It is a bell。伊莎貝爾

Poetry 5: Exploring Contexts

"Ode on a Grecian Urn" and Wallace Stevens' "Anecdote of the Jar"

"All the world's a stage" is the phrase that begins a monologue from William Shakespeare's As You Like It, spoken by the melancholy Jaques in Act II Scene VII. The speech compares the world to a stage and life to a play, and catalogues the seven stages of a man's life, sometimes referred to as the seven ages of man: infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, Pantalone and old age, facing imminent death. It is one of Shakespeare's most frequently quoted passages.

Freytag's Pyramid p.85

Iliad的climax→Achilles  killed Hector

Clytemnestra→crisis

Dionysus (Bacchus): the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness, fertility, theatre and religious ecstasy in Greek mythology. Alcohol, especially wine, played an important role in Greek culture with Dionysus being an important reason for this life style.

Dionysus

denouement (小說、戲劇等的)結局,收場

den-: down；away form

closet drama 案頭戲

A closet drama is a play that is not intended to be performed onstage, but read by a solitary reader or, sometimes, out loud in a small group. A related form, the "closet screenplay," developed during the 20th century. "Although the term sometimes carries a negative connotation, implying that such works either lack sufficient theatrical qualities to warrant staging or require theatrical effects beyond the capacity of most theaters, closet dramas through the ages have had a variety of dramatic features and purposes not tied to successful stage performance."

Samson Agonistes: a tragic closet drama by John Milton. It appeared with the publication of Milton's Paradise Regain'd in 1671, as the title page of that volume states: "Paradise Regained / A Poem / In IV Books / To Which Is Added / Samson Agonistes". It is generally thought that Samson Agonistes was begun around the same time as Paradise Regained but was completed after the larger work, possibly very close to the date of publishing, but there is no agreement on this.

An etching of Samson destroying the temple

Delilah: a character in the Hebrew bible Book of Judges, where she is the "woman in the valley of Sorek" whom Samson loved, and who was his downfall. Her figure, one of several dangerous temptresses in the Hebrew Bible, has become emblematic: "Samson loved Delilah, she betrayed him, and, what is worse, she did it for money," Madlyn Kahr begins her study of the Delilah motif in European painting.

Samson and Delilah

Delilah's hair→seven locks  of hair

lock 捲

Paradise Lost 失樂園

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It is considered by critics to be Milton's major work, and helped solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of his time. The poem concerns the Biblical story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton's purpose, stated in Book I, is to "justify the ways of God to men".

John Milton: an English poet, polemicist, man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), written in blank verse.

John Milton

Goldilocks and the Three Bears: a fairy tale with two variants. The original tale has three bachelor bears living in a house in the forest, and a dirty old woman as the story's antagonist. The first variant is an adaptation introducing Goldilocks to the story as the antagonist. The second variant has the three bachelor bears transformed into Papa, Mama and Baby Bear. Both the little girl and the Bear family have remained in the tale through various editions over the years.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Thrust stage 三面式舞台

In theatre, a thrust stage (also known as a platform stage or open stage) is one that extends into the audience on three sides and is connected to the backstage area by its upstage end. A thrust has the benefit of greater intimacy between performers and the audience than a proscenium, while retaining the utility of a backstage area. Entrances onto a thrust are most readily made from backstage, although some theatres provide for performers to enter through the audience using vomitory entrances. An arena, exposed on all sides to the audience, is without a backstage and relies entirely on entrances in the auditorium or from under the stage.

Thrust stage

Arena: an enclosed area, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theater, musical performances, or sporting events. The word derives from Latin harena, a particularly fine/smooth sand used to absorb blood in ancient arenas such as the Colosseum in Rome. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators. The key feature of an arena is that the event space is the lowest point, allowing for maximum visibility. Arenas are usually designed to accommodate a large number of spectators.

Arena di Verona

Classical unities: The classical unities, Aristotelian unities, or three unities are rules for drama derived from a passage in Aristotle's Poetics.

1. unity of action: a play should have one action that it follows, with minimal subplots.

2. unity of time: the action in a play should occur over a period of no more than 24 hours.

3. unity of place: a play should exist in a single physical space and should not attempt to compress geography, nor should the stage represent more than one place.

Oedipus the King: also known by its Latin title Oedipus Rex, is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed about 429 BC. Oedipus the King begins in what is called "in medias res". It tells the story of Oedipus, a man who becomes the king of Thebes, whilst in the process unwittingly fulfilling a prophecy that he would kill his father Laius and marry his mother Jocasta. The play is an example of classic tragedy, notably containing an emphasis upon how Oedipus's own faults contribute to his downfall (as opposed to making fate the sole cause). Over the centuries, Oedipus the King has come to be regarded by many as the Greek tragedy par excellence.

Oedipus

In medias res 攔腰法

 A story which begins in medias res opens in the midst of action. Oftentimes exposition is bypassed and filled in gradually, either through dialogue, flashbacks or description of past events. For example, Hamlet begins after the death of Hamlet's father. Characters make reference to King Hamlet's death without the plot's first establishment of said fact. Since the play focuses on Hamlet and the revenge itself more so than the motivation, Shakespeare utilizes in medias res to bypass superfluous exposition.