The Importance Of The Carnival Of Venice

Everything had began magnificently the day I attended the renaissance fair. It was the first time I’d ever been to any festival of the sort, and the air was full of magic. At exactly 10:30 in the morning, the ceremony began. The King and Queen presented themselves atop the castle’s balcony to address their people. As the beautiful royals welcomed us into their kingdom, my heart beat erratically, and I crossed the threshold with my breath held. There were so many events that I wanted to see, and activities I wanted to try; I couldn’t wait to get inside. I wasn’t just an ordinary guest, however, I had a job to do. Carrying my instrument lightly with one hand, dressed as a princess and feeling important, I walked proudly through the bustling

The Madonna of 115th Street is an amazing example of hospitality throughout history. The excerpt details the days and nights of the Festa. On July 16th, the great bell in the campanile of the church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel announces that the festa had begun. This fetsa unites several Italian communities from those in Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and California. Preparation for this festival can take weeks at a time, houses are cleaned from head to toe in anticipation of housing relatives visiting from other states. For the next few weeks the community gathers together in the streets and celebrates greatly from sunrise to sunset. Music, dancing, fires, festivals, everything is prominent in the streets as the Italian community seeks to express itself. The festa is a time to come together and create a sense of community. Religious foundations, sharing of food, parades, all of this signifies what it is to be a part of the Festa. Hospitality is creating a warm and welcome environment to those around you. Everything about the Festa signifies these qualities.

It is a chaotic and unruly tradition wherein people exercise their freedom to indulge in the desires of the flesh. This can be in forms of alcoholism (which was abundant in the late 1840s), food, loud parties, and noise in general. All self-control and sobriety are forgotten in traditional carnivals; it is supreme madness. It is the perfect alibi for Montresor because everyone would be in the carnival. It would be so chaotic that no one would know where everyone else is.

These celebrations represented the resurrection of new life in spring after the cold, frozen winter. Celebrations like these were celebrated in many countries, especially ones of great Catholic populations. Soon when christianity appeared in Rome, religious leaders encouraged the rituals into the faith. Christians and others who encourage this holiday celebrate this time of feasting from January sixth to Shrove Tuesday, The Epiphany to the Day before Ash Wednesday (Thompson, 1998). This time period became known as Carnival; Carnival in Latin means farewell to meat. The motto farewell to meat relates to the fasting that is coming with the Lenten season celebrated by the Christian faith. “Carnival” was soon spread worldwide. In France, this celebration became known to may as Mardi Gras, or “Fat Tuesday,” says the authors of

Thus, most references are from the limited amount of available secondary literature and some push the boundary of the late medieval time period because studies relating the carnivalesque to social tensions are rare. This essay aims to be selective and handle a difficult topic in an interesting way, leading to the conclusion that indeed peasant activities in the carnivalesque certainly do reveal social tensions within their late medieval European experiences.

Blues for New Orleans: Mardi Gras and America’s Creole Soul by Roger D. Abrahams is a book about the upbringing of the New Orleans Mardi Gras carnival. This is one the most famous carnivals held in New Orleans. The festival Mardi Gras “Fat Tuesday” incorporates “such events as costumed float parades, neighborhood marches or second-lines, street gatherings, informal parties, and formal balls in New Orleans, Biloxi, and Mobile, among other Gulf Coast cities and towns.” (1) The author, Roger D. Abrahams throughout his book, speaks of the carnival from all differ perspectives and compares it to other countries held around the world. He also addresses, how before Hurricane Katrina and afterwards, the Mardi Gras festival and the culture/ tradition

In Chapter 1 of American Venice, the author discusses the history that lives within the San Antonio River and the importance of it to San Antonio. He mentions that the Spaniards passed the River on 1691 which lead them to name the river, "San Antonio de Padua" to highlight the feast day of St. Anthony of Padua. The Spaniards chose San Antonio as the homestead of a defensive station between Spanish settlements on the Rio Grande and the Spanish border with French Louisiana to the northeast. The spring waters in the San Antonio River were known as the Blue Hole and were known for their quality as the best, yet much of the grounds that surrounded the spring were not good for building. Therefore, this pushed the Spaniards to move two miles west around the San Pedro Springs where a presidio was built under the Governor Martin de Alacon which caused the Mission San Antonio de Valero to be established. The river ran throughout the town, but it only had the strength to power a small industry. On average, the river was usually less than 20 feet wide and less than 15 feet deep. Acequias were built as irrigation systems that the Spanish copied from the Moors in Northern Africa. They allowed the missions to thrive and set up the development of future

Mona and I had an interesting talk about how her family mixed the American and Italian cultures together while they were raising her. She told me that many of the traditions and rituals to commemorate a death in Italy are not practiced in the United States. This is mainly due to the villages in Italy being so small, allowing the people to be more familiar with each other. A funeral in Italy depends a great deal on the family and their financial position in the village. The more money, the more prestigious and elaborate the event would be. Mona said that the deceased is kept in a casket at the family home, and that people come to the house to remember the dead.

On this pilgrimage are numerous members of the Catholic Church. As a group, the pilgrimage decides to hold a competition to help pass the time.

This week’s Lecture was focused on the third play in the four comedies book named “The Merchant of Venice”. This play was known for being controversial but also very interesting play that captured the attention of the viewers. Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” is set in Renaissance Venice, with a few scenes in a town called Belmont. The setting is important – Venice was one of the wealthiest towns in Europe, as it was right on the sea, with excellent shipping facilities for trading with the east. During this time, there was a large population of Jew’s in Europe, although 16th-century Venice was more tolerant of foreigners than Elizabethan England, Jews in Venice were confined to ghettos at the time Shakespeare wrote “The Merchant of Venice”. If a person compares “The Merchant of Venice”, to the other Shakespeare’s plays that have been covered in this class already and also to the ones that have not be covered yet, such as “As You Like It” or “Much Ado About Nothing”, some common features can be found throughout each of these plays. Some of the common features are: Multiple plots, Dual settings, Games/Trials/Practical Jokes/Music, Love Vs. Friendships/Multiple Marriages, Different types of relationships and a comic villain. Each of these features will be explained in greater details.

Religion was a major factor in a number of Shakespeare’s plays. Religion motivated action and reasoning. In Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” religion was more than a belief in a higher being; it reflected moral standards and ways of living. In the “Merchant of Venice,” “a Christian ethic of generosity, love, and risk-taking friendship is set in pointed contrast with a non-Christian ethic that is seen, from a Christian point of view, as grudging, resentful, and self-calculating.” (Bevington, pg. 74) Although Shakespeare writes this drama from a Christian point of view he illustrates religion by conflicts of the Old Testament and the New Testament in Venetian society and its court of law. These Testaments are tested through the

Each year, hundreds of thousands people descend on the streets of Notting Hill, including performers, DJs, bandleaders, traders, steelpan players and international visitors. The Notting Hill Carnival is composed of several constituents, through costumes, steel bands, mobile and static sound systems playing in the street to honour the ‘freedom to walk the streets’ (ibid).

The carnivalesque can be understood as having arisen in response to a society which, as described by literary critic Jon Cook, was “ostensibly attached to hierarchy and its manifold religious and social rituals” (Cook 190). It appears as a revolution against these confining structures, working to reassert freedom. It works toward this end by both negating the values of

The public place, in which I chose to observe fashion, was a community fall festival. This festival occurs once a year and brings people from several communities. I arrived at the festival in early afternoon, around 12:30 pm. The festival was just starting to get crowded. At this time there were mostly families with children present. I observed numerous families with babies in strollers. There were at least twenty “vendor” booths

?Venice is one of the most fascinating places to travel in Europe.? Its intrigue lies in its unique beginnings, its dominant past, and its remarkable people and their buildings.? Its foundation is unique because of the need for protection that drove the early Venetians to their new home and the location of this new dwelling-place:? ?Rarely in human history has a vigorous and progressive civilization arisen in a less likely place than the mud flats of the Venetian lagoon.?1? Venice rose to power by its domination of the sea and reached its climax during the years of the Renaissance.? It is during this time period that it truly became ?the bride of the Adriatic and the unchallenged