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Life Imitating Art
The idea of life imitating art is a philosophical position or observation about how real behaviors or real events sometimes (or even commonly) resemble, or feel inspired by, works of fiction and art. This can include how people act in such a way as to imitate fictional portrayals or concepts, or how they embody or bring to life certain artistic ideals. The phrase may be considered synonymous with anti-mimesis, the direct opposite of Aristotelian mimesis: art imitating real life. The idea's most notable proponent is Oscar Wilde, who opined in an 1889 essay that, "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life". In the essay, written as a Platonic dialogue, Wilde holds that anti-mimesis "results not merely from Life's imitative instinct, but from the fact that the self-conscious aim of Life is to find expression, and that Art offers it certain beautiful forms through which it may realise that energy." An argument in favor of how life imitates art is that what is found in life and ...
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Fiction
Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with fact, history, or plausibility. In a traditional narrow sense, fiction refers to literature, written narratives in prose often specifically novels, novellas, and short story, short stories. More broadly, however, fiction encompasses imaginary narratives expressed in any Media (communication), medium, including not just writings but also drama, live theatrical performances, films, television programs, radio dramas, comics, role-playing games, and video games. Definition and theory Typically, the fictionality of a work is publicly expressed, so the audience expects a work of fiction to deviate to a greater or lesser degree from the real world, rather than presenting for instance only factually accurate portrayals or character (arts ...
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Realism (arts)
Realism in the arts is generally the attempt to Representation (arts), represent subject-matter truthfully, without artificiality, exaggeration, or speculative fiction, speculative or supernatural elements. The term is often used interchangeably with naturalism, although these terms are not necessarily synonymous. Naturalism, as an idea relating to visual representation in Western art, seeks to depict objects with the least possible amount of distortion and is tied to the development of linear perspective and illusionism in Renaissance Europe. Realism, while predicated upon naturalistic representation and a departure from the idealization of earlier academic art, often refers to a Realism (art movement), specific art historical movement that originated in France in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1848. With artists like Gustave Courbet capitalizing on the mundane, ugly or sordid, realism was motivated by the renewed interest in the commoner and the rise of leftist polit ...
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Priggish
In British English, a prig () is a person who shows an inordinately zealous approach to matters of form and propriety—especially where the prig has the ability to show superior knowledge to those who do not know the protocol in question. They see little need to consider the feelings or intentions of others, relying instead on established order and rigid rules to resolve all questions. The prig approaches social interactions with a strong sense of self-righteousness. Etymology and usage The first edition of H.W. Fowler's '' Modern English Usage'' has the following definition: A prig is a believer in red tape; that is, he exalts the method above the work done. A prig, like the Pharisee, says: "God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are"—except that he often substitutes ''Self'' for ''God''. A prig is one who works out his paltry accounts to the last farthing, while his millionaire neighbour lets accounts take care of themselves. A prig expects others to square themselves ...
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Cashel Byron's Profession
''Cashel Byron's Profession'' is George Bernard Shaw's fourth novel. The novel was written in 1882 and after rejection by several publishers it was published in serialized form in a socialist magazine. The novel was later published as a book in England and the United States. Shaw wrote five novels early in his career and then abandoned them to pursue politics, drama criticism and eventually play writing. ''The Admirable Bashville'' (1901), a short play based loosely on this novel, was written to protect American copyrights after the novel became unexpectedly successful in the United States. Synopsis Preface In Shaw's preface "Novels of my Nonage", written in 1901, he disparages his early work, including ''Cashel Byron's Profession'': "...people will admire he authorfor the feats any fool can achieve, and bear malice against him for boring them with better work." He also resurrects a heavily edited Robert Louis Stevenson quote used to promote the book. The full text of the q ...
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Three Plays For Puritans
''Three Plays for Puritans'' is a collection of plays by George Bernard Shaw published in 1900. It consists of '' The Devil's Disciple'' (1897), '' Caesar and Cleopatra'' (1898) and '' Captain Brassbound's Conversion'' (1900), with a long preface by Shaw in three parts in which he expounds many of his thoughts on drama. In the preface, Shaw also introduced the term "bardolatry," to describe excessive admiration for Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 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 natio .... References 1901 books 1900 plays 1901 plays Plays by George Bernard Shaw Books of plays {{1900s-play-stub ...
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George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as ''Man and Superman'' (1902), ''Pygmalion (play), Pygmalion'' (1913) and ''Saint Joan (play), Saint Joan'' (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Dublin, in 1876 Shaw moved to London, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the Gradualism (politics), gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent ...
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Menander
Menander (; ; c. 342/341 – c. 290 BC) was a Greek scriptwriter and the best-known representative of Athenian Ancient Greek comedy, New Comedy. He wrote 108 comedies and took the prize at the Lenaia festival eight times. His record at the City Dionysia is unknown. He was one of the most popular writers and most highly admired poets in antiquity, but his work was considered lost before the early Middle Ages. It now survives only in Latin-language adaptations by Terence and Plautus and, in the original Greek, in highly fragmentary form, most of which were discovered on papyrus in Egyptian tombs during the early to mid-20th-century. In the 1950s, to the great excitement of Classicists, it was announced that a single play by Menander, ''Dyskolos'', had finally been rediscovered in the Bodmer Papyri intact enough to be performed. Life and work Menander was the son of well-to-do parents; his father Diopeithes is identified by some with the Athenian general and governor of the Th ...
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Aristophanes Of Byzantium
__NOTOC__ Aristophanes of Byzantium ( ; Byzantium – Alexandria BC) was a Hellenistic Greek scholar, critic and grammarian, particularly renowned for his work in Homeric scholarship, but also for work on other classical authors such as Pindar and Hesiod. He soon moved to Alexandria and studied under Zenodotus, Callimachus, and Dionysius Iambus. He succeeded Eratosthenes as head librarian of the Library of Alexandria at the age of sixty. His students included Callistratus, Aristarchus of Samothrace, and perhaps Agallis. He was succeeded by Apollonius "The Classifier" (not to be confused with Apollonius of Rhodes, a previous head librarian of Alexandria). Aristophanes' pupil, Aristarchus of Samothrace, would be the sixth head librarian at the Library of Alexandria. Work Aristophanes was the first to deny that the " Precepts of Chiron" was the work of Hesiod. Inventions Accent system Aristophanes is credited with reducing the accents used in Greek to desi ...
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Brian Friel
Brian Patrick Friel (c. 9 January 1929 – 2 October 2015) was an Irish dramatist, short story writer and founder of the Field Day Theatre Company. He had been considered one of the greatest living English-language dramatists. (subscription required). He has been likened to an "Irish Anton Chekhov, Chekhov" and described as "the universally accented voice of Ireland". His plays have been compared favourably to those of contemporaries such as Samuel Beckett, Arthur Miller, Harold Pinter and Tennessee Williams. Recognised for early works such as ''Philadelphia, Here I Come!'' and ''Faith Healer'', Friel had 24 plays published in a career of more than a half-century. He was elected to the honorary position of Saoi of Aosdána. His plays were commonly produced on Broadway in New York City throughout this time, as well as in Ireland and the UK. In 1980 Friel co-founded Field Day Theatre Company and his play ''Translations (play), Translations'' was the company's first production. With ...
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Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjectivity, imagination, and appreciation of nature in society and culture in response to the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. Romanticists rejected the social conventions of the time in favour of a moral outlook known as individualism. They argued that passion (emotion), passion and intuition were crucial to understanding the world, and that beauty is more than merely an classicism, affair of form, but rather something that evokes a strong emotional response. With this philosophical foundation, the Romanticists elevated several key themes to which they were deeply committed: a Reverence (emotion), reverence for nature and the supernatural, nostalgia, an idealization of the past as ...
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Synonym
A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all synonyms of one another: they are ''synonymous''. The standard test for synonymy is substitution: one form can be replaced by another in a sentence without changing its meaning. Words may often be synonymous in only one particular sense: for example, ''long'' and ''extended'' in the context ''long time'' or ''extended time'' are synonymous, but ''long'' cannot be used in the phrase ''extended family''. Synonyms with exactly the same meaning share a seme or denotational sememe, whereas those with inexactly similar meanings share a broader denotational or connotational sememe and thus overlap within a semantic field. The former are sometimes called cognitive synonyms and the latter, near-synonyms, plesionyms or poecilonyms. Lexic ...
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John Scottus Eriugena
John Scotus Eriugena, also known as Johannes Scotus Erigena, John the Scot or John the Irish-born ( – c. 877), was an Irish Neoplatonist philosopher, theologian and poet of the Early Middle Ages. Bertrand Russell dubbed him "the most astonishing person of the ninth century". Russell, Bertrand. ''The History Of Western Philosophy'' The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' states that he "is the most significant Irish intellectual of the early monastic period. He is generally recognized to be both the outstanding philosopher (in terms of originality) of the Carolingian era and of the whole period of Latin philosophy stretching from Boethius to Anselm". He wrote a number of works, but is best known today for having written ''De Divisione Naturae'' ("The Division of Nature"), or ''Periphyseon'', which has been called the "final achievement" of ancient philosophy, a work which "synthesizes the philosophical accomplishments of fifteen centuries". The principal concern ...
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