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Vathek
''Vathek'' (alternatively titled ''Vathek, an Arabian Tale'' or ''The History of the Caliph Vathek'') is a Gothic novel written by William Beckford. It was composed in French beginning in 1782, and then translated into English by Reverend Samuel Henley in which form it was first published in 1786 without Beckford's name as ''An Arabian Tale, From an Unpublished Manuscript'', claiming to be translated directly from Arabic. The first French edition, titled simply as ''Vathek'', was published in December 1786 (postdated 1787). In the twentieth century some editions include ''The Episodes of Vathek'' (''Vathek et ses épisodes''), three related tales intended by Beckford to be so incorporated, but omitted from the original edition and published separately long after his death. Plot introduction ''Vathek'' capitalised on the eighteenth- (and early nineteenth-) century obsession with all things Oriental (see Orientalism), which was inspired by Antoine Galland's translation of ''The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Beckford (novelist)
William Thomas Beckford (29 September 1760 – 2 May 1844) was an English novelist, art collector, patron of decorative art, critic, travel writer, plantation owner and for some time politician. He was reputed at one stage to be England's richest commoner. The son of William Beckford and Maria Hamilton, daughter of the Hon. George Hamilton, he served as a Member of Parliament for Wells in 1784–1790 and Hindon in 1790–1795 and 1806–1820. Beckford is remembered for a Gothic novel ''Vathek'' (1786), for building the lost Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire and Lansdown Tower ("Beckford's Tower") in Bath, and for his art collection. Biography Beckford was born in the family's London home at 22 Soho Square on 29 September 1760. At the age of ten, he inherited a fortune from his father William Beckford, who had been twice a Lord Mayor of London. It consisted of £1 million in cash, an estate at Fonthill in Wiltshire (including the Palladian mansion Fonthill Splendens), several s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Henley
Samuel Henley D.D. (1740 – 1815) was an English clergyman, school teacher and college principal, antiquarian, and man of letters. Life Born in England, he began his career when he was recruited as a professor of moral philosophy for the College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, Williamsburg, Virginia. He arrived in 1770. Well-connected there, he became a friend of Thomas Jefferson, who acquired some of his library. He clashed though in public debate with Robert Carter Nicholas, Sr. and John Page (Virginia politician), John Page, and failed to become rector of Bruton Parish Church. In 1775 he went back to England, as a Loyalist (American Revolution), Loyalist taking leave from the college but never returning; he was a supporter of John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, Virginia's governor, and with his colleague Thomas Gwatkin had been subject to intimidation by armed men. He obtained an assistant-mastership at Harrow School, and soon afterwards received a curacy at Northall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giaour
Giaour or Gawur (; tr, gâvur, ; from fa, گور ''gâvor'' an obsolete variant of modern گبر ''gaur'', originally derived from arc, 𐡂𐡁𐡓𐡀, ''gaḇrā'', man; person; ro, ghiaur; al, kaur; gr, γκιαούρης, gkiaoúris, mk, каур/ѓаур, bg, гяур) meaning "infidel", was a slur historically used in the Ottoman Empire for non-Muslims or, more particularly, Christians in the Balkans. The terms "''kafir"'', "''gawur",'' and "''rûm"'' (the last meaning "Roman"—actually referring to the Greek population, since they were descended from the Eastern Roman Empire) were commonly used in defters (tax registries) for Orthodox Christians, usually without ethnic distinction. Christian ethnic groups in the Balkan lands of the Ottoman Empire included Greeks (''rûm''), Bulgarians (''bulgar''), Serbs (''sırp''), Christian Albanian (''arnavut'') and Vlachs (''eflak''), among others. The 1911 ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' described the term as follows: Du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Wathiq
Abū Jaʿfar Hārūn ibn Muḥammad ( ar, أبو جعفر هارون بن محمد المعتصم; 17 April 812 – 10 August 847), better known by his laqab, regnal name al-Wāthiq bi’llāh (, ), was an Abbasid caliph who reigned from 842 until 847 AD (227–232 AH in the Islamic calendar). Al-Wathiq is described in the sources as well-educated, intellectually curious, but also a poet and a drinker, who enjoyed the company of poets and musicians as well as scholars. His brief reign was one of continuity with the policies of his father, al-Mu'tasim, as power continued to rest in the hands of the same officials whom al-Mu'tasim had appointed. The chief events of the reign were the suppression of revolts: Bedouin rebellions occurred in Bilad al-Sham, Syria in 842, the Hejaz in 845, and the Yamamah in 846, Arminiya, Armenia had to be pacified over several years, and above all, an abortive uprising took place in Baghdad itself in 846, under Ahmad ibn Nasr al-Khuza'i. The latter w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antoine Galland
Antoine Galland (; 4 April 1646 – 17 February 1715) was a French orientalist and archaeologist, most famous as the first European translator of '' One Thousand and One Nights'', which he called ''Les mille et une nuits''. His version of the tales appeared in twelve volumes between 1704 and 1717 and exerted a significant influence on subsequent European literature and attitudes to the Islamic world. Jorge Luis Borges has suggested that Romanticism began when his translation was first read. Life and work Galland was born at Rollot in Picardy (now in the department of Somme). After completing school at Noyon, he studied Greek and Latin in Paris, where he also acquired some Arabic. In 1670 he was attached to the French embassy at Istanbul because of his excellent knowledge of Greek and, in 1673, he travelled in Syria and the Levant, where he copied a great number of inscriptions, sketched and—in some cases—removed historical monuments. After a brief visit to France, where ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Book Of One Thousand And One Nights
''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian Nights'', from the first English-language edition (), which rendered the title as ''The Arabian Nights' Entertainment''. The work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across West, Central and South Asia, and North Africa. Some tales trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Egyptian, Sanskrit, Persian, and Mesopotamian literature. Many tales were originally folk stories from the Abbasid and Mamluk eras, while others, especially the frame story, are most probably drawn from the Pahlavi Persian work ( fa, هزار افسان, lit. ''A Thousand Tales''), which in turn relied partly on Indian elements. Common to all the editions of the ''Nights'' is the framing device of the story ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iblis
Iblis ( ar, إِبْلِيس, translit=Iblīs), alternatively known as Eblīs, is the leader of the devils () in Islam. According to the Quran, Iblis was thrown out of heaven, after he refused to prostrate himself before Adam. Regarding the origin and nature of Iblis, there are two different viewpoints. In the first version, before Iblis was cast down from heaven, he used to be a high-ranking angel (''Karub'') called Azazil, appointed by God to obliterate the original disobedient inhabitants of the earth, who were replaced with humans, as more obedient creatures. After Iblis objected to God's decision to create a successor (), he was punished by being relegated and cast down to earth as a (devil). In the alternative account, God created Iblis from the fires beneath the seventh earth. Worshipping God for thousands of years, Iblis ascended to the surface, whereupon, thanks to his pertinacious servitude, he rose until he reached the company of angels in the seventh heaven. Wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Castle Of Otranto
''The Castle of Otranto'' is a novel by Horace Walpole. First published in 1764, it is generally regarded as the first gothic novel. In the second edition, Walpole applied the word 'Gothic' to the novel in the subtitle – ''A Gothic Story''. Set in a haunted castle, the novel merged medievalism and terror in a style that has endured ever since. The aesthetic of the book has shaped modern-day gothic books, films, art, music, and the goth subculture. Walpole was inspired to write the story after a nightmare he had at his Gothic Revival home, Strawberry Hill House, in southwest London. The novel initiated a literary genre that would become extremely popular in the later 18th and early 19th century, with authors such as Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Thomas Beckford, Matthew Lewis, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson and George du Maurier. History ''The Castle of Otranto'' was written in 1764 during Horace Walpole's tenure as MP for King's Lyn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frankenstein
''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared in the second edition, which was published in Paris in 1821. Shelley travelled through Europe in 1815, moving along the river Rhine in Germany, and stopping in Gernsheim, away from Frankenstein Castle, where, two centuries before, an alchemist had engaged in experiments.This seems to mean Johann Konrad Dippel (1673–1734), one century before (not two). For Dippel's experiments and the possibility of connection to ''Frankenstein'' see the Dippel article. She then journeyed to the region of Geneva, Switzerland, where much of the story takes place. Galvanism an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gothic Novel
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 Beckford (novelist), William Thomas Beckford, and Matthew Gregory Lewis, Matthew Lewis. The Gothic influence continued into the early 19th century, works by the Romantic poetry, 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 literature, Victorian period continued the use of gothic, in novels by Charles Dickens and the Brontë family, Brontë sisters, as well as works by the American ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Point Of View (literature)
Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the audience, particularly about the plot (the series of events). Narration is a required element of all written stories ( novels, short stories, poems, memoirs, etc.), with the function of conveying the story in its entirety. However, narration is merely optional in most other storytelling formats, such as films, plays, television shows, and video games, in which the story can be conveyed through other means, like dialogue between characters or visual action. The narrative mode encompasses the set of choices through which the creator of the story develops their narrator and narration: * ''Narrative point of view, perspective,'' or ''voice'': the choice of grammatical person used by the narrator to establish whether or not the narrator and t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evil Eye
The Evil Eye ( grc, ὀφθαλμὸς βάσκανος; grc-koi, ὀφθαλμὸς πονηρός; el, (κακό) μάτι; he, עַיִן הָרָע, ; Romanian: ''Deochi''; it, malocchio; es, mal de ojo; pt, mau-olhado, olho gordo; ar, عين الحسد, ; fa, چشم زخم, ; prs, چشم مهره ; tr, Nazar boncuğu; Kazakh: Көз) is a supernatural belief in a curse, brought about by a malevolent glare, usually given to a person when one is unaware. The evil eye dates back about 5,000 years. In the 6th century BC it appeared on '' Chalcidian'' drinking vessels, known as ' eye-cups', as a type of apotropaic magic. It is found in many cultures in the Mediterranean region as well as Western Asia and Central Asia with such cultures often believing that receiving the evil eye will cause misfortune or injury, while others believe it to be a kind of supernatural force that casts or reflects a malevolent gaze back-upon those who wish harm upon others (especially inno ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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