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Witches which Never Flew: Native Witchcraft and the Cunning Woman on the Stage
Issue:
Volume 2, Issue 5, September 2014
Pages:
130-141
Received:
17 August 2014
Accepted:
25 August 2014
Published:
10 September 2014
Abstract: In early modern England cunning men and women (often older people on the fringes of society) became easy targets for gossip within rural communities. I will examine some figures of the cunning woman in this period and show how they appear in different senses: the cunning woman as a healer, nurturer, fortune-teller and domestic manager. Mother Sawyer, in The Witch of Edmonton by William Rowley, Thomas Dekker and John Ford (1621), complains of the community of Edmonton that she has been convicted because she is ‘poor, deform’d, and ignorant’ (II.i.3).1 Sawyer has been abused because she is old and ugly and does not have any means by which to make her living. She is physically portrayed as a contemporary English witch. However Sawyer is not a witch from the beginning of the play, and not presented as one until her community accuse her of witchcraft. After she realizes that there is nothing left to lose, she makes a pact with the devil and thus her identity changes from an old woman into a real witch. In John Lyly’s Mother Bombie (1594), Bombie is a ‘white witch’ or ‘cunning woman’ whose mysterious power is used to help people, not to harm. In Thomas Heywood’s The Wise Woman of Hogsdon (1604), the Wise Woman pretends to be a cunning woman and skilled in fortune-telling, palmistry and curing diseases. The three protagonists in the mentioned plays are drawn from English witch-lore, and they live in the suburbs and resort to witchcraft in order to make their living. Mother Sawyer, a traditional English witch, is portrayed as hag-like whereas Mother Bombie and the Wise Woman are English local cunning women. The witches do not fly and stage directions do not call for flight in the witch scenes; their feet remain firmly on the ground in all scenes. Cunning women are not the same as witches: they do not have a familiar, they tell fortunes and cure diseases, are benevolent, they do not hold covens on the Sabbath, do not make pacts with the devil in return for rewards and they do not act maleficium. The chronological approach taken here is used in order to determine the dramatic development of the witches and cunning women in two theatrical modes—the tragic (The Witch of Edmonton) and the comic (Mother Bombie, and The Wise Woman of Hogsdon).
Abstract: In early modern England cunning men and women (often older people on the fringes of society) became easy targets for gossip within rural communities. I will examine some figures of the cunning woman in this period and show how they appear in different senses: the cunning woman as a healer, nurturer, fortune-teller and domestic manager. Mother Sawye...
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The Differences between Hearing Impaired and Normal Children’s Pictures and their Colour Use
Issue:
Volume 2, Issue 5, September 2014
Pages:
142-149
Received:
24 August 2014
Accepted:
2 September 2014
Published:
20 September 2014
Abstract: The pictures that children draw reflect their inner worlds. When we have a look at the human history, we can easily notice how pictures being such an important means from the very beginning. The pictures giving lots of information about past are very important evaluation instrument for experts working with children. For most people, the important thing about the pictures is their aesthetic value on the other hand we focus on other vast amount of important factors for child evaluation. For example; the undrawn parts in the Picture, with how much pressure the pencil is used, bigness and smallness, the ratio between the body parts, the way paper is used and the way individuals positioned, the colours used etc. What kind of development properties and mood, each of these factors indicating, were determined by the researches. In this search only a general information will be given because by the ones who don’t study on child mental health field, the pictures might be misinterpreted in terms of all dimensions about the meaning of pictures because this information only will be meaningful when it is combined with the information in the child psychology field findings or else sometimes mislabelling might happen by word of mouth information for example a child drawing a Picture with no mouth might be labelled as shy which we all agree negative outcomes of these labelling on children. In this article, two groups of children’s pictures were compared, the first group is the hearing impaired children and the second group is the normal children and we studied the differences of pictures and colour use among these groups. In this study two different schools were visited and formed the groups and they were asked to draw four different types of pictures and all these information gathered and interpreted.
Abstract: The pictures that children draw reflect their inner worlds. When we have a look at the human history, we can easily notice how pictures being such an important means from the very beginning. The pictures giving lots of information about past are very important evaluation instrument for experts working with children. For most people, the important t...
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Poetic Language: Presenting Factual Information
Mustafa Wshyar A. Al-Ahmedi
Issue:
Volume 2, Issue 5, September 2014
Pages:
150-154
Received:
18 July 2014
Accepted:
2 September 2014
Published:
20 September 2014
Abstract: The aim of this essay is to show the way which poetic language provides the reader with factual information about the events which happen in the world. At the beginning, the poetic language will be explained and discussed. Then, a brief introduction will be given about the Iraqi war in 2003. For discussions and to support the arguments in the essay, three poems are chosen. They will be analysed and it will be shown the way that poetic language presents the factuality.
Abstract: The aim of this essay is to show the way which poetic language provides the reader with factual information about the events which happen in the world. At the beginning, the poetic language will be explained and discussed. Then, a brief introduction will be given about the Iraqi war in 2003. For discussions and to support the arguments in the essay...
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Witches before Flying
Issue:
Volume 2, Issue 5, September 2014
Pages:
155-172
Received:
18 August 2014
Accepted:
6 September 2014
Published:
20 September 2014
Abstract: This paper examines Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606), and The Late Lancashire Witches (1634) by Thomas Heywood and Richard Brome, and considers in detail the witch scenes in both plays and their stage directions during their entrances and exits. The witches in the Jacobean Macbeth of the First Folio, do not explicitly fly in the stage directions. However, they do in the Restoration Macbeth, namely in Davenant’s second Quarto (1674). The question to be raised here is: what evidence is there in the pre-Restoration Macbeth that the witches flew? In order to explore this, we must consider what performance spaces were used for Macbeth in the Jacobean period. Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and Heywood and Brome’s The Late Lancashire Witches form an interesting comparison since they were both revised by other writers. The Late Lancashire Witches has not received as much scholarly attention as the other witch plays discussed here. Therefore, as a comparative study, this paper will also discuss the joint authorship of Heywood and Brome in The Late Lancashire Witches and the stage directions of the witch scenes. Although it seems that the witches did not fly in Heywood’s and Brome’s version, there is evidence that the stage directions called for flight in The Lancashire Witches (1681), Thomas Shadwell’s later version. A further illuminating comparison between these plays is that the creatures we are considering here are sinister figures in Macbeth but comic figures in The Lancashire Witches. The audience can see that the three Weird Sisters enter the stage and then vanish into the air, but do not see them fly.
Abstract: This paper examines Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606), and The Late Lancashire Witches (1634) by Thomas Heywood and Richard Brome, and considers in detail the witch scenes in both plays and their stage directions during their entrances and exits. The witches in the Jacobean Macbeth of the First Folio, do not explicitly fly in the stage directions. Howev...
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Dragons on the Jacobean Stage
Issue:
Volume 2, Issue 5, September 2014
Pages:
173-186
Received:
27 August 2014
Accepted:
11 September 2014
Published:
20 September 2014
Abstract: This paper investigates a mixture of plays both Elizabethan (Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus (1594) and Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1588-92)), and Jacobean (Barne’s The Devil’s Charter (1607) and Rowley’s The Birth of Merlin (1622)). These plays stage supernatural entities such as male witches, magicians and dragons. What binds all these plays together is having dragon(s) controlled by a magician. It is important to investigate the stage directions of the dragons in making their exits and entrances, what role they have in the plays, and how they affect the character of the drama. This study examines some sorcerer plays with special concentration on the character of the sorcerers, looking at the kinds of rituals and magic they make. Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Barnes’s Alexander VI, and Rowley’s Merlin are male magicians and, each has a different role, being assisted by spirits or devils. I will investigate their role in each play and how they relate to witchcraft.
Abstract: This paper investigates a mixture of plays both Elizabethan (Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus (1594) and Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1588-92)), and Jacobean (Barne’s The Devil’s Charter (1607) and Rowley’s The Birth of Merlin (1622)). These plays stage supernatural entities such as male witches, magicians and dragons. What binds all these plays ...
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The Exploration of a Sense of Belonging: An Explanation of Naipaul’s Novel Half a Life & Magic Seeds
Issue:
Volume 2, Issue 5, September 2014
Pages:
187-191
Received:
5 September 2014
Accepted:
18 September 2014
Published:
30 September 2014
Abstract: V. S. Naipaul is a Trinidad-born Nobel Prize-winning British writer known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad. This famous post-colonial writer, V. S. Naipaul, has been paying close attention to the social reality and life in post-colonial society. In 2001, his novel Half a Life won the booker prize; It tells the story about Willie Chandran’s first 18 years’ life. However, it is not a complete story; it is a precursor to Naipaul’s novel Magic Seeds. In 2004, Naipaul completed the story by his novel Magic Seeds. Seeking for a sense of belonging is the theme throughout the whole process in this two books. In his last novel Magic Seeds, this theme has got a full explanation. Through an interpretation of these two books about Willie’s life, this paper aims to explore the protagonist---Willie’s life process in seeking his sense of belonging and the reason for its missing. Willie is only one of the representatives among the diasporas who try their best to claim for their identity and a sense of belonging. So at the same time, it aims to reveal the theme and relate to the contemporary situation to interpret the realistic significance of the importance of a sense of belonging. Literature is the reflection of our society, its development and change, however subtle it is, this is also true of Naipaul’s two famous novels. They shed lots of light on our daily life and heart.
Abstract: V. S. Naipaul is a Trinidad-born Nobel Prize-winning British writer known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad. This famous post-colonial writer, V. S. Naipaul, has been paying close attention to the social reality and life in post-colonial society. In 2001, his novel Half a Life won the booker prize; It tells the story about Willie Chandran’...
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Flight on the Jacobean Stage
Issue:
Volume 2, Issue 5, September 2014
Pages:
192-210
Received:
17 September 2014
Accepted:
29 September 2014
Published:
10 October 2014
Abstract: This study is concerned with the historical and theatrical aspects of Middleton’s The Witch. Among the questions it will address are which sources Middleton drew on for this play, and to what extent his witches differ from those in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. This chapter (paper) also considers the question of whether the treatment of witchcraft in Middleton’s The Witch belongs to the English or the Continental tradition. While the historical circumstances of witchcraft ideas are important for an understanding of this play, this paper will demonstrate that questions of genre and visual spectacle are equally important; especially it will argue that the play’s comedy and its visual aspects are mutually dependent. In raising the issue of why the play is categorized as tragicomedy, I examine how comedy and technology come together in this play. Finally, this study explores how the play would have worked on stage, and especially how the witchcraft scenes would have been staged to create a theatrical spectacle: what props, or other staging devices were needed, and how these were adapted during the Renaissance period. The question is also raised here as to when the machinery for staging flying witches came into existence, and whether the stage directions of the supernatural scenes in The Witch and some of Shakespeare’s later plays, Cymbeline and The Tempest, were originally written by the actual authors or scrivener. This paper also examines differences in stage directions for supernatural characters between early modern and contemporary editions of the above plays.
Abstract: This study is concerned with the historical and theatrical aspects of Middleton’s The Witch. Among the questions it will address are which sources Middleton drew on for this play, and to what extent his witches differ from those in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. This chapter (paper) also considers the question of whether the treatment of witchcraft in Midd...
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Music and a “Spectacle of Strangeness”
Issue:
Volume 2, Issue 5, September 2014
Pages:
211-223
Received:
21 September 2014
Accepted:
7 October 2014
Published:
10 October 2014
Abstract: This paper examines Ben Jonson’s The Masque of Queens (1609), and The Wonder of Women, Tragedy of Sophonisba (1604-6) by John Marston, considering the topic of the nature and status of stage directions related to the hags in Jonson’s play, and how they make their entrances and exits from the stage and to hell. In Tragedy of Sophonisba, I examine the way the entries and the music of this play were performed by youths alongside the dramatic techniques of the play, and address the question of whether Marston’s hags flew or not while they scatter on stage to the accompaniment of the music. In sum, I explore how Jonson and Marston present the visual spectacle of their witches on stage, how Jonson’s masque and Marston’s play represent witchcraft and how their witches fit in this masque and play. What binds Jonson’s masque and Marston’s play together is the use of music and dance through which the hags appear on stage. Both Jonson (in all the nine Charms - list of spells) and Marston (Act III. i & IV. i) explore the nature of witchcraft through music and dance: Jonson’s hags disperse on stage and the manner of their dance is full of a ‘spectacle of strangeness’ while Marston’s characters are led away to seduction with a musical accompaniment. In each play I will concentrate on the matter of authorship and the status of stage directions in the printed text, and whether the stage directions (only those involving the supernatural characters) in this masque and play were originally written by the author himself or were revised or supplied by editors.
Abstract: This paper examines Ben Jonson’s The Masque of Queens (1609), and The Wonder of Women, Tragedy of Sophonisba (1604-6) by John Marston, considering the topic of the nature and status of stage directions related to the hags in Jonson’s play, and how they make their entrances and exits from the stage and to hell. In Tragedy of Sophonisba, I examine th...
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