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The Gourd And The Palm-tree
The Gourd and the Palm-tree is a rare fable of West Asian origin that was first recorded in Europe in the Middle Ages. In the Renaissance a variant appeared in which a pine took the palm-tree's place and the story was occasionally counted as one of Aesop's Fables.. The fable and its history The fable first appeared in the west in the Latin prose work ''Speculum Sapientiae'' (Mirror of wisdom), which groups its accounts into four themed sections. At one time attributed to the 4th century Cyril of Jerusalem, the work is now thought to be by the 13th century Boniohannes de Messana. The story is told of a gourd that roots itself next to a palm tree and quickly equals her in height. The gourd then asks its sister her age and on learning that she is a hundred years old thinks itself better because of its rapid rise. Then the palm explains that slow and mature growth will endure while swift advancement is followed by as swift a decay. At the time it first appeared in Europe, the account ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages. Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in late antiquity, continued into the Early Middle Ages. The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—most recently part of the Ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Bewick
Thomas Bewick (c. 11 August 17538 November 1828) was an English wood-engraver and natural history author. Early in his career he took on all kinds of work such as engraving cutlery, making the wood blocks for advertisements, and illustrating children's books. He gradually turned to illustrating, writing and publishing his own books, gaining an adult audience for the fine illustrations in ''A History of Quadrupeds''. His career began when he was apprenticed to engraver Ralph Beilby in Newcastle upon Tyne. He became a partner in the business and eventually took it over. Apprentices whom Bewick trained include John Anderson, Luke Clennell, and William Harvey, who in their turn became well known as painters and engravers. Bewick is best known for his '' A History of British Birds'', which is admired today mainly for its wood engravings, especially the small, sharply observed, and often humorous vignettes known as tail-pieces. The book was the forerunner of all modern field guides ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emblem Books
An emblem book is a book collecting emblems (allegorical illustrations) with accompanying explanatory text, typically morals or poems. This category of books was popular in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries. Emblem books are collections of sets of three elements: an icon or image, a motto, and text explaining the connection between the image and motto. The text ranged in length from a few lines of verse to pages of prose. Emblem books descended from medieval bestiaries that explained the importance of animals, proverbs, and fables. In fact, writers often drew inspiration from Greek and Roman sources such as Aesop's Fables and Plutarch's Lives. Definition Scholars differ on the key question of whether the actual emblems in question are the visual images, the accompanying texts, or the combination of the two. This is understandable, given that first emblem book, the ''Emblemata'' of Andrea Alciato, was first issued in an unauthorized edition in which the woodcuts wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fables
Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be added explicitly as a concise maxim or saying. A fable differs from a parable in that the latter ''excludes'' animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech or other powers of humankind. Conversely, an animal tale specifically includes talking animals as characters. Usage has not always been so clearly distinguished. In the King James Version of the New Testament, "" ("''mythos''") was rendered by the translators as "fable" in the First Epistle to Timothy, the Second Epistle to Timothy, the Epistle to Titus and the First Epistle of Peter. A person who writes fables is a fabulist. History The fable is one of the most enduring forms of folk literature, sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Mackay (author)
Charles Mackay (27 March 1814 – 24 December 1889) was a Scottish poet, journalist, author, anthologist, novelist, and songwriter, remembered mainly for his book ''Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds''. Early life Charles Mackay was born in Perth, Scotland. His father, George Mackay, was a bombardier in the Royal Artillery, and his mother Amelia Cargill died shortly after his birth. Mackay was educated at the Caledonian Asylum, in London. In 1828 he was placed by his father at a school in Brussels, on the Boulevard de Namur, shortly taken over by William James Joseph Drury; and studied languages. In 1830 he was engaged as a private secretary to William Cockerill, the ironmaster, near Liège, began writing in French in the ''Courrier Belge'', and sent English poems to a local newspaper called ''The Telegraph''. In the summer of 1830 he visited Paris, and he spent 1831 with Cockerill at Aix-la-Chapelle. In May 1832 his father brought him back to Lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masnavi I Ma'navi/Book VI
The ''Masnavi'', or ''Masnavi-ye-Ma'navi'' ( fa, مثنوی معنوی), also written ''Mathnawi'', or ''Mathnavi'', is an extensive poem written in Persian by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Balkhi, also known as Rumi. The ''Masnavi'' is one of the most influential works of Sufism, ascribed to be like a "Quran in Persian". It has been viewed by many commentators as the greatest mystical poem in world literature. The ''Masnavi'' is a series of six books of poetry that together amount to around 25,000 verses or 50,000 lines.Allamah Mohamad Taghi Jafari, ''Tafsir Masnavi''Karim Zamani, ''Tafsir Masnavi Ma'navi'' It is a spiritual text that teaches Sufis how to reach their goal of being truly in love with God. General description The title ''Masnavi-ye-Ma'navi'' ( fa, مثنوی معنوی) means "The Spiritual Couplets". The Masnavi is a poetic collection of anecdotes and stories derived from the Quran, hadith sources, and everyday tales. Stories are told to illustrate a point and each ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masnavi
The ''Masnavi'', or ''Masnavi-ye-Ma'navi'' ( fa, مثنوی معنوی), also written ''Mathnawi'', or ''Mathnavi'', is an extensive poem written in Persian by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Balkhi, also known as Rumi. The ''Masnavi'' is one of the most influential works of Sufism, ascribed to be like a "Quran in Persian". It has been viewed by many commentators as the greatest mystical poem in world literature. The ''Masnavi'' is a series of six books of poetry that together amount to around 25,000 verses or 50,000 lines.Allamah Mohamad Taghi Jafari, ''Tafsir Masnavi''Karim Zamani, ''Tafsir Masnavi Ma'navi'' It is a spiritual text that teaches Sufis how to reach their goal of being truly in love with God. General description The title ''Masnavi-ye-Ma'navi'' ( fa, مثنوی معنوی) means "The Spiritual Couplets". The Masnavi is a poetic collection of anecdotes and stories derived from the Quran, hadith sources, and everyday tales. Stories are told to illustrate a point and each m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rumi
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī ( fa, جلالالدین محمد رومی), also known as Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī (), Mevlânâ/Mawlānā ( fa, مولانا, lit= our master) and Mevlevî/Mawlawī ( fa, مولوی, lit= my master), but more popularly known simply as Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century PersianRitter, H.; Bausani, A. "ḎJ̲alāl al-Dīn Rūmī b. Bahāʾ al-Dīn Sulṭān al-ʿulamāʾ Walad b. Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad Ḵh̲aṭībī." Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2007. Brill Online. Excerpt: "known by the sobriquet Mewlānā, persian poet and founder of the Mewlewiyya order of dervishes" poet, Hanafi faqih, Islamic scholar, Maturidi theologian and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Greater Iran. Rumi's influence transcends national borders and ethnic divisions: Iranians, Tajiks, Turks, Greeks, Pashtuns, other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Persian Literature
Persian literature ( fa, ادبیات فارسی, Adabiyâte fârsi, ) comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Persian language and is one of the world's oldest literatures. It spans over two-and-a-half millennia. Its sources have been within Greater Iran including present-day Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Caucasus, and Turkey, regions of Central Asia (such as Tajikistan) and South Asia where the Persian language has historically been either the native or official language. For example, Rumi, one of the best-loved Persian poets, born in Balkh (in modern-day Afghanistan) or Wakhsh (in modern-day Tajikistan), wrote in Persian and lived in Konya (in modern-day Turkey), at that time the capital of the Seljuks in Anatolia. The Ghaznavids conquered large territories in Central and South Asia and adopted Persian as their court language. There is thus Persian literature from Iran, Mesopotamia, Azerbaijan, the wider Caucasus, Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Taji ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henri Massé
Henri Massé (2 March 1886 – 9 November 1969) was a 20th-century French orientalist. He was first professor of Arabic and Persian literatures at the faculté des lettres d'Alger, then professor of Persian language at the École nationale des langues orientales vivantes of Paris (1927–1958), of which he was administrator from 1948 to 1958 and a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Selected bibliography * ''Croyances et coutumes persanes'', suivies de ''Contes et chansons populaires'', Paris, Librairie orientale et américaine, 1938 * ''Le Livre des merveilles du monde'', Paris, , 1944 * ''Anthologie persane, XIe - XIXe siècles'', dernière réédition (2004) dans la ''Petite Bibliothèque Payot'', n°330, * ''L'Islam'', Édition Armand Colin, Paris (Section d'histoire et sciences économiques), 5e édition revue, 1948 * ''Essai sur le poète Saadi'', Librairie orientaliste Paul Geuthner * ''Les épopées persanes : Firdousi et l'épopée nation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nasir Khusraw
Abu Mo’in Hamid ad-Din Nasir ibn Khusraw al-Qubadiani or Nāsir Khusraw Qubādiyānī Balkhi ( fa, ناصر خسرو قبادیانی, Nasir Khusraw Qubadiani) also spelled as ''Nasir Khusrow'' and ''Naser Khosrow'' (1004 – after 1070 CE) was a Persian poet, philosopher, Isma'ili scholar, traveler and one of the greatest writers in Persian literature. He was born in Qabodiyon, a village in Bactria in the ancient Greater Iranian province of Khorasan, now in modern Tajikistan and died in Yamagan, now Afghanistan. He is considered one of the great poets and writers in Persian literature. The ''Safarnama'', an account of his travels, is his most famous work and remains required reading in Iran even today. Ludwig W. Adamec (2009), ''Historical Dictionary of Islam'', p.237. Scarecrow Press. . Life Nasir Khusraw was born in 1004 AD, in Qabodiyon. He was well versed in the branches of the natural sciences, medicine, mathematics, astronomy and astrology, Greek philosophy, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eastern Mediterranean
Eastern Mediterranean is a loose definition of the eastern approximate half, or third, of the Mediterranean Sea, often defined as the countries around the Levantine Sea. It typically embraces all of that sea's coastal zones, referring to communities connected with the sea and land greatly climatically influenced. It includes the southern half of Turkey's main region Anatolia, its smaller Hatay Province, the island of Cyprus, the Greek Dodecanese islands, and the countries of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon. Its broadest uses can embrace the Libyan Sea thus Libya; the Aegean Sea thus European Turkey (East Thrace), the mainland and islands of Greece; and a central part of the Mediterranean, the Ionian Sea, thus southern Albania in Southeast Europe reaching, west, to Italy's farthest south-eastern coasts. Jordan is climatically, and economically part of the region. Regions The eastern Mediterranean region is commonly interpreted in two ways: *The Levant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
