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Printer's Devil
A printer's devil was a young apprentice in a printing establishment who performed a number of tasks, such as mixing tubs of ink and fetching type. Notable writers including Ambrose Bierce, Benjamin Franklin, Walt Whitman, and Mark Twain served as printer's devils in their youth. Origins The term "printer's devil" been ascribed to the apprentices' hands and skin getting stained black with ink when removing sheets of paper from the tympan. In 1683, English printer Joseph Moxon wrote that "devil" was a humorous term for boys who were covered in ink: "whence the Workmen do Jocosely call them Devils; and sometimes Spirits, and sometimes Flies." Once cast metal type was used, worn, or broken, it was thrown into a "hellbox", after which it was the printer's devil's job to either put it back in the job case, or take it to the furnace to be melted down and recast. Many explanations have been given for the religious or supernatural connotations of the term. From the Middle Ages onward ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Movable Type
Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuation marks) usually on the medium of paper. The world's first movable type printing technology for paper books was made of porcelain materials and was invented around AD 1040 in China during the Northern Song dynasty by the inventor Bi Sheng (990–1051). The earliest printed paper money with movable metal type to print the identifying code of the money was made in 1161 during the Song dynasty. In 1193, a book in the Song dynasty documented how to use the copper movable type. The oldest extant book printed with movable metal type, Jikji, was printed in Korea in 1377 during the Goryeo dynasty. The spread of both movable-type systems was, to some degree, limited to primarily East Asia. The development of the printing press in Europe may hav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Foxe
John Foxe (1516/1517 – 18 April 1587), an English historian and martyrologist, was the author of '' Actes and Monuments'' (otherwise ''Foxe's Book of Martyrs''), telling of Christian martyrs throughout Western history, but particularly the sufferings of English Protestants and proto-Protestants from the 14th century and in the reign of Mary I. The book was widely owned and read by English Puritans and helped to mould British opinion on the Catholic Church for several centuries. Education Foxe was born in Boston, in Lincolnshire, England, of a middlingly prominent family and seems to have been an unusually studious and devout child. In about 1534, when he was about 16, he entered Brasenose College, Oxford, where he was the pupil of John Hawarden (or Harding), a fellow of the college. In 1535 Foxe was admitted to Magdalen College School, where he may either have been improving his Latin or acting as a junior instructor. He became a probationer fellow in July 1538 and a ful ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by article name or by thematic categories, or else are hyperlinked and searchable. Encyclopedia entries are longer and more detailed than those in most dictionaries. Generally speaking, encyclopedia articles focus on '' factual information'' concerning the subject named in the article's title; this is unlike dictionary entries, which focus on linguistic information about words, such as their etymology, meaning, pronunciation, use, and grammatical forms.Béjoint, Henri (2000)''Modern Lexicography'', pp. 30–31. Oxford University Press. Encyclopedias have existed for around 2,000 years and have evolved considerably during that time as regards language (written in a major international or a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles (, ), also known as Mephisto, is a demon featured in German folklore. He originally appeared in literature as the demon in the Faust legend, and he has since appeared in other works as a stock character (see: Mephistopheles in the arts and popular culture). Etymology and name meaning The name ''Mephistopheles'' is a corrupted Greek compound. The Greek particle of negation (μη, ''mē'') and the Greek word for love or loving (φίλος, ''philos'') are the first and last terms of the compound but the middle term is more doubtful. For the middle term, three meanings have been noticed and three different complete etymologies have been established: *not loving light (φως το, ''phōs to''; the old form of the word being ''Mephostopheles'') *not loving Faust *allied to '' mephitic,'' a term which designates the poisonous vapors arising from the earth in certain places—pools, caverns, springs—destructive of human life. It is likely that the name was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The Faust legend has been the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works that have reinterpreted it through the ages. "Faust" and the adjective "Faustian" imply sacrificing spiritual values for power, knowledge, or material gain. The Faust of early books—as well as the ballads, dramas, movies, and puppet-plays which grew out of them—is irrevocably damned because he prefers human knowledge over divine knowledge: "he laid the Holy Scriptures behind the door and under the bench, refused to be called doctor of theology, but preferred to be styled doctor of medicine". Plays and comic puppet theatre loosely based on this legend were popular througho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doctor Faustus (play)
''The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus'', commonly referred to simply as ''Doctor Faustus'', is an Elizabethan tragedy by Christopher Marlowe, based on German stories about the title character Faust. It was probably written in 1592 or 1593, shortly before Marlowe's death. Two different versions of the play were published in the Jacobean era several years later. Performance The Admiral's Men performed 24 times in the three years between October 1594 and October 1597. On 22 November 1602, the diary of Philip Henslowe recorded a £4 payment to Samuel Rowley and William Bird for additions to the play, which suggests a revival soon after that date. The powerful effect of the early productions is indicated by the legends that quickly accrued around them. In '' Histriomastix'', his 1632 polemic against the drama, William Prynne records the tale that actual devils once appeared on the stage during a performance of ''Faustus'', "to the great amazement of both t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe, also known as Kit Marlowe (; baptised 26 February 156430 May 1593), was an English playwright, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe is among the most famous of the Elizabethan playwrights. Based upon the "many imitations" of his play '' Tamburlaine,'' modern scholars consider him to have been the foremost dramatist in London in the years just before his mysterious early death. Some scholars also believe that he greatly influenced William Shakespeare, who was baptised in the same year as Marlowe and later succeeded him as the pre-eminent Elizabethan playwright. Marlowe was the first to achieve critical reputation for his use of blank verse, which became the standard for the era. His plays are distinguished by their overreaching protagonists. Themes found within Marlowe's literary works have been noted as humanistic with realistic emotions, which some scholars find difficult to reconcile with Marlowe's "anti-intellectualism" and his c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Historia Von D
Historia may refer to: * Historia, the local version of the History channel in Spain and Portugal * Historia (TV channel), a Canadian French language specialty channel * Historia (newspaper), a French monthly newspaper devoted to History topics * Historia (video), a compilation video released by Def Leppard * Historia (Antiquity journal), a peer-reviewed history journal specialised in Greek and Roman Antiquity * Historia (history of the Americas journal), a peer-reviewed history journal dealing with the history of the Americas * the Latin word for historiography * Historia (drama), an unfinished drama of Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz, compiled from the author's notes by Konstanty Jeleński * Historia Reiss, a fictional character in Japanese manga and anime series ''Attack on Titan'' * Historia (Romanian magazine), history magazine owned by Adevărul See also * '' Historias'', by Ricardo Arona * Herstory, feminism * History (other) * Histories (other) Hist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Necromancy
Necromancy () is the practice of magic or black magic involving communication with the dead by summoning their spirits as apparitions or visions, or by resurrection for the purpose of divination; imparting the means to foretell future events; discovery of hidden knowledge; returning a person to life, or to use the dead as a weapon. Sometimes referred to as "death magic," the term is used in a more general sense to refer to black magic or witchcraft. The word ''necromancy'' is adapted from Late Latin : a loan word from the post-Classical Greek (), a compound of Ancient Greek (, or 'dead body') and (, or 'divination'). The Koine Greek compound form was first documented in the writings of Origen of Alexandria in the 3rd century AD. The Classical Greek term was (), from the episode of the ''Odyssey'' in which Odysseus visits the realm of the dead souls, and in Hellenistic Greek; in Latin, and ''necromancy'' in 17th-century English. Antiquity Early necromancy was rela ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alchemy
Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first attested in a number of pseudepigraphical texts written in Greco-Roman Egypt during the first few centuries AD.Principe, Lawrence M. The secrets of alchemy'. University of Chicago Press, 2012, pp. 9–14. Alchemists attempted to purify, mature, and perfect certain materials. Common aims were chrysopoeia, the transmutation of " base metals" (e.g., lead) into " noble metals" (particularly gold); the creation of an elixir of immortality; and the creation of panaceas able to cure any disease. The perfection of the human body and soul was thought to result from the alchemical ''magnum opus'' ("Great Work"). The concept of creating the philosophers' stone was variously connected with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Georg Faust
Johann Georg Faust (; c. 1480 or 1466 – c. 1541), also known in English as John Faustus , was a German itinerant alchemist, astrologer, and magician of the German Renaissance. ''Doctor Faust'' became the subject of folk legend in the decades after his death, transmitted in chapbooks beginning in the 1580s, and was notably adapted by Christopher Marlowe in his play '' The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus'' (1604). The '' Faustbuch'' tradition survived throughout the early modern period, and the legend was again adapted in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's closet drama '' Faust'' (1808), Hector Berlioz's musical composition '' La damnation de Faust'' (premiered 1846), and Franz Liszt's ''Faust Symphony'' of 1857. Historical Faust Because of his early treatment as a figure in legend and literature, it is difficult to establish historical facts about his life with any certainty. In the 17th century, it was even doubted that there ever had been a historic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
