Word: nineteenth
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen turned the medium in on itself; the confines of the parlor were a perfect metaphor for the confinements of nineteenth century society. An adaptation of Ghosts at the Loeb transforms Ibsen's sitting room into a chic contemporary country home; the end result is a fine production which resembles Ibsen in form but not in sense...
TRAPPED IN A hellish marriage with a philandering Captain, Helene Alving abandons marital duty and seeks love and refuge in the arms of old family friend Pastor Manders. But those arms are too busy embracing the constraints of nineteenth century society to make room for a tearful would-be adultress, so Manders sends Helene right back to the Captain with a firm reproach and charter membership in the Cult of True Womanhood...
Latter-day sociobiologists cannot contest the impact that Spencer's sociology-biology had on nineteenth-century society. The Social Darwinism of the time, much of which was rooted in Spencer's principles, gained popular acceptance and provided a handy justification for the status quo and for a repudiation of state interference on behalf of society's welfare. Because Spencer's society was evolving naturally, any such tampering would result in disaster. These theories, embraced by upper and middle classes alike in America, provided these classes with a rationale for opposing all social reform. The phrase "survival of the fittest," taken...
...Truffaut's most visually luscious films. Sometimes, Adele is beautiful, though more often she is too concerned with her emotions to care about her looks and her face is tearful and puffy. But the rest of the characters, and all the scenery, is a catalogue of splendor. Truffaut's nineteenth century Halifax is magnificent inside and out, from the lichen-crusted castle battlements to the oak interiors of the houses and the cozy Victorian bookshop. The climax of the film--in Barbados--is more exotic, but here too the emphasis is on beauty, even when the camera moves in crowds...
...queen of the genre--has neither the suspense of a good spy story or the nose-to-the-ground clue-tracking of a murder mystery, and has no social significance whatsoever. Heyer deals exclusively with the frivolous world of England's Upper Ten Thousand at the turn of the nineteenth century, and any similarity between the world of social conventions and affected mannerisms she describes and the one we live in is purely coincidental...