The son of a doctor and a lawyer, he entered the world of Parisian literary salons towards the end of the 19th century and then rose to become the most recognized writer in French literature of the 20th century. Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust developed a new literary theory that revolved around the riddle of human identity and which he translated into a novel in his seven-volume main work “À la recherche du temps perdu”…
Marcel Proust was born on July 10, 1871 in the Paris suburb of Auteuil (France).
His father was a recognized physician and professor of medicine. From childhood, Proust’s health was compromised by severe asthma. From 1882 to 1889 he attended a private grammar school, where he developed the main interests of his future life, namely theatre, reading and writing. Proust then completed a voluntary year in the military. He then studied law at the Sorbonne and diplomacy at the École des Sciences Politiques in Paris. During this time he found access to the upper bourgeois-noble salon culture in the French capital. In 1893 he completed his law studies without ever practicing law.
In 1896, Proust published a collection of his first short stories entitled Les Plaisiers et les jours. Around the turn of the century he studied the work of the English art critic and historian John Ruskin, from whom he published some writings in French translation in 1904/05, which dealt with the nature of reading and its effect on the reader. From this, Proust developed his own view of literary criticism in the posthumously published work “Contre Sainte-Beuve” (1958), according to which reading represented an act of communication in the midst of loneliness. In his view, author and book are two independent entities, whereby the book as an inner self does not so much represent the author, but rather should lead the reader to his own inner self.
The actual key to truth and knowledge does not lie in a book, but in every individual who reads such a book. The short story “Jean Santeuil” was written between 1895 and 1899, but was only published posthumously in 1952. In 1913 he published “Du côté de chez Schwan”, the first volume of a seven-part novel entitled “À la recherche du temps perdu” (1913-1927), which he completed in 1927 with “Le Temps retrouvé”. The seven books are considered Proust’s main work, which bears strong autobiographical traits and deals with the nature of human identity. The first volume was already a success. For the following volume, the writer received the Goncourt Prize in 1917. The writer remained unmarried and without a family of his own.
Marcel Proust died of pneumonia in Paris on November 18, 1922. The last three volumes of his main work were only published posthumously.
What is Marcel Proust known for?
Marcel Proust was an early 20th-century French writer responsible for what is officially the longest novel in the world: À la recherche du temps perdu – which has 1,267,069 words in it; double those in War and Peace.
What did Marcel Proust believe in?
Proust was raised in his father’s Catholic faith. He was baptized (on 5 August 1871, at the church of Saint-Louis d’Antin) and later confirmed as a Catholic, but he never formally practised that faith. He later became an atheist and was something of a mystic.
What kind of writer is Proust?
Proust grew up to become a world famous novelist, essayist and critic. He is best known for his epic work, À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time).
What is a Proustian moment?
Whether it’s a tea-soaked madeleine, your mother’s perfume or even the faint whiff of tobacco on a leather jacket, a “Proustian moment” is when a particular scent conjures up a certain experience, time or a place. Appellation is inspired by this experience – the recollection of scent memories.
What is Proust syndrome?
The sudden, involuntary evocation of an autobiographical memory, including a range of related sensory and emotional expressions.
Who was Proust’s lover?
In March 1896, Marcel Proust sat down to compose a letter to his first love and secret passion, the celebrated composer Reynaldo Hahn. The pair were the cultural beacons of their generation, but their relationship, known in their refined circle, was to remain secret from the public throughout their lives.
Was Proust a genius?
For all his undoubted literary genius, Marcel Proust was an underwhelming dinner guest.
The invention of photography not only enjoyed great popularity. The more in demand she became, the more critics there were – like the writer and art critic Charles Baudelaire.
Baudelaire was born in Paris on April 9, 1821. His biography depicts a rather depressed contemporary. One reads about drugs, lack of money, father problems and a suicide attempt. He died at the age of 46 from the long-term effects of syphilis. However, he did not spend his short life idly.
His work includes, among other things, the cycle of poems “The Flowers of Evil” and several essays, reviews, author portraits. He translated Edgar Alle Poe into French for the first time and was an enthusiastic revolutionary.
What is interesting for us is his critique of photography from “Der Salon” from 1859. In it he writes that photography is misjudged as art and is increasingly threatening painting. To create art, imagination was important to him. He could not imagine fantasy in connection with the technical camera.
Since the photographic industry was the refuge of all ailing painters whose talents or diligence were not sufficient to complete their studies, this general overestimation not only bore the mark of blindness and imbecility, but it also had a tinge of revenge . Charles Baudelaire; from: The Salon 1859
As a result, photographers were not artists for him, but on the contrary untalented or even lazy painters who had achieved nothing and now devoted themselves to commercial photography. However, Baudelaire did use the new technique, which is why there are several well-preserved daguerreotypes by well-known photographers such as Nadar.
I wonder what Baudelaire would do and write today. I imagine that not much would change: He lives in Paris, like back then with drugs and prostitutes. On the side, he writes for small left-wing magazines to keep himself afloat and in them eloquently criticizes the contemporary art scene.
And the photography? Baudelaire’s thoughts are still relevant, given the many discussions here and in other magazines. On the one hand, it’s about perfect focus areas. It is now possible to depict reality even more precisely than the human eye can perceive. Technology is often the focus.
On the other hand, there are also photographers who don’t care about showing reality. They try to transport feelings and emotions with their pictures. Perhaps Baudelaire could have enjoyed it after all, would have gone off with a Polaroid camera or some other camera and taken blurry, experimental pictures where you can hardly see anything.
It’s only speculation, of course, but in any case it’s interesting that many photographers today attribute to the first photos, which Baudelaire so criticized at the time, because of their lack of perfection, what he denied them: imagination.
What was Charles Baudelaire known for?
His most famous work, a book of lyric poetry titled Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), expresses the changing nature of beauty in the rapidly industrializing Paris during the mid-19th century.
Who inspired Charles Baudelaire?
Victor Hugo
Gustave Flaubert
Edgar Allan Poe
Marquis de Sade
Emanuel Swedenbo
Joseph de Maistre
How did Baudelaire define modernity?
For Baudelaire, modernity encapsulates the “ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent half of art” which serves to elucidate the “eternal and the immutable”; it entails observing and engaging the transient to gauge, understand and appreciate the perpetual.
How did Charles Baudelaire influence TS Eliot?
Therefore, as a symbolist poet, Charles Baudelaire influenced T.S. Eliot and like Baudelaire T.S. Eliot focused on the brokenness and falseness of modern experience and he found symbolism close to his era, therefore he took some essential parts as an inspiration.
Who is the father of symbolism?
Symbolism began as a literary movement in France in the 1880s during a period of enormous change and upheaval in Europe. The term first came into circulation in 1886 when the poet Jean Moréas published his ‘Symbolist Manifesto’ in the Parisian newspaper Le Figaro.
What type of poems did Baudelaire write?
In the 1860s, Baudelaire continued to write articles and essays on a wide range of subjects and figures. He was also publishing prose poems, which were posthumously collected in 1869 as Petits poèmes en prose (Little Poems in Prose).
What does the word Baudelaire mean?
A writer of poems
Is Baudelaire a romantic?
Baudelaire is fundamentally a romantic in both senses of the word—as a member of an intellectual and artistic movement that championed sublime passion and the heroism of the individual, and as a poet of erotic verse.
Stendhal was born Henri Beyle in Grenoble in 1783. Along with Balzac and Flaubert, he is the most important realist in the French language. He chose his pseudonym after the birthplace of the art historian J.J. Winckelmanns: Stendal near Magdeburg. The son of a lawyer was brought up by his strict father after the early death of his mother. Through protection he received a post in the French military administration at the age of 17. From 1800 to 1814 he was in the service of Napoleon, with interruptions, and spent lengthy periods in Germany, Austria, Italy and Russia on behalf of the state, where the great admirer of Napoleon took part in the campaign of the Grande Armee. After the fall of Napoleon, he was increasingly critical of his homeland and lived in Italy for many years. In 1831 Stendhal was appointed consul of Civitavecchia. In 1842, while on convalescent leave in Paris, he suffered a stroke from which he died two days later.
Among Stendhal’s most famous works are the novels “Red and Black” (1830) and “The Charterhouse of Parma” (1839).
What is Stendhal famous for?
Best known for the novels Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black, 1830) and La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma, 1839), he is highly regarded for the acute analysis of his characters’ psychology and considered one of the early and foremost practitioners of realism.
What is the meaning of Stendhal?
Stendhal syndrome, Stendhal’s syndrome or Florence syndrome is a psychosomatic condition involving rapid heartbeat, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations, allegedly occurring when individuals become exposed to objects, artworks, or phenomena of great beauty and antiquity.
What did Stendhal say?
“One can acquire everything in solitude except character.” “There are as many styles of beauty as there are visions of happiness.” “I love her beauty, but I fear her mind.” “A novel is a mirror walking along a main road.”
Who wrote the red and the black?
The Red and the Black, novel by Stendhal, published in French in 1830 as Le Rouge et le noir. The novel, set in France during the Second Restoration (1815–30), is a powerful character study of Julien Sorel, an ambitious young man who uses seduction as a tool for advancement.
What do red and black symbolize?
Black and red. In western culture, these are the two most sinister colors, as red typically conveys the meaning of blood or anger, and black is that of darkness or death. Being a very visually striking combination, they can also convey a sense of power.
Why is it called the Red and the Black?
The title is taken to refer to the tension between the clerical (black) and secular (red) interests of the protagonist but it could also refer to the then-popular card game “rouge et noir,” with the card game being the narratological leitmotiv of a novel in which chance and luck determine the fate of the main character …
What is the best translation of the red and the black?
The standard English translation of Stendhal’s classic Le Rouge et le Noir, composed in 1830, has long been that of Margaret Shaw (1953), still available in the Penguin Classics edition. And it’s still the best, by far.
What does operating in the red mean?
The phrase “in the red” means that business is in debt and owes money. The red ink signifies financial losses for the business. It means that you have more expenses and bills than the money to pay them.
What does operating in the black mean?
The expression “in the black” is commonly heard in the financial world and refers to a company’s most recent financial status, generally its last accounting period. When a company is in the black, it is said to be profitable, financially solvent, and not overburdened by debt (manageable debt is not an issue).
What nationality is Stendhal?
Stendhal, pseudonym of Marie-Henri Beyle, (born January 23, 1783, Grenoble, France—died March 23, 1842, Paris), one of the most original and complex French writers of the first half of the 19th century, chiefly known for his works of fiction.
Where is Stendhal buried?
The grave of French writer Marie-Henri Beyle better known as Stendhal (1783-1842) in Montmartre Cemetery, Paris, France.
What does Stendhal mean by crystallization?
Crystallization is a concept, developed in 1822 by the French writer Stendhal, which describes the process, or mental metamorphosis, in which unattractive characteristics of a new love are transformed into perceptual diamonds of shimmering beauty; according to a quotation by Stendhal: What I call ‘crystallization’ is.
Italo Calvino was one of the greatest writers of the late twentieth century. Certainly he was the most famous: known and translated all over the world, Calvino ended up representing the Italian writer par excellence.
What is Italo Calvino’s thinking?
The motivation for writing is the awareness of having taken part in great events in history and the will to contribute to the moral reconstruction of humanity, tested by the great conflicts.
What is Italo Calvino’s most important work?
You with Zero.
The path of the spider’s nests.
The Halved Viscount.
The Non-Existent Knight.
Marcovaldo. Immediate availability.
The Baron Rampante. Immediate availability.
American Lessons. Immediate availability.
The Invisible Cities. Available in 2-3 days.
Which literary movement does Italo Calvino belong to?
Calvino’s literary debut takes place in the sign of Neorealism, with the short novel The path of the spider’s nests (1947), centered on the experience of the partisan struggle.
When and why did Calvino come up with the idea of writing Cosmicomics?
In 1965 the collection of short stories Le cosmicomiche was released. In this work Italo Calvino combines his scientific interests with his literary ones, united by a basic problem: man’s inexhaustible need to know and understand the world.
What was Neorealism for Calvino?
Italo Calvino, in the 1964 Preface to his debut novel The path of spider’s nests, explains precisely that Neorealism “was not a school, but a set of voices, largely peripheral, a multiple discovery of the different Italies, especially of Italy hitherto most unknown in literature “.
What does Calvino teach us?
Italo Calvino, through his stories, has always taught us to live the greyness of life with levity. An expressive figure of his work and a talisman to take with you in everyday life is precisely lightness, the virtues of which are clarified in American Lessons.
What does Calvino think of the war?
The war had been a collective experience, the Resistance had left an ideal legacy that writers needed to tell. The path of the spider’s nests was born from this “mania”. In an atmosphere of renewed freedom, expressing oneself had become an imperative.
Why is it called Neorealism?
In this period a new artistic and literary movement develops which, due to its tendency to get closer to life and to expose the wounds of society, takes the name of Neorealism.
Who are the fathers of Neorealism?
The major exponents of Neorealism were: Elio Vittorini, Cesare Pavese, Italo Calvino (only in the first period), Carlo Levi, Alberto Moravia, Vasco Pratolini, Primo Levi, Ignazio Silone. They set themselves up as continuers of nineteenth-century Realism, arguing with the narrative already existing in Italy.
What are the main themes of Neorealism?
the Resistance and the partisan struggle, the memories from the concentration camps, the struggle of the marginalized, the post-war social disarray.
What’s after realism?
Decadentism. It begins in France at the end of the 19th century. It was above all the naturalists who defined them with the term “decadent” (that is, without true art or morality).
What is realism in a nutshell?
Realism is based on truth, that is, it tells real daily life events, as they are. The subject of which the realism often tells are the less well-to-do social classes, such as the peasant one, and also deals with their rights.
Who Invented Realism?
Verismo was a literary movement born in Italy between 1875 and 1895 by Giovanni Verga and Luigi Capuana with the collaboration of other writers.
What is the greatest exponent of realism?
Sicilians are the greatest exponents of realism: Giovanni Verga, Luigi Capuana and Federico De Roberto; the latter was born in Naples, but lived in Catania, the birthplace of Verga and Capuana.
Why is Pirandello a realist?
Pirandello starts from the dominant realism or naturalism in the second half of the nineteenth century and that he wanted a true work of art, which seemed to be made by nature or made by himself and in which the hand of the author should not be seen.
Who was the first Italian author to theorize realism?
The first Italian author to theorize realism was Luigi Capuana, who theorized the “poetry of truth”.
What is the peculiar element of the Italian literary tradition for Calvino?
Calvino’s intent is precisely to unmask the mechanisms underlying all narratives, thus creating a novel that goes beyond itself, as a reflection on its own nature and configuration.
How does Calvino write?
Calvino’s style is clear and elegant due to his constant search for clarity and simplicity in expressing himself. Even the use of dialectisms to better adapt to the events narrated does not hinder the reading that flows clean and linear in all its simplicity.
Where is Italo Calvino’s tomb located?
Cemetery of Castiglione della Pescaia, Castiglione della Pescaia, Italy
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a writer from Spain. He was born in 1547. His father was a nobleman who had become poor and worked as a barber and surgeon. Miguel lived in Italy for a while and also served in the Spanish fleet.
On a journey he was kidnapped by pirates from the Ottoman Empire. He was a slave for five years. Then his family bought him free. He worked in various jobs and also ended up in prison. He died of diabetes at the age of 68.
The most famous work by Miguel de Cervantes is the novel about Don Quixote. This is pronounced something like “dong ki-chote”. They say it was the world’s first proper novel. Don Quixote is a poor nobleman traveling with his servant Sancho Panza. In contrast to the clever Sancho, the unworldly Don Quixote dreams of all sorts of things and puts himself in danger. Don Quixote’s fight against windmills, which he believes to be giants, is particularly well known.
Miguel de Cervantes has long been considered the most famous writer to have written in Spanish. His great novel was a model for many others. Plays and films have been made about it. “Instituto Cervantes” is the name of the state organization that spreads the Spanish language abroad.
What is Miguel de Cervantes best known for?
Miguel de Cervantes is the most important and celebrated figure in Spanish literature. He is best known for being the author of Don Quixote (1605, 1615), a widely read literary classic. He also was noted for his short story collection Novelas exemplares (1613; Exemplary Stories) and several plays and poems.
Why did Miguel Cervantes wrote Don Quixote?
Cervantes himself states that he wrote Don Quixote in order to undermine the influence of those “vain and empty books of chivalry” as well as to provide some merry, original, and sometimes prudent material for his readers’ entertainment.
What is the summary of Don Quixote?
The plot revolves around the adventures of a member of the lowest nobility, an hidalgo from La Mancha named Alonso Quijano, who reads so many chivalric romances that he either loses or pretends to have lost his mind in order to become a knight-errant (caballero andante) to revive chivalry and serve his nation.
Where did Cervantes lose his hand?
Cervantes was aboard La Marquesa with his brother Rodrigo during the Battle of Lepanto, which took place on the 7th of October 1571. During the battle he suffered bad injuries to his left hand, partially crippling it.
Why is Don Quixote so important?
Don Quixote is considered by literary historians to be one of the most important books of all time, and it is often cited as the first modern novel. The character of Quixote became an archetype, and the word quixotic, used to mean the impractical pursuit of idealistic goals, entered common usage.
Why did Don Quixote name his horse Rocinante?
“Rocinante”, then, follows Cervantes’ pattern of using ambiguous, multivalent words, which is common throughout the novel. Rocinante’s name, then, signifies his change in status from the “old nag” of before to the “foremost” steed.
What mental illness did Don Quixote have?
Don Quixote suffered from chronic insomnia due to ruminations and worries: ‘Don Quixote did not sleep too much at all during the night, thinking about his lady Dulcinea’ (part I, ch.
What is the moral of Don Quixote?
Don Quixote teaches us that life is to be challenged. That passion and discipline of a determined soul are a foundational element of being a leader. Quixote does not accept current reality. He forces his creative imagery, his commitment, and his happiness on it.
What do horses symbolize in Don Quixote?
Horses symbolize movement and status in the novel and often denote a character’s worth or class. The pilgrims outside Barcelona, for instance, walk to the city. The noblemen ride in carriages, and the robbers and Don Quixote ride on horseback.
What does Sancho Panza symbolize?
Sancho Panza is precursor to “the sidekick,” and is symbolic of practicality over idealism. Sancho is the everyman, who, though not sharing his master’s delusional “enchantment” until late in the novel, remains his ever-faithful companion realist, and functions as the clever sidekick.
Who is Don Quixote’s imaginary lady?
Dulcinea, in full Dulcinea del Toboso, fictional character in the two-part picaresque novel Don Quixote (Part I, 1605; Part II, 1615) by Miguel de Cervantes. Aldonza Lorenzo, a sturdy Spanish peasant girl, is renamed Dulcinea by the crazed knight-errant Don Quixote when he selects her to be his lady.
Who does Don Quixote symbolically represent?
He is the idealistic and adventurous knight and represents bravery and chivalry, determined to to whatever it takes to woo his fair lady.
What is miguel de cervantes known for?
Miguel de Cervantes is the most important and celebrated figure in Spanish literature. He is best known for being the author of Don Quixote (1605, 1615), a widely read literary classic. He also was noted for his short story collection Novelas exemplares (1613; Exemplary Stories) and several plays and poems.
What influenced miguel de cervantes?
Miguel de Cervantes was one of the most influential writers of all times, writing the first major European novel and contributing to both the Spanish and English languages. Although known best for Don Quijote, Cervantes also wrote dozens of other novels, short stories, poems, and plays.
Which is not a fact about the life of miguel de cervantes, author of don quixote?
Which is not a fact about the life of Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote? He was deluded into thinking he was a knight.
What awards did miguel de cervantes win?
Miguel de Cervantes did not win any awards.
For what innovation in don quixote was miguel de cervantes acclaimed by his contemporaries?
The novel’s tragicomic hero. Don Quixote’s main quest in life is to revive knight-errantry in a world devoid of chivalric virtues and values. He believes only what he chooses to believe and sees the world very differently from most people.
Today everyone knows his works. Because Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a genius: he writes more than almost anyone else and also works as a lawyer, minister and natural scientist. Even during his lifetime, Goethe was idolized for his lines
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: short profile
Name: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nationality: German
Birthday: August 28, 1749, in Frankfurt am Main
Date of death: March 22, 1832, in Weimar
Well-known works: Götz von Berlichingen (1773), Iphigenie auf Tauris (1779), Torquato Tasso (1790), Faust (1808), Elective Affinities (1809)
Best-known quote: “You can also build something beautiful out of stones that are placed in your way.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was an important poet and naturalist. He is considered one of the most important creators of German-language poetry.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: A Biography
Goethe, born on August 28, 1749 in Frankfurt am Main, is the scion of a rich family. Instead of attending a normal school, several tutors teach him Latin, Greek, history and fencing. He hardly has any friends. Because the boy talks precociously; always and everywhere he wants to command.
However, when Goethe moved to Leipzig and later to Strasbourg to study law, it became clear that there was not always much behind the big mouth: the show-off was plagued by a number of fears. Goethe can see no blood, no wound. He has to do something about it!
So Goethe takes part in anatomy courses and forces himself to look when corpses are cut open. Goethe climbs church towers to overcome his fear of heights. And at night he sneaks through cemeteries – until he no longer has to tremble in the dark.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is in his mid-20s when he starts writing in earnest. In just a few weeks he wrote “The Sorrows of Young Werther”, his first novel, which consists of letters from a man who was unhappily in love. This book is a sensation! It expresses exactly what young people across Europe think and feel. Werther literally becomes fashionable: many people suddenly dress like the character in the novel, wearing yellow pants, a yellow waistcoat, and a blue overcoat. And all over the country the name Goethe is now known.
Even the only 18-year-old Duke Karl August of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach took notice of Goethe. He brings the talented poet to court as his advisor! Goethe experienced his wild years in Weimar. He is always on the go with Karl August. They bathe naked in streams and ride through the district at night, sometimes wrapped in sheets: let the simple-minded farmers believe in ghosts!
Goethe’s escape to Italy
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is now a respected statesman. But he quickly got tired of the annoying official duties in Weimar. With nothing but a garment bag and a satchel full of papers, he fled to Italy in the fall of 1786. There he finally wants to write again.
The light, the landscapes, the sea, the ancient buildings and paintings – all overwhelm the traveler. When Goethe started his journey home to Weimar in April 1788, he had two completed plays with him: “Iphigenie auf Tauris” and “Egmont”.
An unusual selfish
After his return, Goethe meets what is perhaps the most important person in his life: Christiane Vulpius, who years later becomes his wife and the mother of his son August. He also meets Friedrich Schiller, who initially finds his fellow poet terrible. Friedrich Schiller says of Goethe: “I think he is an egotist of an unusual degree.”
But the two soon become inseparable friends. Friedrich Schiller and Goethe give each other all the new works to read. And together they later keep the Weimar Court Theater running. When Schiller dies in 1805, Goethe says he not only loses a companion, but “half of my own existence”.
To distract himself, Goethe throws himself into his work: In the play “Faust I”, the main character – like Goethe himself – is looking for happiness. In order to get it, Faust is even willing to sell his soul to the devil! The play premiered in Braunschweig in 1829. Since then it has been performed thousands of times on Germany’s stages. And no high school student can avoid Goethe’s “Faust” today.
The poet himself never experienced any of this. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe died in Weimar on March 22, 1832 at the age of 82.
Why is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe so famous?
After a disappointed love, he wrote »The Sorrows of Young Werther« in early 1774. This novel soon made him famous throughout Europe. In addition, he dealt with the Fauststoff and created numerous other works.
Who is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe profile?
Goethe, born on August 28, 1749 in Frankfurt am Main, is the scion of a rich family. Instead of attending a normal school, several tutors teach him Latin, Greek, history and fencing. He hardly has any friends.
What kind of person was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe?
Goethe was a richly gifted man and blessed with good fortune throughout his life. He was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1749 and grew up in a wealthy family. His father was an educated man who lived his life according to strict principles without learning a real trade.
What did Johann Wolfgang von Goethe write?
Even today, almost 200 years after his death, his dramas, novels and poems are read all over the world. You probably also know a few of his works, such as the multi-part drama “Faust” (1808/1832) or the famous ballad “Erlkönig” (1782). They are regarded as examples of outstanding German literature.
What is Goethe’s most famous poem?
By far the most famous work by Goethe is without a doubt Faust. Goethe worked on this work for 60 years; he had already written the first parts in 1774.
What is typically Goethe?
GOETHE was talented and lucky all her life. He had influential friends, his works were successful and he was popular with women. Despite his restless lifestyle, which was shaped by a lot of travel, he was lucky enough to have a caring wife and a family in CHRISTIANE VULPIUS.
What was Goethe’s writing style like?
In addition to long poems comprising several hundred verses, there are short two-liners, verses with a high level of linguistic and metaphorical complexity, simple sayings, strict and antique metering, song-like or mocking stanzas, and rhyming poems in free rhythms.
What did Goethe want to achieve?
Life as a student. His father decided that Johann Wolfgang should study law in Leipzig and Strasbourg. The young Goethe actually wanted to study history and classical philology (linguistics) in Göttingen, but bowed to his father’s will.
What is happiness Goethe?
Fortune is the goddess of living people, and to truly feel her favor one must live and see people quite vividly striving and quite sensuously enjoying.
What dramas did Goethe write?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is perhaps best known for The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), the first novel of the Sturm und Drang movement, and for Faust (Part I, 1808; Part II, 1832), a play about a man who sells his soul to the Devil that is sometimes considered Germany’s greatest contribution to world literature.
Was Goethe happy?
Weimar, July 24, 1797: Goethe still had 34 years, seven months and 28 days to live, but he had already made his will. He was said to have a happy constitution during his lifetime and especially after his death.
What does Goethe say about love?
“Learn to grow old with a young heart.”
Why did Goethe say more light?
The simplest interpretation is that Goethe said: “Open the second shutter so that more light can come in!” Others, on the other hand, interpret it in a highly philosophical way.
What did Goethe research?
The Scientist Goethe – Anatomy and Color Theory. Goethe was a universal genius with many talents and an industrious and ambitious researcher: he worked in botany, mineralogy, anatomy and physics. His scientific work brought amazing results to light.
The writer founded French Romanticism and was one of its most prominent representatives. In his productive work, Victor Hugo acted as a stimulus for further generations of poets, especially in the 19th century. Hugo not only favored the pathetic, but also invented the grotesque as an aesthetic quality in literature. Among other things, Victor Hugo wrote novels, dramas and poems that had a scale character. His work had a lasting influence on the writers of the Parnassians, a group of French modernists. His romantic novel “Notre-Dames de Paris” about Paris in the 15th century is considered the most important French historical novel…
Victor Marie Hugo was born on February 26, 1802 in Besançon.
Victor Hugo was already interested in writing as a teenager. In 1817 the Académie française honored him with an award for one of his early poems. Two years later he published his novel Bug Jargal. In 1822 his volume of poems “Odes et poésie diverses” (Odes and Other Poems) was published. This was followed in quick succession by the novel Han d’Islande (1832) and the poetry collections Odes nouvelles (1824) and Odes et ballades (1826). ), in German “Odes and Ballads”. In the two years 1823 and 1824 he was a member of the circle of poets “Le Cénacle”, which had formed around the writer Jean Charles Emmanuel Nodier. Victor Hugo was one of the co-founders of the magazine “Le Conservateur littéraire”. In the foreword to his historical verse drama “Cromwell” (1827) he laid down his literary programme. In it he announced the separation from the strict stylistic principles of French classicism. On the other hand, he propagated the ugly and grotesque in life as a claim to truth in literature. He equated nature with art.
The “Cromwell” play was first performed in 1956 in the main courtyard of the Louvre. The preface was published separately as “Préface de Cromwell” in 1827 as a manifesto of the Romantic movement. It became the most important programmatic document of the French Romantics. This made Hugo the central figure in the group “Le Cénacle” in 1827 and 1828. In his second verse drama about Marion de Lorme, a famous courtesan of the 17th century, he consistently implemented his literary program. The censorship justified a publication ban with the exaggerated representations of Louis XIII. In 1830 the drama “Hernani ou l’Honneur Castillan” was published. In the five-act work, Victor Hugo used the loose verse coupé instead of the strict Alexandrian meter. The protagonist of the reading moved in his own way between high-spirited and majestic. When it premiered at the Comédie-Française, the piece sparked controversy between the romantics and the critical conservatives. This event went down in literary history as the Bateille d’Hernani, the Battle of Hernani, which was continued in the newspapers of the time.
With the drama “Hernani” Hugo inspired the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi to write his opera “Ernani” from 1844. With the historical novel “Notre-Dames de Paris” (1831) Victor Hugo made his breakthrough as a romantic novelist. It is about 15th-century Paris, centered on the Gothic cathedral. The work achieved world fame and stands for the most successful historical French novel work. Also in the German translation as “Hunchback of Notre-Dame” the book became widely known and experienced some film adaptations. In 1841 Victor Hugo was admitted to the Académie française. The drama “Le Burggraves”, created in 1843, was a failure in contrast to the “Hunchback”. In the same year his daughter Léopoldine died. The title “Les Misérables” (1862, German 1929) lies somewhere between a crime novel and a historical novel. In it – as in many of his other plays – the poet used himself as an advocate for the people and for the disadvantaged.
For this reason, “Le Châtiments”, hate poems on Napoléon III. to understand. Later, the writer turned more to politics. Hugo’s attitude towards the monarchy had already been shaped in his parents’ home. After the July Revolution, he sided with the royalists. In 1845 he was knighted by King Louis Philippe. But during the 1848 revolution he became a supporter of the Republicans and a Bonapartist MP in Parliament. A year later he became a member of the National Legislative Assembly. His political involvement took place with the unsuccessful coup against President Louis Napoleon, who later became Emperor Napoleon III. came to a quick end in 1851. Victor Hugo had to flee and lived on the island of Guernsey until 1870. After that he returned to France.
Victor Hugo died in Paris on May 22, 1885.
The “Prix Victor Hugo”, one of the most important literary prizes in France, was named after the poet. Victor Hugo’s literary impact extended beyond his century.
What did Victor Hugo do?
Victor Hugo is considered one of the most famous French writers. His novels The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) and The Miserables (1862) produced a profusion of lyrical and engaging poetic works.
Why was Victor Hugo in exile?
For his resistance to Napoleon III’s coup d’état. he banishes the brilliant poet Victor Hugo from France. In 1853 the poet eked out his exile on the island of Jersey and, in addition to writing, devoted himself to spiritualism.
What did Victor Hugo do in 1830?
Between 1838 and 1840, Hugo undertook three journeys along the Rhine, which took him all the way to Switzerland. He presented his detailed local observations and generalized conclusions in the 1841 published.
What was Victor Hugo known for?
Poet, novelist, and dramatist Victor Hugo is considered the most important of the French Romantic writers. Though regarded in France as one of that country’s greatest poets, he is better known abroad for such novels as Notre-Dame de Paris (1831; The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) and Les Misérables (1862).
How did Victor Hugo change the world?
It was in these years that Hugo really gained his reputation as a radical, outspoken political writer who lent his voice and support to movements all over the world. And, most importantly, he wrote and published Les Misérables, the novel that more than anything else would make his name synonymous with revolution.
Why did Victor Hugo write Les Misérables?
Answer and Explanation: Victor Hugo claimed that he wanted his novel to draw attention to the effects on society of ignorance and poverty. The actual event that inspired the author was the June Rebellion of 1832. Themes that pervade the novel are the power of the law and the power of human grace.
What is Victor Hugos most famous poem?
Demain, dès l’aube. Potentially the most famous Victor Hugo poem, Demain dès l’aube was written four years after the death of his recently married daughter Léopoldine, who drowned alongside her husband in a boating accident on the Seine in 1843.
How did victor hugo die?
Hugo’s death from pneumonia on 22 May 1885, at the age of 83, generated intense national mourning. He was not only revered as a towering figure in literature, he was a statesman who shaped the Third Republic and democracy in France.
The Russian writer and thinker is one of the greatest writers in world literature. His major work is the large-scale epic War and Peace, which emerged as one of the world’s finest historical, biographical, and memoir novels. He had a decisive influence on the literary genre of the historical novel. His works often distinguish the inner monologue as introspection. One of his most striking stylistic devices is alienation. Lev Nikolayevich Count Tolstoy not only made a name for himself as an epic poet and dramatist, but also as an internationally renowned lay theologian…
Lev Nikolayevich Count Tolstoy was born on the Yasnaya Polyana estate on August 28, 1828, the son of Count and landowner Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy.
Lew Nikolayevich Count Tolstoy was orphaned at an early age, his mother died in 1830. His father also died seven years later. After Tolstoy’s guardian died in 1841, the thirteen-year-old moved to Kazan and lived with an aunt. In 1844 he began to study oriental languages and law. In 1847 he broke off his studies because he was not really interested in the subjects. He returned to the family estate Yasnaya Polyana, where he worked in administration. In 1851 he began his military service in the Caucasus and on the Danube front, among other places, and ended it in 1856. In the meantime, in 1852, he created his first work entitled “Detstvo” (in English: “Childhood”), an autobiographical sketch. The play became a success. This was followed in 1854 by the equally autobiographical title “Boy Years”.
The trilogy was completed in 1857 with the work “Juvenile Years”. In the same year he undertook a journey that took him to Switzerland, France, Italy and Germany. In the period from 1860 to 1861 Tolstoy stayed abroad again, where he met the German writer Berthold Auerbach in Dresden, the Russian writer Gercen Herzen in London and the French thinker, socialist and political theorist Pierre Joseph Proudhon in Brussels. After his return he founded a school on the family estate. He was not only active as a practical educator in the lessons for farm children, but also wrote theoretical writings. In 1862 he married Sophia Andrejevna Behrs, a daughter of a Moscow doctor, with whom he lived on the estate. Leo Tolstoy processed his impressions from the Crimean War in three stories. In this as well as in the novella “Kosaken” from the year 1863 (in German translation from the year 1885) Tolstoy turned to the common people.
Already in his first creative periods, theological themes appeared in his writings, which increased after his marriage. Tolstoy’s constant religious search is reflected throughout his work. Despite the common wealth of children, the marriage turned out to be difficult. World-renowned literary works such as “War and Peace” or “Anna Karenina” (1875-1877) were created during this time. In this phase he reached his literary peak. Nevertheless, he experienced a personal crisis during this time, which was expressed in writing in 1879 in the manuscript “Bechte”. The paper was distributed throughout Russia in a mere handwritten version. It would later be printed in Geneva in 1884. Leo Tolstoy was extensively involved in the social field. He supported the peasant reforms in 1873, he organized aid for farmers who were affected by crop failures, he publicly advocated non-violence in politics, or he campaigned against serfdom and death sentences. Tolstoy not only dealt critically with the church, but also with the state and society.
A series of critical church and religious writings followed, such as “Critique of Dogmatic Religion” in 1880/81, “What I Believe” in 1883, “About Life” in 1887, “The Kreutzer Sonata” in 1889, “Das Heaven within you” in 1893 or “Resurrection” in 1899. These works show Tolstoy’s development towards a Christianity from a rationalistic and ethical point of view, in which he nevertheless allowed mystical elements and orthodox traditions. His view of free Christianity culminated in “not resisting evil” as a counterpoint to the traditional church. As a result of his deviant line, Tolstoy was excommunicated in 1901. From 1882 he was under police surveillance. Nevertheless, in 1900 he became an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The following year he turned down the Nobel Prize. In his theological writings in particular, the lay theologian and philosopher of religion Leo Tolstoy showed extensive effects that are still not properly appreciated today. They paved the way to Russian Orthodoxy for many people in the Soviet Union.
Even the evangelical theology adopted his works. His commentary on the Sermon on the Mount paved the way for a political theology. Tolstoy not only spent his life searching for religious insights, but also for the corresponding personal way of life. The contrast between his spiritual insights and the life he lived was particularly difficult for him in everyday family life. So in 1910 he decided to distance himself from his family and his children. During this escape from family life, death overtook him.
Lev Nikolayevich Count Tolstoy died on November 7, 1910 at the Astapovo railway station.
Why is Tolstoy so famous?
After the outbreak of the Crimean War, he experienced the trench warfare in the besieged fortress of Sevastopol in 1854. The realistic reports from this war (1855: Sevastopol Tales) made him known as a writer early on.
What to read by Tolstoy?
Anna Karenina (1887)
War and Peace (1869)
The Kreutzer Sonata (1889)
Sevastopol Sketches (1855)
Resurrection (1899)
The Cossacks (1863)
A Confession (1882)
The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894)
What I Believe (1885)
What did Tolstoy write?
His work includes novels, short stories, plays and philosophical writings; the two great novels War and Peace (1868) and Anna Karenina (1877) brought him world fame. Since then, Tolstoy has been one of the most important authors in literary history.
Was Tolstoy a vegetarian?
Tolstoy became a vegetarian at the age of fifty. From then on, apart from bread, he mainly ate cereal, potato and vegetable soups, such as those served today in chic cafés in Moscow and St. Petersburg, especially during Lent. The writer claimed that his health had improved noticeably.
There is hardly an Italian with a completed school education who does not know this first verse of the “Divina Commedia” (Divine Comedy), Dante’s main work. Not only because Dante is part of the standard program of Italian schools, but probably also because, in beautifully poetic words, he recalls the less poetic confusion and disorientation of the “mid-life crisis” that everyone probably goes through. But few still know how the Divine Comedy then continues, and in this respect Dante’s work shares the fate of Goethe’s “Faust”, which everyone in Germany knows – by name – but which only a few have read in its entirety.
Admittedly, both – Goethe’s “Faust” and Dante’s “Divine Comedy” – are not exactly easy to digest literature. Both draw extensively and confidently from the theology, philosophy and the sciences of the respective time. Without extensive accompanying commentary, Dante’s monumental work (more than 14,000 verses) is difficult to understand, and the fact that it is written in rhyme and in a chosen and no longer very modern language does not make matters any easier.
But the Divine Comedy is not only famous for its literary quality, it also represents a valuable reflection of the time and made a decisive contribution to the formation of the Italian language. For this latter reason, it has a similar meaning for Italian as Luther’s translation of the Bible has for German.
Today we know quite a lot about Dante’s life, but there are only a few direct sources, most of what is known about him has been derived from other sources, much also from the works of the poet himself. We don’t even know what he looked like us: all his portraits were painted long after he was dead, by artists who had never seen him. That’s why his slightly crooked nose, which one sees in all Dante’s portraits, is possibly just an invention of one painter, whom everyone else then copied.
Dante was born in Florence at the end of May or beginning of June 1265, where today you can also visit his birthplace (see photo above) – more precisely: his presumed birthplace. His family belonged to the wealthy city nobility, which determined and promoted Dante’s political career. The often bloody clashes between the Ghibellines and Guelphs (between the partisans of the emperor and those of the pope), which then tore apart the Italian city republics, were also to be of decisive importance for Dante’s life.
During Dante’s political tenure, events in Florence became increasingly turbulent, and the Ghibellines and Guelphs increasingly fragmented into many feuding factions. On the occasion of a visit by a papal legate, unrest broke out in Florence in the summer of 1300, which led to the excommunication of the city. In order to establish papal sovereignty over Florence and to incorporate Tuscany once and for all into the Papal States, Pope Nicholas IV called on Charles of Valois for military help. On November 1, 1301, Charles entered Florence and Dante’s house was probably destroyed during the acts of revenge of the troops loyal to the Pope. A little later, in January 1302, Dante was sentenced in absentia to a fine and to disqualification from all public offices. Because he stayed away from Florence, he was then condemned, along with other partisans, to be burned at the stake if he returned to the city.
Dante then lived in exile until his death in Ravenna in 1321, staying in many cities in central and northern Italy, most likely at the court of La Scala in Verona, in Treviso with Gerardo da Camina and from 1318 in Ravenna Guido Novello da Polenta. There are very few direct sources for the whereabouts of Dante at that time, so that today numerous towns and small towns in Italy, with more or less plausible explanations, insist that Dante visited at least once.
Dante’s hopes that Henry III, who was crowned Roman-German king in 1309 and then emperor three years later in Rome, could pacify the enemy factions in Italy and thus make his return to Florence possible, were not fulfilled. In 1315 Dante turned down an offer to return to Florence as it was conditional on payment of a fine and a public apology, whereupon the 1302 death sentence against him was renewed. During a stay in Venice in 1321 he fell ill and after returning to Ravenna he died there on September 14 of the same year.
In the centuries following Dante’s death, there were several violent disputes between Ravenna, where he is buried (see photo above) and Florence, which believed the poet’s proper burial place was in the Church of Santa Croce in Florence. A monumental tomb was erected there (see the second photo above), but it has remained empty to this day, since Ravenna understandably has no intention of having the famous body taken. Even in Dante year 2021, 700 years after the death of the famous poet, this rivalry can still be felt, no longer fiercely as it used to be, but more subliminal. After all, the anniversary celebrations are also a tourist magnet.
Dante’s “Divina Commedia”, which was written between 1307 and 1321, is the first major poem in the Italian language and is still considered her main work today. Actually, the verse epic is only called “comedy”, the adjective “divine” was later added by Dante admirer Giovanni Boccaccio. Not because the work is about God, but because he found it simply glorious, even more “divine.” Incidentally, the word “comedy” should not be understood in the modern sense of “comedy”, but simply as the opposite of “tragedy”, i.e. a literary invention that does not end with murder and manslaughter, but with a happy ending: the I- In the end, narrator Dante finds nothing less than the meaning of life.
Before he gets there, however, he has to undertake an adventurous journey through the afterlife. Accompanied by the Roman poet Virgil, who serves as his guide, Dante first gets to hell (Inferno), then over the mountain of purification (Purgatorio) and finally to paradise (Paradiso), the high-altitude flight with the beloved childhood friend Beatrice. On the way there he meets hundreds of famous personalities from politics, literature and mythology who are waiting for salvation, with whom he talks and who tell the traveler about their lives. Hell and Paradise are each divided into nine concentric circles. The closer one gets to the narrower circles, the more sinful (in hell) or the holier (in paradise) are the deceased souls. Hell in particular, the most interesting part of the literary journey to the afterlife, is rich in contemporary criticism, which is occasionally quite sharp and is full of allusions to celebrities who were still alive in Dante’s time. The “Divine Comedy” has high ethical standards and holds up a merciless mirror to the reader, the political society and even the church of its time. At the end of his journey, in paradise, the poet finally recognizes the meaning of his existence in the love of God.
Dante worked on this work for 20 years. He wanted to surpass Virgil, the ancient poet, and present a picture of the world as a whole.
As already indicated above, one should not read this work today without a detailed commentary section, otherwise the reader of the 21st century will miss most of what the educated reader of the 14th century could understand without a commentary. And a little knowledge of the history of Dante’s time will certainly help to understand the “Divine Comedy” in all its literary scope today.
What did Dante Alighieri do?
DANTE ALIGHIERI is the most important Italian writer of the Middle Ages. His fame is mainly based on his three-part work “La Divina Commedia” (“The Divine Comedy”) and on his “Rime” on Beatrice “Il canzoniere”.
Who or what is Dante?
Dante is one of the most famous poets of Italian literature and of the European Middle Ages.
Why is Dante important?
Dante is considered the father of the Italian language. But why? In the fourteenth century there were several languages in Italy: the language of culture and literature was Latin, while the people spoke different vernaculars that did not yet form a unified language.
Why does Dante go to hell?
Merging Cicero’s violence with Aristotle’s bestiality and his deceit with malice or vice, Dante the poet was given three main categories of sin, symbolized by the three beasts Dante encounters in Canto I: these are lust, violence/bestiality and fraud/ …
What are the 7 circles of hell?
The really bad people can be found from the seventh circle onwards: violent criminals, suicides, blasphemers, fraudsters, thieves and traitors. Incidentally, all circles are occupied by all sorts of figures from Greco-Roman mythology and contemporary history.
Who ends up in hell?
Depending on the belief, it is thought of as a place of annihilation, purification or eternal damnation of the deceased. According to traditional ideas of Christianity, it is a place of torment where evildoers go after death, populated by demons and the devil.
Who wrote Dante’s Inferno?
Dante Alighieri
Where is Dante’s Inferno hanging?
In the meantime, Botticelli’s drawings had reached Great Britain. Botticelli’s surviving drawings for Dante’s comedy after an odyssey lasting centuries are now in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin and in the Vatican Apostolic Library.
What is Dante’s death mask?
The death mask, as the name suggests, appears to be a copy of Dante’s face made after his death, better known as the death mask. According to tradition, it seems to have been later carved after the image on Dante’s tomb, the remains of which are in Ravenna.
Why was Dante banished from House of Florence?
Dante, who found himself on the losing side in the Florentine power struggles of the time, had been accused of activities hostile to the state around 1302. Therefore, the author of the “Divine Comedy” was banned from Florence for two years and sentenced to a fine.
Which of the following statements about dante alighieri is true?
The statement that correctly describes Dante Alighieri is this: The modern Italian language was strongly influenced by his writings.
How long did dante alighieri live?
Dante, in full Dante Alighieri, (born c. May 21–June 20, 1265, Florence [Italy]—died September 13/14, 1321, Ravenna), Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker.
