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Lansquenet
Lansquenet is a banking game played with cards, named after the French spelling of the German word Landsknecht ('servant of the land or country'), which refers to 15th- and 16th-century German mercenary foot soldiers; the lansquenet drum is a type of field drum used by these soldiers. It is recorded as early as 1534 by François Rabelais in ''Gargantua and Pantagruel''. Cards Lansquenet is played with an Italian pack of 40 cards. Game play The dealer or banker stakes a certain sum, and this must be met by the nearest to the dealer first, and so on. When the stake is met, the dealer turns up one card and lays it to his right, for the table or the players, and another card in front of himself for the bank. He then keeps on turning up cards (while keeping the first two cards visible), until a card turns up with a value matching either of the first two cards. For instance, if the five of diamonds has been laid down for the bank, then any other five, regardless of suit, consti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Le Financier Et Le Savetier
''Le financier et le savetier'' (The financier and the cobbler) is a one-act opérette bouffe of 1856 with words by Hector Crémieux and Edmond About, and music by Jacques Offenbach, based on the poem by La Fontaine. In 1842 Offenbach had set '' The Cobbler and the Financier'' (''Le Savetier et le Financier'') among a set of six fables of La Fontaine. Performance history ''Le financier et le savetier'' was first performed in Paris, at the refurbished Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, on 23 September 1856, and ran into 1857. In 1858 it was performed by the company at Bad Ems. At the Carltheater in Vienna it was staged as ''Schuhflicker und Millionär'' in January 1859.Yon, Jean-Claude. ''Jacques Offenbach.'' Éditions Gallimard, Paris, 2000. A complete recording of Keck’s critical edition was made in 2007. Roles Synopsis :The drawing-room of rich financier Belazor on his name-day; it is 1856 and nine o’clock in the evening ''A page waits at the entrance, Belazor paces up and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Court Cards 1694
A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law. In both common law and civil law legal systems, courts are the central means for dispute resolution, and it is generally understood that all people have an ability to bring their claims before a court. Similarly, the rights of those accused of a crime include the right to present a defense before a court. The system of courts that interprets and applies the law is collectively known as the judiciary. The place where a court sits is known as a venue. The room where court proceedings occur is known as a courtroom, and the building as a courthouse; court facilities range from simple and very small facilities in rural communities to large complex facilities in urban communities. The practical authority given t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Count Of Monte Cristo
''The Count of Monte Cristo'' (french: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) is an adventure novel written by French author Alexandre Dumas (''père'') completed in 1844. It is one of the author's more popular works, along with ''The Three Musketeers''. Like many of his novels, it was expanded from plot outlines suggested by his collaborating ghostwriter Auguste Maquet. The story takes place in France, Italy, and islands in the Mediterranean during the historical events of 1815–1839: the era of the Bourbon Restoration in France, Bourbon Restoration through the reign of Louis-Philippe of France. It begins on the day that Napoleon left his first island of exile, Elba, beginning the Hundred Days period when Napoleon returned to power. The historical setting is a fundamental element of the book, an adventure story centrally concerned with themes of hope, justice, vengeance, mercy, and forgiveness. It centers on a man who is wrongfully imprisoned, escapes from jail, acquires a fortune, and set ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bluebeard
"Bluebeard" (french: Barbe bleue, ) is a French folktale, the most famous surviving version of which was written by Charles Perrault and first published by Barbin in Paris in 1697 in ''Histoires ou contes du temps passé''. The tale tells the story of a wealthy man in the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts of the present one to avoid the fate of her predecessors. " The White Dove", " The Robber Bridegroom" and "Fitcher's Bird" (also called "Fowler's Fowl") are tales similar to "Bluebeard". The notoriety of the tale is such that Merriam-Webster gives the word "Bluebeard" the definition of "a man who marries and kills one wife after another". The verb "bluebearding" has even appeared as a way to describe the crime of either killing a series of women, or seducing and abandoning a series of women. Plot In one version of the story, Bluebeard is a wealthy and powerful nobleman who has been married six times to beautiful women who have all mysteriously vanished. When he vis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Perrault
Charles Perrault ( , also , ; 12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was an iconic French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from earlier folk tales, published in his 1697 book ''Histoires ou contes du temps passé'' (''Stories or Tales from Past Times''). The best known of his tales include ''Le Petit Chaperon Rouge'' ("Little Red Riding Hood"), ''Cendrillon'' ("Cinderella"), ''Le Maître chat ou le Chat botté'' ("Puss in Boots"), ''La Belle au bois dormant'' ("Sleeping Beauty"), and ''Barbe Bleue'' ("Bluebeard"). Some of Perrault's versions of old stories influenced the German versions published by the Brothers Grimm more than 100 years later. The stories continue to be printed and have been adapted to most entertainment formats. Perrault was an influential figure in the 17th-century French literary scene, and was the leader of the Modern faction during the Quarrel of the Ancients ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian (1926–1938) while living in Berlin, where he met his wife. He achieved international acclaim and prominence after moving to the United States, where he began writing in English. Nabokov became an American citizen in 1945 and lived mostly on the East Coast before returning to Europe in 1961, where he settled in Montreux, Switzerland. From 1948 to 1959, Nabokov was a professor of Russian literature at Cornell University. Nabokov's 1955 novel '' Lolita'' ranked fourth on Modern Library's list of the 100 best 20th-century novels in 2007 and is considered one of the greatest 20th-century works of literature. Nabokov's ''Pale Fire'', published in 1962, was ranked ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pale Fire
''Pale Fire'' is a 1962 novel by Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is presented as a 999-line poem titled "Pale Fire", written by the fictional poet John Shade, with a foreword, lengthy commentary and index written by Shade's neighbor and academic colleague, Charles Kinbote. Together these elements form a narrative in which both fictional authors are central characters. Nabokov wrote ''Pale Fire'' in 1960–61, after the success of ''Lolita'' had made him financially independent, allowing him to retire from teaching and return to Europe. It was commenced in Nice and completed in Montreux, Switzerland. ''Pale Fire'' has spawned a wide variety of interpretations and a large body of written criticism, which Finnish literary scholar estimated in 1995 as more than 80 studies. The Nabokov authority Brian Boyd has called it "Nabokov's most perfect novel", and the critic Harold Bloom called it "the surest demonstration of his own genius ... that remarkable tour de force". It was ranke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Populus
''Populus'' is a genus of 25–30 species of deciduous flowering plants in the family Salicaceae, native to most of the Northern Hemisphere. English names variously applied to different species include poplar (), aspen, and cottonwood. The western balsam poplar ('' P. trichocarpa'') was the first tree to have its full DNA code determined by DNA sequencing, in 2006. Description The genus has a large genetic diversity, and can grow from tall, with trunks up to in diameter. The bark on young trees is smooth, white to greenish or dark gray, and often has conspicuous lenticels; on old trees, it remains smooth in some species, but becomes rough and deeply fissured in others. The shoots are stout, with (unlike in the related willows) the terminal bud present. The leaves are spirally arranged, and vary in shape from triangular to circular or (rarely) lobed, and with a long petiole; in species in the sections ''Populus'' and ''Aigeiros'', the petioles are laterally flattened, s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez (; 6 March 1927 – 17 April 2014) was a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter, and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo () or Gabito () throughout Latin America. Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century, particularly in the Hispanic literature, Spanish language, he was awarded the 1972 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature. He pursued a self-directed education that resulted in leaving law school for a career in journalism. From early on he showed no inhibitions in his criticism of Colombian and foreign politics. In 1958, he married Mercedes Barcha Pardo; they had two sons, Rodrigo García (director), Rodrigo and Gonzalo. García Márquez started as a journalist and wrote many acclaimed non-fiction works and short stories, but is best known for his novels, such as ''One Hundred Years of Solitude'' (1967), ''Chronicle of a Death Foretold'' (198 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The General In His Labyrinth
''The General in His Labyrinth'' (original Spanish title: ) is a 1989 dictator novel by Colombian writer and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez. It is a fictionalized account of the last seven months of Simón Bolívar, liberator and leader of Gran Colombia. The book traces Bolívar's final journey from Bogotá to the Caribbean coastline of Colombia in his attempt to leave South America for exile in Europe. Breaking with the traditional heroic portrayal of Bolívar , García Márquez depicts a pathetic protagonist, a prematurely aged man who is physically ill and mentally exhausted. The story explores the labyrinth of Bolívar's life through the narrative of his memories, in which "despair, sickness, and death inevitably win out over love, health, and life". Following the success of '' One Hundred Years of Solitude'' (1967) and ''Love in the Time of Cholera'' (1985), García Márquez decided to write about the "Great Liberator" after reading an unfinished novel by his frien ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joris-Karl Huysmans
Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans (, ; 5 February 1848 – 12 May 1907) was a French novelist and art critic who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans (, variably abbreviated as J. K. or J.-K.). He is most famous for the novel ''À rebours'' (1884, published in English as ''Against the Grain'' and as ''Against Nature''). He supported himself by way of a 30-year career in the French civil service. Huysmans's work is considered remarkable for its idiosyncratic use of the French language, large vocabulary, descriptions, satirical wit and far-ranging erudition. First considered part of Naturalism, he became associated with the decadent movement with his publication of ''À rebours.'' His work expressed his deep pessimism, which had led him to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. In later years, his novels reflected his study of Catholicism, religious conversion, and becoming an oblate. He discussed the iconography of Christian architecture at length in '' La cathédral ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Rebours
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
