MACBETH

The last lesson we talked about Macbeth which is one of the most significant tragedy of Shakespeare . It is about ambitious that easily hurts the people .

In this tragedy , everything begins with witches. They say to Macbeth , he would be made thane of Cawdor and eventually king of Scotland and his friend Banquo , not himself , but one of the man who is in his family would be the king of Scotland . Then they go their way and Macbeth learns that he is the thane of Cawdor . He knows he would be the king of Scotland and makes a plan with his wife to kill Duncan who is the king of Scotland . However his wife makes is only for him, Macbeth, and his career . Macbeth becomes the king and he thinks what witches said to him .So he kills every member of Bonque's family. After this murder, she regrets and always sees his blood in her hand and she puts an end to her life. And finally witches tells him, he would not be killed by any man born of woman. But he is killed by Macduff in a war because Macduff was born by cesarean section .

To sum up , In this work we can see ambition of kingdom and power. But even if we have all earth , one day we will die. 

Romeo and Juliet

This week, our topic was Romeo and Juliet. This play is one of the most important plays of Shakespeare . He wrote it perfectly.

Shakespeare is still important author not only in Europe but also world wide. He wrote a lot plays and sonnets. Shakespeare gained so many word to English literature , in addition to this He wrote his plays with quite a lot of vocabulary. I think , he describes love gloriously and his metaphors really intelligently .

Rome and Juliet which is most important work of Shakespeare ,is a tragedy . It is about a love story of Romeo and Juliet who love deeply each other. Unfortunately they were children of two enemy families. I want to mention about their story. They met for the first time in a feast which was in Juliet 's home . As soon as they see each other, they fall in love . And they get marry in a little while . But Romeo kills her cousin and he is exiled from the city . Hard days come and Juliet's family wants her to get marry with Paris as they do not know her daughter married with their enemy ,Romeo. However She does not want to get marry with Paris and she goes to Priest and they make a plan . When the marriage day came , she pretended as death person and every body thinks that she died . Romeo's servant sees that and as he does not know she pretended , so he goes to Romeo and tells him what he saw. Romeo takes a poison and goes her tomb. He poisons himself . But, when Juliet wakes up, she sees his death body and she kills herself , too. This love story end with tragedy. At the end of play two enemy family make peace and every thing reveals .

Shakespeare wrote this play like a poetry . His sentences , his metaphors are really magnificent . When we read this play , we can feel their love, with the help of his poetic language. However , when we read or watch this play , we can see some social elements. For example ; Juliet , Romeo or any body go to Priest and ask about his ideas. Therefore we can see Church effect in this period.

To sum up , in this play we can easily see, love could not prevent. In my opinion , love is the most excellent thing in the world and Shakespeare reflect it marvelously.

Shakespeare

The last lesson, we talked about Shakespeare and his period. He is great actor and playwright. I want to talk about his life , feature of his period, his plays.

Shakespeare was born in Stratford in 1564. He was an actor at the same time play writer. when he was eighteen years old , he got married with a woman who was eight years bigger than him. He was very successful in literature . He gained a lot of vocabulary  to English with  his works . Because of impressions of  Renaissance Period , He reflected human figure dominantly in his works. He created person who has such a lot psychological status , internal strife and compound character . His works affected people indeed. His works are still most translated to other languages. In these times, Although every body  used limited number of character , plays of Shakespeare had more than 35 characters . As women were not equal with man , all players were man.

In his period , Renaissance, people were so dirty , they never took shower. So there were a lot of fatal diseases such as Black death , cholera , malaria and smallpox ... Their house did not have indoor plumping. So they could not find drinking water and some fatal diseases spread  with even water . People did not drink water ; Therefore their popular drink was beer . Although London was very popular , metropolitan , big and wealthy city , It was extremely  dirty .

To sum up , Shakespeare is important person in English literature . His works and characters are interesting . I can not wait to read Romeo and Juliet.

Dr Faustus

   The last lesson we talked about Christopher  Marlowe  and his work Dr Faustus. I  made a research about this and I will mention about him and his work.

     

       Christopher  Marlowe   was well trained person . Despite  some researches  that state he took religious education , he was an atheist . In my opinion , he reflected his religious knowledge in his work Dr Faustus because we can see some religious knowledge like Satan (Lucifer) which can appear whoever he wants and about angel of goodness and badness.

   

     Dr Faustus who wants to be a greatest scientist and wants to make spell . So he makes a deal , with Satan. Firstly Dr Faustus is so confused, because Satan will give him whatever he wants along 24 years but the Satan wants his soul forever . Dr Faustus will accepts this but he does not know whether it is true or not . At the same time he hears  some voice of some body that  I   think he is the angel of goodness, tells him not to do this, it is bad idea , be  good man and you are a good man . But the angel of badness wins . Dr Faustus makes a deal with Satan and he sells his soul. However the angel of goodness is still  with him , while he is signing the deal with his blood, his blood clots for a while . the reason for this it is a bad idea and  the angel of goodness is still trying him to turn back . In spite of everything, he signs the deal. Dr Faustus  can become whoever he wants  and he can receive whatever he wants. But 24 years passes down quickly .

    

      If I were Dr Faustus, I would think so much .We can easily see, all of the streaks prove that it is bad idea. .If I were him , whenever I saw clotting of my blood , I would give up. In movie whenever Dr Faustus thinks to give up the deal , the Satan is appeared to him as a Elizabeth. Even he does not want to award his soul but he is appeared him as a Elizabeth and he becomes the victim of his passions .

     To sum up, if you want to make a decision, you should think so much especially making a deal with Satan . Someting that we want to obtain ,can not be good for us.

Renaissance Period

   The last lesson we talked about Renaissance , what happen in this period , famous writers and works of this period.

   
   Renaissance means rebirth. This meaning was really reasonable for Europe because they lived a term like middle age and this term was regression for them. After middle age , they rebirth and they went into Renaissance . Some important event were lived in this period like printing press , discovery of America etc. They deeply effected Renaissance movement. Especially , printing press was milestone of Renaissance  and Europe. With the help of printing press , cost of the books declined. This means that everybody can buy and read a book , and  everybody  can learn every knowledge by themselves. When we compare this with the middle age, in this term everybody cannot buy a book , they even do not  know how to read and write.  The Church was dominate. So the people were uneducated . But in Renaissance Period , almost everything changed. The people  started to have knowledge , the Church lost value . Humanism gained important.

    Literature developed in Europe at the same time Humanism gained importance. Man became center of  world , They thought that everything on the earth was for man . Themes of literary work were man. In this period , with the help of printing press literary works became common. In addition to this some dramas were written . However they were written to play not to read , the reason of this most of the people were un educated and dramas became one of the most effective way. In this term , there was a lot of important writer  like Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe , Sir Thomas More etc.

 One of the most important writer of this term is Shakespeare. He created magnificent pieces He is important author both in this period ( Renaissance) and today . Themes of his works were comedy , supernatural events, love … He wrote important literary works like Romeo and Juliet,  Hamlet , Macbeth . Some people think Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe was the same people because they lived in the same period  in the same country, and their writing styles were almost the same . But  their life styles , families were different . They can be same person or not .

   To sum up Renaissance was illumination for Europe . They developed themselves so much especially in the part of literature.

Life in the Middle Ages

In the last lesson we talked about Middle Age and life in Europe. When we compare with these days' Europe and Middle Age, everything was so weird.

 Firstly, people who lived in Europe was not equal. Feodality dominated in Europe because there was class distinction. Aristocrats and reverends together governed the bourgeois and villagers. Almost all of the people was uneducated. Just reverends could read so they determines everything. Reverends could lead on villagers by using religion and they could easily exploit them. There was scolastic thought. Whatever the church said, everybody thought it was true. When we compare the East and West in the Middle Ages, scolastic thought exploited the West. However, in the East there were important scientists such as Farabi, Avecenna, Averroes etc. While the East was trainig important scientists, the West was living with scolastic thought without experiment and observation. The West lived like this until Crusades in which they faced to Muslims and they took some knowledge like paper, compass etc. With the help of them, they started to develop themselves. 

Do you know where the phrase of ''God Bless you'' comes from? The Middle Ages' Europe struggled with Blachdeath. One of the symptoms was sneeze. If somebody sneezed, everybody was afraid of Blackdeath and said ''God bless you.'' People who lived in Middle Ages' Europe did not take a shower because they thought that microorganism of Blackdeath spread with water. Most of the Europens took shower once or twice in their life. 

I want to talk about literature. One of the most important works of Middle Ages was Canterbury Tales. These tales was created by Geoffrey Chaucer. Cantercury Tales occurs some stories. They are about pilgrims who went London to see St. Thomas Backet's grave. While they were going, they told some stories to enjoy along their travel. These stories was irony. They were created to critisize the social life and these stories were moral and religious. They were both enjoyable and didactic. 

To sum up, when we look at the past, Europans developed themselves so much. They pay importance science and art. So we can easily see the differences. 

BEOWULF

         English has much more important products. One of them is Beowulf .

Like every culture in English literature, epic poem is more improved in the oral literature period . Beowulf is a example of the epic poem and it was comprised in the Anglo-Saxon Period at the same time it removes the  reflect of Anglo-Saxon Literature. Beowulf is a kind of epopee like our Oğuzkaan epopee . Epopees are the example of the oral literature . Therefore , like every epopee, Beowulf has some overstatements, too.

Beowulf is a epic poem about the hero Beowulf. He kills Grendel that is a monster of Denmark . However Grendel's mother wants to kill Beowulf and she makes a  magic to him . After that, when Beowulf goes to his country, he becomes a hero at the same time he becomes a king. However fifty years later Beowulf has a enemy 'Dragon' which is his son .Beowulf battle with Dragon and kills him (his son). But Beowulf  dies ,too.

Finally, Beowulf is a basic example of the English literature.It has type of this term.

History Effects Language

History can change everything even language.English is language which use by villagers in past.But now it is world language.
 Many events effect countries,continents,people,even language in past.Language is alive.If it was used correctly,it develops; as a result of this improvement, some words can vanish or we can have some vocabulary and idioms.For example;we used "mütemadiyen"in past  instead of "sürekli".As we see some words change according to our term.
 Improvement of language is effected by technology,invades,people,term,other culturel effects...English was used by villagers in past. If there had been some change in history,perhaps English wouldn't be world language now.The date of 1066 is really important for English history.
Vikings,Celts,Romans invaded England.As a result of this,there became 7 kingdoms.After this contries attackted,English Language was affected Nothern Europe Culture,especially French and Germany.
 Finally everything change even languages.English is changing day by day.

ELT AİBÜ

         Literature is Important 

        Literature means culture , history , language of the country . Therefore a person, who wants to learn this language _especially elt student_ , has to study literature.

      Personally I do not like even Turkish Literature and I easily get bored :) . However I have to learn English Literature because a couple of years later I have an exam (KPSS) . Therefore I must listen to this lesson carefully and I  must study regularly. I think this lesson will teach us new things about authors and culture of England and America . I hope it will be enjoyable . 

       Finally , I know this lesson is important for ELT student so I will pay attention to this lesson . I hope everything will be good for us .