The copyright status of the story of Peter Pan and its characters has been the subject of dispute, particularly as the original version began to enter the public domain in various jurisdictions. In 1929, Barrie gave the copyright to the works featuring Peter Pan to Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), Britain's leading children's hospital, and requested that the value of the gift should never be disclosed; this gift was confirmed in his will. GOSH has exercised these rights internationally to help support the work of the institution.
The UK copyright originally expired at the end of 1987 (50 years after Barrie's death) but later revived in 1995 when legislation was changed following the directive to harmonise copyright laws within the EU, which extended the copyright term to 70 years after the author's death. However, in 1988, former Prime Minister James Callaghansponsored an amendment to a Parliamentary Bill granting the hospital a right to royalties in perpetuity for any performance, publication, broadcast of the play or adaptation of the play. The bill does not grant the hospital full intellectual property rights over the work such as creative control over the use of the material or the right to refuse permission to use it. It does not cover the Peter Pan section of The Little White Bird, which predates the play and is not therefore an "adaptation" of it. The exact phrasing is in section 301 of, and Schedule 6 to, the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988:
301. The provisions of Schedule 6 have effect for conferring on trustees for the benefit of the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London, a right to a royalty in respect of the public performance, commercial publication, broadcasting or inclusion in a cable programme service of the play 'Peter Pan' by Sir James Matthew Barrie, or of any adaptation of that work, notwithstanding that copyright in the work expired on 31 December 1987.[22]
Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) claims that U.S. legislation effective in 1978 and again in 1998, which extended the copyright of the play script published in 1928, gives them copyright over "Peter Pan" in general until 2023, although GOSH acknowledges that the copyright of the novel version, published in 1911, has expired in the United States.[23]
Previously, GOSH's claim of U.S. copyright had been contested by various parties. J. E. Somma sued GOSH to permit the U.S. publication of her sequel After the Rain, A New Adventure for Peter Pan. GOSH and Somma settled out of court in March 2004, issuing a joint statement in which GOSH stated the work is a valuable contribution to the field of children's literature. Somma characterised her novel – which she had argued was a critique of the original work, rather than a mere derivative of it – as "fair use" of the hospital's "U.S. intellectual property rights". The suit was settled under terms of absolute secrecy. It did not set any legal precedent, however.[24] Disney was a long-time licensee to the animation rights, and cooperated with the hospital when its copyright claim was clear, but in 2004 Disney published Dave Barry's and Ridley Pearson's Peter and the Starcatchers in the U.S., the first of several sequels, without permission and without making royalty payments. In 2006, Top Shelf Productions published in the U.S. Lost Girls, a pornographic graphic novel featuring Wendy Darling, also without permission or royalties.
The original versions of the play and novel are in the public domain in countries where the term of copyright is 70 years (or less) after the death of the creators. This includes the European Union (except Spain), Australia, Canada (where Somma's book was first published without incident), and most other countries (see list of countries' copyright length). It is out of copyright in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, where copyright lasts 75 years after the author's death.
However, the work is still under copyright in several countries: in Colombia and Spain until 2018, where the applicable term is 80 years after death. (It would also be under copyright in Côte d'Ivoire, Guatemala, and Honduras, but these countries recognise the "rule of the shorter term", which means that the term of the country of origin applies if it is shorter than their local term.)
Which ship had more fatalities, the 'Titanic' or the 'Lusitania'? The Titanic suffered 1,513 fatalities when it sank in 1912. Nearly 1,200 lives were lost when the RMS Lusitania went down ninety years ago today. The British ocean liner was sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland. When the Lusitania first sailed in 1907, she was the largest ocean liner on the sea. Before the ship set sail in May 1915, warnings were issued by the German Embassy in Washington, reminding passengers of the state of war between Germany and Great Britain and advising them not to sail with the Lusitania. The torpedoed ship went down in just 20 minutes.
Quote:
"To die will be an awfully big adventure." — James Barrie, said to be quoted by Barrie's friend Charles Frohman as Frohman plunged to his death on the Lusitania
其中的李尔和他的谐趣诗就是日前我每日一诗的诗人Edward Lear；校长所提的J.M. Barrie作品指的是Dear Brutus，则是在《第二梦》这篇文章里，我个人因为并未阅读过这部作品，所以对此无动于衷。文中大致介绍这是三幕剧剧本，剧名取自第三幕，剧中人引用莎翁的两行诗： Casius The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings. （以上英文无误地抄自该书，显然版面需要加以订正） 书中提到朱生豪的译文，并对朱译underlings作「受制于人」有意见。 文章取名《第二梦》是作者曾在协和医学院看过燕大毕业演出的一个话剧，剧名就叫《第二梦》，作者觉得情节与Dear Brutus十分相似，认为是译本或改编本。文章其余部分开始介绍第二梦的故事和一些对白。 文末始介绍J.M. Barrie一生写了38个剧本，其中以《可敬的克莱登》和《彼得潘》最有名。」 ***** 由於讓RL晚餐誤點，準備介紹 Sir J.M. Barrie。發現電影之原作： 參考： http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/?041122crat_atlarge
LOST BOYS by ANTHONY LANE Why J. M. Barrie created Peter Pan. ---- J.M. Barrie 的介紹和電子檔，英國和日文都很豐富。
我們可以從更寬的視野看Sir J.M. Barrie在英國/蘇格蘭/世界文化的主要業績，參考下書所特別介紹的這些作家（這本書hc還沒讀過）： Jackie Wullschlager, Inventing Wonderland: The Lives and Fantasies of Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, JM Barrie, Kenneth Grahame, and A A Milne, 1996. 日本翻譯：『不思議の国をつくる：キャロル、リア、バリー、グレアム、ミルンの作品と生涯』 「…..文末始介绍J.M. Barrie一生写了38个剧本，其中以《可敬的克莱登》和《彼得潘》最有名。」
這兩本/齣劇本的書名都成為英國（文）的常用名詞。 《可敬的克莱登》就是The Admirable Crichton， J. M. Barrie在 1902的作品。（日本翻譯： 「天晴れクライトン」 (1902年初演)【天晴れ（あっぱれ） 意思： Bravo!/ Well done!・～な splendid; admirable; glorious.】 http://www.answers.com/topic/the-admirable-crichton-1?hl=crichton） 要了解The Admirable Crichton作為類型人物，先要了解劇情/歷史。 The Admirable Crichton指「無所不能、面面俱到/俱佳的人」。
Peter Pan 為長不大的小孩。這成為商標。1960年代，美國流行一種通俗心理學TA，說法是人人的人格中都還有一CHILD要照顧……
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM (9 May 1860 – 19 June 1937) was a Scottishauthor and dramatist. He is best remembered for creating Peter Pan, the boy who refused to grow up, whom he based on his friends, the Llewelyn Davies boys. He is also credited with popularising the name Wendy, which was very uncommon before he gave it to the heroine of Peter Pan.[1]
Historian Edward Gibbon was born in Putney, Surrey, England on this day in 1737.
"Antoninus diffused order and tranquility over the greatest part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind." --from THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (1776)
Edward Gibbon’s classic timeless work of ancient Roman history in 6 volumes collected into 2 boxed sets, in beautiful, enduring hardcover editions with elegant cloth sewn bindings, gold stamped covers, and silk ribbon markers. READ more here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/…/the-decline-and-fall-…/
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: The Modern Library Collection (Complete and Unabridged)
By EDWARD GIBBON Illustrated by GIAN BATTISTA PIRANESI Introduction by
PRAISE
“Gibbon is one of those few who hold as high a place in the history of literature as in the roll of great historians.”—Professor J. B. Bury
“Gibbon is a landmark and a signpost—a landmark of human achievement: and a signpost because the social convulsions of the Roman Empire as described by him sometimes prefigure and indicate convulsions which shake the whole world today.”—E. M. Forster
“I devoured Gibbon. I rode triumphantly through it from end to end and enjoyed it all.”—Winston Churchill
“Gibbon is a kind of bridge that connects the ancient with the modern ages.”—Thomas Carlyle
“Gibbon is not merely a master of the pageant and the story; he is also the critic and the historian of the mind. . . . We seem as we read him raised above the tumult and the chaos into a clear and rational air.”—Virginia Woolf
The Bleeding-heart Dove and the Fountain Gentle faces stabbed Dear flowered lips Mia Mareye Yette Lorie Annie and you Marie Where are you, oh young girls? But near a fountain that weeps and prays This dove is enraptured. All the memories of long ago Where are Raynal, Billy, Dalize? Oh, my friends gone to the war Whose names melancholize Shoot upward toward the heavens Like footsteps in a church And your gazes sleeping in the water Where is Cremnitz who enlisted? They die melancholically Perhaps they are already dead Where are Braque and Max Jacob? My soul is full of memories Derain with grey eyes like the dawn The fountain weeps for my sorrow Those who left for the war in the north are fighting now Night is falling, O bloody sea Gardens where the pink oleander, warrior flower, bleeds copiously.
Guillaume Apollinaire (translated by Anne Hyde Greet in Calligrammes. Poems of Peace and War (1913–1916), A Bilingual Edition, University of California Press, 2nd Revised edition, 2004, page 123).
Gustave Flaubert Francis Steegmuller ... the subject of one of his weekly Causeries du Lundi, his "Monday chats"— reviews of new books or ... and they would soon be meeting at the "MagnyDinners," literary evenings at the Restaurant Magny ...
Responding to resurgent interest in nineteenth-century French painting--with its rich connections to revolutionary politics, exoticism, romance, and nationalism--Barthélémy Jobert offers this long-awaited, first comprehensive book on one of the period's greatest and most elusive artists: Eugtne Delacroix (1798-1863). This solitary genius produced stormy, romantic works like The Death of Sardanapalus and then turned to more classically inspired paintings, such as Liberty Leading the People--a fact that has never been fully explained. In this visually compelling tribute to the artist, however, Jobert explores the driving inner tensions and contradictions behind both Delacroix's life and work. Jobert not only re-creates the political and cultural arenas in which Delacroix thrived, but also allows readers a rare opportunity to appreciate the full range of his artistic production. Delacroix's large canvases, decorative cycles, watercolors, and engravings, which are widely dispersed throughout the world, are beautifully represented here in 231 color plates. The book is timed to commemorate the bicentenary of Delacroix's birth.
Traditionally described as an artistic loner, Delacroix profoundly influenced later painters such as Cézanne and Picasso. An image of the artist as a man of his times comes to light, however, as Jobert reveals the ways in which Delacroix successfully navigated a career within the Salon system and through government commissions. Delacroix socialized with George Sand and Victor Hugo, engaged Baudelaire and Gauthier in intense philosophical discussions about art, and maintained a lively interaction with the press. As a passionate artist who sought to make money in a politically volatile climate, Delacroix managed to create works that transcended the ideology of his government connections.
Delacroix's famous trip to Morocco, which had the ironic outcome of directing his attention away from Romanticism and back toward his classical roots, is analyzed in detail. Considering both Delacroix's training and sources of inspiration, Jobert shows how the Moroccan journey led the artist to a balanced approach to his art: the classical tradition he had never totally abandoned was permanently combined with the Romanticism of his youth. Over the long span of his career, Delacroix responded to the literary fascination with Orientalism, the politics of the Restoration and French imperialism, and popular interest in travel and documentation. He painted everything from sweeping epic tales to intimate interiors. Only now has the scope and scale of Delacroix's oeuvre come to life in a detailed and up-to-date account for the specialist and general reader alike.
第104-05頁兩圖：剛好是阿邦請我們看的兩部戲：Macbeth and the Witches, 1825; Mephistopheles Appears before Faust, 1826-27
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The World of Delacroix: 1798-1863 (Time-Life library of art)
In this highly original book Norman Bryson applied 'structuralist' and 'post-structuralist' approaches to French Romantic Painting. He considers the work of David, Ingres and Delacroix as artists who found themselves within an artistic tradition that had nothing creative to offer them.
Bourbon Restoration
In a symptom of the political tone of the Bourbon Restoration, the returning exile, the prince de Condé took possession, and rented to the Chamber of Deputies a large part of the palace. The palace was bought outright from his heir in 1827, for 5,250,000 francs [1]. The Chamber of Deputies was then able to undertake major work, better suiting the chamber, rearrangement of access corridors and adjoining rooms, installation of the library in a suitable setting, where the decoration and one of the salons were entrusted to Delacroix, later a Deputy himself. The pediment was re-sculpted by French artist Jean-Pierre Cortot.
德拉克洛瓦（ De·la·croix (Ferdinand Victor) Eugène 1798–1863 / French painter. Delacroix is considered the foremost painter of the romantic movement in France; his influence as a colorist is inestimably great）。
本書分「（俄文版）前言」；「藝術（家）評論」（包括「藝術評論」、「拉斐爾」、「米開朗琪羅」、「蒲熱 Puget, Pierre , 1622–94, French painter and sculptor. http://www.answers.com/Pierre%20Puget 」、「普呂東*（pp.68-90 Prud'hon, Pierre Paul , 1758–1823, French painter）」、「格羅Gros, Antoine-Jean, Baron , 1771–1835, French painter. http://www.answers.com/Antoine-Jean%20Gros%20」、「論素描教學」、「普桑」、「論美」、「美的多樣性」、「夏勒Charlet, Nicolas Toussaint (nēkôlä' tūsăN' shärlā') , 1792–1845, French lithographer and painter. http://www.answers.com/topic/nicolas-toussaint-charlet?」等）和「德拉克洛瓦生前未曾公布的資料」（這包括些短篇妙文，譬如說「紀念拜倫爵士（第三卷）」，或許可以說，他們是19世紀的「自卑情結」之兩例？）兩部，據說是德拉克洛瓦的遺囑執行者庇隆，從畫家所發表的文章中，選出最有意思的與最可靠的整成。
不過，德拉克洛瓦生前未曾公開的大量日記和文論，都很精彩，很有歷史之參考價值【英文也是很晚才有翻譯： Delacroix's enormous involvement in contemporary artistic and intellectual life is recorded in his journal, kept from 1823 to 1854 (tr. by W. Pach, 1937, repr. 1972; selections tr., 1980, 1995). 】。現在，只有專家才討論的湯姆·羅倫斯（Lawrence, Sir Thomas 1769–1830 http://www.answers.com/topic/thomas-lawrence?），本書都有所討論。【英國大出版社T-H公司，有一每年藝術學講座紀念其創辦人，在十幾年前，有一年出版專論他之小書。】
他主要的想法是：藝術家之所有品質中最重要的，是由其本人賦予作品的，而不是諸如風格等等說法。
我以前對於中國人接觸西方美術史有興趣。以前不容易看到畫家（德拉克洛瓦
等）的真蹟【 hc案：何況有些建築物之完整壁畫，無法辦展覽…….現在，Liberty Leading the People (1831).或許成為普遍印刷品】，徐悲鴻先生是例外之一，所以會有類似「（向）德拉克洛瓦《希阿島屠殺》【hc案：The Massacre of Chios (1824 (Louvre). )】的致敬」之旁人說法。又如：「在浪漫主义美术的首领德拉克洛瓦那里，色彩和主观表达的可能已得到了充分的体现，他以色彩和块面来反对学院派古典主义的素描和线条，以光与色的对比来反对学院派古典主义的平面性，这就大大增强了绘画的表现性和独立性，使人们看到，除素描之外，色彩本身就具有独立的表现力。」（『印象派在中国』網路上作者匿名？）
When in Florence, you don’t have to look hard to find tributes to Dante Alighieri, Italy’s most famous medieval poet. A small museum, built inside the house believed to have once belonged to the poet, touches upon his famous work and also tells the story of the political circumstances that shaped both Dante and his beloved city.
A medieval weapon rumored to have been used by the brilliant poet Dante Alighieri himself.
ATLASOBSCURA.COM
When in Florence, you don’t have to look hard to find tributes to Dante Alighieri, Italy’s most famous medieval poet. A small museum, built inside the house believed to have once belonged to the poet, goes beyond merely touching upon his famous work and tells the story of the political circumstances that shaped both Dante and his beloved city.
Dante famously fought in the Battle of Campaldino, during which the Guelphs of Florence squared off against the Ghibellines of Arezzo. It was a historic battle, which saw Tuscany fall under the hands of the Pope-supporting Guelphs.
Dante’s House Museum (Museo Casa di Dante) in Florence, his home city, tells the story of this pivotal battle. Life-sized replicas of various Italian soldiers, including a traditional soldier, a shield-bearer, and a crossbowman, stand within the room.
Weapons from the 13th to 15th centuries fill a glass showcase. One rusted dagger is of particular interest. According to the museum, it was used by a soldier during the Battle of Campaldino—perhaps, even, by Dante himself (hence it being labeled “Dante’s Dagger”).
In addition to rehashing the events of the battle, the museum tells other stories of Dante’s birthplace. It tells the tale of Florence as the poet lived it, with exhibits dedicated to the politics, powerful people, and economy that shaped its history.
The Divine Comedy has been translated into English an enormous number of times over the past 200 or so years. As early as 1906 the Dante scholar Paget Toynbee calculated that more than 250 translators had engaged with one bit…
約11年前，就此名著的翻譯者寫的： 「凡是對東京歷史有興趣的人，非看美籍日本文學專家Edward Seidensticker寫的《東京．下町．山手》和《東京起來》兩本書不可。但是，書中一句話，叫我這個老東京非常吃驚。老日本通寫道：東京新宿以西是文化沙漠，既看不到傳統日本文化又找不到西方高級文化，除了酒和色以外，就是一無所有。….. Seidensticker的兩本書在一九八三年以及九二年問世。後來，新宿以西建設了西方高級文化之府幾所：例如，新國立劇場、TOKYO OPERA CITY、府中森藝術劇場等。然而，即使在二十年以前，恐怕大部分東京人不肯同意美國日本通的說法，因為自從二十世紀初，東京的文化前衛始終在新宿以西。 ……」
如果你是＜Simon University＞ 的Seidensticker的忠實讀者，而且記性很好，或許知道此「美國人日本通」是日本文學的名翻譯家，尤其以川端康成作品和＜源氏物語＞（The Tale of Genji ）馳名。我們舉過大江先生的諾貝爾獎演講中對於川端康成標題的歧義之處理。
最近google scholar很方便，你想列舉他的作品，彈指間就完成了（希望再幾年也收入「萬國學者作品總匯」，完成全球化大業）。我這回拜此工具之賜才知道他近年還有一本回憶錄 Tokyo Central: A Memoir (Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington Press, 2002 ) 和論「翻譯技巧」之文收入J Biguenet, R Schulte 主編的The Craft of Translation (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1989)； 論文Chiefly on translating the genji (The Journal of Japanese Studies)。 前google scholar前兩頁標題大要。
日本： Tokyo Rising: The City Since the Great Earthquake - E Seidensticker , Charles E. Tuttle, 1991 《東京起來》【hc：《東京新興起：1923年大地震之後再興記》】
Low City, High City: Tokyo From Edo to the Earthquake, 1867-1923 - E Seidensticke Middlesex, New York: Knopf, 1983 /UK: Penguin, 1985 《東京．下町．山手》
Japan EG Seidensticker Time-Life, 1968 這本不是台灣翻譯的『早期日本』
Tradition and Modernization in Japanese Culture -DH Shively, C Blacker - Princeton University Press, 1971
This Country Japan EG Seidensticker Kodansha, 1984 Showa: The Japan of Hirohito -C Gluck, SR Graubard Norton, 1992 ---- 日本古典文學：【Key Words
The Tale of Genji (Everyman's Library, No.108) Murasaki Shikibu (著), Edward G. Seidensticker (著), Murasaki Shikibu (著) The Tale of Genji (Everyman's Library, No.108)
Genji Days - E Seidensticker New York: Kodansha International, 1983 （翻譯 ＜源氏物語＞日紀感言整理。） 【舉個例，第97頁10月7日周六 整天早上和前午都在翻譯Hotaru…..Yes, the treatment of Genji is distinctly ambiguous, ironical, one might wish to say; and there is an interesting foretaste of Niou. …（foretaste noun [S] 1. 【事】 先嚐,試食;預嚐到的滋味;預示,前兆,徵象）】
The Gossamer Years: A Diary by a Noblewoman of Heian Japan EG Seidensticker -Tuttle, 1964
“There are as many sorts of women as there are women.” ―from "The Tale of Genji" by Murasaki Shikibu
In the early eleventh century Murasaki Shikibu, a lady in the Heian court of Japan, wrote what many consider to be the world’s first novel, more than three centuries before Chaucer. The Heian era (794—1185) is recognized as one of the very greatest periods in Japanese literature, and The Tale of Genji is not only the unquestioned prose masterpiece of that period but also the most lively and absorbing account we have of the intricate, exquisite, highly ordered court culture that made such a masterpiece possible. Genji is the favorite son of the emperor but also a man of dangerously passionate impulses. In his highly refined world, where every dalliance is an act of political consequence, his shifting alliances and secret love affairs create great turmoil and very nearly destroy him. Edward Seidensticker’s translation of Lady Murasaki’s splendid romance has been honored throughout the English-speaking world for its fluency, scholarly depth, and deep literary tact and sensitivity.
Bruno Bettelheim (August 28, 1903 – March 13, 1990) was the director of the Orthogenic School for Disturbed Children at the University of Chicago from 1944 to ...
Orthogenesis, also known as orthogeneticevolution, progressive evolution, evolutionary progress, or progressionism, is the biological hypothesis that organisms have an innate tendency to evolve in a definite direction towards some goal (teleology) due to some internal mechanism or "driving force".
Bruno Bettleheim's THE USES OF ENCHANTMENT was first published on this day in 1976. The book won the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award.
“The child intuitively comprehends that although these stories are unreal, they are not untrue.” ―from THE USES OF ENCHANTMENT: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (1976)
Bruno Bettelheim was one of the great child psychologists of the twentieth century and perhaps none of his books has been more influential than this revelatory study of fairy tales and their universal importance in understanding childhood development. Analyzing a wide range of traditional stories, from the tales of Sindbad to “The Three Little Pigs,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and “The Sleeping Beauty,” Bettelheim shows how the fantastical, sometimes cruel, but always deeply significant narrative strands of the classic fairy tales can aid in our greatest human task, that of finding meaning for one’s life. READ an excerpt here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/…/the-uses-of-enchantme…/
"We were the Leopards, the Lions; those who'll take our place will be little jackals, hyenas; and the whole lot of us, Leopards, jackals, and sheep, we'll all go on thinking ourselves the salt of the earth." —from THE LEOPARD (1958) by Giuseppe di Lampedusa
The Sicilian prince, Don Fabrizio, hero of Lampedusa’s great and only novel, is described as enormous in size, in intellect, and in sensuality. The book he inhabits shares his dimensions in its evocation of an aristocracy ⋯⋯
“People to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.” - from AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
As I Lay Dying is Faulkner’s harrowing account of the Bundren family’s odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Narrated in turn by each of the family members—including Addie herself—as well as others the novel ranges in mood, from dark comedy to the deepest pathos. Considered one of the most influential novels in American fiction in structure, style, and drama, As I Lay Dying is a true 20th-century classic.
GO DOWN, MOSES, William Faulkner’s greatest collections of short stories, was published on this day in 1942.
"He was only ten. It seemed to him that he could see them, the two of them, shadowy in the limbo from which time emerged and became time: the old bear absolved of mortality and himself who shared a little of it. Because he recognised now what he had smelled in the huddled dogs and tasted in his own saliva, recognised fear as a boy, a youth recognises the existence of love and passion and experience which is his heritage but not yet his patrimony, from entering by chance the presence of perhaps even merely the bedroom of a woman who has loved and been loved by many men." --from "The Bear" included in GO DOWN, MOSES (1942)
GO DOWN, MOSES is composed of seven interrelated stories, all of them set in Faulkner’s mythic Yoknapatawpha County. From a variety of perspectives, Faulkner examines the complex, changing relationships between blacks and whites, between man and nature, weaving a cohesive novel rich in implication and insight. READ more here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/…/go-down-moses-by-will…/
Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing's THE SUMMER BEFORE DARK was first published on this day in 1973.
“'I’m not going to be like my mother. You’re maniacs. You’re mad.' "'Yes,' said Kate. 'I know it. And so you won’t be. The best of luck to you. And what are you going to be instead?'” ―from THE SUMMER BEFORE DARK
Doris Lessing’s classic novel of the pivotal summer in one woman’s life is a brilliant excursion into the terrifying gulf between youth and old age. As the summer begins, Kate Brown—attractive, intelligent, forty-five, happily married, with a house in the London suburbs and three grown children—has no reason to expect that anything will change. But by summer’s end the woman she was—living behind a protective camouflage of feminine charm and caring—no longer exists. The Summer Before the Dark takes us along on Kate’s journey: from London to Turkey to Spain, from husband to lover to madness, on the road to a frightening new independence and a confrontation with herself that lets her finally and truly come of age. READ an excerpt here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/…/the-summer-before-the…/
"Even in very old age she was always intellectually restless, reinventing herself, curious about the changing world around us," said Doris Lessing's editor as he reflected on her life and literary career.
The main city library in Harare, Zimbabwe is about to receive Doris Lessing's entire book collection. The Nobel prize-winner, who died last year, made the bequest to the country where she lived for a quarter of a century and where she did much work to encourage literacy. She made this moving speech when accepting her Nobel prize for Literature at the age of 88:
"Remember, a good paperback from England costs a month's wages in Zimbabwe. Now, with inflation, it would cost several years' wages. But having taken a box of books out to a village - and remember there is a terrible shortage of petrol - I can tell you that the box was greeted with tears."
It's a talking point on BBC Newsday from 0200 GMT and we're keen to hear your thoughts: http://bbc.in/1ryrP36
Doris Lessing, writer, died on November 17th, aged 94
AS SHE climbed slowly out of the taxi with her shopping, her grey bun coming down as usual, Doris Lessing noticed that the front garden was full of photographers. They told her she had won the 2007 Nobel prize for literature. She said, “Oh, Christ.” Then, picking up her bags, “One can get more excited.” And then, having paid the cab man, “I suppose you want some uplifting remarks.” She supplied a few later for her official Nobel interview, but still on her own terms: wearing what looked like a dressing gown and a lopsided, plunging camisole at a kitchen table overloaded with open packets of crackers and messy jars of jam.
For 30 years, by her reckoning, people had expected that she would get the prize. She hated expectation: that burden that made you a prisoner of circumstances and dragged you along like a fish on a line. The expectation when a child that she would behave, and not try to pull down her itchy stockings or burst into tears. The expectation that she would be a good wife (as she tried twice), pushing prams all day long, instead of leaving her two small children behind to start a new life. The expectation that the Communist revolution would usher in Utopia, when it was all “a load of old socks”. Why did people expect such things? Who had promised them? When?
Most frustrating was the public’s expectation that she, as a writer, would keep to one path. After the success of her first novel, “The Grass is Singing” (1950), packed in manuscript in her suitcase when she arrived, almost penniless, in Britain from Southern Rhodesia, she could have kept on writing about Africa. But in “The Golden Notebook” (1962) she plunged instead into the world of a woman’s dreams and mental disintegration, to wide dismay. In “The Good Terrorist” (1985) she expanded on her theory that acts of terror could be blundered into, rather than ruthlessly planned: again, alarums and confusion. Her five-book “Canopus in Argos” series (1979-83) ventured into science fiction, chronicling moral and ecological disaster on a planet, Shikasta, that was Earth in thin disguise. Many of her fans thought she had gone bonkers. She insisted that it was the best writing she had ever done.
Her name for that, for it wasn’t really science fiction, was “space fiction”: suddenly the old literary constraints were lifted, and she could write with breadth about universal themes. It was like sliding out of a stuffy room (she always noticed smells, whether of animal hide, lice, peas, unwashedness) to thrust her nose into cool fresh air, or running out into the bush of her Rhodesian childhood, with its miles of tawny grass shining in the sun. Or, in her London life, coming out of the flat where she had paced round and pecked at the typewriter all day to wander for hours through the night-time streets.
For too long she had played the game of being pleasant, fitting in. From childhood she was called “Tigger”, the bouncy beast, the jolly good sport. Good old Tigger, who underneath it all was in a rage of hatred against her mother and aching to run away as, at 15, she did. Another persona was “the Hostess”, so generous and talkative to the lefty and literary flotsam who crammed into her London flats, when inside she would be crushed from some unwise love affair or other, or just wanting to be alone. Everyone was a chameleon; hence “The Golden Notebook”, in which a woman’s life was narrated in discrete notebooks, emotional, political and everyday, which eventually tangled into one. Feminists seemed mostly to notice that it mentioned menstruation. They made it their handbook in the sex wars of the 1960s, which hadn’t been her aim at all.
Myth and truth
A small part of her was feminist, just as a small part was Communist in the 1950s, and Sufi later. Every ideology collapsed into something else, just as her frail family farmhouse of mud and thatch would fade back into the bush in time. She never gave her whole self to anything, except to one lover, “Jack”, in the 1960s—and to her third child, Peter, whom she cared for until he died, of diabetes, this year. As a writer she stood outside, “wool-gathering” and observing with sly eyes, like one of her cats. Much of her heart, though, lay in Africa, and her writing soared when recounting the labour of blacks, the easy bigotry of little-Englander whites (like her parents) and the sights and sounds of the place, from the smoke-mist of dawn to the rustling, creeping noise at night that revealed itself as rain. Rhodesia was her “myth country”.
She wrote “The Grass is Singing” to expose a truth: that white women could desire black men. It made a shocking scene when Moses, the cook-boy, was seen through the window buttoning up Mary Turner’s dress with “indulgent uxoriousness”. And she could spring the hard truth in dozens of smaller touches: describing a new mother as “a sack of bruised flesh”, or the “silky black beards” of underarm hair.
There was a true Doris, too, somewhere. This “aliveness” was where the stories came from, and it was buried deep. As she plumped herself wearily down on the doorstep to answer questions, that Nobel morning in 2007, she seemed to show an authentic, unbrushed side to the world’s press. But the real Doris was saying, as she had every day for decades, Run away, you silly woman, take control, write.
Doris Lessing dies aged 94
Tributes pour in for Nobel prize-winning author of over 50 novels including The Golden Notebook
Doris Lessing with her prize insignia of the 2007 Nobel prize in literature. Photograph: Shaun Curry/AFP/Getty Images
The literary world mourned on hearing that Doris Lessing, the Nobel-prize winning author of The Golden Notebook and The Grass is Singing, among more than 50 novels covering subjects from politics to science fiction, had died peacefully at her London home aged 94. Her younger son, Peter, whom she cared for through years of illness, died three weeks ago. The biographer Michael Holroyd, her friend and executor, said her contribution to literature was "outstandingly rich and innovative". He called her themes "universal and international … They ranged from the problems of post-colonial Africa to the politics of nuclear power, the emergence of a new woman's voice and the spiritual dimensions of 20th-century civilisation. Few writers have as broad a range of subject and sympathy. "She is one of those rare writers whose work crosses frontiers, and her impressively large output constitutes a chronicle of our time. She has enlarged the territory both of the novel and of our consciousness." The American author Joyce Carol Oates said: "It might be said of Doris Lessing, as Walt Whitman boasted of himself: I am vast, I contain multitudes. For many, Lessing was a revolutionary feminist voice in 20th-century literature – though she resisted such categorisation, quite vehemently. For many others, Lessing was a 'space fiction' prophet, using the devices and idioms of the fantastic to address human issues of evolution and the environment. "And for other readers, Lessing was a writer willing to explore 'interior worlds', the mysterious life of the spiritual self. Though it is perhaps a predictable choice, my favourite of her many novels is The Golden Notebook. And my favourite of her many wonderful stories is her most famous – To Room Nineteen." Nick Pearson, her editor at HarperCollins/4th Estate, said: "I adored her." Born in Iran, brought up in the African bush in Zimbabwe – where her 1950 first novel, The Grass is Singing, was set – Lessing had lived in London for more than 50 years. In 2007 she came back to West Hampstead, north London, carrying heavy bags of shopping, to find her doorstep besieged by reporters and camera crews. "Oh, Christ," she said, on learning that at 88 she had just become the oldest author and the 11th woman to win the Nobel prize in literature. Pausing rather crossly on her front path, she said: "One can get more excited", and went on to observe that since she had already won all the other prizes in Europe, this was "a royal flush". Later she remarked: "I'm 88 years old and they can't give the Nobel to someone who's dead, so I think they were probably thinking they'd probably better give it to me now before I've popped off." The citation from the Swedish Academy called her "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny". Pearson, her editor at the time, recalled the doorstep moment vividly: "That was what she was like. That was vintage Doris. "When I took over looking after her books, she had a fairly formidable reputation, and the first time I went to meet her I was terrified, but she was always completely charming to me. She was always more interested in talking about the other writers on our list, what the young writers were working on – and reading – than in talking about her own books." Lessing's last novel, although several earlier books have since been re-released as e-books, was Albert and Emily, published in 2008. Pearson said: "That was a very interesting book for her, revisiting the early life of her mother and her father and how they had been touched by the first world war. "At the time she said to me 'this is my last book', and we accepted that. She was already at a great age, and I could see she was tired." The publisher's UK chief executive, Charlie Redmayne, added: "Doris Lessing was one of the great writers of our age. She was a compelling storyteller with a fierce intellect and a warm heart who was not afraid to fight for what she believed in. It was an honour for HarperCollins to publish her."
在她的自傳《在我皮膚之下》(Under My Skin)的第一卷中，萊辛描繪了她很小的時候在羅德西亞的鄉村看到的一幕：父母並肩坐在房前，臉色凝重，充滿焦慮：「他們一起被困在那裡，受制於貧窮，更糟糕的是，受制於他們十分不同的背景所帶來的秘密的、不被接納的需求。在我看來，他們讓人難以忍受、十分可悲，而正是他們的無助讓我難以忍受。」她發誓永遠不能忘記這一幕，永遠不能像她的父母那樣：「意思就是，」她寫道，「永遠不要讓自己被困住。也就是說，我拒絕接受人類的處境——被環境束縛的處境。」
萊辛，1962年，也是出版《金色筆記》那一年。
Oswald Jones/Abergavenny Museum
萊辛筆下的很多女主人公都下過類似的決心，從《暴力的孩子們》(Children of Violence)系列中的瑪莎·奎斯特(Martha Quest)到《金色筆記》(The Golden Notebook, 1962)中的安娜·沃爾夫(Anna Wulfa)，她們發現聰明和天分不能確保你擁有成功或控制力，當「女人們的情感仍適用於那個不再存在的社會」時，她們必須「克服萬難，爭取做自由女性的機會」。瑪麗·麥格羅里(Mary McGrory)曾說，萊辛「用西蒙娜·德·波伏娃(Simone de Beauvoir)式的不屈不撓來描寫自己的性愛，用約翰·奧哈拉(John O』Hara)式的坦誠和細緻來描寫性愛本身」。
20世紀80年代，萊辛放下她審視人類心理的顯微鏡，拿起指向遙遠星球和星系的望遠鏡，出版了《阿哥斯的老人星：檔案》(Canopus in Argos: Archives)，那是一系列以外太空為背景的幻想小說，受蘇菲神秘派信仰啟發。雖然這些小說含有一些抒情描寫的段落——這與她一貫的實用主義文風很不一致——但是這些故事幾乎完全沒有她早期作品中對人類學的強烈興趣。有些故事是關於善惡的道德寓言；還有些是喬納森·斯威夫特(Jonathan Swift)式的社會政治諷刺故事。萊辛1999年的小說《瑪莎和丹恩》(Mara and Dann)採用了類似的手法，這個寓言故事以遙遠的未來為背景，講述的是冰河紀毀滅人類文明幾百萬年之後的事。
在她的後期作品，比如《本在世界上》(Ben, in the World)、《最甜蜜的夢》(The Sweetest Dream)和《祖母們》(The Grandmothers)中，萊辛努力把她的天分整合到一起：比如她從第一本小說《野草在歌唱》(The Grass Is Singing)便表現出來的，在不動聲色中構想出一個特定時空的能力；她在《瑪莎·奎斯特》系列小說中磨練出來的心理洞察力和社會細節觀察力；以及後來她對童話式寓言和科幻式漫遊的偏愛。
Tracing the Internal Tug of War at the Heart of Human Life
An AppraisalBy MICHIKO KAKUTANINovember 19, 2013
In the course of her very long and peripatetic career, Doris Lessing has done just about everything, from naturalism to psychological realism, from postmodern experimentation to moralistic fable-making, from science fiction to horror stories. She has evoked the Africa of her youth, postwar London and the chilly latitudes of outer space.
She has chronicled the 20th century’s utopian search for defining ideas — be they communism, feminism or psychology — and the fallout that such ideas have had on the lives of women trying to find an identity of their own.
Ms. Lessing’s childhood in Rhodesia seems to have heightened her awareness of the inequities of race and class and the inescapable connection between the political and the personal. And regardless of their setting, her books have tended to pivot around certain persistent themes: the relationship between the individual and society; the tension between domesticity and freedom, responsibility and independence; and the tug of war between human will and the imperatives of love, betrayal and ideological faith. This dynamic has often resulted in books with an air of impending disaster and humorless gloom, featuring people who are defined more by their problems than their dreams, people caught, like fish in a net, in the tumultuous, troubled zeitgeist of 20th-century Africa and England.
In the first volume of her autobiography, “Under My Skin,” Ms. Lessing described herself as a young girl, watching her parents sitting side by side in front of their house in the Rhodesian countryside, their faces tense and full of anxiety: “There they are, together, stuck together, held there by poverty and — much worse — secret and inadmissible needs that come from deep in their two so different histories. They seem to me intolerable, pathetic, unbearable, it is their helplessness that I can’t bear.” She vows never to forget this scene, never to be like her parents: “Meaning,” she wrote, “never let yourself be trapped. In other words, I was rejecting the human condition, which is to be trapped by circumstances.”
A similar determination informs the choices made by many of Ms. Lessing’s heroines, from Martha Quest in the “Children of Violence” series through Anna Wulf in “The Golden Notebook” (1962) — women who find that intelligence and talent do not ensure success or control, women who must grapple with “the hazards and chances of being a free woman” at a time when “women’s emotions are still fitted for a kind of society which no longer exists.” Ms. Lessing, Mary McGrory once observed, “writes about her own sex with the unrelenting intensity of Simone de Beauvoir, and about sex itself with the frankness and detail of John O’Hara.”
“The Golden Notebook,” acclaimed by many critics as Ms. Lessing’s masterpiece, was innovative not only in its psychological acuity, providing an emotionally detailed portrait of a woman frightened of chaos and breakdown, but also in its unorthodox structure, separating Anna’s experiences into four notebooks (black, red, yellow and blue), dealing with disparate aspects of her life. Out of these pieces can come something new and transformative, Ms. Lessing suggested: a fifth, golden notebook, where “things have come together, the divisions have broken down” and there is the promise of unity.
In the 1980s, Ms. Lessing traded in the microscope she’d trained on the human psyche for a telescope aimed at distant stars and galaxies, producing “Canopus in Argos: Archives,” a cycle of visionary novels set in outer space and fueled by a belief in Sufi mysticism. Though some of these novels contained passages of lyrical writing — quite at odds with her customarily utilitarian prose — the stories evinced little of the passionate interest in the human anthropology that had animated her earlier books. Some of them were moralistic fables about good and evil; others were more social-political satires in the tradition of Jonathan Swift. Ms. Lessing took a similar tack in her 1999 novel “Mara and Dann,” a fable set in the distant future, thousands and thousands of years after a great ice age has destroyed civilization.
In later books like “Ben, in the World,” “The Sweetest Dream” and “The Grandmothers,” Ms. Lessing struggled to integrate her gifts: her matter-of-fact ability to conjure a specific place and time, already on display in her first novel “The Grass Is Singing,” her psychological insight and eye for sociological detail honed in the Martha Quest novels and her later penchant for fairy-tale allegories and sci-fi perambulations.
Ms. Lessing herself has said she sees all her forays into different genres and styles as part of a single, golden continuum: “I see inner space and outer space as reflections of each other,” she once declared. “I don’t see them as in opposition. Just as we are investigating subatomic particles and the outer limits of the planetary system — the large and the small simultaneously — so the inner and the outer are connected.”
Doris Lessing, the Persian-born, Rhodesian-raised and London-residing novelist whose deeply autobiographical writing has swept across continents and reflects her engagement with the social and political issues of her time, on Thursday won the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Announcing the award in Stockholm, the Swedish Academy described her as “that epicist of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny.” The award comes with a 10 million Swedish crown honorarium, about $1.6 million. Ms. Lessing, who turns 88 later this month, never finished high school and largely educated herself through voracious reading. She has written dozens of books of fiction, as well as plays, nonfiction and two volumes of her autobiography. She is the 11th woman to win a Nobel Prize in literature. Ms. Lessing learned of the news from a group of reporters camped on her doorstep as she returned from visiting her son in the hospital. “I was a bit surprised because I had forgotten about it actually,” she said. “My name has been on the short list for such a long time.” As the persistent sound of her phone ringing came from inside the house, Ms. Lessing said that on second thought, she was not as surprised “because this has been going on for something like 40 years,” referring to the number of times she has been on the short list for the Nobel. “Either they were going to give it to me sometime before I popped off or not at all.” Stout, sharp and a bit hard of hearing, after a few moments Ms. Lessing excused herself to go inside. “Now I’m going to go in to answer my telephone,” she said. “I swear I’m going upstairs to find some suitable sentences which I will be using from now on.” Although Ms. Lessing is passionate about social and political issues, she is unlikely to be as controversial as the previous two winners, Orhan Pamuk of Turkey or Harold Pinter of Britain, whose views on current political situations led commentators to suspect that the Swedish Academy was choosing its winners in part for nonliterary reasons. Ms. Lessing’s strongest legacy may be that she inspired a generation of feminists with her breakthrough novel, “The Golden Notebook.” In its citation, the Swedish Academy said: “The burgeoning feminist movement saw it as a pioneering work and it belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th century view of the male-female relationship.” Ms. Lessing wrote candidly about the inner lives of women and rejected the notion that they should abandon their own lives to marriage and children. “The Golden Notebook,” published in 1962, tracked the story of Anna Wulf, a woman who wanted to live freely and was in some ways Ms. Lessing’s alter-ego. Because she frankly described anger and aggression in women, she was attacked as “unfeminine.” In response, Ms. Lessing wrote: “Apparently what many women were thinking, feeling, experiencing came as a great surprise.” Although she has been held up as an early feminist icon, Ms. Lessing later disavowed that she herself was a feminist, earning the ire of some British critics and academics. Clare Hanson, professor of 20th century literature at the University of Southampton in Britain and a keynote speaker at the second international Doris Lessing Conference this past July, said: “She’s been ahead of her time, prescient and thoughtful, immensely wide-ranging.” Ms. Lessing was born Doris May Tayler in 1919 in what was then known as Persia (now Iran). Her father was a bank clerk and her mother was trained as a nurse. Lured by the promise of farming riches, the family moved to Rhodesia where Ms. Lessing had what she has described as a painful childhood. She left home when she was 15 and in 1937, she moved to Salisbury (now Harare) in Southern Rhodesia, where she took jobs as a telephone operator and nursemaid. At 19, she married and had two children. A few years later, feeling imprisoned, she abandoned her family. She later married Gottfried Lessing, a central member of the Left Book Club, a left wing organization, and they had a son together. Ms. Lessing, who joined the Communist Party in Africa, dropped out of the party in 1954 and repudiated Marxist theory during the Hungarian crisis of 1956, a view for which she was criticized by some British academics. When she divorced Mr. Lessing, she and her young son moved to London, where she began her literary career. She debuted with the novel “The Grass is Singing” in 1949, chronicling the relationship between a white farmer’s wife and her black servant. In her earliest work, Ms. Lessing drew upon her childhood experiences in colonial Rhodesia to write about the collision of white and African cultures and racial injustice. Because of her outspoken views, the governments of both Southern Rhodesia and South Africa declared her a “prohibited alien” in 1956. When “The Golden Notebook” was first published in the United States, Ms. Lessing was still unknown. Robert Gottlieb, then her editor at Simon & Schuster and later at Alfred A. Knopf, said it sold only 6,000 copies. “But they were the right 6,000 copies,” Mr. Gottlieb said by telephone from his home in New York. “The people who read it were galvanized by it and it made her a famous writer in America.” Speaking from Frankfurt during the annual international book fair, Jane Friedman, president and chief executive of HarperCollins, which has published Ms. Lessing in the U.S. and Britain for the last 20 years, said that “for women and for literature, Doris Lessing is a mother to us all.” Ms. Lessing’s other novels include “The Good Terrorist” and “Martha Quest.” Her latest novel is “The Cleft,” published by HarperCollins in July. She has dabbled in science fiction and some of her later works bear the imprint of her interest in Sufi mysticism, which she has interpreted as stressing a link between individual fates and the fate of society. In a review of “Under My Skin,” the first volume of Ms. Lessing’s autobiography, Janet Burroway, writing in the New York Times Book Review, said: “Mrs. Lessing is a writer for whom the idea that ‘the personal is the political’ is neither sterile nor strident; for her, it is an integrated vision.” On her doorstep, Ms. Lessing said she was still writing—“but with difficulty because I have so little time,” referring to the regular visits she is making to the hospital to visit her son. 【10月11日 AFP】（写真追加、10月12日一部更新）スウェーデン・アカデミー（Swedish Academy）は11日、2007年のノーベル文学賞を英国の女性作家ドリス・レッシング（Doris Lessing）氏（87）に授与すると発表した。約半世紀にわたりフェミニズムや政治、幼少期を過ごしたアフリカを叙情的に描いてきた作品が認められた。
2人目の夫はドイツ人の政治活動家ゴットフリード・レッシング（Gottfried Lessing）氏だったが、1949年にまだ幼い息子と1作目『草は歌っている（The Grass Is Singing）』の草稿を手に英国へ渡り、同氏とも離婚した。人種的抑圧と植民地主義を焼け付くような鋭さでつぶさに描いた同作は翌年出版され、大きな成功を収めた。
Elwyn Brooks White (July 11, 1899 – October 1, 1985)[1] was an American writer and a world federalist.[2] For more than fifty years, he was a contributor to The New Yorker magazine. He was also a co-author of the English language style guideThe Elements of Style, which is commonly known as Strunk & White. In addition, he wrote books for children, including Stuart Little (c. 1945), Charlotte's Web (c. 1952), and The Trumpet of the Swan (c. 1970). In a 2012 survey of School Library Journal readers, Charlotte's Web was voted the top children's novel.[3]
A selection of the best of the hilarious free-verse poems by the irreverent cockroach poet Archy and his alley-cat pal Mehitabel. Don Marquis’s famous fictional insect appeared in his newspaper columns from 1916 into the 1930s, and he has delighted generations of readers ever since. A poet in a former life, Archy was reincarnated as a bug who expresses himself by diving headfirst onto a typewriter. His sidekick Mehitabel is a streetwise feline who claims to have been Cleopatra in a previous life. As E. B. White wrote in his now-classic introduction, the Archy poems “contain cosmic reverberations along with high comedy” and have “the jewel-like perfection of poetry.” Adorned with George Herriman’s whimsical illustrations and including White’s introduction, our Pocket Poets selection—the only hardcover Archy and Mehitabel in print—is a beautiful volume, and perfectly sized for its tiny hero. READ an excerpt from the introduction by E.B. Whitehere: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/…/the-best-of-archy-and…/
Foucault's premise is that systems of thought and knowledge ("epistemes" or "discursive formations") are governed by rules (beyond those of grammar and logic) which operate beneath the consciousness of individual subjects and define a system of conceptual possibilities that determines the boundaries of thought and language use in a given domain and period.[1] Foucault also provides a philosophical treatment and critique of phenomenologicaland dogmatic structural readings of history and philosophy, portraying continuous narratives as naïve ways of projecting our own consciousness onto the past, thus being exclusive and excluding.
Foucault argues that the contemporary study of the history of ideas, although it targets moments of transition between historical worldviews, ultimately depends on continuities that break down under close inspection. The history of ideas marks points of discontinuity between broadly defined modes of knowledge, but the assumption that those modes exist as wholes fails to do justice to the complexities of discourse. Foucault argues that "discourses" emerge and transform not according to a developing series of unarticulated, common worldviews, but according to a vast and complex set of discursive and institutional relationships, which are defined as much by breaks and ruptures as by unified themes.[2]
Foucault defines a "discourse" as a 'way of speaking'.[3] Thus, his method studies only the set of 'things said' in their emergences and transformations, without any speculation about the overall, collective meaning of those statements, and carries his insistence on discourse-in-itself down to the most basic unit of things said: the statement (énoncé). During most of Archaeology, Foucault argues for and against various notions of what are inherent aspects of a statement, without arriving at a comprehensive definition.[2] He does, however, argue that a statement is the rules which render an expression (that is, a phrase, a proposition, or a speech act) discursively meaningful. This concept of meaning differs from the concept of signification:[4] Though an expression is signifying, for instance "The gold mountain is in California", it may nevertheless be discursively meaningless and therefore have no existence within a certain discourse.[5] For this reason, the "statement" is an existence functionfor discursive meaning.[6]
Being rules, the "statement" has a special meaning in the Archaeology: it is not the expression itself, but the rules which make an expression discursively meaningful. These rules are not the syntax and semantics[7] that makes an expression signifying. It is additional rules. In contrast to structuralists, Foucault demonstrates that the semantic and syntactic structures do not suffice to determine the discursive meaning of an expression.[8]Depending on whether or not it complies with these rules of discursive meaning, a grammatically correct phrase may lack discursive meaning or, inversely, a grammatically incorrect sentence may be discursively meaningful - even meaningless letters (e.g. "QWERTY") may have discursive meaning.[9] Thus, the meaning of expressions depends on the conditions in which they emerge and exist within a field of discourse; the discursive meaning of an expression is reliant on the succession of statements that precede and follow it.[10] In short, the "statements" Foucault analysed are not propositions, phrases, or speech acts. Rather, "statements" constitute a network of rules establishing which expressions are discursively meaningful, and these rules are the preconditions for signifying propositions, utterances, or speech acts to have discursive meaning. However, "statements" are also 'events', because, like other rules, they appear (or disappear) at some time.
Foucault's analysis then turns towards the organized dispersion of statements, which he calls discursive formations. Foucault reiterates that the analysis he is outlining is only one possible procedure, and that he is not seeking to displace other ways of analysing discourse or render them as invalid.[11]
Foucault concludes Archaeology with responses to criticisms from a hypothetical critic (which he anticipates will occur after his book is read).
“It is comforting, however, and a source of profound relief to think that man is only a recent invention, a figure not yet two centuries old, a new wrinkle in our knowledge, and that he will disappear again as soon as that knowledge has discovered a new form.” ―from THE ORDER OF THINGS: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (1966) by Michel Foucault
With vast erudition, Foucault cuts across disciplines and reaches back into seventeenth century to show how classical systems of ⋯⋯
The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music is an 1872 work of dramatic theory by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It was reissued in 1886 as The Birth of Tragedy, Or: Hellenism and Pessimism (German: Die Geburt der Tragödie, Oder: Griechentum und Pessimismus). The later edition contained a prefatory ...
I. Seriousness and the Self-Limitation of Theoretical Culture. In the original preface to The Birth of Tragedy, addressed to Richard Wagner, Nietzsche imagined Wagner receiving a copy of the book. He imagined how his friend would see both. Leopold Rau's image of Prometheus unbound and Nietzsche's name on the title ...
“It is by those two art-sponsoring deities, Apollo and Dionysos, that we are made to recognize the tremendous split, as regards both origins and objectives, between the plastic, Apollonian arts and the non-visual art of music inspired by Dionysos.”
“The two creative tendencies developed alongside one another, usually in fierce opposition, each by its taunts forcing the other to more energetic production, both perpetuating in a discordant concord that agon which the term art but feebly denominates: until at last, by the thaumaturgy of an Hellenic act of will, the pair accepted the yoke of marriage and, in this condition, begot Attic tragedy, which exhibits the salient features of both parents.”
Agon (Classical Greek ἀγών) is an ancient Greek term for a struggle or contest. This could be a contest in athletics, in chariot or horse racing, or in music or literature at a public festival in ancient Greece.
Thaumaturgy (US: /ˈθɔːməˌtɜːrdʒi/ ( listen), from Greek θαῦμα thaûma, meaning "miracle" or "marvel" and ἔργον érgon, meaning "work") is the capability of a magician or a saint to work magic or miracles.
The book is actually a compilation of several drafts and writings that Nietzsche had put on paper from 1869, among others the titles: The Greek Music Drama; Socrates and the Greek tragedy; The Dionysian worldview; The tragedy and the free spirits, The birth of the tragic thought; - all essays, some of which were published much later in the Nietzsche estate, in the summer of 1871, however, were essential parts of his book. Thus Nietzsche did not attach much importance to the preparation of an outline, but above all he had in mind the principle of the "Gesamtkunstwerk".
Nietzsche as an artilleryman, 1868
Nietzsche gave a preface to the second edition of 1886. In it, he criticizes his previous style of writing, but not the intention, because he had made a decisive change in his life with this book. In his "Self-Criticism" he wrote in 1886:
What an impossible book had grown out of such an unlawful task! Built out of nothing but premature over-green self-experiences, all of which lay hard on the threshold of the incurable, placed upon the soil of art-for the problem of science can not be recognized on the ground of science-a book perhaps for artists with the side-line of analytic and cultural retrospective skills (that is, for an exceptional kind of artists to look for and do not even want to search ...), full of psychological innovations and artist stealthes, with an artist metaphysics in the background, a youthful work full of youthful courage and youthful melancholy Independent, defiantly self-sufficient even where it seems to bow to an authority and its own worship, in short a first work in every bad sense of the word, despite its senile problem, fraught with every mistake of youth, especially with its "Much too long, "their" storm and urge ": on the other hand, in regard to the Erf olg it had (in the special case of the great artist, to whom it turned as if to a dialogue, with Richard Wagner) a proven book, I mean one which has at least done enough "to the best of his time." ]
content
The young Nietzsche wanted to correct with his presentation the hitherto usual view of the "classics" (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller), the Greeks were a cheerful and happy people. He reveals to the reader a rather tragic attitude towards life of the Hellenes who, in a world of constant annihilation struggles, saw themselves as achieving selfish goals and needed their bright world of gods in order to bear the gloom and hardships of everyday life. Their expression was found in and with their arts, with two of their Olympic gods holding a key position: Apollon and Dionysus.
The basis of the work, a fundamental aesthetic philosophy, which imitates ontology and epistemology as the first philosophy through Nietzsche's assertion of "aesthetic science", is philosophically demanding. [1] Nietzsche writes:
for only as an aesthetic phenomenon is existence and the world eternally justified. [5]
The peculiar ability to transform experiences of an existential nature into phenomena of art creates a perspective on the manifestation of religion and science as the shaping of art from the optics of life. For further investigations, the Attic tragedy is of central importance, which saw Nietzsche as a high point and exemplary Daseinsbewältigenden character of Greek culture and art.
Attempt a self-criticism
Influenced entirely by his role models, Wagner and Schopenhauer, the young classical philologist describes human life as a dream from which, after a "Dionysian awakening", a new human being reveals himself:
Singing and dancing, man expresses himself as a member of a higher community: he has forgotten how to walk and speak, and is on the way to flying up into the air, dancing. From his gestures the enchantment speaks. As the animals now speak, and the earth gives milk and honey, so also something supernatural sounds out of it: as God he feels himself, he now walks as ecstatically and exalted as he saw the gods walk in the dream. Man is no longer an artist, he has become a work of art: the artistic power of all nature, to the highest satisfaction of the Ur-A, reveals itself here under the showers of intoxication. The noblest clay, the most precious marble, is kneaded and carved here, man, and to the chisel strokes of the Dionysian cosmic artist sounds the Eleusinian mystery cry: "You fall down, millions? Do you suspect the Creator, world? "[6]
Richard Wagner around 1864
The theories and ideas of Nietzsche were recorded differently, so followers of Wagner and Schopenhauer were enthusiastic, whereas other experts strongly criticized the work. In Anlehnun
The theories and ideas of Nietzsche were recorded differently, so followers of Wagner and Schopenhauer were enthusiastic, whereas other experts strongly criticized the work. Following the criticism of the experts Nietzsche wrote:
She should have sung, this "new soul" - and not talking! [7]
Chapters 1-6
Expression found the Greeks in their arts, with two of their Olympic gods held a key position: Apollo and Dionysus.
Nietzsche sees two important poles in Greek life, the Dionysian and the Apollonian, not as the art faculty of a fixed and abstract opposition, but rather as a productive interaction of an asset that already begins as a duplicity. The Dionysian, intoxicating and natural (Expressionist) is the primitive will to self-indulgence, as expressed in the music. The Apollonian is the formative (classical) force of harmony and the fine arts. Dimensionally limited is the Apollonian representative of structures established and stabilized experience and design processes. [1] In the interaction of the two antipodes Nietzsche recognizes the human life situation:
To our two artificial deities, Apollo and Dionysus, our knowledge is linked to the fact that in the Greek world there is an immense contrast between the art of the artist, the Apollonian, and the non-pictorial art of music, as the origin of Dionysius Both these different drives go side by side, usually in an open conflict with each other and irritating each other to ever new, stronger births, in order to perpetuate in them the struggle of that antithesis which the common word "art" only seems to bridge. until finally, through a metaphysical act of miracle of the Hellenic "will," they appear paired with one another, and in this mating they finally produce the equally Dionysian and Apollonian work of art of Attic tragedy. [8]
On the other hand, Dionysian is not the transition that leads to the amorphous and boundless, but an ecstatic moment emanating from this form, which delimits the corresponding modes of experience and offers possibilities for new, unknown expressions. [1]
Instead of heroes (in masks), "the people" now came on the stage, instead of ritual "celebration" there have been comedies for entertainment. And, just as Richard Wagner did in his Zurich manuscripts (The Artwork of the Future, Opera and Drama), Nietzsche scourged the degeneracy of the once noble Greek art and culture to the futile revival attempts in the Renaissance, which only lead to an "operatic imitation" of the Similar to Schopenhauer, he laments the impoverishment of Western art through a purely scientific view of the world:
But now science, spurred on by its powerful delusion, is inexorably rushing to its limits, where its optimism, hidden in the essence of logic, fails. For the periphery of the circle of science has infinitely many points, and while it is not yet clear how the circle could ever be fully measured, yet the noble and gifted man, even before the middle of his existence and inevitably, encounters such boundary points the periphery, where he stares into the inconceivable. If he sees to his terror here, how logic curls around itself at these borders and finally bites its tail - then the new form of the knowledge breaks through, the tragic knowledge, which, in order to be endured only, as protection and cure the art needs. [9]
Chapter 7-10
Embedded in the speculative balance, Nietzsche interprets the Greek tragedy as a culture of violent Titanic origin resulting from an Apollonian civilization. Despite the introduction of the vital Olympian Pantheon as an Apollonian culture and the horrors of its existence, they managed once again to expose their culture to the threat of the chaos of Dionysian experience. The unknown Dionysus cult, thanks to its integrative revolution, shaped the distinctive character of Greek culture. A classical text-oriented theory of drama, which had been common since Aristotle, contradicted an aesthetic of interpretation reconstructing the tragic as a specified idea. Nietzsche rehabilitates the classical Greek tragedy with a precise perspective on multimedia activities with the Dionysian choir in the center of gravity, which ritually reproduces Dionysos's suffering through symbolism and ecstasy. Beyond the limits of synesthesia, the audience is enraptured by the tragic task of the individual. Nietzsche calls this sensualization of his own self-understanding "Dionysian wisdom". The choir with music, dance, facial expressions and gestures represents the onset of nature. Now the medial counterpart obtains the recovery of the Apollonian culture. The plot and the language of a dramatic production envisage the detachment of the Dionysian and Apollinian state. For Nietzsche, the phenomenon of tragedy prevails here. [1]
Chapter 11-17
Socrates' logical optimism, coupled with myth-making competence and the downfall of tragedy, as well as the works of Euripides, erroneously inspired by Socrates, forms the tenor of these chapters. Euripides' productions are rational, imitation-oriented and psychologized functions (aesthetic Socratism). The theory of the critically historical mind is used instead of the affective participation and symbols of mysticism, which due to the distancing achievements are taken to have distinctive characteristics. In Europe, according to Nietzsche, there would be a change in the forms of culture. The original symbolism of aesthetic consciousness differs from the geistorientierten reification, which causes a decline of ritual practices for self-awareness of the new focus, the confrontation with texts, (Alexandrian canonization).
Chapter 18-25
Chapters 18 to 25 deal with the repression of cultural-historical and contemporary interpretation. The opera, as a counterpart of the Alexandrian culture, forms an aesthetics of word and sound art, which Nietzsche sees as a visionary resurrection in Wagner's tragedies and in mythical wisdom. Art is the indispensable consolation before the tragedy that Kant and Schopenhauer worked out with their achievements in the field of reason and will. Naive tone paintings of German music, as used by Bach and Beethoven in their operas, are overcome in Wagner's operas. Mythical stage myths, the visualization of symphonic violence and the protection against it bring back the Dionysian music as the "ureine" of the will (Tristan and Isolde). Music and tragic myth are equally expressions of the Dionysian empowerment of a people and inseparable from each other. In the musical dramas of Wagner this was realized and the true culture reborn, as arose from the Greek new German culture.
Nobody believes that the German spirit has forever lost its mythical homeland, if it still so clearly understands the bird's voices that speak of that homeland. One day he will find himself awake in the fresh air of a dazzling sleep: then he will kill dragons, destroy the treacherous dwarfs and raise Brünnhilde - and Wotan's spear itself will not be able to hinder his way! [10]
The decline of this original culture was initiated by Socrates and Euripides. Through intellectual "cultivation" of the tragedies they had set the course for an Enlightenment, rational philosophy and pioneered the "scientific man" and thus become gravediggers of the ancient arts. [1]
It is the Dionysian music, the "shattering force of sound, the unified stream of Melos and the incomparable world of harmony", which stimulates man to the highest heightening of his abilities, so that "unimpressed ones urge for expression". Nietzsche explains that ritual choir dances and cult songs were the source of the dithyrambs and tragedies, concluding that music originated in Greek tragedies (or vice versa). Following Schopenhauer, he describes music as the metaphysical expression of the "will to live" and the actual breeding ground on which not only the tragedies grew, but also the entire Greek culture. [1]
effective history
With the birth of the tragedy Nietzsche broke with traditional concepts of classical philology. His philological specialist colleagues initially kept the book dead. Even Friedrich Ritschl, who had patronized Nietzsche as a philologist, sent a letter only after Nietzsche's pressing demand, in which he informed him of his fundamental objections. In the private circle he expressed himself sharper, noted in his diary Nietzsche's "megalomania" and wrote Wilhelm Vischer-Bilfinger:
"It is miraculous how in [Nietzsche] two souls live next to each other. On the one hand the strictest method of trained scientific research [...] on the other hand this fantastic-exuberant, übergeistreich overflowing into the incomprehensible, Wagner-Schopenhauerische artmysterienreligionsschwärmerei! [...] The end of the song is, of course, that mutual understanding is lacking; he is too dizzy for me, I think he is too crabby. "
Similarly, most philologists have probably felt. The first and only one who censured the writing publicly, was Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, who was at the beginning of his career, with his polemical book on future philology published in May 1872 !:
"Mr. Nietzsche does not appear as a scientific researcher: wisdom attained on the path of intuition is presented partly in the kanzleistil, partly in a raisonnement, which is only too akin to the journalist. [...] but one thing I demand: keep your word, if he grasps the thyrsus, he will go from India to Greece, but descend from the cathedral on which he is to teach science; he collects tiger and panther on his knees, but not germany's philological youth, who in the ascetic work is supposed to learn to seek truth alone everywhere "
The result was a public controversy, in which Erwin Rohde defended Nietzsche with an open letter after philology and Richard Wagner with an open letter. With a subsequent replica Wilamowitz - Moellendorffs in February 1873 ended the dispute without agreement. In his memoirs he wrote much later that although his writing was presumptuous and boyish, he was right in saying that Nietzsche did not belong to a philological chair, but had become "a prophet for an irreligious religion and an unphilosophical philosophy." be.
The few, probably caused by the sensational dispute reviews of birth were consistently critical. Nietzsche lost his reputation as a philologist, which was reflected in the collapse of the number of students with him. For philology he was "scientifically dead". On the other hand, the book was well received by some artists. Richard and Cosima Wagner were enthusiastic, as was Hans von Bülow and, with some reservations, Franz Liszt.
Nietzsche's writing was increasingly successful in the circles of artists and intellectuals. Soon, however, the concepts of "Apollonian" and "Dionysian" became independent and were used as "classical" and "expressionist". This lost the reciprocal relationship between the two impulses, which was so important to Nietzsche.
“Being myself meant not only never being quite right, but also never feeling at ease, always expecting to be interrupted or corrected, to have my privacy invaded and my unsure person set upon.” ―from OUT OF PLACE: A Memoir (1999) by Edward Said
From one of the most important intellectuals of our time comes an extraordinary story of exile and a celebration of an irrecoverable past. A fatal medical diagnosis in 1991 convinced Edward Said that he should leave a record of where he was born and spent his childhood, and so with this memoir he rediscovers the lost Arab world of his early years in Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt. Said writes with great passion and wit about his family and his friends from his birthplace in Jerusalem, schools in Cairo, and summers in the mountains above Beirut, to boarding school and college in the United States, revealing an unimaginable world of rich, colorful characters and exotic eastern landscapes. Underscoring all is the confusion of identity the young Said experienced as he came to terms with the dissonance of being an American citizen, a Christian and a Palestinian, and, ultimately, an outsider. Richly detailed, moving, often profound, OUT OF PLACE depicts a young man’s coming of age and the genesis of a great modern thinker. READ an excerpt here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/…/out-of-place-by-edwar…/
Junichiro Tanizaki's 1929 novel SOME PREFER NETTLES was first published in an English translation by Edward Seidensticker on this day in 1955. SOME PREFER NETTLES is considered one of his most noted translations.
“Children retain a great deal, and when they grow up they start going over things and rejudging them from a grownup's point of view. This must have been this way, and that was that way, they say. That's why you have to be careful with children—some day they grow up.” ―from SOME PREFER NETTLES(1929)
Junichiro Tanizaki’s SOME PREFER NETTLES is an exquisitely nuanced exploration of the allure of ancient Japanese tradition—and the profound disquiet that accompanied its passing. It is the 1920s in Tokyo, and Kaname and his wife Misako are trapped in a parody of a progressive Western marriage. No longer attracted to one another, they have long since stopped sleeping together and Kaname has sanctioned his wife’s liaisons with another man. But at the heart of their arrangement lies a sadness that impels Kaname to take refuge in the past, in the serene rituals of the classical puppet theater—and in a growing fixation with his father-in-law’s mistress. Some Prefer Nettles is an ethereally suggestive, psychologically complex exploration of the crisis every culture faces as it hurtles headfirst into modernity. READ more here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/…/some-prefer-nettles-b…/
Some Prefer Nettles (蓼喰ふ蟲Tade kū mushi) is a 1929 novel by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki. It was first published in 1928–9 as a newspaper serial. The novel is often regarded as the most autobiographical of Tanizaki's works and one of his finest novels.
The Japanese title of the novel is literally water pepper-eating bugs, and is the first half of the Japanese saying tade kuu mushi mo sukizuki (蓼食う虫も好き好き), or "Water pepper-eating bugs eat it willingly", equivalent to the English "Each to his own." The translation as Some Prefer Nettles was chosen by Edward Seidensticker; he considers it one of his most noted translations, and it has been included as a translation of the original saying in the authoritative Kenkyūsha's New Japanese-English Dictionary.[1]
Kaname and Misako’s marriage is drifting towards a separation and divorce, and Misako has taken a lover, Aso, to Kaname's approval. Their young son, Hiroshi does not yet know anything about their plans. Both are procrastinating over this marital decision; Kaname realizes that he is fascinated by his father-in-law's bunrakutheater and young mistress O-hisa. Misako's father is a traditionalist who attempts to keep the couple engaged in the arts of Japan, in order to purge the negative influence from the West.
The theme that structures the novel in its entirety is that of performance. As the book opens, Kaname gently pressures his wife, Misako, into meeting her father and his mistress at a bunraku performance. And the "old man" (he is fifty-six or fifty-seven) has a deep interest in many forms of traditional Japanese performance, from samisenand song to rustic puppets. But these are only the framing performances, as the life being led by Kaname and Misako is itself, as Tanizaki reminds us several times, a performance; even their son, Hiroshi, becomes a performer. The closing words of the novel (Tanizaki's endings are always stunning) transform a wooden doll into a woman.
In many ways, from local accent to clothing, the central characters assume roles they need and can hardly bear, making the story's structure a series of mirrors in which artifice and reality interweave.
In reading Tade kuu mushi, a theme that becomes immediately apparent is the struggle between East and West. Although the terms themselves are artificial social constructions, the dissonance between the two is present throughout the entire novel, and indeed throughout this portion of Kaname’s life.
The beginning of the novel presents a Kaname whose aesthetic tastes lean more toward the so-called West. His romanticized version of it is manifested in the western wing of his house (in particular, the veranda under which he likes to sit), his fascination with American movie stars, and very potently in an English translation of the Arabian Nights that he is wont to skim through in order to find the more lewd passages for which it is famous.
After a visit to the bunraku theater with his father-in-law, wife, and his father-in-law’s mistress in Chapter Two, however, Kaname’s interest in traditional aesthetics is piqued, and he even becomes envious of the ‘Old Man’ and his lifestyle: at an old play, pipe in hand, sake and a young mistress at his behest. This is the beginning of Kaname’s divergent interest in the East, his preference for the past.
But there is no East, and there is no West — a concept that becomes more apparent as certain tokens or representations of each begin to arise. For example, the Old Man’s mistress, Ohisa, comes to represent the traditional East, always dressing in kimono, conforming her ministrations to the Old Man’s every whim—and her iconic Osaka black teeth. The idea that Ohisa represents the East is consummated in the closing lines of Chapter Ten: “Ohisa truly was a vision left behind from a feudal age” (TKM, 139). But in spite of such a strong affirmation of her ‘easternness,’ all throughout the novel we are given clues as to her ‘true’ nature that serve to contradict the mask she is wearing: how she is scolded for using a compact (Chapter Two), how she uses sunscreen in Awaji (Chapter Ten), and certainly how she complains about the stiff clothing that the Old Man insists she wear. So we are told she’s a vision of the past, then led to suspect that very concept. In reality: she is both. And neither. She is simply Ohisa.
The same goes for Louise, the prostitute in Chapter Thirteen, who is a dubious (at best) representation of the West. She pretends to be Turkish — and looks it, too. Were the white powder she practically bathes herself in removed, though, Louise would be revealed as Eurasian, half-Korean, half-Russian, as close to the East as Kaname himself, in spite of her directness and blatant sexual nature that together form the now gossamer connection between her and the West.
Kaname’s copy of Arabian Nights is a mix of these two contradictions, being an exotic collection technically written in the East, but translated into English, and thus made all the more exotic in Kaname’s eyes. His world is convoluted, to say the least.
The second major theme that permeates the novel can be summed up as "Madonna vs Harlot" a theme for which Tanizaki is notorious, and which he addresses directly at several points in Tade kuu mushi.
In speaking with his cousin, Takanatsu, Kaname reveals that he’s only interested in two types of women: the motherly-type and the whore-type (bofugata and shoufugata, respectively). What he looks for in a woman oscillates between the two, and the fact that his wife is neither one nor the other, but a mix of both, is largely the impetus behind his waning, if not dead, interest in her. Kaname prefers extremes, which will become more and more apparent as the novel progresses.
There is some sort of reconciliation between these two extremes, however, and it is found in what is coined as the “Eternal Woman” (eien josei), a woman to be worshiped. Though it’s not expressed clearly who exactly this Eternal Woman is, nor what characterizes her, it is clear that she’s someone who would not only inspire, but command genuflection of the man who worships her.
To unravel what it means to be an Eternal Woman, however, it may help to look at Tanizaki’s use of dolls throughout Tade kuu mushi, for it is in looking at the doll Koharu — in the play Shinjuuten no amijima (The Love Suicides at Amijima) — that Kaname gets his first taste of her power.
While watching Shinjuuten no Amijima, Kaname takes particular notice of the character Koharu—the doll that becomes the very Form of what Kaname thinks women should be (later to be replaced by Ohisa). The conception of womanliness that Koharu inspires in Kaname is what lies at the heart of his Madonna-Harlot conflict, what makes him attracted both to an image of the Virgin Mary and to Hollywood movie stars: he isn’t interested in real women at all, but in idealized forms of them: women who can be appreciated from afar for what they represent, not for who they are. And dolls encapsulate this perfectly, being masterfully sculpted, subtle in their beauty, and silently manipulated by men.
Kaname has an overly active fantasy life that he seemingly prefers to interact with more than he does reality. In that same manner, his interest in the West is rooted more in its fantastical (not necessarily accurate) elements; the same can be said for his interest in the traditional East.
An example of the former is evidenced in his preference for the Western concept of divorce, how everyone supposedly does it—to the extent that it’s almost a fad. He is also fascinated with the colorfulness of western sexuality and, in particular, the way in which American films continually find new and more poignant ways of exhibiting a woman’s beauty. Both divorce and sexuality are viewed differently in the ‘West’ than in the ‘East,’ but there are generalizations and exaggerations of both that render Kaname’s fixation with them more fantastical than real.
As for Kaname’s recognition of the wiles inherent in eastern tradition, the more shadowy locations in "Tade kuu mushi" seem to encourage his imagination and perpetuate a potentially false concept of the East. A perfect example of this is in Chapter Ten, wherein Kaname, walking alongside Ohisa with the Old Man toddling behind, is struck by the image of a dark old house. The passage that follows practically brims with enchanting musings as to what might actually be going on behind the house’s curtains, deep in the shadows beyond its latticework, a narrative technique that is largely unused up until this point in the novel—one that’s tapped only when the readers are finally given the opportunity to glance briefly into Kaname’s world of fantasy.
"When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me." --from Of Human Bondage (1915)
W. Somerset Maugham’s masterwork is the coming-of-age story of Philip Carey, a sensitive young man consumed by an unrequited and self-destructive love. Born with a clubfoot, Philip is orphaned as a child and raised by unsympathetic relatives. Sent to a boarding school where he has difficulty fitting in, he grows up with an intense longing for love, art, and experience. After failing to become an artist in Paris, he begins medical studies in London, where he meets Mildred, a cold-hearted waitress with whom he falls into a powerful, tortured, life-altering love affair. This is the most autobiographical of Maugham’s works, with Philip’s malformed foot standing in for Maugham’s stutter, and the character’s painful romantic struggles inspired by the author’s own intense love affairs with both men and women. A brilliant and deeply moving portrayal of the price of passion and the universal desire for connection, Of Human Bondage stands as one of the most accomplished novels in English literature. READ an excerpt here:http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/109372/of-human-bondage/
"American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers." --from "The Razor's Edge" (1943)
Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of his spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham's most brilliant characters - his fiancée Isabel whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions, and Elliott Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob. Maugham himself wanders in and out of the story, to observe his characters struggling with their fates.
"She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit, and having for thirty years known more or less ultimately a great many distinguished people, she had a great many interesting anecdotes to tell..." --from "The Creative Impulse"
Though W. Somerset Maugham was also famous for his novels and plays, it has been argued that in the short story he reached the pinnacle of his art. These expertly told tales, with their addictive plot twists and vividly drawn characters, are both galvanizing as literature and wonderfully entertaining. In the adventures of his alter ego Ashenden, a writer who (like Maugham himself) turned secret agent in World War I, as well as in stories set in such far-flung locales as South Pacific islands and colonial outposts in Southeast Asia, Maugham brings his characters vividly to life, and their humanity is more convincing for the author’s merciless exposure of their flaws and failures. Whether the chasms of misunderstanding he plumbs are those between colonizers and natives, between a missionary and a prostitute, or between a poetry-writing woman and her uncomprehending husband, Maugham brilliantly displays his irony, his wit, and his genius in the art of storytelling.
“A good style should show no signs of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident.” —W. Somerset Maugham, SUMMING UP (1938)
Somerset Maugham wrote in The Summing Up: “…there is a sort of magic in the written word. The idea acquires substance by taking on a visible nature, and then stands in the way of its own clarification.” 這本書的一拉丁詞 “The argument ex consensu gentium is that the belief in God is so widespread as to be grounded in the rational nature of man and should therefore carry ...普遍同意论证（Consensus gentium argument）. 也被通称为关于上帝存在的普遍同意论证。这个论证以下面的前提来基础：如果不严格区分，对上帝的信仰实质上是 ... An ancient criterion of truth, the consensus gentium (Latin for agreement of the people), states "that which is universal among ...
一九一五年的《人性枷鎖》與一九一九年的《月亮與六便士》，則更確立他在文壇的地位。其他著作有《剃刀邊緣》、《餅與酒》--台灣1960s 有譯本、《書與你》、《毛姆寫作回憶錄》等。 ... "For if the proper study of mankind is man it is evidently more sensible to occupy yourself with the coherent, substantial, and significant creatures of fiction than with the irrational and shadowy figures of real life.” - from CAKES AND ALE “It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.” ―from CAKES AND ALE or the Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930)
《尋歡作樂》翻譯過份:
お菓子とビール（英語版）（Cakes and Ale、1930年） 行方昭夫訳 岩波文庫（2011年）
毛姆的《餅與酒/尋歡作樂》（Cakes and Ale）就常被认为是讽刺哈代与他第二任妻子的小说，传言如此之盛，使毛姆 ...
上海譯文版 翻譯成 尋歡作樂
Cakes and Ale: or, the Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930) is a novel by British author William Somerset Maugham. It is often alleged to be a thinly-veiled roman à clef examining contemporary novelists Thomas Hardy (as Edward Driffield) and Hugh Walpole (as Alroy Kear)[citation needed] -— though Maugham maintained he had created both characters as composites and in fact explicitly denies any connection to Hardy in his own introduction to later editions of the novel. Maugham exposes the misguided social snobbery leveled at the character Rosie Driffield (Edward's first wife), whose frankness, honesty and sexual freedom make her a target of conservative propriety. Her character is treated favorably by the book's narrator, Ashenden, who understands her sexual energy to be a muse to the many artists who surround her. Maugham drew his title from the remark of Sir Toby Belch to Malvolio in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night: "Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" Cakes and ale are the emblems of the good life in the tagline to the fable attributed to Aesop, "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse": "Better beans and bacon in peace than cakes and ale in fear". Interestingly, it is one of two books to take the same quote for a title, the other being by Edward Spencer aka Edward Spencer Mott aka Nathaniel Gubbins.
“It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.”
“The ideal has many names and beauty is but one of them.”
“It must be that there is something naturally absurd in a sincere emotion, though why there should be I cannot imagine, unless it is that man, the ephemeral inhabitant of an insignificant planet, with all his pain and all his striving is but a jest in an eternal mind. ”
“The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried [phrase-making] to such a height of perfection and have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an amusing and animated conversation without giving a moment’s reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication.”
“As we grow older we become more conscious of the complexity, incoherence, and unreasonableness of human beings; this indeed is the only excuse that offers for the middle-aged or elderly writer, whose thoughts should more properly be turned to graver matters, occupying himself with the trivial concerns of imaginary people. For if the proper study of mankind is man it is evidently more sensible to occupy yourself with the coherent, substantial, and significant creatures of fiction than with the irrational and shadowy figures of real life.”
“It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer. ”
“A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he would be too old to be a clerk or a gardener or a police-court magistrate, that he is ripe to govern a country. This is not so strange when you reflect that from the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture...”
“I had not then acquired the technique that I flatter myself now enables me to deal competently with the works of modern artist. If this were the place I could write a very neat little guide to enable the amateur of pictures to deal to the satisfaction of their painters with the most diverse manifestations of the creative instinct. There is the intense ‘By God!’ that acknowledges the power of the ruthless realist, the ‘It’s so awfully sincere’ that covers your embarrassment when you are shown the coloured photograph of an alderman’s widow, the low whistle that exhibits your admiration for the post-impressionist, the ‘Terribly amusing’ that expresses what you feel about the cubist, the ‘Oh!’ of one who is overcome, the ‘Ah!’ of him
今天買毛姆『尋歡作樂』（Cakes and Ale）南京：譯林，2006，從書後之資料知道，書名取自莎士比亞的『第十二夜』：「你以為自己道德高尚，人家就不能尋歡作樂了嗎？」 我找一下： Cakes and Ale: or, the Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930) is a novel by British author William Somerset Maugham. It is a thinly veiled roman à clef satirizing contemporary novelists Thomas Hardy and Hugh Walpole.
Twelfth Night Act 2…..「你以為自己道德高尚，人家就不能尋歡作樂了嗎？」（…..because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale? .）
11:24 [hb5] 祝謝了、就擘開、說、這是我的身體、為你們捨的．〔捨有古卷作擘開〕你們應當如此行、為的是記念我。 [lb5] 祝謝擘開說︰「這是我的身體，是為了你們而舍的﹔你們要這樣行，來記念我。」 [nb5] 祝謝了，就擘開，說：“這是我的身體，為你們擘開的；你們應當這樣行，為的是記念我。” [asv] and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, This is my body, which is for you: this do in remembrance of me. [kjv] And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. [bbe] And when it had been broken with an act of praise, he said, This is my body which is for you: do this in memory of me. 11:25 [hb5] 飯後、也照樣拿起杯來、說、這杯是用我的血所立的新約．你們每逢喝的時候、要如此行、為的是記念我。 [lb5] 吃了餅以后，拿杯也照樣子﹔他說︰「這杯是新的約，用我的血立的﹔你們每逢喝的時候，總要這樣行，來記念我。」 [nb5] 飯後，照樣拿起杯來，說：“這杯是用我的血所立的新約，你們每逢喝的時候，應當這樣行，為的是記念我。” [asv] In like manner also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood: this do, as often as ye drink [it], in remembrance of me. [kjv] After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. [bbe] In the same way, with the cup, after the meal, he said, This cup is the new testament in my blood: do this, whenever you take it, in memory of me. 11:26 [hb5] 你們每逢吃這餅、喝這杯、是表明主的死、直等到他來。 [lb5] 你們每逢吃這餅喝這杯的時候，總是傳揚主的死，直到他來。 [nb5] 你們每逢吃這餅，喝這杯，就是宣揚主的死，直等到他來。 [asv] For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till he come. [kjv] For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come. [bbe] For whenever you take the bread and the cup you give witness to the Lord’s death till he comes.
CAKES AND ALE is a delicious satire of London literary society between the Wars. Social climber Alroy Kear is flattered when he is selected by Edward Driffield’s wife to pen the official biography of her lionized novelist husband, and determined to write a bestseller. But then Kear discovers the great novelist’s voluptuous muse (and unlikely first wife), Rosie. The lively, loving heroine once gave Driffield enough material to last a lifetime, but now her memory casts an embarrissing shadow over his career and respectable image. Wise, witty, deeply satisfying, CAKES AND ALE is Maugham at his best. READ more here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/…/cakes-and-ale-by-wsom…/
毛姆《觀點》(The Points of View by W. Somerset Maugham) 夏菁譯，上海：上海譯文，2011
線上預約
Audio: Lessing in 1994
