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My father often told me stories of my grandfather, Reverend (Rev.) Russell McGillivray, who died when I was three years old. The generation who heard Rev. McGillivray preach recalled the power of his voice and the simplicity of his messages. A testimony to the quality of his life was the people who were welcoming to our family because of our connection to the man who was their minister some 30 or 40 years earlier. As a family historian, I had many questions about Rev. McGillivray. He left school at 11 and worked full-time to support his widowed mother and six younger siblings. How was he later able to earn two university degrees and become a Presbyterian minister? In poor health as a teenage...
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The Scruffy Scoundrels by Annibal Caro offers the student, scholar, and general reader a sixteenth-century masterpiece in modern English translation. From one vantage point, The Scruffy Scoundrels would appear to be no more than a series of unrelated scenes and sketches grouped around a highly conventionalized and loosely structured love plot: the arrival of Pilucca and Tindaro in Rome abounding in topical references; the appearance of the two ragged brothers so arbitrarily related to the rest of the events of the play; the love squabble between two servants that leads to Nuta’s memorably comic invective; the stock farcical routines of the Mirandola episodes; the long pathetic tale of Tindaro so little of which actually takes place on the stage. There is a sense, however, in which each scene contains its own ethos and milieu and hails from a particular comic genre, each with its own topoi and character types. This efficient management of plot is simply a measure of Caro’s comic genius.
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Jean de La Taille's play Les Corrivaus is the comical story of the rivalry between Filadelfe and Euverte for the lovely Fleurdelys. Difficulties are resolved symmetrically, and matrimony is the order at the end of the day--though, in the best Renaissance tradition, the difficulties had appeared grave indeed. The play should appeal to anyone interested in the theatre, but it is of considerable importance to historians of Renaissance drama, since it is generally accepted as the earliest surviving French humanist comedy written in prose, and the first to be based on Italian models. In particular, La Taille draws heavily upon Le Maçon's translation of Boccaccio's Decameron. The play also amplifies understanding of numerous conventions of Renaissance drama--especially those related to stagecraft, plot, and thematic treatment--yet La Taille transcends mere conventionality in his skilled treatment of character and plot. He also manages to accomplish his didactic purpose, informing his audience of the foibles of lovers, with a minimum of sententious moralizing.