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Felix Holt (author)
''Felix Holt, the Radical'' is an 1866 social novel by the English author George Eliot (pen name of Mary Ann Evans). The novel deals with political conflicts in a small English town at the time of the 1832 Reform Act. The plot centers on an election in which Harold Transome, a local landowner, runs for the "radical cause" for tactical reasons, contrary to his family's conservative tradition. Transome's opportunism is contrasted by Felix Holt, a young working-class man who rebels against the corruption and injustice of his time. Another plotline concerns Esther Lyon, the stepdaughter of a nonconformist clergyman, who is the true heiress to the Transome estate without knowing it. She must ultimately choose between a future with Harold Transome or Felix Holt. Her choice symbolizes the novel's central conflict between different lifestyles and social ideas. Content Plot The story takes place in the fictional community of Treby in the English Midlands in 1832, at the time of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Eliot
Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Anne or Marian), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrote seven novels: ''Adam Bede'' (1859), ''The Mill on the Floss'' (1860), ''Silas Marner'' (1861), ''Romola'' (1862–1863), ''Felix Holt, the Radical'' (1866), ''Middlemarch'' (1871–1872) and ''Daniel Deronda'' (1876). Like Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy, she emerged from provincial England; most of her works are set there. Her works are known for their literary realism, realism, psychological fiction, psychological insight, sense of place and detailed depiction of the countryside. ''Middlemarch'' was described by the novelist Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people"Woolf, Virginia. "George Eliot." ''The Common Reader''. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1925. pp. 166–176. and by Martin Amis an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Working Class
The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most common definitions of "working class" in use in the United States limit its membership to workers who hold blue-collar and pink-collar jobs, or whose income is insufficiently high to place them in the middle class, or both. However, socialists define "working class" to include all workers who fall into the category of requiring income from wage labour to subsist; thus, this definition can include almost all of the working population of industrialized economies. Definitions As with many terms describing social class, ''working class'' is defined and used in different ways. One definition used by many socialists is that the working class includes all those who have nothing to sell but their labour, a group otherwise referred to as the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (''née'' Stevenson; 29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer, and short story writer. Her novels offer detailed studies of Victorian era, Victorian society, including the lives of the very poor. Her first novel, ''Mary Barton'', was published in 1848. Her only biography ''The Life of Charlotte Brontë'', published in 1857, was controversial and significant in establishing the Brontë family's lasting fame. Among Gaskell's best known novels are ''Cranford (novel), Cranford'' (1851–1853), ''North and South (Gaskell novel), North and South'' (1854–1855), and ''Wives and Daughters'' (1864–1866), all of which have been adapted for television by the BBC. Early life She was born Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson on 29 September 1810 in Lindsey Row, Chelsea, London, now 93 Cheyne Walk. The doctor who delivered her was Anthony Todd Thomson, whose sister Catherine later became Gaskell's step ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope ( ; 24 April 1815 – 6 December 1882) was an English novelist and civil servant of the Victorian era. Among the best-known of his 47 novels are two series of six novels each collectively known as the ''Chronicles of Barsetshire'' and the Palliser novels, as well as his longest novel, ''The Way We Live Now''. His novels address political, social, and gender issues and other topical matters. Trollope's literary reputation dipped during the last years of his life, but he regained somewhat of a following by the mid-20th century. Biography Anthony Trollope was the son of barrister Thomas Anthony Trollope and the novelist and travel writer Frances Milton Trollope. Though a clever and well-educated man and a Fellow of New College, Oxford, Thomas Trollope failed at the Bar due to his bad temper. Ventures into farming proved unprofitable, and his expectations of inheritance were dashed when an elderly, childless uncle remarried and fathered children. Thomas Trollope was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benjamin Disraeli
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman, Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creation of the History of the Conservative Party (UK), modern Conservative Party, defining its policies and its broad outreach. Disraeli is remembered for his influential voice in world affairs, his political battles with the Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party leader William Ewart Gladstone, and his one-nation conservatism or "Tory democracy". He made the Conservatives the party most identified with the British Empire and military action to expand it, both of which were popular among British voters. He is the only British prime minister to have been British Jews, born Jewish. Disraeli was born in Bloomsbury, at that time a part of Middlesex. His father left Judaism after a dispute at his synagogue; Benjamin became an An ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Romance Novel
A romance or romantic novel is a genre fiction novel that primarily focuses on the relationship and Romance (love), romantic love between two people, typically with an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending. Authors who have contributed to the development of this genre include Maria Edgeworth, Samuel Richardson, Jane Austen, and Charlotte Brontë. Romance novels encompass various subgenres, such as fantasy, Contemporary romance, contemporary, historical romance, paranormal fiction, Sapphic literature, sapphic, and science fiction. They also contain tropes like enemies to lovers, second chance, and forced proximity. Women have traditionally been the primary readers of romance novels, but according to the Romance Writers of America, 18% of men read romance novels. The genre of works conventionally referred to as "romance novels" existed in ancient Greece. Other precursors can be found in the literary fiction of the 18th and 19th centuries, including Samuel Richardson's sen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tragedy
A tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a tragic hero, main character or cast of characters. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsis, or a "pain [that] awakens pleasure,” for the audience. While many cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, the term ''tragedy'' often refers to a specific Poetic tradition, tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western culture, Western civilization. That tradition has been multiple and discontinuous, yet the term has often been used to invoke a powerful effect of cultural identity and historical continuity—"the Classical Athens, Greeks and the Elizabethan era, Elizabethans, in one cultural form; Hellenistic civilization, Hellenes and Christians, in a common activity," as Raymond Williams puts it. Originating in the theatre of ancient Greece ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Science
Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of society", established in the 18th century. It now encompasses a wide array of additional academic disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, linguistics, management, communication studies, psychology, culturology, and political science. The majority of positivist social scientists use methods resembling those used in the natural sciences as tools for understanding societies, and so define science in its stricter modern sense. Speculative social scientists, otherwise known as interpretivist scientists, by contrast, may use social critique or symbolic interpretation rather than constructing empirically falsifiable theories, and thus treat science in its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederic Harrison
Frederic Harrison (18 October 1831 – 14 January 1923) was a British jurist and historian. A leading figure in the English Positivist movement and a disciple of Auguste Comte, he was known for his wide-ranging contributions to political philosophy, legal theory, and public discourse. Harrison was a prolific writer and lecturer whose works spanned history, law, religion, literature, and international affairs. He played a prominent role in Victorian intellectual life, contributing regularly to influential periodicals such as '' The Fortnightly Review'', and was noted for his radical political stance in support of trade union rights, universal education, and democratic reform. Biography Born at 17 Euston Square, London, he was the son of Frederick Harrison (1799–1881), a stockbroker and his wife Jane, daughter of Alexander Brice, a Belfast granite merchant. He was baptised at St. Pancras Church, Euston, and spent his early childhood at the northern London suburb of Muswell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victorian Era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Slightly different definitions are sometimes used. The era followed the Georgian era and preceded the Edwardian era, and its later half overlaps with the first part of the ''Belle Époque'' era of continental Europe. Various liberalising political reforms took place in the UK, including expanding the electoral franchise. The Great Famine (Ireland), Great Famine caused mass death in Ireland early in the period. The British Empire had relatively peaceful relations with the other great powers. It participated in various military conflicts mainly against minor powers. The British Empire expanded during this period and was the predominant power in the world. Victorian society valued a high standard of personal conduct across all sections of society. The Victorian morality, emphasis on morality gave impetus to soc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philanthropy
Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material gain; and with government endeavors that are public initiatives for public good, such as those that focus on the provision of public services. A person who practices philanthropy is a philanthropist. Etymology The word ''philanthropy'' comes , from 'to love, be fond of' and 'humankind, mankind'. In , Plutarch used the Greek concept of to describe superior human beings. During the Middle Ages, was superseded in Europe by the Cardinal virtues, Christian virtue of ''Charity (Christian virtue), charity'' (Latin: ) in the sense of selfless love, valued for Salvation in Christianity, salvation and escape from purgatory. Thomas Aquinas held that "the habit of charity extends not only to the love of God, but also to t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
