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Chimera (Barth Novel)
''Chimera'' is a 1972 fantasy novel written by American writer John Barth, composed of three loosely connected novellas. The novellas are ''Dunyazadiad'', ''Perseid'' and ''Bellerophoniad'', whose titles refer eponymously to the mythical characters Dunyazad, Perseus and Bellerophon (slayer of the mythical Chimera). The book is an example of postmodernism, which can be seen in its metafictional content and its incorporation of stylistic elements that go beyond the traditional novel genre. It shared the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction with ''Augustus'' by John Edward Williams."National Book Awards – 1973" National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-30. (With acceptance speech by Barth and two essays by Harold Augenbraum from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog. The essay nominally about W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Barth
John Simmons Barth (; May 27, 1930 – April 2, 2024) was an American writer best known for his postmodern and metafictional fiction. His most highly regarded and influential works were published in the 1960s, and include '' The Sot-Weed Factor'', a whimsical retelling of Maryland's colonial history; '' Giles Goat-Boy'', a satirical fantasy in which a university is a microcosm of the Cold War world; and '' Lost in the Funhouse'', a self-referential and experimental collection of short stories. He was co-recipient of the National Book Award in 1973 for his episodic novel '' Chimera''. Life John Barth, called "Jack", was born in Cambridge, Maryland, on May 27, 1930. He had an older brother, Bill, and a twin sister, Jill. In 1947, he graduated from Cambridge High School, where he played drums and wrote for the school newspaper. He briefly studied "Elementary Theory and Advanced Orchestration" at the Juilliard School before attending Johns Hopkins University, where he received a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
One Thousand And One Nights
''One Thousand and One Nights'' (, ), is a collection of Middle Eastern folktales compiled in the Arabic language 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' Entertainments''. The work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, and North Africa. Some tales trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, and Mesopotamian literature. Most tales, however, were originally folk stories from the Abbasid and Mamluk eras, while others, especially the frame story, are probably drawn from the Pahlavi Persian work (, ), which in turn may be translations of older Indian texts. Common to all the editions of the ''Nights'' is the framing device of the story of the ruler Shahryar being narrated the tales by his wife Scheherazade, with one tale told ov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1972 American Novels
Year 197 ( CXCVII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Magius and Rufinus (or, less frequently, year 950 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 197 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * February 19 – Battle of Lugdunum: Emperor Septimius Severus defeats the self-proclaimed emperor Clodius Albinus at Lugdunum (modern Lyon). Albinus commits suicide; legionaries sack the town. * Septimius Severus returns to Rome and has about 30 of Albinus's supporters in the Senate executed. After his victory he declares himself the adopted son of the late Marcus Aurelius. * Septimius Severus forms new naval units, manning all the triremes in Italy with heavily armed troops for war in the East. His soldiers embark on an artificial canal between the Tigris a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Isaac Bashevis Singer (; 1903 – July 24, 1991) was a Poland, Polish-born Jews, Jewish novelist, short-story writer, memoirist, essayist, and translator in the United States. Some of his works were adapted for the theater. He wrote and published first in Yiddish and later translated his own works into English with the help of editors and collaborators. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978 Nobel Prize in Literature, 1978. A leading figure in the Yiddish literature, Yiddish literary movement, he was awarded two U.S. National Book Awards, National Book Award for Young People's Literature, one in Children's Literature for his memoir ''A Day of Pleasure, A Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw'' (1970) and National Book Award for Fiction, one in Fiction for his collection ''A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories'' (1974). Life Isaac Bashevis Singer was born in 1903 to a Jewish family in Leoncin village near Warsaw, Pola ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Crown Of Feathers And Other Stories
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, and others worldwide. Its name in English is '' a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version is often written in one of two forms: the double-storey and single-storey . The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English, '' a'' is the indefinite article, with the alternative form ''an''. Name In English, the name of the letter is the ''long A'' sound, pronounced . Its name in most other languages matches the letter's pronunciation in open syllables. History The earliest known ancestor of A is ''aleph''—the first letter of the Phoenician ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, Literary genre, genres and Theme (narrative), themes, including history, music, science, and mathematics. For ''Gravity's Rainbow'', Pynchon won the 1974 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. (With essays by Casey Hicks and Chad Post from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog. The mock acceptance speech by Irwin Corey is not reprinted by NBF.) He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American novelists. Hailing from Long Island, Pynchon served two years in the United States Navy and earned an English degree from Cornell University. After publishing several short stories in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he began composing the novels for which he is best known: ''V.'' (1963), ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (1966), and ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (1973). Rumors of a historical novel about Charles ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gravity's Rainbow
''Gravity's Rainbow'' is a 1973 novel by the American writer Thomas Pynchon. The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military. In particular, it features the quest undertaken by several characters to uncover the secret of a mysterious device, the ("black device"), which is slated to be installed in a rocket with the serial number "00000". Traversing a wide range of knowledge, ''Gravity's Rainbow'' crosses boundaries between high and low culture, between literary propriety and profanity, and between science and speculative metaphysics. It shared the 1974 US National Book Award for Fiction with ''A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories'' by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Although selected by the Pulitzer Prize jury on fiction for the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the Pulitzer Advisory Board was offended by its content, some of which was described as 'unreadable', 'turgid', 'overwr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flannery O'Connor
Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925August 3, 1964) was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. She wrote two novels and 31 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. O'Connor was a Southern writer who often wrote in a sardonic Southern Gothic style. She relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters, often in violent situations. In her writing, an unsentimental acceptance or rejection of the limitations, imperfections or differences of these characters (whether attributed to disability, race, crime, religion or sanity) typically underpins the drama. O'Connor's writing often reflects her Catholic faith, and frequently examines questions of morality and ethics. Her posthumously compiled ''Complete Stories'' won the 1972 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and has been the subject of enduring praise. Early life and education Childhood O'Connor was born on March 25, 1925, in Savannah, Georgia, the only child of Edward F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Complete Stories (O'Connor)
''The Complete Stories'' is a collection of short stories by Flannery O'Connor. It was published in 1971 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It comprises all the stories in '' A Good Man Is Hard to Find'' and '' Everything That Rises Must Converge'' plus several previously unavailable stories. ''Complete Stories'' won the 1972 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction."National Book Awards – 1972" . Retrieved 2012-03-30. (With essays by Alice Elliott Dark and others (five) from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.) Internet visitors named it the "Best of the National Book Awards" Alice Elliott Dark, et al < ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medusa
In Greek mythology, Medusa (; ), also called Gorgo () or the Gorgon, was one of the three Gorgons. Medusa is generally described as a woman with living snakes in place of hair; her appearance was so hideous that anyone who looked upon her was Petrifaction in mythology and fiction, turned to stone. Medusa and her Gorgon sisters Euryale and Stheno were usually described as daughters of Phorcys and Ceto; of the three, only Medusa was mortal. Medusa was beheaded by the Greek hero Perseus, who then used her head, which retained its ability to turn onlookers to stone, as a weapon until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her Aegis, shield. In classical antiquity, the image of the head of Medusa appeared in the apotropaic magic, evil-averting device known as the ''Gorgoneion''. According to Hesiod and Aeschylus, she lived and died on Sarpedon, somewhere near Cisthene (Mysia), Cisthene. The 2nd-century BC novelist Dionysios Skytobrachion puts her somewhere in Ancient Libya, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gorgon
The Gorgons ( ; ), in Greek mythology, are three monstrous sisters, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa, said to be the daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. They lived near their sisters the Graeae, and were able to turn anyone who looked at them to stone. Euryale and Stheno were immortal, but Medusa was not and was slain by the hero Perseus. Gorgons were dread monsters with terrifying eyes. A Gorgon head was displayed on Athena's aegis, giving it the power both to protect her from any weapon, and instill great fear in any enemy. Gorgon blood was said to have both the power to heal and harm. Representations of full-bodied Gorgons and the Gorgon face, called a gorgoneion (pl. gorgoneia), were popular subjects in Ancient Greek, Etruscan and Roman iconography. While Archaic Gorgons and gorgoneia are universally depicted as hideously ugly, over time they came to be portrayed as beautiful young women. Etymology The name 'Gorgon' is associated with the Ancient Greek adjective (), which, of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Re-imagining
Re-Imagining was a Minneapolis interfaith conference of clergy, laypeople, and feminist theologians in 1993 that stirred controversy in U.S. Mainline Protestant denominations,Peter Steinfels"Cries of Heresy After Feminists Meet" ''The New York Times'' May 14, 1994 ultimately resulting in the firing of the highest ranking woman in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Re-Imagining: A Global Theological Conference By Women: For Men and Women, grew out of a U.S.A. Mainline Protestant response to the World Council of Churches' ''Ecumenical Decade: Churches in Solidarity with Women 1988–1998.'' Participants met at the Minneapolis Convention Center during November 4 through 7, 1993. It brought together 2,200 people, one third of them clergy, and most of them women. 83 men registered. Attendees represented 16 denominations, 27 countries, and 49 states. (Nevada was not represented.) All presenters were women. The conference aimed to encourage churches to address injustices to women worldwid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
