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The Outpost (Prus Novel)
''The Outpost'' ( Polish title: ''Placówka'') was the first of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. The author, writing in a Poland that had been partitioned a century earlier by Russia, Prussia and Austria, sought to bring attention to the plight of rural Poland, which had to contend with poverty, ignorance, neglect by the country's upper crust, and colonization by German settlers backed by Otto von Bismarck's German government. Composition Prus began writing ''The Outpost'' as early as 1880, initially titling it ''Nasza placówka'' (Our Outpost), but soon suspended work on it in favor of close observation of rural life, chiefly around Nałęczów, where he vacationed for 30 years from 1882 until his death. He resumed work on the novel in 1884. Written in installments, ''The Outpost'' was serialized in the illustrated weekly, ' (The Wanderer) between March 19, 1885, and May 20, 1886. The first book edition appeared in 1886. Plot ''The Outpost'' is a stu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bolesław Prus
Aleksander Głowacki (20 August 1847 – 19 May 1912), better known by his pen name Bolesław Prus (), was a Polish journalist, novelist, a leading figure in the history of Polish literature and philosophy, and a distinctive voice in world literature. Aged 15, Aleksander Głowacki joined the Polish 1863 Uprising against Imperial Russia. Shortly after his 16th birthday, he suffered severe battle injuries. Five months later, he was imprisoned. These early experiences may have precipitated the panic disorder and agoraphobia that dogged him through life, and shaped his opposition to seeking Poland's independence by force of arms. In 1872, in Warsaw, aged 25, he settled into a 40-year journalistic career that focused on science, technology, education, and economic and cultural development – societal enterprises essential to the perseverance of a people who in the 18th century had been partitioned out of political existence by Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Głowacki took t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions and has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization.Gerald O'Collins, O'Collins, p. v (preface). The church consists of 24 Catholic particular churches and liturgical rites#Churches, ''sui iuris'' (autonomous) churches, including the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, which comprise almost 3,500 dioceses and Eparchy, eparchies List of Catholic dioceses (structured view), around the world, each overseen by one or more Bishops in the Catholic Church, bishops. The pope, who is the bishop of Rome, is the Papal supremacy, chief pastor of the church. The core beliefs of Catholicism are found in the Nicene Creed. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microfiction
Flash fiction is a brief fictional narrative that still offers character and plot development. Identified varieties, many of them defined by word count, include the six-word story; the 280-character story (also known as " twitterature"); the "dribble" (also known as the " minisaga", 50 words); the " drabble" (also known as "microfiction", 100 words); "sudden fiction" (up to 750 words); "flash fiction" (up to 1,000 words); and "microstory". Christopher Kasparek, "Two Micro-Stories by Bolesław Prus", '' The Polish Review'', 1995, no. 1, pp. 99-103. Some commentators have suggested that flash fiction possesses a unique literary quality in its ability to hint at or imply a larger story. History Flash fiction has roots going back to prehistory, recorded at origin of writing, including fables and parables, notably ''Aesop's Fables'' in the west, and Panchatantra and Jataka tales in India. Later examples include the tales of Nasreddin, and Zen koans such as '' The Gateless Gate''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theme (literature)
In contemporary literary studies, a theme is a central topic, subject, or message within a narrative. Themes can be divided into two categories: a work's ''thematic concept'' is what readers "think the work is about" and its ''thematic statement'' being "what the work says about the subject". The most common contemporary understanding of theme is an idea or point that is central to a story, which can often be summed in a single abstract noun (for example, love, death, betrayal, patriotism, or parenthood) or noun phrase (for example, coming of age, grief during wartime, or the importance of community). Typical examples of themes of this type are conflict between the individual and society; coming of age; humans in conflict with technology; nostalgia; and the dangers of unchecked ambition. A theme may be exemplified by the actions, utterances, or thoughts of a character in a novel. An example of this would be the thematic idea of loneliness in John Steinbeck's '' Of Mice and Men' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mold Of The Earth
"Mold of the Earth" ( Polish: "''Pleśń świata''") is one of the shortest micro-stories by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. The story was published on 1 January 1884 in the New Year's Day issue of the ''Warsaw Courier'' ('' Kurier Warszawski''). The story comes from a period of pessimism in the author's life caused by Poland's political situation (nine decades earlier, upon the completion of the Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Poland had ceased to exist as an independent country) and by the 1883 failure of ''Nowiny'' (News), a Warsaw daily that Prus had been editing for less than a year. Theme The story is set adjacent to the Temple of the Sibyl on the grounds of the old Czartoryski estate in Puławy. The Temple had been erected in the late 18th century by Princess Izabela Czartoryska as a museum and patriotic memorial to the late Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Next to the Temple is a boulder, overgrown with molds, which at a certain moment mag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Feature Film
A feature film or feature-length film (often abbreviated to feature), also called a theatrical film, is a film (Film, motion picture, "movie" or simply “picture”) with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment theatrical program. The term ''feature film'' originally referred to the main, full-length film in a cinema program that included a short film and often a newsreel. Matinee programs, especially in the United States and Canada, in general, also included cartoons, at least one weekly serial film, serial and, typically, a second feature-length film on weekends. The first narrative feature film was the 70-minute ''The Story of the Kelly Gang'' (1906). Other early feature films include ''Les Misérables (1909 film), Les Misérables'' (1909), ''L'Inferno'', ''Defence of Sevastopol, The Adventures of Pinocchio (1911 film), The Adventures of Pinocchio'' (1911), ''Oliver Twist (1912 American film), Oliver Twist'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Władysław Reymont
Władysław Stanisław Reymont (; born Rejment; 7 May 1867 – 5 December 1925) was a Polish novelist and the laureate of the 1924 Nobel Prize in Literature. His best-known work is the award-winning four-volume novel '' Chłopi'' (''The Peasants''). Born into an impoverished noble family, Reymont was educated to become a master tailor, but instead worked as a gateman at a railway station and then as an actor in a troupe. His intensive travels and voyages encouraged him to publish short stories, with notions of literary realism. Reymont's first successful and widely praised novel was '' The Promised Land'' from 1899, which brought attention to the bewildering social inequalities, poverty, conflictive multiculturalism and labour exploitation in the industrial city of Łódź (Lodz). The aim of the novel was to extensively emphasize the consequences of extreme industrialization and how it affects society as a whole. In 1900, Reymont was severely injured in a railway accident, wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nobel Prize In Literature
The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in the field of literature, produced the most outstanding work in an idealistic direction" (original ). Though individual works are sometimes cited as being particularly noteworthy, the award is based on an author's body of work as a whole. The Swedish Academy decides who, if anyone, will receive the prize. The academy announces the name of the laureate in early October. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895. Literature is traditionally the final award presented at the Nobel Prize ceremony. On some occasions, the award has been postponed to the following year, most recently in 2018. Background Alfred Nobel stipulated in his last will and testament that his money be used to create a series of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naturalism (literature)
Naturalism is a literary movement beginning in the late nineteenth century, similar to literary realism in its rejection of Romanticism, but distinct in its embrace of determinism, detachment, scientific objectivism, and social commentary. Literary naturalism emphasizes observation and the scientific method in the fictional portrayal of reality. Naturalism includes detachment, in which the author maintains an impersonal tone and disinterested point of view; determinism, which is defined as the opposite of free will, in which a character's fate has been decided, even predetermined, by impersonal forces of nature beyond human control; and a sense that the universe itself is indifferent to human life. The novel would be an experiment where the author could discover and analyze the forces, or scientific laws, that influenced behavior, and these included emotion, heredity, and environment. The movement largely traces to the theories of French author Émile Zola. Background Literary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Émile Zola
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, ; ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of Naturalism (literature), naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of Naturalism (theatre), theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, which is encapsulated in his renowned newspaper opinion headlined ''J'Accuse...!'' Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Prizes in Literature in 1901 and 1902. Early life Zola was born in Paris in 1840 to François Zola (originally Francesco Zolla) and Émilie Aubert. His father was an Italian engineer with some Greeks, Greek ancestry, who was born in Venice in 1795, and engineered the Zola Dam in Aix-en-Provence; his mother was French. The family moved to Aix-en-Provence in the Provence, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literary Realism
Literary realism is a movement and genre of literature that attempts to represent mundane and ordinary subject-matter in a faithful and straightforward way, avoiding grandiose or exotic subject-matter, exaggerated portrayals, and speculative elements such as supernatural events and alternative worlds. It encompasses both fiction (''realistic fiction'') and nonfiction writing. Literary realism is a subset of the broader realist art movement that began with mid- nineteenth-century French literature ( Stendhal) and Russian literature (Alexander Pushkin). It attempts to represent familiar things, including everyday activities and experiences, as they truly are. Background Broadly defined as "the representation of reality", realism in the arts is the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, as well as implausible, exotic and supernatural elements. Realism has been prevalent in the arts at many periods, and is in large ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pharaoh (Prus Novel)
''Pharaoh'' () is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus (1847–1912). Composed over a year's time in 1894–95, serialized in 1895–96, and published in book form in 1897, it was the sole historical novel by an author who had earlier disapproved of historical novels on the ground that they inevitably distort history. ''Pharaoh'' has been described by Czesław Miłosz as a "novel on... mechanism[s] of political power, state power and, as such, ... probably unique in world literature of the nineteenth century.... Prus, [in] selecting the reign of 'Pharaoh Ramses XIII' [a fictitious character] in the eleventh century BCE, sought a perspective that was detached from... pressures of [topicality] and censorship. Through his analysis of the dynamics of an ancient Egyptian society, he... suggest[s] an archetype of the struggle for power that goes on within any state." ''Pharaoh'' is set in the Egypt of 1087–85 BCE as that country experiences int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
