Shakespeares New Year and Christmas Quotes

Shakespeare's New Year and Christmas Quotes New Year Celebrations hardly feature in Shakespeare’s works and he only mentions Christmas three times. Explaining the lack of New Year quotes is easy enough, but why did Shakespeare dodge Christmas in his writing? Shakespeare New Year Quotes New Year barely features in Shakespeare’s plays simply because it wasn’t until 1752 that the Gregorian calendar was adopted in Britain. In Elizabethan England, the year changed after Lady Day on 25 March. For Shakespeare, the New Year celebrations of the modern world would have seemed bizarre because in his own time New Year’s Day was nothing more than the eighth day of Christmas. However, it was still customary in the court of Elizabeth I to exchange gifts at New Year, as this quote from Merry Wives of Windsor demonstrates (but note the distinct lack of celebratory tone): Have I lived to be carried in a basket, like abarrow of butcher’s offal, and to be thrown in theThames? Well, if I be served such another trick,I’ll have my brains ta’en out and buttered, and givethem to a dog for a new-year’s gift†¦Merry Wives of Windsor (Act 3, Scene 5) Shakespeare Christmas Quotes So that explains the lack of New Year celebration; but why are there so few Shakespeare Christmas quotes? Perhaps he was â€Å"a bit of a Scrooge!† Joking aside, the â€Å"Scrooge† factor is actually very important. In Shakespeare’s time, Christmas simply wasn’t celebrated in the same way as it is today. It was 200 years after the death of Shakespeare that Christmas was popularized in England, thanks to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert importing many of the German Christmas traditions. Our modern conception of Christmas is immortalized in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, from the same period. So, in many ways,  Shakespeare was â€Å"a bit of a Scrooge!† Here are the three times Shakespeare did mention Christmas in his plays: At Christmas I no more desire a roseThan wish a snow in May’s new-fangled mirth;Love’s Labours Lost (Act 1, Scene 1) I see the trick on’t: here was a consent,Knowing aforehand of our merriment,To dash it like a Christmas comedy:Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany,Love’s Labours Lost (Act Five, Scene 2) SLY. Marry, I will; let them play it. Is not a comonty a Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick?PAGE. No, my good lord, it is more pleasing stuff.The Taming of the Shrew (Intro, scene 2) Did you notice how downbeat these Shakespeare Christmas quotes are? That’s because, in Elizabethan England, Easter was the main Christian festival. Christmas was a less-important 12-day festival known for pageants put on at the Royal Court and by churches for townspeople. In the quotes above, Shakespeare does not hide his dislike of pageant acting: In Love’s Labours Lost, Berowne guesses that a wooing strategy has failed and that the ladies are now ridiculing the men. The ridicule is compared to a Christmas play: â€Å"dash it like a Christmas comedy.†In The Taming of the Shrew, Sly disregards the action as a Christmas â€Å"gambold†, a word meaning a frolic or light entertainment. Page suggests that it will be better than that awful acting you see at Christmas. Overlooking New Year and Christmas The lack of New Year and Christmas celebration may seem strange to the modern reader, and one must look at the calendar and religious conventions of Elizabethan England to contextualize this absence. None of Shakespeare’s plays are set at Christmas, not even Twelfth Night, which is commonly considered to be a Christmas play. It is widely believed that the play’s title was written for a performance on the twelfth day of Christmas at the royal court. But a reference in the title to the timing of the performance is where the Christmas references of this play end. It actually has nothing to do with Christmas.

Free Essays on EU Constitution

The council, which represents national governments and adopts most EU laws, is the Union's pivot. But, in our third look at Europe's institutions, we spot weaknesses as well as strengths THE symbolism is almost too apt. For two years the European Commission building, the four-pronged Berlaymont, has been shrouded in white plastic while asbestos is removed. Meanwhile across the street glowers a grim pink fortress: the Justus Lipsius Building, new home of the Council of Ministers. Power is indeed seeping from one to the other. Under the classic EU design, the commission proposes, the parliament opines and the council disposes. But nowadays, especially in foreign policy and home affairs, commission and parliament barely get a peep; the council runs the whole show. Yet this is too simple. The European Parliament, for instance, has grown more powerful as well. Even so, the EU clearly has a more â€Å"inter-governmental† flavour than it didthat is, national governments have managed to wrench back more of a say, in keeping with the public mood in most of the Union's 15 countries. Not only Eurosceptical Britons, but also Danes, Swedes, Frenchmen and others want less bossiness from Brussels. Such feelings inevitably strengthen the council, the most inter-governmental of the EU's institutions. They have also made the council somewhat schizophrenic. It is more than a collection of national ministers. Through regular ministerial meetings, a six-monthly presidency that rotates among all the members, a 2,300-strong secretariat and 15 national permanent missions in Brussels, the council has acquired its own European identity. It is, after all, the central body of a nascent confederation. The tension between national and supranational interest reaches right down to the humblest council working-group. A big failure of the council is that it is far too secretiveperhaps the only law-making body in the democratic world that takes decisions behin... Free Essays on EU Constitution Free Essays on EU Constitution The council, which represents national governments and adopts most EU laws, is the Union's pivot. But, in our third look at Europe's institutions, we spot weaknesses as well as strengths THE symbolism is almost too apt. For two years the European Commission building, the four-pronged Berlaymont, has been shrouded in white plastic while asbestos is removed. Meanwhile across the street glowers a grim pink fortress: the Justus Lipsius Building, new home of the Council of Ministers. Power is indeed seeping from one to the other. Under the classic EU design, the commission proposes, the parliament opines and the council disposes. But nowadays, especially in foreign policy and home affairs, commission and parliament barely get a peep; the council runs the whole show. Yet this is too simple. The European Parliament, for instance, has grown more powerful as well. Even so, the EU clearly has a more â€Å"inter-governmental† flavour than it didthat is, national governments have managed to wrench back more of a say, in keeping with the public mood in most of the Union's 15 countries. Not only Eurosceptical Britons, but also Danes, Swedes, Frenchmen and others want less bossiness from Brussels. Such feelings inevitably strengthen the council, the most inter-governmental of the EU's institutions. They have also made the council somewhat schizophrenic. It is more than a collection of national ministers. Through regular ministerial meetings, a six-monthly presidency that rotates among all the members, a 2,300-strong secretariat and 15 national permanent missions in Brussels, the council has acquired its own European identity. It is, after all, the central body of a nascent confederation. The tension between national and supranational interest reaches right down to the humblest council working-group. A big failure of the council is that it is far too secretiveperhaps the only law-making body in the democratic world that takes decisions behin...

TOPIC OF CHOICE, preferably pedophiles and paraphilias Essay

TOPIC OF CHOICE, preferably pedophiles and paraphilias - Essay Example All other physical contacts, in order to quench the thirst of carnal desires i.e. other than heterosexual relations, are considered as taboo, perversion and sexual deviation in large number of societies, cultures, states and countries. A person would be considered to be acting in a deviant way in society if they are violating what the significant social norm in that particular culture is. (Retrieved from freeessays.cc) The nature-nurture debate is one of the most enduring one with reference to the discipline of psychology, and in respect of discovering the development of personality. Social theorists stand pole apart in their observations in respect of the effect of the environment on the one hand and innate characteristics on the other in making up of a personality. Psychologists have defined various kinds and forms of sexual disorders, which cause perversion and deviation from the normal sex behavior of individuals. There are so many reasons of these disorders. Some of the theorists declare environment as the major reason behind such disorders, while few of them are of the opinion that biological and physical reasons are also involved in sexual perversion and deviant behavior. Man enters the world as a neat and clean biological organism, which learns how to behave from society by entering into continuous and constant interaction with the other members of his social arrangement. It is therefore, theorists view man’s behavior as the learnt one, which is highly supportive in his personality development and recognition of his role, position and responsibilities while interacting with his social surroundings. Hence, it is the socio-cultural background that maintains lion’s share in the growth of man’s personality and social behavior. Theorists are of the view that prevailing social norms, mores, values and activities prevailing in a community determine man’s superior and inferior habits and