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NEO-CLASSICAL PERIOD/ERANeoclassical literature is literature written between 1660 and 1798. This time period has three sub-division:?Restoration period,?Augustan period, and?Age of Johnson.Writers of the neoclassical era tried to copy the style of the Romans and Greeks. Thus the merging of the terms 'neo,' meaning 'new,' and 'classical,' as it was in the day of the Roman and Greek classics. This was also the age of The Enlightenment, which laid emphasis on logic and reason. It was prior to The Renaissance and followed by the Romantic period. As a matter of fact, the neoclassical period came to an end in 1798 when Wordsworth published the Romantic 'Lyrical Ballads'.BAJAZET by Jean Racine:Bajazet is a five-act tragedy written by Jean Racine in alexandrine verse and was first performed at H?tel de Bourgogne theatre in January 1672. Jean Racine took his subject from present contemporary history, taking care, he chose a far off location, which is the Ottoman Empire. The sultan Murad IV (Amurat, in the work of Racine) I 1960 had his brothers and competition Bajazet (Bayezit) and Orcan (Orhan) killed. Racine got his inspiration from this deed, and made Bajazet the center of his play. Racine also develops series of romantic subplots in the seraglio. The action is particularly wide, and is only be resolved by a several deaths and suicides. The initial success of the play was not elongated. Today, it is one Racine's slightest played pieces. The play got translated to English by Alan Hollinghurst. This translation got published by Chatto & Windus in the year 1991. Act 1 - Osmin brings news from the sultan Amurat to Byzantium: they seem to be at the point of abandoning the beleaguerment, of Babylon. Acomat, grand vizir, craves to take merit of this failure by motivating the Janissaries to rebel. He has already refused to kill Bajazet as the sultan commanded. Finally, Acomat believes Bajazet and Roxane, the sultan's best-loved, are in love, and he plans to rely on them while marrying Atalide. Truely, Bajazet is in love with Atalide; he only reciprocates the love of Roxane in order to become king.Act 2 - Roxane wants to topple Amurat by wedding Bajazet. He is introverted, which angers Roxane. Acomat, and then Atalide makes Bajazet accept,of which he considers.Act 3 - Bajazet and Roxane settles their differences, while Atalide is frustrated to death, having saved the man she is in love with. Bajazet comes to tell her that he has simply made indefinite promises to Roxane. Roxane overhears this conversation, and begins to know about Bajazet and Atalide's relationship.Act 4 - Orcan, the servant to the sultan, has come home to make an announcement that, inspite all discouragements and odds, Babylon has been taken by Amurat. Roxane gets evidence of the love between Bajazet and Atalide, and it is these two elements which makes Roxane take action: she will kill Bajazet in order to satisfy the sultan. Acomat, who always has conspired with Bajazet and Roxane, has decided to act henceforth without them.Act 5 – After a final interview with Bajazet, Roxane gets him hanged. After this, she is killed by Orcan, who gets secret orders from the Sultan. The plot of Acomat is wrecked, and Atalide commits suicide on stage.Phaedra by Lucius Annaeus SenecaPhaedra begins with Hippolytus, son of Theseus and stepson to Phaedra, setting off to hunt. He prefers the woods to staying in the palace, and calls on Diana, the goddess of the hunt, to help him so he will be lucky. After his has departed to the forest for his hunt, Phaedra seen, pierce with anguish. Her wet-nurse asks what it is that shames her; Phaedra opens up that she is in love with Hippolytus, and remembers her own mother Pasiphae’s ardour for a bull – a desire that produced the infamous Minotaur, which Theseus himself killed. She claims a spell has been casted on her by Venus, who is angry with Apollo, Phaedra’s ancestor, for exposing Venus’ love for Mars.The nurse admonishes Phaedra to put her passion and emotions in check, but the nurse’s advice is of no use. Phaedra compares herself to a ship caught in a storm, heading for the rocks: as she tries to change course, the waves will unstoppably pull her toward her doom. She begins to realize the hopelessness of the situation, the nurse then to try to help her mistress.Hippolytus, Amazonian Antiope- former wife of Theseus biological son. Amazonian Antiope (former wife of Theseus biological son) is known to hate all women and forsake the comfort of civilization. When he gets back from the hunt, the nurse s to soften his heart, making him know that he should use his good fortune and enjoy good food, wine, the company and presence of women. Hippolytus rejects the idea, with claim that nature is where man is most free and innocent and that women is the cause of much evil.The moment, Phaedra appears, and collapses immediately in a swoon, Hippolytus awakens her, and asks why she is so ill. At first she is unsure on how to proceed, but Phaedra gathers the strength to let Hippolytus the truth, in hopes that he reciprocates her feelings and assist her to cover up her sins. In otherwise to Phaedra thoughts, Hippolytus becomes very angry, railing against Phaedra and declared that she is worse than her monster bearing-mother. He draws his sword on her, but when she says she has hopes of dying, he withdraws his weapon and flees into the woods.Phaedra’s nurse comes up with a plan to cover Phaedra’s guilt by laying accusations on Hippolytus of attempting to rape his stepmother. The sword Hippolytus abandoned will be used as evidence. Thereafter, Theseus comes back, freshly escaped from the underworld. He sees Phaedra is troubled, obviously prepared to commit suicide, and asks for an explanation. Phaedra tells him someone he would never believe tried to rape her; she then points to Hippolytus’ sword. Theseus is angered, and immediately asks his father Neptune to kill his son.A Messenger enters, with news of Hippolytus’ death. We are made to know, a monster appeared from the disheveled sea and gave a chase to Hippolytus’ horses; transfixed in the reins, the young man was pulled and torn limb from limb. Seeing Hippolytus’ disfigured corpse, Phaedra makes the truth known to Theseus, she then falls on her sword and dies. Theseus curses himself for his reckless and harsh resolution, then orders Hippolytus’ corpse be gathered for a proper burial. Turning to Phaedra’s body, he said “let her be buried deep in earth, and heavy may the soil lie on her unholy head!”CHARACTERS:HippolytusHippolytus is the Son of Theseus and the Amazonian Antiope. He loves to hunt and the woods, he is known to hate women. He prefers to be free in the wilderness to the comforts and constraints of civilization has to offer.PhaedraPhaedra is Theseus' wife and stepmother to Hippolytus .Phaedra is the Daughter of Pasiphae, who did fall in love with a bull and gave birth to the beast- Minotaur, she too gets struck with a "sinful" desire - an ardour for Hippolytus.TheseusThaseus is King of Athens, famous for his heroic deeds and adventure. He is trapped in the Underworld at the beginning of the play, on a quest with a friend of his, Pirithous to seize Persephone and present her to the mortal world. Known for his harsh behavior, he murders his former wife Antiope, the mother of Hippolytus.The NursePhaedra's wet-nurse is an old woman who at first seems an instrument of wisdom in her attempts to bring solace and give advise to her mistress, but her more sinister side is revealed when she devices a plan to wrongly accuse Hippolytus of trying to rape his own stepmother.Themes:LUST:Phaedra’s lust for Hippolytus is the play’s impetus, the power source that keeps the tragedy going. Lust appears in other form in the narrative, sometimes more refined. The Chorus propose on illustrations of lust throughout history, making reference in particular to Diana – the goddess of celibacy, – driven to abandon her planetary resting place to find love with the shepherd Endymion. If the goddess of chastity falls victim to Cupid’s arrows, then it’s possible for anyone to also fall victim of Cupid’s arrows. Phaedra’s mother did mate with a bull, because of a mad desire which she could not control. Theseus got married to the Amazonian Antiope, then murders her, then got married Phaedra, and abandoned her to pursue Persephone in the underworld. Lust controls these characters and their gods and goddesses, and more often it brings doom.Nature vs civilization:The drama, Phaedra occurs in two different locations/setting – the palace in Athens, and the woods that serves as a border to the city. Civilization and wilderness are clearly pitched against one another, although the on-stage action is restrained to Athens, the sight of the outlying forest emerge large. We made to know of Hippolytus’ preferring the wild to the urban city and life, and Phaedra is mostly on the brink of racing into the woods after the one she loves, donning Amazonian garb. Satirically, however, Hippolytus, though referred to a wild beast at times, behaves more sensibly than his mates; he refuses play along with Phaedra’s lust, and then falls victim to Theseus’ wrath. The Athenians fall victim to their own emotions, while the Amazonian, though he does perhaps behave recklessly by running into the forest, is relatively reasoned in his actions. Civilization manipulates, as Hippolytus himself contends in a speech with the wet-nurse; the “primal age” was a period of peace, and with the upsurge of the city has come combat and crime. It is in two ways ironic, then, that Hippolytus’ bloody death should come not by the city’s way, not by way of manmade weapons, but by way of wild horses, a gruesome bull, and the merciless forest terrain/ground. Hippolytus’ beloved nature eventually does him in.TARTUFFE:Tartuffe is one of Molière’s great works. The first performance of the play was as a three-act comedy in May 1664, and was denounced immediately for supposedly ‘attacking’ religion through its representation of the religious or dedicated official hypocrite, Tartuffe. The religious activist who objected to the play eventually convinced King Louis XIV (who actually enjoyed the play) to have the play banned. Sadly, this was not the last time religious people would take exception to comedy (and comedy that isn’t even poking fun at religion at all, but rather foolish devotion to a charlatan and impostor). Because of this early misinterpretation of Molière’s play, it is worth analyzing Tartuffe more closely, to determine precisely what the play is saying about piety, hypocrisy, and gullibility.In Tartuffe, there is a man whose name is, Orgon. Orgon allows himself to be defrauded, Tartuffe, who is a hypocrite and pretends to be holier-than-thou, but is really a rogue who desires to take merit of the gullibility of Orgon. Orgon prepares to marry his daughter, Mariane, to Tartuffe, despite Mariane being in love and betrothed someone. Although Orgon’s family strife to make him see sense, he refuses to admit to have fallen under the spell of Tartuffe the rouge. His son, Damis, even points out to Orgon that Tartuffe is trying to seduce Orgon’s wife, on refuses hear anything against the sainted Tartuffe but is only when Tartuffe appears on stage (in Act 3) and Orgon, hides under the table, witnesses Tartuffe’s trying seduction of Elmire that he realizes that Tartuffe has been a rogue all along. He kicks Tartuffe out of his house; Tartuffe tries to get back at Oragon by pilling up a list of false allegations against Orgon, in hopes that Orgon will lose his house and he, Tartuffe will be given it instead. The plan almost works as planned, but fortunatelly the King shows up, and, being a better judge character wise, than Orgon, He sees the hypocritical cad in Tartuffe that he and has him arrested. Orgon’s property is restored to him. Everything ends happily, as expected in a comedy. ................
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