their eyes, the world was driven by magic forces that could be influenced, either by appeals to god, the Christian God or if this did not work, by resorting to other methods: “As the drought continued, prayer was abandoned and more devilish steps adopted”.

19th Century Literary Movements : Realism and Naturalism

21 December 202309 juin 2018 by Matt Biscay · Lecture: 18 minutes

This is post 5 of 6 in the series “Literary Movements”

The 18th Century: the Age of Enlightenment
The Gothic and the Fantastic
The 19th Century : Romanticism in Art and Literature
English Romanticism (1798-1832)
19th Century Literary Movements : Realism and Naturalism
British Civilisation and Literature: 19th and 20th centuries

Introduction

Realism and Naturalism are a reaction against Romanticism (imagination, poetry and prose, as well as the main themes: nature, exoticism, history, and heroes depicted as exceptional individuals) because it was thought to have lost touch with the contemporary.

Three revolutions took place during the 19th century: the industrial revolution, the scientific revolution, and the moral revolution.

In Great Britain, the Victorian Era lasted from 1837 to 1901. In the USA, the Civil War lasted from 1861 to 1865.

The industrial revolution

The Industrial Revolution was started by the invention of the steam machine (coal, railways, factories).

All this happened in the cities: the increase of the population led to misery and social problems such as alcoholism, tuberculosis, prostitution… There was a shift from a belief in progress to an increasing pessimism.

The scientific revolution

The Scientific Revolution expanded into the transport revolution, starting by the steam engine:

1830: Manchester-Liverpool railway
1869: Transcontinental railway in the USA
Thomas Edison invented the gramophone, the light bulb and the electric chair
Pierre and Marie Curie discover radioactivity…

The world was changing extremely fast.

Auguste Comte (1798–1857) is the origin of a philosophical theory called Positivism. He devised the “law of three stages” : (1) the theological, (2) the metaphysical, and (3) the positive.

The theological phase of man was based on whole-hearted belief in all things regarding God. God, Comte says, had reigned supreme over human existence pre-Enlightenment. Humanity’s place in society was governed by its association with the divine presence and with the church.

The theological phase deals with humankind’s accepting the doctrines of the church (or place of worship) rather than relying on its rational powers to explore basic questions about existence.

Comte describes the metaphysical phase of humanity as the time since the Enlightenment, a time steeped in logical rationalism, to the time right after the French Revolution. This second phase states that the universal rights of humanity are most important.

The central idea is that humanity is invested with certain rights that must be respected. In this phase, democracies and dictators rose and fell in attempts to maintain the innate rights of humanity.

The final stage of the trilogy of Comte’s universal law is the scientific, or positive, stage. The central idea of this phase is that individual rights are more important than the rule of any one person. Science is paramount and can give man absolute knowledge and power.

Questions d’orthographe : “1,9 gramme” ou “1,9 grammes” ? “moins de deux heures suffira” ou “moins de deux heures suffiront” ?

6 February 202427 janvier 2017 by Télémaque · Lecture: 3 minutes

L’autre soir, tranquillement installés dans le canapé au coin du feu, nous dégustions un bon plateau de fromage et prenions connaissance des résultats de cette vie politique actuellement tourmentée, lorsqu’une question d’orthographe pour le moins brûlante a interrompu notre bouchée de Maroilles.

Faut-il donc écrire : “1,5 million” ou “1,5 millions” ? “1,9 gramme” ou “1,9 grammes” ?

“1,9 gramme” ou “1,9 grammes” ?

Puisque, concernant ce sujet, les articles sont quasiment inexistants sur le web et les grammaires peu prolixes, j’ai compris qu’il était grand temps d’élucider ce mystère.

J’ai sorti mon ultime outil, mon bon vieux livre vert de grammaire* qui fait plus d’un millier de pages en papier à cigarettes avec de tout petits petits caractères.

Je dois écrire ici que je suis extrêmement et paradoxalement attachée à ce livre vert de grammaire qui fut le bourreau de mes nuits durant deux années de préparation au CAPES puis à l’Agrégation.

J’ai consacré un nombre d’heures infini à m’efforcer de comprendre puis d’engloutir ce millier de pages qui recense et finalement, expose l’implacable logique de toutes les subtilités offrant toute leur saveur à la langue française.

J’aime donc intimement ressortir ce bon vieux livre vert de grammaire de mon étagère, qui me fait revivre ces moments d’intense concentration finalement couronnés par la satisfaction d’avoir progressé, ne serait-ce que très humblement.

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, an oil painting composed in 1818 by the German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich

The 19th Century : Romanticism in Art and Literature

21 December 202312 septembre 2016 by Matt Biscay · Lecture: 14 minutes

This is post 3 of 6 in the series “Literary Movements”

The 18th Century: the Age of Enlightenment
The Gothic and the Fantastic
The 19th Century : Romanticism in Art and Literature
English Romanticism (1798-1832)
19th Century Literary Movements : Realism and Naturalism
British Civilisation and Literature: 19th and 20th centuries

Definition of Romanticism

Romanticism (also the Romantic era or the Romantic period) is an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850.

Romanticism is characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical. It is a reaction to the ideas of the Industrial Revolution, the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, and the scientific rationalization of nature.

The meaning of romanticism has changed with time. In the 17th century, “romantic” meant imaginative or fictitious due to the birth of a new literary genre: the novel. Novels, that is to say, texts of fiction, were written in vernacular (romance languages), as opposed to religious texts written in Latin.

In the 18th century, romanticism was eclipsed by the Age of Enlightenment, where everything is perceived through the prism of science and reason.

In the 19th century, “romantic” means sentimental: lyricism and the expression of personal emotions are emphasized. Feelings and sentiments are very much present in romantic works.

Thus, so many things are called romantic that it is difficult to see the common points between the novels by Victor Hugo, the paintings by Eugène Delacroix or the music by Ludwig Von Beethoven.

The Gothic and the Fantastic

21 December 202306 mars 2016 by Matt Biscay · Lecture: 13 minutes

This is post 2 of 6 in the series “Literary Movements”

The Gothic and the Fantastic are two literary genres both related and different.

A genre can characterize many types of literature such as poetry, drama, or the novel. It is a specific type of writing, that obeys several rules or is recognizable through several themes or structural elements like suspense, plot, or characters.

I. Definitions of the Gothic

The Gothic is the ancestor of the modern horror stories. It is based on the bizarre, the macabre and the supernatural, and it very often deals with aberrant psychological states (terror, fear, anxiety). The setting could typically be a dark castle or church at night…

1. The Sublime

The Sublime is the concept developed by Edmund Burke in On the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757) which is based on two principles:

1. Beauty is small, smooth, not angular but curved, clear, light and delicate, with harmony in proportions. It is something rather feminine, with human proportions, based on pleasure.

2. The sublime is great, rugged, straight and angular, dark and massive. It is rather masculine, and inhuman because too vast, excessive and powerful for man, based on pain.

There is a dialectic like Eros (love and pleasure) and Thanatos (pain and death): these two elements, both opposed and complementary, structured the mentalities and the mental productions of the 19th century.

It is also related to primitivism as neoclassicism expressed harmony in proportions (beauty) while the revival of the Gothic was about the sublime, based on pre-Christian religions, legends, superstitions and the Middle Ages.

“If” – by Rudyard Kipling

9 March 202425 décembre 2015 by Matt Biscay · Lecture: 2 minutes

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

— Rudyard Kipling, “If”, 1895

The 18th Century: the Age of Enlightenment

21 December 202306 juin 2015 by Matt Biscay · Lecture: 4 minutes

This is post 1 of 6 in the series “Literary Movements”

The 18th Century: the Age of Enlightenment
The Gothic and the Fantastic
The 19th Century : Romanticism in Art and Literature
English Romanticism (1798-1832)
19th Century Literary Movements : Realism and Naturalism
British Civilisation and Literature: 19th and 20th centuries

Introduction

The 18th Century can be dubbed “the Age of Enlightenment” as it was marked by French philosophers such as Voltaire, Rousseau or Diderot (the Encyclopédie was published in 1761).

The Enlightenment is characterized by the belief of the natural goodness of man: man is perfectible, it is the idea of progress obtained through the use of reason.

Since man is naturally good, all bad things come from society: if we could fight prejudices and oppressive social institutions, man would be better. It’s a question of education: political and social reforms would bring man happiness. These are the principles of the French Revolution.

The situation is different in the United Kingdom. The revolution had already been made: the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 established a parliamentary monarchy but it was not a democracy since you needed to be rich to go to Parliament.

John Locke, a famous British philosopher, influenced the notion of parliamentary democracy. He was a predecessor of the Enlightenment but his ideas were only applied in America after the War of Independence (1776-1782).

The American Constitution was applied in 1789. In the USA, there is a republican government with a president and a principle of equality in front of the law: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. There is a truly optimistic belief in man and happiness, and progress and reason.

Questions d’orthographe: écrit-on “Elles se sont succédées” ou “elles se sont succédé”?

6 February 202413 janvier 2015 by Télémaque · Lecture: 2 minutes

Il arrive fréquemment que l’on me pose cette question : “elles se sont succédées” ou “elles se sont succédé”?

Une question épineuse, dont la réponse est surprenante… alors je vous propose un petit point grammaire.

L’accord correct

C’est : “elles se sont succédé”.

La règle

L’exemple présenté fait partie des verbes pronominaux : ce sont des verbes qui se construisent avec “se”, pronom qui renvoie au sujet de la phrase.

Par exemple, dans “Jean se regarde” : Jean regarde quoi ? -> “se”, c’est-à-dire lui-même. Même exemple dans “Je me maquille”, “Ils se coiffent”, “Nous nous parlons”, etc.

Comment savoir si le participe s’accorde ou non ? Tout dépend de la construction du verbe :

1. Le participe passé s’accorde avec le sujet de la phrase

Si le verbe se construit avec un COD, dans ce cas, le pronom “se, me, te…” est COD du verbe, c’est-à-dire répond à la question QUOI / QUI ?

Par exemple, “Je me suis coiffée” : j’ai coiffé QUI ? -> me, c’est-à-dire moi. Autre exemple, “Elles se sont lavées”: Elles ont lavé QUI ? -> Se, c’est-à-dire elles-mêmes.

Questions d’orthographe : écrit-on : “les pommes que j’ai mangées” ou “les pommes que j’ai mangé”?

17 February 202429 décembre 2014 by Télémaque · Lecture: 2 minutes

Aujourd’hui, dans Questions d’orthographe, nous allons nous intéresser à l’accord du participe passé.

L’accord correct

C’est “les pommes que j’ai mangées“.

La règle

Cette phrase interroge sur l’accord du participe passé :

Mini-rappel pour ceux à qui ce terme paraît flou : le participe passé est cette forme du verbe qui sert, à l’aide de l’auxiliaire être ou avoir, à former les temps composés des verbes.

Par exemple, dans “j’ai mangé”: “j” est le sujet, “ai” est l’auxiliaire avoir et “mangé” est le participe passé du verbe manger.

Questions d’orthographe : dit-on “des pièces ci-joint” ou “des pièces ci-jointes” ?

4 September 202429 octobre 2014 by Télémaque · Lecture: 2 minutes

Image d'un trombone stylisé aux yeux globuleux et aux sourcils expressifs, ressemblant à l'assistant virtuel Clippy des anciennes versions de Microsoft Office. Le personnage est positionné devant un bloc notes jaune avec des lignes bleues et roses, prêt à vous aider à orthographier vos ci jointes.

Au cours d’un déjeuner avec Jac, on en est venus à parler grammaire et nous avons évoqué ce problème récurrent qui se pose souvent lorsque l’on écrit un mail : doit-on écrire des pièces”ci-joint” ou “ci-jointes” lorsque l’on attache des fichiers ?

Alors, voici la règle pour savoir quand on doit l’accorder.

1. “Ci-joint” reste invariable :

Si votre phrase commence par “ci-joint” : (par exemple : “ci-joint ces documents”). Dans ce cas, “ci-joint” est comparable à “il y a” (“il y a des pièces jointes”) qui ne s’accorde pas.

Quand “ci-joint” se trouve juste après un verbe : (exemple : “vous trouverez ci-joint les documents”).

Dans ce cas, “ci-joint” est comparable à “ici” (par exemple : “vous trouverez ici des documents”). Il joue alors le rôle d’un adverbe et ne s’accorde donc jamais.

L’accord des verbes en français : ce que vous avez toujours voulu savoir

17 February 202417 octobre 2014 by Télémaque · Lecture: 3 minutes

Quand vous êtes professeur de français, votre entourage vous considère comme une grammaire sur pattes. Ainsi, dès que par malheur, vous laissez traîner une faute dans la carte de noël que vous envoyez, c’est parti pour dix ans de brimades !

Et puis, quand se pose une question d’orthographe épineuse, votre portable devient une véritable hotline…

Les accords du verbe

La règle générale est simple : le sujet s’accorde en nombre avec le verbe. Ainsi, de façon tout à fait logique, si le verbe a plusieurs sujets, il se met au pluriel.

Pour le moment, aucun problème. Mais certains cas particuliers posent souvent question et sont donc bons à connaître :

1. Doit-on dire “c’est des beaux enfants” ou “ce sont de beaux enfants” ?

En langage de grammaire, cette formule “c’est” ou son équivalent pluriel “ce sont” s’appelle un présentatif.

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