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The Dream Of Scipio (novel)
''The Dream of Scipio'' is a novel by Iain Pears. It is set in Provence at three different critical moments of Western civilization—the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, the Black Death in the fourteenth, the Second World War in the twentieth—through which the fortunes of three men are followed: *Manlius Hippomanes, a Gallic aristocrat obsessed with the preservation of Roman civilization *Olivier de Noyen, a poet and scholar, active in the Papal Court at Avignon *Julien Barneuve, an intellectual who cooperates with the Vichy government The story of each man is woven through the narrative, all linked by the ''Dream of Scipio'', written by Manlius (not Cicero's eponymous classical text) and rediscovered by Olivier and Julien. Inspired by the teachings of Sophia, a Neoplatonist philosopher and the daughter of a student of Hypatia, Manlius composes the text to justify the decisions he takes when facing attack by the Visigoths and Burgundians, with little sup ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iain Pears
Iain George Pears (born 8 August 1955) is an English art historian, novelist and journalist. Personal life Pears was born on 8 August 1955 in Coventry, England. He was educated at Warwick School, an all-boys public school in Warwick. He studied at Wadham College, Oxford, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree, and at Wolfson College, Oxford, graduating with a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree. In 1985, Pears married Ruth Harris, a historian and academic. Together they have two sons. He currently lives with his wife and children in Oxford. Career Before writing, he worked as a reporter for the BBC, Channel 4 (UK) and ZDF (Germany) and correspondent for Reuters from 1982 to 1990 in Italy, France, UK and US. In 1987 he became a Getty Fellow in the Arts and Humanities at Yale University. Pears first came to international prominence with his best selling book ''An Instance of the Fingerpost'' (1997), which was translated into several languages. He is known for experimen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dream Of Scipio
A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5 to 20 minutes, although the dreamer may perceive the dream as being much longer than this. The content and function of dreams have been topics of scientific, philosophical and religious interest throughout recorded history. Dream interpretation, practiced by the Babylonians in the third millennium BCE and even earlier by the ancient Sumerians, figures prominently in religious texts in several traditions, and has played a lead role in psychotherapy. The scientific study of dreams is called oneirology. Most modern dream study focuses on the neurophysiology of dreams and on proposing and testing hypotheses regarding dream function. It is not known where in the brain dreams originate, if there is a single origin for dreams or if multiple regions of the brain are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chrétien De Troyes
Chrétien de Troyes (Modern ; fro, Crestien de Troies ; 1160–1191) was a French poet and trouvère known for his writing on Arthurian subjects, and for first writing of Lancelot, Percival and the Holy Grail. Chrétien's works, including ''Erec and Enide'', ''Lancelot'', ''Perceval'' and ''Yvain'', represent some of the best-regarded of medieval literature. His use of structure, particularly in ''Yvain'', has been seen as a step towards the modern novel. Life Little is known of his life, but he seems to have been from Troyes or at least intimately connected with it. Between 1160 and 1172 he served (perhaps as herald-at-arms, as Gaston Paris speculated) at the court of his patroness Marie of France, Countess of Champagne, daughter of King Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine, who married Count Henry I of Champagne in 1164. Later, he served the court of Philippe d'Alsace, Count of Flanders. Works Chrétien's works include five major poems in rhyming eight-syllable couplets. Fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synesius Of Cyrene
Synesius (; el, Συνέσιος; c. 373 – c. 414), was a Greek bishop of Ptolemais in ancient Libya, a part of the Western Pentapolis of Cyrenaica after 410. He was born of wealthy parents at Balagrae (now Bayda, Libya) near Cyrene between 370 and 375. Life While still a youth (in 393), he went with his brother Euoptius to Alexandria, where he became an enthusiastic Neoplatonist and disciple of Hypatia. Between 395 and 399, he spent some time in Athens. In 398 he was chosen as an envoy to the imperial court in Constantinople by Cyrene and the whole Pentapolis. He went to the capital in occasion of the delivery of the ''aurum coronarium'' and his task was to obtain tax remissions for his country. In Constantinople he obtained the patronage of the powerful praetorian prefect Aurelianus. Synesius composed and addressed to Emperor Arcadius a speech entitled ''De regno'', full of topical advice as to the studies of a wise ruler, but also containing a bold statement that the e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macrobius
Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, usually referred to as Macrobius (fl. AD 400), was a Roman provincial who lived during the early fifth century, during late antiquity, the period of time corresponding to the Later Roman Empire, and when Latin was as widespread as Greek among the elite. He is primarily known for his writings, which include the widely copied and read ''Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis'' ("Commentary on the Dream of Scipio") about ''Somnium Scipionis'', which was one of the most important sources for Neoplatonism in the Latin West during the Middle Ages; the ''Saturnalia'', a compendium of ancient Roman religious and antiquarian lore; and ''De differentiis et societatibus graeci latinique verbi'' ("On the Differences and Similarities of the Greek and Latin Verb"), which is now lost. He is the basis for the protagonist Manlius in Iain Pears' book '' The Dream of Scipio''. Name The correct order of his names is "Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius", which is how it appears ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp (''Stammlager'') in Oświęcim; Auschwitz II-Birkenau, a concentration and extermination camp with gas chambers; Auschwitz III-Monowitz, a labor camp for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben; and dozens of subcamps. The camps became a major site of the Nazis' final solution to the Jewish question. After Germany sparked World War II by invading Poland in September 1939, the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) converted Auschwitz I, an army barracks, into a prisoner-of-war camp. The initial transport of political detainees to Auschwitz consisted almost solely of Poles for whom the camp was initially established. The bulk of inmates were Polish for the first two years. In May 1940, German criminals brought to t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Héloïse
Héloïse (; c. 1100–01? – 16 May 1163–64?), variously Héloïse d'ArgenteuilCharrier, Charlotte. Heloise Dans L'histoire Et Dans la Legende. Librairie Ancienne Honore Champion Quai Malaquais, VI, Paris, 1933 or Héloïse du Paraclet, was a French nun, philosopher, writer, scholar, and abbess. Héloïse was a renowned "woman of letters" and philosopher of love and friendship, as well as an eventual high-ranking abbess in the Catholic Church. She achieved approximately the level and political power of a bishop in 1147 when she was granted the rank of prelate nullius. She is famous in history and popular culture for her love affair and correspondence with the leading medieval logician and theologian Peter Abelard, who became her colleague, collaborator and husband. She is known for exerting critical intellectual influence upon his work and posing many challenging questions to him such as those in the ''Problemata Heloissae''. Her surviving letters are considered a founda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abelard
Peter Abelard (; french: link=no, Pierre Abélard; la, Petrus Abaelardus or ''Abailardus''; 21 April 1142) was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, leading logician, theologian, poet, composer and musician. This source has a detailed description of his philosophical work. In philosophy he is celebrated for his logical solution to the problem of universals via nominalism and conceptualism and his pioneering of intent in ethics. Often referred to as the " Descartes of the twelfth century", he is considered a forerunner of Rousseau, Kant, and Spinoza. He is sometimes credited as a chief forerunner of modern empiricism. In history and popular culture, he is best known for his passionate and tragic love affair, and intense philosophical exchange, with his brilliant student and eventual wife, Héloïse d'Argenteuil. He was a defender of women and of their education. After having sent Héloïse to a convent in Brittany to protect her from her abusive uncle who did not want her t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meaning Of Life
The meaning of life, or the answer to the question: "What is the meaning of life?", pertains to the significance of living or existence in general. Many other related questions include: "Why are we here?", "What is life all about?", or "What is the purpose of existence?" There have been many proposed answers to these questions from many different cultural and ideological backgrounds. The search for life's meaning has produced much philosophical, scientific, theological, and metaphysical speculation throughout history. Different people and cultures believe different things for the answer to this question. The meaning of life can be derived from philosophical and religious contemplation of, and scientific inquiries about existence, social ties, consciousness, and happiness. Many other issues are also involved, such as symbolic meaning, ontology, value, purpose, ethics, good and evil, free will, the Existence of God, existence of one or multiple gods, conceptions of God, the So ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anti-semitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antisemitism has historically been manifested in many ways, ranging from expressions of hatred of or discrimination against individual Jews to organized pogroms by mobs, police forces, or genocide. Although the term did not come into common usage until the 19th century, it is also applied to previous and later anti-Jewish incidents. Notable instances of persecution include the Rhineland massacres preceding the First Crusade in 1096, the Edict of Expulsion from England in 1290, the 1348–1351 persecution of Jews during the Black Death, the massacres of Spanish Jews in 1391, the persecutions of the Spanish Inquisition, the expulsion from Spain in 1492, the Cossack massacres in Ukraine from 1648 to 1657, various anti-Jewish pogroms in the Rus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), Roman Republic (509–27 BC) and Roman Empire (27 BC–476 AD) until the fall of the western empire. Ancient Rome began as an Italic settlement, traditionally dated to 753 BC, beside the River Tiber in the Italian Peninsula. The settlement grew into the city and polity of Rome, and came to control its neighbours through a combination of treaties and military strength. It eventually dominated the Italian Peninsula, assimilated the Greek culture of southern Italy ( Magna Grecia) and the Etruscan culture and acquired an Empire that took in much of Europe and the lands and peoples surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. It was among the largest empires in the ancient world, with an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants, roughly 20% of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burgundians
The Burgundians ( la, Burgundes, Burgundiōnes, Burgundī; on, Burgundar; ang, Burgendas; grc-gre, Βούργουνδοι) were an early Germanic tribe or group of tribes. They appeared in the middle Rhine region, near the Roman Empire, and were later moved into the empire, in the western Alps and eastern Gaul. They were possibly mentioned much earlier in the time of the Roman Empire as living in part of the region of Germania that is now part of Poland. The Burgundians are first mentioned together with the Alamanni as early as the 11th panegyric to emperor Maximian given in Trier in 291, and referring to events that must have happened between 248 and 291, and they apparently remained neighbours for centuries. By 411 a Burgundian group had established themselves on the Rhine, between Franks and Alamanni, holding the cities of Worms, Speyer, and Strasbourg. In 436, Aëtius defeated the Burgundians on the Rhine with the help of Hunnish forces, and then in 443, he re-settle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
