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The Hills Of Varna
''The Hills of Varna'' (published in the USA as ''Shadow of the Hawk'') is a children's historical novel by Geoffrey Trease, published in 1948. It is an adventure story based on the revival of classical scholarship in the Renaissance. Plot Introduction The book is set mainly in continental Europe during the first decade of the 16th century. The central character, a young Englishman, is sent by Erasmus to find the lost manuscript of an ancient Greek play at a monastery in the Balkans. Summary In 1509, Alan Drayton, a young Yorkshireman, has to leave his college in Cambridge after a tavern brawl. His tutor Erasmus sends him to the continent to try to retrieve a manuscript of ''The Gadfly'', a lost play by the ancient Greek writer Alexis from the time of Socrates. He believes that it is in the monastery of Varna in the Balkans. Alan intends to deliver the play to the printer Aldus Manutius in Venice, refusing to take employment with the ruthless Duke of Molfetta, who wants the pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geoffrey Trease
(Robert) Geoffrey Trease FRSL (11 August 1909 – 27 January 1998) was a prolific British writer who published 113 books, mainly for children, between 1934 and 1997, starting with '' Bows Against the Barons'' and ending with ''Cloak for a Spy'' in 1997. His work has been translated into 20 languages. His grandfather was a historian, and was one of the main influences on his work. He is best known for the children's novel '' Cue for Treason'' (1940). Trease's children's historical novels reflect his insistence on historically correct backgrounds, which he meticulously researched. His ground-breaking study ''Tales Out of School'' (1949) pioneered the idea that children's literature should be a serious subject for study and debate.Humphrey Carpenter and Mari Prichard, ''The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature'' Oxford University Press, 1998. (pp. 541–2). When he began his career, his radical viewpoint was a change from the conventional and often jingoistic tone of most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcus Musurus
Marcus Musurus ( el, Μάρκος Μουσοῦρος ''Markos Mousouros''; it, Marco Musuro; c. 1470 – 1517) was a Greek scholar and philosopher born in Candia, Venetian Crete (modern Heraklion, Crete). Life The son of a rich merchant, Musurus became at an early age a pupil of Janus Lascaris in Venice. In 1505, Musurus was made professor of Greek language at the University of Padua. Erasmus, who had attended his lectures there, testifies to his knowledge of Latin. However, when the university was closed in 1509 during the War of the League of Cambrai, he returned to Venice where he filled a similar post. In 1512 he was made professor of Greek language in Venice: during this time he published through Aldus Manutius, a contemporary printer and publisher, his edition on Plato. This was the first time that the Dialogues were printed in Greek. In 1516, Musurus was summoned to Rome by Pope Leo X, where he lectured in the pope's ('' Gymnasium'') and established a Greek printing-pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theatre Of Ancient Greece
Ancient Greek theatre was a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece from 700 BC. The city-state of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political, and religious place during this period, was its centre, where the theatre was institutionalised as part of a festival called the Dionysia, which honoured the god Dionysus. Tragedy (late 500 BC), comedy (490 BC), and the satyr play were the three dramatic genres to emerge there. Athens exported the festival to its numerous colonies. Modern Western theatre comes, in large measure, from the theatre of ancient Greece, from which it borrows technical terminology, classification into genres, and many of its themes, stock characters, and plot elements. Etymology The word grc, τραγῳδία, tragoidia, label=none, from which the word "tragedy" is derived, is a compound of two Greek words: grc, τράγος, tragos, label=none or "goat" and grc, ᾠδή, ode, label=none meaning "song", from grc, ἀείδειν, ae ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates and is the capital of the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BC. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state. It was a centre for the arts, learning and philosophy, and the home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum. It is widely referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy, largely because of its cultural and political influence on the European continent—particularly Ancient Rome. In modern times, Athens is a large cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime, political and cultural life in Gre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
City Of The Violet Crown
City of the Violet Crown is a term for at least two cities, Athens, Greece and Austin, Texas. Athens, Greece In one of his surviving fragments (fragment 76), the lyric poet Pindar wrote of Athens: The climate of Attica is characterised by low humidity and a high percentage of dust in the air, which make sunsets display hues of violet and purple and the surrounding mountains often appear immersed in a purple haze. In Geoffrey Trease's novel, ''The Crown of Violet'', the name is explained as referring to the mauve-tinted marble of the Acropolis hill. Austin, Texas According to the City of Austin's History Center, the phrase first appeared in ''The Austin Daily Statesman'' (now ''The Austin American Statesman'') on May 5, 1890. It was long believed to have originated in O. Henry's story "Tictocq: The Great French Detective, In Austin", published in his collection of short stories ''The Rolling Stone'' published October 27, 1894. In chapter 2 of ''Tictocq'', O. Henry writes: T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pindar
Pindar (; grc-gre, Πίνδαρος , ; la, Pindarus; ) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is by far the greatest, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich exuberance of his language and matter, and his rolling flood of eloquence, characteristics which, as Horace rightly held, make him inimitable." His poems can also, however, seem difficult and even peculiar. The Athenian comic playwright Eupolis once remarked that they "are already reduced to silence by the disinclination of the multitude for elegant learning". Some scholars in the modern age also found his poetry perplexing, at least until the 1896 discovery of some poems by his rival Bacchylides; comparisons of their work showed that many of Pindar's idiosyncrasies are typical of archaic genres rather than of only the poet himself. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prequel
A prequel is a literary, dramatic or cinematic work whose story precedes that of a previous work, by focusing on events that occur before the original narrative. A prequel is a work that forms part of a backstory to the preceding work. The term "prequel" is a 20th-century neologism from the prefix "pre-" (from Latin ''prae'', "before") and "sequel". Like sequels, prequels may or may not concern the same plot as the work from which they are derived. More often they explain the background that led to the events in the original, but sometimes the connections are not completely explicit. Sometimes prequels play on the audience's knowledge of what will happen next, using deliberate references to create dramatic irony. History Though the word "prequel" is of recent origin, works fitting this concept existed long before. The ''Cypria'', presupposing hearers' acquaintance with the events of the Homeric epic, confined itself to what preceded the ''Iliad'', and thus formed a kind of introd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, and the Black Sea to the east. Bulgaria covers a territory of , and is the sixteenth-largest country in Europe. Sofia is the nation's capital and largest city; other major cities are Plovdiv, Varna and Burgas. One of the earliest societies in the lands of modern-day Bulgaria was the Neolithic Karanovo culture, which dates back to 6,500 BC. In the 6th to 3rd century BC the region was a battleground for ancient Thracians, Persians, Celts and Macedonians; stability came when the Roman Empire conquered the region in AD 45. After the Roman state splintered, tribal invasions in the region resumed. Around the 6th century, these territories were settled by the early Slavs. The Bulgars, led by Asp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Varna
Lake Varna ( bg, Варненско езеро, ) is the largest by volume and deepest liman or lake along the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, divided from the sea by a 2 km-wide strip of sand and having an area of 19 km², maximal depth 19 m, and a volume of 166 million m³. The lake has an elongated shape, its south shores are high, steep and wooded, and the north slant. Lake Varna was formed in a river valley by the raising of sea level near the end of the Pleistocene. Its bottom is covered by a thick alluvium of slime and hydrogen sulphide mud in the deepest parts; there are large deposits of medicinal ''fango'' (mineral mud). A number of rivers pour into the lake, including Devnya and Provadiyska that empty near the western shores of Lake Beloslav, which is connected to Lake Varna. Until the 20th century, fresh water from the lake emptied into the Black Sea through the Devnya River, but following the construction of the modern Port of Varna East (and the subsequent dra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Varna, Bulgaria
Varna ( bg, Варна, ) is the third-largest List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, city in Bulgaria and the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and in the Northern Bulgaria region. Situated strategically in the Gulf of Varna, the city has been a major economic, social and cultural centre for almost three millennia. Historically known as ''Odessos'' ( grc, Ὀδησσός), Varna developed from a Thracian seaside settlement to a major seaport on the Black Sea. Varna is an important centre for business, transportation, education, tourism, entertainment and healthcare. The city is referred to as the maritime capital of Bulgaria and has the headquarters of the Bulgarian Navy and merchant marine. In 2008, Varna was designated as the seat of the Black Sea Euroregion by the Council of Europe. In 2014, Varna was awarded the title of European Youth Capital 2017. The oldest gold treasure in the world, belonging to the Varna culture, was discovered in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dalmatia
Dalmatia (; hr, Dalmacija ; it, Dalmazia; see #Name, names in other languages) is one of the four historical region, historical regions of Croatia, alongside Croatia proper, Slavonia, and Istria. Dalmatia is a narrow belt of the east shore of the Adriatic Sea, stretching from the island of Rab in the north to the Bay of Kotor in the south. The Dalmatian Hinterland ranges in width from fifty kilometres in the north, to just a few kilometres in the south; it is mostly covered by the rugged Dinaric Alps. List of islands of Croatia, Seventy-nine islands (and about 500 islets) run parallel to the coast, the largest (in Dalmatia) being Brač, Pag (island), Pag, and Hvar. The largest city is Split, Croatia, Split, followed by Zadar and Šibenik. The name of the region stems from an Illyrians, Illyrian tribe called the Dalmatae, who lived in the area in classical antiquity. Later it became a Dalmatia (Roman province), Roman province, and as result a Romance languages, Romance culture ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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