Assalamualaikum everyone and as always nice to
have you back. Today we'll do Augustan poetry and
we have a surprise because there are two women
poets today to talk about and at the same time we
have two of your classmates here doing
presentations which is always an amazing thing. So
let's see the presentations and then go back to
the Augustan age. You can start now, Hind.
Hello everyone, my name is Hind Dagmosh. Today,
inshallah, I will be talking about a metaphysical
boy tree. We can describe metaphysical boy tree as
a fruit of the Renaissance tree. So, what is the
metaphysical poetry? Metaphysical poetry is a
group of poetry emerged in the beginning of the
17th century whose poetry comes to be known as the
metaphysical poetry. Metaphysical literally, meta
means beyond and physics means physical nature.
Metaphysical concerned with the fundamental
problems of the nature or replacing life.
John Donne was the founder of the metaphysical
poetry. He tried to write poetry in a different
way, but the name of metaphysical poetry is given
by Dr. Samuel Johnson for the first time when he
wrote The Life of Abraham Cowley in his book The
Lives of Boys, but he used it in a negative sense
to criticize the poetry of Donne.
Unusual images. Unusual images makes the poetry
difficult. Images taken from fields of knowledge,
science, architecture, geography, history,
astronomy, chemistry, architecture, geometry,
mathematics and biology, medical, etc. For
example, today, The Flea by John Donne. The flea
marked by this flea and marking this how little
that which that denies to me is. It sucked me
first and now sucks thee. And in this flea our two
blood mangled be. Thou knowest that this cannot be
said a sin nor shame nor loss of maidenhead.
This is taken from field of biology.
This poetry is taken from field of biology and the
flea is a small insect. The small insect sucks
blood from human body. This insect used here as a
theme of the exhibition of love. Oh yeah. To
conclusion of the flea, the flea uses a conceit as
a means of flirtation and sexual coercion too. The
flea metaphor represents denied sensual pleasure.
Its tiny scale reflects the insignificance of the
woman's chastity. Its body containing the blood of
speaker and mistress symbolizes the union between
the couple.
of the reason, they perhaps to see how one image
can be stretched to accommodate a range of
meanings and association. They show the thrilling
possibilities of language, but to politic use.
Thank you, this is my presentation.
Some of you find the metaphysical poetry
interesting and intriguing in a way. Maybe I
disagreed in the description that metaphysical
poetry is difficult rather than metaphysical
poetry or even speaking analyzing the word
metaphysical itself because in our discussion we
came to the conclusion that metaphysical doesn't
necessarily mean nothing. It was used just to say
that those people are bad. The poetry is not about
metaphysicality generally, it's different. They
were writing against the current. I was also
hoping for some commentary on the woman here in
the text. Generally we said so far the society has
been anti-feminist where women are presented as
less weak, less intelligent, unintellectual
compared to men. Men have more freedom. Is John
Donne treating the woman in the poem the same?
That is an interesting question. Someone else can
probably do a presentation on this. But maybe I
can tell you that the 20th century greatest
feminist, Virginia Woolf, she praised John Donne.
She's the same critic who praised Afra Binn. So if
a feminist praises John Donne, probably he's doing
something to empower women, to give them a voice.
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, please. Maybe he's
trying to be different and be with women, not to
be against women like other poets. And this is
something new. This is something experimental.
People were not used to women having a voice.
Because in this poem, when the poet is telling his
beloved that you and me and the flea are one in
this crazy it's in a way similar to the guy who
told actually we'll study this someone who wants
to deceive the woman to trick her to take her
money here in a way he wants to take something
else but the poet is saying we are the same and
the woman is not tricked he doesn't deceive her
because what does she do she kills the flea He
acts, he takes action exactly. So he's telling her
because listen when we speak about three we speak
about trinity you know in christianity so he's
telling her this is a sacred creature now because
it has the blood of three it's like jesus christ
god and everything she's like She kills the flame.
This simply, an act of action. The woman might not
speak here, but she takes action. She does the
most significant thing in the poem. And this is
generally what a woman does in Jonda. Next, we
have Hanin with another presentation. Hello
everyone. My name is Hanin. Today I will talk
about satire. So firstly, what is satire?
Satire is a technique employed by writers to
criticize corruption, to satirize corruption of an
individual or a society.
Satirical writing is usually funny. So the main
purpose of satire is not to humor, but to
criticize corruption. There are four techniques to
produce satire. The first one is reversal. When
normal rules or order are reversed. The second one
is parody. Parody is humorous and exaggerated
imitation. The third one is incongruity. is
something that seems out of place or out of
character. The last one is exaggeration. It's
giving an impression that something is greater or
larger than it really is. So using humor is more
effective than if you want to say this is wrong.
But if you use humor, this is something will be
more effective than if you say this is wrong.
So this is an extract by John Wilmot. Who can read
it? I'd be a dog, a monkey, a bear, or anything
but that vain animal who is so proud of being
rational. Yes. This is a satire in general. Satire
in general by John Wilmot. And the second one
is... Who can read it? Yes. Lots true or false are
necessary things to raise up commonwealth's
enduring kings. This is an extract by Dryden and
this one is more specific than the first one.
The last one is, but who can read?
This extract
to satire someone who called Shadwell. Shadwell,
Dryden describes Shadwell as the master, as the
master of dullness, as the master of dullness. And
this is extract, this is setire, personal setire.
This is personal setire. And this was our lesson
about setire. Thank you.
Thank you. When you do presentations, can you try
to bring texts from outside the course so we can
learn extra things? This is the one significant
thing about the presentation. So we want to see
what you do with extra texts, with texts from
outside the course. Okay, so it would be a lot
better, but this is really interesting. I like
that you like satire and you also mentioned Parody
and stuff we talked about in a bit. So let's go
back to our class The
Augustan Age is actually generally named the
Augustan Age because followed by major critics
like Samuel Johnson and Alexander Poe. But before
I speak about Augustin Poetry, Alexander Poe, Mary
Montague, and Mary Liver, I want to say something
about parody. We spoke about
And most, even when Hanin mentioned parodies, she
said some humorous exaggerated imitation. When you
open most dictionaries, they will always mention
the word comic or humorous or funny, a funny
imitation of something, a funny representation of
something that already existed, whether it is a
person or a book.
I believe that this is not accurate. This is not
100% what parody does. Again, look at me. Why are
you turning the pages? Is there something? Okay,
so today, again, before I go to Augustine Poetry,
I want to say something about parody. And I have
to say it again, pay attention to this. Generally,
most books tell you that parody is funny, comic,
humorous imitation of something. Yes, parody
imitates, because the word parody means to copy or
to imitate. Now, is it always funny? Is it always
humorous? Is it always less serious? This is my
point now. I think no, it's not because sometimes
it can hurt people's feelings if you're making fun
of them. Is it only about hurting feelings? No, I
could say that. But there is one thing. It's about
criticism. In my opinion, parody is about change.
Why would I parody somebody? Because yes, I want
to make fun of them. But sometimes I don't want to
make fun of them. It's not funny. Sometimes it's
tragic. So I want to criticize them to show their
weaknesses, to show their vices, to show their
corruption by imitating them in a way that makes
people pay attention. My point is
If this is like the English canon, you know the
English canon, the bulk of the most important,
most anthologized literary works, where the
mainstream critics and writers reside most of the
time. So if this is the canon, This is the bubble,
this is the core. Some people live here in the
margin, you know, the margin. Some people are
marginalized. They are known, they're famous, but
they're usually not mentioned and studied and
researched. They're pushed by critics to the
margins of the society, of the canon. But some
poets, we say, were kicked even outside. They're
not in the margin, or on the margin. They are
here. outside. We mentioned Dunford for example.
Johnson criticized him. 50 years later Dryden
criticized him. Almost a hundred years later
Johnson criticized him. And then what? Even after
his death many people were threatened by people
who would write differently. Afrabin was also
considered to be of less importance. And marrying
manly also was considered scandalous and
objectionable and controversial in many ways. So
people here, outside the canon, sometimes want to
challenge, right? To engage in dialogue.
to engage in dialogue. Sometimes they want to
defy. Sometimes they want to criticize. Sometimes
they want to subvert. You know what subvert is?
When you subvert somebody's authority, you shake
somebody's authority. So the king, remember the
king is the king, the most important, God's
representative on earth. If you parody the king,
it's as if you're telling people that the king is
an ordinary person. He can be criticized. To shake
his place. He can be ridiculed. To shake the idea.
Because people think that the king, the president,
is a person fearful. Untouchable. Untouchable. You
can't touch him. You can't criticize him. When you
parody him, it's like you're telling people that
he's an ordinary person. He's a human being. I can
talk about him in a particular way. In order to do
this, those people outside the canon, they usually
resort to parody. parody, metafiction,
metatextuality sometimes. And we've seen this in
John Donne. Come live with me and be my love. And
we will some new pleasures grow. So if ordinary
people would be, you know, the idealism of the
Elizabethan age, all the pleasures, and we have a
new poet who says some new pleasure. Okay, why
some? Because all is wrong, not realistic. And
you, I want to see what. So he's shaking the world
of the Elizabethan courtly love. This is what John
Donne is doing. So when those people use parody,
who usually does the criticism? The male critics,
people in the canon, people who create the canon.
So are they going to be happy with the parody?
They're not. Are they going to be happy with the
parody? They are not. So for them, for Samuel
Johnson, parody is not serious. It's called, I
think, I'm not sure what exactly he says, but he
says that parody is less serious, less important
art than the original text. And it's interesting
how Johnson also hates puns. Remember we spoke
about puns? A word with two meanings or sounds. A
pun is a play on words, when you play with words.
So those people even don't want us to play with
words because they want us to follow the
definitions in the dictionary. But always there
have always been poets who wanted to do things
differently. Samuel Johnson, by the way, didn't
like Tristram Shandy. And he also didn't like John
Donne. And he also didn't like... So why? Because
they believed in the rules of the Quran. In
following particular rules in order to write what
they call a great book. So you mean that the
people who are kicked out of the canon are turning
to As a tool to criticize these people. So how are
these people going to define parody? Favorably or
unfavorably? Unfavorably. Unfavorably. So even the
dictionary said, yeah, there is fun, there is
humor in parody. But not always. When you read,
come live with me and be my love, and we will some
new pleasures. We don't laugh. It's not funny. We
don't kick it. There's no joke here. But Jonathan
attracts our attention, grabs our attention to the
fact that there is another world different from
the world, the idealistic world of Christopher
Marlowe, another more realistic world, so to
speak. So going back here today to Augustine
poetry, we have again three poets. Alexander Pope,
Mary Montague, and Mary Liver. One man, two women.
And these are the first women poets to study. And
this is the 18th century. And that's very
interesting. Because in Arabic tradition and
culture, we have poets as far as I think 2,000, 1
,500 years ago. Khan Sawa was a famous Arab
poet. Female Arab poet. Is there something wrong
with women? Are women unable to write poetry or to
write? No. Definitely not. Definitely not. There's
something wrong with the way the society deals
with women, frames women, and marginalizes women.
So Alexander Poe is one of the neoclassicist
critics and poets. Before I speak a little bit
about him, Here is one of his famous heroic
couplets, couplets from, I think, an essay on
criticism. He's speaking about poetry, about
criticism, about poetry writing. And he says,
those rules, the rules of writing, classification,
of all discovered, not devised. So he's defending
the rules of Decora. You know Horus and Custas are
nature, so those
They are nature still, but nature methodized,
systematized, organized. This is something like
the likes of John Donne would disagree with
because he's saying, this is strange, the rules of
poetry were not invented by anybody. We found them
out there in nature exactly like we find a planet
or some stars or some galaxies out there or some
new species or birds or some type of fish.
And this is, again, very interesting, because for
them, they actually have a point here. It doesn't
mean their poetry sucks, or they're bad, or no,
no. According to those people, the greatest poetry
was written centuries ago, when man was not
corrupted, when man didn't go even to university,
was not taught to write poetry. Some people now go
to study Arabic or English to be able to write
poetry, right? But those people didn't learn
poetry from anybody. In a way, they were inspired.
For those critics, this inspiration could be from
nature or from God. So God teaches you how to
write poetry, and nature teaches you how to write
poetry. When you look at nature, you find
everything symmetrical, everything organized. Look
at the palm tree, for example. Look at the trees
or things of the birds. Look at them, how they are
shaped and will, in a way, symmetrical. You know
what's symmetrical? Everything is balanced.
Everything is organized. So the rules of writing,
like a particular line, some feet, some syllabus,
like 10 syllabus, 10 syllabus, 10 syllabus,
they're generally taken from where? Inspired from
nature. So they are not devised by anybody. They
were discovered from If you count the syllables
here, you'll find it. I think I can bring you a
thousand lines by Alexander Papanol. Will be five
feet, five feet, five feet, five feet. Strict
about following. And this is a couplet. Why is
this a couplet? When we speak about Alexander
Pope, we usually speak about the heroic couplet.
And a heroic couplet is basically a couplet. Like
when you define a paragraph, you're studying
writing now. A paragraph is a group of related
sentences about one idea. So a couplet is two
rhyming lines, ten syllables, one idea. Ten
syllables or five feet. One idea. So Alexander
Pope was one of the major poets who followed the
rules of the Quran. They were adopted
whose name is Horus. Also Horus did not invent the
rules. studied poetry and came up with the rules
of poetry, poetry writing. Were the rules
different from the other rules? The old rules? You
know, we took that the other, the old rules of the
Qur'an were similar. Dryden, Samuel Johnson,
Alexander Pomondosov were inspired by Horace, who
was those poems, so they were imitating. Many of
us people believe good poetry is good imitation,
to imitate nature, because nature has everything
there for us. Something that John Donne, for
example, didn't like, and he wanted to change it.
And he wrote several poems, you'll see two or
three of them. One interesting poem by Alexander
Pov is called And he say on man, you know he say,
you write an essay, yeah an article, and he say
it's generally prose. But he was fascinated with
poetry, obsessed with poetry, that this is not
prose, this is poetry, this is verse. Be careful.
This could be a new exam. So if I tell you, a
little learning is a dangerous thing, drink deep
or taste not, the Pyrenean spring is a couplet, a
heroic couplet by Alexander Pope from his article
and essay on criticism. Everything is fine with
the sentence, except the fact that this is not an
article. It's a poem. So don't be tricked by the
name. So what does he say here? He teaches poets.
He preaches his ideology and what poetry should be
about. Remember, for the rules of the Quran,
literature has to teach and delight. When you read
a poem, you have to learn something new, a wisdom,
a moral lesson. So a little learning It's a
dangerous thing. Have you ever heard of this
before? Yeah. It's an English proverb, by the way.
Yes. It's a wisdom. A little knowledge is a
dangerous thing. Yes. If you know a little thing,
if you read only, you know, we have this type of
people all the time. People who read two books and
they think they are knowledgeable and will read.
Or people who read, like, the introductions to a
hundred pages and hope they will be So he's
criticizing those people. He's saying a little
learning is a dangerous thing. You either learn a
lot or better not to learn. Because if you don't
learn, generally you might admit that you are
uneducated, illiterate. But if you read two books
and you think you are a poet or a writer or a
political analyst, your analysis and everything
might not be good or something. So what is his
advice? Drink deep or taste not the Pyrene spring.
You know what does spring mean?
Pyrene is, I'll explain it, but what does spring
mean? The full knowledge? No, don't read what is
written in the book. It's not correct. Maybe the
full knowledge? Spring, the word spring. Like
spring, like summer and spring?
Taste not. Drink deep or taste not. That's spring.
Spring is a place where water flows.
No. Spring.
There's something called hot springs where hot
water springs from the spring. So either you, the
Perian spring is a metaphor for the spring of
knowledge, education and everything. So you have
two choices. You either drink deep, study hard,
become an expert, or don't try. This is the idea.
This is the advice. It's like I usually say this
to my students. When you study English, you have
to work very hard. If you finish four years of
studying English and your English is still bad,
it's really sad. So study hard. Drink deep from
the Pyrene spring. And look at the perfect rhyme,
the couplet. If you count this, 10 syllables, 10
syllables, five feet, five feet. Pop was very
famous for satire also. Many people wrote satire
in the Yugoslavia. And like his friend Dryden, he
criticized his poetic writer. Two texts here I was
examining today. Number one is Don Siegert. Yeah,
Don Siegert.
Just one little thing about Don Siegert.
in which he criticizes his friend, his literary
rival. It's the same. In this poem, there is
satire and attack on the dullness of his literary
rivals. But remember, it doesn't necessarily mean
that his rivals are bad or dull. It means that
Alexander Pope does not like them. Because he said
the craziest thing about John Donne. He has no
imagination. Yeah. And even like John Donne was
criticized by Johnson, by Dryden, by Samuel
Johnson. Everyone agreed that John Donne has this
weird, crazy imagination. He's a witty poet. And
Alexander Poe was like, no. He doesn't even have
an imagination. He's not imaginative. Is he
correct? Is he right? I don't think so. So don't
take everything for granted. Think for yourself.
His most famous work here is The Rape of the Lock.
We spoke about rape in the past, but rape here
means stealing something. We speak about the rape
of Palestine, how Palestine was stolen, was
occupied by. Lock is a lock of hair. A lock of
hair, yeah. The Rape of the Log is a mock-epic
satire. You know what an epic poem is, remember?
Bewolf, about heroes, battles, heroism, like
Bewolf, always very long, about serious issues in
the community. But in this poem, very long poem,
I'm not sure how many lines, but it's very long,
Alexander Pope is criticizing the trivial things
of the society. In which like in Arabic culture we
have Dahis or Ghabrar where there was like a 40
year battle over you know two camels, was it two
camels or two horses or something. In this story
someone cuts a little girl's lock of hair and then
all hell breaks loose. They start fighting and
fighting and fighting. So what is he criticizing
in the reign of the log? He's criticizing the
trivial things in the society, this fake self
-importance. how people pretend to be brave, but
in reality, they are all only fighting about
trivial things. There are no heroes in this age.
There are no battles in this age. It's all fake,
like Dryden said some probably 50 years or 60, 70
years earlier. Okay? That's the name of the book.
So what is a mock epic? What is an epic? A long
poem about heroism.
An epic about a trivial thing. It's an epic, it's
a long poem that mocks, mocks means to mock
something, to make fun of something. But there's
also this when you do an exam, when you don't do
the original, like sometimes you have to do a
trial exam. It's called mock exam. Yes, mock test.
So a mock epic, it's epic, but it's not an epic.
Because you have like 1,000 lines, but what is it
about? It's someone praising his mouse device. Or
someone fighting, killing many people because they
stole his marker, or about a trivial thing. We
have this. In Gaza here, we have a lot of people
who would fight and do horrible things only
because someone It's something trivial and stupid.
And that's a talent. This is an interesting poem
to read about. Let's move to the more interesting
poems, or poets of today. Number one is Mary
Lacey. Actually, she's a lady. She was the wife
of, I think, the British ambassador to Germany.
Her name is Mary Montagio.
So we have Aphra Behn, very manly, and now very
muhtakim. She was also a satirist. She was also a
poet. It is said here, it says in the book that
she was a friend of Pope, but later on she became
his enemy. I don't know why. It sounds
interesting. But it's also interesting that
Alexander Pope is a friend of the wife of the
ambassador. So this is generally what poets did in
this age. They wanted to be close to the
royalties, to the court, to the people in power.
In one of her poems in Aladdin, she told of that
satire should like a polished razor key. What's a
razor? When men shave their beard, so they use
razors, like razor, like very sharp, like a sharp
knife. Like a razor keen, like sharp. Satire
should be sharp like a razor. This is called a
simile. Using as or like. It's a metaphor, but it
uses like or as. Satire is like a razor. Want is a
verb here. It wants, it should want. It wants with
a touch that is scarcely felt or seen. That is
scarce. It's barely. You don't feel it. You
shouldn't feel it. In a way, she is saying that
satire has to be subtle and indirect. Implicit. If
you read it, you don't think, is she criticizing
me or what is she saying here? And this is
something that comes from a woman. In a way, if
you read this text, if I didn't tell you this was
written by a woman, you can't tell. Can you tell
this was written by a woman? No. She didn't use
words. No. Which proves the idea that women can
write poetry like men exactly. There was this
novelist 10 years ago who said, I read the first
paragraph in a novel and I can't tell whether the
writer is a woman or a man. And there was an
uproar. Everyone's like, what? Come on. There are
similarities. There are differences. But if you
say women don't write as good as well as women,
that's not true. Everyone has his or her own way
and style. And finally today, Another Mary. So
three Marys and one apple. Mary, leper or leaper.
Was also a famous poet who sadly sadly died at the
age of 24. How did she become famous? Because yeah
she still became famous for some time. Maybe she
became famous after her death? Generally yes.
Generally yes. Her poems were published post
-Muslim. This is a good word to know. You know
post means after, post exam, post test, after. Pre
-reading, post-reading. Posthumously, like John
Donne. His poetry was mostly published after his
death. You can say after his death or her death.
But when you use the word posthumously, you sound
like a sophisticated person who knows big words.
I'm knowledgeable. Yeah?
Listen, the book says she was influenced by Bob.
And my question is, do you agree or do you
disagree? She was influenced by, the book says,
Mary Lippard was influenced by Alexander Pope. I
want you to read this stanza extracted from a poem
by Mary Lippard and tell me whether you see
similarities or see influence by Alexander Pope or
not. I'll give you one minute.
a form, a theme.
The speaker is a man by the way, but the author,
the poet is a woman.
Can you
read someone?
Now, ma'am, as the chat goes round,
I hear you have ten thousand pounds, but that as I
try to hold, give me your person, then you go, yet
for your own sake, secured,
I hope your house is too insured. Insured.
Insured. Yeah. Someone else? Back, at the back.
Okay. Now, madam, as a ... Can you raise your
voice? Speak up. Now, madam, as a child goes back,
I dream you have three thousand pounds, but then
as I step on your house, give me your best and
then you will go home. Is this for your sake? Safe
and secured? Secured. I hope your house is secure.
Houses to insure. Someone here, loudly, raise your
voice please. Now madam, as the chat goes round, I
hear you have ten thousand pounds, but that as I
truffle gold, give me your person, then your gold,
yet for your own sake it is secured, I hope your
house is to insure. What do you think? The speaker
is a man talking to a woman. What is he telling
her? I think he's trying to deceive her. He's
saying in the second line, I hear you have 10,000
pounds, and then he's saying to her, give me your
person. He's trying to own her. To own her. Oh,
what an interesting reading. Very good reading. So
there is a man trying to trick a woman to tell
her, give me your money. And he's blunt, he's
vulgar. He's not even trying to hide his deceit.
He's openly talking to her thinking that a woman
is not smart. So, now madam, as the chat goes
around, I hear you have two thousand now. Meaning,
figures, huh? Like a lot of money. You're hiding a
lot of money. You're rich. But I as a trifle hold,
give me your person because a woman generally was
treated as an object, something to own. Give me
your person, then you're gone. Yet for you, it's
not for me. I don't want the money. I want you
weak. You can't protect yourself. Maybe people
will deceive you, trick you. Give me the money.
I'll hide it for you. It's like mothers when they
give you the idea. How much money have you given
your mom so far? A lot. Where is this money? It's
gone. So it's for your sake. It's secured. I'll
secure it for you. I don't want it. I want to
protect you. A woman can't live without a man's
protection. I hold your houses to ensure you have
houses and that they are insured or I can take
them to make sure that they are safe. This is
again satire from a woman to not only to one man
but also to men in general and how they treat
women, how they think women are not smart, are not
intelligent, but that they always need a man to
protect them, to save them, to make that
everything they have is secure. The theme is women
being smart and powerful. She's giving voice to
women like Afrobin. She's empowering women like
Mary Manley. She's insisting that women are as
smart as men and even smarter. So the theme is
different from Alexander Poe. So this is a woman
writing for women about women issues. Do we have
the heroic couplet here? Grammatically speaking,
this is pounds. Thousand pounds. A poetic license
for the rhyme.
Is it
a heroic couplet? Do we have five feet? Four?
not following, if she is influenced by Alexander
Pope, she's not following him one hundred percent.
What is the conclusion here? Women have always
written excellent literature. If they were
published later on, it wasn't their fault. There
must have been poets earlier, probably during
Shakespeare, after, even before, a thousand years.
But usually, the society would ignore them, would
neglect them. One, because they are women. Two,
because generally women, like we've seen here, are
harsh criticals of and male superiority. So here,
generally when you speak about the woman, how they
explore new ideas, how they centralize and
criticize and attack men all the time, and most
importantly, how they would usually be critical of
male superiority, fake male superiority in the
society. And perhaps that's a good logic. That is
one reason why Not because they were writing bad
poetry, not because they're not good poets, but
because the main critics ignored them altogether
for their critical poetry. Please. I want to add a
comment. You said that in Old English mainly most
poets were religious or heroic because they wrote
them. The monks chose to write them. So we can say
that Women wrote poetry for a long time but they
did not practice or did not have it now? Yeah,
probably yes. They didn't want to show it to their
parents or family or anybody because remember
during 16 women were not allowed to perform on
stage. That's why we speak later on at the end of
this course about Virginia Woolf, the feminist
critic who said, a woman has to have dependence on
herself, a room of one's own. There's an article
called A Room of One's Own. It could be stupid,
the idea, but she says you have to have your own
freedom and privacy and independence. If you have
your own room, If you share a room with your
brothers or sisters, sometimes you're going to
hide your talents. If you write poetry, you're
going to hide it. Because if somebody sees it,
it's going, ah, fine. She writes poetry. She
thinks she's a poet. And then they're going to
destroy you for life. But if you have your own
room, which symbolizes freedom and independence
and privacy, you can do the talents you like. You
can grow, you can develop. I'll stop here and if
you have any question, you're free to ask. And
after this, by the way, we're going to start the
Romantic Age. We're going to jump to the Romantic
Age.