Tag Archives: Thackeray

A salty dog: avoiding the press gang

In the end, although Napoleon’s ambitions were terminated on the field of Waterloo, the struggle at sea decided the issue and determined the course of the century that was to follow. As with Carthage and Rome, it was a struggle … Continue reading

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Miscellaneous | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

comic history : royal bedding of madcap laughs

The Victorians seemed to have an avaricious relationship with history. They simultaneously were involved in the creation of it and when taking a respite from this burden of civilizing humanity they were reading it; endlessly and for the authors quite … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Literature/poetry/spoken word, Miscellaneous, Modern Arts/Craft | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A NORTHERN WIZARD: Writing For Love, Money & “The Great Unknowns”

Like Dickens and Balzac, he wrote because he could not help writing, but he did not think that the chief business of life was to be put into literature; and much as he appreciated his contemporary fame, he does not appear to have cared … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word, Miscellaneous | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

AVOIDING THOSE PERIPHERAL REGIONS OF ROMANCE

Call it a poetic faith whose satisfying sense of wonder compelled them to stop short of that marvellous and enticing flame of Promethean enchantment. Heros zigzagging with tolerable chance. “…in the preface to Tom Jones , Fielding formally asserted his belief … Continue reading

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word, Miscellaneous, Visual Art/Sculpture/etc. | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A RAKE IN PROGRESS: WRITING ROWDY,RAW & REGAL

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu prettily characterises Fielding and this capacity for happiness which he possessed, in a little notice of his death when she compares him to Steele, who was as improvident and as happy as he was, and says … Continue reading

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word, Miscellaneous | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

TRUTH AS COMEDY: FIDDLER ON JANE AUSTEN’S ROOF

Some critics describe Jane Austen’s works as novels of social comedy. When she wrote Pride and Prejudice she was just twenty-one years old. Her literary life was comprised between 1786 and 1817. A characteristic for the eighteenth century was the … Continue reading

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word, Marketing/Advertising/Media, Miscellaneous | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

MADNESS & ALTERED STATES: ARCHEOLOGY OF THE SILENCE

Only then can we see how madness and non‐madness are NOT two distinct phenomena, but rather are in dialogue, “are inextricably involved” … “In the severe world of mental illness, modern man no longer communicates with the madman” . The physician speaks to … Continue reading

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word, Miscellaneous, Modern Arts/Craft | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

PENETRATING THE ILLUSIONS OF SELF: SHIVERING WITH SHAME

“In a 1937 broadcast entitled,” Craftsmanship,” Virginia Woolf seems to predict the ways that contemporary political movements and subsequent social changes have impacted on readers’ ability to discern meanings in her fiction inaccessible to previous generations. She writes that “words that are unintelligible … Continue reading

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word, Miscellaneous | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

CLARISSA: NO PLACE LEFT TO HIDE

It is the prose of suspicion; an uncovering  of layers of disconcerting awareness between its lines. Samuel Richardson’s ( 1689-1761 ) ambitious narrative of tragic seduction is traced through the hundreds of letters written between Clarissa Harlowe, her confidante Anna Howe, … Continue reading

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word, Miscellaneous | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

LORDLY & LADY PLEASURES : DUELING ABOUT COURTESIES OF CULTURE

It was called killing with courtesy and involved all the passions that could raise blood pressure: family, race, wealth, sex, social class , honor and identity. ”On 15 November 1712, two leading scions of the British aristocracy met in a … Continue reading

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Miscellaneous, Visual Art/Sculpture/etc. | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments