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Palamon
Palamon and Arcite is part of ''Fables, Ancient and Modern'' written by John Dryden and published in 1700. Palamon and Arcite is a translation of The Knight's Tale from '' The Canterbury Tales'' by Geoffrey Chaucer. Although the plot line is identical, Dryden expanded the original text with poetic embellishments. The source of Chaucer's tale was Boccaccio's Teseida. Translations include those by Percival Ashley Chubb (1899) and Walter William Skeat (1904).Chaucer, G., Skeat, W. W. (Walter William). (1904)The knight's tale: or, Palamon and Arcite London: Alexander Moring, limited, The De la More press. Characters The four central characters remain the same as in Chaucer's story. Palamon, possible cousin of Arcite, is at least "brother-in-arms" according to Dryden. Arcite is a knight of royal blood, although this is not fully explained in the text. Emily (Emelye or Emilye) is the princess and stepdaughter or possibly niece of the king. And King Theseus Theseus (, ; grc-gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Knight's Tale
"The Knight's Tale" ( enm, The Knightes Tale) is the first tale from Geoffrey Chaucer's '' The Canterbury Tales''. The Knight is described by Chaucer in the "General Prologue" as the person of highest social standing amongst the pilgrims, though his manners and clothes are unpretentious. We are told that he has taken part in some fifteen crusades in many countries and also fought for one pagan leader against another. Though the list of campaigns is real, his characterization is idealized. Most readers have taken Chaucer's description of him as "a verray, parfit gentil knyght" to be sincere but Terry Jones suggested that this description was ironic, and that Chaucer's readers would have deduced that the Knight was a mercenary. He is accompanied on his pilgrimage by the Squire, his 20-year-old son. The story introduces themes and arguments typically encountered in the literature of knighthood, including courtly love and ethical dilemmas. Sources and composition The epic poem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palamon And Arcite (Edwardes)
''Palamon and Arcite'' (1566) is a play by Richard Edwardes, which was performed before Elizabeth I at Oxford. It is based on Chaucer's ''The Knight's Tale''. Though the text of the play is lost, there is a detailed record of its structure and plot. The performance was a highly spectacular affair organised by staff and students of Oxford University. The event was vividly recalled and described by many contemporary witnesses. Context The play was created for a visit of the queen to Christ Church, Oxford, part of Oxford University. Edwardes was the courtier whose job it was to organise the Royal entertainments. He is usually credited as its author, but one writer at the time said that it was translated "from the Latin into the English tongue by Master Edwards and some other alumni of the college." However, no Latin original is known, and the source (Chaucer) is English. No other source says this; the writer may be conflating the play with others performed at the same event, a comed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teseida
''Teseida'' (full title: ''Teseida delle Nozze d’Emilia'', or ''The Theseid, Concerning the Nuptials of Emily'') is a long epic poem written by Giovanni Boccaccio c.1340–41. Running to almost 10,000 lines divided into twelve books, its notional subject is the career and rule of the ancient Greek hero Theseus (Teseo), although the majority of the epic tells the story of the rivalry of Palemone and Arcita for the love of Emilia. It is the main source of "The Knight's Tale" in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''Canterbury Tales'', and therefore is the original source of ''The Two Noble Kinsmen'', a collaboration by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher.''Before the Knight's tale : imitation of classical epic in Boccaccio's Teseida'' Anderson, David. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c1988. The exact sources of Boccaccio's knowledge about the ancient Greek world are unknown, but is likely that he gained the knowledge through his close friendship with Paolo de Perugia, a medieval ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Percival Chubb
Percival Ashley Chubb (1860–1959) was a founding member of the Fabian Society, an influential British socialist organization that aims to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies. Born in 1860, Chubb attended the Stationers' School in London. He entered the civil service in 1878, joining the legal department of the Local Government Board. In 1884, he helped found the Fabian Society, calling a series of meetings that led to the organization's founding. Two years later, he joined the Ethical Society. In 1889, Chubb emigrated to the United States, where he took a series of teaching jobs: first, lecturer at Thomas Davidson's School of the Cultural Sciences in Farmington, Connecticut; then lecturer at the Brooklyn Academy of Arts and Sciences (1890-1892); Head of English, Brooklyn Manual Training High School (1893-1897); second-grade principal of New York Society's Ethical Culture School (1897); lecturer at the Pratt Institut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fables, Ancient And Modern
''Fables, Ancient and Modern'' is a collection of translations of classical and medieval poetry by John Dryden interspersed with some of his own works. Published in March 1700, it was his last and one of his greatest works. Dryden died two months later.The Preface to the Fables - Page v volume of miscellanies entitled Fables, consisting chiefly of translations from Chaucer, Ovid, and Boccaccio, with a poetical epistle to his cousin, John Dryden, and the second Ode on St Cecilia's Day, better known as Alexanders Feast. It is dedicated in a prose epistle to the Duke of Ormond, and contains a verse dedication of Palamon and Arcite to the Duchess of Ormond. Background After the deposition of his patron James II in 1688, Dryden turned to translation to provide himself with a steady income. Dryden’s education at the Westminster School had provided him with an excellent grounding in translation, which was a conventional exercise at the time. ''Fables, Ancient and Modern'' contains ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Dryden
'' John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden. Romanticist writer Sir Walter Scott called him "Glorious John". Early life Dryden was born in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire, where his maternal grandfather was the rector of All Saints. He was the eldest of fourteen children born to Erasmus Dryden and wife Mary Pickering, paternal grandson of Sir Erasmus Dryden, 1st Barone t (1553–1632), and wife Frances Wilkes, Puritan landowning gentry who supported the Puritan cause and Parliament. He was a second cousin once removed of Jonathan Swift. As a boy, Dryden lived in the nearby village of Titchmarsh, where it is likely that he received his first education. In 1644 he was sent to Westm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theseus
Theseus (, ; grc-gre, Θησεύς ) was the mythical king and founder-hero of Athens. The myths surrounding Theseus his journeys, exploits, and friends have provided material for fiction throughout the ages. Theseus is sometimes described as the son of Aegeus, King of Athens, and sometimes as the son of the god Poseidon. He was raised by his mother, Aethra, and, upon discovering his connection to Aegeus, travels overland to Athens, having many adventures on the way. When he reaches Athens, he finds that Aegeus is married to Medea (formerly wife of Jason), who plots against him. The most famous legend about Theseus is his slaying of the Minotaur, half man and half bull. He then goes on to unite Attica under Athenian rule: the '' synoikismos'' ('dwelling together'). As the unifying king, he is credited with building a palace on the fortress of the Acropolis. Pausanias reports that after ''synoikismos'', Theseus established a cult of Aphrodite ('Aphrodite of all the P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Canterbury Tales
''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's '' magnum opus''. The tales (mostly written in verse, although some are in prose) are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return. It has been suggested that the greatest contribution of ''The Canterbury Tales'' to English literature was the popularisation of the English vernacular in mainstream literature, as opposed to French, Italian or Latin. English had, however, been used as a literary language centuries before Chaucer's time, and several of Chaucer's contemporaries— John Gower, William Langland, the Pearl Poet, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific '' A Treatise on the Astrolabe'' for his 10-year-old son Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament. Among Chaucer's many other works are '' The Book of the Duchess'', '' The House of Fame'', '' The Legend of Good Women'', and '' Troilus and Criseyde''. He is seen as crucial in legitimising the literary use of Middle English when the dominant literary languages in England were still Anglo-Norman French and Latin. Chaucer's contemporary Thomas Hoccleve hailed him as "the firste fyn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio (, , ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was sometimes simply known as "the Certaldese" and one of the most important figures in the European literary panorama of the fourteenth century. Some scholars (including Vittore Branca) define him as the greatest European prose writer of his time, a versatile writer who amalgamated different literary trends and genres, making them converge in original works, thanks to a creative activity exercised under the banner of experimentalism. His most notable works are ''The Decameron'', a collection of short stories which in the following centuries was a determining element for the Italian literary tradition, especially after Pietro Bembo elevated the Boccaccian style to a model of Italian prose in the sixteenth century, and '' On Famous Women''. He wr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter William Skeat
Walter William Skeat, (21 November 18356 October 1912) was a British philologist and Anglican deacon. The pre-eminent British philologist of his time, he was instrumental in developing the English language as a higher education subject in the United Kingdom. Life Skeat was born in London to architectInterpreters of Early Medieval Britain, ed. Michael Lapidge, Oxford University Press (on behalf of the British Academy), 2002, p. 37 William Skeat, of Perry Hill, Sydenham, later of Mount Street, Park Lane, City of Westminster, and his wife Sarah, daughter of Timothy Bluck. The Skeat family were a branch of an ancient Surrey family, and were resident in the parish of St George Hanover Square since the 1700s. He was educated at King's College School ( Wimbledon), Highgate School, and Christ's College, Cambridge. He became a fellow at Christ's College in July 1860. In 1860, Skeat was ordained an Anglican deacon and married Bertha Clara. In December 1860, he became a curate at Ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poetry By John Dryden
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, a prosaic ostensible meaning. A poem is a literary composition, written by a poet, using this principle. Poetry has a long and varied history, evolving differentially across the globe. It dates back at least to prehistoric times with hunting poetry in Africa and to panegyric and elegiac court poetry of the empires of the Nile, Niger, and Volta River valleys. Some of the earliest written poetry in Africa occurs among the Pyramid Texts written during the 25th century BCE. The earliest surviving Western Asian epic poetry, the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', was written in Sumerian. Early poems in the Eurasian continent evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese ''Shijing'', as well as religious hymns (the Sanskrit ''R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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