Miles Gloriosus (play)
''Miles Gloriosus'' is a comedic play written by Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 254–184 B.C.). The title can be translated as "The Swaggering Soldier" or "Vainglorious Soldier". His source for ''Miles Gloriosus'' was a Greek play, now lost, called '' Alazon'' or ''The Braggart''. Although the characters in ''Miles Gloriosus'' speak Latin, they are Greeks and largely have Greek names, clothing, and customs. The action takes place in Ephesus, a Greek city on the coast of Asia Minor, famous for its Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The play is thought to date from early in Plautus's career, partly because it contains no polymetric songs (which became frequent in the later plays), and partly because lines 210–211 have been taken as a reference to the temporary imprisonment of the poet Naevius in 206 BC. Plot summary Backstory and prologue The play commences with the entrance of Pyrgopolynices (the '' alazon'' stock character 'Miles Gloriosus' of th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Plautus
Titus Maccius Plautus (; c. 254 – 184 BC), commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus. The word Plautine refers to both Plautus's own works and works similar to or influenced by his. Biography Not much is known about Titus Maccius Plautus's early life. It is believed that he was born in Sarsina, a small town in Emilia Romagna in northern Italy, around 254 BC.''The Concise Oxford Companion to Classical Literature'' (1996) Ed. M.C. Howatson and Ian Chilvers, Oxford University Press, Oxford Reference Online According to Morris Marples, Plautus worked as a stage-carpenter or scene-shifter in his early years. It is from this work, perhaps, that his love of the theater originated. His acting talent was eventually discovered; and he adopted the names "Macciu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Il Capitano
Il Capitano (, Italian for "The Captain") is one of the four stock characters of '' Commedia dell'arte.'' He most likely was never a "Captain" but rather appropriated the name for himself. He is often a braggart and a swaggerer who can maintain his claims only by benefit of the fact that none of the locals know him. He is usually a Spaniard, given the fact that for most of the late Renaissance to well into 17th century, parts of Italy were under Spanish domination. He was most likely inspired by the boisterous Iberic caudillos who told tall tales of their exploits either in the conquest of the Americas or in the wars with Germany. Il Capitano often talks at length about made-up conquests of both the militaristic and the carnal variety in an attempt to impress others, but often ends up impressing only himself. He gets easily carried away in his tales and doesn't realise when those around him don't buy his act. He would be the first to run away from any and all battles, and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Plays About Slavery
Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * Play Mobile, a Polish internet provider * Xperia Play, an Android phone * Rakuten.co.uk (formerly Play.com), an online retailer * Backlash (engineering), or ''play'', non-reversible part of movement * Petroleum play, oil fields with same geological circumstances * Play symbol, in media control devices Film * ''Play'' (2005 film), Chilean film directed by Alicia Scherson * ''Play'', a 2009 short film directed by David Kaplan * ''Play'' (2011 film), a Swedish film directed by Ruben Östlund * ''Rush'' (2012 film), an Indian film earlier titled ''Play'' and also known as ''Raftaar 24 x 7'' * ''The Play'' (film), a 2013 Bengali film Literature and publications * ''Play'' (play), written by Samuel Beckett * ''Play'' (''The New York Time ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum
''A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart. Inspired by the farces of the ancient Roman playwright Plautus (254–184 BC), specifically '' Pseudolus'', '' Miles Gloriosus'', and '' Mostellaria'', the musical tells the bawdy story of a slave named Pseudolus and his attempts to win his freedom by helping his young master woo the girl next door. The plot displays many classic elements of farce, including puns, the slamming of doors, cases of mistaken identity (frequently involving characters disguising themselves as one another), and satirical comments on social class. The title derives from a line often used by vaudeville comedians to begin a story: "A funny thing happened on the way to the theater". The musical's original 1962 Broadway run won several Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Author (Musical). ''A Funny Thing'' has enjoyed several Broadway and We ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sylvan Barnet
Sylvan Saul Barnet (December 11, 1926 – January 11, 2016) was an American literary critic and Shakespearean scholar. He was a Fletcher Professor of English Emeritus at Tufts University and the general editor of the Signet Classics Shakespeare. Biography Barnet was born in Brooklyn, New York, and attended Erasmus Hall High School. His father was a leather tanner. Barnet served in the U.S. Army at the tail end of World War II. He earned his bachelor's degree at New York University in 1948, and then his M.A. in 1950 and Ph.D. in 1954 at Harvard University. In 1951, Barnet met William C. Burto. The two became life partners in 1952. Barnet spent his entire career at Tufts University, where he taught English literature from 1954 to 1984 and served for several terms as chair of the English department. He was the first Jewish member of the department. Barnet authored numerous books and articles on William Shakespeare, including ''A Short Guide to Shakespeare.'' In the early 1960s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Four Comedies
4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. In mathematics Four is the smallest composite number, its proper divisors being and . Four is the sum and product of two with itself: 2 + 2 = 4 = 2 x 2, the only number b such that a + a = b = a x a, which also makes four the smallest squared prime number p^. In Knuth's up-arrow notation, , and so forth, for any number of up arrows. By consequence, four is the only square one more than a prime number, specifically three. The sum of the first four prime numbers two + three + five + seven is the only sum of four consecutive prime numbers that yields an odd prime number, seventeen, which is the fourth super-prime. Four lies between the first proper pair of twin primes, three and five, which are the first two Fermat primes, like seventeen, which is the third. On the other hand ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Erich Segal
Erich Wolf Segal (June 16, 1937January 17, 2010) was an American author, screenwriter, educator, and classicist who wrote the bestselling novel ''Love Story'' (1970) and its hit film adaptation. Early life and education Born and raised in a Jewish household in Brooklyn, New York, Segal was the first of three brothers. His father was a rabbi and his mother was a homemaker. His interest in writing and narrating stories developed as a child. He went to Midwood High School, during which he suffered a serious accident while canoeing. His coach advised him to jog as a part of his rehabilitation, which ended up becoming his passion and caused him to participate in the Boston Marathon more than 12 times. He attended Harvard College, graduating as both the class poet and Latin salutatorian in 1958, and then obtained his master's degree (in 1959) and a doctorate (in 1965) in comparative literature from Harvard University, after which he started teaching at Yale. Writing career In 1967, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Henry Thomas Riley
Henry Thomas Riley (June 1816 – 14 April 1878) was an English translator, lexicographer, and antiquary. Life Born in June 1816, he was only son of Henry Riley of Southwark, an ironmonger. He was educated at Chatham House, Ramsgate, and at Charterhouse School (1832–4). He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, but at the end of his first term migrated to Clare College where he was admitted on 17 December 1834, and elected a scholar on 24 January 1835. In 1838 he obtained a Latin essay prize. He graduated B.A. in 1840 and M.A. in 1859, after which he moved to Corpus Christi College. On 16 June 1870 he was incorporated at Exeter College, Oxford. Riley was called to the bar at the Inner Temple on 23 November 1847, but early in life he began hack work for booksellers to make a living, by editing and translation. On the creation of the Historical Manuscripts Commission (by royal charter in April 1869), Riley was engaged as an additional inspector for England, and given the task ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ancient Greek Comedy
Ancient Greek comedy was one of the final three principal dramatic forms in the theatre of classical Greece (the others being tragedy and the satyr play). Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods: Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, and New Comedy. Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the eleven surviving plays of Aristophanes; Middle Comedy is largely lost, i.e. preserved only in relatively short fragments by authors such as Athenaeus of Naucratis; and New Comedy is known primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of Menander. The philosopher Aristotle wrote in his '' Poetics'' (c. 335 BC) that comedy is a representation of laughable people and involves some kind of blunder or ugliness which does not cause pain or disaster. C. A. Trypanis wrote that comedy is the last of the great species of poetry Greece gave to the world. Periods The Alexandrine grammarians, and most likely Aristophanes of Byzantium in particular, seem to have been the firs ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ancient Pistol
Ancient Pistol is a swaggering soldier who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare. Though full of grandiose boasts about his prowess, he is essentially a coward. The character is introduced in '' Henry IV, Part 2'' and reappears in ''The Merry Wives of Windsor'' and ''Henry V''. The character's first name is never given. He is referred to as Falstaff's "ancient", meaning "ensign", or standard bearer. ''Henry IV, Part 2'' Pistol is introduced as a "swaggerer" who suddenly turns up at the Boar's Head Tavern, contrary to the wishes of the hostess, Mistress Quickly. Falstaff tells her that Pistol is his "ancient" (ensign). He gets into a fight with Falstaff after an exchange of insults with the prostitute Doll Tearsheet, who calls him "the foul-mouth'dst rogue in England". Later, when Falstaff stops off at Justice Shallow's house after the defeat of Scrope, Pistol appears bringing news of the death of Henry IV, asserting that Falstaff is "now one of the greatest men in t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Impluvium
The ''impluvium'' (pl. ''impluvia'') is a water-catchment pool system meant to capture rain-water flowing from the ''compluvium'', or slanted roof. Often placed "inside", instead of "outside", a building, it is a notable feature in many architectural traditions. Greco-Roman impluvium In Greco-Roman architectural studies, the ''impluvium'' refers to the sunken part of the atrium in a Greek or Roman house (''domus''), designed to carry away the rainwater falling from the ''compluvium'' of the roof. It is usually made of marble and placed about 30 cm below the floor of the atrium, and emptied into a subfloor cistern. Construction and use Inspection (without excavation) of ''impluvia'' in Paestum, Pompeii and Rome indicated that the pavement surface in the ''impluvia'' was porous, or that the non-porous stone tiles were separated by gaps significant enough to allow a substantial quantity of water caught in the basin of the ''impluvium'' to filter through the cracks and, bey ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ephesus
Ephesus (; grc-gre, Ἔφεσος, Éphesos; tr, Efes; may ultimately derive from hit, 𒀀𒉺𒊭, Apaša) was a city in ancient Greece on the coast of Ionia, southwest of present-day Selçuk in İzmir Province, Turkey. It was built in the 10th century BC on the site of Apasa, the former Arzawan capital, by Attic and Ionian Greek colonists. During the Classical Greek era, it was one of twelve cities that were members of the Ionian League. The city came under the control of the Roman Republic in 129 BC. The city was famous in its day for the nearby Temple of Artemis (completed around 550 BC), which has been designated one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Its many monumental buildings included the Library of Celsus and a theatre capable of holding 24,000 spectators. Ephesus was recipient city of one of the Pauline epistles; one of the seven churches of Asia addressed in the Book of Revelation; the Gospel of John may have been written there; Harris, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |