Sunday, January 31, 2010

symbolism in doll's house

http://www.theatrehistory.com/misc/henrik_ibsen_003.html

neruda's poetic style

http://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1689552.html

this is not a lot but it has references to neruda's style and surrealism.hope it will help you people:)

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Some notes I found useful on Requiem

This link is about the poem and the poet

http://www.enotes.com/poetry-criticism/requiem-anna-akhmatova

This link is about Stalin....you might want to go through a little

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin


This link is all about the poet......also unless you know how to read Russian....don't click on the "Requiem" Hyperlink in this link...it's of no use.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Akhmatova


I'll put more on if I find....

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Unipolar Disorders - Psychosocial Factors (At A Glance...)

Unipolar Disorders - Psychosocial Causes

1. Stressful Life Events as Causal Factors:
Severely stressful life events such as loss of a loved one, severe health or severe economic problems can serve as precipitating factors for unipolar depression. Losses that involve an element of humiliation are especially dangerous.
2. Mildly Stressful Events and Chronic Stress do not causes clinical depression.
3. Individual Differences: Women are at a greater risk for depression. Individuals with two short alleles are twice as likely to develop depression after a stressful life-event than those with two long alleles.

Personality and Cognitive Diatheses
Neuroticism is the primary personality variable for causing depression. It refers to a stable and heritable personality trait that involves a temperamental sensitivity to negative stimuli.
High levels of introversion also serve as vulnerability factors for depression.

Early Adversity and Parental Loss as a Diathesis
Early parental loss through death or permanent separation creates a vulnerability to depression in adulthood. A child's response to the loss has a lot to do with what happens after the loss. In case, the child receives good parental care, there is no vulnerability to depression.

Psychodynamic Theories: According to Freud, there is a similarity between the symptoms of clinical depression and the symptoms seen in people who mourn the loss of a loved one. According to Freud, the mourner regresses to the oral stage of development and incorporates all the feelings towards the loss person on to feelings towards the self (in the oral stage, the infant cannot distinguish between the self and others). According to Freud, these feelings include anger and hostility as we unconsciously hold negative feelings towards those we love because of the power they can exert over us. Thus, depression is anger turned inward. Freud also stated that someone who has lost his mother or whose parents cannot fulfil the infantile needs for nurturance and care develop a vulnerability for depression.
Other psychodynamic theorists like Klein and Jakobson emphasize the importance of the mother-infant relationship in establishing a vulnerability to depression.
Behavioral Theories: Behavioral theories of depression propose that people become depressed either when their responses no longer produce positive reinforncement or when their rate of negative reinforcements increase.

Beck's Cognitive Theory: Beck hypothesized that cognitive symptoms of depression often precede and cause the affective or mood symptoms. As per Beck's theory, first, there are depressogenic or dysfunctional beliefs which are rigid, extreme and counter-productive. These depression-producing beliefs or schemas are thought to develop during childhood and adolescence owing to negative experiences with one's parents and significant others. Although they may lie dormant for several years in the absence of significant stressors - when the stressors are present, these dysfunctional beliefs are activated and produce negative automatic thoughts that centre around 3 themes: negative thoughts about the self, negative thoughts about the environment, and negative thoughts about one's future. This negative cognitive triad is maintained by cognitive biases or errors such as all-or-none reasoning, selective abstractions and arbitrary inference.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th century Norwegian playwright, director and poet. His works shaped the modern theatre. Ibsen’s plays were considered scandalous to many of his era. One could characterize rebellious sprit and unforgiving scrutiny through his writings. A Doll’s house is a scathing criticism of the acceptance of the traditional roles of men and women in Victorian marriage. This play is also an important work of the naturalist movement, in which real events (day to day conversations) and situations are depicted on stage in a departure from previous forms as romanticism.
Mr. Pinto’s advise\observation to us was that, “We always try to place or accommodate new objects\ideas to the existing framework (which we already know). Hence, we should try to move away from what we already know and explore new possibility to fit new objects\ideas.” Similarly with Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’, people could not place his works in the existing framework thus giving rise to modern theatre. This play rocked the stages of Europe when it premiered. Nora’s rejection of marriage and motherhood scandalized the contemporary audiences. Self-liberation was reflected through this play. Many could not accept ‘A Doll’s House’ till as late as 1940’s. In fact, the first German productions of the play in the 1880s used an altered ending, written by Ibsen at the request of the producers. In this ending, Nora is led to her children after having argued with Torvald. Seeing them, she collapses, and the curtain is brought down. 1970 onwards there was a shift in the theatre itself to performance studies. Accordingly, ‘A Doll’s House’ was also studied upon and perceived differently. It went back to anthropology and ethnographic studies were conducted on actors who have portrayed the role of Nora, which is one of the most challenging role in the world of theatre.