Treasures of Gilcrease

Treasures of Gilcrease
Author: Anne Morand
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2005-01-01
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780806199566

In 1938, Thomas Gilcrease, a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, opened the first museum devoted to the art of the American West. A true visionary, Gilcrease was ahead of his time in understanding the importance of America’s own heritage. His passion for art and history, his Native American ancestry, and his oil revenues coincided in a rare alignment. His legacy is an astounding collection of paintings, sculptures, artifacts, rare books, and documents. This lavishly produced book, featuring nearly two hundred color reproductions, tells the story of Gilcrease and of the renowned museum that bears his name. Compiled by the museum’s curators, Treasures of Gilcrease exemplifies the beauty and breadth of the museum’s resources. The fine art collection alone boasts more than 10,000 American works, ranging in styles from classical to romantic to impressionist and by such master artists as George Catlin, Charles M. Russell, Thomas Moran, and Frederic Remington. The works by Native artists also span styles ranging from painted hides to twentieth-century flat-style. The artifacts—300,000-plus pieces housed in the galleries and vaults—include ceramics, clothing, pipes, and objects of utility, ceremony, and ornamentation. The archives collection contains some 100,000 manuscripts, books, photographs, maps, imprints, and broadsides. Treasures of Gilcrease offers a vivid and engaging tour through these collections in the company of the experts who know them best.

A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle

A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle
Author: Carol Dover
Publisher: DS Brewer
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2003
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780859917834

The early thirteenth-century French prose Lancelot-Grail Cycle (or Vulgate Cycle) brings together the stories of Arthur with those of the Grail, a conjunction of materials that continues to fascinate the Western imagination today. Representing what is probably the earliest large-scale use of prose for fiction in the West, it also exemplifies the taste for big cyclic compositions that shaped much of European narrative fiction for three centuries. A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle is the first comprehensive volume devoted exclusively to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle and its medieval legacy. The twenty essays in this volume, all by internationally known scholars, locate the work in its social, historical, literary, and manuscript contexts. In addition to addressing critical issues in the five texts that make up the Cycle, the contributors convey to modern readers the appeal that the text must have had for its medieval audiences, and the richness of composition that made it compelling. This volume will become standard reading for scholars, students, and more general readers interested in the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, medieval romance, Malory studies, and the Arthurian legends. Contributors: RICHARD BARBER, EMMANUELE BAUMGARTNER, FANNI BOGDANOW, FRANK BRANDSMA, MATILDA T. BRUCKNER, CAROL J. CHASE, ANNIE COMBES, HELEN COOPER, CAROL R. DOVER, MICHAEL HARNEY, DONALD L. HOFFMAN, DOUGLAS KELLY, ELSPETH KENNEDY, NORRIS J. LACY, ROGER MIDDLETON, HAQUIRA OSAKABE, HANS-HUGO STEINHOFF, ALISON STONES, RICHARD TRACHSLER. CAROL DOVER is associate professor of French and director of undergraduate studies, Georgetown University, Washington DC.

Benjamin Disraeli Letters

Benjamin Disraeli Letters
Author: Michael W. Pharand
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 910
Release: 2013-06-17
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1442664991

The Times Literary Supplement recently praised the Benjamin Disraeli Letters volumes as ‘a remarkable series … on its way to becoming one of the landmarks of Victorian-era scholarship.’ Each volume provides a unique record of Disraeli’s daily activities as well as rare glimpses into his decision-making process and his relationships with colleagues and political foes. This latest volume covers 1865 to 1867, crucial years leading up to Disraeli’s first ministry in 1868. During this period, the prime minister, Lord Derby, and Disraeli, chancellor of the exchequer, grappled with a number of challenges. Their greatest accomplishment, however, was the passage of a landmark franchise reform bill that expanded the electorate in England to an unprecedented extent. The story is told through 697 letters, of which 525 have never before been published and 78 only in part. Thoroughly annotated, the notes often include the other side of Disraeli’s correspondence – including many letters from Derby and Queen Victoria. Finally, this volume is cross-referenced with the previous ones to obtain as complete a picture as possible of political events during Disraeli’s lifetime.

Chaucer's Decameron and the Origin of the Canterbury Tales

Chaucer's Decameron and the Origin of the Canterbury Tales
Author: Frederick M. Biggs
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2017
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1843844753

A major and original contribution to the debate as to Chaucer's use and knowledge of Boccaccio, finding a new source for the "Shipman's Tale". A possible direct link between the two greatest literary collections of the fourteenth century, Boccaccio's Decameron and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, has long tantalized readers because these works share many stories, which are, moreover, placed in similar frames. And yet, although he identified many of his sources, Chaucer never mentioned Boccaccio; indeed when he retold the Decameron's final novella, his pilgrim, the Clerk, states that it was written by Petrarch. For these reasons, most scholars now believe that while Chaucer might have heard parts of the earlier collection when he was in Italy, he did not have it at hand as he wrote. This volumeaims to change our understanding of this question. It analyses the relationship between the "Shipman's Tale", originally written for the Wife of Bath, and Decameron 8.10, not seen before as a possible source. The book alsoargues that more important than the narratives that Chaucer borrowed is the literary technique that he learned from Boccaccio - to make tales from ideas. This technique, moreover, links the "Shipman's Tale" to the "Miller's Tale"and the new "Wife of Bath's Tale". Although at its core a hermeneutic argument, this book also delves into such important areas as alchemy, domestic space, economic history, folklore, Irish/English politics, manuscripts, and misogyny. FREDERICK M. BIGGS is Professor of English at the University of Connecticut.

Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (1623-1688) and the Chinese Heaven

Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (1623-1688) and the Chinese Heaven
Author: Noël Golvers
Publisher: Leuven University Press
Total Pages: 664
Release: 2003
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9789058672933

This book describes more than 220 copies of various astronomical publications by the missionary Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (1623-1688) sent from Peking.

Creative Selection between Emending and Forming Medieval Memory

Creative Selection between Emending and Forming Medieval Memory
Author: Sebastian Scholz
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2021-11-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 3110757303

Karl Valentin once asked: "How can it be that only as much happens as fits into the newspaper the next day?" He focussed on the problem that information of the past has to be organised, arranged and above all: selected and put into form in order to be perceived as a whole. In this sense, the process of selection must be seen as the fundamental moment – the “Urszene” – of making History. This book shows selection as highly creative act. With the richness of early medieval material it can be demonstrated that creative selection was omnipresent and took place even in unexpected text genres. The book demonstrates the variety how premodern authors dealt with "unimportant", unpleasant or unwanted past. It provides a general overview for regions and text genres in early medieval Europe.