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Undine (novella)
''Undine'' is a fairytale novella (''Erzählung'') by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué in which Undine, a water spirit, marries a knight named Huldbrand in order to gain a soul. Published in 1811, it is an early German romance, which has been translated into English and other languages. Plot summary A knight named Huldbrand comes across a fisherman's hut in the forest, and is welcomed in by the fisherman and his wife. He also meets their capricious eighteen-year-old foster daughter, Undine. The fisherman explains that years ago, their young daughter was lost in the lake and apparently drowned, but that same day, Undine appeared on their doorstep. Since then, they have raised her as their own. Undine asks Huldbrand what he’s doing in the forest. He explains that he was participating in a tournament when he met Bertalda, a duke's foster daughter. As they flirted, she promised to give him her glove if he would explore the haunted forest. He did so, encountering strange and threateni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Katharine Cameron
Katharine Cameron RWS RE (26 February 1874 – 1965) was a Scottish artist, watercolourist, and printmaker, best known for her paintings and etchings of flowers. She was associated with the group of artists known as the Glasgow Girls. Early life and education Born in Hillhead, Glasgow, she was the daughter of the Rev. Robert Cameron and the sister of the artist David Young Cameron. She studied at the Glasgow School of Art, from 1889 to 1893 where she became associated with a small circle of female students who called themselves 'The Immortals'. The group included the sisters Frances and Margaret Macdonald, Janet Aitken, Agnes Raeburn, Jessie Keppie, John Keppie, Herbet McNair, and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. During her time at the Glasgow School of Art she contributed illustrations for The Yellow Book and the student publication The Magazine. Around 1902 she travelled to France and enrolled at the Atelier Colarossi, studying under Gustave Courtois. Book Illustrator O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George MacDonald
George MacDonald (10 December 1824 – 18 September 1905) was a Scottish author, poet and Christian Congregational minister. He was a pioneering figure in the field of modern fantasy literature and the mentor of fellow writer Lewis Carroll. In addition to his fairy tales, MacDonald wrote several works of Christian theology, including several collections of sermons. His writings have been cited as a major literary influence by many notable authors including Lewis Carroll, W. H. Auden, David Lindsay, J. M. Barrie, Lord Dunsany, Elizabeth Yates, Oswald Chambers, Mark Twain, Hope Mirrlees, Robert E. Howard, L. Frank Baum, T. H. White, Richard Adams, Lloyd Alexander, Hilaire Belloc, G. K. Chesterton, Robert Hugh Benson, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Fulton Sheen, Flannery O'Connor, Louis Pasteur, Simone Weil, Charles Maurras, Jacques Maritain, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Ray Bradbury, C. H. Douglas, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Walter de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Little Mermaid
"The Little Mermaid" ( da, Den lille havfrue) is a literary fairy tale written by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. The story follows the journey of a young mermaid who is willing to give up her life in the sea as a mermaid to gain a human soul. The tale was first published in 1837 as part of a collection of fairy tales for children. The original story has been a subject of multiple analyses by scholars such as Jacob Bøggild and Pernille Heegaard as well as the folklorist Maria Tatar. These analyses cover various aspects of the story from interpreting the themes to discussing why Andersen chose to write a tragic story with a happy ending. It has been adapted to various media, including musical theatre, anime, ballet, opera, and film. There is also a statue portraying the mermaid in Copenhagen, Denmark, where the story was written and first published. Plot summary The Little Mermaid lives in an underwater kingdom with her widowed father ( Mer-King), her dowager grand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, consisting of 156 stories across nine volumes and translated into more than 125 languages, have become culturally embedded in the West's collective consciousness, readily accessible to children but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers as well. His most famous fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Mermaid", " The Nightingale", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", " The Red Shoes", " The Princess and the Pea", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling", " The Little Match Girl", and " Thumbelina". His stories have inspired ballets, plays, and animated and live-action films. Early life Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark on 2 April 1805. He had a stepsister named Karen. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Undina (Tchaikovsky)
''Undina'' (sometimes ''Undine'' or ''Ondine'') (russian: Ундина ) is an opera in three acts by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The work was composed in 1869. The libretto was written by Vladimir Sollogub, and is based on Vasily Zhukovsky's translation of Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's '' Ondine''. History The opera was composed during the months of January to July, 1869, but Tchaikovsky destroyed the score in 1873, preserving only a few numbers from the opera. The opera has never been performed in its entirety. The only extracts that survive are: #Introduction #Aria: ''"Waterfall, my uncle, streamlet, my brother"'' (Undina) #Chorus: ''"Help, help! Our stream is raging"'' #Duet: ''"O happiness, O blessed moment"'' (Undina, Huldbrand) #Chorus: ''"O hours of death"'' (soloists, chorus) At least three of these pieces - the aria, the duet, and the final chorus - were performed at the Moscow premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow on 28 March 1870. Some music from the opera was sub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets ''Swan Lake'' and ''The Nutcracker'', the ''1812 Overture'', his First Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, the ''Romeo and Juliet'' Overture-Fantasy, several symphonies, and the opera ''Eugene Onegin''. Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant as there was little opportunity for a musical career in Russia at the time and no system of public music education. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching that he received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vasily Zhukovsky
Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky (russian: Василий Андреевич Жуковский, Vasiliy Andreyevich Zhukovskiy; – ) was the foremost Russian poet of the 1810s and a leading figure in Russian literature in the first half of the 19th century. He held a high position at the Romanov court as tutor to the Grand Duchess Alexandra Feodorovna and later to her son, the future Tsar-Liberator Alexander II. Zhukovsky is credited with introducing the Romantic Movement into Russia. The main body of his literary output consists of free translations covering an impressively wide range of poets, from ancients like Ferdowsi and Homer to his contemporaries Goethe, Schiller, Byron, and others. Many of his translations have become classics of Russian literature, regarded by some to be better written and more enduring in Russian than in their original languages. Life Zhukovsky was born in the village of Mishenskoe, in Tula Governorate, Russian Empire, the illegitimate son of a l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dactylic Hexameter
Dactylic hexameter (also known as heroic hexameter and the meter of epic) is a form of meter or rhythmic scheme frequently used in Ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The scheme of the hexameter is usually as follows (writing – for a long syllable, u for a short, and u u for a position that may be a long or two shorts): :, – u u , – u u , – u u , – u u , – u u , – – Here, ", " (pipe symbol) marks the beginning of a foot in the line. Thus there are six feet, each of which is either a dactyl (– u u) or a spondee (– –). The first four feet can either be dactyls, spondees, or a mix. The fifth foot can also sometimes be a spondee, but this is rare, as it most often is a dactyl. The last foot is a spondee. The hexameter is traditionally associated with classical epic poetry in both Greek and Latin and was consequently considered to be ''the'' grand style of Western classical poetry. Some well known examples of its use are Homer's ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'', Apoll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Maria Von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (18 or 19 November 17865 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, virtuoso pianist, guitarist, and critic who was one of the first significant composers of the Romantic era. Best known for his operas, he was a crucial figure in the development of German ''Romantische Oper'' (German Romantic opera). Throughout his youth, his father, , relentlessly moved the family between Hamburg, Salzburg, Freiberg, Augsburg and Vienna. Consequently he studied with many teachers – his father, Johann Peter Heuschkel, Michael Haydn, Giovanni Valesi, Johann Nepomuk Kalcher and Georg Joseph Vogler – under whose supervision he composed four operas, none of which survive complete. He had a modest output of non-operatic music, which includes two symphonies; a viola concerto; bassoon concerti; piano pieces such as Konzertstück in F minor and '' Invitation to the Dance''; and many pieces that featured the clarinet, usually written for the virtuoso c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Undine (Hoffmann)
''Undine'' is an opera, with spoken dialogue, in three acts by the German composer and author E. T. A. Hoffmann. The libretto, by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, is based on his own story ''Undine''. It received its premiere at the Königliches Schauspielhaus in Berlin on 3 August 1816. ''Undine'' was Hoffmann's greatest operatic success and a major influence on the development of German Romantic opera. Carl Maria von Weber's enthusiastic review of the opera admired it as "an art work complete in itself, in which partial contributions of the related and collaborating arts blend together, disappear, and, in disappearing, somehow form a new world". It was revived by the Wuppertal Opera in 1970. There is a 1960 recording (including the spoken dialogue) by the Choir and Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio, conductor: Jan Koetsier, Undine: Rita Streich, Hulbrand von Ringstetten: Raimund Grumbach, Berthalda: Melitta Muszely, Kuhleborn: Karl-Christian Kohn, Ein alter Fischer: Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Women
''Little Women'' is a coming-of-age novel written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888). Alcott wrote the book, originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869, at the request of her publisher. The story follows the lives of the four March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—and details their passage from childhood to womanhood. Loosely based on the lives of the author and her three sisters, it is classified as an autobiographical or semi-autobiographical novel. ''Little Women'' was an immediate commercial and critical success, with readers eager for more about the characters. Alcott quickly completed a second volume (titled ''Good Wives'' in the United Kingdom, though the name originated with the publisher and not Alcott). It was also met with success. The two volumes were issued in 1880 as a single novel titled ''Little Women''. Alcott subsequently wrote two sequels to her popular work, both also featuring the March sisters: ''Little Men'' (1871) and ''Jo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louisa Alcott
Louisa May Alcott (; November 29, 1832March 6, 1888) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet best known as the author of the novel ''Little Women'' (1868) and its sequels ''Little Men'' (1871) and ''Jo's Boys'' (1886). Raised in New England by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May and Amos Bronson Alcott, she grew up among many well-known intellectuals of the day, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Alcott's family suffered from financial difficulties, and while she worked to help support the family from an early age, she also sought an outlet in writing. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used pen names such as A. M. Barnard, under which she wrote lurid short stories and sensation novels for adults that focused on passion and revenge. Published in 1868, ''Little Women'' is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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