Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Romantic comedy

2010-01-04T20:37:19Z

TRAVIS: fix per request

[[Romantic comedy]] is a form of dramatic or literary art which seeks to encourage laughter at the foibles of people's sexual attraction, typically without denigrating the act of love itself. This distinguishes romantic comedy from "raunchy" sexual comedy, such as the comedies of the [[ancient Greek]] playwright [[Aristophanes]] or many modern films marketed as "teen humor". The emphasis on laughter also distinguishes romantic comedy from [[romantic tragedy]], such as [[William Shakespeare]]'s [[Romeo and Juliet]], where the frailty of human understanding of sexual passion may be alluded to (as in Romeo's crush on Rosaline prior to meeting Juliet, and rapid disposal of his affection for Rosaline after meeting Juliet), but the validity and genuineness of sexual passion is accepted to ennoble the tragic result. Also, raunchy sexual comedy often serves as [[comic relief]] in romantic tragedy (as in the role of Juliet's Nurse in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet) but is almost never found in romantic comedy.

Frequent elements of romantic comedy are mistaken identity (as in Shakespeare's [[The Comedy of Errors]]), romance between a man and a woman who seem to hate each other (as in Shakespeare's [[Much Ado About Nothing]] and [[The Taming of the Shrew]]), and the failure of someone obsessed with [[unrequited love]] to recognize their "true love" (Shakespeare's [[A Midsummer-Night's Dream]] and Twelfth Night).

A modern variation of romantic comedy is the "screwball comedy" popular in Hollywood films of the 1930s and thereafter. Popular directors of screwball comedies include [[Frank Capra]] and [[Preston Sturges]]. Screwball comedies sometimes used the standard elements of romantic comedy, but tended to use them less explicitly. Much of the humor of the screwball comedy was based on the [[role reversal]] between the leading man and woman. In such comedies the leading man is usually passive and naive, and frequently fails to recognize the leading lady's affection for him. By contrast, the leading lady is often worldly-wise and cynical, and rediscovers herself and her decency through an acceptance of the leading man's sincerity. Typical screwball comedies include Capra's [[Mr. Deeds Goes to Town]] and [[Mr. Smith Goes to Washington]] and Sturges's [[Palm Beach Story]] and [[The Lady Eve]].

[[Category:genres]]

User talk:TRAVIS

2009-12-26T22:17:32Z

TRAVIS: done

You change [[Comedy of Errors]] everywhere it appears, and I'll rename the page as suggested. Otherwise, it's not worth bothering with. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] <sup>[[User talk:Ed Poor|Talk]]</sup> 16:52, 26 December 2009 (EST)

I think I did it.
- Travis R.

William Shakespeare

2009-12-26T22:16:52Z

TRAVIS: /* List of Plays by Shakespeare[http://absoluteshakespeare.com/trivia/bibliography/bibliography.htm] */ changing to reflect works actual title per request

[[Image:Foliou.jpg|right|thumb|[[portraits|Portrait]] of William Shakespeare on the cover of the First Folio (1623), the first collected edition of his plays]]
'''William Shakespeare''' (1564-1616) is generally regarded as the greatest playwright--indeed, the greatest ''writer''--in the English language. Many of his plays are required reading in school curricula throughout the English-speaking world and beyond; those taught in schools often include ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'', ''[[Macbeth]]'', ''[[A Midsummer-Night's Dream]]'' and ''[[Hamlet]]''.

Shakespeare wrote 17 comedies, 10 tragedies, 10 historical plays, 154 love [[sonnet]]s, and several other works of non-dramatic poetry. All his plays are freely available on the internet.<ref>
http://www-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/</ref>

Shakespeare spent his early years in Stratford-upon-Avon, [[Warwickshire]] and is also known as "the Bard of Avon." Because of sharing the name "Stratford," the towns of Stratford, Ontario, in Canada and Stratford, Connecticut, have become the homes of Shakespeare festivals where his plays are performed on a regular basis.

Shakespeare did not become famous until late in his life and consequently historians and biographers know very little about his earlier life. There are few pictures of him and the accuracy of the pictures is disputed.

The idea of an ill-educated (to his contemporaries) person coming among them and making a success was upsetting to the University-educated playwrights of the time. It is believed that the poet, Philip Green, was referring to Shakespeare when he wrote
{{cquote|There is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers
that, with his '''tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide'','
supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse
as the best of you; being an absolute Johannes Factotum,
in his conceit the only ''shake-scene'' in a country.}}
The 'tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide' is a reference to one of Shakespeare's plays, ''[[The Third Part of King Henry VI]]'',<ref> [[Great Books, Shakespeare: I]], Edited by Mortimer J. Adler, 1952. </ref> while 'shake-scene' is a pun or play on words on Shakespeare's name.

His plays seem to show so much education and erudition that there are even theories that they must have been written by someone else, famous candidates being the Earl of Oxford and Sir [[Francis Bacon]]. Most scholars do not believe these theories, but there are enough questions that new theories of Shakespearean authorship continue arise over the years.

A long-standing theatrical [[superstition]] holds that it is bad luck to refer to ''Macbeth'' directly by its name while inside a theatre, and accordingly, actors traditionally refer to it obliquely as "the Scottish play." It is considered acceptable to voice the play's name only while rehearsing or performing the production itself.

Because Shakespeare's plays are so familiar, there are innumerable references to them in English literature. Sometimes his stories are recast into a different form. The musical ''West Side Story'' is a retelling of ''Romeo and Juliet,'' and the classic science-fiction movie ''Forbidden Planet'' is a transformed version of ''The Tempest.''

The reverence in which Shakespeare is held, and the language of his plays (which come from the same era as the King James translation of the Bible) should not obscure the fact that his plays were (and still are) fabulously successful.

He is also famous for his 154 [[sonnet]]s, short poems written in a very strict [[rhyme scheme]]. The sonnets fall into series or sequences. Most of them are usually read as expressions of romantic or platonic love; some appear to be written to a married woman known in the sonnets as the "Dark Lady," some to a young man known as the "Fair Lord."

Shakespeare wrote in his will, "I commend my soul into the hands of God, my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing, through the only merits of Jesus Christ, my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting."<ref>http://www.amerisearch.net/index.php?date=2004-04-23&view=View</ref>

His tomb in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon, England, reads as follows:<ref>''Id.''</ref>
{{cquote|Good Friend For Jesus Sake Forbeare, To Digg The Dust Enclosed Heare. Blese Be Ye Man Spares Thes Stones, And Curst Be He Moves My Bones.}}

== List of Plays by Shakespeare[http://absoluteshakespeare.com/trivia/bibliography/bibliography.htm] ==

=== Comedies ===
[[File:Shakespeare f. Reuters.jpg|right]]
*[[Two Gentlemen of Verona]] (1589)
*[[The Comedy of Errors]] (1589)
*[[The Taming of the Shrew]] (1593)
*[[Love's Labour's Lost]] (1594)
*[[A Midsummer-Night's Dream]] (1595)
*[[The Merchant of Venice]] (1596)
*[[The Merry Wives of Windsor]] (1597)
*[[Much Ado About Nothing]] (1598)
*[[As You Like It]] (1599)
*[[Twelfth Night]] (1601)
*[[All's Well That Ends Well]] (1602)
*[[Measure for Measure]] (1603)
*[[Pericles, Prince of Tyre]] (1607)
*[[Cymbeline]] (1609)
*[[The Winter's Tale]] (1609)
*[[The Tempest]] (1610)
*[[The Two Noble Kinsmen]] (1611)

=== Histories ===
*[[The Life and Death of King John]] (1590)
*[[The First Part of King Henry VI]] (1590)
*[[The Second Part of King Henry VI]] (1592)
*[[The Third Part of King Henry VI]] (1593)
*[[The Tragedy of King Richard III]] (1593)
*[[The Tragedy of King Richard II]] (1595)
*[[The First Part of King Henry IV]] (1596)
*[[The Second Part of King Henry IV]] (1597)
*[[The Famous Life of King Henry V]] (1599)
*[[The Famous Life of King Henry VIII]] (1613)

=== Tragedies ===
*[[Titus Andronicus]] (1591)
*[[Romeo and Juliet]] (1594)
*[[Julius Caesar (Play)|Julius Caesar]] (1599)
*[[Troilus and Cressida]] (1600)
*[[Hamlet]] (1600)
*[[Othello]] (1603)
*[[Timon of Athens]] (1604)
*[[King Lear]] (1605)
*[[Macbeth]] (1606)
*[[Coriolanus]] (1608)
*[[Antony and Cleopatra]] (1608)

== Trivia ==
* "Shakespeare" was spelled many ways before English spelling was standardized. Some of the more unexpected forms are "Shaxper," "Shaxberd," and "Shaksper."<ref>http://shakespeareauthorship.com/name1.html</ref>

== See also ==

*[[Leo Tolstoy]]
*[[Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra]]

== External links ==

*[http://books.mirror.org/gb.shakespeare.html An Index to Online Great Books]

==References==
<references/>

-----

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shakespeare, William}}

[[Category:Playwrights|Shakespeare, William]]
[[category:poets|Shakespeare, William]]
[[Category:Authors]]
[[Category:British History]]
[[Category:Renaissance]]
[[Category:Theater]]

The Comedy of Errors

2009-12-26T22:16:10Z

TRAVIS: changing to reflect works actual title per request

'''''The Comedy of Errors''''' is a play by [[William Shakespeare]] and one of his earlier comedies (and one of his shortest), from 1589. It involves ridiculous coincidences, when two twin brothers and their twin servants are mistaken for each other.

===External Links===
[http://www.shakespeare-literature.com/The_Comedy_of_Errors/index.html/ Full text of The Comedy of Errors]

[http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/playmenu.php?WorkID=comedyerrors Open Source Shakespeare - The Comedy of Errors ]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Comedy of Erros, A}}
[[Category: Plays of Shakespeare]]

Talk:The Comedy of Errors

2009-12-26T21:39:29Z

TRAVIS: Created page with 'Note that it is "The Comedy of Errors" not "A Comedy of Errors" and should be fixed. - Travis R.'

Note that it is "The Comedy of Errors" not "A Comedy of Errors" and should be fixed.

- Travis R.

The Comedy of Errors

2009-12-26T21:37:47Z

TRAVIS:

'''''A Comedy of Errors''''' is a play by [[William Shakespeare]] and one of his earlier comedies (and one of his shortest), from 1589. It involves ridiculous coincidences, when two twin brothers and their twin servants are mistaken for each other.

===External Links===
[http://www.shakespeare-literature.com/The_Comedy_of_Errors/index.html/ Full text of The Comedy of Errors]

[http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/playmenu.php?WorkID=comedyerrors Open Source Shakespeare - The Comedy of Errors ]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Comedy of Erros, A}}
[[Category: Plays of Shakespeare]]