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Six Walks In The Fictional Woods
''Six Walks in the Fictional Woods'' is a non-fiction book by Umberto Eco. Originally delivered at Harvard for the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures in 1992 and 1993, the six lectures were published in the fall of 1994. Overview The book derives its title from Italo Calvino's '' Six Memos for the Next Millennium'' but Eco also cites Calvino's ''If On a Winter's Night a Traveler'' as inspiration because the novel "is concerned with the presence of the reader in the story", which was also the subject of the lectures and book. Furthermore, it is based on René Descartes' metaphorical representation of a text as a forest where his readers wander, however, without Descartes' . In six chapters titled "Entering the Woods", "The Woods of Loisy", "Lingering in the Woods", "Possible Woods", "The Strange Case of Rue Servandon", and "Fictional Protocols", Eco contemplates on storytelling, process of creation of a literary text, and how readers understand them. Eco introduces two types of readers ...
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Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel '' The Name of the Rose'', a historical mystery combining semiotics in fiction with biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory, as well as '' Foucault's Pendulum,'' his 1988 novel which touches on similar themes. Eco wrote prolifically throughout his life, with his output including children's books, translations from French and English, in addition to a twice-monthly newspaper column "La Bustina di Minerva" (Minerva's Matchbook) in the magazine '' L'Espresso'' beginning in 1985, with his last column (a critical appraisal of the Romantic paintings of Francesco Hayez) appearing 27 January 2016. At the time of his death, he was an Emeritus professor at the University of Bologna, where he taught for much of his life. In the 21st century, he has c ...
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Sylvie (novel)
''Sylvie'' (1853) is a novella by French Romanticist Gérard de Nerval. It was first published in the periodical '' La Revue des Deux Mondes'' in 1853, and as a book in '' Les Filles du feu'' in 1854, just a few months before Nerval killed himself in January 1855. Background The novel contains autobiographical elements. As in the story, Nerval often traveled to Germany and to the east. Nerval had an unhappy love for a real actress, Jenny Colon.Christopher John Murray (2004). ''Encyclopedia of the romantic era, 1760–1850: Volume 2'', Page 797-798. He had a female childhood friend named Adrienne, whom he unhappily lost earlier in life. These unattainable and lost female figures are represented in the story, as well in his other works. In real life, Nerval lost his mother at an early age. Guillaume Apollinaire relates (in ''La Vie Anecdotique'') that while writing ''Sylvie'', Nerval spent a week in Chantilly solely to study a sunset that he needed for it. Plot An idyll writt ...
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Books Of Literary Criticism
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is ''codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aristotle's ''Physics'' is called ...
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Books Of Lectures
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is ''codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aristotle's '' Physics'' i ...
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Books By Umberto Eco
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is ''codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aristotle's ''Physics'' is called a b ...
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1994 Essays
File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson Mandela casts his vote in the 1994 South African general election, in which he was elected South Africa's first President of South Africa, president, and which effectively brought Apartheid to an end; NAFTA, which was signed in 1992, comes into effect in Canada, the United States, and Mexico; The first passenger rail service to utilize the newly-opened Channel tunnel; The 1994 FIFA World Cup is held in the United States; Skull, Skulls from the Rwandan genocide, in which over half a million Tutsi people were massacred by Hutu, Hutus., 300x300px, thumb rect 0 0 200 200 1994 Winter Olympics rect 200 0 400 200 1994 Northridge earthquake, Northridge earthquake rect 400 0 600 200 Sinking of the MS Estonia rect 0 200 300 40 ...
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Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion
''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'' () or ''The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion'' is a fabricated antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination. The hoax was plagiarized from several earlier sources, some not antisemitic in nature. It was first published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the 20th century. It played a key part in popularizing belief in an international Jewish conspiracy. Distillations of the work were assigned by some German teachers, as if factual, to be read by German schoolchildren after the Nazis came to power in 1933, despite having been exposed as fraudulent by the British newspaper ''The Times'' in 1921 and the German in 1924. It remains widely available in numerous languages, in print and on the Internet, and continues to be presented by neofascist, fundamentalist and antisemitic groups as a genuine document. It has bee ...
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Foucault's Pendulum
''Foucault's Pendulum'' (original title: ''Il pendolo di Foucault'' ) is a novel by Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco. It was first published in 1988, and an English translation by William Weaver appeared a year later. ''Foucault's Pendulum'' is divided into ten segments represented by the ten Sefiroth. The satirical novel is full of esoteric references to Kabbalah, alchemy, and conspiracy theory—so many that critic and novelist Anthony Burgess suggested that it needed an index. The pendulum of the title refers to an actual pendulum designed by French physicist Léon Foucault to demonstrate Earth's rotation, which has symbolic significance within the novel. Some believe that it refers to Michel Foucault, noting Eco's friendship with the French philosopher, but the author "specifically rejects any intentional reference to Michel Foucault"—this is regarded as one of his subtle literary jokes. Plot summary The book opens with a man named Casaubon hiding in the ...
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The Name Of The Rose
''The Name of the Rose'' ( it, Il nome della rosa ) is the 1980 debut novel by Italian author Umberto Eco. It is a historical murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327, and an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies, and literary theory. It was translated into English by William Weaver in 1983. The novel has sold over 50 million copies worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling books ever published. It has received many international awards and accolades, such as the Strega Prize in 1981 and in 1982, and was ranked 14th on 's 100 Books of the Century list. Plot summary In 1327, Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and Adso of Melk, a Benedictine novice travelling under his protection, arrive at a Benedictine monastery in Northern Italy to attend a theological disputation. This abbey is being used as neutral ground in a dispute between Pope John XXII and the Franciscans, who are suspected of heresy. ...
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The Three Musketeers
''The Three Musketeers'' (french: Les Trois Mousquetaires, links=no, ) is a French historical adventure novel written in 1844 by French author Alexandre Dumas. It is in the swashbuckler genre, which has heroic, chivalrous swordsmen who fight for justice. Set between 1625 and 1628, it recounts the adventures of a young man named d'Artagnan (a character based on Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan) after he leaves home to travel to Paris, hoping to join the Musketeers of the Guard. Although d'Artagnan is not able to join this elite corps immediately, he is befriended by three of the most formidable musketeers of the age – Athos, Porthos and Aramis, "the three musketeers" or "the three inseparables" – and becomes involved in affairs of state and at court. ''The Three Musketeers'' is primarily a historical and adventure novel. However, Dumas frequently portrays various injustices, abuses and absurdities of the Ancien Régime, giving the novel an additional political sign ...
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Divine Comedy
The ''Divine Comedy'' ( it, Divina Commedia ) is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun 1308 and completed in around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of world literature. The poem's imaginative vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval worldview as it existed in the Western Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan language, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language. It is divided into three parts: '' Inferno'', '' Purgatorio'', and '' Paradiso''. The narrative takes as its literal subject the state of the soul after death and presents an image of divine justice meted out as due punishment or reward, and describes Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. Allegorically, the poem represents the soul's journey towards God, beginning with the recognition and rejection of sin (''Inferno''), fol ...
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Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His '' Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ''Commedia'') and later christened by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language. Dante is known for establishing the use of the vernacular in literature at a time when most poetry was written in Latin, which was accessible only to the most educated readers. His '' De vulgari eloquentia'' (''On Eloquence in the Vernacular'') was one of the first scholarly defenses of the vernacular. His use of the Florentine dialect for works such as '' The New Life'' (1295) and ''Divine Comedy'' helped establish the modern-day standardized Italian language. His work set a precedent that important Italian writers such as Petrarch and Boccaccio woul ...
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