Breaking cliches: Bram Stoker graduated with honours as a B.A. in Mathematics

Bram Stoker, the writer of Dracula, was a mathematician. So, people who think mathematicians are only good with numbers, then no! Here's an excerpt.



"He graduated with honours as a B.A. in Mathematics. He was auditor of the College Historical Society ('the Hist') and president of the University Philosophical Society, where his first paper was on 'Sensationalism in Fiction and Society'."

Reading King Lear by William Shakespeare

1) Read Act 1 Scene 1

Commentary:
Questions:
Etcetera

1) What kind of mindset King Lear is in to begin with at the start of the play?
2) Are Kings arrogant? Or just plain flattery seekers?
3) Why can't Cordelia act like Regan or Goneril, after all they are living in a patriarchal society, to coax a male, father or brother should be there ultimate goal in order to survive?
4) Is Cordelia I-give-a-damn kind of girl?
5) Is old age a curse?
6) What kind of truth should not be said,
or should the truth be changed in order to accommodate others?

Making notes from: Sons and Lovers by David Herbert Lawrence (Note1)

1. Taking about Mrs. Morel, 'She was thirty-one years old, and had been married eight years'
2. Image search google: sweet-williams [The houses themselves were substantial and very decent. One could walk all round, seeing little front gardens with auriculas and saxifrage in the shadow of the bottom block, sweet-williams and pinks in the sunny top block]
3. toot: Sound (a horn or similar instrument) with a short, sharp sound [Some distance away could be heard the first small braying of a merry-go-round, and the tooting of a horn.]
4. Angry: "I want to go, I want to go," said Annie, beginning to cry.
   
   "Well, and you shall go, whining, wizzening little stick!" said the mother.
5. ...fearful screeching of the cocoanut [??What is a cocoanut??] man's rattle
6. Bookmark 1: "The front garden was a small square with a privet hedge. There she stood, trying to soothe herself with the scent of flowers and the fading, beautiful evening. Opposite her small gate was the stile that led uphill, under the tall hedge between the burning glow of the cut pastures. The sky overhead throbbed and pulsed with light. The glow sank quickly off the field; the earth and the hedges smoked dusk. As it grew dark, a ruddy glare came out on the hilltop, and out of the glare the diminished commotion of the fair." = Google Image: 'stile'.
7. Reading source: http://www.hotfreebooks.com/book/Sons-and-Lovers-David-Herbert-Lawrence.html

LINKS TO ENGLISH LITERATURE BOOKS THAT ARE IN PUBLIC DOMAIN AND ARE WRITTEN BY FAMOUS WRITERS

1. The Witch by Middleton - http://www.tech.org/~cleary/witch.html#NOTES
2. "The works of Beaumont and Fletcher" - http://archive.org/stream/worksbeaumontan00fletgoog/worksbeaumontan00fletgoog_djvu.txt
Neither I make money from this site nor I'm interested in giving the list of books that are under, go check yourself, if you are interested. :( :( :{ 88
3. http://www.bartleby.com/221/1206.html
4. http://samuel-beckett.net/endgame.html
5. http://www.bartleby.com/221/index.html#12
6. http://www.bartleby.com/221/1208.html
7. http://www.bartleby.com/18/2/
8. https://www.google.com.pk/search?q=sheridan+the+rivals+text&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
9. http://www.bartleby.com/18/2/11.html
10. http://www.bartleby.com/47/1/
11. http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupid?key=olbp15654
12. http://ota.ahds.ac.uk/headers/1546.xml

Do you think 'Mackie The Knife' was Bisexual?

Mackie The Knife had two wives, and for further sexual gratification he used to visit a couple of brothels. Ginny Jenny and Taudry was his favorite two whores.

Whats interesting is here the fact that Tiger Brown goes to extreme measures in order to save Mackie, Best London master mind thief and Brown's best friend. Brown and Mackie had spent time in fighting the battle for colonialists. This bond takes interesting shapes when Brown simply cannot or better will not capture Mackie unless a force bigger than himself comes over and over powers him.

Mackie's confidence in Brown's art of not seeing or recording Mackie's crime and having the belief described in words to Polly that Brown does not have the heart to capture him and the fact that he will feel extremely sad and will cry shows that the relationship was more than a brotherly bond. It was a sexual relationship.

Number of scenes: 55431 Vs. 3335'10'

Twelfth Night Vs. Troilus and Cressida
18 Scenes Vs. 24 Scenes

Two Gentlemen of F**in Verona still not finished!

Some call it Bromance! Some call it other shit! I'd say, it is yet another play in which women is downgraded to a soft thing men can play with, while the desperate women dream of their love and go astray!

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/two_gentlemen/index.html

Entire play in one page
Act 1, Scene 1: Verona. An open place.
Act 1, Scene 2: The same. Garden of JULIA's house.
Act 1, Scene 3: The same. ANTONIO's house.

Act 2, Scene 1: Milan. The DUKE's palace.
Act 2, Scene 2: Verona. JULIA'S house.
Act 2, Scene 3: The same. A street.
Act 2, Scene 4: Milan. The DUKE's palace.
Act 2, Scene 5: The same. A street.
Act 2, Scene 6: The same. The DUKE'S palace.
Act 2, Scene 7: Verona. JULIA'S house.

Act 3, Scene 1: Milan. The DUKE's palace.
Act 3, Scene 2: The same. The DUKE's palace.

Act 4, Scene 1: The frontiers of Mantua. A forest.
Act 4, Scene 2: Milan. Outside the DUKE's palace, under SILVIA's chamber.
Act 4, Scene 3: The same.
Act 4, Scene 4: The same.

Act 5, Scene 1: Milan. An abbey.
Act 5, Scene 2: The same. The DUKE's palace.
Act 5, Scene 3: The frontiers of Mantua. The forest.
Act 5, Scene 4: Another part of the forest.

________________________
Random:
Good song:
http://www.thesixtyone.com/#/s/X0eLPGakOco/
Voice actor:
http://www.wimp.com/magicalvoice/

What does Psychoanalytic theory refers to?

"Psychoanalytic theory refers to the definition and dynamics of personality development which underlie and guide psychoanalytic and psychodynamic psychotherapy."

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalytic_theory

NONSENSE WRITERS LIST

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_nonsense

literature that uses sensical and nonsensical elements to defy language conventions or logical reasoning.

Nonsense writers

The most celebrated nonsense writers in English literature are Edward Lear (1812–1888) and Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) (1832–1898).
Other nonsense writers in English literature, Canadian literature, and American literature:

1. Douglas Adams
2. Ivor Cutler
3. Dave Eggers and his brother Christopher, writing as Dr. and Mr. Doris Haggis-on-Whey
4. Mike Gordon
5. Edward Gorey
6. John Lennon
7. Spike Milligan
8. Flann O'Brien
9. Mervyn Peake
10. Jack Prelutsky
11. Laura E. Richards
12. Theodore Roethke
13. Michael Rosen
14. Dr. Seuss
15. Shel Silverstein
16. James Thurber
17. Alan Watts
18. Roald Dahl
19. Carl Sandburg
20. Jean Shepherd"

Download Free - The Master Builder By Henrik Ibsen [Free Audio and Text]

Source Link: Librivox.org

• Gutenberg e-text
• Wikipedia - Henrik Ibsen
• Wikipedia - The Master Builder
• M4B format available
• LibriVox’s The Master Builder Internet Archive page
• Zip file of the entire book 68.8MB
• RSS feed · Subscribe in iTunes
Total running time: 2:23:21
Performed by a full cast.

In addition to the readers, this audio book was produced by:
Book Coordinator: Elizabeth Klett
Meta-Coordinator/Cataloging: Elizabeth Klett

mp3 and ogg files

• 1 - Act 1 – 00:54:20
  [mp3@64kbps - 26.0MB]
  [mp3@128kbps - 52.1MB]
  [ogg vorbis - 29.3MB]
• 2 - Act 2 – 00:50:02
  [mp3@64kbps - 24.0MB]
  [mp3@128kbps - 48.0MB]
  [ogg vorbis - 26.9MB]
• 3 - Act 3 – 00:38:59
  [mp3@64kbps - 18.7MB]
  [mp3@128kbps - 37.4MB]
  [ogg vorbis - 20.8MB]
Cataloged on April 05, 2011

CHECK THIS OUT!

"Christie's stage play The Mousetrap holds the record for the longest initial run: it opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in London on 25 November 1952 and as of 2011 is still running after more than 24,000 performances."

"Her novels have sold roughly four billion copies, and her estate claims that her works rank third, after those of William Shakespeare and the Bible, as the most widely published books."

"While she never received any formal schooling, she did not lack an education. Her mother believed children should not learn to read until they were eight, but Agatha taught herself to read at four."

Agamemnon by Aeschylus

The elder king then spoke: 'What can I say ?
Disaster follows if I disobey ;

STORY OF THE FIRST ENGLISH COMEDY

The plot of the play centres on a wealthy widow, Christian Custance, who is betrothed to Gawyn Goodluck, a merchant. Ralph Roister Doister is prompted by a friend to woo Christian Custance but his pompous attempts do not succeed. Ralph then tries with his friends to break in and take Christian Custance by force but they are defeated by her servants and run away. The merchant Gawyn arrives shortly after and the play concludes happily.

What is the name of the play?
Ralph Roister Doister

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

Ralph Roister Doister is a comic play by Nicholas Udall, generally regarded as the first comedy to be written in the English language.

Funny like, Sh_T Agamemnon!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxp8qPEwSXM

Character names I find interesting in The History of Titus Groan - The 77th Earl of Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake

1. Dr Prunesquallor (John Sessions), the castle physician.
2. (evil ) Steerpike (Jonathan Rhys Meyers)
3. Titus Groan (Cameron Powrie/Andrew N. Robertson)
4. Swelter (Richard Griffiths) and
5. Flay (Christopher Lee)

FRANCIS BACON ESSAY - OF LOVE

Important names are underlined.
The quote I liked is underlined.
It's a fun read do read it whether you like literature or not.
____________________________________________

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Of Love

THE stage is more beholding to love, than the life of man. For as to the stage, love is ever matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief; sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury. You may observe, that amongst all the great and worthy persons (whereof the memory remaineth, either ancient or recent) there is not one, that hath been transported to the mad degree of love: which shows that great spirits, and great business, do keep out this weak passion. You must except, nevertheless, Marcus Antonius, the half partner of the empire of Rome, and Appius Claudius, the decemvir and lawgiver; whereof the former was indeed a voluptuous man, and inordinate; but the latter was an austere and wise man: and therefore it seems (though rarely) that love can find entrance, not only into an open heart, but also into a heart well fortified, if watch be not well kept. It is a poor saying of Epicurus, Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus; as if man, made for the contemplation of heaven, and all noble objects, should do nothing but kneel before a little idol, and make himself a subject, though not of the mouth (as beasts are), yet of the eye; which was given him for higher purposes. It is a strange thing, to note the excess of this passion, and how it braves the nature, and value of things, by this; that the speaking in a perpetual hyperbole, is comely in nothing but in love. Neither is it merely in the phrase; for whereas it hath been well said, that the arch-flatterer, with whom all the petty flatterers have intelligence, is a man’s self; certainly the lover is more. For there was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself, as the lover doth of the person loved; and therefore it was well said, That it is impossible to love, and to be wise. Neither doth this weakness appear to others only, and not to the party loved; but to the loved most of all, except the love be reciproque. For it is a true rule, that love is ever rewarded, either with the reciproque, or with an inward and secret contempt. By how much the more, men ought to beware of this passion, which loseth not only other things, but itself! As for the other losses, the poet’s relation doth well figure them: that he that preferred Helena, quitted the gifts of Juno and Pallas. For whosoever esteemeth too much of amorous affection, quitteth both riches and wisdom. This passion hath his floods, in very times of weakness; which are great prosperity, and great adversity; though this latter hath been less observed: both which times kindle love, and make it more fervent, and therefore show it to be the child of folly. They do best, who if they cannot but admit love, yet make it keep quarters; and sever it wholly from their serious affairs, and actions, of life; for if it check once with business, it troubleth men’s fortunes, and maketh men, that they can no ways be true to their own ends. I know not how, but martial men are given to love: I think, it is but as they are given to wine; for perils commonly ask to be paid in pleasures. There is in man’s nature, a secret inclination and motion, towards love of others, which if it be not spent upon some one or a few, doth naturally spread itself towards many, and maketh men become humane and charitable; as it is seen sometime in friars. Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love corrupteth, and embaseth it.

Georges Simenon - Afternoon Play: The Other Simenon 3. The Cat 14:15 Wednesday, 10th August

Play: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b0132l72/Afternoon_Play_The_Other_Simenon_The_Cat 

Georges Simenon's black comedy about a husband and wife who loathe each other.
Georges Simenon
1963
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Simenon Georges Simenon 1963

Apart from all this programming stuff. I really recommend you listen to this amazing series History of Titus Groan on BBC Radio 4 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qfz6 Warning! History of Titus Groan per episode is 60 minutes and till now 5 episodes have been shared on http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qfz6. Really becomes funny when the characters start talking about women hooters **

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Groan

1946 First edition cover
Author(s)	Mervyn Peake
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	Gormenghast
Genre(s)	Gothic

Want to know about Plot of the Titus Groan here go to wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Groan#Plot_summary the Story is based on Titus, the 77th Earl of Gormenghast, struggling to free himself of all bounds. He does not want to live the same old boring life of an Earl. Titus' antithesis Steerpike creates the thrill in the novel. I would say, Titus is desperate to change his life for good and Steerpike is desperate to exercise the devillish inclinations of his mind. Sound is amazing. Perfectly executed.

Plot introduction
The book is set in the huge castle of Gormenghast, a vast landscape of crumbling towers and ivy-filled quadrangles that has for centuries been the hereditary residence of the Groan family and with them a legion of servants. The Groan family is headed by Lord Sepulchrave the seventy-sixth Earl of Groan. He is a melancholy man who feels shackled by his duties as Earl, although he never questions them. His only escape is reading in his library. His wife is the Countess Gertrude. A large-framed woman with dark red hair, she pays no attention to her family or the rest of Gormenghast. Instead, she spends her time locked away in her bedroom, in the company of a legion of cats and birds, the only things toward which she shows affection. Their daughter is Fuchsia Groan. At times snobbish, annoying, and self-absorbed, she can also be extremely warm and caring. Also in the castle are Sepulchrave's identical twin sisters Cora and Clarice Groan. Both suffered from epilectic fits in their youth, as a result of which their left arms and legs are “rather starved”. They have virtually the same personalities and neither is very intelligent – they are perhaps even mentally impaired. Both crave political power and dislike Gertrude, believing that she robbed them of their rightful place in the hierarchy of Gormenghast. Also important to the life of the castle is Lord Sepulchrave's personal servant, Mr. Flay who believes in strictly holding to the rules of Gormenghast. At the beginning of the novel, two agents of change are introduced into the stagnant society of Gormenghast. The first, more obvious agent of change is Titus Groan, the heir to Lord Sepulchrave. His birth interrupts the daily rituals which are practised at all levels of the castle society, from the kitchens to the Hall of Bright Carvings in Gormenghast's upper reaches. However, the novel only covers the first two years of Titus' life, and he plays a minor role. The second is Steerpike, a ruthlessly ambitious kitchen boy, who is the driving force for the plot of Titus Groan. His entry into Gormenghast society, at the same time as Lord Titus is born, introduces a steady rate of change into a stagnant world. Steerpike has an intelligent, Machiavellian mind and a talent for manipulation, but he can also appear charming and sometimes even noble.

Understanding Jean-Paul Sartre phrase “existence precedes essence”

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

The early 19th century philosopher Søren Kierkegaard is regarded as the father of existentialism.^[5][6] He maintained that the individual is solely responsible for giving his or her own life meaning and for living that life passionately and sincerely,^[7][8] in spite of many existential obstacles and distractions including despair, angst, absurdity, alienation, and boredom.^[9]
 
Source: http://atheism.about.com/od/existentialistthemes/a/existence.htm

Hammers are made by people for certain reasons — in a sense, the “essence” or “nature” of a hammer exists in the mind of the creator before the actual hammer exists in the world. Thus, one can say that when it comes to things like hammers, essence precedes existence.

House of Bernarda Alba

Poncia means the "swollen ankle"

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_Bernarda_Alba#Themes