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Ubi Sunt
() is a rhetorical question taken from the Latin phrase , meaning 'Where are those who were before us?'. () is a common variant. Sometimes interpreted to indicate nostalgia, the motif is a meditation on mortality and life's transience. is a phrase which was originally derived from a passage in the Book of Baruch (3:16–19) in the Vulgate, Vulgate Latin Bible beginning 'Where are the princes of the nations?' and became commonplace in medieval literature. Biblical scripture Variations of the theme occur in a number of Old English homilies, including one which quotes in Latin the following words, which it attributes to Augustine of Hippo, St. Augustine: ('O man, tell me, where are the kings, where are the princes, where the emperors, who had been before us...'). These derive from the words of Book of Baruch, Baruch 3:16–19 in the Vulgate Bible: 16 17 18 19 16 'Where are the princes of the nations, and those who rule over the beasts on earth; 17 those who mock the birds ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhetorical Question
A rhetorical question is a question asked for a purpose other than to obtain information. In many cases it may be intended to start a discourse, as a means of displaying or emphasizing the speaker's or author's opinion on a topic. A simple example is the question "Can't you do anything right?" This question is not intended to ask about the listener's competence but rather to insinuate their lack of it. Forms Negative assertions A rhetorical question may be intended as a challenge. The question is often difficult or impossible to answer. In the example, "What have the Romans ever done for us?" (''Monty Python's Life of Brian'') the question functions as a negative assertion. It is intended to mean "The Romans have never done anything for us!" When Shakespeare's Mark Antony exclaims, "Here was a Caesar! When comes such another?" it functions as an assertion that Caesar possesses such rare qualities they may never be seen again. (''Julius Caesar'', Act 3, scene 2, 257) Rhetorical qu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beowulf
''Beowulf'' (; ) is an Old English poetry, Old English poem, an Epic poetry, epic in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translations of Beowulf, most often translated works of Old English literature. The date of composition is a matter of contention among scholars; the only certain dating is for the manuscript, which was produced between 975 and 1025 AD. Scholars call the anonymous author the "''Beowulf'' poet". The story is set in pagan Scandinavia in the 5th and 6th centuries. Beowulf (hero), Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes (Germanic tribe), Danes, whose mead hall Heorot has been under attack by the monster Grendel for twelve years. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother takes revenge and is in turn defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland and becomes king of the Geats. Fifty years later, Beowulf def ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early Middle Ages, Early, High Middle Ages, High, and Late Middle Ages. Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralised authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in late antiquity, continued into the Early Middle Ages. The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Léo Ferré
Léo Ferré (; 24 August 1916 – 14 July 1993) was a Monégasque poet and composer, and a dynamic and controversial live performer. He released some forty albums over this period, composing the music and the majority of the lyrics. He released many hit singles, particularly between 1960 and the mid-1970s. Some of his songs have become classics of the French chanson repertoire, including " Avec le temps", "C'est extra", "Jolie Môme" and "Paris-Canaille". Early life Ferré was the son of Joseph Ferré, French staff manager at Monte Carlo Casino, and Marie Scotto, a Monégasque dressmaker of Italian descent from Piedmont; he had a sister, Lucienne, two years older. Ferré had an early interest in music. At age seven, he joined the choir of the Monaco Cathedral and discovered polyphony through singing pieces by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Tomás Luis de Victoria. His uncle, former violinist and secretary at the Casino, used to bring him to performances and rehear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rutebeuf
Rutebeuf (or Rustebeuf) (fl. 1245 – 1285) was a French trouvère (poet-composers who worked in France's northern dialects). Early life He was born in the first half of the 13th century, possibly in Champagne (he describes conflicts in Troyes in 1249); he was evidently of humble birth, and was a Parisian by education and residence. Career His name is not mentioned by his contemporaries. He frequently plays in his verse on the word ''Rutebeuf'', which was a pen name, and is variously explained by him as derived from ''rude boeuf'' and ''rude oeuvre'' ("coarse ox" or "rustic piece of work"). Paulin Paris thought that he began life in the lowest rank of the minstrel profession as a ''jongleur'' (juggler and musician). Some of his poems have autobiographical value. In ''Le Mariage de Rutebeuf'' ("The Marriage of Rutebeuf") he writes that on 2 January 1261 he married a woman old and ugly, with neither dowry nor amiability. In the ''Complainte de Rutebeuf'' he details a series of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English period. Scholarly opinion varies, but the University of Valencia states the period when Middle English was spoken as being from 1150 to 1500. This stage of the development of the English language roughly coincided with the High Middle Ages, High and Late Middle Ages. Middle English saw significant changes to its vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and orthography. Writing conventions during the Middle English period varied widely. Examples of writing from this period that have survived show extensive regional variation. The more standardized Old English literary variety broke down and writing in English became fragmented and localized and was, for the most part, being improvised. By the end of the period (about 1470), and aided by the movabl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old English Literature
Old English literature refers to poetry (alliterative verse) and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed Anglo-Saxon England. The 7th-century work '' Cædmon's Hymn'' is often considered as the oldest surviving poem in English, as it appears in an 8th-century copy of Bede's text, the '' Ecclesiastical History of the English People''. Poetry written in the mid 12th century represents some of the latest post-Norman examples of Old English. Adherence to the grammatical rules of Old English is largely inconsistent in 12th-century work, and by the 13th century the grammar and syntax of Old English had almost completely deteriorated, giving way to the much larger Middle English corpus of literature. In descending order of quantity, Old English literature consists of: sermons and saints' lives; biblical translations; translated Latin works of the early Church Fathers; chronicl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exeter Book
The Exeter Book, also known as the Codex Exoniensis or Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501, is a large codex of Old English poetry, believed to have been produced in the late tenth century AD. It is one of the four major manuscripts of Old English poetry, along with the Vercelli Book in the chapter library of Vercelli Cathedral, Italy, the Nowell Codex in the British Library, and the Junius manuscript in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The Exeter Book was given to what is now the Exeter Cathedral library by Leofric, the first bishop of Exeter, in 1072. It is believed to have originally contained 130 or 131 leaves, of which the first 7 or 8 have been replaced with other leaves; the original first 8 leaves are lost. The Exeter Book is the largest and perhaps oldest known manuscript of Old English literature, containing about a sixth of the Old English poetry that has survived. In 2016 UNESCO recognized the book as "the foundation volume of English literature, one of the wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seafarer (poem)
''The Seafarer'' is an Old English poem giving a first-person account of a man alone on the sea. The poem consists of 124 lines, followed by the single word "Amen". It is recorded only at folios 81 verso – 83 recto of the tenth-century Exeter Book, one of the four surviving manuscripts of Old English poetry. It has most often, though not always, been categorised as an elegy, a poetic genre commonly assigned to a particular group of Old English poems that reflect on spiritual and earthly melancholy. Summary Much scholarship suggests that the poem is told from the point of view of an old seafarer who is reminiscing and evaluating his life as he has lived it. The seafarer describes the desolate hardships of life on the wintry sea. He describes the anxious feelings, cold-wetness, and solitude of the sea voyage in contrast to life on land where men are surrounded by kinsmen, free from dangers, and full on food and wine. The climate on land then begins to resemble that of the wint ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ruin
"The Ruin of the Empire", or simply "The Ruin", is an elegy in Old English, written by an unknown author probably in the 8th or 9th century, and published in the 10th century in the '' Exeter Book'', a large collection of poems and riddles. The poem evokes the former glory of an unnamed ruined ancient city that some scholars have identified with modern Bath, juxtaposing the grand, lively past with the decaying present. The manuscript The extant poem consists of forty-nine lines in the ''Exeter Book,'' on folios 123b-124b between "Husband's Message" and 34 preceding riddles. It is written near the end of the manuscript, on both sides of the leaf. A large diagonal burn in the centre of the page has rendered part of the script illegible. Contents The unknown poet compares the ruins that were extant at the time of writing with the mighty structures, since destroyed by fate, that had once stood there. The desolate and lichen-grey stones of the poet's time are linked to their long-g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deor
"Deor" (or "The Lament of Deor") is an Old English poem found on folio 100r–100v of the late- 10th-century collection the Exeter Book. The poem consists of a reflection on misfortune by a poet whom the poem is usually thought to name Deor. The poem has no title in the Exeter Book itself; the title has been bestowed by modern editors. In the poem, Deor's lord has replaced him with another poet. Deor mentions various figures from Germanic tradition and reconciles his own troubles with the troubles these figures faced, ending each section with the refrain "that passed away, so may this." The poem comprises forty-two alliterative lines. Genre Placing this poem within a genre has proven to be quite difficult. Some commentators attempting to characterise the work have called it an '' ubi sunt'' ("where are they?") poem because of its meditations on transience. It can also be considered a traditional lament and poem of consolation. Christian consolation poems, however, usually att ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
