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Proust Questionnaire
The Proust Questionnaire is a set of questions answered by the French writer Marcel Proust, and often used by modern interviewers. Proust answered the questionnaire in a confession album—a form of parlor game popular among Victorians. The album belonged to his friend Antoinette, daughter of future French President Félix Faure, titled "An Album to Record Thoughts, Feelings, etc." The album was found in 1924 by Faure's son, and published in the French literary journal ''Les Cahiers du Mois''. It was auctioned on May 27, 2003 for the sum of €102,000 ($113,609.46USD). Other historical figures who have answered confession albums are Oscar Wilde, Karl Marx, Arthur Conan Doyle, Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Cézanne, Martin Boucher and Enzo Kehl. The French book talk show host Bernard Pivot used a similar questionnaire at the end of every episode of his show ''Apostrophes (talk show), Apostrophes''. Inspired by Bernard Pivot, James Lipton, the host of the TV program ''Inside the Act ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous English title translation of ''Remembrance of Things Past''), originally published in French in seven volumes between 1913 and 1927. He is considered by critics and writers to be one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. Background Proust was born on 10 July 1871 at the home of his great-uncle in the Paris Borough of Auteuil (the south-western sector of the then-rustic 16th arrondissement), two months after the Treaty of Frankfurt formally ended the Franco-Prussian War. His birth took place at the very beginning of the Third Republic, during the violence that surrounded the suppression of the Paris Commune, and his childhood corresponded with the consolidation of the Republic. Much of ''In Search of Lost Time'' concerns the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Favourite Colour
In the psychology of color, color preferences are the tendency for an individual or a group to prefer some colors over others, such as having a favorite color or a traditional color. Introduction An 'ecological valence theory' (EVT) has been suggested to explain why people have preferences for different colors. This is the idea that the preference for color is determined by the average affective response to everything the individual associates with the color. Hence, positive emotional experiences with a particular color are likely to increase the propensity to develop a preference for that color and vice versa. Social and cultural factors also factor into this affective response. A study in 2011 on the effects of "school spirit" and color preferences found members of Berkeley were more likely to favor the school's official colors than rival university Stanford. This degree of preference was also correlated with their self-reported level of "school spirit". The researchers con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. His teacher, Friedrich Wieck, a German pianist, had assured him that he could become the finest pianist in Europe, but a hand injury ended this dream. Schumann then focused his musical energies on composing. In 1840, Schumann married Friedrich Wieck's daughter Clara Wieck, after a long and acrimonious legal battle with Friedrich, who opposed the marriage. A lifelong partnership in music began, as Clara herself was an established pianist and music prodigy. Clara and Robert also maintained a close relationship with German composer Johannes Brahms. Until 1840, Schumann wrote exclusively for the piano. Later, he composed piano and orchestral works, and many Lieder (songs for voice and piano). He composed four symphonies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the ''Gesamtkunstwerk'' ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' (''The Ring of the Nibelung''). His compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ludwig Van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical music repertoire and span the transition from the Classical period to the Romantic era in classical music. His career has conventionally been divided into early, middle, and late periods. His early period, during which he forged his craft, is typically considered to have lasted until 1802. From 1802 to around 1812, his middle period showed an individual development from the styles of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and is sometimes characterized as heroic. During this time, he began to grow increasingly deaf. In his late period, from 1812 to 1827, he extended his innovations in musical form and expression. Beethoven was born in Bonn. His musical talent was obvious at an early age. He was initially harshly and intensively tau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bérénice
''Berenice'' (french: Bérénice) is a five-act tragedy by the French 17th-century playwright Jean Racine. ''Berenice'' was not played often between the 17th and the 20th centuries. It was premiered on 21 November 1670 by the Comédiens du Roi at the Hôtel de Bourgogne.Garreau, "Jean Racine" in Hochman 1984, vol. 4, p. 194. Racine seems to have chosen the subject in competition with Pierre Corneille, who was working on his drama ''Tite et Bérénice'' at the same time. The subject was taken from the Roman historian Suetonius, who recounts the story of the Roman emperor Titus and Berenice of Cilicia, the sister of Agrippa II. Suetonius wrote a single sentence on the affair: "''Titus reginam Berenicen, cui etiam nuptias pollicitus ferebatur, statim ab Urbe dimisit invitus invitam''." In his preface, Racine translates this as "Titus, who passionately loved Berenice and who was widely thought to have promised to marry her, sent her from Rome, in spite of himself and in spite of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts Prince Hamlet and his attempts to exact revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet's mother. ''Hamlet'' is considered among the "most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language", with a story capable of "seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others". There are many works that have been pointed to as possible sources for Shakespeare's play—from ancient Greek tragedies to Elizabethan plays. The editors of the Arden Shakespeare question the idea of "source hunting", pointing out that it presupposes that authors always require ideas from other works for their own, and suggests that no author can have an original idea or be an originator. When ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred De Musset
Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay (; 11 December 1810 – 2 May 1857) was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist.His names are often reversed "Louis Charles Alfred de Musset": see "(Louis Charles) Alfred de Musset" (bio), Biography.com, 2007, webpageBio9413"Chessville – Alfred de Musset: Romantic Player", Robert T. Tuohey, Chessville.com, 2006, webpage. Along with his poetry, he is known for writing the autobiographical novel ''La Confession d'un enfant du siècle'' (''The Confession of a Child of the Century''). Biography Musset was born in Paris. His family was upper-class but poor; his father worked in various key government positions, but never gave his son any money. Musset's mother came from similar circumstances, and her role as a society hostess – for example her drawing-room parties, luncheons and dinners held in the Musset residence – left a lasting impression on young Alfred. An early indication of his boyhood talents was his fondness for acting impromptu m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred De Vigny
Alfred Victor, Comte de Vigny (27 March 1797 – 17 September 1863) was a French poet and early French Romanticist. He also produced novels, plays, and translations of Shakespeare. Biography Vigny was born in Loches (a town to which he never returned) to an aristocratic family. His father was a 60-year-old veteran of the Seven Years' War who died before Vigny's 20th birthday; his mother, 20 years younger, was a strong-willed woman who was inspired by Rousseau and took personal responsibility for Vigny's early education. His maternal grandfather, the Marquis de Baraudin, had served as commodore with the royal navy. Vigny grew up in Paris, and attended preparatory studies for the École Polytechnique at the Lycée Bonaparte, obtaining a good knowledge of French history and the Bible before developing an "inordinate love for the glory of bearing arms". As was the case for every noble family, the French Revolution diminished the family's circumstances considerably. After Napoléon' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poetry, French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited from Romantics, but are based on observations of real life. His most famous work, a book of lyric poetry titled ''Les Fleurs du mal'' (''The Flowers of Evil''), expresses the changing nature of beauty in the rapidly industrializing Paris during the mid-19th century. Baudelaire's highly original style of prose-poetry influenced a whole generation of poets including Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud and Stéphane Mallarmé, among many others. He is credited with coining the term modernity (''modernité'') to designate the fleeting, ephemeral experience of life in an urban metropolis, and the responsibility of artistic expression to capture that experience. Marshall Berman has credited Baudelaire as being the first Modernism, Modernis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Augustin Thierry
Augustin Thierry (or ''Jacques Nicolas Augustin Thierry''; 10 May 179522 May 1856) was a French historian. Although originally a follower of Henri de Saint-Simon, he later developed his own approach to history. A committed liberal, his approach to history often introduced a romantic interpretation, although he did engage in research of primary sources. He nevertheless was recognised as a significant historian of the evolution of communal governance. Early life He was born in Blois, Loir-et-Cher, and was the elder brother of Amédée Thierry. He had no advantages of birth or fortune, but was distinguished at the Blois Grammar School, and entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1811. In 1813 he was sent as a professor to Compiègne, but stayed there a very short time. Career Thierry enthusiastically embraced the ideals of the French Revolution and Saint Simon's vision of an ideal future society. He briefly became Saint-Simon's secretary and "adopted son". Initially he had bee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Sand
Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil (; 1 July 1804 – 8 June 1876), best known by her pen name George Sand (), was a French novelist, memoirist and journalist. One of the most popular writers in Europe in her lifetime, being more renowned than both Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac in England in the 1830s and 1840s, Sand is recognised as one of the most notable writers of the European Romantic era, with more than 70 novels to her credit and 50 volumes of various works including novels, tales, plays and political texts. Like her great-grandmother, Louise Dupin, whom she admired, George Sand stood up for women, advocated passion, castigated marriage and fought against the prejudices of a conservative society. Personal life Childhood Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin, the future George Sand, was born on 1 July 1804 in Paris on Meslay Street to Maurice Dupin de Francueil and Sophie-Victoire Delaborde. She was the paternal great-granddaughter of the Marshal of Fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
