Thursday, November 28, 2019

Arthur Miller And Tennessee Williams, Including A Streetcar Named Desi

Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947, film, 1951) and Death of a Salesman (1949). He directed the Academy Award-winning films Gentleman's Agreement (1947) and On The Waterfront (1954), as well as East of Eden (1955), A Face in the Crowd (1957), Splendor in the Grass (1961), and The Last Tycoon (1976). His two autobiographical novels, America, America (1962) and The Arrangement (1967), were turned into films in 1963 and 1968. Bibliography: Koszarski, Richard, Hollywood Directors, 1941-1976 (1977). Jolson, Al -------------------------------- (johl'-suhn) The singer Al Jolson, b. Asa Yoelson in Lithuania, c.1886, d. Oct. 23, 1950, immigrated with his family to Washington, D.C., around 1895. After a long apprenticeship as a singer in burlesque, minstrel shows, and vaudeville, he won (1911) his first important role in the Broadway show La Belle Paree. Jolson's style was notable for its vigor and volume, its blatant sentimentality, and for his use of blackface, a leftover theatrical convention from the already moribund minstrel show. His work--especially his film roles, beginning with The Jazz Singer (1927), the first major sound picture--won him a large audience during his lifetime. Jolson was awarded the Congressional Medal of Merit posthumously for his many overseas tours of wartime army camps, the last at the beginning of the Korean War in 1950. Bibliography: Friedland, Michael, Jolson (1972). Discography:Best of Al Jolson: Steppin' Out and California, Here I Come (1911-29). Duchamp, Marcel -------------------------------- (doo-shahm') Marcel Duchamp, b. July 28, 1887, d. Oct. 2, 1968, was a French painter and theorist, a major proponent of DADA, and one of the most influential figures of avant-garde 20th-century art. After a brief early period in which he was influenced chiefly by Paul CEZANNE and Fauve color (see FAUVISM), Duchamp developed a type of symbolic painting, a dynamic version of facet CUBISM (similar to FUTURISM), in which the image depicted successive movements of a single body. It closely resembled the multiple exposure photography documented in Eadward MUYBRIDGE's book The Horse in Motion (1878). In 1912, Duchamp painted his famous Nude Descending A Staircase, which caused a scandal at the 1913 ARMORY SHOW in New York City. In the same year he developed, with Francis PICABIA and Guillaume APOLLINAIRE, the radical and ironic ideas that independently prefigured the official founding of Dada in 1916 in Zurich. In Paris in 1914, Duchamp bought and inscribed a bottle rack, thereby producing his first ready-made, a new art form based on the principle that art does not depend on established rules or on craftsmanship. Duchamp's ready-mades are ordinary objects that are signed and titled, becoming aesthetic, rather than functional, objects simply by this change in context. Dada aimed at departure from the physical aspect of painting and emphases in ideas as the chief means of artistic expression. In 1915, Duchamp moved to New York City, where he was befriended by Louise and Walter Arensberg and their circle of artists and poets, which constituted New York Dada. That same year he began his major work, The Large Glass, or The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (1915-23), a construction of wire and painted foil fitted between plates of transparent glass. In 1918 he completed his last major painting, Tu m', a huge oil and graphite on canvas, a unique combination of real and painted objects and illusionistic and flat space. Following his maxim never to repeat himself, Duchamp "stopped" painting (1923) after 20 works and devoted himself largely to the game of chess. Nevertheless, by 1944 he had secretly begun sketches on a new project, and between 1946 and 1949 created his last work, the Etant Donnes (Philadelphia Museum of Art). BARBARA CAVALIERE Bibliography: Alexandrian, Sarane, Duchamp (1977); d'Harnoncourt, Anne, and McShine, Kynaston, eds., Marcel Duchamp (1973); Duchamp, Marcel, From the Green Box, trans. by George H. Hamilton (1957); Golding, John, Duchamp (1973); Schwarz, Arturo, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, 2d ed. (1970); Tomkins, Calvin, The World of Marcel Duchamp (1966). Renoir, Jean -------------------------------- (ren-wahr') One of the greatest and best-loved of all French filmmakers, Jean Renoir, b. Sept. 15, 1894, d. Feb. 13, 1979, the second son of the impressionist painter Auguste Renoir, exercised a major influence on French cinema for almost 50 years. From his beginnings in the silent era, aspects of his mature film style were apparent: a love of nature, rejection of class values, and a mixture of joy and sorrow. Some of his earliest films were made with his wife Catherine Hessling as star, among them an interpretation of Zola's Nana (1926), and The Little Match Girl (1928). During the 1930s Renoir was at the top of his form in two celebrations of anarchy, La Chienne (The Bitch,

Sunday, November 24, 2019

All About Radicals in the Japanese Language

All About Radicals in the Japanese Language In written Japanese, a radical (bushu) is a common sub-element found in different kanji characters.  Kanji are the equivalent of letters in Arabic-based languages like English.   Japanese is written in a combination of three scripts: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Kanji originated from Chinese characters, and the Japanese equivalents are based on ancient spoken Japanese. Hiragana and katakana developed from kanji to express Japanese syllables phonetically.   Most kanji are not used in everyday conversational Japanese, although its estimated that more than 50,000 kanji exist.  The Japanese Ministry of Education designated 2,136 characters as Joyo Kanji. They are the characters frequently used. Although it would be very helpful to learn all of Joyo Kanji, the basic 1,000 characters are sufficient to read about 90 percent  of the kanji used in a newspaper.   Radicals or Bushu and Kanji Technically speaking radicals are  graphemes, meaning theyre the graphical parts that make up each kanji character. In Japanese, these characters are derived from written Chinese kangxi radicals.  Every kanji is made of  a radical, and a radical itself can be a kanji. Radicals express the general nature of the kanji characters, and provide clues to the kanjis origin, group, meaning, or pronunciation. Many kanji dictionaries organize characters by their radicals. There are  214 radicals total, but its likely that even native Japanese speakers cant recognize and name them all. But for those new to the Japanese language, memorizing some of the important and frequently used radicals will be very helpful as you try to learn the meanings of many of the kanji.   When writing kanji, in addition to knowing the meanings of the different radicals in order to better understand the words they spell, its key to know a kanjis stroke count (the number of pen strokes used to make the kanji) and stroke order. Stroke count is also useful when using a kanji dictionary.  The most basic rule for stroke order is that kanji are written from top to bottom and from left to right. Here are some other basic rules. Radicals are roughly divided into seven groups (hen, tsukuri, kanmuri, ashi, tare, nyou, and kamae) by their positions. Common Radicals The hen are found at the left side of a kanji character. Here are common radicals that take the hen position and some sample kanji characters.   Ninben  (person)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Tsuchihen  (earth)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Onnahen  (woman)  Ã‚  Gyouninben  (going man)Risshinben(heart)Tehen  (hand)  Kihen  (tree)Sanzui  (water)Hihen  (fire)Ushihen  (cow)ShimesuhenNogihen  (two branch tree)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Itohen  (thread)Gonben  (word)  Ã‚  Kanehen  (metal)  Ã‚  Kozatohen (time) The  common radicals that take thetsukuri and kanmuri  position are listed below.   Tsukuri Rittou  (sword)  Ã‚  Nobun  (folding chair)Akubi  (gap)Oogai  (page)  Ã‚  Ã‚   Kanmuri Ukanmuri  (crown)Takekanmuri  (bamboo)Kusakanmuri  (grass)Amekanmuri  (rain) And here is a look at common radicals that take the  ashi, tare, nyou and kamae position.   Ashi Hitoashi  (human legs)Kokoro  (heart)  Ã‚  Rekka  (fire)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Tare Shikabane  (flag)  Ã‚  Madare  (dotted cliff)Yamaidare  (sick) Nyou Shinnyou  (road)  Ã‚  Ennyou  (long stride) Kamae Kunigamae(box)  Mongamae  (gate)

Thursday, November 21, 2019

William Blake's The Chimney Sweeper intends to change the mind and Essay

William Blake's The Chimney Sweeper intends to change the mind and hearts of its readers. Explain how this might be supposed to work upon the consciousness and conscience of Blake's contemporaries - Essay Example Blake’s major poems are represented in two collections: Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. First collection of poems has many similar images of children, besides it presents many religious and social themes. The name of the collection implies that the themes and issues are present from the perspective of a child. The world is shown in the light which is different to the one an adult sees it. In his two collections of poems Blake presents the same themes, but in different lights and from different angles using words ‘innocence’ and ‘experience’ for collections’ titles. On the one hand, the contrast of the issues presented in the two great collections is strikingly vivid. However, on the other hand, the two opposing visions of life are equally important and necessary for better understanding of the wholesome picture of reality. State of innocence is a child’s vision of things and understanding of the world, while state of experience is a mature person’s perception of reality. One cannot be without the other. Two components, child’s innocence and adult’s experience, put together can create a wholesome picture of the reality and the world we live in. The poet makes his best to present all the truth of life through contrasting images of his two complementary collections of poems (Gallant 124). Blake’s intent ion is to change reader’s mind for the better by identifying evils and corruptions present in English society. He makes his contemporaries think of the reality they live in and perceive it objectively and adequately. Songs of Innocence is the representation of childhood and naivetà © it entails. Blake’s poem The Chimney Sweeper is one of the poems published in Songs of Innocence (1789). The poem contains all the hopes, fears, and naivetà © altogether a child might experience, especially during the time when child labor was such