Telling My Story: Humanities

 As the year comes to end for me in my Humanities 310 course, there is a lot to reflect on. Looking back to the first week for this course reach higher then my expectations; the majority of the class was really enjoyable and fun to learn about. The goals that I had for myself were to accomplish the course with at least a B or higher. Typically when it comes to classes with a lot of reading I usually struggle in, but this course noy only made it enjoyable but really easy to follow. When we first began to read Shakespeare there were struggles for me personally to comprehend the material, but after a while and through a discussion we as classmates gave advice to one another on how to succeed when it came to Shakespeare which truly helped a lot. 

What had interested me most about the class was wanted to learn about how the power of kings and queens had back then and the influence of the church. These are topics that really get my attention and really interest me how it has affected our present day. There is a lot to learn from our past not only from our own countries, but from others as well. I think it is really cool to see and study how other parts of the were doing in different eras. Something I learned in class was about what royal families their were and how they came to power. It was really interesting to learn how power was inherited to the son, but there were many out there who wanted the throne and did whatever it takes to do so. Something else I had learned was about architecture. Something I came in knowing prior to taking the course was the Protestant Reformation. This was a topic that I had studies on my own and was really glad to expand my knowledge about it even further. 

            Shakespeare, William, et al. Hamlet. Gallimard, 2016.

• The play Hamlet will forever sit as a long time favorite to me when it comes to Shakespeare works. The story has slow start in the beginning, but as you read along to the play it sky rockets like a rapid roller coaster. There are never dull moments in this play and really focuses on the idea of revenge. The play will always leave you asking yourself what will happen next and as it is a play from Shakespeare it will never disappoint anyone's expectations. 

De, Beaumarchais Pierre Augustin Caron, et al. The Marriage of Figaro. Oberon Books, 2003.

The Marriage of Figaro was a a new work that was introduced to me this year. I did not really have any expectation for this opera as I had not really known much about so I just dove right in. Not me being the biggest fan of opera it really surprised me by how good the story telling was. Figaro, being our main protagonist, was deeply in love and was bout to experience his very own wedding, but he had suspected oh his own wife not being faithful. Though one of the shorter works I have ever encountered, it really did the job well and did everything right. The ending will caught you off guard and not really something you would predict.  

Thomas Cole: Expulsion. Moon and Firelight

Expulssion, Moon and Firelight
Thomas Cole
Oil on Canvas
1827

Expulsion. Moon and Firelight by Thomas Cole was created in 1828 by Thomas Cole who is considered to be the founder of Northern American landscape painting. The waterfall and bridge produce a cross shape in the composition, which is symmetrically arranged. Paradise is on the right, and the world after the Fall is on the left. Stated in Museo Nacional, "The whole landscape, which seen by a favorable light, and in a genial temperature, had been found so lovely, appeared now like some pictured allegory of life, in which objects were arrayed in their harshest by truest colors, and without the relief of any shadowing..., the bold and rocky mountains were too distinct in their barrenness, and the eye sought relief, in vain, by attempting to pierce thee illimitable void of heaven, which was the shut to its gaze by the dusky sheet of ragged and driving vapor" (Museo 2). The stark contrast between the blazing light inside the arch and the shadows around it emphasizes the scene's magnificent quality. Cole was concerned about the consequences of the United States' growing industrialization, and here he shows the North American landscape as a metaphor for Eden. 

Thomas Cole 

The land scape that had inspired Thomas Cole was when he saw a suspended bridge in New Hampshire in 1827; the scene's sole characteristics are the environment and the elements of creation such as the stone bridge, the waterfall, the volcano, and the moon. His excursions through the granite formations of New Hampshire's White Mountains served as inspiration for this painting. Stated in the Museo Nacional, "Cole drew inspiration for the bridge that marks the division between the world of paradise and wild, chaotic nature from a landmark in the white mountains called "the Bridge of Fear..." (Museo 3). These paintings set the tone for Cole's new, more elevated landscape style. Firelight and the Moon Cole saw landscape painting as a tool for communicating theological or moral implications, God's power over nature, and man's defenselessness towards it. 

Starting with this aspect, Cole used his imagination to build the scene for Adam and Eve's expulsion. The Garden of Eden in Fort Worth represents the world before the fall, with an ideal environment that has never been seen before dominating the composition. After being exiled from Paradise, Adam and Eve cross a rocky bridge into a chaotic natural setting in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts' Expulsion. Instead of the route to exile, Cole depicts the stone bridge as the gateway to Paradise, which he paints with light and fire, portraying Eden shining in the darkness. Cole compared the untamed American terrain to Eden in terms of its potential to impart God's work of creation. What I had experienced when first glancing at the art was how much of a landscape it had covered and the difference between both left and right. Just by looking at the painting I could infer that it would have some relation to the bible as it depicted a two differenthttps://www.museothyssen.org/en/collection/artists/cole-thomas/expulsion-moon-and-firelight distinct world such as heaven and hell. 

Work Cited:

Nubla. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. (n.d.). Retrieved December 17, 2021, from https://www.museothyssen.org/en/visit/thematic-tours/nubla 

Figaro: A Man in Love

The Marriage of Figaro
Pierre Augustin de Beaumarchais'

The character that I will be analyzing today from the well known opera Marriage of Figaro by Pierre Augustin de Beaumarchais' is the main character himself Figaro. The play's protagonist is Figaro; he is a young man who is engaged to be married to Susan, a lady he adores. He has a tumultuous past, since he has no knowledge of his family or parents and is prone to getting into mischief, yet he always manages to win in the end. Figaro is the count's majordomo and valet, and the two have a long history together. Figaro appears to have a knack for devising elaborate and confusing schemes that generally include the count being duped. Figaro is also a respectable and good-hearted man, but has his share of uncontrollable emotions. When he suspects Susan of having an affair with the Count, he gets depressed and enraged, launching a lengthy rant against the nobility and governing classes. He remarks in his soliloquy that the count is ordinary but elevated because of his title, whereas Figaro is everything from ordinary in character but lives in obscurity due to his lack of position or status.

In act 5 Figaro conducts a long soliloquy about inequity and the aristocracy when left alone. "But, despite my desire to be Something in this world, my detestation of the brazen Effrontery, profound Ignorance, and insupportable Insolence of these fashionable Friends of Nobility was so innate that I found I could better endure all the Miseries of Poverty than the Disgrace and Disgust of such Society," he writes. He breaks out in tears. At the conclusion of the play, everything is resolved. It turns out that the intricate pranks that the characters perform on each other are more successful than any direct dialogue. The count is humiliated when he learns that his wife is aware of his affair with Susan, and Figaro and Susan marry happily. The play demonstrates how, rather than didacticism or direct confrontation, sleight of hand, trickery, and comedy may expose deeper and more striking truths. 

                      Here is a short 2:26 second video that I highly recommend for many to watch:  

"The Marriage of Figaro in about a minute" 

The term satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts in which vices, follies, abuses, and weaknesses are mocked, generally with the goal of shaming or exposing perceived defects in people, businesses, government, or society as a whole into betterment. Although satire is normally intended to be amusing, its primary goal is frequently to provide constructive social critique by employing wit to bring attention to both specific and broader societal concerns. The satire in the opera brought alive many of the ways people of social status, gender and role during this particular era.  

Work Cited:

Holcroft, T., & Beaumarchais, P. A. C. de. (1785). The follies of a day ; or, the marriage of Figaro.: A comedy, as it is now performing! at the Theatre-Royal, Covent-garden. from the French of M. de beaumarchais. Amazon. Retrieved December 14, 2021, from https://www.amazon.com/Marriage-Figaro-Pierre-Beaumarchais-ebook/dp/B005XSCBBK.

The marriage of figaro in about a minute - youtube. (n.d.). Retrieved December 14, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWX5oGv2Jxo.