R.S. McNamara's eleven lessons of war
Empathize with your enemy
Rationality will not save us
There's something beyond one's self
Maximize efficiency
Proportionality should be a guideline in war
Get the data
Belief and seeing are often both wrong
Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning
In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil
Never say never
You can't change human nature
For my Classes' edification
Saturday, 21 November 2009
Saturday, 19 September 2009
Film Language Glossary
180 degree rule
A rule which maintains that the line of action should not be crossed, in the interests of fluid continuity. It therefore precludes a difference greater than 180 degrees between camera angles in consecutive shots.
30 degree rule
A rule which precludes a difference in angles of less than 30 degrees between consecutive shots.
ADR (automatic dialogue replacement)
A computerised process that helps fit re-recorded lines to the original dialogue.
animation
The capture of still images, which run in sequence, creating the illusion of movement.
aperture
An opening (usually in the camera lens) through which light passes.
atmos effect
Usually a sound effect used to generate a certain atmosphere - e.g. a howling wind.
buzz track
A low-level background soundtrack.
camera angle
The viewpoint chosen to photograph a subject.
canted angle
see Dutch angle
close-up
Usually defined as a shot framing the head from the neck up, sometimes with part of the shoulders.
continuity system/continuity editing
A system of editing generally used within mainstream cinema to seamlessly cut from one shot to another without calling attention to the editing. This system includes invisible editing, eye-line matches, and cutting on action.
crane shot
A shot in which the camera is mounted on a crane, to achieve striking height or aerial movement.
cross-cutting
Also known as parallel editing. Alternation between two or more different scenes which are (usually) developed simultaneously.
crossing the line
Failure to follow the 180 degree rule, by crossing the line of action.
cut
A clean break between consecutive shots.
deep focus
Photography in which all elements in the image, whether near or far from the camera, are acceptably sharp.
depth of field
The distance between the objects nearest and furthest from the camera that will be in acceptably sharp focus.
diegesis, diegetic
The 'world' of the story and all the elements that belong to it: the sight and sounds of the action (e.g. footsteps, explosions), including off screen action and objects (e.g. birdsong, church bells). The most common non-diegetic sound is music (which would only be diegetic if the musicians or source of music were part of the action).
dissolve or mix
This is when two shots are on screen at the same time, visible through each other. The first shot is faded out while the second is faded in.
dubbing chart
A plan used as a guide to arrange and mix elements of the soundtrack during post-production.
Dutch angle (or canted angle)
Camera angle in which the camera is tipped sideways so that the world of the film seems to have tipped over, and horizontal and vertical lines run diagonally within the frame.
end credits
A list of all of the participants involved in the film's production, screened at the end of the film.
equalisation (EQ)
Part of the process of sound manipulation and improvement, especially concerned with the balance between bass and treble.
establishing shot
A shot which shows the environment in which the action will take place, usually early in the sequence.
Expressionism
Also referred to as 'German Expressionism', after a group of German films from the silent era, notably The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919) and Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horrors (1922). Typified by use of strong contrast, lots of shadow, extreme angles and design, the suitability of the term 'Expressionism' (and the implied relationship to the Expressionist movement in painting and other arts) has been questioned. But the term has stuck and Expressionism is seen as influential on many Hollywood genres, especially film noir and horror.
extreme close-up (ECU)
A shot filled by part of someone's face (or other subject).
extreme long shot (ELS)
A shot showing the scene from a great distance.
eye-line
The direction of a character's gaze.
fade down (of sound)
Gradual diminution of sound level.
fade in (of pictures)
Gradual appearance of the image.
fade in (of sound)
Gradual increase of sound level.
fade out (of sound)
Gradual diminution of sound level to silence.
fade to black
Gradual disappearance of image into black screen.
fade up (of sound)
Gradual increase of sound level.
film noir
Hollywood film genre of the 1940s and 1950s, (named by French critics after World War II) usually, but not always involving crime, flawed heroes, femmes fatales and a strong visual style influenced by 'German Expressionism'.
focal length
The distance between the optical centre of the lens and the image sensor. The longer the focal length, the greater the magnification involved; the shorter the focal length, the wider the angle of view.
focus pull
The refocusing of the lens during a shot to keep a moving subject within the depth of field.
Foley track
Sound effects created by the 'Foley artist', after shooting, to be dubbed onto the film to match the action (footsteps, rustling clothing etc).
frame
Individual still image of a film or video, or the rectangle within which the image is composed or captured.
frames per second
The number of still images that pass through the camera/projector per second. Film usually runs at 24 fps, video at 25 fps.
genre
Type of moving image text, e.g. horror, western, melodrama.
hand-held camera
Type of camera movement where the camera is held manually by an operator without fixed mounting (tripod, dolly etc). Produces irregular movement which often signifies 'Point of View'.
high angle shot
A shot looking down on the action.
jump cut
A cut between two shots of the same object, character or scene where the angle of the camera is less than 45 degrees.
line of action
An imaginary line used to help stage camera positions for shooting action. Typically 'drawn' along the line of sight between two characters in a scene, or following the movement of characters, cars etc. In the continuity system all shots of the action will be taken from one side only of the line to maintain consistent screen orientation and direction of movement.
lip sync
Synchronisation of mouth and lip movements in the image with speech on the soundtrack.
long shot (LS)
Usually shows the entire human figure, from above the head to below the feet.
low angle shot
A shot looking up at the action.
master shot
A shot (usually wide) that shows all the action of a scene, usually cut together with other
medium long shot (MLS)
Normally shows the human figure from the knees up.
medium shot (MS)
Normally shows the human figure from the waist up.
mise en scène
French term from the theatre which literally means 'what's put in the scene'. In the cinema it refers to the elements of a shot - the set, the props, the actors, the use of colour and light - and the way these elements are composed or choreographed.
mix
see dissolve.
off screen
Action belonging to the story world which takes place outside the frame.
opening titles
The credits shown on screen at the beginning of the film, which usually include the film's title, the producers, directors, writer and principal actors.
over-the-shoulder (OTS) shot
A shot framed by the side of the head and shoulders of a character in the extreme foreground, who is looking at the same thing we are - usually another character in dialogue sequence.
pan
When the camera pivots on its vertical axis; the shot that results from this. From panorama or panoramic.
parallel editing
see cross-cutting
persistence of vision
Sensory phenomenon to which cinema owes its existence: the perception of fluid movement from still images projected above a threshold speed. Below this speed the image flickers (hence the term 'the flicks' coined when silent film was shot at lower speeds, c.16-20 fps).
pitch
Relative shrillness of a note, determined by the mix of frequencies.
Point of View (POV) shot
A shot where we appear to be looking through the character's eyes, from his or her point of view.
post-production
Stage of film production after principal photography, including editing, sound/music, special effects etc.
reaction shot
A shot in which we see the character's reaction (sometimes after a POV shot).
reframe
Adjustment of framing to compensate for movement within the frame.
scene
The basic dramatic unit, usually continuous in time and setting. A feature film will usually consist of 30-60 scenes, though there are wide variations.
sequence
A group of shots showing a single piece of action, e.g. a chase sequence; often synonymous with 'scene'.
shot
A single continuous image.
shot/reverse shot
Alternating shots, typically of two characters in a dialogue sequence.
shot size
Refers to the size of the subject in the frame - close-up, long shot, wide shot etc.
shot transition
The transition of one shot to another which can be achieved by a cut, a dissolve, a wipe etc.
sound perspective
Like visual perspective, helps to create a sense of physical space: sounds in the distance seem to come from far away.
soundtrack
The audio components of a film - dialogue, sound effects, music.
split edit
When sound and picture cuts are not simultaneous.
spot effect
Sound effect used at a particular point in the narrative.
standard angle
Angle produced with a medium focal length which produces a standard angle of view.
Steadicam
Trade name for a camera mount which dampens movement, so making it more fluid, when the camera is handheld or strapped to the operator.
storyboard
Series of drawings, much like a comic strip, used to plan a sequence of shots.
telephoto lens
Lens with a long focal length and greater magnification than the wide angle lens.
tilt
When the camera pivots on the horizontal axis; the shot that results from this.
time code
Numeric reference (hours/minutes/seconds/frames) for each frame of the film, essential during editing and other post-production work.
top shot
An extreme high angle shot, where the camera looks straight down.
tracking shot
A shot taken from a camera mounted on a dolly or other moving vehicle.
two-shot
A shot showing two characters in a frame.
wide shot (WS) or wide angle shot
A shot taking in much or all of the action.
wide angle lens
Lens with a short focal length, a wide angle of view and less magnification than the telephoto lens.
zoom
The change of image size achieved when the focal length of the zoom lens is altered.
http://www.bfi.org.uk/education/teaching/realshorts/glossary.html
A rule which maintains that the line of action should not be crossed, in the interests of fluid continuity. It therefore precludes a difference greater than 180 degrees between camera angles in consecutive shots.
30 degree rule
A rule which precludes a difference in angles of less than 30 degrees between consecutive shots.
ADR (automatic dialogue replacement)
A computerised process that helps fit re-recorded lines to the original dialogue.
animation
The capture of still images, which run in sequence, creating the illusion of movement.
aperture
An opening (usually in the camera lens) through which light passes.
atmos effect
Usually a sound effect used to generate a certain atmosphere - e.g. a howling wind.
buzz track
A low-level background soundtrack.
camera angle
The viewpoint chosen to photograph a subject.
canted angle
see Dutch angle
close-up
Usually defined as a shot framing the head from the neck up, sometimes with part of the shoulders.
continuity system/continuity editing
A system of editing generally used within mainstream cinema to seamlessly cut from one shot to another without calling attention to the editing. This system includes invisible editing, eye-line matches, and cutting on action.
crane shot
A shot in which the camera is mounted on a crane, to achieve striking height or aerial movement.
cross-cutting
Also known as parallel editing. Alternation between two or more different scenes which are (usually) developed simultaneously.
crossing the line
Failure to follow the 180 degree rule, by crossing the line of action.
cut
A clean break between consecutive shots.
deep focus
Photography in which all elements in the image, whether near or far from the camera, are acceptably sharp.
depth of field
The distance between the objects nearest and furthest from the camera that will be in acceptably sharp focus.
diegesis, diegetic
The 'world' of the story and all the elements that belong to it: the sight and sounds of the action (e.g. footsteps, explosions), including off screen action and objects (e.g. birdsong, church bells). The most common non-diegetic sound is music (which would only be diegetic if the musicians or source of music were part of the action).
dissolve or mix
This is when two shots are on screen at the same time, visible through each other. The first shot is faded out while the second is faded in.
dubbing chart
A plan used as a guide to arrange and mix elements of the soundtrack during post-production.
Dutch angle (or canted angle)
Camera angle in which the camera is tipped sideways so that the world of the film seems to have tipped over, and horizontal and vertical lines run diagonally within the frame.
end credits
A list of all of the participants involved in the film's production, screened at the end of the film.
equalisation (EQ)
Part of the process of sound manipulation and improvement, especially concerned with the balance between bass and treble.
establishing shot
A shot which shows the environment in which the action will take place, usually early in the sequence.
Expressionism
Also referred to as 'German Expressionism', after a group of German films from the silent era, notably The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919) and Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horrors (1922). Typified by use of strong contrast, lots of shadow, extreme angles and design, the suitability of the term 'Expressionism' (and the implied relationship to the Expressionist movement in painting and other arts) has been questioned. But the term has stuck and Expressionism is seen as influential on many Hollywood genres, especially film noir and horror.
extreme close-up (ECU)
A shot filled by part of someone's face (or other subject).
extreme long shot (ELS)
A shot showing the scene from a great distance.
eye-line
The direction of a character's gaze.
fade down (of sound)
Gradual diminution of sound level.
fade in (of pictures)
Gradual appearance of the image.
fade in (of sound)
Gradual increase of sound level.
fade out (of sound)
Gradual diminution of sound level to silence.
fade to black
Gradual disappearance of image into black screen.
fade up (of sound)
Gradual increase of sound level.
film noir
Hollywood film genre of the 1940s and 1950s, (named by French critics after World War II) usually, but not always involving crime, flawed heroes, femmes fatales and a strong visual style influenced by 'German Expressionism'.
focal length
The distance between the optical centre of the lens and the image sensor. The longer the focal length, the greater the magnification involved; the shorter the focal length, the wider the angle of view.
focus pull
The refocusing of the lens during a shot to keep a moving subject within the depth of field.
Foley track
Sound effects created by the 'Foley artist', after shooting, to be dubbed onto the film to match the action (footsteps, rustling clothing etc).
frame
Individual still image of a film or video, or the rectangle within which the image is composed or captured.
frames per second
The number of still images that pass through the camera/projector per second. Film usually runs at 24 fps, video at 25 fps.
genre
Type of moving image text, e.g. horror, western, melodrama.
hand-held camera
Type of camera movement where the camera is held manually by an operator without fixed mounting (tripod, dolly etc). Produces irregular movement which often signifies 'Point of View'.
high angle shot
A shot looking down on the action.
jump cut
A cut between two shots of the same object, character or scene where the angle of the camera is less than 45 degrees.
line of action
An imaginary line used to help stage camera positions for shooting action. Typically 'drawn' along the line of sight between two characters in a scene, or following the movement of characters, cars etc. In the continuity system all shots of the action will be taken from one side only of the line to maintain consistent screen orientation and direction of movement.
lip sync
Synchronisation of mouth and lip movements in the image with speech on the soundtrack.
long shot (LS)
Usually shows the entire human figure, from above the head to below the feet.
low angle shot
A shot looking up at the action.
master shot
A shot (usually wide) that shows all the action of a scene, usually cut together with other
medium long shot (MLS)
Normally shows the human figure from the knees up.
medium shot (MS)
Normally shows the human figure from the waist up.
mise en scène
French term from the theatre which literally means 'what's put in the scene'. In the cinema it refers to the elements of a shot - the set, the props, the actors, the use of colour and light - and the way these elements are composed or choreographed.
mix
see dissolve.
off screen
Action belonging to the story world which takes place outside the frame.
opening titles
The credits shown on screen at the beginning of the film, which usually include the film's title, the producers, directors, writer and principal actors.
over-the-shoulder (OTS) shot
A shot framed by the side of the head and shoulders of a character in the extreme foreground, who is looking at the same thing we are - usually another character in dialogue sequence.
pan
When the camera pivots on its vertical axis; the shot that results from this. From panorama or panoramic.
parallel editing
see cross-cutting
persistence of vision
Sensory phenomenon to which cinema owes its existence: the perception of fluid movement from still images projected above a threshold speed. Below this speed the image flickers (hence the term 'the flicks' coined when silent film was shot at lower speeds, c.16-20 fps).
pitch
Relative shrillness of a note, determined by the mix of frequencies.
Point of View (POV) shot
A shot where we appear to be looking through the character's eyes, from his or her point of view.
post-production
Stage of film production after principal photography, including editing, sound/music, special effects etc.
reaction shot
A shot in which we see the character's reaction (sometimes after a POV shot).
reframe
Adjustment of framing to compensate for movement within the frame.
scene
The basic dramatic unit, usually continuous in time and setting. A feature film will usually consist of 30-60 scenes, though there are wide variations.
sequence
A group of shots showing a single piece of action, e.g. a chase sequence; often synonymous with 'scene'.
shot
A single continuous image.
shot/reverse shot
Alternating shots, typically of two characters in a dialogue sequence.
shot size
Refers to the size of the subject in the frame - close-up, long shot, wide shot etc.
shot transition
The transition of one shot to another which can be achieved by a cut, a dissolve, a wipe etc.
sound perspective
Like visual perspective, helps to create a sense of physical space: sounds in the distance seem to come from far away.
soundtrack
The audio components of a film - dialogue, sound effects, music.
split edit
When sound and picture cuts are not simultaneous.
spot effect
Sound effect used at a particular point in the narrative.
standard angle
Angle produced with a medium focal length which produces a standard angle of view.
Steadicam
Trade name for a camera mount which dampens movement, so making it more fluid, when the camera is handheld or strapped to the operator.
storyboard
Series of drawings, much like a comic strip, used to plan a sequence of shots.
telephoto lens
Lens with a long focal length and greater magnification than the wide angle lens.
tilt
When the camera pivots on the horizontal axis; the shot that results from this.
time code
Numeric reference (hours/minutes/seconds/frames) for each frame of the film, essential during editing and other post-production work.
top shot
An extreme high angle shot, where the camera looks straight down.
tracking shot
A shot taken from a camera mounted on a dolly or other moving vehicle.
two-shot
A shot showing two characters in a frame.
wide shot (WS) or wide angle shot
A shot taking in much or all of the action.
wide angle lens
Lens with a short focal length, a wide angle of view and less magnification than the telephoto lens.
zoom
The change of image size achieved when the focal length of the zoom lens is altered.
http://www.bfi.org.uk/education/teaching/realshorts/glossary.html
Saturday, 12 September 2009
12 D
Ashmore Michael mashmore@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/mashmore12d/
Davis Matt mdavis@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/mdavis/
Remmert Ray rremmert@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/rremmert/
Du Peza Russell rdupeza@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/russell/
Rajiv Rohan rrajiv@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/rrajiv/
Niklas Spaniol nspaniol@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/nspaniol/
Remin Karol kremin@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/kremin/
Haran Grossmann hgrossmann@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/lolcat21/
wilkes mike mikewilkes@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/mwilkes/
Zaidenberg Amit timaz92@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/azaidenberg/
Remmert John seoultwin@msn.com http://blogs.zis.ch/johnblog
Kevin Braunschweig kbraunschweig@gmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/kbraunschweig12
Davis Matt mdavis@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/mdavis/
Remmert Ray rremmert@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/rremmert/
Du Peza Russell rdupeza@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/russell/
Rajiv Rohan rrajiv@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/rrajiv/
Niklas Spaniol nspaniol@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/nspaniol/
Remin Karol kremin@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/kremin/
Haran Grossmann hgrossmann@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/lolcat21/
wilkes mike mikewilkes@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/mwilkes/
Zaidenberg Amit timaz92@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/azaidenberg/
Remmert John seoultwin@msn.com http://blogs.zis.ch/johnblog
Kevin Braunschweig kbraunschweig@gmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/kbraunschweig12
Dig Jou
Anderson, Geneve ganderson@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/ganderson/
Ashmore, Michael ashmore.mike@googlemail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/mashmore/
Baldauf-Lenschen, Marie mbl2504@hotmail.de http://blogs.zis.ch/mbaldauf/
Der Weduwe, Lisa super_lia_loves_chili@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/thewidow/
Engler, Sarah sarah_engler_29@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/sengler/
Glasenberg, Gil gglasenberg@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/gglasenberg/
Grossmann, Haran harang533@gmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/lolcat33/
Harrison-Piller, Julia icequeen1008@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/jharrison
Hetherington, Nicholas nick.hetherington2@gmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/nickhjournalism/
Kim, Keun-Ho kkim@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/kkim/
Kriesemer, Rebecca beckie_007girl@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/journalism/
Lee, Jihye jihye_lee_@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/jlee/
Luedi, Jessica jlludi@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/jludi/
Mittra, Saugata saugatamittra221@gmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/smittra/
Ploos van Amstel, Julius julius.ploos@gmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/jploosvanamstel/wpadmin/
Stephan, Dominic Dominic.Stephan@me.com http://blogs.zis.ch/dstephan/
Thalman, Rachel mmdanceqt5678@aim.com http://blogs.zis.ch/rachel/
van der Weijde, Philip pweijde@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/pweijde/
Youd, Josephine callmecrazy94@yahoo.com http://blogs.zis.ch/jojournalism
Ashmore, Michael ashmore.mike@googlemail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/mashmore/
Baldauf-Lenschen, Marie mbl2504@hotmail.de http://blogs.zis.ch/mbaldauf/
Der Weduwe, Lisa super_lia_loves_chili@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/thewidow/
Engler, Sarah sarah_engler_29@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/sengler/
Glasenberg, Gil gglasenberg@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/gglasenberg/
Grossmann, Haran harang533@gmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/lolcat33/
Harrison-Piller, Julia icequeen1008@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/jharrison
Hetherington, Nicholas nick.hetherington2@gmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/nickhjournalism/
Kim, Keun-Ho kkim@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/kkim/
Kriesemer, Rebecca beckie_007girl@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/journalism/
Lee, Jihye jihye_lee_@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/jlee/
Luedi, Jessica jlludi@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/jludi/
Mittra, Saugata saugatamittra221@gmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/smittra/
Ploos van Amstel, Julius julius.ploos@gmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/jploosvanamstel/wpadmin/
Stephan, Dominic Dominic.Stephan@me.com http://blogs.zis.ch/dstephan/
Thalman, Rachel mmdanceqt5678@aim.com http://blogs.zis.ch/rachel/
van der Weijde, Philip pweijde@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/pweijde/
Youd, Josephine callmecrazy94@yahoo.com http://blogs.zis.ch/jojournalism
12 C
Mish http://blogs.zis.ch/mishblog/
Baigorri Ignacio nacho_esp14@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/ignaciosblog/
Paquier Arthur chinchan63@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/arthur
Hetherington Nick nick.hetherington2@gmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/nickh/
Grossmann Yuval yuvalpro@gmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/ygrossmann/
Peter Julia julipuli100@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/english12julia/
mish Geneve ganderson@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/ganderson2/
Dizdari Skerdilajd sk_diz_2006@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/sdizdari
Bloch Stefan ibiza-party@hotmail.com http://engrish12.blogspot.com/
Brendle, Laura http://blogs.zis.ch/english12brendle
Baigorri Ignacio nacho_esp14@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/ignaciosblog/
Paquier Arthur chinchan63@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/arthur
Hetherington Nick nick.hetherington2@gmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/nickh/
Grossmann Yuval yuvalpro@gmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/ygrossmann/
Peter Julia julipuli100@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/english12julia/
mish Geneve ganderson@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/ganderson2/
Dizdari Skerdilajd sk_diz_2006@hotmail.com http://blogs.zis.ch/sdizdari
Bloch Stefan ibiza-party@hotmail.com http://engrish12.blogspot.com/
Brendle, Laura http://blogs.zis.ch/english12brendle
A2 11
Lobjanidze Ika ilobjanidze@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/ilobjanidzeenglisha2/
De Wit Michelle mdewit@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/michelleenglisha2
Schmidt Esther eschmidt@zis.ch http://eschmidtenglisha2.blogspot.com
Westin Hanna hwestin@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/hannaenglishblog/
Esengrini Michela mesengrini@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/michelaenglisha2/
Balboni Nora nbalboni@zis.ch http://nora-thea2.blogspot.com/
John Alex ajohn@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/ajohnenglish/
Antoniazzi Marina mantoniazzi@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/mantoniazzienglisha2/
Frisch Sebastian sfrisch@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/sfrischenglisha2/
Nowotny Nicki nnowotny@zis.ch http://mirbruchetbass.blogspot.com/
Proglhof Gustavo gproglhof@zis.ch http://gproglhofenglishblog.blogspot.com/
Eble Sarah seble@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/sebleenglisha2/
Jansen Maximilian mjansen@zis.ch http://maximilian-nailimixam.blogspot.com
Dieter Silvia sdieter@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/sdieterenglisha2/
Beilke Melanie mbeilke@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/mbeilkeenglisha2/
Buhler Vincent vbuehler@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/vbuehlerenglisha2/
Carl Varnauskas http://blogs.zis.ch/cvarnauskas/
De Wit Michelle mdewit@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/michelleenglisha2
Schmidt Esther eschmidt@zis.ch http://eschmidtenglisha2.blogspot.com
Westin Hanna hwestin@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/hannaenglishblog/
Esengrini Michela mesengrini@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/michelaenglisha2/
Balboni Nora nbalboni@zis.ch http://nora-thea2.blogspot.com/
John Alex ajohn@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/ajohnenglish/
Antoniazzi Marina mantoniazzi@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/mantoniazzienglisha2/
Frisch Sebastian sfrisch@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/sfrischenglisha2/
Nowotny Nicki nnowotny@zis.ch http://mirbruchetbass.blogspot.com/
Proglhof Gustavo gproglhof@zis.ch http://gproglhofenglishblog.blogspot.com/
Eble Sarah seble@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/sebleenglisha2/
Jansen Maximilian mjansen@zis.ch http://maximilian-nailimixam.blogspot.com
Dieter Silvia sdieter@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/sdieterenglisha2/
Beilke Melanie mbeilke@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/mbeilkeenglisha2/
Buhler Vincent vbuehler@zis.ch http://blogs.zis.ch/vbuehlerenglisha2/
Carl Varnauskas http://blogs.zis.ch/cvarnauskas/
A2 10
Lisa
http://socksrocker.blogspot.com/
Helene
http://mcralphlauren.blogspot.com/
Jabbo
http://bloggelbob.blogspot.com/
Christian E
http://ranzgruppe.blogspot.com/
Christian C
http://ibengrish.blogspot.com/
Emil
http://moldovaisthebest.blogspot.com/
Maren
http://keinohrhase8.blogspot.com/
Anna-Theresa
http://shiatzu-wurstbrot.blogspot.com/
Eleonora
http://pencils4life.blogspot.com/
Aleya
http://www.ggpritt.blogspot.com/
Andrea
http://www.toblerone091.blogspot.com/
Laura
http://andanotherone-lng.blogspot.com/
Melissa
http://melblupe.blogspot.com/
Virginia
http://thibavanavi.blogspot.com/
http://socksrocker.blogspot.com/
Helene
http://mcralphlauren.blogspot.com/
Jabbo
http://bloggelbob.blogspot.com/
Christian E
http://ranzgruppe.blogspot.com/
Christian C
http://ibengrish.blogspot.com/
Emil
http://moldovaisthebest.blogspot.com/
Maren
http://keinohrhase8.blogspot.com/
Anna-Theresa
http://shiatzu-wurstbrot.blogspot.com/
Eleonora
http://pencils4life.blogspot.com/
Aleya
http://www.ggpritt.blogspot.com/
Andrea
http://www.toblerone091.blogspot.com/
Laura
http://andanotherone-lng.blogspot.com/
Melissa
http://melblupe.blogspot.com/
Virginia
http://thibavanavi.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, 25 August 2009
Persuasion Analysis
a very interesting site, chocablock with stuff on rhretoric persuasion and advertising
initially a bit troublesome to negotiate....
http://webserve.govst.edu/users/ghrank/
initially a bit troublesome to negotiate....
http://webserve.govst.edu/users/ghrank/
Breaking the News
Television news unit from channel 4
http://www.channel4.com/learning/breakingthenews/index.html
the news editing tool is worth looking at also
http://www.channel4.com/learning/breakingthenews/schools/toolsandresources/treseqeditingtool.html
http://www.channel4.com/learning/breakingthenews/index.html
the news editing tool is worth looking at also
http://www.channel4.com/learning/breakingthenews/schools/toolsandresources/treseqeditingtool.html
wordspy
cool site for new words
http://www.wordspy.com/
today there's
Wikipedia kid
n. A student who has poor research skills and lacks the ability to think critically.
intexticated
adj. Preoccupied by reading or sending text messages, particularly while driving a car.—intexticating pp.—intextication n.
frequency illusion
n. The tendency to notice instances of a particular phenomenon once one starts to look for it, and to therefore believe erroneously that the phenomenon occurs frequently.
SPF creep
n. The gradual increase in sun protection factor (SPF) numbers in sunscreens and some cosmetic products.
http://www.wordspy.com/
today there's
Wikipedia kid
n. A student who has poor research skills and lacks the ability to think critically.
intexticated
adj. Preoccupied by reading or sending text messages, particularly while driving a car.—intexticating pp.—intextication n.
frequency illusion
n. The tendency to notice instances of a particular phenomenon once one starts to look for it, and to therefore believe erroneously that the phenomenon occurs frequently.
SPF creep
n. The gradual increase in sun protection factor (SPF) numbers in sunscreens and some cosmetic products.
Jump the Shark
jump the shark
v. In a television show, to include an over-the-top scene or plot twist that is indicative either of an irreversible decline in the show's quality or of a desperate bid to stem the show's declining ratings. Also: JTS.—jump-the-shark adj.—jumping the shark pp.
Example Citations:
On the day of its final episode, we ponder: Just when did "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" jump the shark?
A. When bad-boy lover vampire Angel left for his own series.
B. When sidekick Willow discovered she was a lesbian.
C. When Buffy got a kid sister.
D. When the show moved to UPN.
Maybe each of those was a nail in the coffin, along with the musical episode and Buffy having sex with former vampire nemesis Spike.—Walt Belcher, "Fangs for the memories," Tampa Tribune, May 20, 2003
The phrase "jump the shark" has enjoyed such a vogue in recent months, I'm surprised it didn't turn up on the list of overused words and expressions put out by Lake Superior State University this month.
Yet, your friendly neighborhood TV critic feels compelled to point out that one of the reasons the term is used so much is it's just so useful. Coined by Jon Hein at the University of Michigan back in the '80s, it refers to the moment when something — particularly a TV series — peaks and begins to go downhill into self-parody and decay. It originally referred to the "Happy Days" episode in which Fonzie literally tried to jump a shark in a daredevil water-skiing stunt.
Me, I think "Happy Days" jumped the shark a lot earlier than that — like when Richie's older brother, Chuck, conveniently disappeared after the first season — but "lose the brother" would be even more difficult to explain than "jump the shark."
Anyway, it's obvious to see why the phrase is such a natural for critics. And the concept of if or when a certain series jumped the shark is such a natural source of debate, it has produced a cottage industry for Hein in the form of a trademarked Web site and now a companion book, "Jump the Shark: When Good Things Go Bad." (My favorite notation on the site is the Chicago viewer who suggested "Bozo's Circus" jumped the shark when Sandy the Tramp left to produce "The Banana Splits.")
So, it being a new year and all, now seems a good time to review the current prime-time programs and which have jumped the shark and when. The official jumptheshark.com Web site helps out with handy categories, such as "I Do" (see weddings, as on "I Dream of Jeannie"), "Exit ... Stage Left" (departures, like Suzanne Somers leaving "Three's Company"), "Same Character, Different Actor" (Dick Sargent replacing Dick York on "Bewitched") and "A Very Special..." as in "A very special 'Blossom'."—Ted Cox, "Jumping the shark," Chicago Daily Herald, January 23, 2003
http://www.wordspy.com/words/jumptheshark.asp
wikipedia has a good description with 18 different ways of 'jumping,' including;
Same Character, Different Actor, replacing a cast member with another actor to play the same role, in an attempt to retain the given character. This is generally the result of the departure of a cast member for any reason—most often (but not always) dissatisfaction with the show or role, or conflicts with members of the show's cast or production team. This category applied to shows where the actor/actress had been associated with a role or had been deemed to be crucial to the show's success or appeal. (Ex: Sarah Chalke replacing Lecy Goranson as Becky Conner on the TV show Roseanne and Daphne Maxwell Reid replacing Janet Hubert-Whitten on The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air)
Exit...Stage Left, when a (usually popular) cast member or character quits or retires. (Ex: John Amos leaving the cast of Good Times, Topher Grace and Ashton Kutcher leaving the cast of That '70s Show, Andre Braugher being forced out of Homicide: Life on the Street, Richard Dean Anderson leaving the cast of Stargate)
Death, when a cast member dies (in real life), particularly if the individual was a popular or important part of the show. (Ex: Phil Hartman's passing and its effect on NewsRadio or Michelle Thomas' death and its effect on Family Matters.)
They did it, in which two main characters have sex, particularly if their sexual tension was deemed part of the show's appeal. (Ex: Who's The Boss? or I Dream of Jeannie or Moonlighting)
Moving the main characters from their familiar surroundings to a new setting, such as a new home or even a new town.
v. In a television show, to include an over-the-top scene or plot twist that is indicative either of an irreversible decline in the show's quality or of a desperate bid to stem the show's declining ratings. Also: JTS.—jump-the-shark adj.—jumping the shark pp.
Example Citations:
On the day of its final episode, we ponder: Just when did "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" jump the shark?
A. When bad-boy lover vampire Angel left for his own series.
B. When sidekick Willow discovered she was a lesbian.
C. When Buffy got a kid sister.
D. When the show moved to UPN.
Maybe each of those was a nail in the coffin, along with the musical episode and Buffy having sex with former vampire nemesis Spike.—Walt Belcher, "Fangs for the memories," Tampa Tribune, May 20, 2003
The phrase "jump the shark" has enjoyed such a vogue in recent months, I'm surprised it didn't turn up on the list of overused words and expressions put out by Lake Superior State University this month.
Yet, your friendly neighborhood TV critic feels compelled to point out that one of the reasons the term is used so much is it's just so useful. Coined by Jon Hein at the University of Michigan back in the '80s, it refers to the moment when something — particularly a TV series — peaks and begins to go downhill into self-parody and decay. It originally referred to the "Happy Days" episode in which Fonzie literally tried to jump a shark in a daredevil water-skiing stunt.
Me, I think "Happy Days" jumped the shark a lot earlier than that — like when Richie's older brother, Chuck, conveniently disappeared after the first season — but "lose the brother" would be even more difficult to explain than "jump the shark."
Anyway, it's obvious to see why the phrase is such a natural for critics. And the concept of if or when a certain series jumped the shark is such a natural source of debate, it has produced a cottage industry for Hein in the form of a trademarked Web site and now a companion book, "Jump the Shark: When Good Things Go Bad." (My favorite notation on the site is the Chicago viewer who suggested "Bozo's Circus" jumped the shark when Sandy the Tramp left to produce "The Banana Splits.")
So, it being a new year and all, now seems a good time to review the current prime-time programs and which have jumped the shark and when. The official jumptheshark.com Web site helps out with handy categories, such as "I Do" (see weddings, as on "I Dream of Jeannie"), "Exit ... Stage Left" (departures, like Suzanne Somers leaving "Three's Company"), "Same Character, Different Actor" (Dick Sargent replacing Dick York on "Bewitched") and "A Very Special..." as in "A very special 'Blossom'."—Ted Cox, "Jumping the shark," Chicago Daily Herald, January 23, 2003
http://www.wordspy.com/words/jumptheshark.asp
wikipedia has a good description with 18 different ways of 'jumping,' including;
Same Character, Different Actor, replacing a cast member with another actor to play the same role, in an attempt to retain the given character. This is generally the result of the departure of a cast member for any reason—most often (but not always) dissatisfaction with the show or role, or conflicts with members of the show's cast or production team. This category applied to shows where the actor/actress had been associated with a role or had been deemed to be crucial to the show's success or appeal. (Ex: Sarah Chalke replacing Lecy Goranson as Becky Conner on the TV show Roseanne and Daphne Maxwell Reid replacing Janet Hubert-Whitten on The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air)
Exit...Stage Left, when a (usually popular) cast member or character quits or retires. (Ex: John Amos leaving the cast of Good Times, Topher Grace and Ashton Kutcher leaving the cast of That '70s Show, Andre Braugher being forced out of Homicide: Life on the Street, Richard Dean Anderson leaving the cast of Stargate)
Death, when a cast member dies (in real life), particularly if the individual was a popular or important part of the show. (Ex: Phil Hartman's passing and its effect on NewsRadio or Michelle Thomas' death and its effect on Family Matters.)
They did it, in which two main characters have sex, particularly if their sexual tension was deemed part of the show's appeal. (Ex: Who's The Boss? or I Dream of Jeannie or Moonlighting)
Moving the main characters from their familiar surroundings to a new setting, such as a new home or even a new town.
word banishment
the ultimate from Lake Superior State
http://www.lssu.edu/banished/
here are some of the 2008 fave's
BACK IN THE DAY – "Back in the day, we used 'back-in-the-day' to mean something really historical. Now you hear ridiculous statements such as 'Back in the day, people used Blackberries without Blue Tooth.'" – Liz Jameson, Tallahassee, Florida.
"This one might've already made the list back in the day, which was a Wednesday, I think." – Tim Bradley, Los Angeles, California.
RANDOM – Popular with teenagers in many places."Over-used and usually out of context, i.e. 'You are so random!' Really? Random is supposed to mean 'by chance.' So what I said was by chance, and not by choice?" – Gabriel Brandel, Farmington Hills, Michigan.
"Outrageous mis- and overuse, mostly by teenagers, i.e. 'This random guy, singing this random song…It was so random.' Grrrrr." – Leigh, Duncan, Galway, Ireland.
"Overuse on a massive scale by my fellow youth. Every event, activity and person can be 'sooo random' as of late. Banish it before I go vigilante." – Ben Martin, Adelaide, South Australia.
"How can a person be random?" – Emma Halpin, Liverpool, Merseyside, United Kingdom.
SWEET – "Too many sweets will make you sick. It became popular with the advent of the television show 'South Park' and by rights should have died of natural causes, but the term continues to cling to life. It is annoying when young children use it and have no idea why, but it really sounds stupid coming from the mouths of adults. Please kill this particular use of an otherwise fine word." – Wayne Braver, Manistique, Michigan
"Youth lingo overuse, similar to 'awesome.' I became sick of this one immediately." – Gordon Johnson, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
DECIMATE – Word-watchers have been calling for the annihilation of this one for several years.
"Used today in reference to widespread destruction or devastation. If you will not banish this word, I ask that its use be 'decimated' (reduced by one-tenth)." – Allan Dregseth, Fargo, North Dakota.
"I nominate 'decimate' as it applies to Man's and Nature's destructive fury and the outcome of sporting contests. Decimate simply means a 10% reduction – no more, no less. It may have derived notoriety because the ancient Romans used decimation as a technique for prisoner of war population reduction or an incentive for under-performing battle units. A group of 10 would be assembled and lots drawn. The nine losers would win and the winner would die at the hands of the losers – a variation on the instant lottery game. Perhaps 'creamed' or 'emulsified' should be substituted. – Mark Dobias, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.
"The word is so overused and misused, people use it when they should be saying 'annihilate.' It's so bad that now there are two definitions, the real one and the one that has taken over like a weed. – Dane, Flowery Branch, Georgia.
"'Decimate' has been turned upside down. It means 'to destroy one tenth,' but people are using it to mean 'to destroy nine tenths.' – David Welch, Venice, Florida.
EMOTIONAL – "Reporters, short on vocabulary, often describe a scene as 'emotional.' Well sure, but which emotion? For a radio reporter to gravely announce, 'There was an emotional send off to Joe Blow' tells me nothing, other than the reporter perceived that the participants acted in an emotional way. For instance: I had an emotional day today. I started out feeling tired and a bit grumpy until I had my coffee. I was distraught over a cat killing a bird on the other side of the street. I was bemused by my reaction to the way nature works. I was intrigued this evening to add a word or two to your suggestions. I was happy to see the words that others had posted. Gosh, this has been an emotional day for me." – Brendan Kennedy, Quesnel, British Columbia, Canada.
POP – "On every single one of the 45,000 decorating shows on cable TV (of which I watch many) there is at LEAST one obligatory use of a phrase such as ... 'the addition of the red really makes it POP.' You know when it's coming ... you mouth it along with the decorator. There must be some other way of describing the addition of an interesting detail." – Barbara, Arlington, Texas.
IT IS WHAT IT IS – "This pointless phrase, uttered initially by athletes on the losing side of a contest, is making its way into general use. It accomplishes the dual feat of adding nothing to the conversation while also being phonetically and thematically redundant." – Jeffrey Skrenes, St. Paul, Minnesota.
"It means absolutely nothing and is mostly a cop out or a way to avoid answering a question in a way that might require genuine thought or insight. Listen to an interview with some coach or athlete in big-time sports and you'll inevitably hear it." – Doug Compo, Brimley, Michigan.
"It seems to be everywhere and pervade every section of any newspaper I read. It reminds me of 'Who is John Galt?' from 'Atlas Shrugged.' It implies an acceptance of the status quo regardless of the circumstances. But it is what it is." – Erik Pauna, Mondovi, Wisconsin.
"Only Yogi Berra should be allowed to utter such a circumlocution." – Jerry Holloway, Belcamp, Maryland.
"This is migrating from primetime 'reality television' and embedding itself into otherwise articulate persons' vocabularies. Of course it is what it is...Otherwise, it wouldn't be what it would have been!" – Steve Olsen, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada.
UNDER THE BUS – "For overuse. I frequently hear this in the cliché-filled sports world, where it's used to describe misplaced blame – i.e. 'After Sunday's loss, the fans threw T.O. under the bus." – Mark R. Hinkston, Racine, Wisconsin.
"Please, just 'blame' them." – Mike Lekan, Kettering, Ohio.
"Just wondering when someone saying something negative became
http://www.lssu.edu/banished/
here are some of the 2008 fave's
BACK IN THE DAY – "Back in the day, we used 'back-in-the-day' to mean something really historical. Now you hear ridiculous statements such as 'Back in the day, people used Blackberries without Blue Tooth.'" – Liz Jameson, Tallahassee, Florida.
"This one might've already made the list back in the day, which was a Wednesday, I think." – Tim Bradley, Los Angeles, California.
RANDOM – Popular with teenagers in many places."Over-used and usually out of context, i.e. 'You are so random!' Really? Random is supposed to mean 'by chance.' So what I said was by chance, and not by choice?" – Gabriel Brandel, Farmington Hills, Michigan.
"Outrageous mis- and overuse, mostly by teenagers, i.e. 'This random guy, singing this random song…It was so random.' Grrrrr." – Leigh, Duncan, Galway, Ireland.
"Overuse on a massive scale by my fellow youth. Every event, activity and person can be 'sooo random' as of late. Banish it before I go vigilante." – Ben Martin, Adelaide, South Australia.
"How can a person be random?" – Emma Halpin, Liverpool, Merseyside, United Kingdom.
SWEET – "Too many sweets will make you sick. It became popular with the advent of the television show 'South Park' and by rights should have died of natural causes, but the term continues to cling to life. It is annoying when young children use it and have no idea why, but it really sounds stupid coming from the mouths of adults. Please kill this particular use of an otherwise fine word." – Wayne Braver, Manistique, Michigan
"Youth lingo overuse, similar to 'awesome.' I became sick of this one immediately." – Gordon Johnson, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
DECIMATE – Word-watchers have been calling for the annihilation of this one for several years.
"Used today in reference to widespread destruction or devastation. If you will not banish this word, I ask that its use be 'decimated' (reduced by one-tenth)." – Allan Dregseth, Fargo, North Dakota.
"I nominate 'decimate' as it applies to Man's and Nature's destructive fury and the outcome of sporting contests. Decimate simply means a 10% reduction – no more, no less. It may have derived notoriety because the ancient Romans used decimation as a technique for prisoner of war population reduction or an incentive for under-performing battle units. A group of 10 would be assembled and lots drawn. The nine losers would win and the winner would die at the hands of the losers – a variation on the instant lottery game. Perhaps 'creamed' or 'emulsified' should be substituted. – Mark Dobias, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.
"The word is so overused and misused, people use it when they should be saying 'annihilate.' It's so bad that now there are two definitions, the real one and the one that has taken over like a weed. – Dane, Flowery Branch, Georgia.
"'Decimate' has been turned upside down. It means 'to destroy one tenth,' but people are using it to mean 'to destroy nine tenths.' – David Welch, Venice, Florida.
EMOTIONAL – "Reporters, short on vocabulary, often describe a scene as 'emotional.' Well sure, but which emotion? For a radio reporter to gravely announce, 'There was an emotional send off to Joe Blow' tells me nothing, other than the reporter perceived that the participants acted in an emotional way. For instance: I had an emotional day today. I started out feeling tired and a bit grumpy until I had my coffee. I was distraught over a cat killing a bird on the other side of the street. I was bemused by my reaction to the way nature works. I was intrigued this evening to add a word or two to your suggestions. I was happy to see the words that others had posted. Gosh, this has been an emotional day for me." – Brendan Kennedy, Quesnel, British Columbia, Canada.
POP – "On every single one of the 45,000 decorating shows on cable TV (of which I watch many) there is at LEAST one obligatory use of a phrase such as ... 'the addition of the red really makes it POP.' You know when it's coming ... you mouth it along with the decorator. There must be some other way of describing the addition of an interesting detail." – Barbara, Arlington, Texas.
IT IS WHAT IT IS – "This pointless phrase, uttered initially by athletes on the losing side of a contest, is making its way into general use. It accomplishes the dual feat of adding nothing to the conversation while also being phonetically and thematically redundant." – Jeffrey Skrenes, St. Paul, Minnesota.
"It means absolutely nothing and is mostly a cop out or a way to avoid answering a question in a way that might require genuine thought or insight. Listen to an interview with some coach or athlete in big-time sports and you'll inevitably hear it." – Doug Compo, Brimley, Michigan.
"It seems to be everywhere and pervade every section of any newspaper I read. It reminds me of 'Who is John Galt?' from 'Atlas Shrugged.' It implies an acceptance of the status quo regardless of the circumstances. But it is what it is." – Erik Pauna, Mondovi, Wisconsin.
"Only Yogi Berra should be allowed to utter such a circumlocution." – Jerry Holloway, Belcamp, Maryland.
"This is migrating from primetime 'reality television' and embedding itself into otherwise articulate persons' vocabularies. Of course it is what it is...Otherwise, it wouldn't be what it would have been!" – Steve Olsen, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada.
UNDER THE BUS – "For overuse. I frequently hear this in the cliché-filled sports world, where it's used to describe misplaced blame – i.e. 'After Sunday's loss, the fans threw T.O. under the bus." – Mark R. Hinkston, Racine, Wisconsin.
"Please, just 'blame' them." – Mike Lekan, Kettering, Ohio.
"Just wondering when someone saying something negative became
Sunday, 25 January 2009
vandals homes geography
while houses are at the centre of Munro's art, they are often places of marginalization in her stories, especially with regard to the women who inhabit them. Accordingly, a consideration of the peripheral visions in Munro's fiction must take into account the connections between gender and space. Munro says that early in her career "there was a feeling that women could write about the freakish, the marginal. [...] I came to feel that was our territory, whereas the mainstream big novel about real life was men's territory. I don't know how I got that feeling of being on the margins; it wasn't that I was pushed there. Maybe it was because I grew up on a margin" ("Art" 255, emph. Munro's). The comment underscores Munro's persistent accentuation of the spatial aspect of concepts such as "territory" and "margin," which critics often deploy primarily as tropes. And, in "Vandals" and other stories, Munro extends the link between gendered and regional marginality to explore the peripheral enspacement of fiction it self, as well as the connections among stories, gender, and space. Munro asks readers to consider ways in which women might stage protest from the margins and what form that protest might take in fiction. Given Munro's house-fiction metonym, this request may even instigate a re-vision of contemporary spatial theory; which has tended to privilege tropes of mobility and deterritorialization. Munro's "Vandals" tells the story of a young woman named Liza, who, with her husband, Warren, visits the empty house of her older friend Bea and goes on a rampage, mutilating the house's interior for reasons that are initially unclean Through a series of flashbacks it becomes apparent that Liza and her brother Kenny used to visit Bea and her husband Ladner when they were children, and that Ladner repeatedly sexually abused them in the forest behind his house. At the most literal level, space is not simply a backdrop for the story; the traversing, invasion, and vandalizing of it are central. The narrative is especially rife with excursions and tours, which are by no means innocuous but which appear as tools of an oppressive masculinity that controls and orders space. Ladner's books, which include The Peninsular War and The Peloponnesian Wars, are reminders that space is not only a site of dispute but an object and tool of it, while Warren's name doubly puns on "warring" and "warren" to underscore further the kinship of space and conflict. In "Vandals' such hostilities arise when men enact their urge to define and dominate otherness through gestures of dividing and enclosing. In order for Ladner to define his own mobile subjectivity, he attempts to make the apiarian-named Bea like the dead animals he puts on display: inert and enclosed. Mobility represents agency in space, and in "Vandals" it is the privilege of men. Peter Parr brings Bea "into an orderly life" through his weekly driving tours (264), Liza's father moves his family nomadically from place to place, Warren drives "his snowmobile" whi le Liza rides (261, emph. mine), and Kenny notably dies in a car crash. Most conspicuously of all, Ladner uses his mobility and familiarity with land to assert authority and discipline others. The tour he gives Bea leaves her feeling lost and powerless; the two conditions often cognate in the story. Bea initially plans to introduce herself to Ladner with a story that she is lost, but her spatial helplessness becomes real when Ladner has her within his space: "He did not slow down for her or help her in any way" (270) and she "couldn't keep track of their direction or get any idea of the layout of the property" (272). Ladner takes pleasure in her vulnerability to a wilderness that he has subdued,...
great resource for all sorts
The Shakespeare resources are but a small taste of what's available here
University of Houston Teachers Institute
http://hti.math.uh.edu/curriculum/units/index.php
examples follow
CURRICULUM UNITS
2008
One Cell to Many: The Dynamics of Life
Great Films and How They Shaped American Politics
African History: Ancient Times to the Atlantic Slave Trade Era
Real Wor(l)d Problems
Everyday Physics: The Way the World Works
Comedy in Literature: Greece to Hollywood
What Does It Mean to be an American? : Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States
2007
Playwriting: Crafting and Adapting Plays for School-Aged Children
World Mythologies
Pre-Columbian Mathematics
Popular Music: A Window to Our Students' Cultures
Weather and Climate Change
Wetland Ecology
2006
Reading the City: Houston in Fiction and Non-Fiction
Exploring the Literary Landscape
Ethics: Science, Philosophy, and the Self
Health Care Law, Policy and Ethics: Understanding American Health Care
The World the Immigrants Made
Photography: Steps Toward Visual Literacy
Creative Writing in the Schools
Probability and Statistics in Everyday Life
2005
Art and Society: How People and Cultures Define and Value the Arts
Structural Engineering: Buildings and Bridges
Chemistry through the Ages: From Alchemy to Molecular Design
Living with Geologic HazardsHealth, Illness, and Medicine in Houston: A Cross-Cultural Exploration
Health, Illness, and Medicine in Houston: A Cross-Cultural Exploration
Latin America Before the Spanish: Pre-Columbian Art, History and Culture
The Medieval World: Life, Thought, Action
Perspectives on the Presidency
Shakespeare and Film
2004
America at War
Beyond Houston: The Literature of Travel and Exploration
Exciting Experiments and the Ethics of Experimentation
Eye On America: Playwrights and American Life and Times
George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber and the American Century
Hands-on Geometry: How We Can Use Geometry to See the World Around Us
The New Houston: New Immigrants, New Ethnicities, and New Inter-Group Relations in American's Fourth-Largest City
The Process of Justice: How American Courts Work from Top to Bottom
Wild Habitats in the Urban Landscape
2003
African American Slavery in the New World: A Different Voice
From FDR's Death to the Resignation of Nixon: America from 1945 to 1974
Heroes and Heroines in History and Imaginative Literature
Literature as Healing Balm: Multicultural Women Writers in America
The Science in Science Fiction
"There's No Place Like Home": Architecture, Technology, Art, and the Culture of the American Home, 1850-1970
The Twentieth Century's Most Significant English-Language Novels for Children and Young Adultsc
Understanding the Wild Things Next Door: The Nature of Houston
2002
Drinking Water: Finding it; Making it Clean; Using it Wisely
Ethnic Music and Performing Arts in Houston
Houston Architecture: Interpreting the City
New Developments in Understanding the Human Body
Reflections on a Few Good Books
Shakespeare's Characters: The Lighter Side
Sports Autobiographies: Mirrors of American Culture
2001
Figuring the Odds: Learning to Live with Life's Uncertanties
Film and American Values Over the Decades
Multicultural Works: The Richness of the Drama of America
Shakespeare Alive!
World Order: What Current Events Tell Us About World Politics
2000
Adolescence and Alienation
Articulating the Creative Experience
Global Warming, Air Pollution, and Great Storms
Immigration and Latinos in the United States
Critical Analysis of Graeco-Roman Myths and Related Contemporary Issues
Jazz History: The Art and its Social Roots
1999
Addressing Evil
Technology and the Discipline of Chemistry
Hollywood Distortions of History
The History, Economic Base, and Politics of Houston
Symmetry, Patterns, and Designs
The United States in the 1960s
University of Houston Teachers Institute
http://hti.math.uh.edu/curriculum/units/index.php
examples follow
CURRICULUM UNITS
2008
One Cell to Many: The Dynamics of Life
Great Films and How They Shaped American Politics
African History: Ancient Times to the Atlantic Slave Trade Era
Real Wor(l)d Problems
Everyday Physics: The Way the World Works
Comedy in Literature: Greece to Hollywood
What Does It Mean to be an American? : Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States
2007
Playwriting: Crafting and Adapting Plays for School-Aged Children
World Mythologies
Pre-Columbian Mathematics
Popular Music: A Window to Our Students' Cultures
Weather and Climate Change
Wetland Ecology
2006
Reading the City: Houston in Fiction and Non-Fiction
Exploring the Literary Landscape
Ethics: Science, Philosophy, and the Self
Health Care Law, Policy and Ethics: Understanding American Health Care
The World the Immigrants Made
Photography: Steps Toward Visual Literacy
Creative Writing in the Schools
Probability and Statistics in Everyday Life
2005
Art and Society: How People and Cultures Define and Value the Arts
Structural Engineering: Buildings and Bridges
Chemistry through the Ages: From Alchemy to Molecular Design
Living with Geologic HazardsHealth, Illness, and Medicine in Houston: A Cross-Cultural Exploration
Health, Illness, and Medicine in Houston: A Cross-Cultural Exploration
Latin America Before the Spanish: Pre-Columbian Art, History and Culture
The Medieval World: Life, Thought, Action
Perspectives on the Presidency
Shakespeare and Film
2004
America at War
Beyond Houston: The Literature of Travel and Exploration
Exciting Experiments and the Ethics of Experimentation
Eye On America: Playwrights and American Life and Times
George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber and the American Century
Hands-on Geometry: How We Can Use Geometry to See the World Around Us
The New Houston: New Immigrants, New Ethnicities, and New Inter-Group Relations in American's Fourth-Largest City
The Process of Justice: How American Courts Work from Top to Bottom
Wild Habitats in the Urban Landscape
2003
African American Slavery in the New World: A Different Voice
From FDR's Death to the Resignation of Nixon: America from 1945 to 1974
Heroes and Heroines in History and Imaginative Literature
Literature as Healing Balm: Multicultural Women Writers in America
The Science in Science Fiction
"There's No Place Like Home": Architecture, Technology, Art, and the Culture of the American Home, 1850-1970
The Twentieth Century's Most Significant English-Language Novels for Children and Young Adultsc
Understanding the Wild Things Next Door: The Nature of Houston
2002
Drinking Water: Finding it; Making it Clean; Using it Wisely
Ethnic Music and Performing Arts in Houston
Houston Architecture: Interpreting the City
New Developments in Understanding the Human Body
Reflections on a Few Good Books
Shakespeare's Characters: The Lighter Side
Sports Autobiographies: Mirrors of American Culture
2001
Figuring the Odds: Learning to Live with Life's Uncertanties
Film and American Values Over the Decades
Multicultural Works: The Richness of the Drama of America
Shakespeare Alive!
World Order: What Current Events Tell Us About World Politics
2000
Adolescence and Alienation
Articulating the Creative Experience
Global Warming, Air Pollution, and Great Storms
Immigration and Latinos in the United States
Critical Analysis of Graeco-Roman Myths and Related Contemporary Issues
Jazz History: The Art and its Social Roots
1999
Addressing Evil
Technology and the Discipline of Chemistry
Hollywood Distortions of History
The History, Economic Base, and Politics of Houston
Symmetry, Patterns, and Designs
The United States in the 1960s
great resources for Hamlet Shakespeare
as seen previously in excerpts
The Language of Hamlet
http://hti.math.uh.edu/curriculum/units/2001/04/01.04.03.php
Making Shakespeare Accessible to the High School Student
http://hti.math.uh.edu/curriculum/units/2001/04/01.04.07.php
The Language of Hamlet
http://hti.math.uh.edu/curriculum/units/2001/04/01.04.03.php
Making Shakespeare Accessible to the High School Student
http://hti.math.uh.edu/curriculum/units/2001/04/01.04.07.php
Flesch-Kincaid
The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Readability Formula
Step 1: Calculate the average number of words used per sentence.
Step 2: Calculate the average number of syllables per word.
Step 3: Multiply the average number of words by 0.39 and add it to the average number of syllables per word multiplied by 11.8.
Step 4: Subtract 15.59 from the result. The specific mathematical formula is: FKRA = (0.39 x ASL) + (11.8 x ASW) - 15.59 Where, FKRA = Flesch-Kincaid Reading Age ASL = Average Sentence Length (i.e., the number of words divided by the number of sentences) ASW = Average number of Syllable per Word (i.e., the number of syllables divided by the number of words)
Analyzing the results is a simple exercise.
For instance, a score of 5.0 indicates a grade-school level; i.e., a score of 9.3 means that a ninth grader would be able to read the document. This score makes it easier for teachers, parents, librarians, and others to judge the readability level of various books and texts for the students. Theoretically, the lowest grade level score could be -3.4, but since there are no real passages that have every sentence consisting of a one-syllable word, it is a highly improbable result in practice.
Step 1: Calculate the average number of words used per sentence.
Step 2: Calculate the average number of syllables per word.
Step 3: Multiply the average number of words by 0.39 and add it to the average number of syllables per word multiplied by 11.8.
Step 4: Subtract 15.59 from the result. The specific mathematical formula is: FKRA = (0.39 x ASL) + (11.8 x ASW) - 15.59 Where, FKRA = Flesch-Kincaid Reading Age ASL = Average Sentence Length (i.e., the number of words divided by the number of sentences) ASW = Average number of Syllable per Word (i.e., the number of syllables divided by the number of words)
Analyzing the results is a simple exercise.
For instance, a score of 5.0 indicates a grade-school level; i.e., a score of 9.3 means that a ninth grader would be able to read the document. This score makes it easier for teachers, parents, librarians, and others to judge the readability level of various books and texts for the students. Theoretically, the lowest grade level score could be -3.4, but since there are no real passages that have every sentence consisting of a one-syllable word, it is a highly improbable result in practice.
Scenes in Hamlet to consider
As we read and analyze Hamlet, there are specific scenes that show particular promise for discussion, including the first Ghost scene with Hamlet, the scene between Hamlet and Ophelia that occurs off stage but is described by Ophelia to Polonius, the scene between Hamlet and his mother, the scene when Hamlet sees the King at prayer, and the Queen’s description of Ophelia’s death.
In the ghost scene, how should the actors approach this scene? Shakespeare’s audiences believed in ghosts and they knew the king was dead, so an actor walking about the stage as the ghost would not have been implausible or laughable to them. The audience wouldn’t need special effects to believe in the ghost. The ghost’s speech would not have to sound as if it came “from the great beyond.”
In the scene with Ophelia and Hamlet (II.1.73-98), the audience only knows Ophelia’s interpretation of the exchange. She is too naïve to realize that Hamlet is only acting, badly acting at that. No one would actually act in the manner she describes. Students should actually act out what she says to see this point.
Another key scene with Ophelia that students can relate to is the one between Ophelia, Laertes, and Polonius. Laertes warns her not to trust Hamlet, that he will only use her. He basically states that men are untrustworthy and only interested in what they can get from a woman. Then her father warns her against Hamlet and uses her to get information. Both Laertes and Polonius stress the fact that as heir to the throne, Hamlet must marry someone who would be good for the state, preferably a princess. Obviously Ophelia does not fulfill the requirement. Later on in the play, Hamlet abuses her, deserts her, and kills her father. No wonder she commits suicide. She is completely alone at her death. She has lost everyone. Her father is dead, killed by her lover; her lover told her he didn’t really love her and has left town; and her brother is out of the country. Poor Ophelia is truly the most tragic figure in the play.
In Act III, scene 4, the dialogue between Hamlet and his mother in her room or “closet” consists of rapidly alternating single lines that show a “head on clash, each [character] intensely sensitive to the other’s thoughts and feelings” (Gibson and Pickering, 68). In the graveyard scene, the fast paced dialogue between Hamlet and the gravedigger is used for humor, but in this scene it is used to show the tension between Hamlet and Gertrude. This scene is also problematic because of the film versions that create a sexual tension between Hamlet and his mother. Several authors and filmmakers have commented on the so-called Oedipal complex of Hamlet, but nowhere in the text is this seen. Whether or not there is any real or imagined incest between Hamlet and his mother would make a good debate topic at this point in the reading of the play.
In Act III, scene 2, Hamlet sees the King at prayer, or what he thinks is at prayer. The King wants to pray, and it looks like he is. Hamlet wants to kill him, and he is armed and ready. However, there is almost a stop-action. Hamlet is poised for the kill and then cannot do it. He cannot kill Claudius for more than religious reasons. Granted, Hamlet does not want Claudius killed while praying, enabling Claudius to go to heaven, but there are other reasons. For one thing, dramatically, this would be too easy and undramatic. If Hamlet killed Claudius now, there would be no need for all of the deaths later in the play, no “free-for-all” at the end (Goldman, 245-6). Hamlet has spent so much time trying to prove Claudius’ guilt that he doesn’t know what to do now that he has proved it.
When Ophelia commits suicide, the scene is not enacted on the stage. Instead, Gertrude relates the manner of Ophelia’s death to Claudius and to Laertes, Ophelia’s brother (IV.7.190-208). Gertrude’s lyric and romantic rendition of Ophelia’s death reveals something of Gertrude’s character. On first glance, the speech seems romantic and melodramatic. However, if Ophelia died alone, how did Gertrude know all of the small details that she relates in this speech? One possibility is that she witnessed the suicide. If so, the question becomes, why did she do nothing to stop Ophelia? Was she too shocked to act? Doubtful. Was she envious of Ophelia? Perhaps. Does Gertrude wish to die in this romantic way? Maybe. Like Ophelia, Gertrude has no real power or sense of self in the play. She is a product of her time, a time when women were exploited and controlled by men. Her short line, “Drown’d, drown’d” (IV.7.210), seems wistful, as if she were reliving the scene in her mind.
In general, Hamlet is a character that is floundering. He does not know what he feels or what to do. He is a character torn between being a medieval avenger and what he would consider a modern hero. [As a medieval avenger, his father fought old Fortinbras in single combat. Claudius uses more modern and diplomatic methods in sending ambassadors to Norway’s king in order to prevent a war.] What should Hamlet do? Who should he believe? A ghost? His mother? His uncle? Ophelia? He wants to be a hero, but he does not know how. At the end, he matures and no longer fears death. He says to Horatio about the possibility of death in his duel with Laertes, “If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all” (V.2.233-236). The duel also gives the play an energized finale. There is revenge, dueling, murder, a poisoned chalice, deceit, and forgiveness—all in the final scene. In the end, Hamlet acts without hesitation and confusion. He wants Horatio to live to let the world know the truth (McEvoy, 188-189; Epstein, 329-331).
In the ghost scene, how should the actors approach this scene? Shakespeare’s audiences believed in ghosts and they knew the king was dead, so an actor walking about the stage as the ghost would not have been implausible or laughable to them. The audience wouldn’t need special effects to believe in the ghost. The ghost’s speech would not have to sound as if it came “from the great beyond.”
In the scene with Ophelia and Hamlet (II.1.73-98), the audience only knows Ophelia’s interpretation of the exchange. She is too naïve to realize that Hamlet is only acting, badly acting at that. No one would actually act in the manner she describes. Students should actually act out what she says to see this point.
Another key scene with Ophelia that students can relate to is the one between Ophelia, Laertes, and Polonius. Laertes warns her not to trust Hamlet, that he will only use her. He basically states that men are untrustworthy and only interested in what they can get from a woman. Then her father warns her against Hamlet and uses her to get information. Both Laertes and Polonius stress the fact that as heir to the throne, Hamlet must marry someone who would be good for the state, preferably a princess. Obviously Ophelia does not fulfill the requirement. Later on in the play, Hamlet abuses her, deserts her, and kills her father. No wonder she commits suicide. She is completely alone at her death. She has lost everyone. Her father is dead, killed by her lover; her lover told her he didn’t really love her and has left town; and her brother is out of the country. Poor Ophelia is truly the most tragic figure in the play.
In Act III, scene 4, the dialogue between Hamlet and his mother in her room or “closet” consists of rapidly alternating single lines that show a “head on clash, each [character] intensely sensitive to the other’s thoughts and feelings” (Gibson and Pickering, 68). In the graveyard scene, the fast paced dialogue between Hamlet and the gravedigger is used for humor, but in this scene it is used to show the tension between Hamlet and Gertrude. This scene is also problematic because of the film versions that create a sexual tension between Hamlet and his mother. Several authors and filmmakers have commented on the so-called Oedipal complex of Hamlet, but nowhere in the text is this seen. Whether or not there is any real or imagined incest between Hamlet and his mother would make a good debate topic at this point in the reading of the play.
In Act III, scene 2, Hamlet sees the King at prayer, or what he thinks is at prayer. The King wants to pray, and it looks like he is. Hamlet wants to kill him, and he is armed and ready. However, there is almost a stop-action. Hamlet is poised for the kill and then cannot do it. He cannot kill Claudius for more than religious reasons. Granted, Hamlet does not want Claudius killed while praying, enabling Claudius to go to heaven, but there are other reasons. For one thing, dramatically, this would be too easy and undramatic. If Hamlet killed Claudius now, there would be no need for all of the deaths later in the play, no “free-for-all” at the end (Goldman, 245-6). Hamlet has spent so much time trying to prove Claudius’ guilt that he doesn’t know what to do now that he has proved it.
When Ophelia commits suicide, the scene is not enacted on the stage. Instead, Gertrude relates the manner of Ophelia’s death to Claudius and to Laertes, Ophelia’s brother (IV.7.190-208). Gertrude’s lyric and romantic rendition of Ophelia’s death reveals something of Gertrude’s character. On first glance, the speech seems romantic and melodramatic. However, if Ophelia died alone, how did Gertrude know all of the small details that she relates in this speech? One possibility is that she witnessed the suicide. If so, the question becomes, why did she do nothing to stop Ophelia? Was she too shocked to act? Doubtful. Was she envious of Ophelia? Perhaps. Does Gertrude wish to die in this romantic way? Maybe. Like Ophelia, Gertrude has no real power or sense of self in the play. She is a product of her time, a time when women were exploited and controlled by men. Her short line, “Drown’d, drown’d” (IV.7.210), seems wistful, as if she were reliving the scene in her mind.
In general, Hamlet is a character that is floundering. He does not know what he feels or what to do. He is a character torn between being a medieval avenger and what he would consider a modern hero. [As a medieval avenger, his father fought old Fortinbras in single combat. Claudius uses more modern and diplomatic methods in sending ambassadors to Norway’s king in order to prevent a war.] What should Hamlet do? Who should he believe? A ghost? His mother? His uncle? Ophelia? He wants to be a hero, but he does not know how. At the end, he matures and no longer fears death. He says to Horatio about the possibility of death in his duel with Laertes, “If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all” (V.2.233-236). The duel also gives the play an energized finale. There is revenge, dueling, murder, a poisoned chalice, deceit, and forgiveness—all in the final scene. In the end, Hamlet acts without hesitation and confusion. He wants Horatio to live to let the world know the truth (McEvoy, 188-189; Epstein, 329-331).
Hamlet Fatal Flaw
THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC: THE TRAGIC FLAW
Contrasting Hamlet with Macbeth clarifies one major reason why Prince Hamlet’s tragedy raises so many questions. Macbeth’s “tragic flaw” is clearly excessive ambition. He says that he is ambitious more than once, and Lady Macbeth adds ample support to that interpretation of Macbeth’s character. Her domination of her husband in the play exploits that flaw. We English teachers all know that a tragic hero must fall from the effects of a major character flaw (plus outside forces), and Shakespeare knows well how to play this game. But in Hamlet he makes his protagonist more intriguing by making it more difficult for the audience to decide what Hamlet’s flaw might be. Hamlet introduces the idea in Act1, Scene 4, when he speaks of the “vicious mole of nature,” “the stamp of one defect” that can bring a person “otherwise as pure as grace” to “his own scandal” (24-38). The ghost of the dead King Hamlet appears immediately and informs Prince Hamlet that his father was murdered by the king’s brother, Claudius, now king and married to the queen, Hamlet’s mother. Of course Hamlet’s resentment of the marriage of Claudius to Gertrude is one of the first things we learn about the prince, but the major thrust of the play focuses more on why Hamlet “fails” to exact the revenge demanded by the ghost. Hamlet asks this question multiple times, giving possible reasons that range from “bestial oblivion” to over-intellectualizing, from cowardice to lack of honor (“O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!”). This element of the play is emphasized by the actions of other characters. Hamlet’s strategy for finding the truth (his pretended madness) causes other characters simultaneously to delve in their own analyses—attempts to explain Hamlet’s behavior. Ophelia, Polonius, Claudius, and Gertrude each offer interpretations that range from love (“mad for thy love?”) to grief for his father’s death and resentment of his uncle’s and mother’s “o’erhasty marriage.”
Part of my approach to the play is certainly traditional. Its primary focus is to attempt to explain Hamlet’s tragic flaw. I find it beneficial to introduce my students to a variety of critical interpretations with the following handout, which includes several inserts in a lighter tone to get them to think about the handout on more than one level:
Is Shakespeare giving us a philosophical or a psychological argument in Hamlet and its tragic hero? Does Hamlet fail to act in time because the world is arguably beyond our effective comprehension? because he has a particular psychological problem, such as an Oedipus Complex? or because his character is too weak for the task--he is a coward, a ditherer, or a dullard and dolt? [Editor's note: The observant in the crowd will notice that this lesson contains either two or three sentences at this point. The first starts with the word "is," the second with the word "does." Is the next sentence, which begins with the word "editor" in the possessive form, part of "the lesson" or is it the beginning of a second lesson--perhaps something about sentences and paragraphs, or punctuation, or positioning editor's notes, or how to end a sentence inside brackets!] Is Hamlet a strong character or a weak one? How does the Laurence Olivier production present him and explain his delays? How does the Mel Gibson Hamlet play? How do you explain them? [Editor's note: Why is the above paragraph written in present tense?] [Editor's note: Should any or all of these editor's notes appear as footnotes rather than insertions?] [Editor's note: Does the author of the note appear to believe his audience is capable of learning more than one thing in one day?] [Editor's note: How many lessons are here? How many sentences? How many editors?!]
HAMLET'S TRAGIC FLAW: Is Hamlet's distress understandable? Why does he fail to act until too late? Some of the most important interpretations of Hamlet's tragic flaw are:
Goethe: The great German poet argued that Hamlet is not brave enough. He lacks the "right stuff." The dramatic situation is like an acorn (the problem) planted in a cracked vase (Hamlet). As the problem grows, Hamlet becomes less sound.
A.C. Bradley: This famous Shakespeare scholar said that Hamlet suffers from melancholia or is merely mentally deranged.
Ernest Jones: The Freudian interpretation--Oedipus complex. He still has a childish sexual fixation on Gertrude. Thus, his attitude toward Claudius is ambivalent; he is grateful to Claudius for removing his "rival" for his mother's affections (King Hamlet) but must also resent him as his new father-figure.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Hamlet's delay is caused by "the effect of a superfluous activity of thought." He thinks too much because he is too elevated for this world, has too fine a character.
A more general interpretation is that Hamlet does not have a flaw. He is merely waiting for the ghost to be proven honest or not. In this he may be seen as a twentieth century existentialist hero. He is faced with a problem whose answer may lie beyond the limits of human reason--or in fact may not have an answer. It is this limitation, and the uncertainty it produces, that makes Hamlet "unstable."
Helen Gardner: Hamlet is a true revenge play: In a typical revenge play the protagonist must kill the slayer of his relative or friend in the most terrible way possible.
a. The hero faces a predicament not of his own making.
b. The villain provides the means for the vengeance (Claudius suggests the duel).
c. The avenger conceives a plot and puts it into action.
d. Usually the hero descends to the moral level of the man being punished (a mild
irony) with a terrible revenge scheme (Hamlet may not do this).
e. The denouement of Hamlet shows a "profound" irony: Claudius plans Hamlet's death, but both he and his queen die. The tragedy here does not lie in the unfitness of the hero for his task. He, according to Gardner, has no flaw. The flaw is in the task itself (is it beyond any man?) or in the nature of the world (is perfect justice impossible in the world?). The task itself is one only a hero would feel called upon to undertake--like charging the machine gun nest to save your buddies, raising children, teaching English.
Productions of the play generally use one or more of the above interpretations to present Hamlet’s character. (Both the Laurence Olivier and the Mel Gibson Hamlets are products of Ernest Jones’ argument that Hamlet suffers an Oedipus Complex.) Although I have shown both of these films and the Kenneth Branaugh version in their entirety—at different times—the Mel Gibson film is the shortest (135 minutes) and perhaps the most accessible for the students. Scenes ranging from the opening scene to the poison-duel resolution could be chosen for contrast, but I prefer Act 3, Scene 4, where Hamlet kills Polonius and the ghost appears. This scene is the play’s climax and involves whatever interpretation of the tragic flaw the actor chooses. A scene that could be chosen just to show contrasts in staging is Act 3, Scene 3, where Claudius is attempting to pray.
A study of Hamlet’s tragic flaw certainly does not exhaust the attractions of this play. Other characters die—are their deaths justified? King Hamlet has called upon his son for revenge, but the biblical imagery within the play surely reminds us that revenge is the province of the divine and raises the question, is the Ghost’s very request somehow wrong? (Hamlet initially questions the prudence of heeding the ghost’s demand.) Why do Gertrude and Ophelia so willingly give in to the authority of the males? Should Hamlet’s friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern die for helping the king and queen? Does Polonius deserve to die when hiding behind the arras?
SHAKESPEARE’S THEMES
An equally direct approach to the play is possible through a study of Shakespeare’s themes. This can be the basis for a closer study of the language Shakespeare chooses for his text. In Macbeth Shakespeare makes use of an idea Alexander Pope will later call the Great Chain of Being. Everything that exists has a place in an orderly universe that ranges from the lowest being (Aristotle identified it as “unformed matter”) to the highest (God). Man’s immoral acts upset that chain and cause disruptions in Nature. (A twentieth century Hollywood movie, Shane, may make use of that idea in the fight scene between Shane and his host—both good men—when they clash over who will face the bad gunman in town. The sky outside the cabin grows dark, apparently because good men are fighting each other rather than evil, and clears again when the victorious Shane rides to the gunfight.) In a much more exaggerated fashion Shakespeare has the unnatural acts of Macbeth disturb the heavens and cause animals to behave unnaturally (horses are reported to eat each other on the night the king is killed). Hamlet alludes to this concept only once, when talking of Rome, Julius Caesar, and the “sheeted dead” that roamed the streets in the days before Caesar’s assassination. In Hamlet Shakespeare explores the idea in a more “realistic” manner. The kingdom is disturbed politically and morally. Denmark is preparing for war, a ghost appears early in the play, and the king and queen are united in an incestuous relationship!
Other religious ideas dominate the play. The king’s death, related in the play by the ghost, invokes the Garden of Eden of Genesis. The king is asleep in the “orchard” (garden) and is supposedly bitten by a snake when Claudius poisons him. The act of brother killing brother recalls another story from Genesis, Cain killing Abel, which Claudius echoes in the famous prayer scene (3.3). This echoes in Hamlet’s declaration that the world is “an unweeded garden” and is part of the background that heightens Hamlet’s reasoning when he is debating whether to kill Claudius as he is “praying” and is significant in the drama’s distinctions between appearance and reality.
The method Claudius chooses to kill his brother provides a central metaphor for the kingdom being “poisoned”; poison and its effects provide much of the most effective language in the play, from “unweeded garden” (1.2.135) and “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (1.4.90) of Act 1 to the poisoned pearl of Act 5. But the dramatic uses of poison are even more striking. From the murder of the king to the “poisoned” plot of Laertes and Claudius, from the poisoned mind of the mad Ophelia to the poisoning of Hamlet and the death of Claudius by poisoned sword and poisoned pearl, Shakespeare has wonderfully illustrated the consequences of the ambitious murder of Kind Hamlet by Claudius.
Contrasting Hamlet with Macbeth clarifies one major reason why Prince Hamlet’s tragedy raises so many questions. Macbeth’s “tragic flaw” is clearly excessive ambition. He says that he is ambitious more than once, and Lady Macbeth adds ample support to that interpretation of Macbeth’s character. Her domination of her husband in the play exploits that flaw. We English teachers all know that a tragic hero must fall from the effects of a major character flaw (plus outside forces), and Shakespeare knows well how to play this game. But in Hamlet he makes his protagonist more intriguing by making it more difficult for the audience to decide what Hamlet’s flaw might be. Hamlet introduces the idea in Act1, Scene 4, when he speaks of the “vicious mole of nature,” “the stamp of one defect” that can bring a person “otherwise as pure as grace” to “his own scandal” (24-38). The ghost of the dead King Hamlet appears immediately and informs Prince Hamlet that his father was murdered by the king’s brother, Claudius, now king and married to the queen, Hamlet’s mother. Of course Hamlet’s resentment of the marriage of Claudius to Gertrude is one of the first things we learn about the prince, but the major thrust of the play focuses more on why Hamlet “fails” to exact the revenge demanded by the ghost. Hamlet asks this question multiple times, giving possible reasons that range from “bestial oblivion” to over-intellectualizing, from cowardice to lack of honor (“O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!”). This element of the play is emphasized by the actions of other characters. Hamlet’s strategy for finding the truth (his pretended madness) causes other characters simultaneously to delve in their own analyses—attempts to explain Hamlet’s behavior. Ophelia, Polonius, Claudius, and Gertrude each offer interpretations that range from love (“mad for thy love?”) to grief for his father’s death and resentment of his uncle’s and mother’s “o’erhasty marriage.”
Part of my approach to the play is certainly traditional. Its primary focus is to attempt to explain Hamlet’s tragic flaw. I find it beneficial to introduce my students to a variety of critical interpretations with the following handout, which includes several inserts in a lighter tone to get them to think about the handout on more than one level:
Is Shakespeare giving us a philosophical or a psychological argument in Hamlet and its tragic hero? Does Hamlet fail to act in time because the world is arguably beyond our effective comprehension? because he has a particular psychological problem, such as an Oedipus Complex? or because his character is too weak for the task--he is a coward, a ditherer, or a dullard and dolt? [Editor's note: The observant in the crowd will notice that this lesson contains either two or three sentences at this point. The first starts with the word "is," the second with the word "does." Is the next sentence, which begins with the word "editor" in the possessive form, part of "the lesson" or is it the beginning of a second lesson--perhaps something about sentences and paragraphs, or punctuation, or positioning editor's notes, or how to end a sentence inside brackets!] Is Hamlet a strong character or a weak one? How does the Laurence Olivier production present him and explain his delays? How does the Mel Gibson Hamlet play? How do you explain them? [Editor's note: Why is the above paragraph written in present tense?] [Editor's note: Should any or all of these editor's notes appear as footnotes rather than insertions?] [Editor's note: Does the author of the note appear to believe his audience is capable of learning more than one thing in one day?] [Editor's note: How many lessons are here? How many sentences? How many editors?!]
HAMLET'S TRAGIC FLAW: Is Hamlet's distress understandable? Why does he fail to act until too late? Some of the most important interpretations of Hamlet's tragic flaw are:
Goethe: The great German poet argued that Hamlet is not brave enough. He lacks the "right stuff." The dramatic situation is like an acorn (the problem) planted in a cracked vase (Hamlet). As the problem grows, Hamlet becomes less sound.
A.C. Bradley: This famous Shakespeare scholar said that Hamlet suffers from melancholia or is merely mentally deranged.
Ernest Jones: The Freudian interpretation--Oedipus complex. He still has a childish sexual fixation on Gertrude. Thus, his attitude toward Claudius is ambivalent; he is grateful to Claudius for removing his "rival" for his mother's affections (King Hamlet) but must also resent him as his new father-figure.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Hamlet's delay is caused by "the effect of a superfluous activity of thought." He thinks too much because he is too elevated for this world, has too fine a character.
A more general interpretation is that Hamlet does not have a flaw. He is merely waiting for the ghost to be proven honest or not. In this he may be seen as a twentieth century existentialist hero. He is faced with a problem whose answer may lie beyond the limits of human reason--or in fact may not have an answer. It is this limitation, and the uncertainty it produces, that makes Hamlet "unstable."
Helen Gardner: Hamlet is a true revenge play: In a typical revenge play the protagonist must kill the slayer of his relative or friend in the most terrible way possible.
a. The hero faces a predicament not of his own making.
b. The villain provides the means for the vengeance (Claudius suggests the duel).
c. The avenger conceives a plot and puts it into action.
d. Usually the hero descends to the moral level of the man being punished (a mild
irony) with a terrible revenge scheme (Hamlet may not do this).
e. The denouement of Hamlet shows a "profound" irony: Claudius plans Hamlet's death, but both he and his queen die. The tragedy here does not lie in the unfitness of the hero for his task. He, according to Gardner, has no flaw. The flaw is in the task itself (is it beyond any man?) or in the nature of the world (is perfect justice impossible in the world?). The task itself is one only a hero would feel called upon to undertake--like charging the machine gun nest to save your buddies, raising children, teaching English.
Productions of the play generally use one or more of the above interpretations to present Hamlet’s character. (Both the Laurence Olivier and the Mel Gibson Hamlets are products of Ernest Jones’ argument that Hamlet suffers an Oedipus Complex.) Although I have shown both of these films and the Kenneth Branaugh version in their entirety—at different times—the Mel Gibson film is the shortest (135 minutes) and perhaps the most accessible for the students. Scenes ranging from the opening scene to the poison-duel resolution could be chosen for contrast, but I prefer Act 3, Scene 4, where Hamlet kills Polonius and the ghost appears. This scene is the play’s climax and involves whatever interpretation of the tragic flaw the actor chooses. A scene that could be chosen just to show contrasts in staging is Act 3, Scene 3, where Claudius is attempting to pray.
A study of Hamlet’s tragic flaw certainly does not exhaust the attractions of this play. Other characters die—are their deaths justified? King Hamlet has called upon his son for revenge, but the biblical imagery within the play surely reminds us that revenge is the province of the divine and raises the question, is the Ghost’s very request somehow wrong? (Hamlet initially questions the prudence of heeding the ghost’s demand.) Why do Gertrude and Ophelia so willingly give in to the authority of the males? Should Hamlet’s friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern die for helping the king and queen? Does Polonius deserve to die when hiding behind the arras?
SHAKESPEARE’S THEMES
An equally direct approach to the play is possible through a study of Shakespeare’s themes. This can be the basis for a closer study of the language Shakespeare chooses for his text. In Macbeth Shakespeare makes use of an idea Alexander Pope will later call the Great Chain of Being. Everything that exists has a place in an orderly universe that ranges from the lowest being (Aristotle identified it as “unformed matter”) to the highest (God). Man’s immoral acts upset that chain and cause disruptions in Nature. (A twentieth century Hollywood movie, Shane, may make use of that idea in the fight scene between Shane and his host—both good men—when they clash over who will face the bad gunman in town. The sky outside the cabin grows dark, apparently because good men are fighting each other rather than evil, and clears again when the victorious Shane rides to the gunfight.) In a much more exaggerated fashion Shakespeare has the unnatural acts of Macbeth disturb the heavens and cause animals to behave unnaturally (horses are reported to eat each other on the night the king is killed). Hamlet alludes to this concept only once, when talking of Rome, Julius Caesar, and the “sheeted dead” that roamed the streets in the days before Caesar’s assassination. In Hamlet Shakespeare explores the idea in a more “realistic” manner. The kingdom is disturbed politically and morally. Denmark is preparing for war, a ghost appears early in the play, and the king and queen are united in an incestuous relationship!
Other religious ideas dominate the play. The king’s death, related in the play by the ghost, invokes the Garden of Eden of Genesis. The king is asleep in the “orchard” (garden) and is supposedly bitten by a snake when Claudius poisons him. The act of brother killing brother recalls another story from Genesis, Cain killing Abel, which Claudius echoes in the famous prayer scene (3.3). This echoes in Hamlet’s declaration that the world is “an unweeded garden” and is part of the background that heightens Hamlet’s reasoning when he is debating whether to kill Claudius as he is “praying” and is significant in the drama’s distinctions between appearance and reality.
The method Claudius chooses to kill his brother provides a central metaphor for the kingdom being “poisoned”; poison and its effects provide much of the most effective language in the play, from “unweeded garden” (1.2.135) and “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (1.4.90) of Act 1 to the poisoned pearl of Act 5. But the dramatic uses of poison are even more striking. From the murder of the king to the “poisoned” plot of Laertes and Claudius, from the poisoned mind of the mad Ophelia to the poisoning of Hamlet and the death of Claudius by poisoned sword and poisoned pearl, Shakespeare has wonderfully illustrated the consequences of the ambitious murder of Kind Hamlet by Claudius.
shakespeare tools
The Language of Shakespeare
(from the Shakespeare resource center http://www.bardweb.net/language.html)
SRC Exclusives
The most striking feature of Shakespeare is his command of language. It is all the more astounding when one not only considers Shakespeare's sparse formal education but the curriculum of the day. There were no dictionaries; the first such lexical work for speakers of English was compiled by schoolmaster Robert Cawdrey as A Table Alphabeticall in 1604. Although certain grammatical treatises were published in Shakespeare's day, organized grammar texts would not appear until the 1700s. Shakespeare as a youth would have no more systematically studied his own language than any educated man of the period.
Despite this, Shakespeare is credited by the Oxford English Dictionary with the introduction of nearly 3,000 words into the language. His vocabulary, as culled from his works, numbers upward of 17,000 words (quadruple that of an average, well-educated conversationalist in the language). In the words of Louis Marder, "Shakespeare was so facile in employing words that he was able to use over 7,000 of them—more than occur in the whole King James version of the Bible—only once and never again."
Shakespeare's English, in spite of the calamitous cries of high school students everywhere, is only one linguistic generation removed from that which we speak today. Although the Elizabethan dialect differs slightly from Modern English, the principles are generally the same. There are some (present day) anomalies with prepositional usage and verb agreement, and certainly a number of Shakespeare's words have shifted meanings or dropped, with age, from the present vocabulary. Word order, as the language shifted from Middle to Early Modern English, was still a bit more flexible, and Shakespeare wrote dramatic poetry, not standard prose, which gave some greater license in expression. However, Elizabethan remains a sibling of our own tongue, and hence, accessible.
This facility with language, and the art with which he employed its usage, is why Shakespeare is as relevant today as he was in his own time.
Language Links
CliffsNotes—Shakespeare Glossary
A glossary of Shakespearean terms from the people who have made a living out of students who don't want to read the plays for themselves.
Dictionary of Shakespeare
A selective dictionary of Shakepearean words that have fallen out of use, or whose meanings have changed over the centuries.
Elizabethan English
Topics include sounds and sentences, puns and word-play, Shakespeare's pronunciation, and prose and verse.
Elizabethan English as a literary medium
From Bartleby.com. A look at the literary use of Elizabethan English.
The Elizabethan Glossary (About.com)
An Elizabethan glossary giving the meanings of old and unusual words used in Shakespeare's England.
History of the English Language
A (very) brief history of the English language from EnglishClub.com.
Proper Elizabethan Accents
A brief introduction to how people's speech in Elizabethan England actually sounded, their vocabulary, and grammar. Includes a table for constructing Shakespearean insults.
Reading Shakespeare's Language
The New Folger Library Shakespeare presents some overview resources to help guide students in reading Shakespeare.
Shakespeare 101
Amy Ulen has a guide meant to help Shakespeare newbies with the language of the Bard. Includes a mini-glossary.
Shakespeare and the Development Of Modern English
This article from No Sweat Shakespeare discusses the shift from Middle to Early Modern English .
Shakespeare Concordance
Type in a word, and this search engine will find all the instances of that word in Shakespeare's works.
Shakespeare Lexicon
Alexander Schmidt's Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary is a painstakingly compiled glossary of every word in the Shakespeare corpus and an exhaustive collection of quotations. It has long been a standard reference work.
A Shakespearian Grammar
A great Internet edition of a classic work by Edwin Abbott, a Headmaster of the City of London School. Although first published in 1879, this is still a very good (if highly academic) comparative study of Elizabethan syntax versus Modern English.
(from the Shakespeare resource center http://www.bardweb.net/language.html)
SRC Exclusives
The most striking feature of Shakespeare is his command of language. It is all the more astounding when one not only considers Shakespeare's sparse formal education but the curriculum of the day. There were no dictionaries; the first such lexical work for speakers of English was compiled by schoolmaster Robert Cawdrey as A Table Alphabeticall in 1604. Although certain grammatical treatises were published in Shakespeare's day, organized grammar texts would not appear until the 1700s. Shakespeare as a youth would have no more systematically studied his own language than any educated man of the period.
Despite this, Shakespeare is credited by the Oxford English Dictionary with the introduction of nearly 3,000 words into the language. His vocabulary, as culled from his works, numbers upward of 17,000 words (quadruple that of an average, well-educated conversationalist in the language). In the words of Louis Marder, "Shakespeare was so facile in employing words that he was able to use over 7,000 of them—more than occur in the whole King James version of the Bible—only once and never again."
Shakespeare's English, in spite of the calamitous cries of high school students everywhere, is only one linguistic generation removed from that which we speak today. Although the Elizabethan dialect differs slightly from Modern English, the principles are generally the same. There are some (present day) anomalies with prepositional usage and verb agreement, and certainly a number of Shakespeare's words have shifted meanings or dropped, with age, from the present vocabulary. Word order, as the language shifted from Middle to Early Modern English, was still a bit more flexible, and Shakespeare wrote dramatic poetry, not standard prose, which gave some greater license in expression. However, Elizabethan remains a sibling of our own tongue, and hence, accessible.
This facility with language, and the art with which he employed its usage, is why Shakespeare is as relevant today as he was in his own time.
Language Links
CliffsNotes—Shakespeare Glossary
A glossary of Shakespearean terms from the people who have made a living out of students who don't want to read the plays for themselves.
Dictionary of Shakespeare
A selective dictionary of Shakepearean words that have fallen out of use, or whose meanings have changed over the centuries.
Elizabethan English
Topics include sounds and sentences, puns and word-play, Shakespeare's pronunciation, and prose and verse.
Elizabethan English as a literary medium
From Bartleby.com. A look at the literary use of Elizabethan English.
The Elizabethan Glossary (About.com)
An Elizabethan glossary giving the meanings of old and unusual words used in Shakespeare's England.
History of the English Language
A (very) brief history of the English language from EnglishClub.com.
Proper Elizabethan Accents
A brief introduction to how people's speech in Elizabethan England actually sounded, their vocabulary, and grammar. Includes a table for constructing Shakespearean insults.
Reading Shakespeare's Language
The New Folger Library Shakespeare presents some overview resources to help guide students in reading Shakespeare.
Shakespeare 101
Amy Ulen has a guide meant to help Shakespeare newbies with the language of the Bard. Includes a mini-glossary.
Shakespeare and the Development Of Modern English
This article from No Sweat Shakespeare discusses the shift from Middle to Early Modern English .
Shakespeare Concordance
Type in a word, and this search engine will find all the instances of that word in Shakespeare's works.
Shakespeare Lexicon
Alexander Schmidt's Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary is a painstakingly compiled glossary of every word in the Shakespeare corpus and an exhaustive collection of quotations. It has long been a standard reference work.
A Shakespearian Grammar
A great Internet edition of a classic work by Edwin Abbott, a Headmaster of the City of London School. Although first published in 1879, this is still a very good (if highly academic) comparative study of Elizabethan syntax versus Modern English.
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