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A Confederacy Of Dunces
''A Confederacy of Dunces'' is a picaresque novel by American novelist John Kennedy Toole which reached publication in 1980, eleven years after Toole's death. Published through the efforts of writer Walker Percy (who also contributed a foreword) and Toole's mother, Thelma, the book became first a cult classic, then a mainstream success; it earned Toole a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981, and is now considered a canonical work of modern literature of the Southern United States. The book's title refers to an epigram from Jonathan Swift's essay ''Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting'': "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." ''A Confederacy of Dunces'' follows the misadventures of protagonist Ignatius J. Reilly, a lazy, overweight, misanthropic, self-styled scholar who lives at home with his mother. He is an educated but slothful 30-year-old man living in the Uptown ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Kennedy Toole
John Kennedy Toole (; December 17, 1937 – March 26, 1969) was an American novelist from New Orleans, Louisiana, whose posthumously published novel, '' A Confederacy of Dunces'', won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981. At 16 in 1954, Toole wrote his first novel, ''The Neon Bible'', which he shelved in the same year, not finding a willing publisher; he later dismissed it as "adolescent." After earning a master's degree from Columbia University, he was a successful and popular professor, first at University of Southwestern Louisiana (now ULL), at Hunter College while pursuing a PhD at Columbia (unfinished), and finally in New Orleans. Having persuaded Simon & Schuster, however, to accept ''A Confederacy of Dunces'', Toole was unable to resolve editorial disputes. Due in part to the novel's failure, he suffered from paranoia and depression, dying by suicide at the age of 31. Toole was born to a middle-class family in New Orleans. From a young age, his mother, Thelma, taught hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uptown New Orleans
Uptown is a section of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, on the east bank of the Mississippi River, encompassing a number of neighborhoods (including the similarly named and smaller Uptown area) between the French Quarter and the Jefferson Parish line. It remains an area of mixed residential and small commercial properties, with a wealth of 19th-century architecture. It includes part or all of Uptown New Orleans Historic District, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Boundaries and definitions Historically, uptown was a direction, meaning movement in the direction against the flow of the Mississippi. After the Louisiana Purchase, many settlers from other parts of the United States developed their homes and businesses in the area upriver from the older Creole city. During the 19th century Canal Street was known as the dividing line between uptown and downtown New Orleans, the boundary between the predominantly Francophone area downriver and the ... [...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 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly 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 centralised 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—once part of the Byzantine Empire� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scholasticism
Scholasticism was a medieval European philosophical movement or methodology that was the predominant education in Europe from about 1100 to 1700. It is known for employing logically precise analyses and reconciling classical philosophy and Catholic Christianity. The Scholastics, also known as Schoolmen, utilized dialectical reasoning predicated upon Aristotelianism and the categories (Aristotle), Ten Categories. Scholasticism emerged within the monastic schools that translated medieval Judeo-Islamic philosophies (800–1400), Judeo-Islamic philosophies, and "rediscovered" the Corpus Aristotelicum, collected works of Aristotle. Endeavoring to harmonize Aristotle's metaphysics (Aristotle), metaphysics and Latin Catholic theology, these monastic schools became the basis of the earliest European medieval university, medieval universities, and thus became the bedrock for the development of History of science, modern science and Western philosophy, philosophy in the Western world. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Popular Culture
Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of cultural practice, practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art [cf. pop art] or mass art, sometimes contrasted with fine art) and cultural objects, objects that are dominant or prevalent in a society at a given point in time. Popular culture also encompasses the activities and feelings produced as a result of interaction with these dominant objects. The primary driving forces behind popular culture, especially when speaking of Western world, Western popular cultures, are the mass media, mass appeal, marketing and capitalism; and it is produced by what philosopher Theodor W. Adorno, Theodor Adorno refers to as the "culture industry". Heavily influenced in modern history, modern times by mass media, this collection of ideas permeates the everyday life, everyday lives of people in a given society. Therefore, popular culture has a way of influencing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest, the foremost Scholasticism, Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the Western tradition. A Doctor of the Church, he was from the county of Aquino, Italy, Aquino in the Kingdom of Sicily. Thomas was a proponent of natural theology and the father of a school of thought (encompassing both theology and philosophy) known as Thomism. Central to his thought was the doctrine of natural law, which he argued was accessible to Reason, human reason and grounded in the very nature of human beings, providing a basis for understanding individual rights and Moral duty, moral duties. He argued that God is the source of the light of natural reason and the light of faith. He embraced several ideas put forward by Aristotle and attempted to synthesize Aristotelianism, Aristotelian philosophy with the principles of Christianity. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oliver Hardy
Oliver Norvell Hardy (born Norvell Hardy; January 18, 1892 – August 7, 1957) was an American comic actor and one half of Laurel and Hardy, the double act that began in the era of silent films and lasted from 1926 to 1957. He appeared with his comedy partner Stan Laurel in 107 short films, feature films, and cameo roles. He was credited with his first film, '' Outwitting Dad'', in 1914. In most of his silent films before joining producer Hal Roach, he was billed on screen as Babe Hardy. Early life and education Oliver Hardy was born Norvell Hardy on January 18, 1892, in Harlem, Georgia. His father, Oliver, was a Confederate States Army veteran of the American Civil War who had been wounded at the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, and was a recruiting officer for Company K, 16th Georgia Regiment. The elder Oliver Hardy assisted his father in running the remnants of the family's cotton plantation. He then bought a share in a retail business and was elected full-time Tax C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alonso Quijano
Alonso Quijano (; spelled Quixano in English and in the Spanish of Cervantes' day, ), more commonly known by his pseudonym Don Quixote, is a fictional character and the protagonist of the novel '' Don Quixote de la Mancha'' by Miguel de Cervantes. At the outset of the work (Chapter 1 of Part I) we are informed that there is confusion about what his name is. Some (imaginary) authors, the text says, disagree about whether his name was Quijada ("jaw") or Quesada, although by reasoning ("conjeturas verosímiles") one could arrive at the name Quijana. At this point, Quijano is not even mentioned as a possibility, nor is Alonso, hinting the reader into one of the most notable yet purposefully obfuscated examples of an unreliable narrator. In Chapter 49 of Part I he tells us that he was a direct descendant of Gutierre Quijada. His "real" name of Alonso Quijano is only revealed in the last chapter of Part II, and with the stated purpose of demonstrating the falseness of the spurious Part ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rota Fortunae
In Medieval philosophy, medieval and ancient philosophy, the Wheel of Fortune or ''Rota Fortunae'' is a symbol of the capricious nature of destiny, Fate. The wheel belongs to the goddess Fortuna (mythology), Fortuna (Greek mythology, Greek equivalent: Tyche) who spins it at random, changing the positions of those on the wheel: some suffer great misfortune, others gain windfalls. The metaphor was already a cliché in ancient times, complained about by Tacitus, but was greatly popularized for the Middle Ages by its extended treatment in the ''Consolation of Philosophy'' by Boethius from around 520. It became a common image in manuscripts of the book, and then other media, where Fortuna, often blindfolded, turns a large wheel of the sort used in watermills, to which kings and other powerful figures are attached. Origins The origin of the word is from the "wheel of fortune"—the zodiac, referring to the Celestial spheres of which the 8th holds the stars, and the 9th is where the si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boethius
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, commonly known simply as Boethius (; Latin: ''Boetius''; 480–524 AD), was a Roman Roman Senate, senator, Roman consul, consul, ''magister officiorum'', polymath, historian, and philosopher of the Early Middle Ages. He was a central figure in the translation of the Greek classics into Latin, a precursor to the Scholasticism, Scholastic movement, and, along with Cassiodorus, one of the two leading Christian scholars of the 6th century. The local cult of Boethius in the Diocese of Pavia was sanctioned by the Sacred Congregation of Rites in 1883, confirming the diocese's custom of honouring him on the 23 October. Boethius was born in Rome a few years after the forced abdication of the last Western Roman Empire, Western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus. A member of the Anicii family, he was orphaned following the family's sudden decline and was raised by Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, a later Roman consul, consul. After mastering both Latin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamale
A tamale, in Spanish language, Spanish , is a traditional Mesoamerican dish made of ''masa'', a dough made from nixtamalization, nixtamalized maize, corn, which is steaming, steamed in a corn husk or Banana leaf, banana leaves. The wrapping can either be discarded prior to eating or used as a plate. Tamales can be filled with meats, cheeses, fruits, vegetables, herbs, chili pepper, chilies, or any preparation according to taste, and both the filling and the cooking liquid may be seasoned. ''Tamale'' is an Anglicisation, anglicized version of the Spanish word (plural: ). comes from the Nahuatl . The English "tamale" is a back-formation from , with English speakers applying English pluralization rules, and thus interpreting the ''-e-'' as part of the Word stem, stem, rather than part of the plural suffix ''-es''. Origin Tamales originated in Mesoamerica as early as 8000 to 5000 BC. The preparation of tamales is likely to have spread from the indigenous cultures in Mesoa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Orleans English
New Orleans English is American English native to the city of New Orleans and its metropolitan area. Native English speakers of the region actually speak a number of varieties, including the variety most recently brought in and spreading since the 20th century among white communities of the Southern United States in general ( Southern U.S. English); the variety primarily spoken by black residents (African-American Vernacular English); the variety spoken by Cajuns in southern Louisiana (Cajun English); the variety traditionally spoken by affluent white residents of the city's Uptown and Garden District; and the variety traditionally spoken by lower middle- and working-class white residents of Eastern New Orleans, particularly the Ninth Ward (sometimes known, since at least the 1980s, as Yat). However, only the last two varieties are unique to New Orleans and are typically those referred to in the academic research as "New Orleans English". These two varieties specific to New Or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
