Othello and Desdemona Emotional Strangers

In William Shakespeare’s play Othello, the main character is a man named Othello. He is a Moor, a man with dark skin, who has earned his way to the rank of commanding general in Venice. The play opens with Othello, appearing in nightclothes before an angry mob, trying to defend himself against the accusation that he has shamed the daughter of a wealthy Venetian merchant by joining her in bed.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Othello and Desdemona: Emotional Strangers specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Iago, another character, helps to incite the mob, but Desdemona appears next to Othello, telling them that she is absolutely devoted to Othello and the two of them are married. It is one of the things that Shakespeare is praised for that these two characters are able to demonstrate such strong emotion. Their love for each other is seen in their unwavering devotion in this first test of their relationship as they face down the town. However, even this intense emotion, perhaps especially this sort of intense emotion, can easily work against itself. This is demonstrated throughout the play as Iago carefully manipulates Othello’s perceptions, playing off of his insecurities and enflaming his jealousies to the point of violence. Unaware of what is happening, Desdemona continues to show her fierce devotion to her husband which both blinds her to the truth of Othello’s murderous emotions and feeds them. In the end, both Desdemona and Othello are blinded by their emotions, preventing them from seeing reality which leads to their deaths. Even before Desdemona appears in the play, it is clear to the audience that she loves Othello beyond all reason. Although much of this idea is perhaps lost on a modern audience, Shakespeare’s audience would have been shocked at the idea that a young girl of good breeding would think to marry someone without her father’s approval or knowl edge and that she would marry a man of a different race at a time when that was rare. She is not a bad girl, though, as she shows her father sincere devotion as soon as she comes on stage. She tells him, â€Å"To you I am bound for life and education; / My life and education both do learn me / How to respect you: you are the lord of duty; / I am hitherto your daughter† (I, iii, 182-85). In these lines, she recognizes the care and devotion he’s given her, acknowledges the gifts he’s bestowed upon her and admits that up to this point, she belonged entirely to him. However, she then says that her duty has been transferred to Othello, who she has taken as her husband. If it is thought that perhaps race didn’t mean anything to the people back then, Desdemona’s father’s reaction to her marriage removes any doubt. This is something Desdemona apparently doesn’t feel is important even though it will limit her social circle. These consideration s continue to illustrate the degree of dedication Desdemona feels for Othello.Advertising Looking for essay on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More As Othello begins to express his jealousy, Desdemona does nothing to condemn his behavior. Instead, she agonizes trying to figure out what she might have done to upset him. She never thinks perhaps he is acting unjustly, irrationally or improperly nor does she think that her promises to Cassio might have a role in Othello’s strange behavior. Because her love for Othello is so strong, it doesn’t occur to her to consider he might suspect her intentions regarding Cassio. Knowing him to be a just man and a capable leader, she cannot believe he would think such things of her or of his once-favorite. This strong emotion for him coupled with her puzzlement over his recent behavior makes it impossible for her to realize the dangerous state of Othello’s emoti ons or their nature. However, even in the final moments before she dies, Desdemona continues to express love for her husband and satisfaction at her choice for marriage. Unlike Desdemona, who seems to have a pure and innocent nature, Othello allows jealousy and suspicion to rule him throughout most of the play despite his own innate innocence. In the opening scene, Othello shows why he was able to achieve his high rank even though he was a stranger to the Venice society. He is a strong adherent to the military code of honor. This code of honor meant strong adherence to a specific set of expected behaviors which included honorable combat among matched foes, adherence to home society laws, fundamental trust of fellow soldiers and an action-oriented approach to life. In defending Desdemona and his marriage, Othello shows his appreciation for this code in his willingness to argue and defend his position while refusing to take up arms against a man vastly inferior in fighting ability and family by marriage. The higher a person’s rank, the more he is expected to honor the code and, as seems the case with Othello, the harder it is for him to conceive of someone else breaking it. Whereas Desdemona starts the play arguing for their love, Othello receives the first blow to his faith in his wife. This blow comes from her father as he expresses his own fit of rage. He warns Othello, â€Å"Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see: / She has deceived her father, and may thee† (I, iii, 292-93). Iago exploits Othello’s soldier’s code after hearing the father’s word as he talks about Othello’s â€Å"free and open nature / That thinks men honest that but seem to be so; / And will as tenderly be led by th’ nose / As asses are† (I, iii, 393-96). Thus, Iago uses this moment of doubt and suspicion and his own knowledge of Othello’s inner beliefs and insecurities as a means of poisoning the newlyweds. Rather than unde rstanding Desdemona’s attempts to reunite him to his friend for what they were, Othello hears the ideas that Iago has put in his head about a possible relationship between Desdemona and Cassio. When he sees Desdemona talking earnestly with Cassio, he assumes the worst even though her words, â€Å"Do not doubt, Cassio, / But I will have my lord and you again / As friendly as you were† (III, iii, 5-7), reveal her pure intentions and Othello’s central role in their minds.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Othello and Desdemona: Emotional Strangers specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Despite the nobility and command Othello demonstrates at the beginning of the play, his emotions regarding Desdemona are too overpowering for him to see clearly. Not until his rage is worked out in action does Othello calm down enough to start thinking again. As he learns of her true innocence and his own foolishness, he understands that he cannot live with the tremendous guilt at having killed his love and he runs himself through with his sword. Both Desdemona and Othello are too blinded by their emotions to be able to see truth. Desdemona tries to demonstrate through her words and actions that she loves Othello and only Othello, but she is unable to see that her attempts at reassurance are only making the misunderstanding deeper. Othello, because of the way in which Iago has painted the scene, is only capable of seeing the ugliness that Iago has suggested. He accepts it because he has survived by listening to his men before anyone and believing Iago has the same fierce loyalty to his captain that Othello feels for his superior. Had Desdemona not been blind to Othello’s doubts of her love, she might have found a way to reach him. Had Othello not been blinded by his complicated emotions forcing him to fall back on his soldier’s code, he would not have reached the point of violence Wor ks Cited Shakespeare, William. â€Å"Othello.† The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Alfred Harbage (Ed.). New York: Penguin Books, 1969. 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Modernism The movement and what it brought about

Modernism The movement and what it brought about Today, I can type this essay on my computer and print it on my printer because of modernism. Many people are to thank for the great things that we have today, like Picasso and Freud for example. Modernism is what lets us grow and expand our culture into something great.Anything that is created today, that has never been used before or if it is an upgrade to something that is old, would be considered modern because it is new and different, and it is more at a higher level. There are different types of modernism, like modern technology, and paintings, art, music, foods, hair styles and clothes styles. I think it is amazing what people can do when they set their mind to it. If people did not have creative and new ideas, willing to take a risk of maybe looking silly or being persecuted, people would still be living without electricity, or and kind of electrical technology, and still be drawing pictures on rocks with mud or clay.Pablo Picasso, Three Musicians (1921), Museum of M...Picasso created the new technique during his time known as cubism. No one had ever heard, seen, thought of, or used the technique of cubism at that time. Picasso had instead of painting portraits the way they are normally shaped, the way that they look, he made it into a sort of abstract cube shape. One picture that Picasso painted using this sort of cubism is called Man with a Violin. This was a different kind of cubism, it is called analytic cubism. It is called this because it has "a multiplicity of viewpoints replaced one-point perspective. The cubist image, conceived as if one were moving around, above, and below the subject and even perceiving it from within, appropriated the fourth dimension-time itself"(Fiero 9).It is a painting...

Fire Safety Project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Fire Safety Project - Essay Example Every building should have minimum requirements of fire protection measures which help the occupants in a timely escape in the event of fire. The building should have both active and passive fire protection in place to ensure safety. This includes alarms, fire detection and safe escape strategies. Placing fire alarms and fire detections are the minimum requirements for any premises. The premises should have better and sophisticated system in place which will help in performing the following functions such as- Provision of fire alarm detectors can help in providing early warning for the building occupants. Fire alarm detectors help in increasing the occupant’s response time. The warning system helps in making the right decision for the occupants to evacuate or hold position in the building. The provision for fire alarm detectors is an additional fire safety and it depends upon the level of management and the number of occupants in the building. Voice alarm will help increase the speed of the response even if the occupants are not familiar with the building layout. (Code of practice for fire safety in the design, management and use of buildings,2008) It is essential that the fire procedures take priority in the event of fire. Trained staffs should be available to be able to guide the occupants to a safe area. The escape flights should be constructed of materials which have limited combustibility. The escape stair should be broad enough to accommodate and have the capacity to a fit large number of people during an emergency evacuation. The fire safety procedure should also have a preferred method of evacuation for disabled people by horizontal evacuation. Provision of sprinklers is also recommended for hotel buildings. In the event of a fire, all the provisions and procedures are implemented to help in taking corrective course of

EGBC report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

EGBC report - Essay Example Researches and extensive studies have shown a direct linkage between energy and population growth. Due to this reason, Egyptian government and other officials have decided to look for different ways which can reduce the GHG emission and power consumption. For the accomplishment of this goal, developing energy efficient building is the first step in identifying the alternative methods of efficient energy. There have been many proposals forwarded for improved performance but manpower and interest is absent here. Many people are experiencing this dilemma however some other people are looking for alternative systems in order to deal with this issue and increase awareness to other people about its importance. In subsequent paragraphs, there are some initiatives taken for the bridging the gap between code compliance and code design. In 2009, a major step was taken by Egyptian government in establishing Egyptian Green Building Council-EGBC. There are many international and national personalities who have become member of this council; they include NGO officers, government officials, ministers, labour leaders, contractors and prominent businessman. The objective of developing this council is to satisfy environmental conservations and energy efficiency by providing opportunities to investors to adopt BEECs and other existing codes. The purpose of focusing on new constructions is that by focusing on it, EGBC can utilize its leverage as an organization to persuade and educate builders, engineers, owners and contractors about the advantages of establishing green constructions on people, community and most significantly, to the nation. In this way, green construction can be a required objective for buildings, construction work and other projects as energy efficiency codes would be tools, material and road map to attai n that desired objective. The imperative motivation is to eradicate the clichà ©d perspectives related to the green

A Trade Environment and the Rights of Patients Dissertation

A Trade Environment and the Rights of Patients - Dissertation Example Recent free trade agreements have extended extremely generous patent rights to multinational pharmaceutical companies, and have limited access to generic equivalent drugs. In the â€Å"DOHA declaration on TRIPS and Public Health† of 2001, states that were members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) guaranteed that when a country is undergoing a public health crisis, it is not bound by its patents commitments. A consensus was reached that the provisions in the WTO having to with patents should be interpreted liberally in favour of the patient, and in favour of granting access to essential medicines. In order to circumvent these commitments, bilateral agreements are being forged by developed countries with lesser developed countries where the requirements for intellectual property law surpass those found in TRIPS. The TRIPS agreement does contain various safeguard mechanisms to protect public health. The two distinct safeguards are (1) parallel importation, and (2) compulsory licensing. By, its silence, the TRIPS allows countries to import drugs from another country that is selling it at a lower price. Countries must make domestic legislation in this regard. The US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement, however, is an example of how the US has engaged in scare tactics to pressure developing countries not to pass a parallel important law. Compulsory licensing, on the other hand, permits the government to grant compulsory licenses to particular companies to create generic versions of the drug and arrest a public health crisis.

Popular Methods for Pricing American Options

Popular Methods for Pricing American Options Chapter 1 Introduction American options are financial derivatives, an instrument whose value is derived from an underlying asset, usually a stock. Black and Scholes (1973) described an option as: a security giving the right to buy or sell an asset, subject to certain conditions, within a specified period of time. The main question of this dissertation is how American options can be valued. The option value is only known with certainty when the option is exercised, either at maturity or not. When the owner decides to exercise the option or it is the option maturity time, it is possible to determine the price of the option as the strike will be exchanged by the asset in the case that the conditions are favourable for the owner of the option. When the one buys the option, she does not know what will be the future price of the underlying asset, and assuming it follows a random process it is hard to put a price on such contract without knowing what will be the price change. This non linear feature of the option makes calculating the price to pay for such contracts a challenging process and has been the focus of a large number of financial studies and publications. This dissertation deals with the most popular methods for pricing American options and their implementation in MatLab ®, including a graphic user interface. The methods studied include the Black and Scholes (1973) European option pricing as the starting point, followed by the Barone Adesi and Whaley (1987) analytical approximation. Then the binomial and trinomial lattice methods presented in Cox, Ross and Rubinstein (1979) are considered also as the Finite difference approximations models AAA. The most sophisticated method is the Least Squares Monte Carlo simulation presented in Longstaff and Schwartz (2001). The analysis of the different option pricing methods in this dissertation follow most of the assumptions made by Black and Scholes (1973), the short term interest rate and the dividend are assumed to be known and constant, the underlying stock follows a log normal distributed geometric Brownian motion, the markets are frictionless and finally it exists the possibility of forming a riskless portfolio, consisting of the option and underlying stock. The dissertation is organised as follows: a brief literature survey is provided in the next Chapter. The analytical approximation method and the numerical methods used are described on Chapter 3 and their implementation in Matlab environment is given in chapter 4. Numerical results are given in Chapter 5. The conclusion and future developments are presented in Chapter 6. Chapter 2 provides a survey of some of the most relevant publications in American Option Pricing, with focus on analytical approximations, lattice and finite difference methods, more precisely, binomial and trinomial trees, explicit, implicit and Crank Nicolson Scheme, and also on Monte Carlo Simulation. Chapter 3 provides a description of the methods used, their advantages, disadvantages and limitations. Here the required equations will be derived and the solution for the pricing of American options will be provided. Chapter 4 focus on the algorithms used and their implementation on the MatLab environment, also as the procedures for the development of the GUI for easier user interface. On Chapter 5 results and their comparison are shown for the different methods used, with the required figures to support the numerical answers. In the final chapter the dissertation is concluded and a summary of the findings is provided, also as with further work on this subject. Chapter 2 Literature Survey Black and Scholes (1973) and Merton (1973) developed the first analytical closed form solution for the pricing of European type options and certain types of American options, such as American call options on non dividend paying stocks. The option pricing model developed by Black and Scholes and extended by Merton gives rise to partial differential equations governing the value of an option Schwartz (1976). Black and Scholes (1973) develop their model on the basis of the no arbitrage theory, If options are correctly priced in the market, it should not be possible to make sure profits by creating portfolios of long and short positions in options and their underlying stocks Black and Scholes (1973). The Black and Scholes (1973) model valued European options on non dividend paying stocks, and with a number of quite restrictive assumptions, constant and known interest rates, the markets are frictionless with no transaction costs and penalties for short selling. The Black and Scholes (1973) model also assumes that the underlying stocks follow a random walk. Due to all this assumptions the pricing model Black and Scholes (1973) proposed was of easy use, and there is only the need to input the required values on the proposed pricing equation. The model they have proposed does not take into consideration early exercise of the option so it is inaccurate for pricing American Options. One of the most popular analytical approximation models that starts from the Black and Scholes (1973) model and adjusts it to consider the scenario of early exercise strategies is the work by Baron Adesi and Whaley (1987) which was based on the paper by MacMillan (1986). Baron Adesi and Whaley (1987) consider that the Black and Scholes (1973) partial differential equation must apply to the early exercise premium as this is just the difference between the American and the European option prices, which are also priced by the same partial differential equation. After some transformation they end with an easily solvable through an interactive process second order differential equation. When closed form solutions, like the Black and Scholes (1973) valuation model cannot be derived, numerical methods must be developed. These are computational methods where the values for the underlying assets are modelled up to maturity and the price of the options is derived from them. In the case of American options this is a complex process, as the modelled price changes may have to be adjusted to include dividend payments and the derivation of the option price must also include the possibility of early exercise. Cox, Ross and Rubinstein (1979) developed a simple discrete time lattice model to deal with the complexity of option valuation, as they considered the methods of Black and Scholes (1973) quite advanced and have tended to obscure the underlying economics Cos, Ross and Rubinstein (1979). The use of lattice models such as the one by Cox, Ross and Rubinstein (1979) is the simplicity of its application. The most significant drawback of the Cox, Ross and Rubinstein (1979) model, is to increase its accuracy the number of time intervals must increase, in order to approach a continuous time model, which will significantly increase the computational time, needed for processing the entire tree in order to derive the option value. Others such as Hull and White (1988), (1993) and Trigeorgis (1991) have extended the model of Cox, Ross and Rubinstein (1979). Hull and White (1988) present a study of the use of lattice models for underlying assets with known dividends instead of known divided yields. They also consider the use of a control variate to price a option numerically, by a the lattice model, using the price of a similar option calculated analytically. While Trigeorgis (1991) proposes a log transformed variation of binomial option pricing designed to overcome problems of consistency, stability and efficiency encountered in the Cox, Ross and Rubinstein (1979) focusing on the pricing of exotic options. Hull and White (1993) also present an application of binomial and trinomial procedures for exotic path dependent options, where they developed a model faster than Monte Carlo simulation and faster than other numerical methods. Usually the analytical procedures are applicable to simple payoffs of the American Options, but in the cases where this is not possible numerical solutions must be developed. Geske and Shastri (1985) give a detailed comparison of the lattice methods to the different numerical methods, finite difference methods and other simulation methods. The model proposed by Brennan and Schwartz (1978) for valuing options was the first approach that used the finite difference method. This approach was used due to the fact that most of the times an analytical solution for the option pricing problem does not exist. The finite difference method uses the heat equation derived from the Black and Sholes PDE to obtain an approximation of the option price. Courtadon (1998) goes further to reduce the approximation error of the Brennan and Schwartz (1978) model but only applies his findings only to simple option pay offs. Geske and Shastri (1985) give a good description of the finite difference method: The finite difference technique analyze the partial differential equation () by using discrete estimates of the changes in the options value for small changes in time or the underlying stock price to form equations as approximations to the continuous partial derivatives. Usually the approximations is done using forward, backward or central difference theorem, which respectively result in the explicit, implicit and Crank Nicolson schemes, the procedure used in this study will be shown further in the paper. In this case as with most of the methods for pricing options, the most significant drawback is the duality between accuracy and processing time. In order to increase accuracy the time and stock change steps must be smaller, increasing their number and the number of computations to make, this issue also affects the stability and convergence of the methods. Another approach used for solving the option pricing problem, especially for path dependent American options is the use of simulation. This means that the option price is derived from a simulated underlying asset price, usually using a Monte Carlo simulation method. Boyle (1977) and Schwartz (1977) pioneered the use of Monte Carlo simulation which is nowadays used to price complex options contracts. The Monte Carlo simulation method is very powerful in terms of its flexibility to generate the returns of the underlying asset of the options, by changing the random variables used to generate the process a new returns distribution may be easily obtained, Boyle (1977). Boyle (1977) introduces the Monte Carlo technique for pricing European option where there is a dividend payment, but Schwartz (1977) was the true pioneer, pricing American options, with the underlying asset paying discrete dividends, and also deriving an optimal strategy for early exercise of the option, which is the crucial point for pricing American type options. Schwartz (1997) focused on a particular type of contract, warrants, so in fairness his first model is not exactly on an American type option. Tilley (1993) was one of the first to fully focus on the pricing of American option using a Monte Carlo simulation method as he mentioned that simulation methods were reserved for exotic options or other complex debt products. His findings are only applied to American options on non dividend paying stocks, but he develops an important part of the model which is the optimal early exercise option. Carriere (1996) presents a development of the Monte Carlo simulation method presented by Tilley (1993). The paper by Carriere (1996) presents a model where the optima early exercise strategy is based on conditional expectations of Markov processes by carrying a nonparametric regression on the simulated underlying asset return paths. Brodie and Glasserman (1997) extended the previous studies by considering an upper and lower converging bounds of the option price. These estimated bounds are calculated using a high and a low bias, which Combining the two estimators yields a confidence interval for the true price. Brodie and Glasserman (1997) One of the most important papers, and probably one of the most used ones, is the paper by Longstaff Schwartz (2001). Their Least Squares Monte Carlo (LSM) valuation model is very simple and straight forward which combined with the accuracy of the method made it famous. Their greatest advance can be described as: The key to this approach is the use of least squares to estimate the conditional expected payoff to the option holder from continuation Longstaff Schwartz (2001). They applied their model to a series of exotic path dependent American options with great success. Chapter 3 Pricing American Options Methods 3.1 Asset Prices Models The Black and Scholes (1973) and Merton(1973) pricing methods which are the basis for most of this paper assume that the stock returns follow a Geometric Brownian motions, with the stock prices log normally distributed. The stock returns can be represented by the following stochastic differential equation, (3.1.1) Where St is the asset price at time t, is the assets expected return, is the assets instantaneous volatility and Wt is a Wiener process. 3.2 Analytical Approximation by Barone Adesi and Whaley (1987) Barone Adesi and Whaley (1987) developed a method to approximate analytically and easily the price of American options. They considered that the American and European option pricing equation is represented by the partial differential equation (3.2.1) developed by Black and Scholes (1987) and Merton (1987), (3.2.1) Barone Adesi and Whaley (1987) assumed that if this is true, then the early exercise premium of the American option, which is the price difference between the American and the European call option prices (3.2.2), can be represented by the same partial differential equation (3.2.3). (3.2.2) (3.2.3) The above equation after some transformation, shown on Barone Adesi and Whaley (1987) paper, and applying an approximation of a term tending to zero, yields the following quadratic equation, (3.2.4) Where (3.2.5), (3.2.6) and (3.2.7). Equation (3.2.4) is a second order ordinary differential equation with two linearly independent solutions of the form . They can be found by substituting (3.2.8) into equation (3.2.4) Barone Adesi and Whaley (1987), (3.2.9) With a general solution of the form, (3.2.10) When the American option boundary conditions are applied to the above solution and considering , then must be equal to 0 as when the asset price tends to zero so does the option price, resulting in the following American call option pricing equation, Barone Adesi and Whaley (1987), (3.2.11) From (3.2.9) we have the value for so the only value missing is . This can be calculated interactively considering another boundary condition of American call options. We know that in early exercise the payoff will never be higher than S X, so from a critical underlying asset value the option payoff curve must be tangent to the S X curve, which means that below the critical asset value the pricing equation is represented by (3.2.11), Barone Adesi and Whaley (1987). The algorithm presented by Barone Adesi and Whaley (1987) for the above pricing problem is presented further in the paper in the section dedicated to the implementation of the American option pricing models. 3.3 Lattice Methods Cox, Ross and Rubinstein (1979) proposed a model where the underlying asset would go up or down from one time step to the next by a certain proportional amount and with a certain probability until maturity. Due to the up and down characteristic of the asset price model these type of models are characterised by a binomial tree or, in the cases of the existence of a third possible movement, they are characterised by a trinomial tree, therefore named as Binomial or Trinomial models The price of the option would be recursively derived from maturity, due to the boundary condition as has been referenced before that the price of the option is only known with certainty at maturity. This means that the price of the option is calculated at maturity and recursively at each node up to the initial value, by discounting backwards at the risk free rate and respective probabilities. Due to the characteristic of American options, the model has to check if it is optimal to exercise the option at each node or if it has the advantage to continue to the next one, for example on the case of dividend payments. In the case that it is optimal to exercise the option at a certain node, its price will be equal to the intrinsic value at that same node. Every node will be checked for the optimality of exercising the option or not, until we have reached the initial point where we want to price the option. 3.3.1 Binomial Tree Model The model starts being built for a American option of a non dividend paying stock and after that the scenario of dividend payments and optimal early exercise strategy is considered. As referenced before the stock goes up and down by a certain amount form one period to the next, if u is the up movement and d the down movement, then they can be calculated as, (3.3.1.1) and (3.3.1.2) as in Cox, Ross and Rubinstein (1979). In no arbitrage conditions it is possible to calculate the probability of the up and down movements, with the up being defined as, (3.3.1.3) where from the definition of probability and the down movement as (3.3.1.4). The tree formed using these specifications from Cox, Ross and Rubinstein (1979), can have the following graphical representation The option is price is calculated from the asset price binomial tree. The maturity boundary condition for an American option, is that the payoff is equal to , we already have S at each maturity node from the asset price model, so we can calculate backwards the price of the option as the expectation of the future payoff of the option. At each node we calculate the expectation of the future payoffs, where the price of the option will be a compound of expectations. These can be represented by the multi period case for a call as in Cox, Ross and Rubinstein (1979), The option prices are calculated as the expectation of the options future payoffs using their respective weighted risk neutral probabilities of an up movement and a down movement and then discounted at the risk free rate r. The Binomial value is found for each node, starting at the final time step, and working backwards to the

Technical Theater During the Restoration Lighting and Scenic Design England 1660-1800 :: English Theater

Technical Theater During the Restoration Lighting and Scenic Design England 1660-1800 The Restoration in England was an era ripe for the development of new ideas in the arts. The return of the Stuart monarchy under Charles II marked the end of eighteen years of almost dictatorial control by Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan parliament. Cromwell had campaigned actively to halt all theatrical activity. In the end, however, his laws were actually responsible for helping move England forward in theatrical history. Actors, under Cromwell's laws, were to be apprehended a rogues if they were caught "in the act" so to speak of performing their trade. Some left their careers and sought employment elsewhere. Most, however, remained undaunted by parliament's threats. Productions continued quietly in tennis courts, inns and private houses. Officials were bribed to keep silent their knowledge of violations. The theater in England had moved indoors as it had already done in France and Italy. Although the reasons for the move were different, the end result was the same. Up until this time plays had always been performed outdoors in the early afternoon. Performances traditionally relied on sunlight, natural scenery, and minimal set pieces that could be easily transported from one location to another. Indoor productions required something much more elaborate. The preliminary concepts of scenic design and lighting design began to form in England in the late 1650's. During the Restoration, as controls were lifted, technical theater began to flourish. Many early examples of modern stage techniques were born between 1660 and 1800, making the Restoration a significant era in the history of scenic design and lighting for the theater. The art of scenic design did not begin in England. As early as 1570 the Italians were giving elaborate opera performances in the ducal courts using perspective scenes and various types of stage machinery. The French mimicked the design ideas of the Italian's and gave them a name, la scene a l'italienne. (Souther n 221) Although Cromwell had banned public theater, opera was still considered a lawful art form. In England, just prior to the Restoration, John Webb designed the scenery for William D'avenant's 'opera' production of The Siege of Rhodes.