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The Solitudes (novel)
''The Solitudes'' (originally titled ''Ægypt'' contrary to the author's wishes) is a 1987 fantasy novel by John Crowley. It is Crowley's fifth published novel and the first novel in the Ægypt tetralogy. Titled after Luis de Góngora's '' Las Soledades'' (English: "The Solitudes"), the novel follows Pierce Moffett, a college history professor in his retreat from ordinary, academic life to pastoral life of Faraway Hills. While in the area, Pierce comes up with a plan to write a book about Hermeticism, in the process finding several parallels with his own project and that of the nearly-forgotten local novelist Fellowes Kraft. The novel takes place in two time periods and features three main protagonists; that of Pierce's in the late twentieth century, and that of John Dee, Edward Kelley and Giordano Bruno as from the historical novels of Kraft in the Renaissance. The difference is marked stylistically by dashes indicating dialogue for events that happened in the Renaissance and ev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victor Gollancz Ltd
Victor Gollancz Ltd () was a major British book publishing house of the twentieth century and continues to publish science fiction and fantasy titles as an imprint of Orion Publishing Group. Gollancz was founded in 1927 by Victor Gollancz, and specialised in the publication of high-quality literature, nonfiction, and popular fiction, including crime, detective, mystery, thriller, and science fiction. Upon Gollancz's death in 1967, ownership passed to his daughter, Livia, who in 1989 sold it to Houghton Mifflin. Three years later in October 1992, Houghton Mifflin sold Gollancz to the publishing house Cassell & Co. Cassell and its parent company Orion Publishing Group were acquired by Hachette in 1996, and in December 1998 the merged Orion/Cassell group turned Gollancz into its science fiction/fantasy imprint. Origins as a political house Gollancz was left-inclined in politics and a supporter of socialist movements. This is reflected in some of the call for the books he publis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paracosm
A paracosm is a detailed imaginary world thought generally to originate in childhood. The creator of a paracosm has a complex and deeply felt relationship with this subjective universe, which may incorporate real-world or imaginary characters and conventions. Commonly having its own geography, history, and language, it is an experience that is often developed during childhood and continues over a long period of time, months or even years, as a sophisticated reality that can last into adulthood.Kristin Petrella,A Crucial Juncture: The Paracosmic Approach to the Private Worlds of Lewis Carroll and the Brontës". In ''Surface'', Syracuse University Honors Program, Spring 2009-05-01. (PDF) Origin and usage The concept was first described by a researcher for the BBC, Robert Silvey, with later research by British psychiatrist Stephen A. MacKeith and British psychologist David Cohen. The term "paracosm" was coined by Ben Vincent, a participant in Silvey's 1976 study and a self-profe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Crying Of Lot 49
''The Crying of Lot 49'' is a 1966 novel by American author Thomas Pynchon. The shortest of Pynchon's novels, the plot follows Oedipa Maas, a young Californian woman who begins to embrace a conspiracy theory as she possibly unearths a centuries-old feud between two mail distribution companies; one of these companies, Thurn and Taxis, actually existed (1806–1867) and was the first private firm to distribute postal mail. Like most of Pynchon's output, ''Lot 49'' is often described as postmodernist literature. ''Time'' included the novel in its " TIME 100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923 to 2005". Plot In the mid-1960s, Oedipa Maas lives a fairly comfortable life in the (fictional) northern Californian village of Kinneret, despite her lackluster marriage with Mucho Maas, a rudderless radio jockey, and her sessions with Dr. Hilarius, an unhinged German psychotherapist who tries to medicate his patients with LSD. One day, Oedipa learns of the death of an ex-lover, Pierce Inverar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synesthesia
Synesthesia (American English) or synaesthesia (British English) is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who report a lifelong history of such experiences are known as synesthetes. Awareness of synesthetic perceptions varies from person to person. In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme–color synesthesia or color–graphemic synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored. In spatial-sequence, or number form synesthesia, numbers, months of the year, or days of the week elicit precise locations in space (''e.g.,'' 1980 may be "farther away" than 1990), or may appear as a three-dimensional map (clockwise or counterclockwise). Synesthetic associations can occur in any combination and any number of senses or cognitive pathways. Little is known about how synesthesia develops. It has been suggested that synesthesia dev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Petrus Ramus
Petrus Ramus (french: Pierre de La Ramée; Anglicized as Peter Ramus ; 1515 – 26 August 1572) was a French humanist, logician, and educational reformer. A Protestant convert, he was a victim of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. Early life He was born at the village of Cuts, Picardy; his father was a farmer. He gained admission at age twelve (thus about 1527) to the Collège de Navarre, working as a servant. A reaction against scholasticism was in full tide, at a transitional time for Aristotelianism. On the occasion of receiving his M.A. degree in 1536, Ramus allegedly took as his thesis ''Quaecumque ab Aristotele dicta essent, commentitia esse'' (''Everything that Aristotle has said is false''), which Walter J. Ong paraphrases as follows: According to Ong this kind of spectacular thesis was in fact routine at the time. Even so, Ong raises questions as to whether Ramus actually ever delivered this thesis. Early academic career Ramus, as graduate of the university, sta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Altar Boy
An altar server is a laity, lay assistant to a member of the clergy during a Christian liturgy. An altar server attends to supporting tasks at the altar such as fetching and carrying, ringing the altar bell, helps bring up the gifts, brings up the book, among other things. If young, the server is commonly called an altar boy or altar girl. In some Christian denominations, altar servers are known as acolytes. Latin Church While the function of altar server is commonly associated with children, it can be and is carried out by people of any age or dignity. A according to the ''General Instruction of the Roman Missal'', "Mass should not be celebrated without a minister, or at least one of the faithful, except for a just and reasonable cause." The term "acolyte" As in other churches, altar servers are sometimes called acolytes in the Latin Church. Pope Benedict XVI spoke of Saint Tarcisius as "presumably an acolyte, that is, an altar server". However, within the Latin Church, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Goethe's Faust
''Faust'' is a tragic play in two parts by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, usually known in English as '' Faust, Part One'' and ''Faust, Part Two''. Nearly all of Part One and the majority of Part Two are written in rhymed verse. Although rarely staged in its entirety, it is the play with the largest audience numbers on German-language stages. ''Faust'' is considered by many to be Goethe's ''magnum opus'' and the greatest work of German literature. The earliest forms of the work, known as the ''Urfaust'', were developed between 1772 and 1775; however, the details of that development are not entirely clear. ''Urfaust'' has twenty-two scenes, one in prose, two largely prose and the remaining 1,441 lines in rhymed verse. The manuscript is lost, but a copy was discovered in 1886. The first appearance of the work in print was ''Faust, a Fragment'', published in 1790. Goethe completed a preliminary version of what is now known as ''Part One'' in 1806. Its publication in 1808 was follow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
House (astrology)
Most Horoscopic astrology, horoscopic traditions of astrology systems divide the horoscope into a number (usually twelve) of houses whose positions depend on time and location rather than on date. In Jyotiṣa, Hindu astrological tradition these are known as Bhāvas. The houses of the horoscope represent different fields of experience wherein the energies of the signs and planets operateArroyo (1989), p. 111.—described in terms of physical surroundings as well as personal life experiences. Description Every house system is also affiliated with a zodiac sign can be dependent on the Earth's rotation, rotational movement of Earth on its axis, but there is a wide range of approaches to calculating house divisions and different opinions among astrologers over which house system is most accurate. To calculate the houses, it is necessary to know the exact time, date, and location. In natal astrology, some astrologers will use a birth time set for noon or sunrise if the actual tim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morris West
Morris Langlo West (26 April 19169 October 1999) was an Australian novelist and playwright, best known for his novels '' The Devil's Advocate'' (1959), ''The Shoes of the Fisherman'' (1963) and ''The Clowns of God'' (1981). His books were published in 27 languages and sold more than 60 million copies worldwide. Each new book he wrote after he became an established writer sold more than one million copies. West's works were often focused on international politics and the role of the Roman Catholic Church in international affairs. In ''The Shoes of the Fisherman'' he described the election and career of a Slav as Pope, 15 years before the historic election of Karol Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II. The sequel, ''The Clowns of God'', described a successor Pope who resigned the papacy to live in seclusion, 32 years before the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI in 2013. Early life West was born in St Kilda, Victoria, the son of a commercial salesman. Due to the large size of his family, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Derek Stacton
David Derek Stacton (born Arthur Lionel Kingsley Evans, May 27, 1923 – January 19, 1968) was an American novelist, historian and poet. Biography Stacton was born in San Francisco. In author profiles, however, he claimed to have been born April 25, 1925, in Minden, Nevada (several of his books are set in Nevada). Stacton attended Stanford University from 1941 to 1943. He served in the Civilian Public Service as a conscientious objector, and wrote a letter as "David Stacton" decrying the compliant American masses to Dwight Macdonald's ''Politics'' in 1945. He legally changed his name to David Derek Stacton on September 3, 1946. He changed his name to disassociate himself from his father, and because he believed the surname was unique to him in the United States (as a child he had been known to friends as "Lyonel"). He attended San Francisco State College from 1947 to 1948, and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in January 1951. He lived in Europe from 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frances Yates
Dame Frances Amelia Yates (28 November 1899 – 29 September 1981) was an English historian of the Renaissance, who wrote books on esoteric history. After attaining an MA in French at University College London, she began to publish her research in scholarly journals and academic books, focusing on 16th-century theatre and the life of the linguist and lexicographer John Florio. In 1941, she was employed by the Warburg Institute in London, and began to work on what she termed "Warburgian history", emphasising a pan-European and inter-disciplinary approach to historiography. Her most acclaimed publication was '' Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition'' (1964), in which she emphasised the role of Hermeticism in Bruno's works and the role that magic and mysticism played in Renaissance thinking. ''The Art of Memory'' (1966), and ''The Rosicrucian Enlightenment'' (1972) are also major works. Yates wrote extensively on the occult or Neoplatonic philosophies of the Renaissance, wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
