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Early History Of Fantasy
Elements of the supernatural and the fantastic were an element of literature from its beginning, though the idea of a distinct genre, in the modern sense, is less than two centuries old. Ancient Near East The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' was written over generations following the supposed reign of King Gilgamesh, and is seen as a mythologized version of his life. This figure is sometimes an influence and, more rarely, a figure in modern fantasy. Some scholars believe The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' influenced the story of '' Noah'' and the flood. The magic part of fantasy is partly due to the Mesopotamian world: the use of "magical words" that have the power to command the spirits; to resort to a magical circle to defend the wizard against the spirits invoked; the use of mysterious symbols or seals to invoke spirits; the use of amulets that represent the image of the demon to exorcise it. South Asian The Vedic civilization situated around the Indus river valley has a long tradition of fan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frame Story
A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent. Frame and FRAME may also refer to: Physical objects In building construction *Framing (construction), a building term known as light frame construction * Framer, a carpenter who assembles major structural elements in constructing a building * A-frame, a basic structure designed to bear a load in a lightweight economical manner ** A-frame house, a house following the same principle * Door frame or window frame, fixed structures to which the hinges of doors or windows are attached *Frame and panel, a method of woodworking *Space frame, a method of construction using lightweight or light materials *Timber framing, a method of building for creating framed structures of heavy timber or willow wood In vehicles * Frame (aircraft), structural rings in an aircraft fuselage * Frame (nautical), the skeleton of a boat * Bicycle frame, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gustave Moreau - Hercules And The Lernaean Hydra - 1964
Gustav, Gustaf or Gustave may refer to: * Gustav (name), a male given name of Old Swedish origin Art, entertainment, and media * ''Primeval'' (film), a 2007 American horror film * ''Gustav'' (film series), a Hungarian series of animated short cartoons * Gustav (''Zoids''), a transportation mecha in the ''Zoids'' fictional universe *Gustav, a character in ''Sesamstraße'' *Monsieur Gustav H., a leading character in ''The Grand Budapest Hotel'' Weapons *Carl Gustav recoilless rifle, dubbed "the Gustav" by US soldiers *Schwerer Gustav, 800-mm German siege cannon used during World War II Other uses *Gustav (pigeon), a pigeon of the RAF pigeon service in WWII *Gustave (crocodile), a large male Nile crocodile in Burundi * Gustave, South Dakota * Hurricane Gustav (other), a name used for several tropical cyclones and storms *Gustav, a streetwear clothing brand See also * Gustav of Sweden (other) * Gustav Adolf (other) * Gustave Eiffel (other) * * * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Circe Offering The Cup To Odysseus
''Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses'' is an oil painting in the Pre-Raphaelite style by John William Waterhouse that was created in 1891. The painting depicts a scene from the '' Odyssey''. Circe, a sorceress, offers a cup to Odysseus (commonly Ulysses in English). In the cup is a potion. Circe seeks to bring Ulysses under her spell, as she has done with his crew. Two of Ulysses' crewmen have been transformed into pigs, one can be seen beside Circe's feet on the right, while the other is peering out from behind her throne on the left. Ulysses' reflection can be seen in the mirror which is behind Circe's throne. It reflects the columns of Circe's palace, and Ulysses' ship. Odysseus, intrepid and worried about his sailors, tries to save them and on the way Hermes (the messenger of the immortals) intercepts him and tells him of Circe's intentions, advising him to find a special plant that keeps him away from the effects of Circe's drink. After Odysseus had the plant he was able ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pentamerone
The ''Pentamerone'', subtitled ''Lo cunto de li cunti'' ("The Tale of Tales"), is a seventeenth-century Neapolitan fairy tale collection by Italian poet and courtier Giambattista Basile. Background The stories in the ''Pentamerone'' were collected by Basile and published posthumously in two volumes by his sister Adriana in Naples, Italy, in 1634 and 1636 under the pseudonym Gian Alesio Abbatutis. These stories were later adapted by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, the latter making extensive, acknowledged use of Basile's collection. Examples of this are versions of Cinderella, Rapunzel, Puss in Boots, Sleeping Beauty, and Hansel and Gretel. While other collections of stories have included stories that would be termed fairy tales, his work is the first collection in which all the stories fit in that single category. He did not transcribe them from the oral tradition as a modern collector would, instead writing them in Neapolitan, and in many respects was the first writ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Decameron
''The Decameron'' (; it, label= Italian, Decameron or ''Decamerone'' ), subtitled ''Prince Galehaut'' (Old it, Prencipe Galeotto, links=no ) and sometimes nicknamed ''l'Umana commedia'' ("the Human comedy", as it was Boccaccio that dubbed Dante Alighieri's ''Comedy'' "''Divine''"), is a collection of short stories by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375). The book is structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men; they shelter in a secluded villa just outside Florence in order to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city. Boccaccio probably conceived of the ''Decameron'' after the epidemic of 1348, and completed it by 1353. The various tales of love in ''The Decameron'' range from the erotic to the tragic. Tales of wit, practical jokes, and life lessons contribute to the mosaic. In addition to its literary value and widespread influence (for example on Chaucer's ''Canterbury ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boccacio
Giovanni Boccaccio (, , ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was sometimes simply known as "the Certaldese" and one of the most important figures in the European literary panorama of the fourteenth century. Some scholars (including Vittore Branca) define him as the greatest European prose writer of his time, a versatile writer who amalgamated different literary trends and genres, making them converge in original works, thanks to a creative activity exercised under the banner of experimentalism. His most notable works are ''The Decameron'', a collection of short stories which in the following centuries was a determining element for the Italian literary tradition, especially after Pietro Bembo elevated the Boccaccian style to a model of Italian prose in the sixteenth century, and ''On Famous Women''. He wro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apuleius
Apuleius (; also called Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis; c. 124 – after 170) was a Numidian Latin-language prose writer, Platonist philosopher and rhetorician. He lived in the Roman province of Numidia, in the Berber city of Madauros, modern-day M'Daourouch, Algeria. He studied Platonism in Athens, travelled to Italy, Asia Minor, and Egypt, and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the attentions (and fortune) of a wealthy widow. He declaimed and then distributed his own defense before the proconsul and a court of magistrates convened in Sabratha, near ancient Tripoli, Libya. This is known as the ''Apologia''. His most famous work is his bawdy picaresque novel the ''Metamorphoses'', otherwise known as '' The Golden Ass''. It is the only Latin novel that has survived in its entirety. It relates the adventures of its protagonist, Lucius, who experiments with magic and is accidentall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Golden Ass
The ''Metamorphoses'' of Apuleius, which Augustine of Hippo referred to as ''The Golden Ass'' (''Asinus aureus''), is the only ancient Roman novel in Latin to survive in its entirety. The protagonist of the novel is Lucius. At the end of the novel, he is revealed to be from Madaurus, the hometown of Apuleius himself. The plot revolves around the protagonist's curiosity (''curiositas'') and insatiable desire to see and practice magic. While trying to perform a spell to transform into a bird, he is accidentally transformed into an ass. This leads to a long journey, literal and metaphorical, filled with inset tales. He finally finds salvation through the intervention of the goddess Isis, whose cult he joins. Origin The date of composition of the ''Metamorphoses'' is uncertain. It has variously been considered by scholars as a youthful work preceding Apuleius' ''Apology'' of 158–159, or as the climax of his literary career, and perhaps as late as the 170s or 180s. Apuleius a ... [...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] |
Isabel Burton
Isabel Burton (née Arundell; 20 March 1831 – 22 March 1896), later known as Lady Burton, was an English writer, explorer and adventurer. She was the wife and partner of explorer, adventurer, and writer Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890). Early life Isabel Arundell was born in London, England, 20 March 1831. She was the daughter of Hon. Henry Raymond Arundell (1799–1886) of Kenilworth, Warwickshire, nephew of James Everard Arundell, 10th Baron Arundell of Wardour (1785-1834). Her mother, Eliza Gerard, was the sister of Robert Tolver Gerard (1808–1887), 13th Baronet of Bryn, Lancashire, and 1st Baron Gerard of Bryn. Arundell was one of eleven children born into the Wardour family, a respected and well-to-do Roman Catholic family in England. She grew up enmeshed in London society and attended the convent of the Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre, where she excelled as a writer and in theological studies. During the Crimean War, Arundell was refused three times ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Francis Burton
Sir Richard Francis Burton (; 19 March 1821 – 20 October 1890) was a British explorer, writer, orientalist scholar,and soldier. He was famed for his travels and explorations in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures. According to one count, he spoke twenty-nine languages. Burton's best-known achievements include: a well-documented journey to Mecca in disguise, at a time when non-Muslims were forbidden access on pain of death; an unexpurgated translation of '' One Thousand and One Nights'' (commonly called ''The Arabian Nights'' in English after early translations of Antoine Galland's French version); the publication of the '' Kama Sutra'' in English; a translation of ''The Perfumed Garden'', the "Arab ''Kama Sutra''"; and a journey with John Hanning Speke as the first Europeans to visit the Great Lakes of Africa in search of the source of the Nile. His works and letters extensively criticised colonial policies of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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