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Contes Cruels (Mirbeau)
''Contes cruels'' (''Cruel Tales'') is a two-volume set of about 150 tales and short stories by the 19th-century French writer Octave Mirbeau, collected and edited by Pierre Michel and Jean-François Nivet and published in two volumes in 1990 by Librairie Séguier. The title was taken from Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, of whom Mirbeau was a friend and admirer. Publication All these stories appeared in the major daily newspapers of the era. Only a small number were published by the author himself in ''Lettres de ma chaumière'' and ''Contes de ma chaumière''. Others – significantly more numerous – were published in various small books and collections after the author's death by his widow, Alice Regnault: in ''La Pipe de cidre'', ''La Vache tachetée'', ''Un homme sensible'', ''Chez l'Illustre écrivain'', ''Le Petit Gardeur de vache'', and '' Un gentilhomme ''. A few others, notably translated into German, Spanish, and Russian, were published abroad. Anxious to profit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Octave Mirbeau
Octave Mirbeau (16 February 1848 – 16 February 1917) was a French novelist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, journalist and playwright, who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, whilst still appealing to the literary and artistic avant-garde with highly transgressive novels that explored violence, abuse and psychological detachment. His work has been translated into 30 languages. Biography Aesthetic and political struggles The grandson of Norman notaries and the son of a doctor, Mirbeau spent his childhood in a village in Normandy, Rémalard, pursuing secondary studies at a Jesuit college in Vannes, which expelled him at the age of fifteen. Two years after the traumatic experience of the 1870 war, he was tempted by a call from the Bonapartist leader Dugué de la Fauconnerie, who hired him as private secretary and introduced him to ''L'Ordre de Paris''. After his debut in journalism in the service of the Bonapartists, and his debut in li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Short Story
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest types of literature and has existed in the form of legends, mythic tales, folk tales, fairy tales, tall tales, fables and anecdotes in various ancient communities around the world. The modern short story developed in the early 19th century. Definition The short story is a crafted form in its own right. Short stories make use of plot, resonance, and other dynamic components as in a novel, but typically to a lesser degree. While the short story is largely distinct from the novel or novella/short novel, authors generally draw from a common pool of literary techniques. The short story is sometimes referred to as a genre. Determining what exactly defines a short story has been recurrently problematic. A classic definition of a short story ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierre Michel
Pierre Michel (born 11 June 1942), is a professor of literature and a scholar specializing in the French writer Octave Mirbeau. Michel was born in Toulon, the son of the historian Henri Michel. After defending his doctoral dissertation on the works of Octave Mirbeau at the University of Angers in 1992, Michel founded a year later, the "Société Octave Mirbeau", a literary society he is currently presiding. He is also the founder and editor in chief of ''Cahiers Octave Mirbeau ''Cahiers Octave Mirbeau'' is a French literary journal founded in 1994 by French scholar and Octave Mirbeau specialist Pierre Michel. The journal is based in Angers Angers (, , ) is a city in western France, about southwest of Paris. It is ...'' (1993). A biographer and indefatigable authority of Mirbeau's work, Michel has published critical editions of all his work: novels, plays, articles and correspondence. Pierre Michel was awarded the Sévigné prize in October 2003 for his edition of the fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Auguste Villiers De L'Isle-Adam
Jean-Marie-Mathias-Philippe-Auguste, comte de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (7 November 1838 – 19 August 1889) was a French symbolism (arts), symbolist writer. His family called him Mathias while his friends called him Villiers; he would also use the name Auguste when publishing some of his books. Life Villiers de l'Isle-Adam was born in Saint-Brieuc, Brittany, to a distinguished aristocratic family. His parents, Marquis Joseph-Toussaint and Marie-Francoise (née Le Nepvou de Carfort) were not financially secure and were supported by Marie's aunt, Mademoiselle de Kerinou. In attempt to gain wealth, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's father began an obsessive search for the lost treasure of the Knights of Malta, formerly known as the Knights Hospitaller, of which Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, a family ancestor, was the 16th-century Grand Master of the order. The treasure had reputedly been buried near Quintin during the French Revolution. Consequently, Marquis Joseph-Toussaint spent la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alice Regnault
Alice Regnault (born Augustine-Alexandrine Toulet; February 5, 1849 – July 12, 1931) was a French actress. Her theatrical career began in 1871, but she was praised mainly for her beauty. She became very rich as a courtesan in Paris, and retired in 1881. She briefly worked as a journalist, under the pseudonym of Mitaine de Soie, and published two novels without much attention: ''Mademoiselle Pomme'' (1886) and ''La Famille Carmettes'' (1888). She is best known for marrying in secret the French writer Octave Mirbeau, in May 1887, in London. After his death, she published the fictitious ''Testament politique d’Octave Mirbeau'', which was in fact written by former anti-militarist and pacifist Gustave Hervé. Sacha Guitry dramatized this "betrayal" in his 1923 comedy, ''Un sujet de roman'', inspired by Alice and his old friend Mirbeau, whom he admired very much. Bibliography * Pierre Michel, ''Alice Regnault, épouse Mirbeau'', À l'écart, 1994. External links Alice R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Un Gentilhomme
''Un gentilhomme'' is a novel by the French novelist and playwright Octave Mirbeau, published by Flammarion in 1920, after his death. Only three chapters were published. An unachievable novel It was in the mid-1890s that Octave Mirbeau first began contemplating work on a novel on a great landowner. In 1900 he had entertained the idea of a book of epic dimensions – like Leo Tolstoy's ''War and Peace'' – except set in France in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, beginning at the time of the Marshall Mac-Mahon's "coup d'état" on May 16, 1877. However, the three chapters published by his widow, the former actress Alice Regnault, are discontinued on the eve of the coup... Apparently, the undertaking that Mirbeau envisaged soon appeared to him to be one that exceeded his capabilities, and also was one that would be at odds with his own evolving views on the novel. Whereas Mirbeau had been increasingly drawn to unconventional plot narratives, disorienting because of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Les Vingt Et Un Jours D'un Neurasthénique
''Les Vingt et un Jours d'un neurasthénique'' is an expressionist novel by the French writer Octave Mirbeau, published by Charpentier-Fasquelle in August 1901. Commentary It's a collage of fifty cruel tales already published in the press over the previous fifteen years. So Mirbeau unsettles traditional novelistic conventions, transgressing the code of fictional credibility and maintaining indeterminacy of its genre affiliation. A fictionalized rendering of the author’s sojourn a few years before at the Pyrenean spa of Luchon, the novel mirrors a vagrant plot in its episodic narrative. Mirbeau’s narrator, Georges Vasseur, moves from observation to recollection, traveling from sanitarium to insane asylum and finally to the desolate mountain retreat of a misanthropic friend, who propounds his philosophy of nihilism and decries the futility of art. In his peripatetic narrative, Mirbeau casts a glaring light on the defective human animal, who tries to compensate for his su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Octave Mirbeau, Nid De Frelons
In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music," the use of which is "common in most musical systems." The interval between the first and second harmonics of the harmonic series is an octave. In Western music notation, notes separated by an octave (or multiple octaves) have the same name and are of the same pitch class. To emphasize that it is one of the perfect intervals (including unison, perfect fourth, and perfect fifth), the octave is designated P8. Other interval qualities are also possible, though rare. The octave above or below an indicated note is sometimes abbreviated ''8a'' or ''8va'' ( it, all'ottava), ''8va bassa'' ( it, all'ottava bassa, sometimes also ''8vb''), or simply ''8'' for the octave in the direction indicated by placing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Octave Mirbeau-Le Rebouteux
In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music," the use of which is "common in most musical systems." The interval between the first and second harmonics of the harmonic series is an octave. In Western music notation, notes separated by an octave (or multiple octaves) have the same name and are of the same pitch class. To emphasize that it is one of the perfect intervals (including unison, perfect fourth, and perfect fifth), the octave is designated P8. Other interval qualities are also possible, though rare. The octave above or below an indicated note is sometimes abbreviated ''8a'' or ''8va'' ( it, all'ottava), ''8va bassa'' ( it, all'ottava bassa, sometimes also ''8vb''), or simply ''8'' for the octave in the direction indicated by placing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Torture Garden (novel)
''The Torture Garden'' (french: Le Jardin des supplices) is a novel written by the French journalist, novelist and playwright Octave Mirbeau, and was first published in 1899 during the Dreyfus affair. The novel is dedicated: "To the priests, the soldiers, the judges, to those people who educate, instruct and govern men, I dedicate these pages of Murder and Blood." Plot summary Published at the height of the Dreyfus affair, Mirbeau's novel is a loosely assembled reworking of texts composed at different eras, featuring different styles, and showcasing different characters. Beginning with material stemming from articles on the 'Law of Murder' discussed in the "Frontispiece" ("The Manuscript"), the novel continues with a farcical critique of French politics with "En Mission" ("The Mission"): a French politician's aide is sent on a pseudo-scientific expedition to China when his presence at home would be compromising. It then moves on to an account of a visit to a Cantonese prison by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their religion, language, economics, and other cultural practices. The foreign administrators rule the territory in pursuit of their interests, seeking to benefit from the colonised region's people and resources. It is associated with but distinct from imperialism. Though colonialism has existed since ancient times, the concept is most strongly associated with the European colonial period starting with the 15th century when some European states established colonising empires. At first, European colonising countries followed policies of mercantilism, aiming to strengthen the home-country economy, so agreements usually restricted the colony to trading only with the metropole (mother country). By the mid-19th century, the British Empire gave up me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
