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The History Of Rasselas, Prince Of Abissinia
''The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia'', originally titled ''The Prince of Abissinia: A Tale'', though often abbreviated to ''Rasselas'', is an apologue about bliss and ignorance by Samuel Johnson. The book's original working title was "The Choice of Life". The book was first published in April 1759 in England. Early readers considered ''Rasselas'' to be a work of philosophical and practical importance and critics often remark on the difficulty of classifying it as a novel. Origin and influences At the age of fifty, Johnson wrote the piece in only one week to help pay the costs of his mother's funeral, intending to complete it on 22 January 1759 (the eve of his mother's death). Johnson is believed to have received a total of £75 for the copyright. Though this is still popular belief, Wharton and Mayerson's book, "''Samuel Johnson and the Theme of Hope''," explains how James Boswell, the author of Johnson's biography, was "entirely wrong in supposing that ''Rasselas'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' calls him "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford until lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London and began writing for ''The Gentleman's Magazine''. Early works include '' Life of Mr Richard Savage'', the poems ''London'' and ''The Vanity of Human Wishes'' and the play ''Irene''. After nine years' effort, Johnson's '' A Dictionary of the English Language'' appeared in 1755, and was acclaimed as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". Later work included essays, an annotated '' The Plays of William Shakespeare'', and the apologue '' The History of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Vanity Of Human Wishes
''The Vanity of Human Wishes: The Tenth Satire of Juvenal Imitated'' is a poem by the English author Samuel Johnson. It was written in late 1748 and published in 1749 (see 1749 in poetry). It was begun and completed while Johnson was busy writing '' A Dictionary of the English Language'' and it was the first published work to include Johnson's name on the title page. As the subtitle suggests, it is an imitation of Satire X by the Latin poet Juvenal. Unlike Juvenal, Johnson attempts to sympathize with his poetic subjects. Also, the poem focuses on human futility and humanity's quest after greatness like Juvenal but concludes that Christian values are important to living properly. It was Johnson's second imitation of Juvenal (the first being his 1738 poem ''London''). Unlike ''London'', ''The Vanity of Human Wishes'' emphasizes philosophy over politics. The poem was not a financial success, but later critics, including Walter Scott and T. S. Eliot, considered it to be Johnson's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colony, colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their religion, language, economics, and other cultural practices. The foreign administrators rule the territory in pursuit of their interests, seeking to benefit from the colonised region's people and resources. It is associated with but distinct from imperialism. Though colonialism Colonies in antiquity, has existed since ancient times, the concept is most strongly associated with the History of colonialism, European colonial period starting with the 15th century when some European colonial empires, European states established colonising empires. At first, European colonising countries followed policies of mercantilism, aiming to strengthen the home-country economy, so agreements usually restricted the colony to trading only with the metro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman à Clef
''Roman à clef'' (, anglicised as ), French for ''novel with a key'', is a novel about real-life events that is overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship between the nonfiction and the fiction. This metaphorical key may be produced separately—typically as an explicit guide to the text by the author—or implied, through the use of epigraphs or other literary techniques. Madeleine de Scudéry created the ''roman à clef'' in the 17th century to provide a forum for her thinly veiled fiction featuring political and public figures. The reasons an author might choose the ''roman à clef'' format include satire; writing about controversial topics and/or reporting inside information on scandals without giving rise to charges of libel; the opportunity to turn the tale the way the author would like it to have gone; the opportunity to portray personal, autobiographical experiences without having to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hester Piozzi
Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi (née Salusbury; later Piozzi; 27 January 1741 or 16 January 1740 – 2 May 1821),Contemporary records, which used the Julian calendar and the Annunciation Style of enumerating years, recorded her birth as 16 January 1740. The provisions of the British Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, implemented in 1752, altered the official British dating method to the Gregorian calendar with the start of the year on 1 January (it had been 25 March). These changes resulted in dates being moved forward 11 days, and for those between 1 January and 25 March, an advance of one year. For further explanation, see: Old Style and New Style dates. a Welsh-born diarist, author and patron of the arts, is an important source on Samuel Johnson and 18th-century English life. She belonged to the prominent Salusbury family, Anglo-Welsh landowners, and married first a wealthy brewer, Henry Thrale, then a music teacher, Gabriel Mario Piozzi. Her ''Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melancholia
Melancholia or melancholy (from el, µέλαινα χολή ',Burton, Bk. I, p. 147 meaning black bile) is a concept found throughout ancient, medieval and premodern medicine in Europe that describes a condition characterized by markedly depressed mood, bodily complaints, and sometimes hallucinations and delusions. Melancholy was regarded as one of the four temperaments matching the four humours. Until the 18th century, doctors and other scholars classified melancholic conditions as such by their perceived common causean excess of a notional fluid known as "black bile", which was commonly linked to the spleen. Between the late 18th and late 19th centuries, ''melancholia'' was a common medical diagnosis, and modern concepts of depression as a mood disorder eventually arose from this historical context. Related terms used in historical medicine include lugubriousness (from Latin '' lugere'': "to mourn"), moroseness (from Latin '' morosus'': "self-will or fastidious habit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irvin Ehrenpreis
Irvin Ehrenpreis (June 9, 1920July 3, 1985) was an American literary scholar. From 1975 to 1985, he was the Linden Kent Memorial Professor of English Literature at the University of Virginia. Ehrenpreis was considered an expert on Jonathan Swift and also wrote on contemporary American literature. Early life and education Irvin Ehrenpreis was born on June 9, 1920, in New York City, to Edith (Lipman) and Louis Ehrenpreis. He received a bachelor's degree from City College (now City College of New York) in 1938 and a master's and doctorate from Columbia University in 1939 and 1944, respectively. Career Ehrenpreis taught at Indiana University Bloomington from 1945 to 1965. While on the Indiana faculty, he held two Guggenheim Fellowships in the biography category, in 1955 and 1961. He came to the University of Virginia in 1965, where he was the Commonwealth Professor from 1967 to 1985 and the Linden Kent Memorial Professor of English Literature from 1975 to 1985. He was elected ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known books, ''Ficciones'' (''Fictions'') and ''El Aleph'' (''The Aleph''), published in the 1940s, are collections of short stories exploring themes of dreams, labyrinths, chance, infinity, archives, mirrors, fictional writers and mythology. Borges' works have contributed to philosophical literature and the fantasy genre, and majorly influenced the magic realist movement in 20th century Latin American literature.Theo L. D'Haen (1995) "Magical Realism and Postmodernism: Decentering Privileged Centers", in: Louis P. Zamora and Wendy B. Faris, ''Magical Realism: Theory, History and Community''. Duhan and London, Duke University Press, pp. 191–208. Born in Buenos Aires, Borges later moved with his family to Switzerland in 1914, where he studi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip of Palestine and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. The Gulf of Aqaba in the northeast separates Egypt from Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Cairo is the capital and largest city of Egypt, while Alexandria, the second-largest city, is an important industrial and tourist hub at the Mediterranean coast. At approximately 100 million inhabitants, Egypt is the 14th-most populated country in the world. Egypt has one of the longest histories of any country, tracing its heritage along the Nile Delta back to the 6th–4th millennia BCE. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt saw some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paradise Lost
''Paradise Lost'' is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into twelve books (in the manner of Virgil's ''Aeneid'') with minor revisions throughout. It is considered to be Milton's masterpiece, and it helped solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of all time. The poem concerns the biblical story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Composition In his introduction to the Penguin edition of ''Paradise Lost'', the Milton scholar John Leonard notes, "John Milton was nearly sixty when he published ''Paradise Lost'' in 1667. The biographer John Aubrey (1626–1697) tells us that the poem was begun in about 1658 and finished in about 1663. However, parts were almost certainly wri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ... from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known for having written the '' Histories'' – a detailed account of the Greco-Persian Wars. Herodotus was the first writer to perform systematic investigation of historical events. He is referred to as " The Father of History", a title conferred on him by the ancient Roman orator Cicero. The ''Histories'' primarily cover the lives of prominent kings and famous Battle, battles such as Battle of Marathon, Marathon, Battle of Thermopylae, Thermopylae, Battle of Artemisium, Artemisium, Battle of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known books, ''Ficciones'' (''Fictions'') and ''El Aleph'' (''The Aleph''), published in the 1940s, are collections of short stories exploring themes of dreams, labyrinths, chance, infinity, archives, mirrors, fictional writers and mythology. Borges' works have contributed to philosophical literature and the fantasy genre, and majorly influenced the magic realist movement in 20th century Latin American literature.Theo L. D'Haen (1995) "Magical Realism and Postmodernism: Decentering Privileged Centers", in: Louis P. Zamora and Wendy B. Faris, ''Magical Realism: Theory, History and Community''. Duhan and London, Duke University Press, pp. 191–208. Born in Buenos Aires, Borges later moved with his family to Switzerland in 1914, where he stu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
