Shakespeare. Focus on The Tempest

Prospero, Duke of Milan, deposed from his throne by his brother Antonio, has been shipwrecked on a lonely island with his daughter Miranda. Thanks to his knowledge of magic, Prospero has released the spirit Ariel who was imprisoned by a witch called Sycorax, and who now becomes Prospero’s servant. He also has another servant, Caliban, the witch’s own son. Caliban is a monstrous creature and was the sole inhabitant of the island until Prospero’s arrival. Prospero has spent twelve years on the island and during these years he has perfected his knowledge of magic.

The play begins with a storm raised by Prospero’s magic which causes the ship carrying Antonio, Alonso King of Naples, his brother Sebastian as well as Alonso’s son Ferdinand to be shipwrecked off the island. The passengers are miraculously saved but are dispersed about the island in different groups. The members of each group believe themselves to be the only survivors. This gives rise to three sub-plots:

1) Ferdinand meets Miranda and the couple fall in love but Prospero puts a spell on Ferdinand to protect his daughter’s virtue before finally permitting the couple to marry at the end of the play.

2) Meanwhile on another part of the island Antonio and Sebastian, the villains of the play, are planning to kill Alonso and his honest counsellor Gonzalo, but they fail.

3) Caliban persuades two Of the ship’s crew, Stefano, a drunken hurler, and Trinculo, a jester, to try to murder Prospero and take control of the island. This plot forms a comic counterpoint to Antonio’s conspiracy.

At the end of the play, after Prospero has used the spirit Arid to manipulate events and defeat the various conspiracies, all the characters are finally reunited. Prospero forgives Antonio on the condition that he returns his dukedom to him, and before they all embark tot Italy, he sets Caliban and Ariel free, renouncing both his political and magic powers.

Features of the play

The text probably derives from more than one source. Some passages echo the English translations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, while among its other influences are Montaigne’s Essays as well as travel literature, particularly the accounts of the shipwreck of the Sea-Adventure off the coast of the Bermudas in 1609, before its passengers arrived safely in Virginia.

The Tempest is a complex play where illusion and reality intermingle. It is a play about power in all its forms: the power of European culture over non-European cultures, the power of language and the power of the artist to create illusion. The relationship between Prospero and Caliban reflects the power of the colonisers over colonised peoples, while the figure of Ariel stands as a metaphor for the powers of art and language that the artist may borrow to create his works but can never master completely. Just as Prospero must set Ariel free at the end of the play, so too must Shakespeare set his play free once it is complete, thus relinquishing his control over its ultimate meaning. Art and language have a life of their own, beyond the author.

On a different level, Prospero’s release of Caliban at the end of the play is accompanied by an acknowledgement that he too contains something of Caliban’s savage uncontrollable nature. This has been much commented on, particularly in post-colonial readings of the play. 

Source: Thomson – Maglioni, Literary Links. Literature in time and space, Cideb, an old Italian book 2000. 

Robinson Crusoe. Focus on the text

Robinson Crusoe (by Daniel Defoe) is probably the most famous adventure story in the English literature. It tells the story of a man who is shipwrecked off a desert island where he spends the next 28 years before being rescued. The story is divided into three parts.

In the first part we are told briefly about Crusoe’s early life and about how lie runs away from home to sea rather than accept the life of leisure his father promises him. After a series of adventures Crusoe finds himself in Brazil where he becomes a plantation owner, an occupation which he does not really like but which brings him prosperity. From there he sets off for Africa with some other plantation owners to procure slaves to work for them. It is on this journey that he is shipwrecked. Whashed ashore on a desert island, he is the only survivor.

The second part of the book is in the form of a journal in which Crusoe writes about life on the island; how he uses his strength and intelligence to overcome the difficulties of his situation and eventually become master of the island. It is in this part that he encounters a ‘savage’, whom he calls Friday and whom he resolves to convert to Christianity, teaching him the rudiments of his language and culture, including how to use a gun to hunt animals for food and later to defend themselves from attack.

The third and final part of the book tells of their rescue and of Crusoe’s return to Brazil with Friday as his servant.

Stylistic features

Like Defoe’s other novels Robinson Crusoe is written in the first-person in the form of spiritual autobiography. As he does with Moll Flanders, Defoe adds a preface which states ‘The editor believes this thing to be a just History of fact; neither is there any appearance of fiction in it.’ So we are led to believe that this is the story of a real man, and that Defoe is merely the editor.

The style of the narrative is very matter of fact. We are given little or no access to Crusoe’s inner thoughts or feelings, he generally tells us only about his actions and about what physically happens to him. Occasionally he reflects on religious questions. Indeed one of the themes of the book is the Puritan idea of man’s redemption on earth. Another interesting feature is the organisation of the story: there is no real novelistic plot; rather, Crusoe’s journal merely recounts the things that happen to him in a diary-like sequence. In this respect Robinson Crusoe is formally quite unsophisticated, unlike, for example, the novels of Henry Fielding.

Robinson Crusoe’s enduring popularity is undoubtedly due to the fact that, like all classics, in the words of Italo Calvino ‘it has never finished saying what it has to say.’

Below are three of the most common interpretations that have been given to the text.

Interpretations. Three lines.

1) The religious allegory. The book has been interpreted as a religious allegory, a Puritan tract about man’s redemption from sin. The Puritans had a very down to earth view of religion. Their view was that man must save himself from original sin on Earth, regaining the paradise he has lost through his labour and self-reliance. The island on which Crusoe is shipwrecked is at first an ‘island of despair’. But gradually, through his virtues of resilience, intelligence and hard work he gradually transforms it into a paradise of which he is master. As a Puritan, Crusoe’s religious beliefs are very different from those of the Roman Catholic religion. He does not ask God for salvation but relies only upon his own labours.

2) The economic allegory. The book also functions as an allegory of merchant capitalism: the mini-civilisation, which Crusoe establishes on the island, is similar to the society from which he comes. After he has arrived on the island he begins to regard it as his property. He builds himself an improvised house with a fence round it. He gathers wealth in the form of stocks of food and supplies. He even gives himself an arduous work routine, although he has no boss. When he meets the savage, Friday, he employs him as a servant. In this sense Crusoe embodies the values of the self-made man. He is like a businessman who, starting from nothing, slowly builds himself an empire.

3) The imperialist allegory. More recently Robinson Crusoe has been considered as an allegory of British imperialism because it attempts to demonstrate the white, Christian Crusoe’s inherent superiority over the savage Friday, who must be civilised and converted to Christianity. Robinson sees it as his right to be lord and master of the island despite the fact that Friday was there before him. His logic follows that of the British government who saw it as their right to conquer and control most of Africa and later India. The indigenous inhabitants of these countries were generally regarded as savages who had to be civilised. In Robinson Crusoe the savage Friday does not really have a voice. He only learns to speak when Crusoe teaches him English. The master-slave relationship is reminiscent of that between Prospero and Caliban in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest but Friday, unlike Caliban, does not learn to curse his master.  

Source: Thomson – Maglioni, Literary Links. Literature in time and space, Cideb, an old Italian book 2000. 

Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe was a sailor. During one of his voyages he was shipwrecked in a storm and all his companions were drowned.

He reached a desert island and, before the ship sank, he succeeded in bringing ashore some tools, guns, food and also a cat and a dog. After living alone for many years, one day he saw some canoes approaching the island. He hid behind a bush and from there, shortly after, he saw some savages landing. They had some captives with them and Robinson realized that they were going to kill and eat them. Al of a sudden one of the captives ran away. Two cannibals pursued him and were going to catch him but Robinson fired at them and saved the captive. As all this happened on a Friday, Robinson named the savage he had saved Friday and took him as his servant. Robinson taught Friday to speak English and baptized him. 

The two men lived together on the island until a ship anchored off shore. The crew had mutinied and were going to kill their captain. Robinson and Friday saved him and so they were able to leave the island. 

“Will Hunting” Monologue, Robin Williams

Sean and Will sit in the bleachers at the mostly empty park. They look out over a small pond, in which a group of schoolchildren on a field trip ride the famous Swan Boats.

WILL: So what's with this place? You have a swan fetish? Is this something you'd like to talk about?

SEAN: I was thinking about what you said to me the other day, about my painting. I stayed up half the night thinking about it and then something occurred to me and I fell into a deep peaceful sleep and haven't thought about you since. You know what occurred to me?

WILL: No.

SEAN: You're just a boy. You don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about.

WILL: Why thank you.

SEAN: You've never been out of Boston.

WILL: No.

SEAN: So if I asked you about art you could give me the skinny on every art book ever written...Michelangelo? You know a lot about him I bet. Life's work, criticisms, political aspirations. But you couldn't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. And if I asked you about women I'm sure you could give me a syllabus of your personal favorites, and maybe you've been laid a few times too. But you couldn't tell me how it feels to wake up next to a woman and be truly happy. If I asked you about war you could refer me to a bevy of fictional and non-fictional material, but you've never been in  one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap and watched him draw his last breath, looking to you for help. And if I asked you about love I'd get a sonnet, but you've never looked at a woman and been truly vulnerable. Known that someone could kill you with a look. That someone could rescue you from grief. That God had put an angel on Earth just for you. And you wouldn't know how it felt to be her angel. To have the love be there for her forever. Through anything, through cancer. You wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in a hospital room for two months holding her hand and not leaving because the doctors could see in your eyes that the term "visiting hours" didn't apply to you. And you wouldn't know about real loss, because that only occurs when you lose something you love more than yourself, and you've never dared to love anything that much. I look at you and I don't see an intelligent confident man, I don't see a peer, and I don't see my equal. I see a boy. Nobody could possibly understand you, right Will? Yet you presume to know so much about me because of a painting you saw. You must know everything about me. You're an orphan, right?

Will nods quietly.

SEAN: (cont'd) Do you think I would presume to know the first thing about who you are because I read "Oliver Twist?" And I don't buy the argument that you don't want to be here, because I think you like all the attention you're getting. Personally, I don't care. There's nothing you can tell me that I can't read somewhere else. Unless we talk about your life. But you won't do that. Maybe you're afraid of what you might say.

Sean stands,

SEAN: (cont'd) It's up to you. 

And walks away.

Gulliver’s Travels. Focus on the text

Gulliver's Travels (by Jonathan Swift) is divided into four books:

In Book 1 the hero, ship’s surgeon Lemuel Gulliver, tells of his shipwreck off the island of  Lilliput. The Lilliputians, he discovers, are a tiny people, only six inches high. During his stay on Lilliput he learns about the local customs and culture, and about the country’s political system. He offers to help the people in their war against another island, Blefuscu, after which he returns to England.

In Book 2 Gulliver sets off for India but after a series of misadventures finds himself abandoned on the island of Brobdingnag whose inhabitants are all giants. The situation of Book 1 is reversed, as Gulliver finds himself regarded  as something like a living doll for children to play with. He is sold to the Queen and has some interesting discussions with the King about the political situation in Europe, before returning once again to England.

Book 3 sees Gulliver land on the amazing flying island of Laputa with its capital Lagado which is populated by philosophers and scientists, all involved in bizarre and ultimately futile scientific research and speculations.

From here he Journeys to another two islands, Glubdubdrib and Luggnag, each with their own absurdities.

Book 4 finds Gulliver in a land ruled by intelligent horses who  call  themselves the Houyhnhnms and who are served by a filthy, bestial, subhuman race called the Yahoos. Again Gulliver spends his time trying to learn the language and ways of the Houyhnhnms, and assimilates them so well that when he returns home to his wife and children he finds himself disgusted by their humanness.

Interpretation

Gulliver’s Travels has for a long time been considered a children’s classic because of the wonderfully absurd imagination of its images and the simplicity of its prose. But its dense mixture of fantasy, political satire and moral fable render it a highly complex work and there has been much debate among literary critics in the centuries alter its publication as to what Swift’s intentions in writing it actually were. Many have regarded it as a misanthropic hook, a vicious attack on the human race as a whole.

The hook’s defenders, on the other hand, say that the book is a satire of man’s hypocrisy, vanity and cruelty, his small-mindedness and absurd pretensions.

According to this last scheme the four voyages might be read as follows:

First Journey

The diminutive Lilliputians, although a well-organised society, can be seen to represent cruelty, pettiness and provincialism (arguably the way Swift saw the England of his time). To their eyes Gulliver is like a giant baby, a huge body controlled by its physical needs. Their only use for him is as a weapon to destroy their enemies.

Second Journey

The giants of Brobdingnag represent human vanity and self-love. Gulliver’s descriptions of their bodies (which to him are enormous) reveal a mixture of fascination for, and disgust and repulsion towards the human body, which may be seen as an obstacle to spiritual growth. But here the diminished Gulliver is identified with the Lilliputians. This parallel is further emphasised by the King’s response to Gulliver’s account of England, when he says that the majority of the English appear to be ‘the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.’

Third Journey

The Laputans can be seen as a parody of the pretensions of abstract intellectual thinking, which has no connection to reality (the island flies above the ground), and also as a satire on Britain’s military and colonial ambitions (the king threatens to land the island on any dissenting subjects, literally crushing them to death).

Fourth Journey

The land of the Houyhnhnms where horses rule over a bestial subhuman race is one of the best examples of Swiftian reversal. We are made to see Gulliver from the perspective of the horses whose only experience of the human race is with the savage Yahoos. Gulliver tries to convince them that his own race dry not at all like the yahoos but from the horses’ point of view, the picture he portrays of the violent and vicious society he conies from merely confirms that underneath the masquerade of civilisation, humans are indeed lost like the Yahoos – only more sophisticated it their barbarism. 

Source: Thomson – Maglioni, Literary Links. Literature in time and space, Cideb, an old Italian book 2000. 

“The Devil’s advocate” Monologue, Al Pacino

Devil

I want you to be yourself. You know, boy, guilt is like a bag of fucking bricks. All you gotta do is set it down… Who are you carrying all those bricks for anyway? God? Is that it? God? Well, I’ll tell ya, lemme give you a little inside information about God. God likes to watch. He’s a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts! He gives this extraordinary gift and then what does he do? I swear for his own amusement his own private cosmic gag reel – he sets the rules in opposition. It’s the goof of all time! Look. But don’t touch! Touch. But don’t taste! Taste. Don’t swallow! And while you’re jumping from one foot to the next, he’s laughing his sick fucking ass off! He’s a tight ass, he’s a sadist, he’s an absentee landlord! Worship that never!

Kevin

Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven, is that it?

Devil

Why not? I’m here on the ground with my nose in it since the whole thing began! I’ve nurtured every sensation Man has been inspired to have! I cared about what he wanted and I never judged him. Why? Because I never rejected him. In spite of all his imperfections, I’m a fan of man! 

I’m a humanist. Maybe the last humanist. Who, in their right mind, Kevin, could possibly deny the 20th century was entirely mine? All of it, Kevin, all of it! Mine! I’m peaking here! It’s my time now. It’s our time. 

Pedagogy in the pocket

Pedagogy in the pocket

Silvana Calabrese, Pedagogy in the pocket, Leucotea Editions, Sanremo (Italy) 2017.

     Content

     A journey in which we will invite pedagogy to show its identification. To continue we will ask school to give us the compass to guide us through the different social ages, past, present and future predictions or intentions. Don Lorenzo Milani and students of the School of Barbiana deliver us a map. With the proper tools, we will begin our investigations, analyzing the value of education through social bumps. We will streak the skies of school and academic worlds. 

     It will be a tumultuous flight which will force us to make an emergency landing on an abandoned runway, the attitude to studies. From this point we will make provisions because we need energy to journey along the steep and rough path of vocation for teaching. We will reach a vantage point overlooking the valley of live observation. It will be possible seeing the effects of reading nourishment, of infant capacity in the composition of social and anthropological themes, of fantasy that is a rich repertoire of resources. The reached peak is very high and the sky is ominous: the only path we can take is parachute us in the middle of the storm, a risky practice like educating one’s own child. Once the celestial turbulence ended we will have by then touched the ground, where we relish in the joy of planning projects because they are educational. We return to the city, in a large sports field where we will understand the importance of physical training. We will have a vision in which appear us some children comfortably sitting on a sofa while they watching television alone. Looking towards another direction we will see technological tools that promote distance education, a new frontier of education intent on the unknown. We will wake up from this dream feeling a thump and a noise because will be fallen on our head the best-selling and the least read book: the Bible. At this point we will make a camping and we will find ourselves seated around a fire. We will hear the crackle that will relax us. We will chat and talk about carry out research, doing research and the function of the books. The intellectual level achieved, combined with a spark from the fireplace, will allow us the first real journey into the past, in historical periods and different places. We will meet and hear the words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Maria Montessori and Benjamin Spock. Their words will be a source of critical reflections and insights. We will come back in the present and we will stop in a very friendly ambience: the small room of the Middle School “G. Santomauro” where took place my teaching experience and where lies my nostalgia. With the spirit of exploration as lively as that of a little child, we will share on the route of my research. We will observe junctions, as many as are born from reading books and newspapers.

     Strengths

     Being a guide to daily education because the educational process has not rest periods, and if it had the education could not be accomplished.

     Providing the tools needed to face contemporary challenges with a perspective vision that promotes the formulation of predictions. In pedagogy every moment is critical and spends quickly. Every moment is to be consecrated to education.

     The extension to the welfare of the country. Contemporary pedagogy appears in a new guise, that of the child’s guide that is about to become a citizen who looks to his country proudly and that with common sense it lead him into more quiet and reasonable social contexts.

     For what readership

     For the mother, curator of the destinies of the world.

     For the father who will feel encouraged to do their job to the fullest.

     For grandparents who are now very present and influential in the lives of their grandchildren.

     For each baby-sitter self-respecting, in order that she may have a personal copy of the guide that will facilitate her the work.

     For teachers who will find a catharsis from prejudices about them and will find or will seek or create from scratch the vocation for teaching, because for many years they still influence thousands of generations.

     For public employees, so that they find the heat of reconciliation with their duties because they all lead our country toward creating a stable and functioning system.

     For high schools, vessels filled with young people which day by day are in contact with the educational institution and takes the nightlife in clubs, recreational institutions par excellence. Young lives are master of their own existence and unaware of that is in their souls that dwell the strong feelings so sought. With the guidance of Pedagogy in the pocket they can return to the lane of the great circuit of life in which they can qualify as real champions. 

Silvana Calabrese, Pedagogy in the pocket, Leucotea Editions, Sanremo (Italy) 2017.

Robin Hood

Robin Hood was a young man who lived during the reign of the Norman king Richard I called the Lion-Hearted. Robin was the son of the Earl of Huntingdon.

While Robin Hood was at the Crusades John the Lackland King Richard’s brother, killed many Saxon nobles and took their lands.

Among these nobles there was also the Earl of Huntingdon.

When Robin returned to England, King John’s soldiers tried to imprison him, but he succeeded in hiding in Sherwood Forest where he was compelled to live as an outlaw.

In the long run many rebels joined Robin who became the chief of a powerful band of outlaws. 

Robin and his friends robbed the rich to help the poor. That’s why they were very popular and were always helped to escape from the King’s soldiers. 

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Life and works 

Mary Shelley, born in 1797, was the only child of Mary Wollstonecraft, the famous feminist, and William Godwin, a philosopher and novelist. Mary’s parents were instrumental in shaping the Romantic sensibility and the revolutionary ideas of the time and from an early age she was surrounded by famous philosophers, writers, and poets. She met Coleridge when she was only two years old. Mary’s early years were influenced by a macabre Gothicism. Almost every day she would go with her father to ‘St. Pancras churchyard where her mother was buried. Godwin taught Mary to read and spell her name by having her trace her mother’s inscription on the stone. At the age of sixteen Mary ran away to live with the twenty-one-year-old poet Percy Shelley. Although she was banished from society, even by her father, this inspirational liaison helped her to produce her masterpiece, Frankenstein, when she was only nineteen. The idea for the book was conceived during one of the most famous house parties in literary history when staying at Lake Geneva in Switzerland with Byron and Shelley.

Later, the couple decided to get married. Fierce public hostility drove them to Italy where they were initially happy but where their two young children died. Mary never fully recovered from this trauma, and when she was only twenty-four, Percy Shelley drowned, leaving her penniless with a two-year-old son. Poverty forced her to live in England which she despised because of the conformism and social system. She was ignored by conventional circles and worked as a professional writer to support her father and her son. Her milieu, howewer, included literary and theatrical figures, artists, and politicians. Her other works included The Last Man (1826) which tells the story of the end of humanity, wiped out by a plague, and of the only survivor. Mary became an invalid at the age of 48. She died in 1851 of a brain tumour.

Focus on the text: Frankenstein

The story concerns a brilliant scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who believes he has discovered the secret of generating life and decides to create a living being from parts of dead bodies. However, the creature he generates turns out to be a destructive and homicidal monster who is beyond his control. The novel can be seen as a critique of male rationalism and of the idea that science can reveal all the secrets of the universe.

Through the figure of the mad scientist, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley shows us the irrational desires which lie behind supposedly rational scientific enquiry. Frankenstein gives us the first indication of the repressed side of the 19^th century. The novel is subtitled The Modern Prometheus, referring to the myth of Prometheus who stole fire from the Gods and gave it to mankind. As a punishment, he was chained to a rock where an eagle ate his liver.

Frankenstein is structured as an epistolary novel and also includes aspects of Chinese-box narration. The narrator is an explorer who meets the scientist Frankenstein, now a mad and dishevelled figure, shortly before he dies. He is, Frankenstein explains, hunting the monster he has created, chasing it around the earth. But the novel is much more sophisticated than an ordinary Gothic romance. At a certain point the perspective shifts to that of the monster and we gain an insight into how an ostensibly innocent creature is corrupted by a hostile society to the point where he swears revenge.

Above all, Frankenstein is a novel about the mystery of creation in all its forms and warns of the dangers of interfering with the natural order. 

Source: Thomson – Maglioni, Literary Links. Literature in time and space, Cideb, an old Italian book 2000. 

About Australia

Geography

     Australia is a huge landmass on the other side of the world fro Europe. A jumbo jet takes about 21 hours to get there! It is in the southern hemisphere between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, about 11,250 miles away. Being the only large piece of land in the continent of Australasia it is sometimes considered a continent itself. Together with the State of Tasmania, it is the world's smallest continent.

It is almost as big as the USA, and is about 25 times bigger than Britain and Ireland. It is also  flattest, the driest and the lowest of all continents – its average height above sea level is only 300 metres, while the average height for the rest of the world is 700 metres.

     It is a land of great contrasts. Its climate ranges from hot and tropical in the north, to cool and wet in the south. The inland region is called the outback, a huge dry area where cattle and sheep graze, and wild animals such as kangaroos and emus live. 

     Very few people live there and life is very isolated. Some of the farms are larger than a small European country, and are several hours drive from the nearest town. In North Queensland some small parts are so wet that rain forests grow. In the south-east of the country, there is an area of alpine country with snow-covered mountains in winter.

Curiosities

Australia is a great wine country and exports all over the world. South Australia is the centre for high quality reds.

Stretching for 2,000 km along the North Queensland coast is the Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef in the world.

A popular attraction in the Central Desert is Ayers Rock, the world’s largest rock. It is a single stone with a circumference of 8 kilometres, famous for its beautiful colour changes from sunrise to sunset.

Politics

Australia is a parliamentary democracy, and it is also a federation of six states that form the Commonwealth of Australia. It has a Federal Government plus six separate State Governments. Queen Elizabeth II is also the Queen of Australia and is represented by a Governor-General and by a Governor in each state. Many Australians, however, like their country to become a republic.

Facts about Australia

Language: the official language is English, spoken with a distinctive Australian accent.

Money: 1the official money is the Australian dollar. 1 dollar = 100 cents.

Size: 7,682,300 sq. km.

Some things Australia is famous for: surfing, beer, sheep, dreamtime, eucalyptus, barbecues, didgeridoos, kangaroos, Aborigine art, wine, coral, koalas, boomerangs, Christmas in the summer.

Capital city: Canberra, the only major city not on the coast.

Major cities: Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane,

Population: About twenty-three million people. Despite its very low population density, two people per square km, Australia is one of the world’s most urbanized countries. Over 85 per cent of the population live in big cities along the coast in the temperate parts of the country. The five largest cities contain 60 per cent of the population. Some people live in rote areas and they do not even have a telephone, communicating with the rest of the world by radio.

Wildlife: Australian plants, animals and birds are unique because the continent has been isolated for so long. Among them is the koala (one of the symbols of the country), the kookaburra, (very large bird with a noisy call), the platypus and the kangaroo, another Australian symbol.

The first Australians: Aborigines were the first inhabitants of Australia and came from the north by boat between 25,000 and 40,000 years ago. For many years they had little contact with other cultures. A few thousand still live traditionally by hunting and living together in tribes. Many have moved to cities, and although are professionals, many are poor and isolated from their own, and white society.

     Source: Excursion, an old Italian book. 

Francis Drake and the Spanish gold

     Drake was one of the greatest English seamen in the times of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603). At first he was a pirate, but, as he had rendered many services to the English Navy in the war against Spain, Queen Elizabeth appointed him admiral.

     Here is one of his adventures.

     He had been informed that the Spaniards were going to carry a great quantity of gold and silver from Panama to Nombre de Dios. He landed with twenty of his sailors not far from Nombre de Dios and hid in the forest along the path where the Spanish soldiers carrying the treasure were to pass.

     They waited all night and when at dawn the Spaniards arrived, A there was a short but fierce sc struggle. The Spanish soldiers were overcome and ran away abandoning the treasure.

     The English sailors took all the gold and hurried to the beach. Unfortunately their ship was not there waiting for them, and what’s more, hundreds of Spaniards were chasing them.

     Drake didn’t lose heart. He quickly built a raft with logs and started looking for his ship. He struggled for many hours against the waves, but, at last, he succeeded in reaching his ship, and so he was able to sail back home with all his sailors and treasure.

Arthur becomes King

     Many centuries ago, in the times of the Saxon invasions, Britain was ruled by a king named Uther Pendragon.

     As it was not a peaceful time, Pendragon’s son, Arthur, was entrusted to a nobleman named Hector who brought him up together with his son Kay, without knowing that Arthur was the king’s son.

     When Pendragon died, Merlin the Magician advised the Archbishop of Canterbury to summon a meeting of Lords and Gentlemen.

     So he did and at Christmas many Lords and Knights gathered in a large London church.

     The Archbishop, pointing at a sword stuck in the middle of a large stone, said: “the man who succeeds in pulling the sword Out of the stone will be the true King of England”.

     All the Knights tried but they did not succeed in pulling the sword out.

     Then the Archbishop invited all the Knights for a tournament at Easter and among these there were also Sir Hector, his son Kay and Arthur.

     During the tournament, Sir Kay’s sword was broken and Arthur, who had seen the sword in the church, went there, pulled the sword out of the stone without any difficulty, and took it to Sir Kay.

     When the Knights knew that Arthur had been able to pull the sword out of the stone, they pro-claimed him King of England. 

Plato and the cave

     A literature of questions: the influence of Plato

     What is man? What is the purpose of life? Why does man have such a short time to live? What are good and evil, and who can judge? What is love? What are the qualities required of a king?

     These are just some of the questions that the literature of the Renaissance was trying to address. The climate of intellectual uncertainty which arose in this age is partly due to a revival of interest in the philosophical ideas of the Greek philosopher Plato (427-347 BC). Plato’s idea of the nature of the world differed from that of Aristotle who had been the dominant figure in medieval philosophy because his ideas were more easily adapted to religious dogma. Plato's philosophy was also more open to interpretation.

     In any case, whatever its merits, the study of Plato represented another major theory of the world. This in itself inevitably led to differences in opinion among the educated classes and encouraged freedom of thought.

     Plato and the cave

     Plato believed that our knowledge of the world came not through the senses but through a type of reminiscence or memory of what he called ideas. Everything that existed in nature corresponded to its idea of which it was an inferior but faithful copy.

     To give a contemporary example we could say that a Platonic idea could be compared to the design of a car from which countless identical examples are produced. We can say that all of these cars participate in the idea but none of them embodies it fully. There is not one car which we can say is the original.

     Plato described our sensory experience of the world as being similar to that of people trapped in a cave who can only see the shadows of things and not the things themselves in their essence. Plato says that the philosopher is he who goes outside and sees things in direct sunlight. The sun is highly important for Plato as it represents the source of truth.

     For Plato it was vital to understand the essence of a thing, which the argued could only be done through the intellect. By comparing the available examples of a given  object or idea we could discern what elements were common to them all, which would give us a notion of the universal form. Thus, beauty, for  example, is judged by Plato to be the perfect harmony of parts.

     Another crucial element in Plato’s idea of knowledge is judgement. We must be able to judge true essence from false appearance. This is why Plato wishes to exclude artists from his ideal society described in the Republic. Writers are dangerous, because if words are separated from the person who speaks them their meaning becomes ambiguous. Both art and music are dangerous because they appeal to the emotions and sensorial experience. Regarding drama, Plato says that a good man should not imitate an evil character. Like all art, acting creates a world of false appearances.

     Source: Thomson – Maglioni, Literary Links. Literature in time and space, Cideb, an old Italian book 2000. 

Along the paths of identity

     Content

     In the work retracing the milestones of life of every individual unconsciously searching for their own identity. Through childhood, adolescence and adulthood, people begins to relate with others debuting in society in certain peculiar areas: in parenting, school, friendships, work and marriage. 

     Relationships become more stable and personality become coherent and unified from the point of being able to practice self marketing. At the end of the trip, a prize, the antidote to face the hardships contemporaries.

     Strengths

     The topic addressed, because it is a constant reminder that we are subjected. During a walk we happen to think back to a past event that has affected; remind the education that our parents have taught us, we reflect on our life project. We could discuss about the syllogism of Christian doctrine which we are brothers, but in fact there are numerous elements that unite us in every part of the globe.

     The text allows you to take a metaphorical journey with route to self-knowledge.

     For what readership

     For all those who, having reached a ripe old age, they want to sit comfortably in an armchair and customize this reading transporting us on the memory lane. For those who need to be reconciled with themselves. For those parents who have forgotten that they are the first educators of their children because much of what we become as adults is decided during the childhood years.

     For those who have devoted chapter Marriage: the path of compromise.

     For those who will be surprised to discover how the factors of identity are closely linked and protected by the Civil and Penal Codes and by the Constitution of the Italian Republic.

     For those who need to "learn to believe in what we do still not see".

     The cover 

     The paths of identity may be winding or steep. Require caution. That motivated the cover: a warning indicates a slippery road and abrogate abrupt maneuvers. We would expect the image of the car, but there is a fingerprint, a distinctive feature of identity. Stands the signal vantage point, to remember the existence observing the stages of life: childhood, adolescence, adulthood, followed by the debut into society through school, friendship, work and marriage. The reader will be provided with the requirements for self marketing practice and the antidote to the contemporaries discomfort. 

Sammichele of Bari through the Onciario land register of 1752

Demographic, family and social frames. 

Sammichele of Bari through the Onciario land register of 1752

In memory of Lorella Cedroni

Contents

This work represents a clear vision of a déjà–vu. We’re witnessing, not exempt, to an economic global crisis followed by the increase of unemployment, especially young, and we are sunk into the vortex of ungovernability. 

Taxes spare the wealthy and oppresses the humble, indeed, fees seem thought for them. The problems which threaten the daily life and from which we haven’t a chance to escape, our ancestors have already seen and experienced them. And it isn’t necessary a seance session to say that, but a visit to the state archives, otherwise known as places of memory, born to preserve the traces of the past.

Strengths

It’s a journey back in time to understand how the situation has evolved in our country, because present and future aren’t released from the past but represent the result. At the archival papers thought up the authoress who restores voice to bygone era people and dusts off environments and political scenarios that were the background to the events of the Eighteenth Century.

Will be considerable the interest in discovering the profiles of family, work and income life in a period in which the redaction of the Onciario land register was designed to ensure a fair distribution of taxes in the Kingdom of Naples.

For what readership 

For those who want to experience the adventure of a sectorial reading, but not incomprehensible. For those who have always wanted to make time travel. Broadly speaking, this book permits it. For all those who are curious to know if in the past there ever was a form of social justice. For those who want to look back to be able to project it more elastically to the future. For those who love history, the discipline that allows to join with own collective identity. For young people who are on the verge of conducting studies on archival sources.

Book review: “Signs grammar”

     Whoever has studied communication, knows the key aspects useful to realize that. Sender, message, and recipient can communicate through a shared code. And the organ that makes possible the information transfer is the channel. This element conditions the communication. It can be verbal or physical (optical, acoustic, electric...).

     The communication process has different levels of analysis:

- langage: it’s a set of cognitive processes derived from a psychic activity that is determined by  social life that regulates learning, acquisition and actual use of any language;

- langue: is the social product that is the result of social conventions used to communicate. It’s a system that articulates meanings;

- parole: it’s the concrete linguistic execution. But not for everyone. Not for the deaf-mute (deaf and dumb). Not for the deaf community, deaf people which have lost one of the senses. However, we shouldn’t consider it a defect, but rather an open passage on the possibility to develop and popularize a new language: the Italian Sign Language (LIS).

     The L.I.S. isn’t valid only for the insiders, but for all people who wish to learn this new code ferrying information through a new channel that is visual-gestural. Going back to the Greek and Latin etymology, we can discover the deeper meaning of communication i.e. the participation and the sharing.

     Furthermore, in an opening social context that is striving to new perspectives, can be useful or just interesting learning signs language that is a language for all effects.

     The book allows to get in touch not only with a new language, but also with an entire cultural system freeing ourselves from the everyday life of hearing people.

     Recall that ... the pioneer of the deaf language is the american linguist William Stokoe who published the first dictionary in the ’60s.

     This work presented, in the opening, historical outline about the evolution of observations on the deafness condition and of educational models adopted. 

     Author Orazio Romeo, Signs Grammar, Zanichelli, Bologna 1997, p. 160.

Book review: “Dictionary of collocations” Zanichelli

     In time of crisis (economic, moral and social) we invest more and more in frivolous areas, related to the appearance. As for education, we acquire qualifications which can’t boast a serious study, steady and responsible. What we need more, the salvation element is in us and is just waiting to be fed over time. But once it’ll be solid, no one will steal it. I speak about small instruments of lawful power, I talk about what breaks that horrible spiral of uniformity that’s so fashionable today.

     We demonstrate great care in choosing garments that we wear for a business dinner, gala or to face a job interview. But we pay as much attention to the words which, well combined, make winning our speeches? The answer is no. We care the outward appearance, but not the lexicon which is inexorably impoverished. The turnaround, however, is possible but not without a strong will to implement it. If you’re looking for a motive, I double, I’m offering two: the power of the word isn’t an urban legend, the linguistic fluency is a beauty which differs from the aesthetics one and clothes one for eternity and economy.

     The Dictionary of collocations, complete with CD–Rom, is an indispensable guide to building an effective and always unique lexicon because words are like Lego, can be combined in many ways generating a variety of linguistic constructions.

     The collocations are those linguistic expressions composed by two or more words that give life to phrases that will allow you to convey effective messages to all your interlocutors. This book is a small universe of Italian identity because it contains the typical collocations. It’s valid for native language and even more useful for foreigners who want to learn Italian.

     With this adventure companion you won’t be simple speeches organizers… you’ll become the undisputed manager of them and the best compliment that you’ll receive won’t affect the hairstyle or what you wear, but will be closer to “speak as well!”, “which lexical mastery!” and maybe it will be followed by “could you start on Monday?” (the context is obvious).

     Author Paola Tiberii, Dictionary of collocations, Zanichelli, Bologna 2012, p. 640. 

     Source: “La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno”, an italian newspaper, April 19, 2014, p. 24.