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The Last Day Of A Condemned Man
''The Last Day of a Condemned Man'' (french: Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamné) is a novella by Victor Hugo first published in 1829. It recounts the thoughts of a man condemned to die. Victor Hugo wrote this novel to express his feelings that the death penalty should be abolished. Genesis Victor Hugo saw several times the spectacle of the guillotine and was angered at the spectacle that society can make of it. It was the day after crossing the "Place de l'Hotel de Ville" where an executioner was greasing the guillotine in anticipation of a scheduled execution that Hugo began writing ''The Last Day of a Condemned Man''. He finished very quickly. The book was published in February 1829 by Charles Gosselin without the author's name. Three years later, on 15 March 1832, Hugo completed his story with a long preface and his signature. Plot summary A man has been condemned to death by the guillotine in 19th-century France. In Bicêtre writes down his thoughts, feelings and fears while aw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the greatest French writers of all time. His most famous works are the novels ''The Hunchback of Notre-Dame'' (1831) and ''Les Misérables'' (1862). In France, Hugo is renowned for his poetry collections, such as (''The Contemplations'') and (''The Legend of the Ages''). Hugo was at the forefront of the Romanticism, Romantic literary movement with his play ''Cromwell (play), Cromwell'' and drama ''Hernani (drama), Hernani''. Many of his works have inspired music, both during his lifetime and after his death, including the opera ''Rigoletto'' and the musicals ''Les Misérables (musical), Les Misérables'' and ''Notre-Dame de Paris (musical), Notre-Dame de Paris''. He produced more than 4,000 drawings in his lifetime, and campaigned for social cau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George W
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he previously served as the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. While in his twenties, Bush flew warplanes in the Texas Air National Guard. After graduating from Harvard Business School in 1975, he worked in the oil industry. In 1978, Bush unsuccessfully ran for the House of Representatives. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers of Major League Baseball before he was elected governor of Texas in 1994. As governor, Bush successfully sponsored legislation for tort reform, increased education funding, set higher standards for schools, and reformed the criminal justice system. He also helped make Texas the leading producer of wind powered electricity in the nation. In the 2000 presidential election, Bush defeated Democratic incum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Meek One
"A Gentle Creature" (russian: Кроткая, translit=Krotkaya), sometimes also translated as "The Meek One", is a short story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky written in November 1876. The piece comes with the subtitle of "A Fantastic Story", and it chronicles the relationship between a pawnbroker and a girl that frequents his shop. The story was inspired by a news report that Dostoyevsky read in April 1876 about the suicide of a seamstress. Dostoyevsky referred to it as a "meek suicide" that "keeps haunting you for a long time." Plot summary The story opens with the narrator in a frenzy about an apparent tragedy that has just befallen his household. His wife has apparently died, as he makes repeated references to her being laid out on a table, presumably lifeless. The narrator proceeds to make an attempt to relate the story to the reader in an effort to make sense of the situation. The narrator is the owner of a pawnshop, and one of his repeated customers was a young girl of sixteen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mock Execution
A mock execution is a stratagem in which a victim is deliberately but falsely made to feel that their execution or that of another person is imminent or is taking place. The subject is made to believe that they are being led to their own execution. This might involve blindfolding the subjects, making them recount last wishes, making them dig their own grave, holding an unloaded gun to their head and pulling the trigger, shooting near (but not at) the victim, or firing blanks. Mock execution is categorized as psychological torture. There is a sense of fear induced when a person is made to feel that they are about to be executed or witness someone being executed. Mock execution is considered psychological torture due to the mental, though not physical, harm it induces. The psychological trauma can also lead to depression, anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other mental disorders after experiencing a traumatic event such as a mock execution. An example of anx ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Idiot
''The Idiot'' ( pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform rus, Идиот, Idiót) is a novel by the 19th-century Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was first published serially in the journal ''The Russian Messenger'' in 1868–69. The title is an ironic reference to the central character of the novel, Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin, a young man whose goodness, open-hearted simplicity and guilelessness lead many of the more worldly characters he encounters to mistakenly assume that he lacks intelligence and insight. In the character of Prince Myshkin, Dostoevsky set himself the task of depicting "the positively good and beautiful man." The novel examines the consequences of placing such a singular individual at the centre of the conflicts, desires, passions and egoism of worldly society, both for the man himself and for those with whom he becomes involved. Joseph Frank describes ''The Idiot'' as "the most personal of all Dostoevsky's major works, the book in which he embodies his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 February 1881), sometimes transliterated as Dostoyevsky, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. Dostoevsky's literary works explore the human condition in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes. His most acclaimed novels include ''Crime and Punishment'' (1866), ''The Idiot'' (1869), ''Demons'' (1872), and ''The Brothers Karamazov'' (1880). His 1864 novella, ''Notes from Underground'', is considered to be one of the first works of existentialist literature. Numerous literary critics regard him as one of the greatest novelists in all of world literature, as many of his works are considered highly influen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capital Punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that the person is responsible for violating norms that warrant said punishment. The sentence ordering that an offender is to be punished in such a manner is known as a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is known as an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is ''condemned'' and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Crimes that are punishable by death are known as ''capital crimes'', ''capital offences'', or ''capital felonies'', and vary depending on the jurisdiction, but commonly include serious crimes against the person, such as murder, mass murder, aggravated cases of rape (often including child sexual abuse), terrorism, aircraft hijacking, war crimes, crimes against h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Mysteries Of London (1844–48)
''The Mysteries of London'' is a "penny blood" or city mysteries novel begun by George W. M. Reynolds in 1844. Recent scholarship has uncovered that it "was almost certainly the most widely read single work of fiction in mid-nineteenth century Britain, and attracted more readers than did the novels of Dickens, Bulwer-Lytton or Trollope." There are many plots in the story, but the overarching purpose is to reveal different facets of life in London, from its seedy underbelly to its over-indulgent and corrupt aristocrats. Reynolds wrote the first two series of this long-running narrative. Thomas Miller wrote the third series and Edward L. Blanchard wrote the fourth series of this immensely popular title. The original text was published serially in 52 weekly parts. Installments were published weekly and contained a single illustration and eight pages of text printed in double columns. Upon its conclusion in 1845 all the parts were bound together in volume form and sold as a book by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Penny Dreadful
Penny dreadfuls were cheap popular serial literature produced during the nineteenth century in the United Kingdom. The pejorative term is roughly interchangeable with penny horrible, penny awful, and penny blood. The term typically referred to a story published in weekly parts of 8 to 16 pages, each costing one penny. The subject matter of these stories was typically sensational, focusing on the exploits of detectives, criminals, or supernatural entities. First published in the 1830s, penny dreadfuls featured characters such as Sweeney Todd, Dick Turpin, Varney the Vampire, and Spring-heeled Jack. The BBC called penny dreadfuls "a 19th-century British publishing phenomenon". By the 1850s, there were up to a hundred publishers of penny-fiction, and in the 1860s and 1870s more than a million boys' periodicals were sold a week. ''The Guardian'' described penny dreadfuls as "Britain's first taste of mass-produced popular culture for the young", and "the Victorian equivalent of vi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Les Misérables
''Les Misérables'' ( , ) is a French historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. In the English-speaking world, the novel is usually referred to by its original French title. However, several alternatives have been used, including ''The Miserables'', ''The Wretched'', ''The Miserable Ones'', ''The Poor Ones'', ''The Wretched Poor'', ''The Victims'', and ''The Dispossessed''. Beginning in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris, the novel follows the lives and interactions of several characters, particularly the struggles of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his experience of redemption. Examining the nature of law and grace, the novel elaborates upon the history of France, the architecture and urban design of Paris, politics, moral philosophy, antimonarchism, justice, religion, and the types and nature of romantic love, romantic and familial love. ''Les Misérables'' has been populariz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism, clandestine literature, paganism, idealization of nature, suspicion of science and industrialization, and glorification of the past with a strong preference for the medieval rather than the classical. It was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, the social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, and the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education, chess, social sciences, and the natural sciences. It had a significant and complex effect on politics, with romantic thinkers influencing conservatism, libe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psyche (psychology)
In psychology, the psyche is the totality of the human mind, conscious and unconscious. Many thinkers, including Carl Jung, also include in this definition the overlap and tension between the personal and the collective elements in man. Psychology is the scientific or objective study of the psyche. The word has a long history of use in psychology and philosophy, dating back to ancient times, and represents one of the fundamental concepts for understanding human nature from a scientific point of view. The English word soul is sometimes used synonymously, especially in older texts. Etymology The basic meaning of the Greek word ψυχή (''psyche'') was "life", although unsupported, some have claimed it is derived from the verb ψύχω (''psycho'', "to blow"). Derived meanings included "spirit", "soul", "ghost", and ultimately "self" in the sense of "conscious personality" or "psyche". Ancient psychology The idea of the psyche is central to the philosophy of Plato. Scholars tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
