"Writers are born when someone believes their work matters"
~Corey Harbaugh
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
All this talk about beverages is making me thirsty....
We started this class talking about gin street and beer, and now coffee houses....too many beverages!
One thing I wanted to share is some insight into why beer was preferred over gin and seen as a nutritious beverage. My boyfriend and I are homebrewers, and becuase of this I know a lot about this tasty beverage and agree with the 18th century view of it as a wholesome drink.
First of all, the beer we generally think of as beer is not the same beer that they were drinking in England in the 18th Century. American beer is a watered-down, tainted version of beer, often using cheap ingredients that do not provide much more than a hangover. "Real" beer consists of about 99% water and made with whole grains and yeast that provide a lot of nutrients.
Because beer is 99% water and 1% flavor, it is actually a very hydrating. There was an article in a brew magazine last year that was all about beer as a hydrating and nutritious beverage (if I can find the magazine I will put in the citation....) The yeast in beer provides all of the B vitamins and is very good for you. The grain in beer provides small amounts of protein and other vitamins and minerals as well. Hops also have properties that are good for the body and promote health, helping break down unwanted organisms. Because of the caloric content of beer, it also has enough calories to give the body energy necessary to function, and it is easy to break down becuase it is in a simple sugar form. Since most people at this time usually drank ales or stouts which are very high in nutritious content, the beer they were drinking was literally good for them. For instance, a person could reasonably live off a beer like Guiness (a stout for those of you who may not know) becuase it is made with wholesome grains and has a lot of yeast.
This is just a brief overview of the very true health benefits of drinking beer. To us it sounds crazy that they sought this sort of beverage in good health, but they knew what they were doing. Next time you drink a brew, drink it in good health!
One thing I wanted to share is some insight into why beer was preferred over gin and seen as a nutritious beverage. My boyfriend and I are homebrewers, and becuase of this I know a lot about this tasty beverage and agree with the 18th century view of it as a wholesome drink.
First of all, the beer we generally think of as beer is not the same beer that they were drinking in England in the 18th Century. American beer is a watered-down, tainted version of beer, often using cheap ingredients that do not provide much more than a hangover. "Real" beer consists of about 99% water and made with whole grains and yeast that provide a lot of nutrients.
Because beer is 99% water and 1% flavor, it is actually a very hydrating. There was an article in a brew magazine last year that was all about beer as a hydrating and nutritious beverage (if I can find the magazine I will put in the citation....) The yeast in beer provides all of the B vitamins and is very good for you. The grain in beer provides small amounts of protein and other vitamins and minerals as well. Hops also have properties that are good for the body and promote health, helping break down unwanted organisms. Because of the caloric content of beer, it also has enough calories to give the body energy necessary to function, and it is easy to break down becuase it is in a simple sugar form. Since most people at this time usually drank ales or stouts which are very high in nutritious content, the beer they were drinking was literally good for them. For instance, a person could reasonably live off a beer like Guiness (a stout for those of you who may not know) becuase it is made with wholesome grains and has a lot of yeast.
This is just a brief overview of the very true health benefits of drinking beer. To us it sounds crazy that they sought this sort of beverage in good health, but they knew what they were doing. Next time you drink a brew, drink it in good health!
Monday, January 26, 2009
The Beggar's Opera
And on to week two...
Plays, poetry, drama, operas, etc are not really my thing, but I did find The Beggar's Opera especially amusing, and will admit that I actually liked it. I found Peachum and Mrs Peachum hilarious, especially when it came to justifying why their daughter should not get married. They would have rather seen their daughter as a tramp than see her get married. They saw her as being better off as a single woman than in marriage because she would lose the very few rights she had and simply become another man's property rather than being able to be a self-sustaining woman.
John Gay seems to use this situation found throughout the opera to say something about marriage. He consistently refers to the confining nature of marriage for both men and women. Women ruin men in marriage and men only take women as property. It is hard to discern if Gay is just pointing out the ridiculousness of marriage customs in the 18th century, making fun of dowries and marrying into families to preserve wealth, if he is only pointing out the crippling effect of marriage on women and how it stripped them of all their rights (tis better to be a widow moment on 61), or if he sees marriage as problematic altogether (92). It also seems like he is playing on the typical story of boy meets girl and girls parents don't like boy and keeps the boy away from their daughter at all costs and making fun of it (94). Overall, he tends to view marriage as just another problematic part of a corrupt society, from its lowest people to its highest people.
It seems to me that he is really poking fun of the traditions of Britain's high society, especially when it came to arranging marriages based on worthy wealth. Gay sees marriages as a financial transaction that if done properly can result in good things for both parties involved, just like a good business deal. A bad marriage, such as one with somebody who was considered unsuitable, would result in a loss of assets or wealth just like a bad business deal. "Money well timed, and properly applied, will do any thing" (89). In this quote, Gay is not only speaking about marriages, but other corruption throughout the aristocrocy where money can virtually buy anything from a marriage to government positions to immunity in a crime. Gay is obviously disgusted by this and outwardly depicts this throughout.
I am curious as to how to look at the marriage examples and see whay Gay is saying about gender roles in marriage. He switches from pointing out the degredation of women in marrige to the ways in which women ruin men. Is he trying to speak out against the oppresive roles of the domestic sphere (which I noticed DOES NOT exist in The Beggar's Opera and may be something else that Gay is bringing to our attention) and laws against women in England at the time? But then how do you account for him saying that women ruin men?
Regardless, Gay is bitter and he is letting everyone know it....and I think its hillarious. There is nothing better than some guy ranting and raving about the injustices of sociey in an opera...makes me chuckle just thinking about it....
Plays, poetry, drama, operas, etc are not really my thing, but I did find The Beggar's Opera especially amusing, and will admit that I actually liked it. I found Peachum and Mrs Peachum hilarious, especially when it came to justifying why their daughter should not get married. They would have rather seen their daughter as a tramp than see her get married. They saw her as being better off as a single woman than in marriage because she would lose the very few rights she had and simply become another man's property rather than being able to be a self-sustaining woman.
John Gay seems to use this situation found throughout the opera to say something about marriage. He consistently refers to the confining nature of marriage for both men and women. Women ruin men in marriage and men only take women as property. It is hard to discern if Gay is just pointing out the ridiculousness of marriage customs in the 18th century, making fun of dowries and marrying into families to preserve wealth, if he is only pointing out the crippling effect of marriage on women and how it stripped them of all their rights (tis better to be a widow moment on 61), or if he sees marriage as problematic altogether (92). It also seems like he is playing on the typical story of boy meets girl and girls parents don't like boy and keeps the boy away from their daughter at all costs and making fun of it (94). Overall, he tends to view marriage as just another problematic part of a corrupt society, from its lowest people to its highest people.
It seems to me that he is really poking fun of the traditions of Britain's high society, especially when it came to arranging marriages based on worthy wealth. Gay sees marriages as a financial transaction that if done properly can result in good things for both parties involved, just like a good business deal. A bad marriage, such as one with somebody who was considered unsuitable, would result in a loss of assets or wealth just like a bad business deal. "Money well timed, and properly applied, will do any thing" (89). In this quote, Gay is not only speaking about marriages, but other corruption throughout the aristocrocy where money can virtually buy anything from a marriage to government positions to immunity in a crime. Gay is obviously disgusted by this and outwardly depicts this throughout.
I am curious as to how to look at the marriage examples and see whay Gay is saying about gender roles in marriage. He switches from pointing out the degredation of women in marrige to the ways in which women ruin men. Is he trying to speak out against the oppresive roles of the domestic sphere (which I noticed DOES NOT exist in The Beggar's Opera and may be something else that Gay is bringing to our attention) and laws against women in England at the time? But then how do you account for him saying that women ruin men?
Regardless, Gay is bitter and he is letting everyone know it....and I think its hillarious. There is nothing better than some guy ranting and raving about the injustices of sociey in an opera...makes me chuckle just thinking about it....
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
The Rover
I'm going to start this blog out very bluntly....I was not a fan of The Rover at all, and for many reasons.
First of all, it was like reading a soap opera. I felt like I was reading The Days of our Lives of 18th cent drama. All the men wanted was sex, half of the women were whores, and the fighting and confusion and everything else just aided to the soap opera-ness of it.
Right from the beginning I was shocked at how graphic the play was. In 1.2 there is a point where Willmore is very graphically talking about how he wants to basically get with any woman that looks decent.
"Pray where do these roses grow? I would fain plant them in a bed of mine." Lines 84-86 (12)
"A pox of fear: I'll be baked with thee between a pair of sheets (and that's thy proper still), so I might but strew such roses over me, and under me. Fair one, would you would give me leave to gather at your bush this idle month; I would go near to make somebody smell of it all the year after." Lines 88-92 (12)
There are more lines just in this act that allude to very horny men looking for a piece of ass (pardon my wording here, but there is no better way to phrase it than this). This seems to be a recurring theme throughout the play. The men fight over women, pursue the wrong women, try to rape women they think are whores (mainly Blunt), and do anything, including pledging themselves for a free piece with no intent to stay tru to that pledge (Willmore and Angelina). The men even throw themselves at the "pure" girls, Hellena and Florinda, for a chance to "ruin" them discretely, causing Don Pedro to be constantly worried about his sisters maintaining their vrgin status (which is one of the reasons Hellena is destined to become a nun and Flroinda has to get married to somebody very soon).
All in all, the lesson, or moral of the story seems that whores are bad news and get you into trouble and getting with a good girl the right way seems to provide less troubles. I'm not even sure all that can be said considering all the trouble Belvile has to go through for Florinda.
Not knowing much about the social climate of the time, I can only critique what appears to me to be a very shallow plot line that is meant as pure pleasure and entertainment for the time.
First of all, it was like reading a soap opera. I felt like I was reading The Days of our Lives of 18th cent drama. All the men wanted was sex, half of the women were whores, and the fighting and confusion and everything else just aided to the soap opera-ness of it.
Right from the beginning I was shocked at how graphic the play was. In 1.2 there is a point where Willmore is very graphically talking about how he wants to basically get with any woman that looks decent.
"Pray where do these roses grow? I would fain plant them in a bed of mine." Lines 84-86 (12)
"A pox of fear: I'll be baked with thee between a pair of sheets (and that's thy proper still), so I might but strew such roses over me, and under me. Fair one, would you would give me leave to gather at your bush this idle month; I would go near to make somebody smell of it all the year after." Lines 88-92 (12)
There are more lines just in this act that allude to very horny men looking for a piece of ass (pardon my wording here, but there is no better way to phrase it than this). This seems to be a recurring theme throughout the play. The men fight over women, pursue the wrong women, try to rape women they think are whores (mainly Blunt), and do anything, including pledging themselves for a free piece with no intent to stay tru to that pledge (Willmore and Angelina). The men even throw themselves at the "pure" girls, Hellena and Florinda, for a chance to "ruin" them discretely, causing Don Pedro to be constantly worried about his sisters maintaining their vrgin status (which is one of the reasons Hellena is destined to become a nun and Flroinda has to get married to somebody very soon).
All in all, the lesson, or moral of the story seems that whores are bad news and get you into trouble and getting with a good girl the right way seems to provide less troubles. I'm not even sure all that can be said considering all the trouble Belvile has to go through for Florinda.
Not knowing much about the social climate of the time, I can only critique what appears to me to be a very shallow plot line that is meant as pure pleasure and entertainment for the time.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Very Interesting...
So this will be the place where I ramble about readings from Eng 5200...
Fun stuff to come before next Tuesday...
~C
Fun stuff to come before next Tuesday...
~C
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