The Defence of French

The Defence of French
Author: Robin Adamson
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2007-01-01
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1853599492

This book aims to find out whether French, one of the great languages of the world, is in crisis or not. It traces the history and development of language defence in France and examines the sometimes contradictory attitudes of French people to their beloved language. It assesses the necessity for and the usefulness of the many activities in defence of French and suggests what its future might be.

Christendom Destroyed

Christendom Destroyed
Author: Mark Greengrass
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 772
Release: 2014-11-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 0698176251

“The latest volume to appear in the Penguin History of Europe. Like its companion volumes, [Christendom Destroyed] is no breezy survey but a masterly synthesis of depth and breadth."—The Wall Street Journal “The political and religious conflicts of early modern Europe receive high-quality treatment from Greengrass.... an excellent addition to the new Penguin History of Europe.”—Financial Times From peasants to princes, no one was untouched by the spiritual and intellectual upheaval of the sixteenth century. Martin Luther’s challenge to church authority forced Christians to examine their beliefs in ways that shook the foundations of their religion. The subsequent divisions, fed by dynastic rivalries and military changes, fundamentally altered the relations between ruler and ruled. Geographical and scientific discoveries challenged the unity of Christendom as a belief community. Europe, with all its divisions, emerged instead as a geographical projection. Chronicling these dramatic changes, Thomas More, Shakespeare, Montaigne, and Cervantes created works that continue to resonate with us. Spanning the years 1517 to 1648, Christendom Destroyed is Mark Greengrass’s magnum opus: a rich tapestry that fosters a deeper understanding of Europe’s identity today.

Virgil and his Translators

Virgil and his Translators
Author: Susanna Braund
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 531
Release: 2018-09-13
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0192538837

This is the first volume to offer a critical overview of the long and complicated history of translations of Virgil from the early modern period to the present day, transcending traditional studies of single translations or particular national traditions in isolation to offer an insightful comparative perspective. The twenty-nine essays in the collection cover numerous European languages - from English, French, and German, to Greek, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Slovenian, and Spanish - but also look well beyond Europe to include discussion of Brazilian, Chinese, Esperanto, Russian, and Turkish translations of Virgil. While the opening two contributions lay down a broad theoretical and comparative framework, the majority conduct comparisons within a particular language and combine detailed case studies with in-depth contextualization and theoretical background, showing how the translations discussed are embedded in their own cultures and historical moments. The final two essays are written from the perspective of contemporary translators, closing out the volume with a profound assessment not only of the influence exerted by the major Roman poet on later literature, but also why translation of a canonical author such as Virgil matters, not only as a national and transnational cultural phenomenon, but as a personal engagement with a literature of enduring power and relevance.

A Feast of Words

A Feast of Words
Author: Michel Jeanneret
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 1991-10-08
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 9780226395753

The banquet gives rise to a special moment when thought and the senses—words and food—enhance each other. Throughout history, the ideal of the symposium has reconciled the angel and the beast in the human, renewing the interdependence between the mouth that speaks and the mouth that eats. Michel Jeanneret's lively book explores the paradigm of the banquet as a guide to significant tendencies in Renaissance Humanist culture and shows how this culture in turn illuminates the tensions between physical and mental pleasures. Ranging widely over French, Italian, German, and Latin texts, Jeanneret not only investigates the meal as a narrative artefact but enquires as well into aspects of sixteenth-century anthropology and aesthetics.

European Nations

European Nations
Author: Miroslav Hroch
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2015-04-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1781688354

One of the world’s leading theorists of nationalism offers a new synthesis In the history of modern political thought, no topics have attracted as much attention as nationalism, nation-formation, and patriotism. A mass of literature has grown around these vexed issues, muddying the waters, and a level-headed clarification is long overdue. Rather than adding another theory of nationalism to this maelstrom of ideas, Miroslav Hroch has created a remarkable synthesis, integrating apparently competing frameworks into a coherent system that tracks the historical genesis of European nations through the sundry paths of the nation-forming processes of the nineteenth century. Combining a comparative perspective on nation-formation with invaluable theoretical insights, European Nations is essential for anyone who wants to understand the historical roots of Europe’s current political crisis.

The Art of the Critic

The Art of the Critic
Author: Harold Bloom
Publisher: Chelsea House Publications
Total Pages: 584
Release: 1985
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

Less Rightly Said

Less Rightly Said
Author: Antonia Szabari
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2009-10-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 0804773548

Well-known scholars and poets living in sixteenth-century France, including Erasmus, Ronsard, Calvin, and Rabelais, promoted elite satire that "corrected vices" but "spared the person"—yet this period, torn apart by religious differences, also saw the rise of a much cruder, personal satire that aimed at converting readers to its ideological, religious, and, increasingly, political ideas. By focusing on popular pamphlets along with more canonical works, Less Rightly Said shows that the satirists did not simply renounce the moral ideal of elite, humanist scholarship but rather transmitted and manipulated that scholarship according to their ideological needs. Szabari identifies the emergence of a political genre that provides us with a more thorough understanding of the culture of printing and reading, of the political function of invectives, and of the general role of dissensus in early modern French society.

Inventing the Popular

Inventing the Popular
Author: Bettina R. Lerner
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2018-02-02
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1317113195

Inventing the Popular: Working-Class Literature and Culture in Nineteenth-Century France explores texts written, published and disseminated by a politically and socially active group of working-class writers during the first half of the nineteenth century. Through a network of exchanges featuring newspapers, poems and prose fiction, these writers embraced a vision of popular culture that represented a clear departure from more traditional oral and printed forms of popular expression; at the same time, their writing strategically resisted nascent forms of mass culture, including the daily press and the serial novel. Coming into writing at a time when Romanticism had expanded beyond the borders of the lyric je, these poets explored the social dimensions of connectivity and social relation finding interlocutors and supporters in the likes of Pierre-Jean de Béranger, Alphonse de Lamartine, George Sand and Eugène Sue. The relationships they developed among themselves and the major figures of an increasingly socially-oriented Romanticism were as rich with emancipatory promise as well as with reactionary temptation. They constitute an extensive archive of everyday life and utopian anticipation that reframe social romanticism as a revelatory if problematic model of engaged writing.

The French Language Today

The French Language Today
Author: Adrian Battye
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2003-09
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1136903283

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the French language from the perspective of modern linguistics. Features include a further reading guide at the end of each chapter, a glossary of linguistic terms, a bibliography and index.