Recherche

The Nobel Lecture

Extraits

ActuaLitté

Non classé

The Nobel Peace Prize and the Laureates

The articles which are published in this volume investigate, on the basis of selected cases of mainly European winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, the meaning of the Prize and the award in the Prize winner's own countries. The case studies, which are mainly of a biographical nature, offer a varied picture with regard to the reactions of public opinion in the respective countries. They consent, however, in so far as the immediate impact of the award was only limited and of short duration.

05/1994

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Religion

The Rural Novel

Comparative in scope and theoretical rather than historical in approach, this study develops new methods for discussion of the rural novel, combining the insights of rural sociologists with those of theoreticians of fiction. The main focus of attention is the nexus of relationships between narrator, characters and community. While recognizing that conflicts of purpose often arise in the rural novel, which may aim both to record a supposedly real community and to suggest a model of social life, this study reaffirms the genre's value as a challenge to unthinking acceptance of a linear model of human progress.

12/1984

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Science-fiction

The aumakua. The great white shark novel

Just as I finished grabbing it, a sharp pain suddenly was erupting on the inside edge of my lair ! Simultaneously, a tension as unbearable as it was horrifying blocked me trying to pull me towards the surface. The kanakäs had just intercepted me through this lethal decoy ! So, with all my mass and was arching my body with all my strength in the opposite direction, I was regained some slack on this terribly resistant link, feeling all the mass of the platform preventing me from probing like the dontokä before. However, I was determined to show them which of us would be most worthy of remaining in the Incompressible, when with a devastating lateral movement, I severed with a sharp blow the lethal and imperceptible tether ! By this counter blow, I was as if immediately ejected : the perfidious artifact still embedded in my lair lying painfully like a relic of this ubiquitous creature of the System.

09/2023

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Sociologie

The Search for Meaning in the Australian Novel

This thesis grew out of an epistemological interest centered on the search for meaning in literature, and out of a reading of Australian novels. Reaching beyond signification, the creation of meaning in literature refers to the significance a text acquires for the recipient's existence. The potential of this meaningfulness fluctuates between a process of explanation, of uncovering hidden meaning, and deception. Assuming that this range is best demonstrated in the literary treatment of negative experiences in human existence, of pain and suffering, we analyse how Australian novelists and critics set paradigms of meaning against the "Non-Sense" in experienced reality, who and what the agents of meaningfulness in Australian literature are, how they relate to each other and how they affect our reading experience.

10/1991

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Policiers

Goebius' Strange Model

A company elaborates in great secrecy a project, vital to its very survival. As the project develops, it leads the protagonists far beyond the originally envisioned simple business strategy, and brings them close to the forefront of the physical laws governing the behavior of the universe. Two intrigues intertwine... will they meet ? Or do they form the single-sided face of a Möbius strip ? "This novel is as unexpected as a UFO, and refreshing..." Cédric Villani, Fields Medal 2010. "This book is fascinating, I read it all at once..." Etienne Ghys, Perpetual Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences.

01/2020

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Non classé

The Search for Lyonnesse

Although Mme de Lafayette is acknowledged as the founder of the modern novel, her precise legacy has been understood only in relation to male-authored texts. However, she wrote as a woman, addressing issues that concerned women of her day, particularly the problem of the apparent incompatibility of sexual fulfilment and the institution of marriage. This study seeks to identify how La Princesse de Clèves was interpreted by three of Mme de Lafayette's most talented women successors and to show how their more sombre and subversive view of society was mediated in works of fiction which have strong affinities with the contes de fées for which they are well known. The novels of Mlle Bernard, Mme d'Aulnoy and Mlle de La Force are significant, not simply for what they tell us about themselves as women writers but also for what they reveal about the origins of the eighteenth-century novel.

07/1999

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Histoire internationale

Female Initiation in the American Novel

Initiation has always been a major theme in American fiction. This study traces the hitherto neglected literary tradition of the adolescent heroine from the late eighteenth century to the present, focusing on important women writers such as Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, Katherine Anne Porter, Carson McCullers, or Sylvia Plath. Their works are compared and contrasted in a close analysis with particular emphasis on common patterns, recurrent motifs, and thematic parallels which illustrate the specific nature of female initiation in American literature.

04/1991

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Economie

Arguing about justice. Essays for Philippe Van Parijs

"A book of quick and sharp thoughts on a grand theme is a novel way of paying tribute to a leading philosopher. But it has worked beautifully here, both as a stimulating book of ideas on justice, and as a fitting recognition of the intellectual contributions of Philippe Van Parijs, who is one of the most original and most creative thinkers of our time". Amartya Sen, Harvard University, 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences This book brings together fifty of today's finest thinkers. They were asked to let their imaginations run free to advance new ideas on a wide range of social and political issues. They did so as friends, on the occasion of Philippe Van Parijs's sixtieth birthday. Rather than restricting themselves to comments on his numerous writings, the authors engage with the topics on which he has focused his attention over the years, especially with the various dimensions of justice, its scope, and its demands. They discuss issues ranging from the fair distribution of marriage opportunities to the limits of argumentation in a democracy, the deep roots of inequality, the challenges to basic income and the requirements of linguistic justice. They provide ample food for thought for both academic and general readers.

01/2011

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Roman d'amour, roman sentiment

The elements. The air he breathes

THE AIR HE BREATHESThe Elements livre 1Retrouveront-ils goût à la vie ? Premier volume d'une série de 4 titres de Brittainy Cherry, 4 standalones qui se lisent de manière indépendante, dont chaque volume correspond aux 4 éléments de l'univers : l'air, le feu, l'eau, et la terre. The Air He Breathes #1 (L'air)Fire Between High & Lo #2 (Le Feu)The Silent Waters #3 (L'eau)The Gravity of Us #4 (La terre) Tout le monde m'avait avertie au sujet de Tristan Cole. Garde tes distances avec lui me disait-on. Il est cruel. Il est froid. Il est bousillé. C'est facile de juger un homme sur son passé. De regarder Tristan et de ne voir en lui qu'un monstre. Mais je n'ai pas pu réagir de la sorte. J'ai reconnu la désolation qu'il portait parce qu'elle était comparable à celle qui m'habitait et je l'ai acceptée. Lui et moi nous étions des coquilles vides. Nous étions tous deux à la recherche d'autre chose. De quelque chose de plus. Nous voulions tous deux recoller les morceaux éparpillés de nos passé respectifs. C'était peut-être la condition pour que nous puissions finalement réapprendre à respirer. " Certains auteurs vous murmurent directement au coeur, et leurs mots ne vous quittent plus jamais. Brittainy C. Cherry en fait partie. On ne résiste pas au charme de The Air He Breathes. " San Francisco Chronicle

03/2024

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Fantasy

The Eminence in Shadow (Light Novel) T01

Derrière son apparence de lycéen lambda, Cid Kagenô rêve pourtant de puissance, celle d'un être qui tire les ficelles depuis l'ombre. Mais un tragique incident va rapidement mettre fin à ses ambitions... ou pas ! Réincarné dans un monde fantastique, il profite rapidement de la situation en montant sa propre organisation secrète, Shadow Garden, créant de toute pièces une histoire dont il est le personnage principal : "l'Eminence de l'Ombre" . Mais ses fantasmes pourraient bien s'avérer réalité...

05/2024

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12 ans et +

Les 8 royaumes mortels Tome 1 : La cité de Pierre-de-Vie

Raised as a slave in the Darkoath camps of Aqshy, Kiri dreams of a better life. Of a city of wonders, the place of her birth… Lifestone ! She despairs of ever reaching it until a fateful day arrives when her barbarian captors are attacked by Sigmar's noblest warriors, the Stormcast Eternals. Seizing her chance, Kiri flees through a mysterious realmgate that takes her far from the fiery lands of Aqshy. She arrives in the realm of Ghyran and finds the city of Lifestone. But a curse lies on this place, withering its noble spirit. Her path leads her to a special group of children who, like her, are realm-marked the prophecised saviours of Lifestone. There's Thanis, the fighter ; Alish, the inventor ; Kaspar ; the sneak and Elio, the healer. But dark forces are allying against the children and will do anything to stop them achieving their destiny.

06/2019

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Critique littéraire

Eloge de la lecture et de la fiction. Conférence du Nobel

La conférence du prix Nobel de Mario Vargas Llosa, Éloge de la lecture et de la fiction, réunit les idées, les obsessions, les souvenirs, les peurs et les espoirs d’un homme qui, au sommet de sa carrière, nous offre ces quelques pages à la manière d’une confession. Le ton est en effet intime et émotif. Le lauréat évoque son enfance, sa famille et son pays, il parle des auteurs et des livres qui ont marqué ses années de formation et sa trajectoire professionnelle, et il consacre bon nombre de pages à commenter la scène politique internationale et les passions qui agitent le monde actuel. On peut ainsi distinguer dans son discours trois rubriques différentes. La première est celle du Mario Vargas Llosa qui aime collectionner des hippopotames et passer du temps avec ses amis, celle du mari de Patricia Llosa, celle du père de Morgana et du grand-père de six enfants, celle, enfin, d’un homme qui s’appelle Mario mais que d’autres appellent Vargas Llosa. La deuxième rubrique est justement celle de Vargas Llosa, l’auteur d’une quinzaine des romans qui ont marqué les quarante dernières années. Il évoque les joies et les affres de l’écriture, les moments de découragement, la jubilation face au mot juste, la peur d’échouer et l’excitation que lui procure chaque nouveau projet. Enfin, la troisième, est celle de l’homme politique Vargas Llosa, que ses compatriotes discréditent en l’appelant sèchement « Vargas », et qui défend ouvertement les idées libérales comme étant les plus efficaces et les plus justes pour résoudre les problèmes de nos sociétés. « Mario », « Vargas Llosa » et « Vargas » sont sans doute très différents les uns des autres mais ce qui les unit ici est essentiellement leur passion pour la lecture et pour l’écriture comme instruments qui nous ouvrent les portes d’une vie meilleure, plus riche et plus diverse, plus tolérante et moins prévisible. Cette conférence est une célébration de la littérature comme langage commun inventé par les humains pour échapper à leur pauvre condition et s’élever au-delà d’eux-mêmes. C’est une leçon magistrale mais également une confession personnelle, un regard sur le monde et un acte de foi.

10/2011

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Lecture 6-9 ans

L'énigme du sabre. Edition bilingue français-anglais

C'est dimanche et comme souvent Louise et Arthur viennent rendre visite à leur grand-mère. Ils aiment bien y aller, elle joue avec eux et leur raconte plein d'histoires. Mais aujourd'hui, elle n'a pas le temps et les deux cousins s'ennuient. Alors, ils décident de grimper dans le grenier où sont entreposés de vieux souvenirs et objets abandonnés. Ils y ont déjà été, mais maintenant ils sont plus grands et peut-être trouveront-ils un trésor qu'ils n'avaient pas aperçu, lors de la dernière visite. Après un long moment de recherche, dans un coin, Louise découvre une malle poussiéreuse. Les deux cousins, l'ouvrent et entrevoient un sabre avec une inscription. Une trouvaille qui va les mener jusqu'à l'école militaire de Saint Cyr de Coëtquidan, sur les traces de leur grand père. It's a Sunday and often as not, Louise and Arthur go and visit their grandmother. They like to go there, she plays with them and tells them lots of stories. But this Sunday she does not have the time, so the two cousins are bored. They decide to climb up into the attic, where old memorabilia and abandoned objects are stored. They have been there before, but now that they are taller, maybe they will find a treasure they did not see during their last visit. After a long moment of searching, in a corner, Louise discovers a dusty trunk. The two cousins open it and see a sword with an inscription. A discovery that will lead them to the military school at Saint Cyr de Coëtquidan, in the footsteps of their grandfather.

06/2018

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Histoires et contes de Noël

MES PREMIÈRES LECTURE À DEUX VOIX - HISTOIRES DE NOËL

Les enfants préparent des biscuits pour le goûter de l'école ; au marché de Noël, un musicien joue de l'orgue de Barbarie ; le Père Noël rend visite à ses amis de la forêt... Dans ce livre, les jeunes enfants trouveront sept histoires à lire à deux voix pour s'initier au plaisir de la lecture. Les illustrations incrustées dans le texte invitent à chercher les mots et les boutons sonores donnent vie aux histoires.

10/2022

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Littérature française

Presque une nuit d'été

Un premier roman plein de fraîcheur où une jeune photographe cherche à saisir les beautés éphémères du quotidien. Elle suit un inconnu qui rentre chez lui avec ses courses, discute dans un bus avec un employé noctambule, observe une mère portant son bébé sur le dos… Et, surtout, elle fait la rencontre d'une vieille dame énigmatique et de l'insaisissable Joh. Au fil de ses promenades, notre héroïne convoque des souvenirs personnels, recueille des histoires intimes, pleines d'humanité et de courage, mais aussi des récits plus extravagants ou merveilleux. On suivra ainsi les aventures d'un jeune expatrié dans les bas-fonds d'une ville vietnamienne, le combat d'Ibtissem pour échapper à l'emprise de sa famille, le tragique destin de Tsukuyomi, dieu de la Lune banni du royaume céleste, ou encore les errances du fantôme de Yoru à la recherche de sa sœur perdue…

08/2018

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Littérature érotique et sentim

The elements Tome 1 : The air he breathes

Tout le monde m'avait avertie au sujet de Tristan Cole. "Garde tes distances avec lui", me disait-on. "Il est cruel, il est froid, il est bousillé". C'est facile de juger un homme sur son passé. De regarder Tristan et de voir en lui un monstre. Mais je n'ai pas pu réagir de la sorte. J'ai reconnu la désolation qu'il portait parce qu'elle était comparable à celle qui m'habitait, et je l'ai acceptée. Lui et moi, nous étions des coquilles vides. Nous étions tous deux à la recherche d'autre chose. De quelque chose de plus. Nous voulions tous deux recoller les morceaux éparpillés de nos passés respectifs. C'était peut-être la condition pour que nous puissions finalement réapprendre à respirer.

ActuaLitté

Monographies

Hilma af Klint. The Five Notebook 1

In 1896, Hilma af Klint and four other like-minded women artists left the Edelweiss Society and founded the "Friday Group", also known as "The Five". They met every Friday for spiritual meetings, including prayers, studies of the New Testament, meditation and séances. The medium exercised automatic writing and mediumistic drawing. Eventually they established contact with spiritual beings whom they called "The High Ones". In 1896, the five women began taking meticulous notes of the mediumistic messages conveyed by the spirits. In time, Hilma af Klint felt she had been selected for more important messages. After ten years of esoteric training with "The Five", aged 43, Hilma af Klint accepted a major assignment, the execution of The Paintings for the Temple. This commission, which engaged the artist from 1906 to 1915, changed the course of her life. In 1908, Rudolf Steiner, leader of the German Theosophical Society, held several lectures in Stockholm. He also visited af Klint's studio and saw some of the early Paintings for the Temple. In 1913, Steiner founded the Anthroposophical Society, which af Klint joined in 1920 and remained a member for the rest of her life.

01/2022

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Non classé

Confrontation with Exile: Studies in the German Novel

These studies are linked together by a central theme, namely the state of exile created by the Nazi rise to power. Each novel is examined against the socio-political background of the exile scene. Traditional artistic concepts and ideologies, carried over into the new environment, reveal problems of form and content which are treated in detail through individual analysis.

12/1976

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Littérature érotique et sentim

Indigenization of Language in the African Francophone Novel

Indigenization of Language in the African Francophone Novel : A New Literary Canon discusses the question of indigenization in the African Francophone novel. Analyzing the prose narratives of Nazi Boni, Ahmadou Kourouma, and Patrice Nganang, this book contends that African literature written in European languages is primarily a creative translation process. Recourse to European languages as a medium of expressing African imagination, worldview, and cultures in fictional writing poses problems of intelligibility. Developed to express and reflect Western worldviews and sensibilities, European languages are employed by African writers to convey messages that seem to be at variance with European imagination. These writers find themselves writing in languages they wish to subvert through the technique of literary indigenization. The significance of this study resides in its raising awareness to the hurdles that literary creativity in a polyglossic context may present to readers and translators. This book provides answers to intriguing questions centering on the problematic of translation in contemporary African literature. It is a contribution to current research aimed at unraveling the conundrum surrounding the language question in African Europhone fiction, particularly the cultural functions of translation in literature. Potential translation problems have to be addressed in order to make African literature written in European languages intelligible to global readership. With the advent of globalization, transcultural communication has become an activity of enormous importance to the international community. It is a subject of great interest to translators, linguists, language instructors, and literary theorists.

12/2010

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Sciences politiques

The Structure of Political Communication in the United Kingdom, the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany

Political Communication in The United Kingdom, the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany differs in terms of what the peoples expect to take issue with, how they are prepared to talk about them, which choices they can make to solve problems and, finally, whom or which organizations they delegate to resolve them. This comparative media study of The Economist, Time and Der Spiegel attempts to extract the differences in politics of the three societies.

11/1987

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Littérature française

XUEXI PU SONGLING (en Chinois)

Editor's Choice Nobel Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the 11th Chinese author Mo Yan 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature. The Commission said that Mo Yan combination of reality and fantasy. historical and social perspective. He created the world reminiscent of the works of Faulkner and Marquez fusion while to find a point of departure in traditional Chinese literature and oral literature. Summary Pu Songling's hometown Zibo and Mo Yan's hometown density very close from. Mo Yan is to listen to the story of Purkinje child grew up. Pu Songling fantasy style to Mo Yan's fiction writing brought a very big impact. but also achievements in the magical style of Mo Yan. Learn Pu Songling is selected from the group consisting of Mo Yan two more than thirty ghost stories. ghost legend. and some weird God God Buddies ghost novels. with high-density the flapping gray Year pictures unique. to bring people look good. magical shock strong visual impact. Mo Yan (1955 catalog learning Pu Songling adventure night fishing genius good doctor iron child flying odor tribe carpenter the dog sandals scenting sub sins the the airship Zaomu stool motorcycle the three horses hype gale five pastry dry river Baekgu Swing frame of February 17 -). formerly known as tube mo. born in Gaomi County. famous contemporary Chinese writers. Honorary Doctor of the Open University of Hong Kong. visiting professor at Qingdao University of Science and Technology. His rise since the mid-1980s to a series of local works. filled with nostalgia and blame Township complex emotional. are classified as Seeking literary writers. The works are influenced by magic realism. to write out a legend in the of Gaomi northeast Township. Mo Yan subjective feeling of the world in his novel structure unique to dream-like narrative. unfamiliar process. shaping the mysterious transcendental object world. with Pioneer color. In August 2011. Mo Yan With novel frog was the eighth Mao Dun. October 11. 2012. won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

11/2012

ActuaLitté

Divers

Charlotte Lennox, "The Female Quixote". Agrégation d'anglais, Edition 2024-2025

Picture a resolute heroine from a seventeenth-century French romance who has been unknowingly teleported to mid-eighteenth-century Britain. Equipped with her worldview fashioned by the beliefs and values of those romances, how would she navigate this unfamiliar world ? Would her journey be a seamless progression from one comically ridiculous error to the next ? How would she assess the morals and customs of her newfound society, and how would its members perceive her ? In The Female Quixote, Charlotte Lennox embarks on this imaginative experiment. Her Cervantean parody fosters a dynamic reading experience, swinging between complicity and detachment. It projects an image of the parodied romances but also of the social world of eighteenth-century Britain. Encouraging readers to contemplate the fluid interplay between fiction and the real, the novel prompts reflection on the disparities between the social norms of both realms. This study takes a multifaceted approach to Lennox's novel, situating the work in its literary-historical context and examining the narrative features aligning it both with realist novels and romances. Additionally, it analyses key themes and provides summaries of characters and chapters. The study also offers a selection of texts that shed light on the debates accompanying the transition from an older codification of prose fiction to a new contender : the realist novel. The overarching objective is to showcase The Female Quixote's significance in shaping the modern novel's early history.

11/2023

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Religion

Origines de Jésus. Une lecture théologique des Evangiles de Noël

Gaspard, Melchior et Balthazar, entre le boeuf et l'âne gris... Loin des images infantiles répétées lors des fêtes de fin d'année et librement inspirées des évangiles apocryphes, les deux premiers chapitres des évangiles de Matthieu et de Luc révèlent, en plus de l'origine de Jésus, le projet de Dieu pour les hommes et le moyen d'y participer. Les récits de la Nativité et des premières années de la vie du Christ, décryptés ici par Jean-Michel Maldamé, parlent au coeur et à l'intelligence et éclairent le sens de notre propre présence sur terre. Avec Marie, Joseph, Elisabeth, Zacharie, Anne, Syméon, les bergers et les mages paraît ainsi le visage de l'humanité nouvelle rassemblée par le Messie. Un livre de théologie, sur fond de science, qui ouvre sur la contemplation.

03/2019

ActuaLitté

Littérature française

Sons of Fantasy

When we were children, we believed anything was possible... This book is a fantasy novel originally written for children. But, if you are a father or a mother, a teacher or a writer, if you still have some bits of fantasy in your soul... then, this novel is for you too. We all know how geniuses changed the world with their childlike Imagination, and how people use creative thinking to solve problems. This is a story about hope ; "Sons of Fantasy" shares the story of M. Alger, a father grieving for the loss of his dear wife, who left him with two beautiful kids. Norris and Socrates were adjusting to life without Mom... But things got more complicated when one of them was paralyzed because of a severe psychological trauma due to an overdose of fantasy... This family has a very interesting neighbor who lives a few feet away. He has a weird little hobby, reading books in the most unlikely places... He for example travelled to Romania and read "Dracula" by Bram Stoker in the Castelul Bran Castle, because it's said that the main character Dracula lived in it. And then all of a sudden he stopped travelling... He got a month ago a big long hat that belongs to the greatest witch that lived during the middle ages, "Moje Gayla". In fact, after being burned by the church, one of her relatives kept her belongings inside a wooden box... and in the twentieth century one of her grandchildren donated the box to "The Magic Square Museum" in London. Genius bought the hat at a public auction as an art relic to decorate one of his rooms. Could this weird neighbor be the reason of Socrates' psychological trauma ? Or maybe he is the one who will cure him ? And what has the hat to do with all this ?

08/2018

ActuaLitté

Anglais apprentissage

LA VIERGE ET LE GITAN : THE VIRGIN AND THE GIPSY

When the vicar's wife went off with a young and penniless man the scandal knew no bounds. Her two little girls were only seven and nine years old respectively. And the vicar was such a good husband. True, his hair was grey. But his moustache was dark, he was handsome, and still full of furtive passion for his unrestrained and beautiful wife. Why did she go ? Why did she burst away with such an éclat of revulsion, like a touch of madness ? Nobody gave any answer. Only the pious said she was a bad woman. While some of the good women kept silent. They knew. The two little girls never knew. Wounded, they decided that it was because their mother found them negligible. The ill wind that blows nobody any good swept away the vicarage family on its blast. Then lo and behold ! the vicar, who was somewhat distinguished as an essayist and a controversialist, and whose case had aroused sympathy among the bookish men, received the living of Papplewick. The Lord had tempered the wind of misfortune with a rectorate in the north country. [...] "Lorsque la femme du pasteur s'enfuit avec un jeune homme sans le sou, le scandale ne connut pas de bornes. Ses deux fillettes n'avaient que sept et neuf ans respectivement. Et le pasteur était un si bon mari. Certes, il avait les cheveux gris, mais sa moustache était restée noire, il était bel homme et brûlait encore d'une passion furtive pour sa belle épouse immodeste. Pourquoi était-elle partie ? Pourquoi s'était-elle arrachée à lui, dans un tel éclat de dégoût, comme un grain de folie ? Personne n'apporta de réponse. Seules, les dévotes dirent que c'était une mauvaise femme. Cependant que certaines femmes de bien gardaient le silence. Elles comprenaient, elles. Les deux fillettes ne comprirent jamais. Blessées, elles jugèrent que c'était parce que leur mère les tenait pour quantité négligeable. Le vent du malheur qui est censé être bon à quelque chose balaya de son souffle les habitants de la cure. Puis, miracle, le pasteur, qui avait une certaine éminence comme essayiste et polémiste, et dont la situation avait su émouvoir certains intellectuels, fut nommé à la paroisse de Papplewick. Le Seigneur avait adouci l'ouragan du malheur par un bénéfice de recteur dans le nord du pays. " [...]

02/1993

ActuaLitté

Histoire et Philosophiesophie

The Undergrowth of Science. Delusion, self-deception and human frailty

Walter Gratzer's themes in the stories he relates in The Undergrowth of Science are collective delusion and human folly. Science is generally seen as a process bound by rigorous rules, which its practitioners must not transgress. Deliberate fraud occasionally intrudes, but it is soon detected, the perpetrators cast out and the course of discovery barely disturbed. Far more interesting are the outbreaks of self-delusion that from time to time afflict upright and competent researchers, and then spread like an epidemic or mass-hysteria through a sober and respectable scientific community. When this happens the rules by which scientists normally govern their working lives are suddenly suspended. Sometimes these episodes are provoked by personal vanity, an unwillingness to acknowledge error or even contemplate the possibility that a hard-won success is a will o' the wisp; at other times they stem from loyalty to a respected and trusted guru, or even from patriotic pride; and, worst of ail, they may be a consequence of a political ideology which imposes its own interpretation on scientists' observations of the natural world. Unreason and credulity supervene, illusory phenomena are described and measured, and theories are developed to explain them - until suddenly, often for no single reason, the bubble bursts, leaving behind it a residue of acrimony, recrimination, embarrassment and ruined reputations. Here, then, are radiations, measured with high precision yet existing only in the minds of those who observed them; the Russian water, which some thought might congeal the oceans: phantom diseases which called for heroic surgery; monkey testis implants that restored the sexual powers of ageing roués and of tired sheep; truths about genetics and about the nature of matter, perceptible only to Aryan scientists in the Third Reich or Marxist ideologues in the Soviet Union; and much more. The Undergrowth of Science explores, in terms accessible to the lay reader, the history of such episodes, up to our own time, in ail their absurdity, tragedy and pathos.

01/2000

ActuaLitté

Poésie

Epilepsy: the invisible pain

They say life is a long stretch of a calm river, but not for everyone ! She was for me until the day when everything rocked, the day my destiny was changed dramatically. People do not realize how life can be so sweet and so beautiful. They complain all day long for trivialities. They are not even aware that they have before their eyes the most beautiful wealth : the luck and happiness of living in good health. I was rich before. Now I am poor because my child has an incurable disease, that has currently no hope of being healed. As a parent, how can we accept that ? , How to continue living carrying the bundle of pain in my head ? , How to overcome this feeling of helplessness ? When I started speaking to my heart, I didn't know myself that this was the beginning of a new life : a rebirth as a poet. When I learnt that my 7-year-old daughter was suffering from the Dravet Syndrome, a rare genetic epileptic encephalopathy, this was like an earthquake in my life. Then, I needed to write in order to express my sorrow and my pain. Words and rhymes came naturally to my mind. This was obvious that poetry would be my survival weapon.

01/2019

ActuaLitté

Littérature française

Willa Cather my Antonia. Unabridged Text with Introduction, Biography and Analysis

Willa Cather My Ántonia : Unabridged Text with Introduction, Biography and Analysis My Ántonia is a novel published in 1918 by American writer Willa Cather, considered one of her best works. It is the final book of her "prairie trilogy" of novels, preceded by O Pioneers ! and The Song of the Lark. The novel tells the stories of an orphaned boy from Virginia, Jim Burden, and the elder daughter in a family of Bohemian immigrants, Ántonia Shimerda, who are each brought as children to be pioneers in Nebraska towards the end of the 19th century. Both the pioneers who first break the prairie sod for farming, as well as of the harsh but fertile land itself, feature in this American novel. The first year in the very new place leaves strong impressions in both children, affecting them lifelong. This novel is considered Cather's first masterpiece. Cather was praised for bringing the American West to life and making it personally interesting. This edition includes the full original version of the Willa Cather's book and provides other valuable features under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, including a commented introduction, helpful bibliography, author's biography, notes, references, and much more.

05/2017

ActuaLitté

Non classé

Thackeray and the Problem of Realism

Although it is traditional to see a certain kind of "realism" as the essence of fiction, in practice novels of course offer not a simple reproduction of experience but a throughgoing organization of it. The novel is, after all, a bourgeois genre and it reflects that bourgeois view of life according to which the world is there merely to be dominated and controlled by man. This study examines both Thackeray's early fiction, in which both the novel form and the manipulative society to which it belongs are attacked, and his later works, in which they are defended, and tries to determine the reasons for this change.

12/1986

ActuaLitté

Français

Mon carnet de lecture Bac Français. Toutes mes lectures en un seul carnet !

Mon carnet de lecture à compléter et à conserver, avec des rubriques guidées, pour réussir le Bac Français ! Un carnet de lecture à compléter, à personnaliser et à conserver, avec des rubriques guidées, pour réussir le Bac Français. Avec en plus : - des mémos visuels sur les mouvements littéraires - une frise historique et culturelle illustrée - des biographies et portraits des principaux auteurs - des fiches méthode pour l'oral du Bac - un lexique

07/2022