Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1, University of Heidelberg (Anglistisches Seminar), course: Shakespeare's Tragedies - Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear, language: English, abstract: Renaissance tragedy does to a large extent deal with common political, religious and social questions of the time. In most cases, authors use tragedy as the place to question and even criticize those issues, and thus use it as a political space. In Jacobean England, society was profoundly hierarchical with the king on top of the state, and the father or husband as head of the family. " W]omen were clearly socially subordinate, and the preponderance of discourse on the gender hierarchy was misogynistic" . Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's late tragedies, written in 1606, and presented at the Globe Theatre later that year. In Shakespeare's plays sex and gender are crucial for defining human identity and political power. In the course of this essay, I will first take a closer look at gender ideology in the English Renaissance and in Renaissance tragedy and see how society justified the social subordination of women, and what kind of behaviour was considered appropriate for women. As Macbeth is a play that hugely builds on gender stereotyping, I will afterwards work out the play's definition of masculinity and femininity in the medieval social context the tragedy is set in, and subsequently analyse the characters of the three witches and king Duncan regarding their hermaphroditism and androgynity, and see whether the blurring of fixed gender roles might be interpreted as an indication that gender politics in Macbeth are unusual for the medieval Scottish context. The main part of this essay will be dedicated to the Macbeths, two strongly individualized characters. I will examine the characters of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth first, take a look at how their ambition leads to their downfall and afterwards discuss whether it i

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1, University of Heidelberg (Anglistisches Seminar), course: J.B. Priestley: Dramatist, Novelist, Essayist and Social Critic, language: English, abstract: Having served as a soldier in the First World War, Priestley knew about the importance of the maintenance of Home Front morale in times of war. J.B. Priestley was a very skilful broadcaster who knew how to create a foundation of trust between himself and his audience, namely by identifying with the ordinary British population, and by letting them take part in his own life and experiences. He managed to maintain the morale of his compatriots by glorifying them in their ordinariness and by juxtaposing their naturalness, courage and their ability not to let the war get them down to the soulnessness of the German military machine, devoid of all human feeling. Through his criticism and verbal attacks on the Nazis, Priestley surely might have won recognition on the part of the Churchill government but the fact that he openly expressed his views about the necessity of a fundamental reconstruction of the society after the end of the War, which was mostly connected to his liberal socialist ideals, nevertheless made him fall out of favour with the government since it refused to commit itself to any post-war programmes. As a consequence of the ongoing quarrel with leading officials of the BBC and the Ministry of Information, Priestley was forced to quit his Postscripts in March 1941 and refused to accept the offer of returning to microphone some weeks or months later. Priestley even accused the BBC and the Ministry of being a "political Gestapo." Although Priestley is very critical about his Postscripts in his autobiography Margin Released (1962), one single sentence perhaps resumes best his role during the blitzkrieg: "To this day middle-aged and elderly men shake my hand and tell me what a ten-minute talk about duck