The Landlady (novella)
''The Landlady'' (russian: Хозяйка, ''Khozayka'') is a novella by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, written in 1847. Set in Saint Petersburg, it tells of an abstracted young man, Vasily Mikhailovich Ordynov, and his obsessive love for Katerina, the wife of a dismal husband whom Ordynov perceives as a malignant fortune-teller or mystic. The story has echoes of Russian folklore and may contain autobiographical references. In its time ''The Landlady'' had a mixed reception, more recently being seen as perhaps unique in Dostoevsky's oeuvre. The first part of the novella was published in October 1847 in ''Notes of the Fatherland'', the second part in November that year. Plot After the reclusive and bookish scholar Vasily Ordynov is compelled to leave his apartment he wanders aimlessly through Saint Petersburg, contemplating his despair over a loveless life, his childhood and his future. Through this distraction he finds himself within a church, where he notices an old man ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gothic Literature
Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of early Gothic novels. The first work to call itself Gothic was Horace Walpole's 1764 novel ''The Castle of Otranto'', later subtitled "A Gothic Story". Subsequent 18th century contributors included Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Thomas Beckford, and Matthew Lewis. The Gothic influence continued into the early 19th century, works by the Romantic poets, and novelists such as Mary Shelley, Charles Maturin, Walter Scott and E. T. A. Hoffmann frequently drew upon gothic motifs in their works. The early Victorian period continued the use of gothic, in novels by Charles Dickens and the Brontë sisters, as well as works by the American writers Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Later prominent works were ''Dracula'' by Bram Stoker, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sovremennik
''Sovremennik'' ( rus, «Современник», p=səvrʲɪˈmʲenʲːɪk, a=Ru-современник.ogg, "The Contemporary") was a Russian literary, social and political magazine, published in Saint Petersburg in 1836–1866. It came out four times a year in 1836–1843 and once a month after that. The magazine published poetry, prose, critical, historical, ethnographic and other material. ''Sovremennik'' originated as a private enterprise of Alexander Pushkin who was running out of money to support his growing family. To assist him with the magazine, the poet asked Nikolai Gogol, Pyotr Vyazemsky and Vladimir Odoyevsky to contribute their works to the journal. It was there that the first substantial assortment of Fyodor Tyutchev's poems was published. Soon it became clear that Pushkin's establishment could not compete with Faddey Bulgarin's journal, which published more popular and less demanding literature. ''Sovremennik'' was out of date and could not command a paying a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts in the psyche, through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst. Freud was born to Galician Jewish parents in the Moravian town of Freiberg, in the Austrian Empire. He qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1881 at the University of Vienna. Upon completing his habilitation in 1885, he was appointed a docent in neuropathology and became an affiliated professor in 1902. Freud lived and worked in Vienna, having set up his clinical practice there in 1886. In 1938, Freud left Austria to escape Nazi persecution. He died in exile in the United Kingdom in 1939. In founding psychoanalysis, Freud developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association and discovered transference, establishing its central role in the analytic proces ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Sandman (short Story)
"The Sandman" ( German: ''Der Sandmann'') is a short story by . It was the first in an 1817 book of stories titled ''Die Nachtstücke'' (''The Night Pieces''). Plot summary The story is told by a narrator who claims to have known Lothar. It begins by quoting three letters: # A letter from Nathanael to Lothar, the brother of his fiancée, Clara. Nathanael recalls his childhood terror of the legendary Sandman, who was said to steal the eyes of children who would not go to bed and feed them to his own children who lived in the moon. Nathanael came to associate the Sandman with a mysterious nightly visitor to his father. He recounts that one night, he hid in his father's room to see the Sandman. It is Coppelius, an obnoxious lawyer come to carry out alchemical experiments. Coppelius begins taking "shining masses" out of the fire and hammering them into face-like shapes without eyes. When Nathanael screams and is discovered, Coppelius flings him to the hearth. He is about to throw fi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Devil's Elixirs
''The Devil's Elixirs'' (german: Die Elixiere des Teufels) is a novel by E. T. A. Hoffmann. Published in 1815, the basic idea for the story was adopted from Matthew Gregory Lewis's novel ''The Monk'', which is itself mentioned in the text. Although Hoffmann himself was not particularly religious, he was nevertheless so strongly impressed by the life and atmosphere on a visit to a monastery of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, that he determined to write the novel in that religious setting. Characteristically for Hoffmann, he wrote the entire novel in only a few weeks. ''The Devil's Elixirs'' is described by some literary critics as fitting into the Gothic novel genre (called ''Schauerroman'' in German). It can be classified in the subgenre of dark romanticism. Plot ''The Devil's Elixirs'' is predominantly a first-person narrative related by the Capuchin monk Medardus. He is ignorant of his family history and what he knows about his childhood is based upon fragments of memo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hoffmann
Hoffmann is a German surname. People A * Albert Hoffmann (1846–1924), German horticulturist * Alexander Hoffmann (born 1975), German politician * Arthur Hoffmann (politician) (1857–1927), Swiss politician and member of the Swiss Federal Council * Asa Hoffmann (born 1943), American chess player *August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben (1798–1874), German poet B *Banesh Hoffmann (1906–1986), American mathematician and physicist, biographer of Einstein *Baptist Hoffmann (1863–1937), German operatic baritone and voice teacher * Bettina Hoffmann (born 1960), German politician * Bruno Hoffmann (1913–1991), German glass harp player C * Charles F. Hoffmann (1838–1913), German-American topographer * Christoph Hoffmann (1815–1885), German politician and Templer * Christoph Hoffmann (born 1957), German politician D * David Hoffmann (other) E * E. T. A. Hoffmann (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann; 1776–1822), German writer, eponym of ''The Tales of Hoffmann'' *Er ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vladimir Odoyevsky
Prince Vladimir Fyodorovich Odoyevsky (russian: Влади́мир Фёдорович Одо́евский, p=ɐˈdojɪfskʲɪj; Владимир Федорович Одоевский. Библиографический указатель. Энциклопедия Хоронос//http://hrono.ru/biograf/bio_o/odoevski_vf.php – ) was a prominent Russian Empire, Russian Imperial philosopher, writer, music critic, philanthropist and pedagogy, pedagogue. He became known as the "Russian E.T.A. Hoffmann, Hoffmann" and even the "Russian Johann Faust, Faust" on account of his keen interest in phantasmagoria, phantasmagoric tales and musical criticism. Biography The last member of the princely House of Odoyev, he was genealogically the most senior member of the House of Rurik. He was born to Prince Fyodor Sergeevich Odoyevsky (1771–1808), a state councillor (''statsky sovietnik''). His father started out as an adjutant of Prince Grigory Potemkin, Grigory Potyomkin, then, in 1798 he en ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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A Terrible Vengeance
"A Terrible Vengeance" (russian: Страшная месть, Strashnaya mest') is a short Gothic horror story written by Russian author Nikolai Gogol. It was published in the second volume of his first short story collection, ''Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka'', in 1832, and it was probably written in late summer 1831. Origin The appearance of evil spirits, and specifically of an Antichrist figure, in "A Terrible Vengeance" was typical of Gogol's belief in the omnipresence of Evil in everyday life, an aspect of his religious philosophy that is uniquely direct in this story. The overall construction of the story is typical of what would come to be called ''skaz'', wherein characters are identified to a large degree by linguistic specificities of their manner of speech. Another particularity of the piece is frequent narratorial intrusion, such as asides to the reader or other violations of the narratorial frame. The basic plot of the story evokes folklore, but there is no comparabl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Taras Bulba
''Taras Bulba'' (russian: «Тарас Бульба»; ) is a romanticized historical novella set in the first half of the 17th century, written by Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852). It features elderly Zaporozhian Cossack Taras Bulba and his sons Andriy and Ostap. The sons study at the Kiev Academy and then return home, whereupon the three men set out on a journey to the Zaporizhian Sich (the Zaporizhian Cossack headquarters, located in southern Ukraine) where they join other Cossacks and go to war against Poland. The story was initially published in 1835 as part of the ''Mirgorod'' collection of short stories, but a much expanded version appeared in 1842 with some differences in the storyline. The 1842 text has been described by as a "paragon of civic virtue and a force of patriotic edification", contrasting the rhetoric of the 1835 version with its "distinctly Cossack jingoism". Inspiration The character of Taras Bulba, the main hero of this novel, is a composite of several hi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gogol
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; uk, link=no, Мико́ла Васи́льович Го́голь, translit=Mykola Vasyliovych Hohol; (russian: Яновский; uk, Яновський, translit=Yanovskyi) ( – ) was a Russian novelist, short story writer and playwright of Ukrainian origin. Gogol was one of the first to use the technique of the grotesque, in works such as " The Nose", " Viy", "The Overcoat", and "Nevsky Prospekt". These stories, and others such as " Diary of a Madman", have also been noted for their proto-surrealist qualities. According to Viktor Shklovsky, Gogol's strange style of writing resembles the "ostranenie" technique of defamiliarization. His early works, such as ''Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka'', were influenced by his Ukrainian upbringing, Ukrainian culture and folklore. His later writing satirised political corruption in the Russian Empire (''The Government Inspector'', '' Dead Souls''). The novel ''Taras Bulba'' (1835), the play ''Marriag ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Netochka Nezvanova (novel)
''Netochka Nezvanova'' (russian: Не́точка Незва́нова) is an unfinished novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was originally intended as a large scale work in the form of a 'confession', but a background sketch of the eponymous heroine's childhood and adolescence is all that was completed and published. According to translator Jane Kentish, this first publication was intended as "no more than a prologue to the novel".Fyodor Dostoevsky: ''Netochka Nezvanova''. Translated with an introduction by Jane Kentish. Penguin Books. 1985. p 5. Dostoevsky began work on the novel in 1848 and the first completed section was published at the end of 1849. Further work was prevented by the author's arrest and exile to a Siberian detention camp for his part in the activities of the Petrashevsky Circle. After his return in 1859, Dostoevsky never resumed work on ''Netochka Nezvanova'', leaving this fragment forever incomplete. The novel is in the style of a ''Bildungsroman'', depicting e ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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White Nights (short Story)
"White Nights" (russian: Белые ночи, ''Belye nochi'') is a short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky, originally published in 1848, early in the writer's career. Like many of Dostoevsky's stories, "White Nights" is told in the first person by a nameless narrator. The narrator is a young man living in Saint Petersburg who suffers from loneliness. He gets to know and falls in love with a young woman, but the love remains unrequited as the woman misses her lover, with whom she is finally reunited. Plot summary The short story is divided into six sections: ;First Night: The narrator describes his experience walking in the streets of St. Petersburg. He loves the city at night, and feels comfortable in it. Because all the people he is used to seeing are not there, he no longer feels comfortable during the day. He drew his emotions from them: if they were happy, he was happy; if they were despondent, he was despondent. New faces made him feel alone. As he walked, the houses would t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |