The eNotes Blog How to Understand Shakespeares Language

How to Understand Shakespeares Language Admit it: reading Shakespeare is not your cup of tea. At first, trying to read Shakespeares works may seem like learning a foreign language. Performed for audiences over four centuries ago, Shakespeares plays were written in Early Modern English, so it’s natural to feel confused by word choices and sentence structures that have evolved since then. However, the more you expose yourself to Shakespeare’s language, the more comfortable you’ll feel when reading his works.   Ã‚  Ã‚   Let’s take a look at 10 reading strategies that will help you better understand the Bard’s language.    1. Read out loud. It’s important to note that Shakespeare’s works were intended for the stage. His plays were written to be performed, not silently read. Reading Shakespeare’s work aloud will help you become familiar with the rhythm and language of his verse. It’s also helpful to watch performances and listen to how other people perform his work, because you may pick up on something you missed from your own readings. 2. Read to the end of the sentence. When reading verse, you should read from punctuation mark to punctuation mark. This means you shouldnt pause at the end of a line just because theres a break. Punctuation marks dictate complete units of thought. Take a short pause in your reading when you encounter a comma. Take a long pause for a period, colon, semicolon, dash, or question mark. 3. Look up unfamiliar words. Shakespeare invented many of his own words and phrases. In fact, he added about 1,700 words to the English language by invention or combination. However, many of the words used throughout his work are not used in today’s colloquial language. Reading from an annotated text can help readers bridge the gap between Shakespeare’s language and their own. In these digital texts, obscure phrases are annotated with an explanation of their origins and meanings.    4. Differentiate Thou, Thee, Thy, and Thine. Shakespeare uses these words a lot. They are considered â€Å"archaic words†, which means they’re no longer used in contemporary English. Thou means â€Å"you,† thee means â€Å"you,† and thy means â€Å"your†. Since these words are so ubiquitous, it’s crucial to know the difference between them in order to know who or what they’re referring to in the text. 5. Understand contracted words. Contracted words are words in which a letter has been left out, which affects appearance and pronunciation like dot or knowst. Shakespeare often used contracted words in order to fit his meter and rhyme scheme. If you see that apostrophe mark, it almost always means a letter is missing. So, if you’re having difficulties understanding what a contracted word, you can often use context clues to determine the meaning. 6. Reword inverted sentences. Most of the sentences we’re familiar with will start with a subject followed by a verb. Shakespeare’s sentences sometimes do not follow this simple word order. Therefore, rewording Shakespeare’s sentences to place the subject first may help you gain a better understanding of what is being stated. For example: â€Å"Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm’d[.]†(5-6) â€Å"Sonnet 18† We can rearrange the sentence above to the following: â€Å"Sometimes the eye of heaven shines too hot, and his gold complexion is often dimmed.† 7.   Follow the action Sometimes its hard to keep track of who does what to whom. Focus on keeping track of the subject, verb, and object. In Shakespeare’s longer dialogues and soliloquies, it can get confusing to follow who is doing what, especially when there are lengthy descriptions and parenthetical comments. It may be helpful to take a couple of breaks during your reading and make notes of the scene. 8. Identify wordplay. Shakespeare loved to reconstruct and rearrange words. Be sure to look out for instances where he uses specific wordplay to illustrate the landscape of a scene or to enhance a character’s identity.    Here are some different types of wordplay often found in Shakespeare’s work: Puns: a play on words in which two words are used that have the same sound but have different meanings. Double entendre: a kind of pun in which a word or phrase has a second, often sexual, meaning. Malapropism: occurs when a character mistakenly uses a word that he or she has confused with another word.  Ã‚   9. Recognize the use of metaphor. Shakespeare often used metaphors to heighten the emotional and dramatic aspects of his dialogue. In order to identify specific examples of these literary devices, you must understand how they are used. For example: When Romeo crashes the Capulet family party in act 1, scene 5 of Romeo and Juliet, he uses both a metaphor and allusion when describing Juliet’s beauty. â€Å"It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiopes ear (I.v). Romeo uses a metaphor, specifically a simile, to describe Juliet’s appearance to that of a â€Å"rich jewel† hanging on the ear of an African queen. 10. Note stage direction Stage directions should never be overlooked. They are extremely important to understanding Shakespeare’s plays because avoiding them can result in confusion when reading. They appear in italics, explaining who is involved with a scene and where they are on the stage. Here are some of the common stage directions used throughout Shakespeares plays: Aside: when an actor speaks directly to the audience, but the other characters on stage cannot hear them    Exeunt: indicate the departure of a character from the stage Sennett: a signal call on a trumpet or cornet to for entrance or exit from the stage Solus: when a character is alone on the stage    For a more in-depth review on Shakespeare reading strategies with specific examples, visit How To Series.

Is Female Perception of the Body Image Affected by the Media

Is Female Perception of the Body Image Affected by the Media Here is an overview of the body-image issue. Read how magazines and fashion industry determine the standards of the female body. Mass Media Effect on How We Perceive Ourselves America certainly has many problems in its own society – institutionalized racism, poverty, ignorance, teen pregnancy and drug addiction. But another major problem lies within the work of the media, the main means of mass communication (broadcasting, publishing, and the Internet) regarded collectively. The media, whether we realize it or not, dictates what we let into our lives; this certainly affects how we perceive ourselves – because we compare ourselves, and are compared, to celebrities and other people we see in the media. ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY EXAMPLE: DOES VIOLENCE IN THE MEDIA CAUSE VIOLENCE IN CHILDREN? Most times, these celebrities are quite perfect-looking individuals, and so everyday people can have a low self-esteem because of new low body image – and this definitely applies to many adults and most teens, male and female alike. However, in this case, an argument will be made that illustrates how media influence the female perception of the body image. Magazine Pics Install a Lack of Confidence Let’s look at how females are portrayed in publications and on the Internet. Go to a magazine stand – you’ll see attractive, strikingly beautiful women on just about every cover. It’s sickening. This definitely over-sexualizes and objectifies the female beauty. But it’s been that way a long time, though that doesn’t justify why it still exists. Also, on the Internet, in newspaper ads and on billboards in dodgy parts of town, are billions of erotic pictures and videos of women. For young girls and insecure women, this instills a lack of confidence in their own appearance, and a body-image problem emerges. This problem could last a lifetime; maybe it’s the reason they hit the gym, get elective surgery or buy an expensive Italian sports car. Thanks to the media, the American public – heck, the world, too – adores so many of the same people, actors, athletes, and billionaires, that the public feels lost in the midst of things – they feel overlooked, irrelevant and worthless. You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful. ? Amy Bloom Secondly, non-skinny, non-model-type women do appear on magazine covers, though, but they are usually overweight, maybe handsome and funny or overweight, plain looking and rich – like Queen Latifah, Oprah, Amy Schumer and Melissa McCarthy. This is terrible for a woman’s body image because it illustrates how – if you are an average-looking woman, maybe a little chubby, without a fortune, and not an actor or media mogul – you aren’t important enough to be on the cover of a magazine. Not that this means anything in the grand scheme of things, but it does happen and will continue to happen as long as the media is running the show and influencing people. Here’s the thing: wealthy billionaires run the media companies, mostly financially supported by the advertiser who depends on the consumer’s purchasing power. A woman with a low body image buys the products advertised to them in commercials hosted by beautiful bombshells of women. They purc hase many things advertised to them in order to fill the void they have created for themselves, deeply instilled by the media. People Can’t Take Their Own Mediocrity Lastly, the two aforementioned points illustrate how media influence the female perception of the body image, and this causes the everyday woman – bombarded by advertisements, commercials, magazine covers, Web articles – to feel inferior to the women they see on TV and in the movies. This is a terrible thing, for it tends to warp the minds of insecure people, men, and women alike, who aren’t confident and comfortable in their own skin, with their own imperfect appearance and body. This is quite tragic. This is perhaps why we still see suicides and homicidal rampages, alcoholic and drug binges – they can’t take their own mediocrity, their lack of celebrity, their ordinariness. We are trained to think, in this culture, that we are nothing if we are not of some renown. TV HAS A NEGATIVE EFFECT ON TEENAGERS To conclude, let’s try hard to address this problem in the future. It’s easy to see how media influence the female’s perception of how they view their bodies, their looks. Women probably assess their value in comparison to the beauty or style or sexual features of a famous female. And because most everyday women in America do not look like Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie, many women feel inadequate and inferior and undesirable. Until the media actively tries to include the everyday American woman in advertisements, magazine covers, billboards and TV shows, America will have this problem – and it could have many socio-economic implications that could point to a shift in confidence, along with many mental-health and low self-esteem problems.

Elements of Design Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Elements of Design - Movie Review Example It is also important to familiarize with the cast and the other important people that made the film a success in order to grasp the ideology within. The movie Safe House is a contemporary movie produced in the year 2012 and an analysis of the film explains certain aspects. This is a captivating action/drama movie with Scott Stuber as the production designer. One of the world’s acclaimed movie directors, Daniel Espinosa, directed the movie. The movie creator incorporated the talent of art director, Jonathan Hely- Hutchinson to assist in his area of expertise. The cast of Denzel Washington alongside other widely recognized artists gave the production team of the movie a smooth time as it was dealing with professionals. Daniel Espisona being an acclaimed movie director took on his responsibilities as a director very well. His role in the various design aspects portrayed in the film was very clear. As a director, he had the authority to state his views on the intonation that the a ctors used on different sets. He was also responsible for overseeing the lighting of the various scenes in the movie in relation to the changes in environment that the actors played in. He also directed the actors on the manner in which to present themselves in front of the camera for greater perception of their talent. The production designer, Scott Stuber also did a very impressive job culminating to the captivating result of the film. He was very concerned with the high amount of competition that the film industry has had over the last couple of years and thus added some allure to get more fans. Scott’s role in the overall design project involved overseeing the presentation of each screenplay and delegating specific activities to the various people involved in each screenplay. He had the responsibility of identifying the visual aspects of the film to create a clear picture that could captivate the audience. Jonathan Hely- Hutchinson as the art director also had a very impo rtant role in the success of the film. His position in the general creation of the film was that below Scott Stuber. His job description involved receiving instructions from the production designer and implementing them. Each set in the movie had its individual designers and it was the responsibility of Jonathan to ensure that each of them had the required equipments to ensure that visual ground plan for each shot location was in order. To get a deeper understanding of the various roles that these artists play, it is important to focus on one scene in the movie and gain a perspective of all the constituents that made it a blockbuster. The plot of the movie is that one ex Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Tobin Frost, receives a file that contains incriminating information about one major goon by the name Vargas. Vargas gets on his trail in an effort to kill him and retrieve the file that leads to the government offering protection for Frost in a safe house. An agent Weston who assi sts Frost escape after an attempted attack by Vargas guards the safe house. The two escape to discrete places in South Africa hoping that Vargas does not catch up with them. The scene to focus on is that of Cape Town Stadium (Espinosa, 2012). The lighting at the scene is unique in that it is very imperative to bring out the conditions in which the actors were. The two actors ran into the stadium as a haven where they could get away from the perpetrator chasing them. The lighting is