"A Streetcar Named Desire" - revision guide with synopses, key issues and themes

Need some last minute revision for Tenessee Williams's play? It's brief, punchy and to the point. Just the thing at this stage.
http://www.bellmore-merrick.k12.ny.us/Streetcar.html

"The Ecstasy of Gold" by Ennio Morricone (live version in concert)

"Kubla Khan" - read and presented by John Brick

Given that S.T. Coleridge's poem is highly dependent on images drawn from his imagination, and for the Romantics the power of the imagination was all-important, John Brick's rendition of the poem with well-chosen images to aid understanding is a welcome and timely aid to understanding Coleridge's poem. Enjoy! Classic Poetry Aloud is an excellent website and I have posted work from there before. The link is given at the beginning and at the end of the video. You can also find it if you scroll down to poetry links on the right of this blogsite.

The Banking Crisis Renewed?

With the fall in the prices of UK banks because of their need for huge rights issues it looks as if the banking crisis is back after being discounted by the Bank of England only last week! Is this the catalyst for precious metals and their associated equities? Perhaps. One fund manager thinks that some UK banks are "in denial" and that they will have to raise another £10 billion in a rights issue in less than a year's time.
http://www.citywire.co.uk/personal/-/news/markets-companies-and-funds/content.aspx?ID=303307

What could be the biggest banking crisis of all time could still well play out!

Is the tide in gold about to turn?

After a two-year correction that has sapped the strength and will of goldbugs, is the tide in gold equities about to change? The new upsurge in goldshares has been mooted for a long time and in each instance the rises proved fleeting and false, only for the correction to rumble on longer. The angst for gold and silver bugs has lasted longer than any previous correction in this bull market. It's only when the hardiest goldbugs have been tested to the nth degree that the tide turns; it changes slowly at first and then with a great gush it comes in.

Several technical commentators think that for cyclical and technical reasons we are very close to an important rise in gold equities and gold itself. Posters such as Cyclist of Gold Action on Kitco and Goldrunner, who also posts as Nelderand, think that we could see that rise between next week running into the third week of June.

Options expiry ends on Friday in New York. That has sapped the life out of gold equities. Next week will tell the tale.

Key Skills With Chaucer - theory and much more

Here's a great new link for studying Chaucer.
http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk/newchaucer/index.htm

I particularly like this page (theory and genre) as it is helpful for applying Assessment Objective 4.
http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk/newchaucer/intro/theory.htm

For those studying The Merchant's Tale have a look at the text/audio of The Merchant from the General Prologue to the Tales:
http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk/newchaucer/tales/town.htm


I've added the link to the Chaucer section of links on the right of this blog.

The Stages of Courtly Love

(Adapted from Barbara Tuchman)
1. Attraction to the lady, usually via eyes/glance
2. Worship of the lady from afar
3. Declaration of passionate devotion
4. Virtuous rejection by the lady
5. Renewed wooing with oaths of virtue and eternal fealty
6. Moans of approaching death from unsatisfied desire (and other physical manifestations of lovesickness)
7. Heroic deeds of valor which win the lady's heart
8. Consummation of the secret love
9. Endless adventures and subterfuges avoiding detection

From the "analysis" section in Wikipedia

Courtly love saw a woman as an ennobling spiritual and moral force, a view that was in opposition to ecclesiastical sexual attitudes. Rather than being critical of romantic and sexual love as sinful, the poets praised it as the highest good. Marriage had been declared a sacrament of the Church, at the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215, and within Christian marriage, the only purpose was procreation with any sex beyond that purpose seen as non-pious. The ideal state of a Christian was celibacy, even in marriage. By the beginning of the 13th century the ideas of courtly tradition were condemned by the church as being heretical. The church channeled many of these energies into the devotion of the Blessed Virgin Mary; it is not a coincidence that the Church used her devotion to Virgin Mary as a counter to the secular, courtly and lustful views of women in the 12th century. Francis of Assisi called poverty "his Lady".
Courtly love had a civilizing effect on knightly behavior, beginning in the late 11th century; it has been suggested that the prevalence of arranged marriages required other outlets for the expression of more personal occurrences of romantic love. New expressions of highly personal private piety in the 11th century were at the origins of what a modern observer would recognize as a personality, and the vocabulary of piety was also transferred to the conventions of courtly love.


At times, the lady could be a princesse lointaine, a far-away princess, and some tales told of men who had fallen in love with women whom they had never seen, merely on hearing their perfection described, but normally she was not so distant. As the etiquette of courtly love became more complicated, the knight might wear the colors of his lady: where blue or black were sometimes the colors of faithfulness; green could be a sign of unfaithfulness. Salvation, previously found in the hands of the priesthood, now came from the hands of one's lady. In some cases, there were also women troubadours who expressed the same sentiment for men.

More posts on Chaucer's poetic style will follow.