Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, University of Oslo, language: English, abstract: William Shakespeare's play "Hamlet" is full of intrigues from beginning to end. One could try to generalise Hamlet, Claudius and Laertes as perpetrators; Ophelia, Gertrude, Polonius and others as victims. Although this distinction is not unambiguous, since Hamlet, Claudius and Laertes are also victims, Polonius the henchman of Claudius and Gertrude at least morally questionable. The tragic ending of the play, where almost all the main characters (Hamlet, Laertes, Gertrude and Claudius) are killed, is a touchstone of corruption. We find corruption mainly in the act of taking and planning the act of vengeance. Claudius' “self-defence” against Hamlet becomes a source of corruption, too, when he realises how Hamlet could threaten his throne. In the beginning he is well-disposed towards Hamlet, calls him his son and confirms him as successor of the throne. Hamlet does not respond positively to these seemingly sympathetic overtures, since he envisions his “war” against Claudius, if not life in general as an endless struggle played by unfair rules: “Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man is contumely,” (3.1.71). Hamlet is upset with his own fate and the world order in general. He even calls all of Denmark a prison (2.2.243). Claudius as king is a formidable opponent, forcing Hamlet to use all his wits to entrap him, even in the wake of considerable loss of life as the play progresses.
Essay from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,5, Free University of Berlin, language: English, abstract: Duncan argues that empire can be determined nowhere in Collins' novel The Moonstone, because it is everywhere. There was a strict geographical (England and its colonies) and also social (high, middle and lower class) order in Victorian England. Englishmen and Christianity were regarded superior to the subject races and their religions (e.g. Islam or Buddhism), those were considered barbaric and their believes archaic and of low moral. Most of Collins' con-temporaries believed in the necessity and generosity of imperialism. Nayder even claims that racial hatred towards the subject races was the general, public opinion of the masses in En-gland, especially after the Mutiny in 1857 which motivated Charles Dickens to state: "I wish I were Commander in Chief in India. The first thing I would do to strike that Oriental race with amazement ... should be to proclaim to them, in their language, that I consider my holding that appointment by the leave of God, to mean that I should do my utmost to exterminate the Race upon whom the stain of the late cruelties lasted" (Nayder, pp. 216/217). Collins distan-ces himself from the public opinion of the time and regards the oriental literature which tea-ches Muslim and Buddhist morals as equal to Christian moralistic teaching. This becomes clear when we take a look at his "A Sermon for Sepoys" from 1858, where he almost praises the oriental ideals of devotion to the service of god, unimportance of earthly properties and brotherly love, which will lead to an eternal life in paradise. Collins claims that the Indians should be taught their own literature instead of a foreign Christian morality by, at least in some cases, questionable English gentlemen. In the Victorian era empire was an important part of the national identity and the empire was to be hold together by all means a
Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, Humboldt-University of Berlin, language: English, abstract: I want to focus my examination on the two protagonists Evelina and Lord Orville, but will also take a look at Mr. Villars, Captain Mirvan, Sir Clement, Madam Duval and Mrs. Selwyn. The aim of this essay is to show that the gender relations depicted in the novel are not as unbalanced as one might think at first sight. The eighteenth century is an interesting era, because it can be considered a transition period between the Renaissance, when gender relations were slowly beginning to change, and the nineteenth century, when laws improved women's situation. The focus on the seventeenth and nineteenth century literature among literary scholars has left the eighteenth century a bit underrepresented. Although many things changed or had already changed in the eighteenth century, we can still trace patriarchal structures and ways of thinking going back until antiquity. “Evelina” was first published in 1778, in the late eighteenth century.
Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, Humboldt-University of Berlin, language: English, abstract: [...] I want to examine certain characters of both romances, two fighting scenes and the love relationships of the two protagonists, to show were we find depictions of a "hypermasculinity", i.e. exaggerated, stereotypical kinds of masculinity, and discuss them.
Master's Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 2,5, Humboldt-University of Berlin (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), language: English, abstract: I want to start my thesis by briefly discussing one of the seminal works on historical gender studies, Thomas Laqueur’s "Making Sex". He argues that based on the publications of an old Greek physician named Galen, women and men were regarded as the same sex in Europe for about 2,000 years from the second century AD to circa 1800. He claims that male and female genitals were depicted and regarded as the same, with the only difference that the female genitalia were inside whereas the male genitalia were outside. Men and women were supposed to be different in degree but not in kind. Women were considered an imperfect version of men, since they were cooler, wetter, and more passive. Thus, the supposed sameness of the physical characteristics of men and women did by no means promise equality of the sexes; on the contrary, it underpinned the hierarchy and male superiority. Furthermore, women stood for fleshiness and desire. The connection of passiveness and desire as female traits seems controversial but is typical of the time. The idea of lustful, desirous, and uncontrollable women changed quite a lot later, especially in the 19th century, when women were usually supposed to have no or a very low sexual drive. Although we also find “the fallen woman” in 18th and 19th century literature, who is unable to control her sexual passion. The concept of a promiscuous female sexuality in Shakespeare’s time might seem a bit odd to us today, but if we look at the plays, we find exactly this idea of women being lustful and uncontrollable for men. Laqueur claims that “Sometime in the eighteenth century, sex as we know it was invented”. This means that Shakespeare’s contemporaries would still have had an ancient understanding of sex (or gender) differences. Although the concept of gender was not yet developed in Shakespeare’s time, I believe it is useful and justifiable to talk about gender relations. It is inevitable to take a modern perspective, and the concept of gender is not restricted to men and women of the 20th and 21st centuries; it is definitely applicable to Shakespeare’s characters, too, as I will try to show in this thesis.
Bachelor Thesis from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,0, Free University of Berlin, language: English, abstract: Nowadays English has become the most important source of loanwords in Japanese by far. About 95% of all gairaigo loanwords (“words coming from abroad”, i.e. words originating from European languages) derived from the English language and it is estimated that about 5-10% of the Japanese lexicon are of English origin today (Stanlaw, 2004, p.1 + p.13). The status of the English language is high in Japan. It has become a marker of high education and openness to other (Western) cultures. Nearly every Japanese pupil is taught English for at least six years at school (from seventh to twelfth grade), but there is the possibility for private schools to start teaching eikaiwa (English conversation) from third grade on. English classes are obligatory for university students of all subjects, although it should be mentioned that these classes are usually overcrowded (often more than one hundred students) and that they take place only once a week for 90 minutes. A TOEFL test in 1997/98 among 26 Asian na-tions ranked Japan 25th and last together with North Korea (McKenzie, 2008, p 272). The Japanese government made heavy efforts to improve English teaching within the last decade. It was tried to motivate more Japanese pupils to spend a year abroad, only 1,000 Japanese pupils took chance of this opportunity in 2003, although there would have been provided money for 10,000 exchange students. Besides this, there are now more assistant language teachers - mainly from the inner circle of English speaking countries, but also, to a much smaller extent, from former British colonies - at Japanese schools to improve the eikaiwa lessons. The common eigo (English) lessons are still held by Japanese teachers and are strongly text and Grammar based, usually a translation into Japanese is given. Although the Western world was the model for the Japanese modernisation in the 19th and 20th century and English was without any doubt the means of communication with the West, the vast majority of the Japanese population has never become fluent English speakers.
Master's Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 2,5, Humboldt-University of Berlin (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), language: English, abstract: I want to start my thesis by briefly discussing one of the seminal works on historical gender studies, Thomas Laqueur’s "Making Sex". He argues that based on the publications of an old Greek physician named Galen, women and men were regarded as the same sex in Europe for about 2,000 years from the second century AD to circa 1800. He claims that male and female genitals were depicted and regarded as the same, with the only difference that the female genitalia were inside whereas the male genitalia were outside. Men and women were supposed to be different in degree but not in kind. Women were considered an imperfect version of men, since they were cooler, wetter, and more passive. Thus, the supposed sameness of the physical characteristics of men and women did by no means promise equality of the sexes; on the contrary, it underpinned the hierarchy and male superiority. Furthermore, women stood for fleshiness and desire. The connection of passiveness and desire as female traits seems controversial but is typical of the time. The idea of lustful, desirous, and uncontrollable women changed quite a lot later, especially in the 19th century, when women were usually supposed to have no or a very low sexual drive. Although we also find “the fallen woman” in 18th and 19th century literature, who is unable to control her sexual passion. The concept of a promiscuous female sexuality in Shakespeare’s time might seem a bit odd to us today, but if we look at the plays, we find exactly this idea of women being lustful and uncontrollable for men. Laqueur claims that “Sometime in the eighteenth century, sex as we know it was invented”. This means that Shakespeare’s contemporaries would still have had an ancient understanding of sex (or gender) differences. Although the concept of gender was not yet developed in Shakespeare’s time, I believe it is useful and justifiable to talk about gender relations. It is inevitable to take a modern perspective, and the concept of gender is not restricted to men and women of the 20th and 21st centuries; it is definitely applicable to Shakespeare’s characters, too, as I will try to show in this thesis.
Bachelor Thesis from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,0, Free University of Berlin, language: English, abstract: Nowadays English has become the most important source of loanwords in Japanese by far. About 95% of all gairaigo loanwords (“words coming from abroad”, i.e. words originating from European languages) derived from the English language and it is estimated that about 5-10% of the Japanese lexicon are of English origin today (Stanlaw, 2004, p.1 + p.13). The status of the English language is high in Japan. It has become a marker of high education and openness to other (Western) cultures. Nearly every Japanese pupil is taught English for at least six years at school (from seventh to twelfth grade), but there is the possibility for private schools to start teaching eikaiwa (English conversation) from third grade on. English classes are obligatory for university students of all subjects, although it should be mentioned that these classes are usually overcrowded (often more than one hundred students) and that they take place only once a week for 90 minutes. A TOEFL test in 1997/98 among 26 Asian na-tions ranked Japan 25th and last together with North Korea (McKenzie, 2008, p 272). The Japanese government made heavy efforts to improve English teaching within the last decade. It was tried to motivate more Japanese pupils to spend a year abroad, only 1,000 Japanese pupils took chance of this opportunity in 2003, although there would have been provided money for 10,000 exchange students. Besides this, there are now more assistant language teachers - mainly from the inner circle of English speaking countries, but also, to a much smaller extent, from former British colonies - at Japanese schools to improve the eikaiwa lessons. The common eigo (English) lessons are still held by Japanese teachers and are strongly text and Grammar based, usually a translation into Japanese is given. Although the Western world was the model for the Japanese modernisation in the 19th and 20th century and English was without any doubt the means of communication with the West, the vast majority of the Japanese population has never become fluent English speakers.
Featuring a unique selection of wide-ranging experiences of British and Commonwealth Bomber Command aircrew during World War Two, this new release details the deep sea bombing raids that occurred within this time-frame. The enduring bravery and fortitude of these bomber pilots is communicated through a series of first-hand recollections, as is their humour and occasional cynicism. All reflect the ethos, fear and bravery of these ordinary men, most of whom were plucked from 'civvy street' and thrust into a frightening, bitter conflict which was made even more dangerous by the lethal advance of technology.With characteristic self-effacing modesty, the pilots, gunners, navigators and engineers tell of acts of great heroism, of dreadful injuries bravely borne, and personal fears overcome in the heat of battle. A comprehensive account of RAF Bomber operations on the infamous German warship Tirpitz is included, alongside many other similarly dramatic episodes. The gentle and unassuming narratives convey the sense of purpose that these men felt, employed in some of the most dangerous yet vital operations of the war. It is a fitting tribute to those that survived and the many thousands who died in the struggle against Hitler's dreadful ambitions in Europe.
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