“Dubliners” is a collection of fifteen short stories written by James Joyce in which the author analyses the failure of self-realisation of inhabitants of Dublin in biographical and in psychological ways. The novel was originally turned down by publishers because they considered it immoral for its portrait of the Irish city. Joyce treats in “Dubliners” the paralysis of will in four stages: childhood, youth, maturity and public life. The paralysis of will is the courage and self-knowledge that leads ordinary men and women to accept the limitations imposed by the social context they live in. In “Dubliners” the style is both realistic - to the degree of perfectly recreating characters and idioms of contemporary Dublin - and symbolic – giving the common object unforeseen depth and a new meaning in order to show a new view of reality. Joyce defines this effect “epiphany” which indicates that moment when a simple fact suddenly explodes with meaning and makes a person realise his / her condi...
The Elizabethan playhouse was the most important cultural phenomenon in Renaissance England: it celebrated England and her kings and queens, providing a common mythology to nation.
Each social class and individual spectator enjoyed the play at the theatre.
The companies of players performed in the courtyards of the London inns, but in 1574 public performances were banned by City government because plays were considered a disturbance, according to citizens of the City, and highly immoral from the Puritans.
So, new public outdoor playhouses were, initially, built in the north of the City and then in the south of the River Thames.
London's first professional playhouse was built in the suburb of Shoreditch in 1576 by James Burbage, father of one of Shakespeare's fellow actors.
When difficulties arose over the lease of the property, the two Burbage's sons pulled down the building and transported all materials to the south side of the River Thames in Bankside's Cultural Quarter.
This new theatre was called The Globe and part of the cost was met by Shakespeare, who shared both in the profits of the theatre.
Shakespeare's Globe Theatre was reconstructed on the same site in 1999.
The rounded structure of this theatre and its stage were the visible architectural expression of the great commonplace of the Elizabethan theatre : "All the world is a stage".
This idea is central to Shakespeare's plays.
It finds its best expression in Macbeth's tragic speech after the death of Lady Macbeth, where he compares man to a poor actor and life to a brief play.
Price of tickets varied according to the position of seat.
It cost one penny to enter the playhouse and stand in the arena that surrounded the stage; for this reason, standing spectators were called groundlings.
For one more penny the spectators had access to the galleries that went around the playhouse.
There were also seats on the stage: these cost more for people who wanted to watch the action close-up.
Plays were performed in the afternoon and the actors were in close contact with the audience, who would move around, call to each other, eat and drink.
The continuous interchange between actors and audience accounts for the atmosphere of the Elizabethan public theatres.
Players were socially classified as vagabonds and were prohibited performed in public.
For this reason, they put themselves under the protection of some nobleman.
They wore their noble patron's liveries and their companies took their names from their protector.
An important thing is all female roles were acted by young boys dressed as women.
After Elizabeth I 's death, in Jacobean period there was a sharp division between public outdoor theatres and private indoors one.
The lower and the higher classes were no long part of the same audience.
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