Though he wrote during the time period when Modernism was at its height, P.G. Wodehouse used comedy and not realism to compose his commentary on the culture of his time. As Laura Mooneyham states in her article “Comedy Among the Modernists: P.G. Wodehouse and the Anachronism of Comic Form,” Wodehouse knew that “no force [...]
Archive for July, 2009
Jeeves and Wooster
Posted in Uncategorized on July 20, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Modern Art and Post-Modern London
Posted in Uncategorized on July 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
While being one of oldest cities in Europe, London has not only a storied ancient history but also a vivid and interesting more modern past. Examples of not only modern art and modern thinking are evident in the city but also that of the post-modern persuasion as well. As it has all semester, art [...]
The Buddha of Suburbia
Posted in Uncategorized on July 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Though many of us like our lives to be as neatly organized as possible, pigeon-holed, and easily categorized, life is chaotic, varying, and is always a juxtaposition of numerous influences and ideas. Hanif Kureishi’s novel, The Buddha of Suburbia exemplifies this amalgamation throughout the novel, beginning with its very title. While it is a coming [...]
St. Paul’s and the Tower of London
Posted in Uncategorized on July 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London: two of England’s most imposing structures. One a bastion of faith and the other a very formidable fortress. One designed to direct mankind’s thoughts toward God and the other designed to demonstrate the dominance of a monarch. Though built for very different purposes they share the [...]
Mrs. Dalloway
Posted in Uncategorized on July 12, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Class–it is a subject that none of us can escape as we must all operate within its limits and its bounds. The characters of Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway are continually aware of the structure that the class system imposes upon their lives. It is the different ways in which the characters decide to operate [...]
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Posted in Uncategorized on July 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
A picture is worth a thousand words. Beauty is truth, truth beauty. Epigrams that have become so common place in our culture that they have begun to lose any true meaning they may have actually had. What about them is true enough, though, that they became common sayings in the first place? Does a [...]
British Cultural Studies
Posted in Uncategorized on July 4, 2009 | 2 Comments »
The term “culture” denotes not only the idea of being “cultured” in regard to what is considered aristocratic or scholarly but also, as described in Graeme Turner’s British Cultural Studies, “‘when we are at our most natural, our most everyday, we are also at our most cultural’” (Willis qtd. in Turner 2). Turner sets [...]
The National Gallery
Posted in Uncategorized on July 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Though it is language that connects the people within a culture, it is art in its physical forms–painting, sculpture, photography–that tries to connect numerous cultures. Within many of the famous museums of Europe, languages such as English, French, Spanish, and German can all be heard, yet the paintings on display do not change [...]
Westminster Abbey
Posted in Uncategorized on July 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Art—be it painting, architecture, or poetry—must be experienced firsthand to truly understand and appreciate its numerous forms. As far as art’s cultural significance, many historians agree that it is not until a people begin to exhibit artistic creativity, be it the cave paintings in Lascaux or the calligraphic poetry of the ancient Chinese, that [...]
