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Limestone (Adalbert Stifter)
''Limestone'' (original German title: ''Kalkstein'') is a novella by Adalbert Stifter, included in his 1853 collection '' Motley Stones'' (original title: ''Bunte Steine''). The story The story reports the apparently authentic encounter between the narrator and a poor priest. The narrator settles as a land surveyor in a poor area where the priest leads his existence. Amongst the local people, he has the reputation of a kind but miserly individual until it is found out, after his death, that his humble life only served the purpose of saving money to invest in the construction of a school that would make the long and dangerous path to school from an isolated village easier and safer for their children. Background In accordance with his style, Stifter constructs a complex frame story around the narrated event. There is a moral to this story, in fact in the first edition the title of the novella was "The poor benefactor" (German: "Der arme Wohltäter"), but Stifter uses it primarily ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adalbert Stifter
Adalbert Stifter (; 23 October 1805 – 28 January 1868) was a Bohemian- Austrian writer, poet, painter, and pedagogue. He was notable for the vivid natural landscapes depicted in his writing and has long been popular in the German-speaking world. Life Born in Oberplan in Bohemia (now Horní Planá in the Czech Republic), he was the eldest son of Johann Stifter, a wealthy linen weaver, and his wife, Magdalena. Johann died in 1817 after being crushed by an overturned wagon. Stifter was educated at the '' Benedictine Gymnasium'' at Kremsmünster, and went to the University of Vienna in 1826 to study law. In 1828 he fell in love with Fanny Greipl, but after a relationship lasting five years, her parents forbade further correspondence, a loss from which he never recovered. In 1835 he became engaged to Amalia Mohaupt, and they married in 1837, but the marriage was not a happy one. Stifter and his wife, unable to conceive, tried adopting three of Amalia's nieces at different ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motley Stones
''Motley Stones'' (German: ''Bunte Steine'') is the name of six novellas by Adalbert Stifter, published in two volumes in 1853 by Gustav Heckenast in Pest. The subtitle is: Ein Festgeschenk (a present). A first complete English translation of the work by Isabel Fargo Cole was released by ''The New York Review of Books'' in April 2021. Editions Five out of six novellas already existed in preceding editions: * ''Granit'' (Granite) 1848 as ''Die Pechbrenner'' (Vergißmeinnicht. Taschenbuch für 1849) * ''Kalkstein'' (Limestone) 1847 as ''Der arme Wohlthäter'' (Austria. Österreichischer Universal-Kalender für das Schaltjahr 1848) * ''Turmalin'' 1851 as ''Der Pförtner im Herrenhause'' (Libussa. Jahrbuch für 1852) * ''Bergkristall'' (Rock Crystal Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities. Their office or position is the "priesthood", a term which also may apply to such persons collectively. A priest may have the duty to hear confessions periodically, give marriage counseling, provide prenuptial counseling, give spiritual direction, teach catechism, or visit those confined indoors, such as the sick in hospitals and nursing homes. Description According to the trifunctional hypothesis of prehistoric Proto-Indo-European society, priests have existed since the earliest of times and in the simplest societies, most likely as a result of agricultural surplus#Neolithic, agricultural surplus and consequent social stratification. The necessity to read sacred text ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Land Surveyor
Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. These points are usually on the surface of the Earth, and they are often used to establish maps and boundaries for ownership, locations, such as the designated positions of structural components for construction or the surface location of subsurface features, or other purposes required by government or civil law, such as property sales. A professional in land surveying is called a land surveyor. Surveyors work with elements of geodesy, geometry, trigonometry, regression analysis, physics, engineering, metrology, programming languages, and the law. They use equipment, such as total stations, robotic total stations, theodolites, GNSS receivers, retroreflectors, 3D scanners, lidar sensors, radios, inclinometer, handheld tablets, optical and digital levels, subsurface loc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frame Story
A frame story (also known as a frame tale, frame narrative, sandwich narrative, or intercalation) is a literary technique that serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, where an introductory or main narrative sets the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories. The frame story leads readers from a first story into one or more other stories within it. The frame story may also be used to inform readers about aspects of the secondary narrative(s) that may otherwise be hard to understand. This should not be confused with narrative structure. Notable examples are the ''1001 Nights'' and ''The Decameron''. Origins Some of the earliest frame stories are from ancient Egypt, including one in the Papyrus Westcar, the ''Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor'', and ''The Eloquent Peasant''. Other early examples are from Indian literature, including the Indian epic poetry, Sanskrit epics ''Mahabharata'', ''Ramayana'', ''Panchatantra'', Syntipas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Bernhard
Nicolaas Thomas Bernhard (; 9 February 1931 – 12 February 1989) was an Austrian novelist, playwright, poet and polemicist who is considered one of the most important German-language authors of the postwar era. He explored themes of death, isolation, obsession and illness in controversial literature that was pessimistic about the human condition and highly critical of post-war Austrian and European culture. He developed a distinctive prose style often featuring multiple perspectives on characters and events, idiosyncratic vocabulary and punctuation, and long monologues by protagonists on the verge of insanity. Born in the Netherlands to his unwed Austrian mother, for much of his childhood he lived with his maternal grandparents in Austria and in boarding homes in Austria and Nazi Germany. He was closest to his grandfather, the novelist Johannes Freumbichler, who introduced him to literature and philosophy. As a youth, he contracted pleurisy and tuberculosis and lived with debil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Castle (Kafka Novel)
''The Castle'' (, ß#Usage, also spelled ''Das Schloß'' ) is the last novel by Franz Kafka, first published in 1926. In it a protagonist known only as "K." arrives in a village and struggles to gain access to the mysterious authorities who govern it from a castle supposedly owned by ''Graf'' Westwest. Kafka died before he could finish the work and the novel was posthumously published against his wishes. Dark and at times Surrealism, surreal, ''The Castle'' is often understood to be about Social alienation, alienation, unresponsive bureaucracy, the frustration of trying to conduct business with non-transparent, seemingly arbitrary controlling systems, and the futile pursuit of an unobtainable goal. History Kafka began writing the novel on the evening of 27 January 1922, the day he arrived at the mountain resort of (now in the Czech Republic). A picture taken of him upon his arrival shows him by a horse-drawn sleigh in the snow in a setting reminiscent of ''The Castle''. Hen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
