The following is a list of books that I have read thus far in 2004:

1) The Aeneid by Vergil
2) All Quiet on the Western Front by Eric Maria Remarque
3) All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
4) Animal Farm by George Orwell
5) As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
6) As You Like It by William Shakespeare

These books are the beginning of a list of 100 'great books' compiled by an editor for Barnes and Noble. I plan to read all 100 of them. Next on the list is The Awakening, by Kate Chopin.

The following is a synopsis of As You Like It, my most recently completed book:

As You Like It is a romantic comedy play written by William Shakespeare. A large part of the play is set in the Forest of Arden, seemingly in France. Rosalind, the protagonist, disguises herself as a boy, Ganymede, in the forest, and she talks Orlando, whom she has fallen in love with, to court her as if she were Rosalind. Confusion soon reigns, because Ganymede is in fact Rosalind, but Orlando does not know this. Orlando is on the run from the court because his brother Oliver has plotted to kill him. Oliver seems to be jealous of Orlando's natural charm. Being the older brother, Oliver is entitled to the full inheritance left by their late father, Sir Rowland de Boys. Oliver does not provide for Orlando's education or betterment, thus causing Orlando to become bitter with his brother. At the beginning of the play, the two brothers quite obviously hate each other.

Two other brothers, Duke Senior and Duke Frederick mirror the hatred between Orlando and Oliver. In their case, Duke Frederick has forced his older brother Duke Senior into exile. Duke Senior flees to the Forest of Arden, along with some of his loyal followers. Word reaches the court that Duke Senior and his followers are content in the Forest of Arden.

Duke Senior's daughter is Rosalind, and her cousin Celia is Duke Frederick's daughter. These two young women have been raised together since birth, and are best friends of the closest degree. When Duke Frederick banishes Rosalind from his dukedom, Celia vows to go with her into exile. Accompanied by the court jester, Touchstone, the two women go into disguise, Rosalind as Ganymede (a young man) and Celia as Aliena (a young woman, Ganymede's sister).

Now, Orlando, Adam (Oliver's servant loyal to Orlando), Rosalind, Celia, Touchstone, Duke Senior and his followers are all in the Forest of Arden. Several subplots begin to emerge as various couples court each other, the vanguard of which is Orlando courting Rosalind, ostensibly through Ganymede. Eventually, Oliver is banished to the forest also by Duke Frederick. Oliver is saved from a lioness by his brother Orlando, and is reconciled with him. Oliver joins the lovefest by courting Celia.

At the end of the play, several couples get married in the forest, and Duke Frederick is reformed. He goes to a monastery, and Duke Senior and his followers are allowed to return to the court in peace.

I will follow up this brief synopsis with analysis in later posts.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The agony of victory....a.k.a. picking my jaw up off the floor

Allright. I've now had nearly 24 hours (although its taken me a couple of days to complete this post) to calm down, reflect upon and digest the improbable gut wrenching game yesterday in which the heavily favored Colts lost to the Steelers 21-18. I wrote last year of not being as emotionally attached to the Steelers as I have been in the past. I wrote last week of how I thought that I might be spending too much valuable time following the Steelers, especially since I have absolutely no control over the outcome of their games. Let me just say this: yesterday's game was probably in the top five emotionally draining, and ultimately gratifying, experiences of my life. Ouside of my wedding and the birth of my two sons, I can't remember being as nervous, deflated, joyful, stunned and exhilirated as I was yesterday----all withing about a ten minute stretch of seemingly neverending time! What could have been a devestating loss to live with in the offseason (and, forever, for Jerome...
Read more

"The Axis of Evil and the Doctrine of Preemption Three Years On"

Jerod and I attended a lecture by Brookings Institution fellow Michael O'Hanlon last night at Park University in Parkville, MO. The lecture was part of the Jerzy Hauptmann Distinguished Guest Lecture series. As a Park University M.B.A. alum, I received an invitation to the 13th annual lecture in the series. I like going to events like this, especially since I was interested in the content of this particular lecture, of which the title was the title of this post. Dr. O'Hanlon described himself as a Sam Nunn Democrat at the beginning of the lecture. It's always difficult to prevent political feeling from entering into objective analysis, and I don't know how you measure the "objectiveness" of analysis, but I feel that most Brookings scholars are at least "fair", and Dr. O'Hanlon was no exception. His analysis of the doctrine of preemption was focused on the effectiveness of the doctrine, as opposed to any moral righteousness or implications of the...
Read more

Removing a password that was created in a previous version from an Access 2007 database

Earlier this week I was banging my head against the wall trying to figure out how to remove a password from an Access 2007 database (file extension .accdb). The database was created in a previous version of access and subsequently "upgraded" to the Access 2007 format. I believe some type of a wizard was used to perform the "upgrade." The security model is evidently different in Access 2007 than in previous versions. It doesn't appear that you can set/unset database passwords. Instead, in Access 2007, there is an option to Encrypt with Password. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be logically similar to the earlier version password architecture, but there was no way that I could find to easily remove the password that had been created in the earlier version when using the Access 2007 interface. Access security has always been confusing to me, and I need to take the time someday to understand how the security model is supposed to work in Access 2007. An...
Read more