Mac Flecknoe

   Mac Flecknoe is the one of the most important example of satirical poem . It was written by John Dryden in Restoration period . This mock-heroic satire was written to criticize Shadwell who is an ineffective poet . Dryden says in this poem , Shadwell is the king of the dullness and he resembles him to Mac Flecknoe who is another untalented poet. In this poem , what surprised me is the writing type of Dryden , He symbolizes Shadwell as "Sh.." . ‘Sh…’ can stand for Shadwell but Shadwell could not prove this , at the same time , this abbreviation 'Sh..' can stand for 'shit'.

   Consequently , this type of poem really affects and especially 'Mac Flecknoe is one of the most brilliant work . Mocking of Shadwell is quite impressive.

White Wedding Dress

 This week we talked about 'Victorian Age' and I learned strange information about both Queen Victoria and this period.

  Firstly I want to mention that ; for the first time ''white wedding dress'' was put on by Queen Victoria . Normally in this term brides in kingdom put on grey dress in their wedding ceremony. She put on 'white ' wedding grown as a symbol of virginity and innocence ,  because in Victorian Age virginity and purity had a great importance . Because of the importance of virginity in this period , 'white' wedding gown accepted easily and being permanent.

  When we look at the Ottoman Empire,  brides in Ottoman put on red wedding dress . However at first 'white wedding gown'  was put on by Naime Sultan who was the daughter of Abdulhamid II . She saw the white wedding dress at the wedding ceremony in Europe . Naime Sultan really liked it , and she put on white wedding dress in her own wedding ceremony .

 To sum up ; the reason of feeling herself as a queen when a girl puts on white wedding grown is that was put on at first by a real queen. 

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

This week we talked about '' The Rime of the Ancient Mariner '' written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This work was written in Romanticism period.

   In this work , firstly a man stopped a boy who was going to the wedding ceremony and started to tell him a story . It was a real story about his life on the other hand it was his own experience . One day the Mariner and some sailors went into the ship in a sunny and lovely day. However the stream turned the ship southward, so the ship came to the frozen icy land in the South Pole . Because of  ice and fog in everywhere , the ship could not go anywhere in the ocean . In this time sailors saw Albatross which is a see bird and some people believe this bird brings good luck to the sailor at the same time some people say that it can be eaten by the sailors.  The Mariner killed Albatross, at first the sailors was afraid of this because ; if this bird brings good luck to the sailors, it can bring bad luck when it is killed . However , when the Albatross died , fog lifted ; therefore the sailors believed this bird brought actually bad luck to them. Then this time, the stream brought them in silent where in the sea but there was no wind and the Sun was as warm as in desert , so there was no water to drink in a huge sea. So the sailors blamed the Mariner as a punishment they hung the death body of the Albatross to the neck of the Mariner. They were too thirsty to speak . Because of this , when they saw a ship which came to the them , but the could not shout, so  they bit their arm to soak the their mouth and they shout to the help. But this was a ghostly ship . They could not stand that and they decided to play a game ''Death and the nightmare life-in-death '' they started to play . However except the Mariner all of the two hundred sailors died ,and the Mariner lived in this ship with the two hundred death sailors during a week or ten days. But he could not die. Finally one day he realized the fish and other sea animal and hearty thanks to the God for this beauty and this moment he was forgiven and this death sailors returned to life supernaturally and wind was blowing and the Mariner evaded . Consequence of this, the Mariner was responsible to tell this story to every one.

   To sum up, this story has some characteristics of romanticism period such as supernatural elements, natural events, strong emotional descriptions like desperate and pain of man .

ROMANTİC PERİOD

From now on we have studied two important era . Those are '' rationalism and romanticism'' .

Firstly I want to talk about 'Rationalism' . In this term everything based on reason , so reasons and scientific  tests gained importance . Actually using scientific tests were good but they forgot the importance of feeling. They took no notice to feeling , so they took no notice to poem . Almost all of the writer in this period wrote the prose . Thanks to scientific tests, essays , journals and this kind of prose gained importance. They thought that individual feeling were ridiculous . I think, some of the writers got bored and they fought against to the Rationalism . Therefore a new moment was born .

This new movement was called as 'Romanticism' . In contrast to the Rationalism , feelings , personal emotions and supernatural elements gained importance. At the same time, Poets in this period found the beauty of simple rural people. Wordsworth and Coleridge are a kind of leaders of this movement. Their works are the most beautiful examples of this period.

To sum up , Not only reasons but also feelings are important in literature . But to neglect feelings widely is ridiculous because feelings are quite important in literature .  

“O drug!” said I aloud, “what art thou good for? Thou art not worth to me, no, not the taking off of the ground; one of those knives is worth all this heap; I have no manner of use for thee; e’en remain where thou art and go to the bottom as a creature whose life is not worth saving.” However, upon second thoughts, I took it away. . . .

      In this quotation , the drugs mean money . Robinson Crusoe was all alone in this island . When he went to the ship, he found some thing that he need to him such as food, water ,weapon... By this way he found money ... But the last thing he need was ''money'' in this island because he did not have anything to buy this money or there was no shopping center .Therefore he noticed the knife was more useful for him than money . He could not use the money but with the help of money, he could protect himself , chop the fruit or some vegetables , anywhere else in the island. In his normal life 'money' was one of the important things ,but he saw the useless of money .

    Finally he took the money . Why did he take the money?  This question has a lot of answers . First of all, he had a hope to get rid of this island. If he got off there , he would have need this money . Perhaps this hope was the only thing to keep him alive during the years. Secondly ,  we can see how expedient person he was or how much importance he gave the money. He know that he did not need the money but he took it. This shows his expediency.

Robinson Crusoe

 

    

This week we talked about Robinson Crusoe  and we watched a movie about him.  

     The book has some differences from the movie. When we look at the movie it begins with a death and Robinson Crusoe is obliged to leave the country . He is married as a movie. However there is a different beginning in  the book. Robinson Crusoe lives with his parent. He has a dream '' voyage'' and to live some adventures . One day he has a chance  to voyage but there is storm and he gets seasick. Therefore he regrets and decides not to sail. However later he has a chance to sail again. This time he is taken as a slave and a couple years later he is able to escape from them. He is saved from a Portugal ship and he is brought to Brazil. However he loves the sea and he sails for trade of slave again . This is a milestone in his life because he has a accident in the sea and he finds himself in a island.

     He lives the island all alone for many years. One friday , cannibals come to this island. Robinson gets frighten them and except one of  them , they all leaves from the island. Robinson meets the cannibal, he calls him 'Friday' and introduce himself as 'Master '. This shows Robinson sees him as slave. He does not know the English so Robinson educates him and they become friend. I think purpose of Robinson in educating Friday is to establish a colony for England.

    Finally he is recovered this island . Although there are some differences with book , this story shows us not to lose our hope  .

Industrial Age

In this lesson we talked about Industrial age , consequences of this and 'a modest proposal' written by Jonathan Swift.

    In industrial age we can easily notice some advance in trade and agriculture at the same time in some areas socio-economic wellbeing. Factories were established almost everywhere in London. Thanks to this , such a lot person worked in this factories. However , this situation had some disadvantages , too. Some poor family's children  worked and they were even 5 years old. There were so much child death. They lived in overcrowded house , resulting from hygiene problems, there became a lot outbreak and so may people mostly children died.

     Poor life is one side of London but other side is much better for the rich . Thanks to industrial age the rich became richer so they began to interest in literature and they started to read book (because of book price , just rich people could read ) . At the same time they had coffee house where they read book , newspaper etc.

      Thanks to their wellbeing , literature gained power , especially prose . However poetry and drama did not take interest as much as prose . Jonathan Swift wrote 'a modest proposal' , it is satire .Swift criticizes other side of London , death of this children . He criticizes the government. He says ''If we do not know what to do with this children , we can 'eat ' them . The solution is so brilliant and crazy .He makes some calculations too. Even this satire could tell us this term.

     To sum up, industrial age was mixed term for England . There was social inequality : the poor were poorer , the rich were richer .