RICHARD III OF ENGLAND, SHAKESPEARIAN ANTI-HERO

Richard III, King of England

Today, The Grandma has started to review Intermediate Language Practice, a new English manual to consolidate her grammar and her vocabulary. Today, she has studied Present Tenses with Chapters 1-3.

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She likes checking current news and historic facts and on a day like today, in July, 6 1483, Richard III was crowned King of England.The Grandma doesn't like stories about monarchies because she has republican ideas but this case is different, because Richard III is one of the most amazing William Shakespeare's works.

Richard III (2 October 1452-22 August 1485) was King of England from 1483 until his death at the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat at Bosworth Field, the last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, marked the end of the Middle Ages in England. He is the protagonist of Richard III, one of William Shakespeare's history plays.

When his brother King Edward IV died in April 1483, Richard was named Lord Protector of the realm for Edward's eldest son and successor, the 12-year-old Edward V. Arrangements were made for Edward's coronation on 22 June 1483; but, before the young king could be crowned, the marriage of his parents was declared bigamous and therefore invalid, making their children officially illegitimate and barring them from inheriting the throne.

On 25 June, an assembly of Lords and commoners endorsed a declaration to this effect and proclaimed Richard the rightful king. The following day, Richard III began his reign, and he was crowned on 6 July 1483. 

Memorial stone for King Richard III

The young princes, Edward and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York, were not seen in public after August, and accusations circulated that the boys had been murdered on Richard's orders. 

There were two major rebellions against Richard during his reign. The first, in October 1483, was led by staunch allies of Edward IV and Richard's former ally, Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham; but the revolt collapsed. 

In August 1485, Henry Tudor and his uncle, Jasper Tudor, led a second rebellion. Henry Tudor landed in southern Wales with a small contingent of French troops and marched through his birthplace, Pembrokeshire, recruiting soldiers. Henry's force engaged Richard's army and defeated it at the Battle of Bosworth Field in Leicestershire. Richard was slain in the conflict, making him the last English king to die in battle. Henry Tudor then ascended the throne as Henry VII.

 More information: University of Leicester

After the battle, Richard's corpse was taken to Leicester and buried without pomp. His original tomb monument is believed to have been removed during the English Reformation, and his remains were lost for more than five centuries, believed to have been thrown into the River Soar. 

King Richard III carried through Leicester, 2012

In 2012, an archaeological excavation was commissioned by the Richard III Society on a city council car park on the site once occupied by Greyfriars Priory Church.

The University of Leicester identified the skeleton found in the excavation as that of Richard III as a result of radiocarbon dating, comparison with contemporary reports of his appearance, and comparison of his mitochondrial DNA with that of two matrilineal descendants of Richard III's eldest sister, Anne of York. Richard's remains were reburied in Leicester Cathedral on 26 March 2015.

Richard III is a historical play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written around 1593. It depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of King Richard III of England. The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified as such. Occasionally, however, as in the quarto edition, it is termed a tragedy. Richard III concludes Shakespeare's first tetralogy, also containing Henry VI parts 1–3.

 

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It is the second longest play in the canon after Hamlet and is the longest of the First Folio, whose version of Hamlet is shorter than its Quarto counterpart. The play is often abridged; for example, certain peripheral characters are removed entirely. In such instances, extra lines are often invented or added from elsewhere in the sequence to establish the nature of characters' relationships. 

A further reason for abridgment is that Shakespeare assumed that his audiences would be familiar with his Henry VI plays and frequently made indirect references to events in them, such as Richard's murder of Henry VI or the defeat of Henry's queen, Margaret.

Richard III, King of England

Richard III is believed to be one of Shakespeare's earlier plays, preceded only by the three parts of Henry VI and perhaps Titus Andronicus and a handful of comedies. It is believed to have been written c. 1592–1594. 

Although Richard III was entered into the Register of the Stationers' Company on 20 October 1597 by the bookseller Andrew Wise, who published the first Quarto (Q1) later that year, with printing done by Valentine Simmes, Christopher Marlowe's Edward II, which cannot have been written much later than 1592, Marlowe died in 1593, is thought to have been influenced by it. A second Quarto (Q2) followed in 1598, printed by Thomas Creede for Andrew Wise, containing an attribution to Shakespeare on its title page. Q3 appeared in 1602, Q4 in 1605, Q5 in 1612, and Q6 in 1622, the frequency attesting to its popularity. The First Folio version followed in 1623.

More information: Shakespeare Theatre

One of the central themes of Richard III is the idea of fate, especially as it is seen through the tension between free will and fatalism in Richard's actions and speech, as well as the reactions to him by other characters. 

There is no doubt that Shakespeare drew heavily on Sir Thomas More's account of Richard III as a criminal and tyrant as inspiration for his own rendering. This influence, especially as it relates to the role of divine punishment in Richard's rule of England, reaches its height in the voice of Margaret.

Download The Life and Death of Richard The Third by W.Shakespeare

 

Amongst other our secular businesses and cures, our principal intent and fervent desire is to see virtue and cleanness of living to be advanced, increased, and multiplied, and vices and all other things repugnant to virtue, provoking the high indignation and fearful displeasure of God, to be repressed and annulled. 

Richard III of England

ENGLISH & THE BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION

The first British Broadcasting Corporation Logo

The BBC broadcasts its first television news bulletin in July, 5 1954. The BBC is a symbol of good journalism but it's also an excellent tool to learn English.

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The Grandma starts today a new online course to learn English using 2.0 tools. Her last families got A2 and B1 Cambridge Exams. The Grandma has decided to start reviewing B1 level in an attempt to help A2 relatives to improve their English to reach B1 level, and B1 relatives to consolidate their level to continue studying to reach the next B2 level.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters are at Broadcasting House in Westminster, London and it is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees.

BBC Outside Broadcast Equipment, 1951

The BBC is established under a Royal Charter and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Its work is funded principally by an annual television licence fee which is charged to all British households, companies, and organisations using any type of equipment to receive or record live television broadcasts and iPlayer catch-up. 

The fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament, and used to fund the BBC's radio, TV, and online services covering the nations and regions of the UK. Since 1 April 2014, it has also funded the BBC World Service, launched in 1932 as the BBC Empire Service, which broadcasts in 28 languages and provides comprehensive TV, radio, and online services in Arabic and Persian.

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Around a quarter of BBC revenues come from its commercial arm BBC Studios Ltd, formerly BBC Worldwide, which sells BBC programmes and services internationally and also distributes the BBC's international 24-hour English-language news services BBC World News, and from BBC.com, provided by BBC Global News Ltd.

BBC Mobile Unit

From its inception, through the Second World War, where its broadcasts helped to unite the nation, to the 21st century, the BBC has played a prominent role in British culture. It has also been known as The Beeb, and Auntie.

Britain's first live public broadcast from the Marconi factory in Chelmsford took place in June 1920. It was sponsored by the Daily Mail's Lord Northcliffe and featured the famous Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba. The Melba broadcast caught the people's imagination and marked a turning point in the British public's attitude to radio. 

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However, this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By late 1920, pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the General Post Office (GPO), was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts.

But by 1922, the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests and moved to rescind its ban in the wake of a petition by 63 wireless societies with over 3,000 members.

George Orwell

The GPO proposed that it would issue a single broadcasting licence to a company jointly owned by a consortium of leading wireless receiver manufactures, to be known as the British Broadcasting Company Ltd. John Reith, a Scottish Calvinist, was appointed its General Manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast. The company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved manufacturers. To this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to inform, educate and entertain.

The British Broadcasting Corporation came into existence on 1 January 1927, and Reith, newly knighted, was appointed its first Director General. To represent its purpose and stated values, the new corporation adopted the coat of arms, including the motto Nation shall speak peace unto Nation.

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Television broadcasting was suspended from 1 September 1939 to 7 June 1946, during the Second World War, and it was left to BBC Radio broadcasters such as Reginald Foort to keep the nation's spirits up. 

Charles de Gaulle in BBC editorial

The BBC moved much of its radio operations out of London, initially to Bristol, and then to Bedford. Concerts were broadcast from the Corn Exchange; the Trinity Chapel in St Paul's Church, Bedford was the studio for the daily service from 1941 to 1945, and, in the darkest days of the war in 1941, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York came to St Paul's to broadcast to the UK and all parts of the world on the National Day of Prayer. BBC employees during the war included George Orwell who spent two years with the broadcaster.

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During his role as Prime Minister during the Second World War, Winston Churchill would deliver 33 major wartime speeches by radio, all of which were carried by the BBC within the UK. 

On 18 June 1940, French general Charles de Gaulle, in exile in London as the leader of the Free French, made a speech, broadcast by the BBC, urging the French people not to capitulate to the Nazis.

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There was a widely reported urban myth that, upon resumption of the BBC television service after the war, announcer Leslie Mitchell started by saying, As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted...

In fact, the first person to appear when transmission resumed was Jasmine Bligh and the words said were Good afternoon, everybody. How are you? Do you remember me, Jasmine Bligh...? 

Jasmine Bligh

The European Broadcasting Union was formed on 12 February 1950, in Torquay with the BBC among the 23 founding broadcasting organisations.

Competition to the BBC was introduced in 1955, with the commercial and independently operated television network of ITV. However, the BBC monopoly on radio services would persist until 8 October 1973 when under the control of the newly renamed Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), the UK's first Independent local radio station, LBC came on-air in the London area. 

As a result of the Pilkington Committee report of 1962, in which the BBC was praised for the quality and range of its output, and ITV was very heavily criticised for not providing enough quality programming, the decision was taken to award the BBC a second television channel, BBC2.

In 2002, several television and radio channels were reorganised. In 2008, another channel was launched, BBC Alba, a Scottish Gaelic service. Unlike the other departments of the BBC, the BBC World Service was funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom abroad.

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I believe that the BBC, in spite of the stupidity of its foreign propaganda and the unbearable voices of its announcers, is very truthful. 

It is generally regarded here as more reliable than the press.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. 

George Orwell

LONDON, 18TH CENTURY: PROGRESS & NEW CHANCES

London Bridge, in the 1700's

Charles Dickens' A tale of two cities has two main localizations. The first of them is Paris, the capital of France and the second one is London, the capital of England. 

The story happens in 1775 when the English city is at the beginning of the the Industrial Revolution, a fact that will change the city and its inhabitants forever and will led the world in advances that enabled mass production. If in 1715 London was composed of a series of contiguous communities spread along the Thames, each of which was within easy reach of open fields, by the 1760s London had begun to escape the magnetic attraction of the river and to make ever-deeper inroads into rural Middlesex and Surrey.

London in 1715 was at one and the same time Britain’s largest manufacturing centre, its largest port, and the centre of governance, the professions, trade, and finance. Perhaps a third of the population was directly involved in manufacturing, and the capital formed the centre of many trades. The numbers of medical and legal professionals, in particular, grew strongly from the last quarter of the seventeenth century through the 1740s when the number of professionals began to level off. 

John Rocque's Map of London, 1746

Employed in an ever growing number of hospitals and institutions, in the plethora of courts, both civil and criminal, and in the army and navy, by around 1730 there were perhaps 15,000 men employed in the law, medicine, the church and the military; while during the same period around one in nine Londoners kept a shop; and a further ten percent worked in the transport sector. From perhaps 750,000 souls in 1760, London grew decade by decade to reach 1.4 million individuals by 1815. Built by hand, a city still dependent on night-soil men and hand pumped water; London developed a complex organisation in these decades to feed and water, clean and care for an unprecedented number of people.

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It was in these decades that London’s pattern of inexorable growth became more firmly established. And this growth was largely the result of migration. High mortality rates and unhealthy living conditions continued to suppress the fertility and life expectancy of native Londoners, ensuring that the capacious shoes of the dead always needed filling with new feet. At the same time, with the introduction of innoculation against smallpox and a decline in infant mortality London's population started to become sufficiently healthy to reproduce itself.

King William street, London

What was most distinctive about this period, however, was the pattern of migration. People from Europe and the British Isles now rubbed shoulders with Black Africans and Caribbeans; with Lascars from India and returned colonists from America and later Australia. 

Thrown onto London's shores by the storms of war and revolution, of the Seven Years' War, the American War, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars; these new, war-weary migrants created a population for late eighteenth-century London that was more varied than had existed in any European city since the Roman Empire.

If by 1760 the character of London's growth was set, with its aristocratic western squares and poorer East End communities, the later decades of the century both reinforced and added at least one new aspect to the pattern. By 1760 London had largely escaped the magnetic pull of the Thames and its meandering east-west course, and the city had begun to expand dramatically both north and south. In part a response to new bridges and roads, to the evolution of a new transport infrastructure, the once open fields between the old City and Islington to the north were gradually filled with new housing; and Southwark evolved from a simple waterside settlement to a more substantial, and in parts much wealthier, suburb. 

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Snaking out along Borough High Road, the Great North Road and Whitechapel, new ribbons of development ate ever further into the surrounding countryside. It was in the decades at the end of the eighteenth century that the first London commuters can be found, sometimes taking advantage of the regularity and cheapness of the new Royal Mail coaches. 

London, 1750

The nature of the built environment that filled these once rural fields was both squalid and grandiose. 

Up until at least the passage of the London Building Act of 1774, and in many instances afterwards, many suburban developments were haphazard and of poor quality, the work of speculators, poor carpenters and bricklayers, using even poorer materials. During periodic depressions in the building industry houses put up in hope of attracting middling sort and rich occupants were let out room by room to the very poor. 

House collapses were common, with whole families occasionally crushed in their beds. To the East and North of the City, the huddled suburban communities of London suffered poor housing and poor infrastructure, made tolerable only by the almost unbounded demand for casual labour on the quays and wharves and in the service industries of the city.

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In contrast, the West End was built to a higher standard. The new shops of the early eighteenth century were made ever more grand, frequently taking the form of purpose built palaces of consumption that pre-figured later nineteenth-century department stores. New squares and commercial developments attempted to emulate the early success of St James’s and Hanover Squares. The urban palaces of the aristocracy stood shoulder to shoulder around these formal squares, with chains, iron railings and padlocks increasingly serving to segregate the rich from their neighbours. At the same time the back streets and mews that filled the areas between the squares retained a diverse community of artisans, service workers and paupers.

A drawing of The Royal Mail, A Tale of Two Cities

New types of street lighting, paving and water supply grew in the same pattern, with remarkably high standards to be found in the West End and in those parts of the City rebuilt after the Great Fire, and equally remarkably low standards in many other areas. While numbered houses, served by fresh running water, framing beautifully paved roads could be found in many areas, in others ground water from public wells was still the only source, and mud still filled the unimproved roads for much of the year. At the turn of the century, the building of the huge, enclosed docks east of the Tower only served to emphasise the relative squalor of the surrounding communities.

The East End became the home of manufacturing, of brewing and distilling, sugar processing and textiles. In combination with the ever-hungry maw of the port, its industries consumed the lives of generations of workers. Besmirched by the smuts and odours sent skyward from the warm coal-fired hearths of the West End, East Enders struggled in poor conditions, at difficult jobs, in a poor environment. Periodic attempts to defend their jobs in the face of threats posed by labour-saving devices led to occasional violent protests, such as the attacks by the cutters on master silk-weavers' engine looms in 1769.

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In the ring of suburban parishes along the City's northern and western borders other groups of the poor similarly eked out a hard working life. In St Giles in the Fields and Farringdon Without, large families rented small rooms in badly built tenements, and made a living in the precarious service industries of the capital, as porters and needle women, chairmen and street hawkers.

Victorian illustration about London poverty

In the City itself the financial services of insurance and merchant banking along with warehousing and trading came to form the basis of huge fortunes and middling sort aspirations.  

City merchants increasingly moved out to more salubrious spots beyond the ring of slums gradually encircling the metropolis, commuting back daily to Cheapside and the Royal Exchange. Witness to the greatest change, the West End evolved in response to the growing importance of the London Season, and its increasing role in the lives of Britain's elite. Here the palaces of the aristocracy were served by well-appointed shops and skilled craftsmen. Communities of service workers, coach makers, and dancing masters filled the interstices between the parks and squares, town houses and royal residences, servicing perhaps the wealthiest single community in Europe. 

Late eighteenth-century London dominated the culture of the English-speaking Atlantic, and increasingly the Pacific and Indian oceans as well. The vast majority of Britain's printing presses and newspapers were sited here. The city was possessed of a huge number of coffeehouses and theatres and was home to Britain's greatest authors and scientists, doctors and thinkers. Lectures, exhibitions and debates could be found on almost any day of the week. In intellectual terms it far outpaced the near moribund Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, while the existence of the Royal Society, the great hospitals, and a wealthy and leisured class ensured a vibrant and diverse world of ideas. 

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The workings of this world were embedded in a complex set of institutions. Although the royal court played a decreasing role in patronising the arts, a popular audience for theatre and printed works grew up in the West End, centred on Covent Garden, and supplied with an ever changing diet of new events and publications by people such as Samuel Johnson and David Garrick.

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The great associational charities of the age, most of which had been founded around mid-century, such as the Foundling Hospital, the Magdalen, and the Marine Society, went on to form the locus for a shared, elite culture. And if England can be said to have had an Enlightenment it was to be found somewhere between Grub Street, White's coffeehouse, the Royal Academy and that quintessential eighteenth-century London institution, the British Museum, founded in 1753.

But, if in these decades London went from strength to strength, dominating both Britain and its overseas empire, the politics of the capital became ever more parochial. The old City, which housed an ever dwindling proportion of London's population, was run by a still powerful, but increasingly isolated Common Council, Aldermen and Lord Mayor. It continued to act as an effective pressure group on national politics, but ceased to be able to reflect the political demands of the capital as a whole. 

The location of Parliament, mired as it was in the urban sprawl, ensured that national governments would be sensitive to the demands of London. But the growth of the metropolis meant that it could not speak with a single voice. Instead, the City, the Middlesex Bench and the over weaning parishes of Westminster each contributed their own tune to the cacophony of voices seeking to make London heard. The resulting rough music allowed fertile innovation, but it failed to curb the city's myriad social problems.

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On the street, in the alehouses and the low coffeehouses, politics took a different form. Against a backdrop of first the American and then the French Revolution, a new kind of popular politics grew to maturity. 

From the agitation associate with John Wilkes in the 1760s and 70s; in the Gordon Riots of June 1780, and both the Revolutionary and counter-Revolutionary politics of the 1790s and 1810s, Londoners found a new political voice. Radical Westminster with its uniquely open franchise provided one outlet for the political frustrations of Londoners, but the city’s century old traditions of riot and newer organisations such as the London Corresponding Society and its many successors provided others. 

More information: History Discussion

In the industrial revolution Britain led the world in advances that enabled mass production: trade exchanges, transportation, factory technology and new skills needed for the new industrialised world. 

Lucy Powell

PARIS, 18TH CENTURY: REVOLUTION & SOCIAL CHANGES

A drawing of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities

When you start to read a book, the first important thing is to know something about the author. Once you have enough information about him, it's important to situate the book in time and space.

Charles Dickens' A tale of two cities has two main localizations. The first of them is Paris, the capital of France. The story happens in 1775 when the French city is near to live a great social revolution that will change not only France but the world history.

Paris in the 18th century was the second-largest city in Europe, after London, with a population of about 600,000 persons. The century saw the construction of Place Vendôme, the Place de la Concorde, the Champs-Élysées, the church of Les Invalides, and the Panthéon, and the founding of the Louvre Museum. Paris witnessed the end of the reign of Louis XIV, was the center stage of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, saw the first manned flight, and was the birthplace of high fashion and the modern restaurant.

Louis XIV distrusted the Parisians; when he was young he had been forced to flee the city twice, and he did not forget it. He moved his residence from the Tuileries Palace to the Palace of Versailles in 1671, and moved his entire court to Versailles in 1682. But while he disliked the Parisians, he wanted Paris to be a monument to his glory; he declared in 1666 that he wished to do for Paris what Augustus had done for Rome.

A typical day in 18th century in Paris

Immediately following the death of Louis XIV, his nephew, Philippe d’Orléans, manoeuvered the Parlement into breaking the King's will and naming him the Regent for the five-year-old king Louis XV. On 12 September, the Regent had the child King brought to the Palais de Justice to ratify his Regency, and then to the Château de Vincennes. On 30 December, the young King was installed in the Tuileries Palace, while the Regent took up residence in his family's palace, the Palais Royal, the former Palais-Cardinal of Cardinal Richelieu.

Until the 1789 Revolution, Paris had a strict social hierarchy, whose customs and rules were established by long tradition. It was described by Louis-Sébastien Mercier in the Le Tableau de Paris, written in 1783: There are in Paris eight distinct classes; the princes and great nobles, these are the least numerous; the Nobles of the Robe; the financiers; the traders and merchants; the artists; the craftsmen; the manual workers; the servants; and the bas peuple, the lower class.

More information: BBC

The bourgeois, or members of the middle class of Paris, financiers, merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, and those in the liberal professions like doctors, lawyers, accountants, teachers or government officials were a growing social class. They were specifically defined by law as persons who had lived in the city at least a year in their own residence, and earned enough money to pay taxes.

A drawing of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities

Most Parisians belonged to the working class or the poor. There were some forty thousand domestic servants, mostly working for middle-class families. Most came from the provinces; only five percent were born in Paris. 

They lived with the families they served, and their living and working conditions depended entirely on character of their employers. They received very low wages, worked long hours, and if they lost their job, or if a woman became pregnant, they had little hope of getting another position.

In the domain of finance and banking, Paris was far behind other European capitals, and even other French cities. The first venture of Paris into modern finance was launched by the Scottish economist John Law, who, encouraged by the Regent, in 1716 started a private bank and issued paper money. Law invested heavily in the Mississippi Company, causing wild speculation, with shares rising to sixty times their original value. The bubble burst in 1720, and Law closed the bank and fled the country, ruining many Parisian investors.

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Parisians were suspicious of banks and bankers. The Bourse, or Paris stock market, didn't open until 24 September 1724 on rue Vivienne, in the former hôtel de Nevers, after stock markets had existed in Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Toulouse and other cities. The Banque de France wasn't founded until 1800, after the Bank of Amsterdam (1609), and the Bank of England (1694).

Notre Dame de Paris in the 18th century

During most of the 18th century, the Parisian economy was based on thousands of small workshops, where skilled artisans produced products. 

The workshops were clustered in particular neighborhoods; furniture makers in the faubourg Saint-Antoine; cutlery and small metal-work in neighborhood called the Quinze Vingts near the Bastille. At the beginning of the 18th century, security was provided by two different corps of police; the Garde de Paris and the Guet Royal, or royal watchmen. Both organizations were under the command of the Lieutenant General of Police. The Parisians considered the police both corrupt and inefficient, and relations between the people and the police were increasingly strained.

For most of the 18th century, the hospitals were religious institutions, run by the church, which provided more spiritual than actual medical care. The largest and oldest was the Hôtel-Dieu, located on the parvis of Notre-Dame Cathedral on the opposite side of the square from its present location. It was founded in 651 by Saint Landry of Paris.

More information: Eye Witness to History

Paris possessed an extraordinary number and variety of prisons, used for different classes of persons and types of crimes.

The guillotine during the French Revolution

In October 1789 Doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, in the interest of finding a more humane method, successfully had the means of execution changed to decapitation by a machine he perfected, the guillotine, built with the help of a Paris manufacturer of pianos and harps named Tobias Schmidt and the surgeon Antoine Louis.

The University of Paris had fallen gradually in quality and influence since the 17th century. It was primarily a school of theology, not well adapted to the modern world, and played no important role in the scientific revolution or the Enlightenment.

The great majority of Parisians were at least nominally Roman Catholic, and the church played an enormous role in the life of the city; though its influence declined toward the end of the century, partly because of the Enlightenment, and partly from conflicts within the church establishment. The church, along with the nobility, suffered more than any other institutions from the French Revolution.

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The Protestant Church had been strictly controlled and limited by the royal government for most of the 18th century. 

A drawing of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities

The Jewish community in Paris was also very small; an estimated five hundred persons in 1789. About fifty were Sephardic Jews who had originally come from Spain and Portugal, then lived in Bayonne before coming to Paris. They lived mostly in the neighborhood of Saint-German-des-Prés, and worked largely in the silk and chocolate-making businesses. There was another Sephardic community of about one hundred persons in the same neighborhood, who were originally from Avignon, from the oldest Jewish community in France, which had lived protected in the Papal state. They mostly worked in commerce. The third and largest community, about three hundred fifty persons, were Ashkenaze Jews from Alsace, Lorraine, Germany, the Netherlands and Poland. They spoke Yiddish, and lived largely in the neighborhood of the Church of Saint-Merri.

The Freemasons were not a religious community, but functioned like one and had a powerful impact on events in Paris in the 18th century. The first lodge in France, the Grand Loge de France, was founded on 24 June 1738 on the rue des Boucheries, and was led by the Duke of Antin. By 1743 there were sixteen lodges in Paris, and their grand master was the Count of Clermont, close to the royal family. The lodges contained aristocrats, the wealthy, church leaders and scientists. Their doctrines promoted liberty and tolerance, and they were strong supporters of the Enlightenment. 

More information: Students for Liberty

 Democracy must be built through open societies that share information. When there is information, there is enlightenment. 

When there is debate, there are solutions. When there is no sharing of power, no rule of law, no accountability, there is abuse, corruption, subjugation and indignation. 

Atifete Jahjaga

DICKENSIAN, EXCELLENT CHARACTERS & NEW WORDS

Charles John Huffam Dickens

The Grandma has started to read Charles Dickens’ A tale of two cities. One of the most fascinating things in Dickens novels is to analyze the characters because they change during the story -psychological novel- and they try to redempt themselves in the way they can.

In nearly all novels by Charles Dickens, characters take the main the stage and generally are just as important as the plot becuase of their complexity. 

Charles Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities, offers far more to the reader than the title suggests, particularly because of the enormous complexity of the characters, both central and peripheral. A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens is also a series of tales about dual identities and the ways in which one character serves as a foil to another. In Books I and II of Tale of Two Cities, Dickens establishes the setting and the dynamic relationships among the characters, all of whom are struggling, to greater and lesser degrees, with their positions regarding the Revolution and as a result, this creates a struggle with their identities.

While some characters in the Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities, especially Darnay, clearly have more acute conflicts to resolve and far more to lose than the seemingly minor characters, it is by examining the marginal characters that the reader can understand the dynamic conflicts of the period more fully. Two of the novel’s marginal characters, John Barsad, the duplicitous spy in A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens, and Gaspard, the quiet but determined peasant who takes justice into his own hands, represent two faces of the Revolution, and help to emphasize the conflicts and conditions of the major characters.

When John Barsad is introduced in the novel A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens, it is immediately clear that he is not only self-serving and hypocritical, he is a man who is not to be trusted. While he is not a popular character, he is, nonetheless an excellent candidate for a character analysis as Barsad is complex and multilayered.

Aside from the case of A Tale of Two Cities the literary canon is full of examples of seemingly minor men and women who become heroes and highly worthy of character analysis, hardly-noticed characters who turn into villains, and people of no reputation who shape the entire course of a novel’s events. This is part of what makes the story Dickens is telling so interesting, even though the events themselves are worthy of note, the characters who are the subjects of great interest and character analysis and their level of complexity make A Tale of Two Cities what it is. 

More information: BBC

Beyond offering the reader a mere narration of the events leading up to the Revolution, Dickens creates suspense, tension, and the opportunity for opinions and actions to be transformed by elevating the influence of characters worthy of intense character analysis in A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens who would otherwise be marginal to the plot. 

BBC One's Dickensian

John Barsad and Gaspard are two men who are quite different from one another, and who also differ in their motives and means of expressing their power and influence. 

Nonetheless, in several relatively brief scenes, both men shape the outcome of the novel by acting upon their beliefs and passions decisively and without apology. As a result, the lives of the major characters in A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens and the decisions that they are able and which they choose to make are transformed.

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Dickensian is a British drama television series that premiered on BBC One from 26 December 2015 to 21 February 2016. The 20-part series, created and co-written by Tony Jordan, brings characters from many Charles Dickens novels together in one Victorian London neighbourhood, as Inspector Bucket investigates the murder of Ebenezer Scrooge's partner Jacob Marley.

Red Planet Pictures's Alex Jones vowed to lobby HM Revenue and Customs and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to relax the tax-relief rules for Dickensian; tax relief is only given for dramas longer than 30 minutes and each episode of Dickensian lasts 30 minutes.

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Little Red Riding Hood was my first love. 

I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding Hood, 

 should have known perfect bliss. 

Charles Dickens

IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES, IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

Charles Dickens writes in the opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities as he paints a picture of life in England and France. The year is late 1775, and Jarvis Lorry travels from London to Paris on a secret mission for his employer, Tellson's Bank. Joining him on his journey is Lucie Manette, a 17-year-old woman who is stunned to learn that her father, Doctor Alexandre Manette, is alive and has recently been released after having been secretly imprisoned in Paris for 18 years...

The Grandma at Malta International Airport

The Grandma and her friends are returning to their homes. Joseph de Ca'th Lon is flying to Lon; Tina Picotes to Monte Carlo; Claire Fontaine to Québec and The Grandma to Barcelona. 

During the flight from Valletta to Barcelona, The Grandma has started to read Charles Dickens' A tale of two cities, a new book that she's going to share with her families. Before reading a book, you must know the author and his/her life. Every author puts a little of himself/herself in his/her books. Charles Dickens is one of the best writers of the history and all his works are considered masterpieces.

This new book talks about London and Paris during the French Revolution. Enjoy it with The Grandma, who is going to post one new chapter, in audio version, every day.

Download A tale of two cities by Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens (February 1812-9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the 20th century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are still widely read today.

Charles John Huffam Dickens

Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. 

Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms. Dickens's literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers. Within a few years he had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire, and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication. 

More information: Biography

Cliffhanger endings in his serial publications kept readers in suspense. The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience's reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback. For example, when his wife's chiropodist expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her disabilities, Dickens improved the character with positive features. 

His plots were carefully constructed, and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the illiterate poor chipped in ha'pennies to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up and inspiring a new class of readers.

A tale of to cities published on Harper's Weekly

Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre.  

Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted, and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London and Paris, is his best-known work of historical fiction. Dickens has been praised by fellow writers, from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell, G. K. Chesterton and Tom Wolfe, for his realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism. The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters.

Authors frequently draw their portraits of characters from people they have known in real life. David Copperfield is regarded by many as a veiled autobiography of Dickens. 

The scenes of interminable court cases and legal arguments in Bleak House reflect Dickens's experiences as a law clerk and court reporter, and in particular his direct experience of the law's procedural delay during 1844 when he sued publishers in Chancery for breach of copyright. Dickens's father was sent to prison for debt, and this became a common theme in many of his books, with the detailed depiction of life in the Marshalsea prison in Little Dorrit resulting from Dickens's own experiences of the institution.  

Lucy Stroughill, a childhood sweetheart, may have affected several of Dickens's portraits of girls such as Little Em'ly in David Copperfield and Lucie Manette in A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens may have drawn on his childhood experiences, but he was also ashamed of them and would not reveal that this was where he gathered his realistic accounts of squalor. Very few knew the details of his early life until six years after his death, when John Forster published a biography on which Dickens had collaborated. 

More information: The Atlantic

Have a heart that never hardens, 

and a temper that never tires, 

and a touch that never hurts. 

Charles Dickens