title: I Will Survive

text: American singer Diana Ross released a cover of "I Will Survive" in 1996. It was released on April 14, as the fourth and final single from her twenty-first album, "Take Me Higher" (1995). The song is produced by Narada Michael Walden and peaked at number 14 in the United Kingdom. It also reached number three in Iceland and number 16 in Scotland. In the United States, it peaked at number 37 on the "Billboard" Hot Dance Club Play chart.


title: I Will Survive

text: Larry Flick from "Billboard" wrote, "The kicker is a delicious cover of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive", produced by Narada Michael Walden. Interestingly, that is the number that stands out in the legendary artist's current (and oh-so-festive) -hour show." Gil L. Robertson IV from "Cash Box" picked it as a "standout track" of the "Take Me Higher" album. The Daily Vault's Mark Millan constated that it is "dealt with superbly, as the team managed to breathe new life into an old relic from the distant, dark days when disco ruled." Alan Jones from "Music Week" stated that "the combination of two old favourites is bound to win favour with many people, and new dance mixes by Roger Sanchez will ease the track's path to success now it is a single." James Hamilton from the magazine's "RM" Dance Update noted the "galloping good Hi-NRG 0-134bpm Motiv 8 Club Vocal and Hell Razor Dub". Pop Rescue concluded that this cover "definitely belts it out – vocally and musically".


title: I Will Survive

text: Dutch group Hermes House Band covered the song in 1994, retitled "I Will Survive (La La La)", topping both the Dutch Top 40 and Single Top 100 charts. In 1998 and 2018, their version reached number one on the French hitlist after the win from the French Team at the FIFA World Cup.


title: I Will Survive

text: The Voice UK contestant, Leah McFall, performed the song on the first live show in the style of Chantay Savage. Following the programme, the studio recording of the performance was released and reached number three on UK iTunes. The song debuted at number sixteen on the UK Singles Chart on June 9, 2013, and in the following week it reached number eight.


title: I Will Survive

text: American country music singer Billie Jo Spears' version from her 1979 album, "I Will Survive", peaked at number 21 on the US "Billboard" Country Chart, number nine on the Canadian Country Chart, and number 47 on the UK Singles Chart. Her version earned her a Grammy Award nomination for Best Country Vocal Performance, Female.


title: I Will Survive

text: Puerto Rican singer Sa-Fire recorded a cover of the song for the 1989 comedy film "She-Devil". Her cover incorporated the house and hip-hop genres with the disco genre. A music video was filmed that featured clips from the movie. Sa-Fire's version of the song was successful, peaking at number 53 on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: I Will Survive

text: Jona Viray recorded a cover of the song for the 2016 Philippine drama series theme song of, "We Will Survive".


title: I Will Survive

text: Demi Lovato recorded a cover of the song for the credits of the 2016 animated film soundtrack, "The Angry Birds Movie".


title: I Will Survive

text: Selena sang part of this song as the start of her disco medley at her last concert at the Houston Astrodome, a month before her passing.


title: I Will Survive

text: The 2005 music video "Jesus Christ - The Musical" parodies the song which depicts Jesus singing it. It was directed by Javier Prato with a lead role by Miguel Mas. The film goes through various places such as a shop, with Jesus walking around singing the song. He sings until he says "I will survive" once before he gets hit by a bus. A sequel entitled "Jesus Returns" is currently in production.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: In mathematics, a Voronoi diagram is a partition of a plane into regions close to each of a given set of objects. In the simplest case, these objects are just finitely many points in the plane (called seeds, sites, or generators). For each seed there is a corresponding region, called a Voronoi cell, consisting of all points of the plane closer to that seed than to any other. The Voronoi diagram of a set of points is dual to that set's Delaunay triangulation.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: The Voronoi diagram is named after mathematician Georgy Voronoy, and is also called a Voronoi tessellation, a Voronoi decomposition, a Voronoi partition, or a Dirichlet tessellation (after Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet). Voronoi cells are also known as Thiessen polygons. Voronoi diagrams have practical and theoretical applications in many fields, mainly in science and technology, but also in visual art.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: In the simplest case, shown in the first picture, we are given a finite set of points {"p", ..., "p"} in the Euclidean plane. In this case each site "p" is simply a point, and its corresponding Voronoi cell "R" consists of every point in the Euclidean plane whose distance to "p" is less than or equal to its distance to any other "p". Each such cell is obtained from the intersection of half-spaces, and hence it is a (convex) polyhedron. The line segments of the Voronoi diagram are all the points in the plane that are equidistant to the two nearest sites. The Voronoi vertices (nodes) are the points equidistant to three (or more) sites.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: Let formula_1 be a metric space with distance function formula_2. Let formula_3 be a set of indices and let formula_4 be a tuple (ordered collection) of nonempty subsets (the sites) in the space formula_5. The Voronoi cell, or Voronoi region, formula_6, associated with the site formula_7 is the set of all points in formula_8 whose distance to formula_9 is not greater than their distance to the other sites formula_10, where formula_11 is any index different from formula_12. In other words, if formula_13 denotes the distance between the point formula_14 and the subset formula_15, then


title: Voronoi diagram

text: The Voronoi diagram is simply the tuple of cells formula_17. In principle, some of the sites can intersect and even coincide (an application is described below for sites representing shops), but usually they are assumed to be disjoint. In addition, infinitely many sites are allowed in the definition (this setting has applications in geometry of numbers and crystallography), but again, in many cases only finitely many sites are considered.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: In the particular case where the space is a finite-dimensional Euclidean space, each site is a point, there are finitely many points and all of them are different, then the Voronoi cells are convex polytopes and they can be represented in a combinatorial way using their vertices, sides, two-dimensional faces, etc. Sometimes the induced combinatorial structure is referred to as the Voronoi diagram. In general however, the Voronoi cells may not be convex or even connected.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: In the usual Euclidean space, we can rewrite the formal definition in usual terms. Each Voronoi polygon formula_18 is associated with a generator point formula_7.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: Let formula_8 be the set of all points in the Euclidean space. Let formula_21 be a point that generates its Voronoi region formula_22, formula_23 that generates formula_24, and formula_25 that generates formula_26, and so on. Then, as expressed by Tran "et al", "all locations in the Voronoi polygon are closer to the generator point of that polygon than any other generator point in the Voronoi diagram in Euclidean plane".


title: Voronoi diagram

text: As a simple illustration, consider a group of shops in a city. Suppose we want to estimate the number of customers of a given shop. With all else being equal (price, products, quality of service, etc.), it is reasonable to assume that customers choose their preferred shop simply by distance considerations: they will go to the shop located nearest to them. In this case the Voronoi cell formula_27 of a given shop formula_28 can be used for giving a rough estimate on the number of potential customers going to this shop (which is modeled by a point in our city).


title: Voronoi diagram

text: Informal use of Voronoi diagrams can be traced back to Descartes in 1644. Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet used two-dimensional and three-dimensional Voronoi diagrams in his study of quadratic forms in 1850.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: British physician John Snow used a Voronoi-like diagram in 1854 to illustrate how the majority of people who died in the Broad Street cholera outbreak lived closer to the infected Broad Street pump than to any other water pump.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: Voronoi diagrams are named after Georgy Feodosievych Voronoy who defined and studied the general "n"-dimensional case in 1908. Voronoi diagrams that are used in geophysics and meteorology to analyse spatially distributed data (such as rainfall measurements) are called Thiessen polygons after American meteorologist Alfred H. Thiessen. Other equivalent names for this concept (or particular important cases of it): Voronoi polyhedra, Voronoi polygons, domain(s) of influence, Voronoi decomposition, Voronoi tessellation(s), Dirichlet tessellation(s).


title: Voronoi diagram

text: Voronoi tessellations of regular lattices of points in two or three dimensions give rise to many familiar tessellations.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: For the set of points ("x", "y") with "x" in a discrete set "X" and "y" in a discrete set "Y", we get rectangular tiles with the points not necessarily at their centers.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: Although a normal Voronoi cell is defined as the set of points closest to a single point in "S", an "n"th-order Voronoi cell is defined as the set of points having a particular set of "n" points in "S" as its "n" nearest neighbors. Higher-order Voronoi diagrams also subdivide space.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: Higher-order Voronoi diagrams can be generated recursively. To generate the "n"-order Voronoi diagram from set "S", start with the ("n" − 1)-order diagram and replace each cell generated by "X" = {"x", "x", ..., "x"} with a Voronoi diagram generated on the set "S" − "X".


title: Voronoi diagram

text: For a set of "n" points the ("n" − 1)-order Voronoi diagram is called a farthest-point Voronoi diagram.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: For a given set of points "S" = {"p", "p", ..., "p"} the farthest-point Voronoi diagram divides the plane into cells in which the same point of "P" is the farthest point. A point of "P" has a cell in the farthest-point Voronoi diagram if and only if it is a vertex of the convex hull of "P". Let "H" = {"h", "h", ..., "h"} be the convex hull of "P"; then the farthest-point Voronoi diagram is a subdivision of the plane into "k" cells, one for each point in "H", with the property that a point "q" lies in the cell corresponding to a site "h" if and only if d("q", "h") > d("q", "p") for each "p" ∈ "S" with "h" ≠ "p", where d("p", "q") is the Euclidean distance between two points "p" and "q".


title: Voronoi diagram

text: The boundaries of the cells in the farthest-point Voronoi diagram have the structure of a topological tree, with infinite rays as its leaves. Every finite tree is isomorphic to the tree formed in this way from a farthest-point Voronoi diagram.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: As implied by the definition, Voronoi cells can be defined for metrics other than Euclidean, such as the Mahalanobis distance or Manhattan distance. However, in these cases the boundaries of the Voronoi cells may be more complicated than in the Euclidean case, since the equidistant locus for two points may fail to be subspace of codimension 1, even in the two-dimensional case.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: A weighted Voronoi diagram is the one in which the function of a pair of points to define a Voronoi cell is a distance function modified by multiplicative or additive weights assigned to generator points. In contrast to the case of Voronoi cells defined using a distance which is a metric, in this case some of the Voronoi cells may be empty. A power diagram is a type of Voronoi diagram defined from a set of circles using the power distance; it can also be thought of as a weighted Voronoi diagram in which a weight defined from the radius of each circle is added to the squared Euclidean distance from the circle's center.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: The Voronoi diagram of formula_31 points in formula_32-dimensional space can have formula_33 vertices, requiring the same bound for the amount of memory needed to store an explicit description of it. Therefore, Voronoi diagrams are often not feasible for moderate or high dimensions. A more space-efficient alternative is to use approximate Voronoi diagrams.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: Voronoi diagrams are also related to other geometric structures such as the medial axis (which has found applications in image segmentation, optical character recognition, and other computational applications), straight skeleton, and zone diagrams.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: It is used in meteorology and engineering hydrology to find the weights for precipitation data of stations over an area (watershed). The points generating the polygons are the various station that record precipitation data. Perpendicular bisectors are drawn to the line joining any two stations. This results in the formation of polygons around the stations. The area formula_34 touching station point is known as influence area of the station. The average precipitation is calculated by the formula formula_35


title: Voronoi diagram

text: Several efficient algorithms are known for constructing Voronoi diagrams, either directly (as the diagram itself) or indirectly by starting with a Delaunay triangulation and then obtaining its dual.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: Direct algorithms include Fortune's algorithm, an O("n" log("n")) algorithm for generating a Voronoi diagram from a set of points in a plane.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: Bowyer–Watson algorithm, an O("n" log("n")) to O("n") algorithm for generating a Delaunay triangulation in any number of dimensions, can be used in an indirect algorithm for the Voronoi diagram. The Jump Flooding Algorithm can generate approximate Voronoi diagrams in constant time and is suited for use on commodity graphics hardware.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: Lloyd's algorithm and its generalization via the Linde–Buzo–Gray algorithm (aka k-means clustering), use the construction of Voronoi diagrams as a subroutine.


title: Voronoi diagram

text: These methods alternate between steps in which one constructs the Voronoi diagram for a set of seed points, and steps in which the seed points are moved to new locations that are more central within their cells. These methods can be used in spaces of arbitrary dimension to iteratively converge towards a specialized form of the Voronoi diagram, called a Centroidal Voronoi tessellation, where the sites have been moved to points that are also the geometric centers of their cells.


title: Johnny Thunders

text: John Anthony Genzale (July 15, 1952 – April 23, 1991), known professionally as Johnny Thunders, was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He came to prominence in the early 1970s as a member of the New York Dolls. He later played with the Heartbreakers and as a solo artist.


title: Johnny Thunders

text: Thunders was born John Anthony Genzale in Queens, New York, the second child of Josephine Genzale (née Nicoletti, 1923–1999), who was of Italian descent, and Emil Genzale (1923–1982), who was of Italian, Russian-Jewish, and German-Jewish ancestry. Thunders had an older sister, Mariann (1946–2009). He first lived in East Elmhurst and then Jackson Heights.


title: Johnny Thunders

text: His first musical performance was in the winter of 1967 with The Reign. Shortly thereafter, he played with Johnny and the Jaywalkers, under the name Johnny Volume, at Quintano's School for Young Professionals, around the corner from Carnegie Hall, on 56th Street near 7th Avenue.


title: Johnny Thunders

text: In 1968, he began going to the Fillmore East and Bethesda Fountain in Central Park on weekends. His older sister, Mariann, started styling his hair like Keith Richards. In late 1969, he got a job as a sales clerk at D'Naz leather shop, on Bleecker Street in the West Village, and started trying to put a band together. He and his girlfriend, Janis Cafasso, went to see The Rolling Stones at Madison Square Garden in November 1969, and they appear in the Maysles' film "Gimme Shelter".


title: Johnny Thunders

text: Dolls bass guitarist Arthur "Killer" Kane later wrote about Thunders' guitar sound, as he described arriving outside the rehearsal studio where they were meeting to jam together for the first time: "I heard someone playing a guitar riff that I myself didn't know how to play. It was raunchy, nasty, rough, raw, and untamed. I thought it was truly inspired...", adding "His sound was rich and fat and beautiful, like a voice."


title: Johnny Thunders

text: The New York Dolls were signed to Mercury Records, with the help of A & R man Paul Nelson. Thunders recorded two albums with the band, "New York Dolls" and" Too Much Too Soon". They were managed by Marty Thau, and booked by Leber & Krebs. Subsequently, they worked with Malcolm McLaren for several months, later becoming a prototype for the Sex Pistols.


title: Johnny Thunders

text: In 1975 Thunders and Nolan left the band; Thunders later blamed McLaren for the band's demise. Johansen and Sylvain continued playing, along with Peter Jordon, Tony Machine (an ex-assistant agent at Leber & Krebs) and Chris Robison, as the New York Dolls until late 1978.


title: Johnny Thunders

text: Thunders formed The Heartbreakers with former New York Dolls drummer Jerry Nolan and former Television bassist Richard Hell. Walter Lure, former guitarist for the New York City punk band The Demons joined them soon after. After conflict arose between Thunders and Hell, Hell left to form Richard Hell and the Voidoids and was replaced by Billy Rath. With Thunders leading the band, the Heartbreakers toured America before going to the UK to join the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned on the Anarchy Tour. The group stayed in the UK throughout 1977, where their popularity was significantly greater than in the U.S., particularly among punk bands. While in the UK they were signed to Track Records and released their only official studio album, "L.A.M.F.", an abbreviation for "Like A Mother Fucker". "L.A.M.F." was received positively by critics, but was criticised for its poor production. Displeased with the production, the band members were competing with one other, mixing and remixing the record, culminating in drummer Jerry Nolan quitting in November 1977. Shortly thereafter, the Heartbreakers disbanded.


title: Johnny Thunders

text: Thunders stayed in London and recorded the first of a number of solo albums, beginning with "So Alone" in 1978. The drug-fuelled recording sessions featured a core band of Thunders, bassist Phil Lynott, drummer Paul Cook and guitarist Steve Jones, with guest appearances from Chrissie Hynde, Steve Marriott, Walter Lure, Billy Rath and Peter Perrett. The CD version of the album contains four bonus tracks, including the single "Dead or Alive" and a cover of the early Marc Bolan song "The Wizard". Soon afterwards, Thunders moved back to the US, joining former Heartbreakers Walter Lure, Billy Rath and sometimes Jerry Nolan for gigs at Max's Kansas City. Around this time Thunders played a small number of gigs at London's The Speakeasy Club with a line up including Cook and Jones, Henri Paul on bass and Judy Nylon and Patti Palladin (Snatch) as back up vocalists.


title: Johnny Thunders

text: In late 1979, Thunders moved to Detroit with his wife Julie and began performing in a band called Gang War. Other members included John Morgan, Ron Cooke, Philippe Marcade and former MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer. They recorded several demos and performed live several times before disbanding. Zodiac Records released an EP of their demos in 1987. In 1990 they also released an album titled "Gang War", which was credited to Thunders and Kramer.


title: Johnny Thunders

text: During the early 1980s, Thunders re-formed The Heartbreakers for various tours; the group recorded their final album, "Live at the Lyceum", in 1984. The concert was also filmed and released as a video and later a DVD titled "Dead Or Alive".


title: Johnny Thunders

text: In the 1980s, Thunders lived in Paris and Stockholm with his wife and daughter. In 1985 he released "Que Sera Sera", a collection of new songs with his then band The Black Cats, and "Crawfish", a duet with former Snatch vocalist Patti Palladin. Three years later he again teamed up with Palladin to release "Copy Cats", a covers album. The album, produced by Palladin, featured a wide assortment of musicians to recreate the 1950s and 1960s sound of the originals, including Alex Balanescu on violin, Bob Andrews on piano, The Only Ones John Perry and others on guitar, and a horn section.


title: Johnny Thunders

text: From August 1988 until his death in April 1991, Thunders performed in The Oddballs, with Jamie Heath (saxophone), Alison Gordy (vocals), Chris Musto (drums), Stevie Klasson (guitar) and Jill Wisoff (bass). From April–May 1990, Johnny performed an acoustic tour of the UK and Ireland joining up occasionally with John, Sam and Peter of The Golden Horde, whom he had met and played with previously in 1984 at the TV Club, and were concurrently on tour (of the UK and Ireland) at that time also, for full-band electric performances and TV appearances. On May 8, 1990, recording sessions in London for a joint EP-single cover version with The Golden Horde of "Sugar, Sugar" by The Archies, and original material, had to be cancelled when Johnny experienced health problems following his performances in Wakefield, UK while on tour.


title: Johnny Thunders

text: His final recording was a version of "Born To Lose", with German punk rock band Die Toten Hosen, recorded 36 hours before his death in New Orleans.


title: Johnny Thunders

text: Rumors surround Thunders' death at the Inn on St. Peter hotel (formerly known as St. Peter Guest House) in New Orleans, Louisiana on April 23, 1991.


title: Johnny Thunders

text: Thunders apparently died of drug-related causes, but it has been speculated that it was the result of foul play. According to his biography "Lobotomy: Surviving The Ramones", Dee Dee Ramone took a call in New York City the next day from Stevie Klasson, Johnny's rhythm guitar player. Ramone said, "They told me that Johnny had gotten mixed up with some bastards... who ripped him off for his methadone supply. They had given him LSD and then murdered him. He had gotten a pretty large supply of methadone in England, so he could travel and stay away from those creeps – the drug dealers, Thunders imitators, and losers like that."


title: Johnny Thunders

text: Singer Willy DeVille, who lived next door to the hotel in which Thunders died, described his death this way:


title: Johnny Thunders

text: An article in the "Orlando Sentinel" states: "[He] died of an overdose of cocaine and methadone, according to the coroner's office in New Orleans. Chief investigator John Gagliano said tests completed last week found substantial amounts of both drugs."


title: Johnny Thunders

text: While other sources state: An autopsy was conducted by the New Orleans coroner, but served only to compound the mysteries. According to Thunders' biographer Nina Antonia as posted on the Jungle Records website, the level of drugs found in his system was not fatal. According to the book "Rock Bottom: Dark Moments in Music Babylon" by Pamela Des Barres, who interviewed Thunders' sister, Mariann Bracken, the autopsy confirmed evidence of advanced leukemia, which would explain the decline in Thunders' appearance in the final year of his life.


title: Johnny Thunders

text: In a 1994 "Melody Maker" interview, Thunders' manager Mick Webster described the family's efforts to get New Orleans police to investigate the matter further: "We keep asking the New Orleans police to re-investigate, but they haven't been particularly friendly. They seemed to think that this was just another junkie who had wandered into town and died. They simply weren't interested."


title: Johnny Thunders

text: Thunders was survived by his wife Julie Jourden and four children: sons John, Vito, and Dino, and daughter Jamie Genzale by Susanne Blomqvist.


title: Götterdämmerung

text: The title is a translation into German of the Old Norse phrase "", which in Norse mythology refers to a prophesied war among various beings and gods that ultimately results in the burning, immersion in water, and renewal of the world. As with the rest of the "Ring", however, Wagner's account diverges significantly from these Old Norse sources.


title: Götterdämmerung

text: The three Norns, daughters of Erda, the goddess of Nature, gather beside Brünnhilde's rock, weaving the Rope of Destiny. From it they read of the past, the present, and of the future when Walhalla will be set on fire and the end of the gods will come (""Welch' Licht leuchtet dort?""). As their narration approaches the point when they want to sing about the fate of Alberich's ring and its curse and as the themes of Siegfried and the Curse of the ring are heard, the rope breaks. Lamenting the loss of their wisdom, the Norns disappear, returning to their mother Erda beneath the earth (""Zu End' ewiges Wissen!"").


title: Götterdämmerung

text: As day breaks, Siegfried and Brünnhilde emerge from their dwelling high on a mountaintop surrounded by magic fire (""Zu neuen Thaten, theurer Helde""). Brünnhilde sends Siegfried off to new heroic deeds, urging him to keep their love in mind. Siegfried proclaims himself to be through his love for Brünnhilde just an executor of her will and as a pledge of fidelity gives her the ring of power that he took from Fafner's hoard. In a duet both extoll their loving bond, which nothing can untie, even when distance keeps them apart (""O! heilige Götter!""). Bearing Brünnhilde's shield and mounting her horse Grane, Siegfried then rides away.


title: Götterdämmerung

text: The act begins on the shores of the Rhine in the Hall of the Gibichungs, a people named after king Gibich. Gunther, his son and heir, sits enthroned. Gunther's half-brother and chief minister Hagen advises him to find a wife for himself and a husband for Gutrune, the sister of them both, to enlarge the glory and might of their dynasty and secure it for the future. He suggests Brünnhilde, the noblest of women, as appropriate for Gunther, and Siegfried, the dragon-slayer, the greatest of heroes, as the best husband for Gutrune. Neither Gunther nor Gutrune knows how to win themselves such partners, but Hagen reminds Gutrune that he has given her a potion she can use to make Siegfried forget any woman he has ever seen and fall in love with her; enamoured of Gutrune, Siegfried will then also be surely willing to bring Brünnhilde, who sleeps on a mountaintop encircled by fire only the fearless can pass, to Gunther in order to gain from him the permission for marriage with Gutrune. Gunther and Gutrune, not knowing that Siegfried and Brünnhilde are actually in love with each other, agree enthusiastically with this plan.


title: Götterdämmerung

text: Siegfried lands near the Gibichung Hall with his boat, seeking to meet Gunther, of whose fame he has heard during his journey (""Heil, Siegfried, theurer Held!""). Gunther extends hospitality to the hero, and Gutrune offers him the potion. Unaware of deception, Siegfried toasts Brünnhilde and their mutual love and drinks. In a while he loses his memory of her and is struck by desire for Gutrune. Drugged, Siegfried then offers to win a wife for Gunther, who tells him about Brünnhilde and the magic fire, which only a fearless person can cross. They swear blood-brotherhood, mixing their blood in a drinking horn (""Blühenden Lebens labendes Blut""). Hagen holds the horn but does not join in the oath, and the two new brothers then leave for Brünnhilde's rock. Hagen, left on guard duty, gloats that his so-called masters are unwittingly bringing the ring to him (""Hier sitz ich zur Wacht"" - "Hagens Wacht" - "Hagen's Watch").


title: Götterdämmerung

text: Meanwhile, Brünnhilde is visited on her rock by her Valkyrie sister Waltraute, who recounts that Wotan returned from his wanderings with his spear shattered. The spear was the symbol of the god's authority and the source and instrument of his power, carved with all the treaties through which he ruled. Unable to influence events any more, he has ordered branches of the World tree to be piled around Walhalla by its heroes and waits in resignation for his ravens to bring him news about the ring (""Höre mit Sinn, was ich dir sage!"" - "Waltraute's Monologue"). Waltraute begs Brünnhilde to return the ring to the Rhinemaidens, but Brünnhilde refuses to relinquish Siegfried's pledge of love, and Waltraute rides away in despair.


title: Götterdämmerung

text: Crossing the ring of fire, Siegfried arrives disguised as Gunther by using the Tarnhelm and claims Brünnhilde for his wife (""Brünnhild', ein Freier kam""). Though Brünnhilde, terrified by the appearance of an unknown man, tries to resist him, without the divine powers she has earlier renounced for love's sake she has now nothing with which to defend herself but the ring, which Siegfried manages to snatch cruelly from her hand during a fight, putting it afterwards on his own hand instead. He then spends the night with Brünnhilde on her rock, placing the magic sword Nothung between them as a witness to his loyalty to Gunther and his keeping the promise to bring Brünnhilde untouched (""Nun Nothung, zeuge du"").


title: Götterdämmerung

text: As Hagen sits sleeping on night watch, his father Alberich appears and urges him to obtain the ring (""Schläfst du, Hagen, mein Sohn?""). Hagen, barely conscious, swears to do so and Alberich vanishes with pleas for Hagen to remain loyal to him.


title: Götterdämmerung

text: Siegfried arrives at dawn via Tarnhelm-magic back to the settlement of the Gibichungs, having resumed his natural form and left Brünnhilde on a boat on the Rhine with Gunther. He explains to Gutrune how he managed to change his form back from Gunther's just in time for Brünnhilde to not be able to recognize the deceit.


title: Götterdämmerung

text: Hagen summons the Gibichung vassals to welcome Gunther and his bride ("Hagens Ruf" - "Hagen's Call"). He does this by sounding the war-alarm. The vassals are surprised to learn that the occasion is not battle, but their master's wedding and party. Hagen announces that Gunther has won himself a wife and orders them to slay sacrificial animals so that gods may grant a happy marriage. The vassals are then told to defend their new queen's honour if someone were to wrong her.


title: Götterdämmerung

text: Gunther lands on the Rhine's shore in front of Siegfried, Gutrune, Hagen, and the assembled Gibichung men and women and leads in a downcast Brünnhilde as his trophy. With false pomp he then triumphantly announces a double wedding: Brünnhilde to himself, and Gutrune to Siegfried (""Brünnhild', die hehrste Frau""). Brünnhilde almost faints in despair as she now sees her beloved, who doesn't even recognize her, with a different woman. However, she notices the ring on Siegfried's hand, and realizes she has been betrayed (""Betrug! Betrug! Schändlichster Betrug!""). Declaring publicly that the man who conquered her and took the ring was not Gunther but Siegfried in disguise she exposes Gunther as an impostor who tried to increase his own prestige through the deeds of someone else. Filled with unquenchable desperate rage she also denounces Siegfried and falsely accuses him of having an intercourse with her while in Gunther's form, thus breaking his blood-brotherhood with Gunther. Siegfried denies Brünnhilde's charge, but the vassals urge him to prove his innocence by taking an oath. Hagen offers his spear as the weapon by which Siegfried can do so. Siegfried agrees and swears upon Hagen's spear-point that he may be killed with it if he has ever loved Brünnhilde (""Helle Wehr, heilige Waffe!""). She also seizes the spear and swears that Siegfried may be killed with it for swearing the false oath. Once again Hagen supervises silently as others take oaths to his advantage. The naively light-hearted Siegfried, wishing for his wedding day to be joyful, then leads Gutrune and the bystanders exuberantly off to the wedding feast, as if nothing too significant has happened.


title: Götterdämmerung

text: Brünnhilde, Hagen, and Gunther do not join the celebration and stay alone by the shore. Deeply shamed by Brünnhilde's outburst in front of his subjects and thus threatened in his authority, Gunther agrees to Hagen's suggestion that Siegfried must be killed in order for Gunther to regain his standing. Indeed, to see Siegfried die is Gunther's duty, since the hero has apparently broken the sacred bond of blood-brotherhood during the night on the rock with Brünnhilde, which betrayal condemns him by law to the rightful punishment of death. Brünnhilde, seeking revenge for Siegfried's manifest treachery, joins the plot and tells Hagen that Siegfried would be vulnerable only to a stab in the back. Hagen and Gunther decide to lure Siegfried on a hunting-trip and murder him. They sing a trio in which Brünnhilde and Gunther vow in the name of Wotan, "guardian of oaths", to kill Siegfried, while Hagen repeats his pledge to Alberich: to acquire the ring and rule the world through its power ("Rache-Terzett" - "Vengeance Trio").


title: Götterdämmerung

text: In the woods by the bank of the Rhine, the Rhinemaidens swim playfully and sing a song to the Sun, mourning their lost Rhine gold (""Frau Sonne sendet lichte Strahlen""). Siegfried happens by, separated from the hunting party while searching for prey. The Rhinemaidens urge him to return the ring to the Rhine and thus avoid its curse, but he laughs at them in heroic pride and says he prefers to die rather than bargain for his life. They swim away, predicting that Siegfried will die this very day and that his heir, a lady, will treat them more fairly.


title: Götterdämmerung

text: Siegfried rejoins the hunters, who include Gunther and Hagen. While resting, he sings them in high spirits a hero's song about the adventures of his youth (""Mime hieß ein mürrischer Zwerg""), recounting his life with Mime, the forging of Nothung, slaying the dragon Fafner and understanding the language of birds. Hagen gives him another potion, which restores his memory, and Siegfried tells of discovering the sleeping Brünnhilde and awakening her with a kiss. Upon hearing this, now having the apparent evidence of Siegfried's betrayal of the blood-brotherhood in front of Gunther and his men, Hagen stabs Siegfried in the back with his spear, declares that he had avenged perjury and calmly walks away. In his final agony Siegfried recollects the awakening of Brünnhilde and his love for her and with the memory of blessed fear the feeling for Brünnhilde had taught him, seeing her giving him greetings in a vision, dies (""Brünnhilde! Heilige Braut!""). His body is carried away in a solemn funeral procession that forms the interlude as the scene is changed and recapitulates many of the themes associated with Siegfried and the Wälsungs.


title: Götterdämmerung

text: Back in the Gibichung Hall, Gutrune awaits Siegfried's return. Hagen arrives ahead of the funeral party. Gutrune is devastated when Siegfried's corpse is brought in. Confronted with his sister's pain, Gunther blames Siegfried's death on Hagen, who replies that Siegfried had incurred the penalty of his false oath. Moreover, he claims the ring on Siegfried's finger by right of conquest. When Gunther objects, Hagen appeals to the vassals to support his lawful claim. Gunther draws his sword but Hagen attacks and easily kills him. As he moves to take the ring, however, Siegfried's hand rises miraculously in a threatening gesture. Hagen as well as all present recoil in utmost fear.


title: Götterdämmerung

text: Brünnhilde, with her features as if transfigured, suddenly makes her entrance (""Schweigt eures Jammers jauchzenden Schwall!""), having in the meantime met on the river's shores the daughters of the Rhine, who talked to her about the ring and its curse. She proclaims Siegfried innocent, as she now recognizes that he betrayed her only due to an intrigue, and declares that Siegfried's betrayal and death were necessary for her to become all-knowing and completely free. As the queen of the Gibichungs she issues orders for a huge funeral pyre for the dead hero to be assembled by the river (""Starke Scheite schichtet mir dort"") and takes from Siegfried's hand the ring; the Rhinemaidens are to claim it from her own ashes after fire has cleansed it of its curse (""Mein Erbe nun nehm' ich zu eigen""). Lighting the pyre with a firebrand, she then sends Wotan's ravens home with "anxiously longed-for tidings" and tells them to command Loge, the god of fire that still burns on her rock, to fly to Walhalla and set it on fire (""Fliegt heim, ihr Raben!""). After an apostrophe to the dead hero, Brünnhilde, willing to be reunited with her love, mounts her horse Grane and rides into the flames, joining Siegfried in death.


title: Götterdämmerung

text: A sequence of leitmotifs portray the fire flaring up, and the hall of the Gibichungs catching fire and collapsing. The Rhine overflows its banks, quenching the flames, and the Rhinemaidens swim in to claim the ring. Hagen in a frenzy tries at the last moment to stop them and seize the ring for himself, but they drag him into the depths and drown him (""Zurück vom Ring!""), the theme of the curse being then heard for the last time. As they celebrate the return of the ring to their river and the breaking of its curse, a red glow spreads through the sky. The surviving Gibichungs now see the interior of Walhalla with gods and heroes visible as described by Waltraute in Act I, Scene 3. A new fire flares up around the Hall of the Gods, hiding it from sight; the gods are consumed in flames and the curtain falls. At the very end of the work there emerges the sound of the "Liebeserlösung" motive - the redemption-through-love leitmotif.


title: Götterdämmerung

text: Two extended orchestral selections— "Dawn and Siegfried's Rhine Journey", an abridged excerpt from the Prologue without the singers; and "Siegfried's Funeral March", lifted uncut from Act III — are often presented outside the opera house, and are published separately from the lengthy work. Early versions of these selections were approved by Wagner. These excerpts include specially composed endings so that the excerpt is better able to stand on its own as a complete composition.


title: Götterdämmerung

text: According to Albert Speer, the Berlin Philharmonic's last performance before their evacuation from Berlin at the end of World War II in Europe was of Brünnhilde's Immolation Scene at the end of the opera.


title: Götterdämmerung

text: Robert A. Hall, Jr. has analysed the opera in terms of cultural symbolism. Hermann Danuser has discussed the dramaturgy of the ending of "Götterdämmerung" in the context of the entire "Ring" cycle. William Kinderman has evaluated a large-scale instance of musical recapitulation in Act III of the opera. Warren J. Darcy has expostulated on the potential influence of Wagner's readings of the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer on the music of the "Ring" cycle, particularly on the ending of "Götterdämmerung".


title: Götterdämmerung

text: The historian John Roberts suggested that the killing of Siegfried by Hagen with a stab in the back gave inspiration for the myth that the German Army did not lose World War I, but was instead defeated by a treasonous "stab in the back" from civilians, in particular Jews and Socialists.


title: Götterdämmerung

text: The German bass Kurt Moll pointed out that the part of the principal villain, Hagen, is unique in the bass repertoire: it requires a shouting, blaring vocal technique that risks damaging the singer's voice; only very large-voiced, powerful singers can sing it. Moll himself avoided the role.


title: Götterdämmerung

text: Friedrich Nietzsche's 1888–1889 book, "Götzendämmerung"—Twilight of the Idols—is a pun on the title of "Götterdämmerung", with "Götze" being the German word for "idol" or "false god".


title: Cartography

text: Cartography (; from , "papyrus, sheet of paper, map"; and , "write") is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an imagined reality) can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.


title: Cartography

text: Modern cartography constitutes many theoretical and practical foundations of geographic information systems (GIS) and geographic information science (GISc).


title: Cartography

text: What is the earliest known map is a matter of some debate, both because the term "map" is not well-defined and because some artifacts that might be maps might actually be something else. A wall painting that might depict the ancient Anatolian city of Çatalhöyük (previously known as Catal Huyuk or Çatal Hüyük) has been dated to the late 7th millennium BCE. Among the prehistoric alpine rock carvings of Mount Bego (France) and Valcamonica (Italy), dated to the 4th millennium BCE, geometric patterns consisting of dotted rectangles and lines are widely interpreted in archaeological literature as a depiction of cultivated plots. Other known maps of the ancient world include the Minoan "House of the Admiral" wall painting from c. 1600 BCE, showing a seaside community in an oblique perspective, and an engraved map of the holy Babylonian city of Nippur, from the Kassite period (14th12th centuries BCE). The oldest surviving world maps are from 9th century BCE Babylonia. One shows Babylon on the Euphrates, surrounded by Assyria, Urartu and several cities, all, in turn, surrounded by a "bitter river" (Oceanus). Another depicts Babylon as being north of the center of the world.


title: Cartography

text: The ancient Greeks and Romans created maps from the time of Anaximander in the 6th century BCE. In the 2nd century CE, Ptolemy wrote his treatise on cartography, Geographia. This contained Ptolemy's world map – the world then known to Western society "(Ecumene)". As early as the 8th century, Arab scholars were translating the works of the Greek geographers into Arabic.


title: Cartography

text: In ancient China, geographical literature dates to the 5th century BCE. The oldest extant Chinese maps come from the State of Qin, dated back to the 4th century BCE, during the Warring States period. In the book of the "Xin Yi Xiang Fa Yao", published in 1092 by the Chinese scientist Su Song, a star map on the equidistant cylindrical projection. Although this method of charting seems to have existed in China even before this publication and scientist, the greatest significance of the star maps by Su Song is that they represent the oldest existent star maps in printed form.


title: Cartography

text: Early forms of cartography of India included depictions of the pole star and surrounding constellations. These charts may have been used for navigation.


title: Cartography

text: ("maps of the world") are the medieval European maps of the world. About 1,100 of these are known to have survived: of these, some 900 are found illustrating manuscripts and the remainder exist as stand-alone documents.


title: Cartography

text: The Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi produced his medieval atlas "Tabula Rogeriana (Book of Roger)" in 1154. By combining the knowledge of Africa, the Indian Ocean, Europe, and the Far East (which he learned through contemporary accounts from Arab merchants and explorers) with the information he inherited from the classical geographers, he was able to write detailed descriptions of a multitude of countries. Along with the substantial text he had written, he created a world map influenced mostly by the Ptolemaic conception of the world, but with significant influence from multiple Arab geographers. It remained the most accurate world map for the next three centuries. The map was divided into seven climatic zones, with detailed descriptions of each zone. As part of this work, a smaller, circular map was made depicting the south on top and Arabia in the center. Al-Idrisi also made an estimate of the circumference of the world, accurate to within 10%.


title: Cartography

text: In the Age of Exploration, from the 15th century to the 17th century, European cartographers both copied earlier maps (some of which had been passed down for centuries) and drew their own, based on explorers' observations and new surveying techniques. The invention of the magnetic compass, telescope and sextant enabled increasing accuracy. In 1492, Martin Behaim, a German cartographer, made the oldest extant globe of the Earth.


title: Cartography

text: In 1507, Martin Waldseemüller produced a globular world map and a large 12-panel world wall map ("Universalis Cosmographia") bearing the first use of the name "America". Portuguese cartographer Diego Ribero was the author of the first known planisphere with a graduated Equator (1527). Italian cartographer Battista Agnese produced at least 71 manuscript atlases of sea charts. Johannes Werner refined and promoted the Werner projection. This was an equal-area, heart-shaped world map projection (generally called a cordiform projection) which was used in the 16th and 17th centuries. Over time, other iterations of this map type arose; most notable are the sinusoidal projection and the Bonne projection. The Werner projection places its standard parallel at the North Pole; a sinusoidal projection places its standard parallel at the equator; and the Bonne projection is intermediate between the two.


title: Cartography

text: In 1569, mapmaker Gerardus Mercator first published a map based on his Mercator projection, which uses equally-spaced parallel vertical lines of longitude and parallel latitude lines spaced farther apart as they get farther away from the equator. By this construction, courses of constant bearing are conveniently represented as straight lines for navigation. The same property limits its value as a general-purpose world map because regions are shown as increasingly larger than they actually are the further from the equator they are. Mercator is also credited as the first to use the word "atlas" to describe a collection of maps. In the later years of his life, Mercator resolved to create his Atlas, a book filled with many maps of different regions of the world, as well as a chronological history of the world from the Earth's creation by God until 1568. He was unable to complete it to his satisfaction before he died. Still, some additions were made to the Atlas after his death and new editions were published after his death.


title: Cartography

text: In the Renaissance, maps were used to impress viewers and establish the owner's reputation as sophisticated, educated, and worldly. Because of this, towards the end of the Renaissance, maps were displayed with equal importance of painting, sculptures, and other pieces of art. In the sixteenth century, maps were becoming increasingly available to consumers through the introduction of printmaking, with about 10% of Venetian homes having some sort of map by the late 1500s.


title: Cartography

text: In medieval times, written directions of how to get somewhere were more common than the use of maps. With the Renaissance, cartography began to be seen as a metaphor for power. Political leaders could lay claim on territories through the use of maps and this was greatly aided by the religious and colonial expansion of Europe. The most commonly mapped places during the Renaissance were the Holy Land and other religious places.


title: Cartography

text: In the late 1400s to the late 1500s, Rome, Florence, and Venice dominated map making and trade. It started in Florence in the mid to late 1400s. Map trade quickly shifted to Rome and Venice but then was overtaken by atlas makers in the late 16th century. Map publishing in Venice was completed with humanities and book publishing in mind, rather than just informational use.


title: Cartography

text: There were two main printmaking technologies in the Renaissance: woodcut and copper-plate intaglio, referring to the medium used to transfer the image onto paper.


title: Cartography

text: In woodcut, the map image is created as a relief chiseled from medium-grain hardwood. The areas intended to be printed are inked and pressed against the sheet. Being raised from the rest of the block, the map lines cause indentations in the paper that can often be felt on the back of the map. There are advantages to using relief to make maps. For one, a printmaker doesn't need a press because the maps could be developed as rubbings. Woodblock is durable enough to be used many times before defects appear. Existing printing presses can be used to create the prints rather than having to create a new one. On the other hand, it is hard to achieve fine detail with the relief technique. Inconsistencies in linework are more apparent in woodcut than in intaglio. To improve quality in the late fifteenth century, a style of relief craftsmanship developed using fine chisels to carve the wood, rather than the more commonly used knife.


title: Cartography

text: In intaglio, lines are engraved into workable metals, typically copper but sometimes brass. The engraver spreads a thin sheet of wax over the metal plate and uses ink to draw the details. Then, the engraver traces the lines with a stylus to etch them into the plate beneath. The engraver can also use styli to prick holes along the drawn lines, trace along them with colored chalk, and then engrave the map. Lines going in the same direction are carved at the same time, and then the plate is turned to carve lines going in a different direction. To print from the finished plate, ink is spread over the metal surface and scraped off such that it remains only in the etched channels. Then the plate is pressed forcibly against the paper so that the ink in the channels is transferred to the paper. The pressing is so forceful that it leaves a "plate mark" around the border of the map at the edge of the plate, within which the paper is depressed compared to the margins. Copper and other metals were expensive at the time, so the plate was often reused for new maps or melted down for other purposes.


title: Cartography

text: Whether woodcut or intaglio, the printed map is hung out to dry. Once dry, it is usually placed in another press to flatten the paper. Any type of paper that was available at the time could be used to print the map on, but thicker paper was more durable.


title: Cartography

text: Lettering in mapmaking is important for denoting information. Fine lettering is difficult in woodcut, where it often turned out square and blocky, contrary to the stylized, rounded writing style popular in Italy at the time. To improve quality, mapmakers developed fine chisels to carve the relief. Intaglio lettering did not suffer the troubles of a coarse medium and so was able to express the looping cursive that came to be known as cancellaresca. There were custom-made reverse punches that were also used in metal engraving alongside freehand lettering.


title: Cartography

text: The first use of color in map-making cannot be narrowed down to one reason. There are arguments that color started as a way to indicate information on the map, with aesthetics coming second. There are also arguments that color was first used on maps for aesthetics but then evolved into conveying information. Either way, many maps of the Renaissance left the publisher without being colored, a practice that continued all the way into the 1800s. However, most publishers accepted orders from their patrons to have their maps or atlases colored if they wished. Because all coloring was done by hand, the patron could request simple, cheap color, or more expensive, elaborate color, even going so far as silver or gold gilding. The simplest coloring was merely outlines, such as of borders and along rivers. Wash color meant painting regions with inks or watercolors. Limning meant adding silver and gold leaf to the map to illuminate lettering, heraldic arms, or other decorative elements.


title: Cartography

text: The Early Modern Period saw the convergence of cartographical techniques across Eurasia and the exchange of mercantile mapping techniques via the Indian Ocean.


title: Cartography

text: In the early seventeenth century, the Selden map was created by a Chinese cartographer. Historians have put its date of creation around 1620, but there is debate in this regard. This map's significance draws from historical misconceptions of East Asian cartography, the main one being that East Asians didn't do cartography until Europeans arrived. The map's depiction of trading routes, a compass rose, and scale bar points to the culmination of many map-making techniques incorporated into Chinese mercantile cartography.


title: Cartography

text: In 1689, representatives of the Russian tsar and Qing Dynasty met near the border town of Nerchinsk, which was near the disputed border of the two powers, in eastern Siberia. The two parties, with the Qing negotiation party bringing Jesuits as intermediaries, managed to work a treaty which placed the Amur River as the border between the Eurasian powers, and opened up trading relations between the two. This treaty's significance draws from the interaction between the two sides, and the intermediaries who were drawn from a wide variety of nationalities.


title: Cartography

text: Maps of the Enlightenment period practically universally used copper plate intaglio, having abandoned the fragile, coarse woodcut technology. Use of map projections evolved, with the double hemisphere being very common and Mercator's prestigious navigational projection gradually making more appearances.


title: Cartography

text: Due to the paucity of information and the immense difficulty of surveying during the period, mapmakers frequently plagiarized material without giving credit to the original cartographer. For example, a famous map of North America known as the "Beaver Map" was published in 1715 by Herman Moll. This map is a close reproduction of a 1698 work by Nicolas de Fer. De Fer, in turn, had copied images that were first printed in books by Louis Hennepin, published in 1697, and François Du Creux, in 1664. By the late 18th century, mapmakers often credited the original publisher with something along the lines of, "After [the original cartographer]" in the map's title or cartouche.


title: Cartography

text: In cartography, technology has continually changed in order to meet the demands of new generations of mapmakers and map users. The first maps were produced manually, with brushes and parchment; so they varied in quality and were limited in distribution. The advent of magnetic devices, such as the compass and much later, magnetic storage devices, allowed for the creation of far more accurate maps and the ability to store and manipulate them digitally.


title: Cartography

text: Advances in mechanical devices such as the printing press, quadrant, and vernier allowed the mass production of maps and the creation of accurate reproductions from more accurate data. Hartmann Schedel was one of the first cartographers to use the printing press to make maps more widely available. Optical technology, such as the telescope, sextant, and other devices that use telescopes, allowed accurate land surveys and allowed mapmakers and navigators to find their latitude by measuring angles to the North Star at night or the Sun at noon.


title: Cartography

text: Advances in photochemical technology, such as the lithographic and photochemical processes, make possible maps with fine details, which do not distort in shape and which resist moisture and wear. This also eliminated the need for engraving, which further speeded up map production.


title: Cartography

text: In the 20th century, aerial photography, satellite imagery, and remote sensing provided efficient, precise methods for mapping physical features, such as coastlines, roads, buildings, watersheds, and topography. The United States Geological Survey has devised multiple new map projections, notably the Space Oblique Mercator for interpreting satellite ground tracks for mapping the surface. The use of satellites and space telescopes now allows researchers to map other planets and moons in outer space. Advances in electronic technology ushered in another revolution in cartography: ready availability of computers and peripherals such as monitors, plotters, printers, scanners (remote and document) and analytic stereo plotters, along with computer programs for visualization, image processing, spatial analysis, and database management, have democratized and greatly expanded the making of maps. The ability to superimpose spatially located variables onto existing maps has created new uses for maps and new industries to explore and exploit these potentials. See also digital raster graphic.


title: Cartography

text: In the early years of the new millennium, three key technological advances transformed cartography: the removal of Selective Availability in the Global Positioning System (GPS) in May 2000, which improved locational accuracy for consumer-grade GPS receivers to within a few metres; the invention of OpenStreetMap in 2004, a global digital counter-map that allowed anyone to contribute and use new spatial data without complex licensing agreements; and the launch of Google Earth in 2005 as a development of the virtual globe EarthViewer 3D (2004), which revolutionised access to satellite and aerial imagery. These advances brought more accuracy to geographical and location-based data and widened the range of applications for cartography, for example in the development of satnav devices.


title: Cartography

text: Today most commercial-quality maps are made using software of three main types: CAD, GIS and specialized illustration software. Spatial information can be stored in a database, from which it can be extracted on demand. These tools lead to increasingly dynamic, interactive maps that can be manipulated digitally.


title: Cartography

text: Field-rugged computers, GPS, and laser rangefinders make it possible to create maps directly from measurements made on site.


title: Cartography

text: There are technical and cultural aspects to producing maps. In this sense, maps can sometimes be said to be biased. The study of bias, influence, and agenda in making a map is what comprise a map's deconstruction. A central tenet of deconstructionism is that maps have power. Other assertions are that maps are inherently biased and that we search for metaphor and rhetoric in maps.


title: Cartography

text: It is claimed that the Europeans promoted an "epistemological" understanding of the map as early as the 17th century. An example of this understanding is that "[European reproduction of terrain on maps] reality can be expressed in mathematical terms; that systematic observation and measurement offer the only route to cartographic truth…".


title: Cartography

text: A common belief is that science heads in a direction of progress, and thus leads to more accurate representations of maps. In this belief European maps must be superior to others, which necessarily employed different map-making skills. "There was a 'not cartography' land where lurked an army of inaccurate, heretical, subjective, valuative, and ideologically distorted images. Cartographers developed a 'sense of the other' in relation to nonconforming maps."


title: Cartography

text: Depictions of Africa are a common target of deconstructionism. According to deconstructionist models, cartography was used for strategic purposes associated with imperialism and as instruments and representations of power during the conquest of Africa. The depiction of Africa and the low latitudes in general on the Mercator projection has been interpreted as imperialistic and as symbolic of subjugation due to the diminished proportions of those regions compared to higher latitudes where the European powers were concentrated.


title: Cartography

text: Maps furthered imperialism and colonization of Africa in practical ways by showing basic information like roads, terrain, natural resources, settlements, and communities. Through this, maps made European commerce in Africa possible by showing potential commercial routes and made natural resource extraction possible by depicting locations of resources. Such maps also enabled military conquests and made them more efficient, and imperial nations further used them to put their conquests on display. These same maps were then used to cement territorial claims, such as at the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885.


title: Cartography

text: Before 1749, maps of the African continent had African kingdoms drawn with assumed or contrived boundaries, with unknown or unexplored areas having drawings of animals, imaginary physical geographic features, and descriptive texts. In 1748, Jean B. B. d'Anville created the first map of the African continent that had blank spaces to represent the unknown territory.


title: Cartography

text: In understanding basic maps, the field of cartography can be divided into two general categories: general cartography and thematic cartography. General cartography involves those maps that are constructed for a general audience and thus contain a variety of features. General maps exhibit many reference and location systems and often are produced in a series. For example, the 1:24,000 scale topographic maps of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) are a standard as compared to the 1:50,000 scale Canadian maps. The government of the UK produces the classic 1:50,000 (replacing the older 1 inch to 1 mile) "Ordnance Survey" maps of the entire UK and with a range of correlated larger- and smaller-scale maps of great detail. Many private mapping companies have also produced thematic map series.


title: Cartography

text: Thematic cartography involves maps of specific geographic themes, oriented toward specific audiences. A couple of examples might be a dot map showing corn production in Indiana or a shaded area map of Ohio counties, divided into numerical choropleth classes. As the volume of geographic data has exploded over the last century, thematic cartography has become increasingly useful and necessary to interpret spatial, cultural and social data.


title: Cartography

text: A third type of map is known as an "orienteering," or special purpose map. This type of map falls somewhere between thematic and general maps. They combine general map elements with thematic attributes in order to design a map with a specific audience in mind. Oftentimes, the type of audience an orienteering map is made for is in a particular industry or occupation. An example of this kind of map would be a municipal utility map.


title: Cartography

text: A topographic map is primarily concerned with the topographic description of a place, including (especially in the 20th and 21st centuries) the use of contour lines showing elevation. Terrain or relief can be shown in a variety of ways (see Cartographic relief depiction). In the present era, one of the most widespread and advanced methods used to form topographic maps is to use computer software to generate digital elevation models which show shaded relief. Before such software existed, cartographers had to draw shaded relief by hand. One cartographer who is respected as a master of hand-drawn shaded relief is the Swiss professor Eduard Imhof whose efforts in hill shading were so influential that his method became used around the world despite it being so labor-intensive.


title: Cartography

text: A topological map is a very general type of map, the kind one might sketch on a napkin. It often disregards scale and detail in the interest of clarity of communicating specific route or relational information. Beck's London Underground map is an iconic example. Although the most widely used map of "The Tube," it preserves little of reality: it varies scale constantly and abruptly, it straightens curved tracks, and it contorts directions. The only topography on it is the River Thames, letting the reader know whether a station is north or south of the river. That and the topology of station order and interchanges between train lines are all that is left of the geographic space. Yet those are all a typical passenger wishes to know, so the map fulfills its purpose.


title: Cartography

text: Modern technology, including advances in printing, the advent of Geographic information systems and Graphics software, and the Internet, has vastly simplified the process of map creation and increased the palette of design options available to cartographers. This has led to a decreased focus on production skill, and an increased focus on quality design, the attempt to craft maps that are both aesthetically pleasing and practically useful for their intended purposes.


title: Cartography

text: A map has a purpose and an audience. Its purpose may be as broad as teaching the major physical and political features of the entire world, or as narrow as convincing a neighbor to move a fence. The audience may be as broad as the general public or as narrow as a single person. Mapmakers use design principles to guide them in constructing a map that is effective for its purpose and audience.


title: Cartography

text: The cartographic process spans many stages, starting from conceiving the need for a map and extending all the way through its consumption by an audience. Conception begins with a real or imagined environment. As the cartographer gathers information about the subject, they consider how that information is structured and how that structure should inform the map's design. Next, the cartographers experiment with generalization, symbolization, typography, and other map elements to find ways to portray the information so that the map reader can interpret the map as intended. Guided by these experiments, the cartographer settles on a design and creates the map, whether in physical or electronic form. Once finished, the map is delivered to its audience. The map reader interprets the symbols and patterns on the map to draw conclusions and perhaps to take action. By the spatial perspectives they provide, maps help shape how we view the world.


title: Cartography

text: Designing a map involves bringing together a number of elements and making a large number of decisions. The elements of design fall into several broad topics, each of which has its own theory, its own research agenda, and its own best practices. That said, there are synergistic effects between these elements, meaning that the overall design process is not just working on each element one at a time, but an iterative feedback process of adjusting each to achieve the desired gestalt.


title: Cartography

text: Some maps contain deliberate errors or distortions, either as propaganda or as a "watermark" to help the copyright owner identify infringement if the error appears in competitors' maps. The latter often come in the form of nonexistent, misnamed, or misspelled "trap streets". Other names and forms for this are paper towns, fictitious entries, and copyright easter eggs.


title: Cartography

text: Another motive for deliberate errors is cartographic "vandalism": a mapmaker wishing to leave their mark on the work. Mount Richard, for example, was a fictitious peak on the Rocky Mountains' continental divide that appeared on a Boulder County, Colorado map in the early 1970s. It is believed to be the work of draftsman Richard Ciacci. The fiction was not discovered until two years later.


title: Cartography

text: Sandy Island in New Caledonia is an example of a fictitious location that stubbornly survives, reappearing on new maps copied from older maps while being deleted from other new editions.


title: Cartography

text: With the emergence of the internet and Web mapping, technologies allow for the creation and distribution of maps by people without proper cartographic training are readily available. This has led to maps that ignore cartographic conventions and are potentially misleading.


title: Why did the chicken cross the road?

text: "Why did the chicken cross the road?" is a common riddle joke with the answer being, "To get to the other side." It is commonly seen as an example of anti-humor, in that the curious setup of the joke leads the listener to expect a traditional punchline, but they are instead given a simple statement of fact. The joke has become iconic as an exemplary generic joke to which most people know the answer, and has been repeated and changed numerous times over the course of history.


title: Why did the chicken cross the road?

text: There are 'quips and quillets' which "seem" actual conundrums, but yet are none. Of such is this: 'Why does a chicken cross the street?['] Are you 'out of town?' Do you 'give it up?' Well, then: 'Because it wants to get on the other side!'


title: Why did the chicken cross the road?

text: According to music critic Gary Giddins in the Ken Burns documentary "Jazz", the joke was spread through the United States by minstrel shows beginning in the 1840s as one of the first national jokes.


title: Why did the chicken cross the road?

text: There are many riddles that assume a familiarity with this well-known riddle and its answer. For example, an alternate punchline can be used for the riddle, such as "it was too far to walk around". One class of variations enlists a creature other than the chicken to cross the road, in order to refer back to the original riddle. For example, a duck (or turkey) crosses "because it was the chicken's day off," and a dinosaur crosses "because chickens didn't exist yet." Some variants are both puns and references to the original, such as "Why did the duck cross the road?" "To prove he's no chicken".


title: Why did the chicken cross the road?

text: "Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the idiot's house. ...Knock-knock." ("Who's there?") "The chicken."


title: The Faerie Queene

text: The Faerie Queene is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. Books IIII were first published in 1590, then republished in 1596 together with books IVVI. "The Faerie Queene" is notable for its form: at over 36,000 lines and over 4,000 stanzas it is one of the longest poems in the English language; it is also the work in which Spenser invented the verse form known as the Spenserian stanza. On a literal level, the poem follows several knights as a means to examine different virtues, and though the text is primarily an allegorical work, it can be read on several levels of allegory, including as praise (or, later, criticism) of Queen Elizabeth I. In Spenser's "Letter of the Authors", he states that the entire epic poem is "cloudily enwrapped in Allegorical devices", and that the aim of publishing "The Faerie Queene" was to "fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline".


title: The Faerie Queene

text: Spenser presented the first three books of "The Faerie Queene" to Elizabeth I in 1589, probably sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh. The poem was a clear effort to gain court favour, and as a reward Elizabeth granted Spenser a pension for life amounting to £50 a year, though there is no further evidence that Elizabeth I ever read any of the poem. This royal patronage elevated the poem to a level of success that made it Spenser's defining work.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: Book I is centred on the virtue of holiness as embodied in the Redcrosse Knight. Largely self-contained, Book I can be understood to be its own miniature epic. The Redcrosse Knight and his lady Una travel together as he fights the monster Errour, then separately after the wizard Archimago tricks the Redcrosse Knight into thinking that Una is unchaste using a false dream. After he leaves, the Redcrosse Knight meets Duessa, who feigns distress in order to entrap him. Duessa leads the Redcrosse Knight to captivity by the giant Orgoglio. Meanwhile, Una overcomes peril, meets Arthur, and finally finds the Redcrosse Knight and rescues him from his capture, from Duessa, and from Despair. Una and Arthur help the Redcrosse Knight recover in the House of Holiness, with the House's ruler Caelia and her three daughters joining them; there the Redcrosse Knight sees a vision of his future. He then returns Una to her parents' castle and rescues them from a dragon, and the two are betrothed after resisting Archimago one last time.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: Book II is centred on the virtue of Temperance as embodied in Sir Guyon, who is tempted by the fleeing Archimago into nearly attacking the Redcrosse Knight. Guyon discovers a woman killing herself out of grief for having her lover tempted and bewitched by the witch Acrasia and killed. Guyon swears a vow to avenge them and protect their child. Guyon on his quest starts and stops fighting several evil, rash, or tricked knights and meets Arthur. Finally, they come to Acrasia's Island and the Bower of Bliss, where Guyon resists temptations to violence, idleness, and lust. Guyon captures Acrasia in a net, destroys the Bower, and rescues those imprisoned there.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: Book III is centred on the virtue of Chastity as embodied in Britomart, a lady knight. Resting after the events of Book II, Guyon and Arthur meet Britomart, who wins a joust with Guyon. They separate as Arthur and Guyon leave to rescue Florimell, while Britomart rescues the Redcrosse Knight. Britomart reveals to the Redcrosse Knight that she is pursuing Sir Artegall because she is destined to marry him. The Redcrosse Knight defends Artegall and they meet Merlin, who explains more carefully Britomart's destiny to found the English monarchy. Britomart leaves and fights Sir Marinell. Arthur looks for Florimell, joined later by Sir Satyrane and Britomart, and they witness and resist sexual temptation. Britomart separates from them and meets Sir Scudamore, looking for his captured lady Amoret. Britomart alone is able to rescue Amoret from the wizard Busirane. Unfortunately, when they emerge from the castle Scudamore is gone. (The 1590 version with Books I–III depicts the lovers' happy reunion, but this was changed in the 1596 version which contained all six books.)


title: The Faerie Queene

text: Book IV, despite its title "The Legend of Cambell and Telamond or Of Friendship", Cambell's companion in Book IV is actually named Triamond, and the plot does not center on their friendship; the two men appear only briefly in the story. The book is largely a continuation of events begun in Book III. First, Scudamore is convinced by the hag Ate (discord) that Britomart has run off with Amoret and becomes jealous. A three-day tournament is then held by Satyrane, where Britomart beats Arthegal (both in disguise). Scudamore and Arthegal unite against Britomart, but when her helmet comes off in battle Arthegal falls in love with her. He surrenders, removes his helmet, and Britomart recognizes him as the man in the enchanted mirror. Arthegal pledges his love to her but must first leave and complete his quest. Scudamore, upon discovering Britomart's sex, realizes his mistake and asks after his lady, but by this time Britomart has lost Amoret, and she and Scudamore embark together on a search for her. The reader discovers that Amoret was abducted by a savage man and is imprisoned in his cave. One day Amoret darts out past the savage and is rescued from him by the squire Timias and Belphoebe. Arthur then appears, offering his service as a knight to the lost woman. She accepts, and after a couple of trials on the way, Arthur and Amoret finally happen across Scudamore and Britomart. The two lovers are reunited. Wrapping up a different plotline from Book III, the recently recovered Marinel discovers Florimell suffering in Proteus' dungeon. He returns home and becomes sick with love and pity. Eventually he confesses his feelings to his mother, and she pleads with Neptune to have the girl released, which the god grants.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: A letter written by Spenser to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1590 contains a preface for "The Faerie Queene", in which Spenser describes the allegorical presentation of virtues through Arthurian knights in the mythical "Faerieland". Presented as a preface to the epic in most published editions, this letter outlines plans for twenty-four books: twelve based each on a different knight who exemplified one of twelve "private virtues", and a possible twelve more centred on King Arthur displaying twelve "public virtues". Spenser names Aristotle as his source for these virtues, though the influences of Thomas Aquinas and the traditions of medieval allegory can be observed as well. It is impossible to predict how the work would have looked had Spenser lived to complete it, since the reliability of the predictions made in his letter to Raleigh is not absolute, as numerous divergences from that scheme emerged as early as 1590 in the first "Faerie Queene" publication.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: In addition to the six virtues Holiness, Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy, the Letter to Raleigh suggests that Arthur represents the virtue of Magnificence, which ("according to Aristotle and the rest") is "the perfection of all the rest, and containeth in it them all"; and that the Faerie Queene herself represents Glory (hence her name, Gloriana). The unfinished seventh book (the Cantos of Mutability) appears to have represented the virtue of "constancy."


title: The Faerie Queene

text: "The Faerie Queene" was written during the Reformation, a time of religious and political controversy. After taking the throne following the death of her half-sister Mary, Elizabeth changed the official religion of the nation to Protestantism. The plot of book one is similar to "Foxe's Book of Martyrs", which was about the persecution of the Protestants and how Catholic rule was unjust. Spenser includes the controversy of Elizabethan church reform within the epic. Gloriana has godly English knights destroy Catholic continental power in Books I and V. Spenser also endows many of his villains with "the worst of what Protestants considered a superstitious Catholic reliance on deceptive images".


title: The Faerie Queene

text: The poem celebrates, memorializes, and critiques the House of Tudor (of which Elizabeth was a part), much as Virgil's "Aeneid" celebrates Augustus's Rome. The "Aeneid" states that Augustus descended from the noble sons of Troy; similarly, "The Faerie Queene" suggests that the Tudor lineage can be connected to King Arthur. The poem is deeply allegorical and allusive; many prominent Elizabethans could have found themselves partially represented by one or more of Spenser's figures. Elizabeth herself is the most prominent example. She appears in the guise of Gloriana, the Faerie Queen, but also in Books III and IV as the virgin Belphoebe, daughter of Chrysogonee and twin to Amoret, the embodiment of womanly married love. Perhaps also, more critically, Elizabeth is seen in Book I as Lucifera, the "maiden queen" whose brightly lit Court of Pride masks a dungeon full of prisoners.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: The poem also displays Spenser's thorough familiarity with literary history. The world of "The Faerie Queene" is based on English Arthurian legend, but much of the language, spirit, and style of the piece draw more on Italian epic, particularly Ludovico Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso" and Torquato Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered".


title: The Faerie Queene

text: Book V of "The Faerie Queene", the Book of Justice, is Spenser's most direct discussion of political theory. In it, Spenser attempts to tackle the problem of policy toward Ireland and recreates the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: Some literary works sacrifice historical context to archetypal myth, reducing poetry to Biblical quests, whereas Spenser reinforces the actuality of his story by adhering to archetypal patterns. Throughout "The Faerie Queene," Spenser does not concentrate on a pattern "which transcends time" but "uses such a pattern to focus the meaning of the past on the present". By reflecting on the past, Spenser achieves ways of stressing the importance of Elizabeth's reign. In turn, he does not "convert event into myth" but "myth into event". Within "The Faerie Queene," Spenser blurs the distinction between archetypal and historical elements deliberately. For example, Spenser probably does not believe in the complete truth of the British Chronicle, which Arthur reads in the House of Alma. In this instance, the Chronicle serves as a poetical equivalent for factual history. Even so, poetical history of this kind is not myth; rather, it "consists of unique, if partially imaginary, events recorded in chronological order". The same distinction resurfaces in the political allegory of Books I and V. However, the reality to interpreted events becomes more apparent when the events occurred nearer to the time when the poem was written.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: Throughout "The Faerie Queene", Spenser creates "a network of allusions to events, issues, and particular persons in England and Ireland" including Mary, Queen of Scots, the Spanish Armada, the English Reformation, and even the Queen herself. It is also known that James VI of Scotland read the poem, and was very insulted by Duessa – a very negative depiction of his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots. "The Faerie Queene" was then banned in Scotland. This led to a significant decrease in Elizabeth's support for the poem. Within the text, both the Faerie Queene and Belphoebe serve as two of the many personifications of Queen Elizabeth, some of which are "far from complimentary".


title: The Faerie Queene

text: Though it praises her in some ways, "The Faerie Queene" questions Elizabeth's ability to rule so effectively because of her gender, and also inscribes the "shortcomings" of her rule. There is a character named Britomart who represents married chastity. This character is told that her destiny is to be an "immortal womb" – to have children. Here, Spenser is referring to Elizabeth's unmarried state and is touching on anxieties of the 1590s about what would happen after her death since the kingdom had no heir.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: "The Faerie Queene's" original audience would have been able to identify many of the poem's characters by analyzing the symbols and attributes that spot Spenser's text. For example, readers would immediately know that "a woman who wears scarlet clothes and resides along the Tiber River represents the Roman Catholic Church". However, marginal notes jotted in early copies of "The Faerie Queene" suggest that Spenser's contemporaries were unable to come to a consensus about the precise historical referents of the poem's "myriad figures". In fact, Sir Walter Raleigh's wife identified many of the poem's female characters as "allegorical representations of herself".


title: The Faerie Queene

text: Other symbols prevalent in "The Faerie Queene" are the numerous animal characters present in the poem. They take the role of "visual figures in the allegory and in illustrative similes and metaphors". Specific examples include the swine present in Lucifera's castle who embodied gluttony, and Duessa, the deceitful crocodile who may represent Mary, Queen of Scots, in a negative light.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: The House of Busirane episode in Book III in "The Faerie Queene" is partially based on an early modern English folktale called "Mr. Fox's Mottos". In the tale, a young woman named Lady Mary has been enticed by Mr. Fox, who resembles Bluebeard in his manner of killing his wives. She defeats Mr. Fox and tells about his deeds. Notably, Spenser quotes the story as Britomart makes her way through the House, with warning mottos above each doorway "Be bold, be bold, but not too bold".


title: The Faerie Queene

text: While writing his poem, Spenser strove to avoid "gealous opinions and misconstructions" because he thought it would place his story in a "better light" for his readers. Spenser stated in his letter to Raleigh, published with the first three books, that "the general end of the book is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline". Spenser considered his work "a historical fiction" which men should read for "delight" rather than "the profit of the ensample". "The Faerie Queene" was written for Elizabeth to read and was dedicated to her. However, there are dedicatory sonnets in the first edition to many powerful Elizabethan figures.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: Spenser addresses "lodwick" in "Amoretti" 33, when talking about "The Faerie Queene" still being incomplete. This could be either his friend Lodowick Bryskett or his long deceased Italian model Ludovico Ariosto, whom he praises in "Letter to Raleigh".


title: The Faerie Queene

text: The poem is dedicated to Elizabeth I who is represented in the poem as the Faerie Queene Gloriana, as well as the character Belphoebe. Spenser prefaces the poem with sonnets additionally dedicated to Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord Burleigh, the Earl of Oxford, the Earl of Northumberland, the Earl of Cumberland, the Earl of Essex, the Earl of Ormond and Ossory, High Admiral Charles Howard, Lord Hunsdon, Lord Grey of Wilton, Lord Buckhurst, Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir John Norris, Sir Walter Raleigh, the Countess of Pembroke (on the subject of her brother Sir Philip Sidney), and Lady Carew.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: In October 1589, after nine years in Ireland, Spenser voyaged to England and saw the Queen. It is possible that he read to her from his manuscript at this time. On 25 February 1591, the Queen gave him a pension of fifty pounds per year. He was paid in four instalments on 25 March, 24 June, 29 September, and 25 December.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: After the first three books of "The Faerie Queene" were published in 1590, Spenser found himself disappointed in the monarchy; among other things, "his annual pension from the Queen was smaller than he would have liked" and his humanist perception of Elizabeth's court "was shattered by what he saw there". Despite these frustrations, however, Spenser "kept his aristocratic prejudices and predispositions". Book VI stresses that there is "almost no correlation between noble deeds and low birth" and reveals that to be a "noble person," one must be a "gentleman of choice stock".


title: The Faerie Queene

text: Throughout "The Faerie Queene", virtue is seen as "a feature for the nobly born" and within Book VI, readers encounter worthy deeds that indicate aristocratic lineage. An example of this is the hermit to whom Arthur brings Timias and Serena. Initially, the man is considered a "goodly knight of a gentle race" who "withdrew from public service to religious life when he grew too old to fight". Here, we note the hermit's noble blood seems to have influenced his gentle, selfless behaviour. Likewise, audiences acknowledge that young Tristram "speaks so well and acts so heroically" that Calidore "frequently contributes him with noble birth" even before learning his background; in fact, it is no surprise that Tristram turns out to be the son of a king, explaining his profound intellect. However, Spenser's most peculiar example of noble birth is demonstrated through the characterization of the Salvage Man. Using the Salvage Man as an example, Spenser demonstrated that "ungainly appearances do not disqualify one from noble birth". By giving the Salvage Man a "frightening exterior," Spenser stresses that "virtuous deeds are a more accurate indication of gentle blood than physical appearance.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: On the opposite side of the spectrum, "The Faerie Queene" indicates qualities such as cowardice and discourtesy that signify low birth. During his initial encounter with Arthur, Turpine "hides behind his retainers, chooses ambush from behind instead of direct combat, and cowers to his wife, who covers him with her voluminous skirt". These actions demonstrate that Turpine is "morally emasculated by fear" and furthermore, "the usual social roles are reversed as the lady protects the knight from danger. Scholars believe that this characterization serves as "a negative example of knighthood" and strives to teach Elizabethan aristocrats how to "identify a commoner with political ambitions inappropriate to his rank".


title: The Faerie Queene

text: "The Faerie Queene" was written in Spenserian stanza, which Spenser created specifically for "The Faerie Queene". Spenser varied existing epic stanza forms, the rhyme royal used by Chaucer, with the rhyme pattern ABABBCC, and the "ottava rima", which originated in Italy, with the rhyme pattern ABABABCC. Spenser's stanza is the longest of the three, with nine iambic lines – the first eight of them five footed, that is, pentameters, and the ninth six footed, that is, a hexameter, or Alexandrine – which form "interlocking quatrains and a final couplet". The rhyme pattern is ABABBCBCC. Over two thousand stanzas were written for the 1590 "Faerie Queene". Many see Spenser's purposeful use of archaic language as an intentional means of aligning himself with Chaucer and placing himself within a trajectory of building English national literary history.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: In Elizabethan England, no subject was more familiar to writers than theology. Elizabethans learned to embrace religious studies in petty school, where they "read from selections from the Book of Common Prayer and memorized Catechisms from the Scriptures". This influence is evident in Spenser's text, as demonstrated in the moral allegory of Book I. Here, allegory is organized in the traditional arrangement of Renaissance theological treatises and confessionals. While reading Book I, audiences first encounter original sin, justification and the nature of sin before analysing the church and the sacraments. Despite this pattern, Book I is not a theological treatise; within the text, "moral and historical allegories intermingle" and the reader encounters elements of romance. However, Spenser's method is not "a rigorous and unyielding allegory," but "a compromise among conflicting elements". In Book I of "The Faerie Queene" the discussion of the path to salvation begins with original sin and justification, skipping past initial matters of God, the Creeds, and Adam's fall from grace. This literary decision is pivotal because these doctrines "center the fundamental theological controversies of the Reformation".


title: The Faerie Queene

text: During "The Faerie Queene's" inception, Spenser worked as a civil servant, in "relative seclusion from the political and literary events of his day". As Spenser laboured in solitude, "The Faerie Queene" manifested within his mind, blending his experiences into the content of his craft. Within his poem, Spenser explores human consciousness and conflict, relating to a variety of genres including sixteenth century Arthurian literature. "The Faerie Queene" was influenced strongly by Italian works, as were many other works in England at that time. "The Faerie Queene" draws heavily on Ariosto and Tasso.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: The first three books of "The Faerie Queene" operate as a unit, representing the entire cycle from the fall of Troy to the reign of Elizabeth. Using "in medias res", Spenser introduces his historical narrative at three different intervals, using chronicle, civil conversation, and prophecy as its occasions.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: Despite the historical elements of his text, Spenser is careful to label himself a historical poet as opposed to a historiographer. Spenser notes this differentiation in his letter to Raleigh, noting "a Historiographer discourseth of affairs orderly as they were done ... but a Poet thrusteth into the midst ... and maketh a pleasing Analysis of all".


title: The Faerie Queene

text: Spenser's characters embody Elizabethan values, highlighting political and aesthetic associations of Tudor Arthurian tradition in order to bring his work to life. While Spenser respected British history and "contemporary culture confirmed his attitude", his literary freedom demonstrates that he was "working in the realm of mythopoeic imagination rather than that of historical fact". In fact, Spenser's Arthurian material serves as a subject of debate, intermediate between "legendary history and historical myth" offering him a range of "evocative tradition and freedom that historian's responsibilities preclude". Concurrently, Spenser adopts the role of a sceptic, reflected in the way in which he handles the British history, which "extends to the verge of self-satire".


title: The Faerie Queene

text: "The Faerie Queene" owes, in part, its central figure, Arthur, to a medieval writer, Geoffrey of Monmouth. In his "Prophetiae Merlini" ("Prophecies of Merlin"), Geoffrey's Merlin proclaims that the Saxons will rule over the Britons until the "Boar of Cornwall" (Arthur) again restores them to their rightful place as rulers. The prophecy was adopted by the Welsh and eventually used by the Tudors. Through their ancestor, Owen Tudor, the Tudors had Welsh blood, through which they claimed to be descendants of Arthur and rightful rulers of Britain. The tradition begun by Geoffrey of Monmouth set the perfect atmosphere for Spenser's choice of Arthur as the central figure and natural bridegroom of Gloriana.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: Since its inception four centuries ago, Spenser's diction has been scrutinized by scholars. Despite the enthusiasm the poet and his work received, Spenser's experimental diction was "largely condemned" before it received the acclaim it has today. Seventeenth-century philologists such as Davenant considered Spenser's use of "obsolete language" as the "most vulgar accusation that is laid to his charge". Scholars have recently observed that the classical tradition tucked within "The Faerie Queene" is related to the problem of his diction because it "involves the principles of imitation and decorum". Despite these initial criticisms, Spenser is "now recognized as a conscious literary artist" and his language is deemed "the only fitting vehicle for his tone of thought and feelings". Spenser's use of language was widely contrasted to that of "free and unregulated" sixteenth-century Shakespearian grammar. Spenser's style is standardized, lyrically sophisticated, and full of archaisms that give the poem an original taste. Sugden argues in "The Grammar of Spenser's Faerie Queene" that the archaisms reside "chiefly in vocabulary, to a high degree in spelling, to some extent in the inflexions, and only slightly in the syntax".


title: The Faerie Queene

text: Samuel Johnson also commented critically on Spenser's diction, with which he became intimately acquainted during his work on "A Dictionary of the English Language", and "found it a useful source for obsolete and archaic words"; Johnson, however, mainly considered Spenser's (early) pastoral poems, a genre of which he was not particularly fond.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: The diction and atmosphere of "The Faerie Queene" relied on much more than just Middle English; for instance, classical allusions and classical proper names abound—especially in the later books—and he coined some names based on Greek, such as "Poris" and "Phao lilly white." Classical material is also alluded to or reworked by Spenser, such as the rape of Lucretia, which was reworked into the story of the character Amavia in Book Two.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: Spenser's language in "The Faerie Queene", as in "The Shepheardes Calender", is deliberately archaic, though the extent of this has been exaggerated by critics who follow Ben Jonson's dictum, that "in affecting the ancients Spenser writ no language." Allowing that Jonson's remark may only apply to the "Calendar", Bruce Robert McElderry Jr. states, after a detailed investigation of "The Faerie Queene"s diction, that Jonson's statement "is a skillful epigram; but it seriously misrepresents the truth if taken at anything like its face value". The number of archaisms used in the poem is not overwhelming—one source reports thirty-four in Canto I of Book I, that is, thirty-four words out of a total forty-two hundred words, less than one percent. According to McElderry, language does not account for the poem's archaic tone: "The subject-matter of "The Faerie Queene" is itself the most powerful factor in creating the impression of archaism."


title: The Faerie Queene

text: Numerous adaptations in the form of children's literature have been made – the work was a popular choice in the 19th and early 20th century with over 20 different versions written, with the earliest being E. W. Bradburn's "Legends from Spencer's Fairy Queen, for Children" (1829), written in the form of a dialogue between mother and children – the 19th-century versions oft concentrated on the moral aspect of the tale. In terms of the English-speaking world adaptions of the work were relatively more popular in the United Kingdom than in the United States compared to contemporary works like Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress", presumably due to the differences in appeal of the intended audiences (Royal court vs Ordinary people) and their relative appeal to the general American readership.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: The Edwardian era was particularly rich in adaptation for children, and the works richly illustrated, with contributing artists including A. G. Walker, Gertrude Demain Hammond, T. H. Robinson, Frank C. Papé, Brinsley Le Fanu and H. J. Ford. Additionally, Walter Crane illustrated a six-volume collection of the complete work, published 1897, considered a great example of the Arts and Crafts movement.


title: The Faerie Queene

text: In "The Mathematics of Magic", the second of Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp's Harold Shea stories, the modern American adventurers Harold Shea and Reed Chalmers visit the world of The Faerie Queene, where they discover that the greater difficulties faced by Spenser's knights in the later portions of the poem are explained by the evil enchanters of the piece having organized a guild to more effectively oppose them. Shea and Chalmers reveal this conspiracy to the knights and assist in its overthrow. In the process, Belphebe and Florimel of Faerie become respectively the wives of Shea and Chalmers and accompany them on further adventures in other worlds of myth and fantasy.