|
Candide (other)
( , ) is a French satire written by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment, first published in 1759. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled ''Candide: or, All for the Best'' (1759); ''Candide: or, The Optimist'' (1762); and ''Candide: Optimism'' (1947). It begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism by his mentor, Professor Pangloss. The work describes the abrupt cessation of this lifestyle, followed by Candide's slow and painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes ''Candide'' with, if not rejecting Leibnizian optimism outright, advocating a deeply practical precept, "we must cultivate our garden", in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, "all is for the best" in the "best of all possible worlds". ''Candide'' is characterized by its tone as well as by its erratic, fantastical, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his '' nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—especially of the Roman Catholic Church—and of slavery. Voltaire was an advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a versatile and prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, histories, and scientific expositions. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and 2,000 books and pamphlets. Voltaire was one of the first authors to become renowned and commercially successful internationally. He was an outspoken advocate of civil liberties and was at constant risk from the strict censorship laws of the Catholic French monarchy. His polemics witheringly satirized intolerance, religious dogma, and the French institutions of his day. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bildungsroman
In literary criticism, a ''Bildungsroman'' (, plural ''Bildungsromane'', ) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood ( coming of age), in which character change is important. The term comes from the German words ("education", alternatively "forming") and ("novel"). Origin The term was coined in 1819 by philologist Johann Karl Simon Morgenstern in his university lectures, and was later famously reprised by Wilhelm Dilthey, who legitimized it in 1870 and popularized it in 1905. The genre is further characterized by a number of formal, topical, and thematic features. The term ''coming-of-age novel'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Bildungsroman'', but its use is usually wider and less technical. The birth of the Bildungsroman is normally dated to the publication of '' Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship'' by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1795–96, or, sometimes, to Christoph Martin Wieland's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
All Saints' Day
All Saints' Day, also known as All Hallows' Day, the Feast of All Saints, the Feast of All Hallows, the Solemnity of All Saints, and Hallowmas, is a Christian solemnity celebrated in honour of all the saints of the church, whether they are known or unknown. From the 4th century, feasts commemorating all Christian martyrs were held in various places, on various dates near Easter and Pentecost. In the 9th century, some churches in the British Isles began holding the commemoration of all saints on 1 November, and in the 9th century this was extended to the whole Catholic church by Pope Gregory IV. In Western Christianity, it is still celebrated on 1 November by the Roman Catholic Church as well as many Protestant churches, as the Lutheran, Anglican, and Methodist traditions. The Eastern Orthodox Church and associated Eastern Catholic and Eastern Lutheran churches celebrate it on the first Sunday after Pentecost. The Syro-Malabar Church and the Chaldean Catholic Church, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monadology
The ''Monadology'' (french: La Monadologie, 1714) is one of Gottfried Leibniz's best known works of his later philosophy. It is a short text which presents, in some 90 paragraphs, a metaphysics of simple substances, or '' monads''. Text During his last stay in Vienna from 1712 to September 1714, Leibniz wrote two short texts in French which were meant as concise expositions of his philosophy. After his death, ''Principes de la nature et de la grâce fondés en raison'', which was intended for prince Eugene of Savoy, appeared in French in the Netherlands. Christian Wolff and collaborators published translations in German and Latin of the second text which came to be known as ''The Monadology''. Without having seen the Dutch publication of the ''Principes'' they had assumed that it was the French original of the ''Monadology,'' which in fact remained unpublished until 1840. The German translation appeared in 1720 as ''Lehrsätze über die Monadologie'' and the following yea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written
''The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written: The History of Thought from Ancient Times to Today'' (1998) is a book of intellectual history written by Martin Seymour-Smith, a British poet, critic, and biographer. The list starts in order with the first ten books: the ''I Ching'' (an ancient Chinese divination text), the Hebrew Bible (a version of which serves as the "Old Testament" of the Christian Bible), the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'', the Upanishads (a collection of ancient Indian philosophical texts), the ''Tao Te Ching'', the Avesta, the '' Analects'', the ''History of the Peloponnesian War'', the Hippocratic Corpus and the Corpus Aristotelicum. See also * List of best-selling books * Bokklubben World Library Bokklubben World Library ( no, Verdensbiblioteket) is a series of classical books, mostly novels, published by the since 2002. It is based on a list of the hundred best books, as proposed by one hundred writers from fifty-four countries, compiled ... Reference ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Seymour-Smith
Martin Roger Seymour-Smith (24 April 1928 – 1 July 1998) was a British poet, literary critic, and biographer. Biography Seymour-Smith was born in London and educated at Highgate School and St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he was editor of ''Isis'' and '' Oxford Poetry''. His father Frank was a chief librarian who supplied books to Robert Graves, and who published the survey ''An English Library, an Annotated List of 1300 Classics'' in 1943, followed by ''What Shall I Read Next: a Personal Selection of Twentieth Century English Books'' in 1953. His mother Marjorie wrote poetry and published under the name of Elena Fearn. He began as one of the most promising of Anglophone post-war poets, but became better known as a critic, writing biographies of Robert Graves (whom he met first at age 14 and maintained close ties with), Rudyard Kipling and Thomas Hardy, and producing numerous critical studies. The poet and critic Robert Nye stated that Seymour-Smith was "one of the finest Br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Literature
French literature () generally speaking, is literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in the French language, by citizens of other nations such as Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Senegal, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, etc. is referred to as Francophone literature. France itself ranks first on the list of Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Prizes in literature by country. For centuries, French literature has been an object of national pride for French people, and it has been one of the most influential components of the literature of Europe. One of the first known examples of French literature is the The Song of Roland, Song of Roland, the first major work in a series of poems known as, "Chanson de geste, chansons de geste". The French language is a Romance languages, Romance language derived from Latin a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Canon
The Western canon is the body of high culture literature, music, philosophy, and works of art that are highly valued in the West; works that have achieved the status of classics. However, not all these works originate in the Western world, and such works are also valued throughout the globe. It is "a certain Western intellectual tradition that goes from, say, Socrates to Wittgenstein in philosophy, and from Homer to James Joyce in literature". Literary canon Classic book A classic is a book, or any other work of art, accepted as being exemplary or noteworthy. In the second century Roman miscellany '' Attic Nights'', Aulus Gellius refers to a writer as "classicus... scriptor, non proletarius" ("A distinguished, not a commonplace writer"). Such classification began with the Greeks' ''ranking'' their cultural works, with the word '' canon'' (ancient Greek κανών, kanṓn: "measuring rod, standard"). Moreover, early Christian Church Fathers used ''canon'' to rank th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masterpiece
A masterpiece, ''magnum opus'' (), or ''chef-d’œuvre'' (; ; ) in modern use is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or a work of outstanding creativity, skill, profundity, or workmanship. Historically, a "masterpiece" was a work of a very high standard produced to obtain membership of a guild or academy in various areas of the visual arts and crafts. Etymology The form ''masterstik'' is recorded in English or Scots in a set of Aberdeen guild regulations dated to 1579, whereas "masterpiece" is first found in 1605, already outside a guild context, in a Ben Jonson play. "Masterprize" was another early variant in English. In English, the term rapidly became used in a variety of contexts for an exceptionally good piece of creative work, and was "in early use, often applied to man as the 'masterpiece' of God or Nature". History Originally, the term ''masterpiece'' referred to a piece of w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathematics. He wrote works on philosophy, theology, ethics, politics, law, history and philology. Leibniz also made major contributions to physics and technology, and anticipated notions that surfaced much later in probability theory, biology, medicine, geology, psychology, linguistics and computer science. In addition, he contributed to the field of library science: while serving as overseer of the Wolfenbüttel library in Germany, he devised a cataloging system that would have served as a guide for many of Europe's largest libraries. Leibniz's contributions to this vast array of subjects were scattered in various learned journals, in tens of thousands of letters and in unpublished manuscripts. He wrote in several languages, primaril ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allegory
As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory throughout history in all forms of art to illustrate or convey complex ideas and concepts in ways that are comprehensible or striking to its viewers, readers, or listeners. Writers and speakers typically use allegories to convey (semi-)hidden or complex meanings through symbolic figures, actions, imagery, or events, which together create the moral, spiritual, or political meaning the author wishes to convey. Many allegories use personification of abstract concepts. Etymology First attested in English in 1382, the word ''allegory'' comes from Latin ''allegoria'', the latinisation of the Greek ἀλληγορία (''allegoría''), "veiled language, figurative", which in turn comes from both ἄλλος (''allos''), "another, differen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theological Fiction
Theological fiction is fictional writing which shapes people's attitudes towards theological beliefs. It is typically ''instructional'' or ''exploratory'' rather than descriptive, and it engages specifically with the theoretical ideas which underlie and shape typical responses to religion. Theological fiction, as a concept, is used by both theists and atheists, such as in fictional pantheons and cultures in theological fantasy literature. Theological and religious fiction The subject matter of theological novels often overlaps with philosophical novels, particularly when it deals with issues from natural theology (also called philosophy of religion). For example, Roger Olsen notes that the problem of evil is a feature of some significant theological fiction. Theological fiction also overlaps with religious fiction or Christian novels (also called inspirational fiction), especially when dealing with complex ideas such as ''redemption,'' ''salvation'' and ''predestination,'' which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> All Saints' Day")
