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Le Train De Nulle Part
{{More citations needed, date=October 2010 ''Le Train de Nulle Part'' (''The Train from Nowhere'') is a 233-page French novel, written in 2004 by a French doctor of letters, Michel Dansel, under the pen name Michel Thaler. Notable as an example of constrained writing, the entire novel is written without a single verb. In the novel's preface, Thayer called the verb an "invader, dictator, usurper of our literature". Considering the novel a step towards literature comparable with the artistic impact of Dadaism and surrealism, Thaler surmised, "The verb is like a weed in a field of flowers. You have to get rid of it to allow the flowers to grow and flourish. Take away the verbs and the language speaks for itself." Thaler went so far as to organize a well-attended, tongue-in-cheek funeral for the verb, at the Sorbonne in Paris. Sample ''Quelle aubaine ! Une place de libre, ou presque, dans ce compartiment. Une escale provisoire, pourquoi pas ! Donc, ma nouvelle adresse dans ce tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Language
French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French ( Francien) largely supplanted. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the ( Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to France's past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is an official language in 29 countries across multiple continents, most of which are members of the ''Organisation internationale de la Francophonie'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novel
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the histori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doctor Of Letters
Doctor of Letters (D.Litt., Litt.D., Latin: ' or ') is a terminal degree in the humanities that, depending on the country, is a higher doctorate after the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree or equivalent to a higher doctorate, such as the Doctor of Science (Sc.D. or D.Sc.). It is awarded in many countries by universities and learned bodies in recognition of superior accomplishment in the humanities, original contributions to the creative or cultural arts, or scholarship and other merits. It may be conferred as an earned degree upon the completion of a regular doctoral course of study, usually including the development and defense of an original dissertation, or may be conferred as an earned higher doctorate after the submission and academic evaluation of a portfolio of sustained scholarship, publications, research, or other scientific work of the highest caliber. In addition to being awarded as an earned degree, this doctorate is also widely conferred ''honoris causa'' to reco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pen Name
A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise the author's gender, to distance the author from their other works, to protect the author from retribution for their writings, to merge multiple persons into a single identifiable author, or for any of a number of reasons related to the marketing or aesthetic presentation of the work. The author's real identity may be known only to the publisher or may become common knowledge. Etymology The French-language phrase is occasionally still seen as a synonym for the English term "pen name", which is a "back-translation" and originated in England rather than France. H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, in ''The King's English'' state that the term ''nom de plume'' evolv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constrained Writing
Constrained writing is a literary technique in which the writer is bound by some condition that forbids certain things or imposes a pattern. Constraints are very common in poetry, which often requires the writer to use a particular verse form. Description Constraints on writing are common and can serve a variety of purposes. For example, a text may place restrictions on its vocabulary, e.g. Basic English, E-Prime, copula-free text, defining vocabulary for dictionaries, and other limited vocabularies for teaching English as an additional language, English as a second language or to children. In poetry, formal constraints abound in both mainstream and experimental work. Familiar elements of poetry like rhyme and Meter (poetry), meter are often applied as constraints. Well-established verse forms like the sonnet, sestina, villanelle, Limerick (poetry), limerick, and haiku are variously constrained by meter, rhyme, repetition, length, and other characteristics. Outside of establish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Verb
A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle ''to'', is the infinitive. In many languages, verbs are inflected (modified in form) to encode tense, aspect, mood, and voice. A verb may also agree with the person, gender or number of some of its arguments, such as its subject, or object. Verbs have tenses: present, to indicate that an action is being carried out; past, to indicate that an action has been done; future, to indicate that an action will be done. For some examples: * I ''washed'' the car yesterday. * The dog ''ate'' my homework. * John ''studies'' English and French. * Lucy ''enjoys'' listening to music. *Barack Obama ''became'' the President of the United States in 2009. ''(occurrence)'' * Mike Trout ''is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dadaism
Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Paris. Dadaist activities lasted until the mid 1920s. Developed in reaction to World War I, the Dada movement consisted of artists who rejected the logic, reason, and aestheticism of modern capitalist society, instead expressing nonsense, irrationality, and anti-bourgeois protest in their works. The art of the movement spanned visual, literary, and sound media, including collage, sound poetry, cut-up writing, and sculpture. Dadaist artists expressed their discontent toward violence, war, and nationalism, and maintained political affinities with radical left-wing and far-left politics. There is no consensus on the origin of the movement's name; a common story is that the German artist Richard Huelsenbeck slid a paper knife (letter-opener) at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to leader André Breton, to "resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality", or ''surreality.'' It produced works of painting, writing, theatre, filmmaking, photography, and other media. Works of Surrealism feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and '' non sequitur''. However, many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost (for instance, of the "pure psychic automatism" Breton speaks of in the first Surrealist Manifesto), with the works themselves being secondary, i.e. artifacts of surrealist experimentation. Leader Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was, above all, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sorbonne (building)
The name Sorbonne (French: ''La Sorbonne''; , , ) is commonly used to refer to the historic University of Paris in Paris, France or one of its successor institutions (see below). It is also the name of a building in the Latin Quarter of Paris which from 1253 onwards housed the College of Sorbonne, part of one of the first universities in the Western world, later renamed University of Paris and commonly known as "the Sorbonne". Today, it continues to house the successor universities of the University of Paris, such as Panthéon-Sorbonne University, Sorbonne University, Sorbonne Nouvelle University and Paris City University, as well as the . Sorbonne Université is also now the university resulting from the merger on 1 January 2018 of Paris 6 UPMC and Paris 4 Sorbonne.. Collège de Sorbonne The college was founded in 1253 by Robert de Sorbon. Louis IX of France confirmed the foundation in 1257. It was one of the first significant colleges of the medieval University of Paris. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gadsby (novel)
''Gadsby'' is a 1939 novel by Ernest Vincent Wright which does not include any words that contain the letter E, the most common letter in English. A work that deliberately avoids certain letters is known as a lipogram. The plot revolves around the dying fictional city of Branton Hills, which is revitalized as a result of the efforts of protagonist John Gadsby and a youth organizer. Though vanity published and little noticed in its time, the book has since become a favorite of fans of constrained writing and is a sought-after rarity among some book collectors. Later editions of the book have sometimes carried the alternative subtitle ''50,000 Word Novel Without the Letter "E"''. Despite Wright's claim, some editions of the book accidentally contain a handful of uses of the letter "e". The 1939 first edition, for example, contains "the" three times and "officers" once. Lipogrammatic quality In the introduction to the book (which, not being part of the story, does contain the l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Void
''A Void'', translated from the original French ( "The Disappearance"), is a 300-page French lipogrammatic novel, written in 1969 by Georges Perec, entirely without using the letter '' e'', following Oulipo constraints. Translations It was translated into English by Gilbert Adair, with the title ''A Void'', for which he won the Scott Moncrieff Prize in 1995. Three other English translations are titled ''A Vanishing'' by Ian Monk, ''Vanish'd!'' by John Lee, and ''Omissions'' by Julian West. All translators have imposed upon themselves a similar lipogrammatic constraint to the original, avoiding the most commonly used letter of the alphabet. This precludes the use of words normally considered essential such as ("I"), ("and"), and (masculine "the") in French, as well as "me", "be", and "the" in English. The Spanish version contains no '' a'', which is the second most commonly used letter in the Spanish language (first being ''e''), while the Russian version contains no о. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is a short story by the 20th-century Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. The story was first published in the Argentinian journal '' Sur'', May 1940. The "postscript" dated 1947 is intended to be anachronistic, set seven years in the future. The first English-language translation of the story was published in 1961. Told in a first-person narrative, the story focuses on the author's discovery of the mysterious and possibly fictional country of Uqbar and its legend of Tlön, a mythical world whose inhabitants believe a form of subjective idealism, denying the reality of objects and nouns, as well as Orbis Tertius, the secret organization that created both fictional locations. Relatively long for Borges (approximately 5,600 words), the story is a work of speculative fiction. The story alludes to many leading intellectual figures both in Argentina and in the world at large, and takes up a number of themes more typical of a novel of ideas. Most of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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