|
Execution (novel)
''Execution'' is a 1958 war novel by Canadian novelist and Second World War veteran Colin McDougall (1917–1984). Although it won McDougall the 1958 Governor General's Award for English-language fiction, it was his only novel, and after publishing it to wide acclaim he retreated into a quiet life as Registrar of McGill University in Montreal. Nevertheless, ''Execution'' stands with Timothy Findley's ''The Wars'' and Hugh MacLennan's '' Barometer Rising'' as one of the most widely read and studied Canadian war novels of the twentieth century. Plot summary Based in part on McDougall's experience as an officer with Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, ''Execution'' follows the fictional Canadian 2nd Rifles Brigade during the Italian Campaign of 1943. Led by the flamboyant Brigadier Ian Kildare (a modern miles gloriosus, or braggart soldier), the Canadians invade Sicily where they meet with little resistance from the Italian Army, composed mostly of hapless conscripts w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colin McDougall
Colin Malcolm McDougall (1917–1984) was a Canadian author best known for his 1958 Governor General's Award-winning novel ''Execution''. Biography Born in Montreal, McDougall studied at McGill University before enlisting in Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry during World War II. He was sent overseas, where he served as an officer during Canadian participation in the Italian campaign. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and was Mentioned in Despatches. The recommendation for his DSO describes how he had fought in virtually every major engagement following the Allied invasion of Sicily, rising from a platoon commander, to regimental adjutant, then commanding the support company and finally, for the year before the recommendation was made, becoming commander of B company. It further describes three particular attacks led by him, including an action on 21 September 1944 when the company was ordered to improve the battalion's bridgehead over the river Mare ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Italian Army
The Royal Italian Army ( it, Regio Esercito, , Royal Army) was the land force of the Kingdom of Italy, established with the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy. During the 19th century Italy started to unify into one country, and in 1861 Manfredo Fanti signed a decree creating the Army of the Two Sicilies. This newly created army's first task was to defend against the repressive power in southern Italy. The Army of the Two Sicilies combated against criminals and other armies during this time of unification. After the monarchy ended in 1946, the army changed its name to become the modern Italian Army (). Within the Italian Royal Army are the elite mountain military corporals called, the Alpini. The Alpini are the oldest active mountain infantry in the world. Their original mission was to protect and secure Italy's northern mountain border that aligns with France and Austria. This group emerged in World War I when a three-year campaign was fought against the Austro-Hungarian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Existentialism
Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning Meaning most commonly refers to: * Meaning (linguistics), meaning which is communicated through the use of language * Meaning (philosophy), definition, elements, and types of meaning discussed in philosophy * Meaning (non-linguistic), a general te ..., purpose, and value (ethics), value of human existence, and the role of personal Agency (philosophy), agency in transforming one's life. In the view of an existentialist, the individual's starting point is Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenological, grounded in the immediate direct experience of life. Key concepts include "existential crisis, existential angst", a sense of Angst#Existentialist angst, dread, disorientation, confusion, or anxiety in the face of an apparently meaningless or Absurdism, absurd w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literary Realism
Literary realism is a literary genre, part of the broader realism in arts, that attempts to represent subject-matter truthfully, avoiding speculative fiction and supernatural elements. It originated with the realist art movement that began with mid- nineteenth-century French literature (Stendhal) and Russian literature (Alexander Pushkin). Literary realism attempts to represent familiar things as they are. Realist authors chose to depict everyday and banal activities and experiences. Background Broadly defined as "the representation of reality", realism in the arts is the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, as well as implausible, exotic and supernatural elements. Realism has been prevalent in the arts at many periods, and is in large part a matter of technique and training, and the avoidance of stylization. In the visual arts, illusionistic realism is the accurate depiction of lifeforms, perspective, and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afterword
An afterword is a literary device that is often found at the end of a piece of literature. It generally covers the story of how the book came into being, or of how the idea for the book was developed. An afterword may be written by someone other than the author of the book to provide enriching comment, such as discussing the work's historical or cultural context (especially if the work is being reissued many years after its original publication). See also * Conclusion * Epilogue * Foreword * Postface * Postscript PostScript (PS) is a page description language in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm. It is a dynamically typed, concatenative programming language. It was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Doug Br ... References {{Book structure Book design Literature ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warren Cariou
Warren Cariou is a Canadian writer and associate professor of English at the University of Manitoba. Biography Cariou received a B.A. (Hons) from the University of Saskatchewan and an MA and PhD from the University of Toronto (1998). In 1999 he published a book of short stories, ''The Exalted Company of Roadside Martyrs'', with Coteau Books. This was followed up in 2002 with his memoir ''Lake of the Prairies'', which gained him a wider audience. It won the 2002 Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize and was shortlisted for the 2004 Charles Taylor Prize. In 2005 Cariou served on the jury for the prestigious Scotiabank Giller Prize. Cariou was one of three featured authors in Coming Attractions '95, and has had short stories appear in Stag Line: Stories by Men and Due West, both published by Coteau Books. As well, his fiction was awarded a CBC Literary Competition Prize in 1991. He grew up on a farm near Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, a place he describes in ''Lake of the Prairies''. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heart Of Darkness
''Heart of Darkness'' (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad in which the sailor Charles Marlow tells his listeners the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgian company in the African interior. The novel is widely regarded as a critique of European colonial rule in Africa, whilst also examining the themes of power dynamics and morality. Although Conrad does not name the river on which most of the narrative takes place, at the time of writing the Congo Free State, the location of the large and economically important Congo River, was a private colony of Belgium's King Leopold II. Marlow is given a text by Kurtz, an ivory trader working on a trading station far up the river, who has "gone native" and is the object of Marlow's expedition. Central to Conrad's work is the idea that there is little difference between "civilised people" and "savages." ''Heart of Darkness'' implicitly comments on imperialism and racism. The novella's setting pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Polish-British novelist and short story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language; though he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he came to be regarded a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote novels and stories, many in nautical settings, that depict crises of human individuality in the midst of what he saw as an indifferent, inscrutable and amoral world. Conrad is considered a literary impressionist by some and an early modernist by others, though his works also contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters, as in ''Lord Jim'', for example, have influenced numerous authors. Many dramatic films have been adapted from and inspired by his works. Numerous writers and critics have commented that his fictional works, written largely ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monte Cassino
Monte Cassino (today usually spelled Montecassino) is a rocky hill about southeast of Rome, in the Latin Valley, Italy, west of Cassino and at an elevation of . Site of the Roman town of Casinum, it is widely known for its abbey, the first house of the Benedictine Order, having been established by Benedict of Nursia himself around 529. It was for the community of Monte Cassino that the Rule of Saint Benedict was composed. The first monastery on Monte Cassino was sacked by the invading Lombards around 570 and abandoned. Of the first monastery almost nothing is known. The second monastery was established by Petronax of Brescia around 718, at the suggestion of Pope Pope Gregory II, Gregory II and with the support of the Lombard Duke Romuald II of Benevento. It was directly subject to the pope and many monasteries in Italy were under its authority. In 883, the monastery was sacked by Saracens and abandoned again. The community of monks resided first at Teano and then from 914 at C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hitler Line
The Hitler Line was a German defensive line in central Italy during the Second World War. The strong points of the line were at Piedmonte, Pontecorvo and Aquino. In May 1944, the line was renamed the Senger Line, after General von Senger und Etterlin, one of the generals commanding Axis forces in the area. This was done at Hitler's insistence, in order to minimize any propaganda significance should the line be penetrated. The line was a so-called "switch line", joining the Gustav Line at Monte Cairo and providing a fall-back position behind the Gustav Line. The line was breached on 24 May 1944 on the British Eighth Army's front by the 1st Canadian Infantry Division and 5th Canadian Armoured Division Fifth is the ordinal form of the number five. Fifth or The Fifth may refer to: * Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as in the expression "pleading the Fifth" * Fifth column, a political term * Fifth disease, a contagious rash tha ..., attacking with II Polish C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ortona
Ortona ( Abruzzese: '; grc, Ὄρτων, Órtōn) is a coastal town and municipality of the Province of Chieti in the Italian region of Abruzzo, with some 23,000 inhabitants. In 1943 Ortona was the site of a bloody battle, known as "Western Stalingrad". A patron saint of Ortona is Saint Thomas the Apostle (Tommaso), whose relics were brought to Ortona in the 13th century by a sailor and are kept in the Cathedral of Saint Thomas. History The origins of Ortona are uncertain. Presumably, it was first inhabited by the Frentani, an Italic population. In 2005, during works near the Castle, a Bronze Age settlement was discovered, and the Roman town largely coincided with this first settlement. Some sections of paved roads and urban walls, as well as some archaeological findings are the only remains of this period. Ortona remained a part of the Eastern Roman Empire (later Byzantine Empire) for several centuries, before it was annexed by the Kingdom of the Lombards. In 803 the Fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared with other types of figurative language, such as antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy, and simile. One of the most commonly cited examples of a metaphor in English literature comes from the " All the world's a stage" monologue from '' As You Like It'': All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances And one man in his time plays many parts, His Acts being seven ages. At first, the infant... :—William Shakespeare, '' As You Like It'', 2/7 This quotation expresses a metaphor because the world is not literally a stage, and most humans are not literally actors and actresses playing roles. By asserting that the world is a stage, Shakespeare uses points of comparison between the world a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Joseph Conrad")
