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British literature Appreciation Study and teaching British literature History 16th century British literature History 17th century British literature History 20th century British literature History 21st century British literature History and criticism Irish literature History 16th century Irish literature History 17th century Irish literature History 20th century Irish literature History 21st centuryFilter By Subjects
British literature Appreciation Study and teaching British literature History 16th century British literature History 17th century British literature History 20th century British literature History 21st century British literature History and criticism Irish literature History 16th century Irish literature History 17th century Irish literature History 20th century Irish literature History 21st centurySummary: Seamus Heaney, one of the finest poets writing in the English language, and the late Richard Ellmann, biographer of Joyce and Wilde, and critic of Yeats, in literary dialogue about these three brilliant Dublin writers. The literary dialogue between Heaney and Ellmann uses documentary material pertaining to Joyce, Yeats, and Wilde, and was filmed at such literary landmarks as the Hill of Howth,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: With the end of the Second World War, the cultural period W. H. Auden named the Age of Anxiety had begun-a time characterized by an intensifying fear of nuclear Armageddon as the Iron Curtain fell across Europe and the Cold War spread across the globe. This program examines the evolution of the British novel during the period 1945-69, spotlighting J. R. R. Tolkien, William Golding, Iris...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: The years between the World Wars generated self-doubt and ideological crisis as Britain contemplated the devastation of World War I and the decline of empire that would transform the British novel. "The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins," wrote D. H. Lawrence in Lady Chatterley's Lover. This program examines the evolution of the British novel during the period 1919-39, spotlighting...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: Duncan McCue profiles one native community's struggle to preserve their indigenous language - and the hard, often unheralded, work of individuals recognized as language keepers. Arvid Charlie is among the last generation raised speaking Hul'qumi'num, the Coast Salish language spoken by the Cowichan people in BC. Like most of the 88 aboriginal languages in Canada, Hul'qumi'num is teetering on...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: The 1970s and '80s were a time of turmoil and dislocating change in Britain as customs and values were repeatedly challenged-a period in which, as Angela Carter put it, there was nothing sacred. This program examines the evolution of the British novel during the period 1970-90, spotlighting Fay Weldon, Angela Carter, Penelope Fitzgerald, John Berger, Malcolm Bradbury, Hanif Kureishi, Alasdair...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: For biographer Michael Holroyd, playwright George Bernard Shaw is practically an alter ego. Using archival footage and Holroyd's painstaking detective work, this intriguing program questions the extent to which Shaw's life and art fed upon each other, addressing issues including the effects of the triangle between his father, his mother, and Vandeleur Lee on his plays, as seen in Misalliance...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Lawrence's letters, essays, and autobiographical sketches provide the sound track of this biography of the man who is arguably the greatest and certainly the most controversial English novelist of our century, while the artifacts and scenes of his life provide the visuals. The ideas that permeate Lawrence's work are shown here as they develop through the dominant figures in his life-the father...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: Cultivating an appreciation of the English classics requires studying the mother tongue as it was originally spoken. In this program, Dr. Joseph Gallagher brings language to life by reciting examples of Old, Middle, and Early Modern English in their original dialects. In addition, he discusses the evolution of English syntax and morphology. A dramatization of a portion of Beowulf is also...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Viewing life in strictly corporeal terms was abhorrent to Romantic sensibility. This program examines attempts by Romantic poets to transcend the physical world and expand the limits of human imagination-presaging 20th-century notions of the unconscious. Illustrating how the idea of transcendence effectively became the religion of Romanticism, the film reflects on Samuel Taylor Coleridge's...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Anthony Burgess examines Orwell's achievement, starting with the accuracy of his predictions for the future. Burgess shows how the novel 1984 sprang from the main concerns of Orwell's earlier work and suggests that Orwell identified areas in which human freedom has always been, and continues to be, threatened.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Synonymous with metaphysical poetry, John Donne combined wit with passion, startling diction with curious contrasts. This program chronicles his extraordinary life as lawyer, lover, sailor, father, preacher, and poet. Manuscripts and paintings are combined with readings from many of Donne's most famous writings, including "The Flea," "Elegy XX," "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," "The Calm,"...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: While King Lear has again and again been described as Shakespeare's greatest work-the tragedy in which he exhibits most fully his multitude of literary powers-it is the least read, and for many, the most difficult to analyze. In this program, key scenes are dramatized. Noted Shakespearean experts, Professors Robert Smallwood and Stanley Wells, take on the task of examining Lear's enigmatic...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: This is the second of two programs featuring a performance of Christopher Marlowe's classic The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus. The play's last scenes including the magical appearance of Helen of Troy, Faustus' failed attempt to repent, and his final, tormented soliloquy are presented. We catch glimpses of Marlowe's classic larger-than-life characters-all "over-reachers," who seek to dominate...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: The most charming small mammals you'll ever meet team up with the world's most exasperating amphibian to pursue their merry adventures in this adaptation based on Kenneth Grahame's beloved children's classic The Wind in the Willows. This dramatization dispenses with animation and relies instead on the striking animal instincts of some very talented actors: Matt Lucas as gadget-crazed Mr. Toad;...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: In a reaction against Elizabethan-period poetry, 17th-century English poets such as John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, and Andrew Marvell began writing in a new style. Although derisively dubbed "metaphysical" because of its unseemly-that is, intellectual-nature, metaphysical poetry soon became appreciated for its remarkable blend of emotion and erudition, as evidenced by complex...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Performed at Shakespeare's Globe, London's faithful reconstruction of the open-air playhouse designed in 1599, Romeo and Juliet is arguably the best-loved of all love stories in Western literature. The play's masterful combination of lyricism, suspense, and dramatic changes of mood is dramatized by an...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: This program artfully brings together a treasury of visual resources to retrace Shakespeare's life and work. Included are the landmarks of Elizabethan London associated with his plays; depictions of the structure and operations of the Globe Theatre (including scenes from Laurence Olivier's Henry V); historical sources of the plays in art and architecture surviving today; theatrical traditions...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Long considered the world’s greatest writer, Shakespeare the man all but eludes biographers, leading some scholars to doubt they are one and the same. Filmed at salient locations around England, this program explores the four main theories of the Bard’s true identity. Professor Stanley Wells of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust defends Shakespeare’s authorship. Francis Carr and Mark Rylance,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: For Columbia University's Simon Schama, John Donne is the poet who transformed English verse through a raw emotional honesty coupled with a virtuosic skill with language. Drawing upon the observations of John Carey, literary critic and author of John Donne: Life, Mind, and Art, and insightful readings by actress Fiona Shaw, Schama undertakes a passionate appraisal of Donne's work. Simon...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: Read by noted actors Michael Gough, Edward Fox, and Eileen Atkins, T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land powerfully expresses the disillusionment and disgust of the post-World War I era in Europe. In this program, Professor Frank Kermode, of Cambridge University; Eliot biographer Peter Ackroyd; and poets Sir Stephen Spender and Craig Raine examine the complex nature of Eliot's influential poem, analyze...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Thomas More's Utopia, one of the most significant texts of English humanism, has become the ideal for a society based on fundamental human principles of fairness and justice. This program follows the progress of More's intellectual development, from his early friendship with the influential humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam, to his rise to power as a member of Parliament and later Chancellor of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: A prolific virtuoso of poetic forms and techniques, W. H. Auden achieved literary fame on both sides of the Atlantic. This program traces his life's story and provides a sampling of his very best works, including "Musee des Beaux Arts," "In Memory of W. B. Yeats," "Epitaph on a Tyrant," "Leap Before You Look," and "The Shield of Achilles.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: William Golding's power to create contemporary myth is unparalleled in modern literature. In this program, Golding, his daughter, and others discuss his life as a child, father, and naval officer in World War II. They also summarize his views on human nature. Excerpts from several works-including The Inheritors and Pincher Martin-are used to illustrate those who inhabit Golding's fiction as...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: As arrogant and brash as he was talented and innovative, Ben Jonson lived a life as rife with drama as any of his many plays. He was jailed more than once for staging dramas that satirized the powers that be, and nearly had his ears and nose mutilated after collaborating on a play that lampooned King James I. Friend and colleague of Shakespeare, he is considered by many to have been the first...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005