Memoirs of an Egotist

Memoirs of an Egotist
Author: Stendhal
Publisher: Read Books Ltd
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2021-03-22
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1528765311

This book contains the memoirs of Stendahl or in his own words the 'chatter about his private life' between 1821 and 1830. It was between these dates that he moved to Paris and here looks back on his life as an eccentric bachelor. 'As well as Beyle the clairvoyant self-investigator, the sardonic analyst of Parisian salon society and deliberate cultivator of wit, here emerges Beyle the despairing lover, the shakespearean enthusiast, whose romantic sentiment run always parallel with his eighteenth-century logic'. Marie-Henri Beyle - better-known by his pen name, Stendhal - was born in Grenoble, France in 1783. He turned to writing after the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815, notable works include A Life of Rossini (1824), A Life of Napoleon (1929) and The Red and the Black published in 1830. A number of works were published posthumously, including Lamiel (1889), Memoirs of an Egotist (1892) and Lucien Leuwen (1894). Stendhal is now regarded as one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of literary realism.

Gustave Courbet

Gustave Courbet
Author: Georges Riat
Publisher: Parkstone Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2008
Genre: Art
ISBN:

Child of materialism and positivism, Courbet was without a doubt one of the most complex painters of the nineteenth century. Symbolising the rejection of traditions, Courbet did not hesitate to confront the public with the truth by liberating painting of conventional rules. He became from then on the leader of pictorial realism.

Propaganda and Mass Persuasion

Propaganda and Mass Persuasion
Author: Nicholas J. Cull
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 504
Release: 2003-07-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 157607434X

A truly international, authoritative A–Z guide to five centuries of propaganda, in both wartime and peacetime, which covers key moments, techniques, concepts, and some of the most influential propagandists in history. This fascinating survey provides a comprehensive introduction to propaganda, its changing nature, its practitioners, and its impact on the past five centuries of world history. Written by leading experts, it covers the masters of the art from Joseph Goebbels to Mohandas Gandhi and examines enormously influential works of persuasion such as Uncle Tom's Cabin, techniques such as films and posters, and key concepts like black propaganda and brainwashing. Case studies reveal the role of mass persuasion during the Reformation, and wars throughout history. Regional studies cover propaganda superpowers, such as Russia, China, and the United States, as well as little-known propaganda campaigns in Southeast Asia, Ireland, and Scandinavia. The book traces the evolution of propaganda from the era of printed handbills to computer fakery, and profiles such brilliant practitioners of the art as Third Reich film director Leni Riefenstahl and 19th-century cartoonist Thomas Nast, whose works helped to bring the notorious Boss Tweed to justice.

Metamorphoses

Metamorphoses
Author: Emanuele Coccia
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2021-06-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1509545689

We are all fascinated by the mystery of metamorphosis – of the caterpillar that transforms itself into a butterfly. Their bodies have almost nothing in common. They don’t share the same world: one crawls on the ground and the other flutters its wings in the air. And yet they are one and the same life. Emanuele Coccia argues that metamorphosis – the phenomenon that allows the same life to subsist in disparate bodies – is the relationship that binds all species together and unites the living with the non-living. Bacteria, viruses, fungi, plants, animals: they are all one and the same life. Each species, including the human species, is the metamorphosis of all those that preceded it – the same life, cobbling together a new body and a new form in order to exist differently. And there is no opposition between the living and the non-living: life is always the reincarnation of the non-living, a carnival of the telluric substance of a planet – the Earth – that continually draws new faces and new ways of being out of even the smallest particle of its disparate body. By highlighting what joins humans together with other forms of life, Coccia’s brilliant reflection on metamorphosis encourages us to abandon our view of the human species as static and independent and to recognize instead that we are part of a much larger and interconnected form of life.

Satie the Bohemian

Satie the Bohemian
Author: Steven Moore Whiting
Publisher: Clarendon Press
Total Pages: 610
Release: 1999-02-18
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0191584525

Erik Satie (1866-1925) came of age in the bohemian subculture of Montmartre, with its artists' cabarets and cafés-concerts. Yet apologists have all too often downplayed this background as potentially harmful to the reputation of a composer whom they regarded as the progenitor of modern French music. Whiting argues, on the contrary, that Satie's two decades in and around Montmartre decisively shaped his aesthetic priorities and compositional strategies. He gives the fullest account to date of Satie's professional activities as a popular musician, and of how he transferred the parodic techniques and musical idioms of cabaret entertainment to works for concert hall. From the esoteric Gymnopédies to the bizarre suites of the 1910s and avant-garde ballets of the 1920s (not to mention music journalism and playwriting), Satie's output may be daunting in its sheer diversity and heterodoxy; but his radical transvaluation of received artistic values makes far better sense once placed in the fascinating context of bohemian Montmartre.

The Romancers

The Romancers
Author: Edmond Rostand
Publisher:
Total Pages: 56
Release: 1899
Genre: French drama
ISBN:

In his play "The Romancers" Edmond Rostand satirizes the sentimentalism and escapism of Romantic literature of his times. Percinet is the only son of Bergamin and Sylvette is the only daughter of Pasquinot. Their fathers who are widowers and neighbors make a plan to marry their children with each other. In order to accomplish this, the fathers separate their children so that they may love each other the more, and desire to be re-united. As a part of their plan, Bergamin warns his son to stay away from Pasquinot and his daughter. Similarly, Pasquinot also warns his daughter that she should not be near to his mortal enemy Bergamin and his son. Inspite of their fathers' warnings, Percinet and Sylvette fall in love. They think themselves as the counterparts of Romeo and Juliet. They are worried that their love will also end in tragedy like that of Romeo and Juliet. They are emotional, daydreaming teenagers who have recently finished their school studies. They are deeply influenced by romantic literature of their times, especially by the romantic play "Romeo and Juliet" of William Shakespeare. They are so in love with each other that they desire to die rather than separate with each other. Bergamin then hires Straforel and his company for a fake kidnapping. At midnight hours, when Percinet and Sylvette are about to meet, Straforel with his company kidnap Sylvette and put her into the sedan chair. Percinet hears the cry of Sylvette, jumps over the wall and fights with his sword. At the same time, as planned, Pasquinot enters and calls Percinet a hero. He suggests Bergamin to put an end to their enmity and arrange the marriage of their children. Thus in the end the two children seem like puppets in the hands of their fathers. - MeroSpark Cloud Reference, http://www.merospark.com