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Oroonoko (play)
''Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave'' is a work of prose fiction by Aphra Behn (1640–1689), published in 1688 by William Canning and reissued with two other fictions later that year. It was also adapted into a play. The eponymous hero is an African prince from Coramantien who is tricked into slavery and sold to European colonists in Surinam where he meets the narrator. Behn's text is a first-person account of Oroonoko's life, love, rebellion, and execution. Behn, often cited as the first known professional female writer, was a successful playwright, poet, translator and essayist. She began writing prose fiction in the 1680s, probably in response to the consolidation of theatres that led to a reduced need for new plays. Published less than a year before she died, ''Oroonoko'' is sometimes described as one of the first novels in English. Interest in ''Oroonoko'' has increased since the 1970s, with critics arguing that Behn is the foremother of British female writers, and that '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn (; bapt. 14 December 1640 – 16 April 1689) was an English playwright, poet, prose writer and translator from the Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barriers and served as a literary role model for later generations of women authors. Rising from obscurity, she came to the notice of Charles II, who employed her as a spy in Antwerp. Upon her return to London and a probable brief stay in debtors' prison, she began writing for the stage. She belonged to a coterie of poets and famous libertines such as John Wilmot, Lord Rochester. Behn wrote under the pastoral pseudonym Astrea. During the turbulent political times of the Exclusion Crisis, she wrote an epilogue and prologue that brought her into legal trouble; she thereafter devoted most of her writing to prose genres and translations. A staunch supporter of the Stuart line, she declined an invitation from Bishop Burnet to write a welcoming ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indigenous Peoples Of The Americas
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the Americas were traditionally hunter-gatherers and many, especially in the Amazon basin, still are, but many groups practiced aquaculture and agriculture. While some societies depended heavily on agriculture, others practiced a mix of farming, hunting, and gathering. In some regions, the Indigenous peoples created monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, city-states, chiefdoms, State (polity), states, Realm, kingdoms, republics, Confederation, confederacies, and empires. Some had varying degrees of knowledge of engineering, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, writing, physics, medicine, planting and irrigation, geology, mining, metallurgy, sculpture, and gold smithing. Many parts of the Americas are still populated by Indigeno ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Kyd
Thomas Kyd (baptised 6 November 1558; buried 15 August 1594) was an English playwright, the author of '' The Spanish Tragedy'', and one of the most important figures in the development of Elizabethan drama. Although well known in his own time, Kyd fell into obscurity until 1773 when Thomas Hawkins, an early editor of ''The Spanish Tragedy'', discovered that Kyd was named as its author by Thomas Heywood in his ''Apologie for Actors'' (1612). A hundred years later, scholars in Germany and England began to shed light on his life and work, including the controversial finding that he may have been the author of a ''Hamlet'' play pre-dating Shakespeare's, which is now known as the '' Ur-Hamlet''. Early life Thomas Kyd was the son of Francis and Anna Kyd. There are no records of the day he was born, but he was baptised in the church of St Mary Woolnoth in the Ward of Langborn, Lombard Street, London on 6 November 1558. The baptismal register at St Mary Woolnoth carries this entry: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Verisimilitude
In philosophy, verisimilitude (or truthlikeness) is the notion that some propositions are closer to being true than other propositions. The problem of verisimilitude is the problem of articulating what it takes for one false theory to be closer to the truth than another false theory. This problem was central to the philosophy of Karl Popper, largely because Popper was among the first to affirm that truth is the aim of scientific inquiry while acknowledging that most of the greatest scientific theories in the history of science are, strictly speaking, false. If this long string of purportedly false theories is to constitute progress with respect to the goal of truth, then it must be at least possible for one false theory to be closer to the truth than others. Karl Popper Popper assumed that scientists are interested in highly informative theories, in part for methodological reasons—the more informative a theory, the easier it is to test, and the greater its predictive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Byam (colonialist)
William Byam (died 1672) was an English colonist, politician, and agriculturalist who lived during the periods of the English Civil Wars, Interregnum, and Restoration. He was active in English and Barbadian politics, and played a critical role in establishing and governing a short-lived English colony in what is now Suriname. The village of Braamspunt (a corruption of 'Byam's Point') is named after him. Early life, English Civil War, and Barbados William Byam was born in the 1620s to a Somerset family. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. Fighting on the side of the Royalists in the English Civil War, he was captured following the fall of Bridgwater to the Roundheads in 1645. Following this defeat he relocated to the Caribbean, like many other Cavaliers at the time. Settling in Barbados, he was described as a "known malignant" by the Roundhead government in London. Barbados had remained neutral in the civil war. However, the execution of Charles I of Engla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond, Virginia, Richmond; Virginia Beach, Virginia, Virginia Beach is the most-populous city, and Fairfax County, Virginia, Fairfax County is the most-populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth's population was over 8.65million, with 36% of them living in the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area. The area's history begins with Native American tribes in Virginia, several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607, the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent English overseas posse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suriname
Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north, French Guiana to the east, Guyana to the west, and Brazil to the south. At just under , it is the smallest sovereign state in South America. It has a population of approximately , dominated by descendants from the slaves and labourers brought in from Africa and Asia by the Dutch Empire and Republic. Most of the people live by the country's (north) coast, in and around its capital and largest city, Paramaribo. It is also one of the least densely populated countries on Earth. Situated slightly north of the equator, Suriname is a tropical country dominated by rainforests. Its extensive tree cover is vital to the country's efforts to mitigate climate change and maintain carbon negativity. A developing country with a relatively high ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Tale Of A Tub
''A Tale of a Tub'' was the first major work written by Jonathan Swift, composed between 1694 and 1697 and published in 1704. It is arguably his most difficult satire, and perhaps his best. The ''Tale'' is a prose parody divided into sections of "digression" and a "tale" of three brothers, each representing one of the main branches of western Christianity. A satire on the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches and English Dissenters, it was famously attacked for its profanity and irreligion, starting with William Wotton, who wrote that it made a game of "God and Religion, Truth and Moral Honesty, Learning and Industry" to show "at the bottom he author'scontemptible Opinion of every Thing which is called Christianity." The work continued to be regarded as an attack on religion well into the nineteenth century. One commentator complained that Swift must be "a compulsive cruiser of Dunghils … Ditches, and Common-Shores with a great Affectation icfor every thing that is nasty. Whe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robinson Crusoe
''Robinson Crusoe'' () is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a travelogue of true incidents. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is presented as an autobiography of the title character (whose birth name is Robinson Kreutznaer) – a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical desert island near the coasts of Venezuela and Trinidad, roughly resembling Tobago, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before being rescued. The story has been thought to be based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on a Pacific island called "Más a Tierra" (now part of Chile) which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966. Despite its simple narrative style, ''Robinson Crusoe'' was well received in the literary world and is often credite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, trader, journalist, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel '' Robinson Crusoe'', published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its number of translations. He has been seen as one of the earliest proponents of the English novel, and helped to popularise the form in Britain with others such as Aphra Behn and Samuel Richardson. Defoe wrote many political tracts, was often in trouble with the authorities, and spent a period in prison. Intellectuals and political leaders paid attention to his fresh ideas and sometimes consulted him. Defoe was a prolific and versatile writer, producing more than three hundred works—books, pamphlets, and journals — on diverse topics, including politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology, and the supernatural. He was also a pioneer of business journalism and economic journalism. Early life Daniel Foe (his original name) was pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gulliver's Travels
''Gulliver's Travels'', or ''Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships'' is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, satirising both human nature and the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre. It is Swift's best known full-length work, and a classic of English literature. Swift claimed that he wrote ''Gulliver's Travels'' "to vex the world rather than divert it". The book was an immediate success. The English dramatist John Gay remarked: "It is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery." In 2015, Robert McCrum released his selection list of 100 best novels of all time in which ''Gulliver's Travels'' is listed in third place as "a satirical masterpiece". Plot Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput The travel begins with a short preamble in which Lemuel Gulliver gives a brief outline of his life and history before his voyages. ;4 Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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