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Imaginary Conversations
''Imaginary Conversations'' is Walter Savage Landor's most celebrated prose work. Begun in 1823, sections were constantly revised and were ultimately published in a series of five volumes. The conversations were in the tradition of Lucian, dialogues with the dead, a genre begun in Classical times that had a popular European revival in the 17th century and after. Their subjects range over philosophical, political and moral themes, and are designed to give a dramatic sense of the contrasting personalities and attitudes involved. The work ''The Imaginary Conversations'' were begun when Landor was living in Florence and were initially published as they were completed between 1824 and 1829, by which time they filled three volumes. The dialogues, not yet divided into categories, were initially given the composite title ''Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen''. With their success Landor continued to write more, as well as to polish and add to those already published. Some appeared f ...
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Walter Savage Landor
Walter Savage Landor (30 January 177517 September 1864) was an English writer, poet, and activist. His best known works were the prose ''Imaginary Conversations,'' and the poem "Rose Aylmer," but the critical acclaim he received from contemporary poets and reviewers was not matched by public popularity. As remarkable as his work was, it was equalled by his rumbustious character and lively temperament. Both his writing and political activism, such as his support for Lajos Kossuth and Giuseppe Garibaldi, were imbued with his passion for liberal and republican causes. He befriended and influenced the next generation of literary reformers such as Charles Dickens and Robert Browning. Summary of his work In a long and active life of 89 years Landor produced a considerable amount of work in various genres. This can perhaps be classified into four main areasprose, lyric poetry, political writings including epigrams, and Latin. His prose and poetry have received most acclaim, but critic ...
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Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio ( , ; ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian people, Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanism, Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was sometimes simply known as "the Certaldese" and one of the most important figures in the European literary panorama of the 14th century, fourteenth century. Some scholars (including Vittore Branca) define him as the greatest European prose writer of his time, a versatile writer who amalgamated different literary trends and genres, making them converge in original works, thanks to a creative activity exercised under the banner of experimentalism. His most notable works are ''The Decameron'', a collection of short stories, and ''De Mulieribus Claris, On Famous Women''. ''The Decameron'' became a determining element for the Italian literary tradition, especially after Pietro Bembo elevated the Boccaccian styl ...
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Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much of his work. Kipling's works of fiction include the ''Jungle Book'' -logy, duology (''The Jungle Book'', 1894; ''The Second Jungle Book'', 1895), ''Kim (novel), Kim'' (1901), the ''Just So Stories'' (1902) and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888). His poems include "Mandalay (poem), Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919), "The White Man's Burden" (1899), and "If—" (1910). He is seen as an innovator in the art of the short story.Rutherford, Andrew (1987). General Preface to the Editions of Rudyard Kipling, in "Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies", by Rudyard Kipling. Oxford University Press. His children's books are classics; one critic noted "a versatile and l ...
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Howards End
''Howards End'' is a novel by E. M. Forster, first published in 1910, about social conventions, codes of conduct and relationships in turn-of-the-century England. ''Howards End'' is considered by many to be Forster's masterpiece. The book was conceived in June 1908 and worked on throughout the following year; it was completed in July 1910. Premise The story revolves around three families in England at the beginning of the 20th century: the Wilcoxes, rich capitalists with a fortune made in the colonies; the half-German Schlegel siblings (Margaret, Helen, and Tibby), whose cultural pursuits have much in common with the Bloomsbury Group; and the Basts, an impoverished young couple from a lower-class background. The idealistic, intelligent Schlegel sisters seek to help the struggling Basts and to rid the Wilcoxes of some of their deep-seated social and economic prejudices. Plot summary The Schlegels, a family of intellectual and idealistic sisters, once befriended the Wilcoxe ...
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionism, abolitionist, and poet who led the Transcendentalism, Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and critical thinking, as well as a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society and conformity. Friedrich Nietzsche thought he was "the most gifted of the Americans," and Walt Whitman called Emerson his "master". Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, "Nature (Emerson), Nature". His speech "The American Scholar," given in 1837, was called America's "intellectual Declaration of Independence" by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.Richardson, p. 263. Emerson wrote most of Essays (Emerson), his important essays as lectures and then revised them ...
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Prosper Merimée
Prosper may refer to: __NOTOC__ Places in the United States * Prosper, Michigan, an unincorporated community * Prosper, Minnesota, an unincorporated community * Prosper, North Dakota, an unincorporated community * Prosper, Oregon, an unincorporated community * Prosper, Texas, a town People * Prosper (name), a list of people and fictional characters with the name Other uses * PROSPER, a computer programming language invented by Earl Isaac in the early 1970s * ''Prosper'' (TV series), a 2024 Australian TV series * Prosper Marketplace, a business that allows online person-to-person lending and borrowing See also * Prosperity, a state of overall flourishing and good fortune * Prospero Prospero ( ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of William Shakespeare's ''The Tempest''. Character Twelve years before the play begins, Prospero is usurped from his position as the rightful Duke of Milan by his brother Antonio, ...
, a character in Shakespeare's pla ...
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Giacomo Leopardi
Count Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi (29 June 1798 – 14 June 1837) was an Italian philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist. Considered the greatest Italian poet of the 19th century and one of the greatest authors of his time worldwide, as well as one of the principals of literary Romanticism, his constant reflection on existence and on the human condition—of sensuous and materialist inspiration—has also earned him a reputation as a deep philosopher. He is widely seen as one of the most radical and challenging thinkers of the 19th century but routinely compared by Italian critics to his older contemporary Alessandro Manzoni despite expressing "diametrically opposite positions." Although he lived in a secluded town in the conservative Papal States, he came into contact with the main ideas of the Enlightenment, and, through his own literary evolution, created a remarkable and renowned poetic work, related to the Romantic era. The strongly ...
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Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philology, classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche became the youngest professor to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel. Plagued by health problems for most of his life, he resigned from the university in 1879, and in the following decade he completed much of his core writing. In 1889, aged 44, he suffered a collapse and thereafter a complete loss of his mental faculties, with paralysis and vascular dementia. He lived his remaining years under the care of his family until his death. Friedrich Nietzsche bibliography, His works and Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, his philosophy have fostered not only extensive scholarship but also much popular interest. Nietzsche's work encompasses philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism and fiction, while displaying ...
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The Gay Science
''The Gay Science'' (; sometimes translated as ''The Joyful Wisdom'' or ''The Joyous Science'') is a book by Friedrich Nietzsche published in 1882, and followed by a second edition in 1887 after the completion of ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'' and ''Beyond Good and Evil''. This substantial expansion includes the addition of a fifth book to the existing four books of ''The Gay Science'', as well as an appendix of songs. It was described by Nietzsche as "the most personal of all my books", and contains more poems than any of his other works. Title The book's title, in the original German and in translation, uses a phrase that was well known at the time in many European cultures and had specific meaning. One of its earliest literary uses is in Rabelais's ''Gargantua and Pantagruel'' ("gai sçavoir"). It was derived from a Provençal expression ('' gai saber'') for the technical skill required for poetry-writing. Johann Gottfried Herder elaborated on this in letters 85, 90, and 102 ...
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Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist and critic. He wrote many plays – all tragedies – and collections of poetry such as '' Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the Eleventh Edition of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Swinburne wrote about many taboo topics, such as lesbianism, sadomasochism, and antitheism. His poems have many common motifs, such as the ocean, time, and death. Several historical people are featured in his poems, such as Sappho ("Sapphics"), Anactoria ("Anactoria"), and Catullus ("To Catullus"). Biography Swinburne was born at 7 Chester Street, Grosvenor Place, London, on 5 April 1837. He was the eldest of six children born to Captain (later Admiral) Charles Henry Swinburne (1797–1877) and Lady Jane Henrietta, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Ashburnham, a wealthy Northumbrian family. He grew up at East Dene in Bonchurch on the Isle of Wight. The Swinburnes also had a London home at ...
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Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith (10 November 1728 – 4 April 1774) was an Anglo-Irish people, Anglo-Irish poet, novelist, playwright, and hack writer. A prolific author of various literature, he is regarded among the most versatile writers of the Georgian era. His comedy plays for the English stage are considered second in importance only to those of William Shakespeare, and his ''magnum opus'', the 1766 novel ''The Vicar of Wakefield'', was one of the most popular and widely read literary works of 18th-century Great Britain. He wrote plays such as ''The Good-Natur'd Man'' (1768) and ''She Stoops to Conquer'' (1771), as well as the poem ''The Deserted Village'' (1770). Goldsmith is additionally thought by some literary commentators, including Washington Irving, to have written the 1765 classic children's novel ''The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes'', one of the earliest and most influential works of children's literature. Goldsmith maintained a close friendship with Samuel Johnson, anothe ...
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George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton
George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton, (17 January 1709 – 22 August 1773), known between 1751 and 1756 as Sir George Lyttelton, 5th Baronet, was a British Politician, statesman. As an author himself, he was also a supporter of other writers and as a patron of the arts made an important contribution to the development of 18th-century landscape design. Life Lord Lyttelton was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Lyttelton, 4th Baronet, of Frankley, in the County of Worcester, by his wife Christian, daughter of Sir Richard Temple, 3rd Baronet. Educated at Eton College, Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, he afterwards went on grand tour, visiting Europe with his tutor. It was during this time that he started publishing his early works in both poetry and prose. Even after he was elected to Parliament in 1735, he continued to publish from time to time. In 1742 he married Lucy, daughter of Hugh Fortescue (1665–1719), Hugh Fortescue, and following her death in 1747 he later married Elizabeth, ...
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