Carmen (verse)

In Ancient Rome, the term "carmen" was generally used to signify a verse; but in its proper sense, it referred to a spell or prayer, form of expiation, execration, etc. Surviving examples include the Carmen Arvale and the Carmen Saliare.

Purposes

Spells and incantations were used for a variety of purposes. If a spell was intended to harm someone, the State could interfere to protect him. For instance, it was not unusual for a farmer whose crops had failed to accuse another farmer of having, by a carmen, lured the crops away. Tibullus, in a poem in which he complains that an old woman has bewitched Marathus, takes the opportunity to recount various feats of witches, such as transferring crops from one field to another. Similarly, Pliny the Elder records in Naturalis Historia (XVIII. 8) that a certain freedman, Furius, by using better implements and better methods than his neighbor, obtained richer crops from a smaller strip of land. A neighbor compelled Furius to go before the tribes and accused him of having bewitched his field. But when the tribes saw his sturdy slaves and his implements of witchcraft—hoes, rakes, and ploughs—they acquitted him.

Carmen (2003 film)

Carmen is a 2003 Spanish drama film directed by Vicente Aranda. The script was written by Aranda and Joaquim Jordà adapting the classic romance of the same name by Prosper Mérimée. Director Vicente Aranda based the plot on Mérimée's original 1847 novella about jealousy and passion, not its famous operatic adaptation by Bizet from 1875, changing some details about the love story between Carmen (Paz Vega) and José (Leonardo Sbaraglia). As in the novella, author Mérimée (Jay Benedict) is portrayed as a French writer who finds the "real" Carmen in early 19th century Spain.

Plot

While traveling through Andalusia, Spain in 1830, Prosper Mérimée, a French writer, meets José, a wanted criminal. José ends up condemned to death by garroting. The day before José is going to be executed, Mérimée, who has befriended the bandit, visits him in prison. From his jail cell, José begins to narrate his tragic story to the sympathetic writer.

A Burlesque on Carmen

A Burlesque on Carmen is Charlie Chaplin's thirteenth and final film for Essanay Studios, released as Carmen on December 18, 1915. Chaplin played the leading man and Edna Purviance played Carmen. The film is a parody of the overacted Cecil B. DeMille Carmen of 1915 which was itself an interpretation of the popular novella Carmen by Prosper Mérimée. Composer Hugo Riesenfeld wrote the music for both the DeMille and the Chaplin films, based on George Bizet's opera Carmen.

Chaplin's original version was a tightly paced two-reeler, but in 1916 after Chaplin had moved to Mutual, Essanay reworked the film into a four-reel version called A Burlesque on Carmen, or Burlesque on 'Carmen', adding discarded footage and new scenes involving a subplot about a gypsy character played by Ben Turpin. This longer version was deeply flawed in pacing and continuity, not representative of Chaplin's initial conception. Chaplin sued Essanay but failed to stop the distribution of the longer version; Essanay's tampering with this and other of his films contributed significantly to Chaplin's bitterness about his time there. The presence of Essanay's badly redone version is likely the reason that Burlesque on Carmen is among the least known of Chaplin's works. Historian Ted Okuda calls the two-reel original version the best film of Chaplin's Essanay period, but derides the longer version as the worst.

Sweat (short story)

Sweat is a short story by the American writer Zora Neale Hurston, first published in 1926. The story revolves around a washerwoman and her unemployed, insecure husband.

Robert E. Hemenway, the Chancellor of University of Kansas and the author of a biography of Zora Neale Hurston, praised Sweat as "a remarkable work, her best fiction of the period".

Summary

Delia is a washerwoman who works long hours in a small Central Florida village. Her husband Sykes does not work, yet he resents that Delia cleans "white folks'" clothes in their home. Sykes scares his wife of fifteen years by using her fear of snakes. The marriage is an abusive one, ever since Sykes began beating Delia two months after marrying. Observers in the town remark how the once-beautiful Delia has lost her shine because of her abusive husband. With that said, Delia has come to the conclusion that she does not need Sykes nor his abuse, particularly considering it is her wages that paid for their home.

Tired of Delia and seeking out freedom with his "portly" mistress Bertha, Sykes hatches a plan to poison Delia by planting a rattlesnake in her washing clothes. In a bit of karmic fate, however, it is Sykes who is poisoned by the rattlesnake, fatally, in the neck. In response, Delia sits meditatively below a chinaberry tree waiting for her husband to expire, and ignoring his pleas for aid.

Sweat (TV series)

Sweat is an Australian drama television series created by John Rapsey and produced by Barron Entertainment in association with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Perth. The show aired on Network Ten in 1996 for one season of 26 episodes and centred on students at an Australian school for the athletically gifted.

Scenes were shot in and around Perth including locations such as HBF Stadium, Arena Joondalup, the Town of Cambridge, the now defunct Perry Lakes Stadium and the Perth SpeedDome.

Cast

Episodes

International broadcasts

References

External links

Sweat (disambiguation)

Sweat is the fluid excreted by the sweat glands during perspiration.

Sweat or sweating may also refer to:

People

Arts and entertainment

Albums

Songs