100px|Title page from The Author's Farce
The Author's Farce is a play by the English playwright and novelist
Henry Fielding, first performed on 30 March 1730 at the Little Theatre,
Haymarket. Written in response to the Theatre Royal's rejection of his
earlier plays, The Author's Farce was Fielding's first theatrical
success. The first and second acts deal with the attempts of the
central character, Harry Luckless, to woo his landlady's daughter, and
his efforts to make money by writing plays. In the second act, he
finishes a puppet theatre play titled The Pleasures of the Town, about
the Goddess Nonsense's choice of a husband from allegorical
representatives of theatre and other literary genres. After its
rejection by one theatre, Luckless's play is staged at another. The
third act becomes a play within a play, in which the characters in the
puppet play are portrayed by humans. The Author's Farce ends with a
merging of the play's and the puppet show's realities. The play
established Fielding as a popular London playwright, and the press
reported that seats were in great demand. Although largely ignored by
critics until the 20th century, most agree that the play is primarily a
commentary on events in Fielding's life, signalling his transition from
older forms of comedy to the new satire of his contemporaries.
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Today's selected anniversaries:
610:
Heraclius was crowned Byzantine Emperor, after having personally
beheaded the previous emperor Phocas.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclius>
1789:
French Revolution: Upset about the high price and scarcity of bread,
thousands of Parisian women and their various allies marched on the
royal palace at Versailles.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Women%27s_March_on_Versailles>
1908:
Prince Ferdinand became the first Tsar of Bulgaria since the Ottoman
invasion in the 14th century.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_I_of_Bulgaria>
1962:
Dr. No, the first in the James Bond film series, was released.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._No_%28film%29>
1973:
Seven nations signed the European Patent Convention, providing an
autonomous legal system according to which European patents are
granted.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Patent_Convention>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
amber (noun):
1. Translucent fossilized tree resin, generally yellow or orange but
sometimes blue, often used as jewelry.
2. (in British English) The middle light in a set of three traffic
lights, between the red and the green lights.
3. (in biology, biochemistry and genetics) The RNA codon UAG, which
stops the third stage of protein production, translation
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/amber>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The only real hope of people today is probably a renewal of our
certainty that we are rooted in the earth and, at the same time, in the
cosmos. This awareness endows us with the capacity for
self-transcendence. Politicians at international forums may reiterate a
thousand times that the basis of the new world order must be universal
respect for human rights, but it will mean nothing as long as this
imperative does not derive from the respect of the miracle of Being,
the miracle of the universe, the miracle of nature, the miracle of our
own existence. Only someone who submits to the authority of the
universal order and of creation, who values the right to be a part of
it and a participant in it, can genuinely value himself and his
neighbors, and thus honor their rights as well.
--Václav Havel
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Havel>