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Subscriberhakima
Culture 11 Feb '13 00:29
  1. Subscriberhakima
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    11 Feb '13 00:29
    I love language and discovering new ways to say anything. Currently, I'm taking an English Lit with emphasis on British literature from the Reformation period to the Glorious Revolution. We are now reading Marlow's Faustus, which can be excruciating due to words I have not seen or used before. However, in my attempts to do more than simply pass the course, I'm enjoying learning a few new words. Here is the first, along with its definition:

    quiddity

    quid·di·ty
    /ˈkwidətē/
    Noun

    The inherent nature or essence of someone or something.
    A distinctive feature; a peculiarity: "his quirks and quiddities".

    Synonyms
    essence - substance - gist - pith - marrow - inwardness
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    11 Feb '13 01:521 edit
    Originally posted by hakima
    I love language and discovering new ways to say anything. Currently, I'm taking an English Lit with emphasis on British literature from the Reformation period to the Glorious Revolution. We are now reading Marlow's Faustus, which can be excruciating due to words I have not seen or used before. However, in my attempts to do more than simply pass the course, uirks and quiddities".

    Synonyms
    essence - substance - gist - pith - marrow - inwardness
    Archaic language is always awesome. What a great course. Which university? Glad to see you want to do more than pass said course. In college friends and I made an exercise of inventing new words out of archaic words and had great fun.
  3. Subscriberhakima
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    11 Feb '13 02:08
    Originally posted by scacchipazzo
    Archaic language is always awesome. What a great course. Which university? Glad to see you want to do more than pass said course.
    A small university in Texas--Tarleton State. I'm fifty years old and FINALLY beginning to realize the ambition that has eluded me my entire adult life. So far, so good...I've made the Dean's list twice...something I probably wouldn't have done at age 19.
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    11 Feb '13 02:33
    Originally posted by hakima
    A small university in Texas--Tarleton State. I'm fifty years old and FINALLY beginning to realize the ambition that has eluded me my entire adult life. So far, so good...I've made the Dean's list twice...something I probably wouldn't have done at age 19.
    Good for you! My mother got her undergrad in her mid fifties and finally her graduate school degree in English immediately afterwards. Congratulations and may you realize your dreams! I used to love helping my mother when things got tough for her. She did both with a 4.0! Congrats on making the deans list!
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    11 Feb '13 09:463 edits
    Originally posted by hakima
    I love language and discovering new ways to say anything. Currently, I'm taking an English Lit with emphasis on British literature from the Reformation period to the Glorious Revolution. We are now reading Marlow's Faustus, which can be excruciating due to words I have not seen or used before. However, in my attempts to do more than simply pass the course, uirks and quiddities".

    Synonyms
    essence - substance - gist - pith - marrow - inwardness
    Marlowe's Dr Faustus is a great play, and can be put on a footing with some of Shakespeare's best plays, and is far better than many of them. I would also argue that Edward II is better than many of Shakespeare's histories.

    I also have a personal pet theory as to why Marlowe was Shakespeare. Shakespeare tackled most of the great love stories but not arguably the greatest of them all, Dido and Aeneas. Why? Because he had already written it under his name of Marlowe! Shakespeare also didn't write a play called Edward II - I rest my case. (I wouldn't go around mentioning this theory in your studies, by the way. Your teachers will look at you strangely.....).

    I sympathise with you on the language. It is tough stuff at times.

    Does the edition you use have footnotes at the bottom of the page so that you can easily see the meaning? Some editions I used at school and university either had none, or they were at the back, which was a real pain. At least if you move swiftly to the bottom you can get the sense without having to interrupt the flow of your reading more than you need to.

    But I promise you it gets easier, and with your attitude you will find yourself getting to grips with it sooner than you think.

    I will give some thought to favourite words.
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    11 Feb '13 11:272 edits
    Originally posted by Rank outsider
    Marlowe's Dr Faustus is a great play, and can be put on a footing with some of Shakespeare's best plays, and is far better than many of them. I would also argue that Edward II is better than many of Shakespeare's histories.

    I also have a personal pet theory as to why Marlowe [b]was
    Shakespeare. Shakespeare tackled most of the great love storie ...[text shortened]... is name of Marlowe! Shakespeare also didn't write a play called Edward II - I rest my case.[/b]
    Er... would it be possible that Shakespeare didn't write a play called Edward II because he admired and respected the play that Marlowe had already written? Shakespeare obviously did respect the earlier writer: much of his early work is Marlovian in style, including many of the early plays about English history and Titus Andronicus (which almost seems like a parody of Marlowe). Shakespeare even pays explicit tribute to Marlowe in As You Like It with the line 'Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might: “Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?"' - a quotation from Hero and Leander. That would be a rather strange thing to write if Shakespeare actually was Marlowe, but quite understandable if he admired and had been influenced by Marlowe.

    Marlowe was a fine playwright, but I find his work lacks the depth and compassion of Shakespeare at his best. As Shakespeare emerged from Marlowe's shadow, he transcended him. Edward II is a fine history play, but it is as profound a response to the problems of leadership as the Henry IV plays? Faustus is a powerful tragedy, but does it really say as much about the human condition as Othello, Hamlet, King Lear or Anthony and Cleopatra? Could Marlowe have matched the daring mixture of moods in The Tempest or The Winter's Tale?
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    11 Feb '13 11:321 edit
    Originally posted by hakima
    A small university in Texas--Tarleton State. I'm fifty years old and FINALLY beginning to realize the ambition that has eluded me my entire adult life. So far, so good...I've made the Dean's list twice...something I probably wouldn't have done at age 19.
    It's great that you're achieving that ambition! I studied Eng Lit at Cambridge when I was 19 - and had the happiest three years of my life so far. Partly because I was young, of course, but also because of the sheer delight of spending so much time in direct contact with "the best that has been thought and said".
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    11 Feb '13 12:06
    Originally posted by Teinosuke
    Er... would it be possible that Shakespeare didn't write a play called Edward II because he admired and respected the play that Marlowe had already written?
    OK, that is a possible explanation I suppose.

    Spoilsport.

    😉
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    11 Feb '13 12:121 edit
    Originally posted by Teinosuke
    Marlowe was a fine playwright, but I find his work lacks the depth and compassion of Shakespeare at his best.
    I agree. But I don't think anything you said completely contradicts what I said.
  10. Wat?
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    11 Feb '13 14:31
    Shakespeare rarely referred to the Greek Gods, and therefore it appears he had little knowledge of them. Perseus' referral in Faustus is prominent, and therefore I would conclude that it was not written by Shakespeare at all.

    -m.
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    11 Feb '13 16:261 edit
    Originally posted by mikelom
    Shakespeare rarely referred to the Greek Gods, and therefore it appears he had little knowledge of them. Perseus' referral in Faustus is prominent, and therefore I would conclude that it was not written by Shakespeare at all.

    -m.
    Hardly conclusive. My Latin was always better than my Greek. I know the Aeneid better than the Odyssey and Iliad. Sounds like William was the same.

    My hypothesis stands intact for the moment. Aside from it being a crock, of course.

    🙂
  12. Standard memberGrampy Bobby
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    13 Feb '13 08:29
    Originally posted by hakima

    I love language and discovering new ways to say anything. Currently, I'm taking an English Lit with emphasis on British literature from the Reformation period to the Glorious Revolution. We are now reading Marlow's Faustus, which can be excruciating due to words I have not seen or used before. However, in my attempts to do more than simply pass the co ...[text shortened]... is quirks and quiddities".

    Synonyms
    essence - substance - gist - pith - marrow - inwardness
    Frissons

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_chill

    (Old French)
  13. Subscriberhakima
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    16 Feb '13 04:50
    Forsobbed: soaked or penetrated

    Can it be guessed what I am reading now?

    By the way...thank you all for your insights...I have finished a first reading of Faustus...and now must formulate a paper comparing it to Everyman, within the framework of religious certainty and uncertainty at the period of the Reformation in England.
  14. Subscriberhakima
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    18 Feb '13 19:00
    From The Tempest:

    per·fid·i·ous
    /pərˈfidēəs/
    Adjective
    Deceitful and untrustworthy.
    Synonyms
    treacherous - traitorous - unfaithful - disloyal
  15. Subscriberhakima
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    18 Feb '13 19:33
    And more from The Tempest...Shakespeare's own way of calling some one a son of a witch by way of his description of Caliban:

    Hag-seed
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