Benjamin Jonson (1572-1637) was a Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor, known best for his satirical plays and lyric poems. His career began in 1597 when he held a fixed engagement in «The Admiral's Men», and although he was unsuccessful as an actor, his literary talent was apparent and he began writing original plays for the troupe. Although Jonson attained a long and thriving career, the majority of his major works for which he is revere ...
Benjamin Jonson (1572-1637) was a Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor, known best for his satirical plays and lyric poems. His career began in 1597 when he held a fixed engagement in «The Admiral's Men», and although he was unsuccessful as an actor, his literary talent was apparent and he began writing original plays for the troupe. Although Jonson attained a long and thriving career, the majority of his major works for which he is revere ...
"The Man of Destiny" is one of Shaw's shorter works, just a one act play, in which we see the mastery of character development that is so common to the playwright's works. The play is an investigation of a young twenty-seven year old general by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte who has yet to achieve the accomplishments for which make him such an important figure in world history. In the play we find him waiting impatiently at an inn ...
"The Cherry Orchard" was the last play written by Anton Chekhov and is widely regarded as one of his greatest dramatic accomplishments. It is the story of an aristocratic Russian woman and her family who return to their estate, a cherry orchard, to oversee the auction of the estate in order to pay the mortgage. The rise of the middle class and the decline of the aristocracy that was prevalent at the end of the 20th century in Russia, and ul ...
The satire in this, one of the best known of all Aristophanes' comedies, is directed against the new schools of philosophy, or perhaps we should rather say dialectic, which had lately been introduced, mostly from abroad, at Athens. The doctrines held up to ridicule are those of the 'Sophists'—such men as Thrasymachus from Chalcedon in Bithynia, Gorgias from Leontini in Sicily, Protagoras from Abdera in Thrace, and other foreign sc ...
The 17th century dramatist Jean Racine was considered, along with Moliere and Corneille, as one of the three great playwrights of his era. The quality of Racine's poetry has been described as possibly his most important contribution to French literature and his use of the alexandrine poetic line is one of the best examples of such use noted for its harmony, simplicity and elegance. While critics over the centuries have debated the worth of ...
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is revered as one of the great British dramatists, credited not only with memorable works, but the revival of the then-suffering English theatre. Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, left mostly to his own devices after his mother ran off to London to pursue a musical career. He educated himself for the most part, and eventually worked for a real estate agent. This experience founded in him a concern for social injus ...
Anton Chekhov is considered by many as one of the greatest short story writers of all-time. In addition to the large number of short stories that he wrote he also produced several dramatic masterpieces. His best known works include «The Cherry Orchard», «Ivanov», «Uncle Vanya», and «Three Sisters». Those plays along with «The Sea-Gull», «The Swan Song», «On the High Road», «The Proposal», «The Wedding», «The Bear», «A Tragedian in Spite of Himse ...
We have Czech writer Karel Capek to thank for the invention of the word robot and generally for the introduction of the idea of artificial intelligence to the world of literature. His play, «R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)» was first performed in 1921 and was an instant success. While the «robots» of the play could be more accurately described as cyborgs, Capek's influence on the science fiction genre with this play would be profoun ...
