literary


Who is Shakespeare - The Bard of Avon ?

Did ghost writers author this playwright-dramatist’s books ? England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon” (or simply “The Bard”) belonging to Stratford on Avon.

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. He traveled to London sometime between 1585 and 1592 and began a successful career as an actor, writer, and part-owner of the playing company the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later known as the King’s Men). He later retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later in 1616. Few records of Shakespeare’s private life survive and considerable speculation has been poured into this void, including questions concerning his sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to William Shakespeare were actually written by others.

A small cohort of contrarian scholars who traffic in conspiracy theories about “who really wrote” the plays of William Shakespeare has been joined by two luminaries of the British stage — Sir Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance — along with 285 other skeptics, who recently signed a Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare.

The declaration, which is sponsored by the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition, takes no position on who wrote the masterpieces of English drama if Shakespeare himself did not. It merely cites what it characterizes as the skimpy evidence to support Shakespeare’s authorship, and asserts, not very trippingly on the tongue, that mainstream scholars should allow the issue to be the subject of research and discussion — without smirking.

The skeptics also cite a panoply of literary lights, including Charlie Chaplin and Sigmund Freud, who expressed doubt that Shakespeare was Shakespeare. After that lengthy exegesis, it’s unclear whether the skeptics are gilding the lily or just protesting too much. Regardless, they will have some difficulty persuading the virtually unanimous chorus of literary scholars who have dismissed the so-called “authorship question” as nonsense Anyway, those of you who want to read the Works of Shakespear(???) online, here is MIT’s free online library right here for download http://shakespeare.mit.edu/

This was the Web’s first edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare. The site has offered Shakespeare’s plays and poetry to the Internet community since 1993.

Announcement: The restoration of the site following a disk failure has been delayed. The text of the plays is available now. The poetry and other services, including the search engine and forums, will return shortly. (Nov. 13, 2000)

For other Shakespeare resources, visit the Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet Web site.

The original electronic source for this server is the Complete Moby(tm) Shakespeare, which is freely available online. The HTML versions of the plays provided here are placed in the public domain.

The works available are :

Comedy

History

Tragedy

Poetry

All’s Well That Ends Well
As You Like It
The Comedy of Errors
Cymbeline
Love’s Labours Lost
Measure for Measure
The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Merchant of Venice
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Winter’s Tale
Henry IV, part 1
Henry IV, part 2
Henry V
Henry VI, part 1
Henry VI, part 2
Henry VI, part 3
Henry VIII
King John
Richard II
Richard III
Antony and Cleopatra
Coriolanus
Hamlet
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Macbeth
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
The Sonnets
A Lover’s Complaint
The Rape of Lucrece
Venus and Adonis
Funeral Elegy by W.S.

1. The closest airport is in Chennai, which is around 135 kms from Puducherry (approx. 2 ½ hrs. journey). Chennai has excellent connections with almost all cities in India and direction connection to Europe, USA, Middle East and South East Asia. Trichy airport is 220 kms away. Bangalore (320 kms) and Madurai are the other nearby airports.

 

 

       2. Though Puducherry is on the rail map journey by train to and from Puducherry is not very popular. Villupuram is the nearest junction, it is fairly well connected to places like Chennai, Madurai and Trichy.

 

       3. Puducherry is well connected to all districts and major towns of various states like Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andra Pradesh. Puducherry is best accessible by road, either by bus or by taxi. There are frequent buses, almost every 15 minutes in the day from Chennai’s new bus stand in Koyembedu.

 

       4.The express buses takes 3 ½ hours to reach Puducherry. Preferably take the buses coming by the East Coast Road via Mahabalipuram, instead of the National Highway, as the ECR is far more scenic with shimmering sea to give you company most of the way.

 

       There are frequent buses to Puducherry from places like Chidambaram, Thanjavur Trichy and Coimbatore. Especially private luxury buses are connecting Puducherry with other major cities in Tamil Nadu and Bangalore.

 

 

1) Teams arriving at the Chennai Central Railway Station can take local buses no. 15B, 15F or auto rickshaws (charges ranging from Rs.70 to 90) to reach the central bus stand (CMBT), Koyambedu. From there one can take the Chennai- Pondicherry / Chennai-Chidambaram/ Chennai- Cuddalore Bye pass bus to get to JIPMER directly. Please remember to get down at the JIPMER(Gorimedu ) bus-stop .You can also take the ECR route from Chennai to reach the Pondicherry bus stand from where auto rickshaws are available for Rs.25 to 40.

2) Colleges coming from south via Cuddalore or Villupuram should disembark at the Pondicherry bus stand and take an auto to get to JIPMER.

3) For colleges from Bangalore and its surroundings, direct bus services are available, run by PRTC, KSRTC and private bus services.(8 hours) 

Spandan Literary Events Schedule

 

29th August, Wednesday

            9 am – Dumb Charades

            2 pm – Jest A Minute

30th August, Thursday

            9 am – 90 seconds

            2 pm – Pictionary

31st August, Friday

            9 am – Debate

            2 pm – What’s the Good Word ?

1st September, Saturday

            9 am – Quiz prelims

                        Extempore

            2 pm – Quiz finals

 

Creative Writing

Wall Magazine

 


Trivium

Loquacity

Grafitti

General Rules

1. Registrations for the event are to be made at the venue of the event.

2. Participants are requested to be at the venue at least fifteen minutes in advance.

3. Explicit vulgarity in any form is strictly prohibited and may warrant disqualification.

4. The decision of the Literary Committee Secretary, wherever applicable, is final.

5. Participants are requested to adhere to the specified time limits for all the events.

6. Teams are requested to keep track of their own scores to avoid confusion.

7. No new registrations entertained 15 minutes after the beginning of the event.

Trivium - Quiz , Dumb Charades, Pictionary, 90 seconds, What’s The Good Word

“If knowledge is your treasure,
Here’s what may give you pleasure
Contests of memory are these
What? Why? Who? Next please?”

 

Quiz - Quizimera

‘No points for guessing’

1) Team event with three members per team.

2) Written prelims.

3) Six finalist teams.

 

Dumb Charades - Mind Your Language

‘Let your hand do the talking’

1) Team event with three members per team.

2) Six finalist teams.

3) Number of rounds variable. Rules for different rounds will be specified.

 

90 Seconds - Yes, no, maybe

‘And your time starts now’

1) Team event with two members per team.

2) Six finalist teams.

3) The clueing teammates may only use the words: ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘pass’, ‘also’ and ‘maybe’.

4) No codes allowed. However, standard formats like SPLASH, MERIT etc. are acceptable.

 

Pictionary

‘Picasso would have a tough time, not you’

1) Team event with two members per team.

2) In the prelims, each partner pictorially represents the clues (personalities, places, books, movies, proverbs, …) and the other has to guess them.

3) Six teams are selected for the finals which includes a reverse pictionary round.

 

What’s the good word? - Lexicon

‘Read your partner’s mind ‘

1) Team event with two members per team.

2) Written prelims and six finalist teams.

3) Three clues allowed per word, the first has to be an acceptable synonym.

4) Each synonym / clue has to be a single word. Hyphenated words will be considered as two clues.

5) No clue or synonym can begin with the same letter as the word and no three consecutive letters may be common between ANY clue / synonym and the actual word.

6) Three guesses allowed per word.
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