مآسي ادجر الن بو :

- ولد ادجر الن بو عام 1809.
-كان "إدجار" هو الثاني ، وإذ جاء الطفل الثالث، مات الأب ديفيد بو عام 1810 ليترك أسرته الصغيرة في مهب الريح وكان إدجار لم يبلغ عامه الثاني.
-انتقلت الأم "اليزابيث هوبكنز" إلى "ريتشموند" بعد وفاة زوجها، حاملة معها أصغر طفليها، وتاركة الابن الأكبر "ويليام" لدي أقاربه في "بالتيمور" لتبدأ هي رحلة الكفاح لإيجاد قوت طفليها، بينما السل ينهش صدرها كل يوم أكثر وأكثر.
-عندما أتم "إدجار" العامين من عمره، ماتت أمه ، لتكمل دائرة يتمه هو وأخته الصغيرة "روزالى".
-تلاهما موت أخوه الأكبر ويليام وهو شاب .
-بينما جُنت أخته روزيلي.
-كما قررت زوجة التاجر الشهير جون آلان مسز "فرانسيس آلان" أن تأخذ "إدجار" ليعيش معها عوضاً عن الأطفال التى حرمت منهم لعقمها، بينما تبنت أسرة أخرى الطفلة "روزالى" وكان هذا عام 1811م، فعاش ادجار مدة فى انجلترا بين عامى (1815-1820)، ورغم أن هذه العائلة لم تتبناه رسمياً رغم محاولات مسز "آلان" المستميتة لتبنيه رسمياً "إدجار" إلا أن الزوج "جون آلان" رفض هذا رفضاً قاطعاً، لما كانت لسمعة التمثيل من احتقار وجلب للعار في هذا الوقت، إلا أن "إدجار" احتفظ باسم "آلان" كاسم أوسط له.
-في السادسة من عمره، انتقل "إدجار" مع أسرته الجديدة إلى سكوتلاندا ثم إلى إنجلترا ليقضي فيها خمس سنوات، حيث درس في مدرسة "مانور" في "ستوك نوينجتن" والتى كانت عبارة عن قصر قديم، يحتوي على متاهة من الممرات، جعلت مجرد الوصول إلى إحدي الغرف، مغامرة غامضة غير مأمونة العواقب، وربما كانت هذه المدرسة هي المسئولة عن القصور المظلمة في قصص "بو" بعد ذلك .
-عندما بلغ "إدجار" الحادية عشر، عاد مع أسرته إلى "ريتشموند" التى كانت – على الرغم من جمالها – خانقة بالنسبة لـ "إدجار" خاصة مع الجو الأرستقراطي السائد هناك.
-خسر صديقته وادمن الخمر والقمار وأدى ذلك إلى طرده من الجامعة.
-التحق بالجيش لكنه انفصل عنه.
-تم طرده من كلية وست بوينت.
-نقطة فاصلة وقاصمة في حياة إدجار، وذلك بوفاة صديقته وراعيته الوحيدة مسز "آلان" سنة 1829. كانت هذه هي الوفاة الثانية في حياة "بو" لامرأة يتعلق بها، وبعد وفاتها بسنة تزوج "جون آلان" من "لويزا باترسون"، التي كانت العلاقة بينها وبين "بو" يحكمها الشعور المتبادل بعدم الارتياح.
-لا أحد يعرف الكثير عن حياة "بو" في السنوات الثلاث التي تلت طرده من الجيش، لكن ما لا شك فيه أنها كانت حياة فقرٍ وتشرد إلي أن قرر "إدجار" الانتقال للعيش مع عمته "ماريا كليم" والتى كانت خياطة فقيرة في "بالتيمور" والتى استقبلت "إدجار" بحرارة، وقامت برعايته وابنتها الصغيرة "فرجينيا"، فكانت تعمل بجد في مهن وضيعة، بينما كان "إدجار" يساعد بدوره عن طريق الاشتراك في المسابقات الأدبية ذات الجوائز المالية ، والعمل كمحرر صحفي في العديد من المجلات والصحف الأدبية، شاعراً بالإضطهاد ومسمياً نفسه "الذي تهوي عليه الكوارث بسرعة".

-مرضت الزوجة الصغيرة بالسل وهي في التاسعة عشر من عمرها، ولم يجد "إدجار" ما يكفي من النقود لمداواتها قبل أن يتمكن المرض القاتل منها، بل إن من زاروه في بيته قالوا أنه لم يكن يجد ما يدفئها به، فكان يغطيها بمعطفه، ويغري القط بالنوم على صدرها ليدفئه، وكم عانى وهو يرى حياتها تنسحب من جسدها الرقيق رويداً رويداً، بل إنه كان يكابر فيصر على أنها ليست مريضة بل تعاني فقط من تمزق أحد شرايينها، وحينما توفيت سنة 1847 بعد خمس سنوات من المرض والألم لم يجد من النقود ما يكفي لنفقات دفنها، فتطوع الجيران بالتبرع لهذا الأمر.

-كانت هذه هي الوفاة الثالثة في حياته لامرأة أحبها وتعلق بها، لكنها هذه المرة كانت صدمة عمره،واستولى عليه الإكتئاب وانغمس في الخمر والمخدرات، وحاول الإنتحار ذات مرة بالأفيون، وأنكب كالمحمومليكتب كتابه "وجدتها" والذي كان يعتقد أنه يعبر عن الحقيقة المطلقة.

شخص هوت عليه الكوارث بسرعة وتكرار فمات أبوه أولا وهو في عامه الأول، ثم ماتت أمه المريضة بالسل وهو في سن الثانية، انفصل عن أخوه الكبير، وليم الذي مات بعد ذلك وهو شاب، وجنت اختة روزالي، وتم تبنيه من عائلة ميسورة وسافر معها إلى لندن، لكن سيدة البيت وهي بديل أمه، واقرب الناس إليه ماتت عام 1829 أي وعمره عشرون سنه. ثم ماتت زوجته في وقت لاحق لكنه وكنتيجة لهذه المآسي اصبح عبقريا وانجز ما يعجز 10 رجال عن انجازه رغم انه مان قبل ان يصل سن الاربعين .

- أديب اختلفوا بشأنه ، ما بين هوس وضجر تباينت حياله مواقف الأدباء والشعراء على مدار السنين، أكبره "بودلير" فترجم جميع أعماله وكتب عنه، بينما صرفه أدباء أمريكيون عن أذهانهم تماما ، واعتبر البعض كتاباته مليئة بالغموض والفوضى والرتابة ،ولكن ظل إدجار آلان بو مؤسس الشعر الحديث وأكبر أديب وضع قواعد أدب الرعب والبوليسية لمن خلفه.
- في الخامسة من عمره كان ادجار ينشد الشعر الانجليزي مما دفع احد أساتذته في مدرسة ريشموند الى قول : "يكتب الأولاد الاخرين قصائد عن الميكانيكا نجد بو يكتب الشعر الاصلي، هذا الولد خلق شاعرا "، وفي انجلترا بدأ إدجار بو بتثقيف نفسه شعرياً فارتاد مدرسة في مزرعة عام 1815م وفيما بعد كتب قصته "ويليام ويلسون".
- التحق بو بجامعة فرجينيا 1826، حيث بدأت آفة "إدجار" الكبرى إدمان الخمر والقمار، فقد كان "إدجار" قبل أن يسافر للجامعة يحب صبية تدعى "إلميرا رويستر"، لكنه حينما عاد إلى ريتشموند في أجازة بعد غياب عشرة شهور، فوجيء بأن حبيبة صباه قد خطبت لشخص آخر أعجب به والداها، اللذان لم يرضيا أبداً عن علاقتها بالفتى المتبنى "بو"، وحينما عاد إلى الجامعة أنغمس في لعب القمار، و تورط بسبب ذلك في ديون بلغت قيمتها ألفي دولار، ولم يستطع دفعها، فلجأ إلى والده بالتبني .. حينها وصلت الأمور بين الرجلين إلى الأسوأ، وانتهى العراك بينهما بأن رفض "جون آلان" أن يدفع شيئاً عن بو، الذي تم طرده من الجامعة، ونبذه مربيه وأوقف رعايته له.
- ذهب إلى "بوسطن"، حيث أصدر أولى مجموعاته الشعرية، قبل أن يلتحق بالجيش تحت اسم مستعار هو "إدجار بيري" ولكنه لم يحتمل الجيش طويلاً، فأرسل رسالة ندم إلى الزوج، الذي قرر مسامحته، ودفع لإخراجه من الجيش كما كان سائداً في ذلك الوقت، وفى عام 1830 انضم إلى أكاديمية ويست بوينت العسكرية، بعد أن أصدر ثاني مجموعاته الشعرية في "بالتيمور"، ولكن تم طرده بعد ذلك بعام لعدم آدائه للواجبات المطلوبة منه.

- عمل بو محرراً في الكثير من المجلات الأدبية ، مثل مجلة "مراسل الجنوب الأدبي"، و "جراهام"، و"برودواي جورنال" وغيرها .
- حصل على قدر كبير من الشهرة كناقد صارم لا يرحم.
- تزوج ابنة عمته الصغيرة الحسناء "فرجينيا كلم" ذات الثلاثة عشر ربيعاً، وهو أمر استغربه كثيرٌ من النقاد والمؤرخين فيما بعد، بسبب صغر عمر الفتاة، ورجح البعض أن سبب الزواج كان الارتباط أكثر بعمته التي اعتمد عليها في إعالته منذ سنة 1833.
- في عام 1837 نجح "بو" في نشر أول روية له تحت اسم "حكاية آرثر جور دون".
- بعد ذلك بعامين انتقل إلى "فيلادلفيا" مع أسرته ليبدأ في تحرير مجلة "بيرتون جنتلمان" .
- ثم طرح أولى مجموعات قصص الرعب عام 1840؛
- ثم انتقل "بو" ليصبح رئيس تحرير مجلة في أمريكا، والتى طرح فيها روايته البوليسية "جريمة قتل في المشرحة" والتى ترجمت للفرنسية، وتناولتها الجرائد الفرنسية.
- في عام 1843 حصدت قصة "الحشرة الذهبية" جائزة جريدة "فيلادلفيا" وقدرها مائة دولار.
- في العام التالى ترك "بو" مجلة "جراهام" وعاد إلى "نيويورك" لينشر قصيدته "الغراب" والتى كانت سبب شهرته في جميع الأوساط الأدبية.
- كانت هذه هي الوفاة الثالثة في حياته لامرأة أحبها وتعلق بها، لكنها هذه المرة كانت صدمة عمره، واستولى عليه الإكتئاب وانغمس في الخمر والمخدرات، وحاول الإنتحار ذات مرة بالأفيون، وأنكب كالمحمومليكتب كتابه "وجدتها" والذي كان يعتقد أنه يعبر عن الحقيقة المطلقة.
-حينما توفيت زوجته "فرجينيا كلم"، كتب فيها أرق قصائده : "أنابل لي" سنة 1849، حيث تخيلها فتاةً كالملائكة سماها بهذا الاسم يقول فيها:
- كان حلمه الكبير أن يصدر مجلة أدبية يحررها ويديرها بنفسه، ومن أجل الحصول على رأس المال الكافي تورط في مشروع زواج من أرملة غنية تدعى "سارة هيلين ويتمان"، لكن المشروع فشل في النهاية لأن الأرملة اشترطت عليه الكف عن شرب الخمر، الأمر الذي لم ينجح فيه "بو".
- لم يجد أمامه للحصول على المال الكافي سوى التجول وإعطاء محاضرات أدبية في بعض المدن، وأثناء جولته قابل حبيبة صباه "إلميرا رويستر"، التي أصبحت أرملة بدورها، فقرر الزواج منها، ربما محاولةً للهروب من أحزانه واكتئابه، لكن المتبقي من حياته لم يكن يزيد عن شهرين.
- كان شاعراً بالدرجة الأولى ، ولولا الحاجة والرغبة في كسب قوت يومه لما كتب غير الشعر، يقول واصفاً ولعه بالشعر"بالنسبة لي فإن الشعر ليس هدفاً وإنما هو هوس انفعالي يسيطر علي .. نعم إن الشعر هوس غالب مثله في ذلك مثل الحب، أو الحرية، أو الجنون".

- استطاع عبر سنوات عمره القصير أن يصنع صرحاً أدبياً عملاقاً، جعله يحتل إحدى القمم الشامخة، لمملكة الأدب الساحرة.

كان ادجر الن بو لطيم فاقد الاب والام لكن مآسيه كانت متعددة ومتكرره حيث مات اخاه الاكبر، وجنت اخته وماتت زوجته، وماتت امه البديلة قبل ان يصل الى سن الاربعين.

ولا عجب اذا ان يكون عبقرية فذة يكون لكلامه وقع السحر.

ملاحظة معد الدراسة : يمثل ادجر الن بو واحد من الامثلة على اثر الموت وتعدد المآسي في صنع العبقرية المذهلة.

لطيم ويتيم اجتماعي ومأزوم .

The novel is presented as a diary written by Zeno (who claims that it is full of lies), published by his doctor. The doctor has left a little note in the beginning, saying he had Zeno write an autobiography to help him in his psychoanalysis. The doctor has published the work as revenge for Zeno discontinuing his visits.
The diary, however, does not follow the chronological order; instead, it is structured in large chapters, each one developing a particular theme (The smoke addiction, My father's death, History of my marriage and so on). Only the last chapter is a real diary, with pages related to single dates in the period of the First World War.
Zeno first writes about his cigarette addiction and cites the first times he smoked. In his first few paragraphs, he remembers his life as a child. One of his friends bought cigarettes for his brother and him. Soon, he steals money from his father to buy tobacco, but finally decides not to do this out of shame. Eventually, he starts to smoke his father's half-smoked cigars instead.
The problem with his "last cigarette" starts when he is twenty. He contracts a fever and his doctor tells him that to heal he must abstain from smoking. He decides smoking is bad for him and smokes his "last cigarette" so he can quit. However, this is not his last and he soon becomes plagued with "last cigarettes." He attempts to quit on days of important events in his life and soon obsessively attempts to quit on the basis of the harmony in the numbers of dates. Each time, the cigarette fails to truly be the last. He goes to doctors and asks friends to help him give up the habit, but to no avail. He even commits himself into a clinic, but escapes.
When Zeno reaches middle age, his father's health begins to deteriorate. He starts to live closer to his father in case he passes away. Zeno is very different from his father, who is a serious man, while Zeno likes to joke. For instance, when his father states that Zeno is crazy, Zeno goes to the doctor and gets an official certification that he is sane. He shows this to his father who is hurt by this joke and becomes even more convinced that Zeno must be crazy. His father is also afraid of death, being very uncomfortable with the drafting of his will. One night, his father falls gravely ill and loses consciousness. The doctor comes and works on the patient, who is brought out of the clutches of death momentarily. Over the next few days, his father is able to get up and regains a bit of his self. He is restless and shifts positions for comfort often, even though the doctor says that staying in bed would be good for his circulation. One night, as his father tries to roll out of bed, Zeno blocks him from moving, to do as the doctor wished. His angry father then stands up and accidentally slaps Zeno in the face before dying.
His memoirs then trace how he meets his wife. When he is starting to learn about the business world, he meets his future father-in-law Giovanni Malfenti, an intelligent and successful businessman, whom Zeno admires. Malfenti has four daughters, Ada, Augusta, Alberta, and Anna, and when Zeno meets them, he decides that he wants to court Ada because of her beauty and since Alberta is quite young, while he regards Augusta as too plain, and Anna is only a little girl. He is unsuccessful and the Malfentis think that he is actually trying to court Augusta. He soon meets his rival for Ada's love, who is Guido Speier. Guido speaks perfect Tuscan (while Zeno speaks the dialect of Trieste), is handsome, and has a full head of hair (compared with Zeno's bald head). That evening, while Guido and Zeno both visit the Malfentis, Zeno proposes to Ada and she rejects him for Guido. Zeno then proposes to Alberta, who is not interested in marrying, and he is rejected by her also. Finally, he proposes to Augusta (who knows that Zeno first proposed to the other two) and she accepts, because she loves him.
Very soon, the couples get married and Zeno starts to realize that he can love Augusta. This surprises him as his love for her does not diminish. However, he meets Carla, a poor aspiring singer, and they start an affair, with Carla thinking that Zeno does not love his wife. Meanwhile, Ada and Guido marry and Mr. Malfenti gets sick. Zeno's affection for both Augusta and Carla increases and he has a daughter named Antonia around the time Giovanni passes away. Finally, one day, Carla expresses a sudden whim to see Augusta. Zeno deceives Carla and causes her to meet Ada instead. Carla misrepresents Ada as Zeno's wife, and moved by her beauty and sadness, breaks off the affair.
Zeno goes on to relate the business partnership between him and Guido. The two men set up a merchant business together in Trieste. They hire two workers named Luciano and Carmen (who becomes Guido's mistress) and they attempt to make as much profit as possible. However, due to Guido's obsession with debts and credit as well as with the notion of profit, the company does poorly. Guido and Ada's marriage begins to crumble as does Ada's health and beauty. Guido fakes a suicide attempt to gain Ada's compassion and she asks Zeno to help Guido's failing company. Guido starts playing on the Bourse (stock exchange) and loses even more money. On a fishing trip, he asks Zeno about the differences in effects between sodium veronal and veronal and Zeno answers that sodium veronal is fatal while veronal is not. Guido's gambling on the Bourse becomes very destructive and he finally tries to fake another suicide to gain Ada's compassion. However, he takes a fatal amount of veronal and dies. Soon thereafter, Zeno misses Guido's funeral because he himself gambles Guido's money on the Bourse and recovers three quarters of the losses.
Zeno describes his current life. It is during the Great War and his daughter Antonia (who greatly resembles Ada) and son Alfio have grown up. He spends his time visiting doctors, looking for a cure to his imagined sickness. One of the doctors claims he is suffering from the Oedipus complex, but Zeno does not believe it to be true. All the doctors are not able to treat him. Finally, he realizes that life itself resembles sickness because it has advancements and setbacks and always ends in death. Human advancement has given mankind not more able bodies, but weapons that can be sold, bought, stolen to prolong life. This deviation from natural selection causes more sickness and weakness in humans. Zeno imagines a time when a person will invent a new, powerful weapon of mass destruction and another will steal it and destroy the world, setting it free of sickness

اعترافات زينو

وتمتد أشكال الهزل الأسود في الرواية إلى ميدان الدراما فيبحث كتاب الكوميديا المأساوية ومسرح العبث من أمثال ساميويل بيكيت Samuel Beckett ويوجين يونسكو EugèneIonesco وهارولد بنتر Harold Pinter الجانب الهزلي للموت. ومع ذلك فان النقاد اكتشفوا كثيرا من التنوع في كتابات هؤلاء المسرحيين. يعتقد بيكيت انه في وجه عجزنا عن فهم الموت ومعناه لا يسعنا إلا أن نضحك من عبثية هذا الكون. ويرى النقاد أن يونيسكو في معالجته لفكرة الموت أكد معنى الحياة وجدواها. أما يوجين أونيل EugeneO’Neill وتنيسي وليامز Tennessee Williams فاستعملا الموت لتتويج الحدث المأساوي على خشبة المسرح وانهائه. وقال الناقد فيليب ارماتو إن مسرحيات تنيسي وليامز هي بحث شاعر عن حل للمشكلات التي تولدت من وعي الانسان بحتمية الموت. بينما رأى ناقد اخر هو روبرت فيلدمان ان مسرحيات يوجين أونيل تعبير عن الشوق إلى الموت هربا من آلام الحياة.
هذه المواقف من الموت تنعكس في الشعر كذلك. ويرى النقاد أن أكثر الشعراء الذين بحثوا في الموت هم الذين كتبوا أشعارا اعترفوا فيها بمكنونات نفوسهم من امثال سيلفيا بلاث Sylvia Plath وآن سيكستون Anne Sexton وروبرت لويل Robert Lowell وجون باريمان John Berryman. في أشعار هؤلاء وأمثالهم يقع الوعي بحتمية الموت في أعماق الخبرة الحياتية، وهي الخبرة التي أدت في حال بلاث وسيكستون إلى الانتحار.

Italo Svevo

was the pseudonym of Italian novelist Ettore Schmitz, b. Dec. 19, 1861, d. Sept. 13, 1928, author of A Life (1892; Eng. trans., 1963), As a Man Grows Older (1898; Eng. trans., 1932), and The Confessions of Zeno (1923; Eng. trans., 1930), regarded as his masterpiece. These works, which pioneer in the use of stream-of-consciousness narrative and thought analysis, are often called the forerunners of the modern psychoanalytic novel and have been compared with works by Proust and Joyce. Svevo's works were greatly admired by Joyce, who was instrumental in bringing Svevo's writing to the attention of the public.
Aron Ettore Schmitz (December 19, 1861 – September 13, 1928), better known by the pseudonym Italo Svevo, was an Italian writer and businessman, author of novels, plays, and short stories.

Born in Trieste (then in Austria-Hungary) as Aron Ettore Schmit to a Jewish family that originated in Germany, Italo Svevo (literally Italianswabian) wrote the classic novel La Coscienza di Zeno (rendered as Confessions of Zeno, or Zeno's Conscience) and self-published it in 1923. The work, showing the author's interest in the theories of Sigmund Freud, is written in the form of the memoirs of one Zeno Cosini, who writes them at the insistence of his psychoanalyst. Schmitz's novel received almost no attention from Italian readers and critics at the time.
The work might have disappeared altogether if it were not for the efforts of James Joyce. Joyce had met Schmitz in 1907, when Joyce tutored him in English while working for Berlitz in Trieste. Joyce read Schmitz's earlier novel Senilità, which had also been largely ignored when published in 1898.
Joyce championed Confessions of Zeno, helping to have it translated into French and then published in Paris, where critics praised it extravagantly. That led Italian critics, including Eugenio Montale, to discover it. Zeno Cosini, the book's hero, mirrored Schmitz, being a businessman fascinated by Freudian theory.
Svevo was also a model for Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Joyce's Ulysses.[2]
Svevo was a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the end of the First World War. He spoke Italian as a second language (as he usually spoke the Triestine dialect).
Confessions of Zeno never looks outside the narrow confines of Trieste, much like Joyce's work, which rarely left Dublin in the last years of Ireland's time as part of the United Kingdom. Svevo brings a keenly sardonic wit to his observations of Trieste and, in particular, to his hero, an indifferent man who cheats on his wife, lies to his psychoanalyst and is trying to explain himself to his psychoanalyst by revisiting his memories.
There is a final connection between Schmitz-Svevo and the character Cosini. Cosini sought psychoanalysis, he said, in order to discover why he was addicted to nicotine. As he reveals in his memoirs, each time he had given up smoking, with the iron resolve that this would be the "ultima sigaretta!!", he experienced the exhilarating feeling that he was now beginning life over without the burden of his old habits and mistakes. That feeling was, however, so strong that he found smoking irresistible, if only so that he could stop smoking again in order to experience that thrill once more.
Svevo likewise smoked for all of his life. After being involved in a serious car accident, he was brought into hospital at Motta di Livenza, where his health rapidly failed. As death approached he asked one of his visitors for a cigarette, telling everyone that this really would be the last one (the request was denied).
Svevo lived for part of his life in Charlton, south-east London, while working for a family firm. He documented this period in his letters[3] to his wife which highlighted the cultural differences he encountered in Edwardian England. His old home at 67 Charlton Church Lane now carries a blue plaque.
He was an atheist.

Italo Svevo
pseudonym of Ettore Schmitz (born Dec. 19, 1861, Trieste, Austrian Empire [now in Italy]—died Sept. 13, 1928, Motta di Livenza, Italy), Italian novelist and short-story writer, a pioneer of the psychological novel in Italy.
Svevo (whose pseudonym means “Italian Swabian”) was the son of a German-Jewish glassware merchant and an Italian mother. At 12 he was sent to a boarding school near Würzburg, Ger. He later returned to a commercial school in Trieste, but his father’s business difficulties forced him to leave school and become a bank clerk. He continued to read on his own and began to write.
Svevo’s first novel, Una vita (1892; A Life), was revolutionary in its analytic, introspective treatment of the agonies of an ineffectual hero (a pattern Svevo repeated in subsequent works). A powerful but rambling work, the book was ignored upon its publication. So was its successor, Senilità (1898; As a Man Grows Older), featuring another bewildered hero. Svevo had been teaching at a commercial school, and, with Senilità’s failure, he formally gave up writing and became engrossed in his father-in-law’s business.
Ironically, business frequently required Svevo to visit England in the years that followed, and a decisive step in his life was to engage a young man, James Joyce, in 1907 as his English tutor in Trieste. They became close friends, and Joyce let the middle-aged businessman read portions of his unpublished Dubliners, after which Svevo timidly produced his own two novels. Joyce’s tremendous admiration for them, along with other factors, encouraged Svevo to return to writing. He wrote what became his most famous novel, La coscienza di Zeno (1923; Confessions of Zeno), a brilliant work in the form of a patient’s statement for his psychiatrist. Published at Svevo’s own expense, as were his other works, this novel was also a failure, until a few years later, when Joyce gave Svevo’s work to two French critics, Valéry Larbaud and Benjamin Cremieux, who publicized him and made him famous. In Italy his reputation grew more slowly, though the poet Eugenio Montale wrote a laudatory essay on him in a 1925 issue of L’Esame.
While working on a sequel to Zeno, Svevo was killed in an automobile accident. Among posthumously published works are two short-story collections, La novella del buon vecchio e della bella fanciulla, e altre prose inedite e postume (1930; The Nice Old Man and the Pretty Girl), with a preface by Montale, and Corto viaggio sentimentale e altri racconti inediti (1949; Short Sentimental Journey and Other Stories); as well as Saggi e pagine sparse (1954; “Essays and Scattered Pages”); Commedie (1960), a collection of dramatic work; and Further Confessions of Zeno (1969), an English translation of his incomplete novel. Svevo’s correspondence with Montale was published as Lettere (1966). Svevo ultimately has been recognized as one of the most important figures in modern Italian literary history.

- موضوع الرواية يشير الى مدى سوء الحالة النفسية التي كان يعاني منها الكاتب فهي تمثل احد حلول مرضه النفسي.
- كان واحد من 7 ابناء.
- انهار والده ماليا وصحيا عام 1980 وهو في سن التاسعة عشرة (19) مما اطره لترك الدراسة للعمل.
- لا يعرف تحديدا متى مات والديه لكن يبدو انهما ماتا قبل عام 1898.
- ارسل الى مدرسة داخلية وهو في سن 12.

لا شك انه مأزوم ودليل ذلك حاجته لكتابة روايته على شكل اعترافات، وهو يتيم اجتماعي بسبب ارساله الى مدرسة داخلية في سن 12 ثم مرض والده وانهياه المالي وهو في سن ال، 19. لا نعرف تحديدا متى مات والديه لكننا سنعتبره :

Crime and Punishment



by Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, (1821-1881)



Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be a great man, a Napoleon: acting for a higher purpose beyond conventional moral law. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator, Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden prostitute, can offer the chance of redemption

يحظى الكُّتاب الروس بمكانة مرموقة بين صفوة الكتاب العالميين، فقد تميزوا بقدرتهم على التعبير عن مكنونات النفس البشرية وما يعتمد بداخلها من عواطف ومشاعر كما عرف عنهم اهتمامهم بالأسلوب الذي بلغ معهم أرفع مستوى. وقد عمقوا بأعمالهم الأدبية الرائعة صلات التواصل بين البشر، إذ بحثوا أموراً ومواضيع مشتركة تهم جميع الناس مهما اختلفت مشاعرهم، فلقد عالجوا قضايا الوجود الكبرى التي تشغل بال الناس والتي يبحثون لها عن حلول. ودستويفسكي ليس استثناءً من هذا فقد عرف بتوجهه الإنساني وبنزعته الفلسفية التي بدت واضحة في أعماله الأدبية حيث يتجلى في هذه الرواية التزاوج بين الصنعة الفنية والبعد الفكري الذي يضفي على الرواية ملمحاً رسالياً إن صح القول. وليس ذلك بمستغرب فإن دوستويفسكي كاتب يشكل بحد ذاته وحدة متكاملة وعالماً شائع الأرجاء يضطرم بشتى أنواع الفكر والصراعات، حتى تختلط العناصر ولا تتميز عن بعضها.
ولعل هذا العمل هو صورة عن مصيره الذاتي ولربما عبر فيه عن نفسه أكثر مما فعل في كتب أخرى. فالبطل هنا بلغ به الحال أن ارتضى بما أحاطه من شظف وجوع بعد أن كان يشعر بمرارة وألم. وهذا ما يميز دوستويفسكي إذ عاش طفولة بائسة حيث كان أبوه طبيباً عسكرياً.
أما بحثه في هذه الرواية كما تبين من عنوانها فهو موضوع الجريمة وقضية الخير والشر التي ترتبط بالجريمة، فهو يصور ما يعتمل في نفس المجرم وهو يقدم على جريمته، ويصور مشاعره وردود أفعاله، كما يرصد المحرك الأول والأساس للجريمة حيث يصور شخصاً متمرداً على الأخلاق. يحاول الخروج عليها بكل ما أوتي من قوة، إذ تدفعه قوة غريبة إلى المغامرة حتى ابعد الحدود لقد اكتشف بطل الرواية راسكولينوف أن الإنسان المتفوق لذا شرع بارتكاب جريمته ليبرهن تفوقه، لكن العقاب الذي تلقاه هذا الرجل كان قاسياً إذ اتهم بالجنون وانفصل عن بقية البشر وقام بينه وبين من يعرف حاجز رهيب دفعه إلى التفكير بالانتحار.
تتطرق ” الجريمة والعقاب ” لمشكلة حيوية معاصرة ألا وهي الجريمة وعلاقتها بالمشاكل الاجتماعية والأخلاقية للواقع، وهي المشكلة التي اجتذبت اهتمام دستويفسكي في الفترة التي قضاها هو نفسه في أحد المعتقلات حيث اعتقل بتهمة سياسية، وعاش بين المسجونين وتعرف على حياتهم وظروفهم. وتتركز حبكة الرواية حول جريمة قتل الشاب الجامعي الموهوب رسكولينكوف للمرابية العجوز وشقيقتها والدوافع النفسية والأخلاقية للجريمة.
ولا تظهر ” الجريمة والعقاب” كرواية من روايات المغامرات أو الروايات البوليسية، بل هي في الواقع نموذج لكل تأملات الكاتب في واقع الستينات من القرن الماضي بروسيا، وهي الفترة التي تميزت بانكسار نظام القنانة وتطور الرأسمالية، وما ترتب على ذلك من تغيرات جديدة في الواقع الذي ازداد به عدد الجرائم، ولذا نجد الكاتب يهتم اهتماما كبيرا في روايته بإبراز ظروف الواقع الذي تبرز فيه الجريمة كثمرة من ثماره. ومرض من الأمراض الاجتماعية التي تعيشها المدينة الكبيرة بطرسبرج (ليننجراد حاليا) وهي المدينة التي أحبها الكاتب وبطله حبا مشوبا بالحزن والأسى على ما تعيشه من تناقضات، ولهذا السبب بالذات نجد الكاتب كثيرا ما يخرج بإحداثه للشارع ليجسد من خلاله حياة الناس البسطاء والمدينة الممتلئة بالسكر والدعارة والآلام.
إن حياة الناس البسطاء أمثال البطل الرئيسي رسكولينكوف وأمه وأخته وعائلة مارميلادوف أحد معارف رسكولينكوف وابنته سونيا، تبدو مظلمة وقاتمة يشوبها اليأس والعذاب والفقر وسقوط الإنسان الذي سُدت أمامه كل السبل حتى لم يعد هناك ” طريق آخر يذهب إليه” وهي الكلمات التي ساقها الكاتب في أول الرواية على لسان مارميلادوف في حديثه مع رسكولينكوف.
ويجعل هذا الواقع القاسي من مارميلادوف فريسة للخمر ويدفع بابنته سونيا إلى احتراف الدعارة لإطعام أخوتها الصغار الجائعين، ويجعل زوجته عرضه للجنون، كما يدفع هذا الواقع بالشاب الجامعي الموهوب رسكولينكوف إلى الجريمة ويجعل أخته عرضة للإساءة بالبيوت التي تلتحق بخدمتها، إن شخصيات الرواية تبدو مقسمة إلى مجموعتين تمثلان مواقع اجتماعية متعارضة: مجموعة تمثل الشعب المضغوط الذي يطحنه الفقر والحاجة والحرمان، وتتمثل في كل من رسكولينكوف وسونيا وعائلاتهما، ومجموعة أخرى تمثل أصحاب المال الذين تعطيهم ثروتهم “حق” الإساءة إلى المحتاجين، وفي مقدمة هذه المجموعة تبرز المرابية العجوز الشريرة التي تمتص دماء الناس وتقتص منهم والداعر المجرم سفيرديجالوف التي تمكنه ثروته من الإساءة إلى المعوزين بلا رادع ولا عقاب.
وإلى جانب وصف الواقع المعاصر تطرق الكاتب في الرواية من خلال بطله المجرم غير العادي صريع “الفكرة” على نقد الفكر الاشتراكي والليبرالي المعاصر له وانعكست من خلال ذلك مثل دوستويفسكي العليا ومبادئه ونظرته على سبل التغيير وهو ما سنتناوله بالتفصيل عند حديثنا عن رسكولينكوف. ورغم أن دستويفسكي قد رفض شتى الأفكار التي كانت تنادي بالتغيير إلى أنه قد هاجم بشدة الظلم الاجتماعي والمجتمع الذي تعج فيه بكثرة ” المنافي والسجون والمحققون القضائيون والأشغال الشاقة”، كما ندد بظروف الواقع الذي تهدر به كرامة الناس والذي تراق به الدماء ” التي كانت تراق مثل الشمبانيا”، وبالإضافة إلى هذه الموضوعات فقد انعكست في الرواية نظرة الكاتب للجريمة كوسيلة من وسائل الاحتجاج ضد الظلم الاجتماعي، كما تجسد فيها تقييم الكاتب للدوافع المختلفة للجرائم والجذور الاجتماعية والنفسية لها وهو ما سنتناوله بإسهاب عند الحديث عن شخصية البطل الرئيسي.
ويعتبر الكثيرون ان الجريمة والعقاب أول الروايات العظيمة لدوستويفسكي، والتي من شأنها ان تتوج مع الاعمال المنجزه مثل روايته الرائعة الاخوة كارامازوف
ولعل هذا العمل هو صورة عن مصيره الذاتي ولربما عبر فيه عن نفسه أكثر مما فعل في كتب أخرى. فالبطل هنا بلغ به الحال أن ارتضى بما أحاطه من شظف وجوع بعد أن كان يشعر بمرارة وألم. وهذا ما يميز دوستويفسكي إذ عاش طفولة بائسة حيث كان أبوه طبيباً عسكرياً. أما بحثه في هذه الرواية كما تبين من عنوانها فهو موضوع الجريمة وقضية الخير والشر التي ترتبط بالجريمة، فهو يصور ما يعتمل في نفس المجرم وهو يقدم على جريمته، ويصور مشاعره وردود أفعاله، كما يرصد المحرك الأول والأساس للجريمة حيث يصور شخصاً متمرداً على الأخلاق. يحاول الخروج عليها بكل ما أوتي من قوة، إذ تدفعه قوة غريبة إلى المغامرة حتى ابعد الحدود لقد اكتشف بطل الرواية راسكولينوف أن الإنسان المتفوق لذا شرع بارتكاب جريمته ليبرهن تفوقه، لكن العقاب الذي تلقاه هذا الرجل كان قاسياً إذ اتهم بالجنون وانفصل عن بقية البشر وقام بينه وبين من يعرف حاجز رهيب دفعه إلى التفكير بالانتحار.[1]
الجريمة والعقاب يركز على آلام نفسية واخلاقيه من، فقيرة سانت بيترسبورغ بطالب بصياغه وتنفيذ خطة لقتل مرابية، لا ضمير لها، وبالتالي حل المشاكل المالية له في الوقت نفسه، ويقول بأن تخليص العالم من الشر الدوافع التي تكمن وراء إراقة دماء المرابية ليست مجرد دوافع ذاتية محضة بل تنبع أيضاً من الوضع الاجتماعي المرير ومن آلام الآخرين وتعاستهم.وهناك عوامل ذاتية وشخصية دفعت بطل الرواية إلى اقتراف جريمته.
بطل الرواية مرهف المشاعر شديد التأثر ذو حساسية كبيرة. وهو بالإضافة إلى ذلك ينزع إلى الانطوائية والعزلة الاجتماعية. ولايحب الاختلاط بالناس والتحدث معهم، ولم يكن له اصدقاء حتى في الجامعة ويزداد شعور الغربة والوحدة عنده لدرجة يتخذ فيها طابع الاشمئزاز من الآخرين وحتى اقرب الناس اليه.
بالإضافة إلى عيشته في غرفة ضيقة لايملك النقود لدفع أجرتها الشهرية ولذلك كان يخشى رؤية صاحبة البيت أو الدائنين لدرجة إنه عندما خرج للشارع وذهب إلى بيت المرابية ليقتلها (تعجب من الخوف الذي تملكه خشية الالتقاء بالدائنين عند الخروج إلى الشارع).
ان كل شخصية في رواية دوستوفيسكي تشكل لغزاً بوليسياً يستعصي فهمه بوضوح وجلاء حيث تصدر عن الشخصيات تصرفات غريبة وغير متوقعة، ويكمن وراء ذلك سر يجب على القارئ ان ينتبه له،
البطل يعيش حياته الخاصة التي تبقى خفية وغير ظاهرة في تصرفاته اليومية وسلوكه المرئي ولكنها تطفو أحياناً إلى الخارج وتفصح عن نفسها في اعترافاته ومنولوجاته الداخلية.
[2]
و موقف دوستويفسكي من الجاني في (الأخوة كارامازوف) يبدو واضحا باتجاه المطالبة بالقصاص، فإن الأمر يختلف عنده في (الجريمة والعقاب) حيث الجاني راسكولنيكوف نفسه من صنف المعذَّبين المقهورين الذين تجرؤوا مرّة على ملامسة القوة فانتهى بهم الأمر إلى القتل

كيف كتب دوستويڤسكى رواية الجريمة والعقاب؟
"إعادة قراءة لدوستويڤسكى"
تأليف: يورى كارياكين
عرض: خليل كلفت
(مجلة القاهرة 5 نوڤمبر 1985)
نقرأ معا خلال الدقائق التالية الفكرة الأساسية فى كتاب "دوستويڤسكى: إعادة قراءة" لمؤلفه يورى كارياكين. وترجع أهمية الكتاب المذكور إلى أن المؤلف يعالج فيه العملية الإبداعية ذاتها، أىْ الطريقة المحدّدة التى ألّف دوستويڤسكى من خلالها أعماله وكنموذج تطبيقى محدّد: "الجريمة والعقاب"، التى يَعُدُّها المؤلف رائعة من روائع دوستويڤسكى. ويضع المؤلف أمام أعيننا ثلاثة مستويات لتصور دوستويڤسكى للجريمة والعقاب أو يضع بالأحرى إلى جانب المستوى الذى يعرفه الجميع مستوييْن آخرين. فإلى جانب الشكل النهائى أىْ الرواية المطبوعة يضع المؤلف شكلها الأوّلى أو الجنينى ويتمثل فى رسالة كتبها دوستويڤسكى إلى كاتكوڤ محرّر المجلة التى نشرت الرواية لأول مرة على حلقات وفى تلك الرسالة يبيّن الروائى العظيم فكرة وخطة روايته. أما الشكل الوسيط الذى يتطور الشكل الجنينى من خلاله إلى الشكل النهائى فإنه يتمثل فى المذكرات الخاصة بالرواية ويدرس فيها دوستويڤسكى مختلف أحداث وشخصيات وتقنيّات وتفاصيل ودقائق الرواية التى كان يعتزم كتابتها أىْ "الجريمة والعقاب"، وقد اعتمد على مذكرات مماثلة فى كتابة روايات أخرى، "الإخوة كارامازوڤ"، على سبيل المثال.
ولا جدال فى أن الدراسة التطبيقية لعملية الإبداع ذاتها تُهِمّ جمهور القراء كما تُهِمّ الكتّاب أنفسهم وبالأخص شبابهم، وعلى هذا نستعرض الفصول الأربعة من الكتاب المذكور مع التركيز على نقاط محدّدة. ويبدأ المؤلف مناقشته كما يلى:
من الغريب أننا فى أغلب الأحيان نعرف عن أعمال الفن أكثر مما نعرف عن مبدعيها. وعلى سبيل المثال فنحن نعرف "دون كيخوته" أفضل مما نعرف سرڤانتيس، و "هاملت" أفضل من شكسبير، و راسكولنيكوڤ أفضل من دوستويڤسكى. وقد يقول قائل: "لكن هذا ليس غريبا أبدا، إن هذا وحده هو الطبيعىّ!" لكنْ هل هو حقا كذلك؟ والواقع أنه دون أن نعرف الثمن المدفوع من أجل أعمال الفن من جانب مؤلفيها - الكائنات البشرية ذات الآلام البشرية - لا يمكننا أن نأمل فى أن نفهم تمامًا الأعمال ذاتها. وتبرهن العملية الإبداعية أن إمكانيات الإنسان غير قابلة حقًّا للاستنفاد، ولكن المبدع أكثر واقعية، وأقوى دلالة، وأوفر حياة من أىّ عمل من أعماله.
وعندما ننظر إلى العالم الرحب والعدد الهائل من الشخصيات، اللذين أبدعهما دوستويڤسكى، لا نملك إلا أن نعجب كيف استطاع شخص واحد أن ينتج كل ذلك فى نطاق المدى القصير لحياة الإنسان، ولا سيّما شخص لم تكن الحياة بالنسبة له فراشا من الورود. وتتمثل المعجزة الكبرى فى الإبداع الفنى فى واقع أن "غير العادىّ" يُولد من "العادىّ"، وأنّ "النظيف" يخرج من "غير النظيف"، ولا يمكن لهذا أن يكون شيئا مختلفا لأنه يشكّل جوهر العملية الإبداعية. وأفضل برهان على هذا تقدّمه مذكرات دوستويڤسكى الخاصة بروايته "الجريمة والعقاب".
وكما هو معروف، أحرق دوستويڤسكى نسخة كاملة تقريبا من "الجريمة والعقاب" (ومن حسن الحظ أنها لم تُدمّر بكاملها). ولا تزال الدوافع الكامنة وراء هذا التصرّف غير واضحة تمامًا.
فى سپتمبر (أيلول) 1865 كتب دوستويڤسكى رسالة إلى م. ن. كاتكوڤ، محرّر "روسكى ڤستنيك" (ولم يبق سوى مسوّدة من هذه الرسالة):
"هل لى أن آمل فى أن تُنشر روايتى فى مجلتكم "روسكى ڤستنيك"؟ إن فكرة الرواية لا تتعارض بأىّ طريقة مع ما تمثّله مجلتكم.
"إنها وصف سيكولوچىّ لجريمة. شابّ مطرود من الجامعة، برچوازى من حيث خلفيته الاجتماعية، يعيش فى فقر مدقع، يقرّر، مدفوعا بالطيش واضطراب التفكير، أن يخلّص نفسه من حالته التعيسة عن طريق ضربة جريئة واحدة. وهو يستسلم للأفكار الفجّة التى يتّفق أن تنتشر. ويقرّر الطالب أن يقتل مرابية عجوزًا، وهى زوجة موظف صغير. والمرأة العجوز غبيّة، صمّاء، مريضة، شرهة، وهى تحصل على فوائد ربويّة، وهى دنيئة وتدمّر حياة شخص آخر، أختها الصغرى التى تعذّبها هى رغم أنها تعمل من أجلها. (إنها لا تفيد فى شيء أىّ غرض لها فى الحياة؟ هل هى مفيدة لأىّ شخص؟)؛ تلك الأسئلة تخرج الشاب عن طوره. فهو يقرّر أن يقتلها ويسرقها، لكىْ يساعد أمّه، التى تعيش فى مدينة إقليمية، ولكى يُنقذ أخته، التى تعيش مع أسرة مالك عقارى ريفىّ باعتبارها وصيفة، من المخططات الشهوانية لرأس تلك الأسرة، تلك المخططات التى تهدّد بتدميرها، ولكى يُنهى دراسته، ثم يسافر إلى الخارج، وبعد ذلك يكون أمينا بقية حياته، حازما وصلبا فى تحقيق واجبه الإنسانى نحو البشرية. الأمر الذى سوف يعوّض عن الجريمة، إنْ كان بوسع المرء أن يسمى بالجريمة... قَتْلَ المرأة العجوز، الصمّاء، الغبيّة، الدنيئة، المريضة، التى ليست لديها فكرة عن سبب وجودها على قيد الحياة والتى كان من الممكن أن تموت بعد ذلك بشهر على أيّة حال.
"ورغم أن من الصعوبة بمكان تنفيذ مثل تلك الجرائم، أىْ أنها تترك وراءها دائما تقريبا دليلا ما فظًّا وما إلى ذلك، ويتوقف الأمر إلى أقصى حدّ على الصدفة التى تكون دائما تقريبًا ضدّ المجرم، فإنه ينجح، بطريقة ترجع بصورة كاملة إلى المصادفة، فى تنفيذ خطته وبدون صعوبة كبيرة.
"لقد مرّ شهر تقريبا قبل الكارثة النهائية، ولم يكن هناك ارتياب، بل لم يكن يمكن أن يوجد أىّ ارتياب ضدّه. وهنا يبدأ كامل المسار السيكولوچى للجريمة. فهناك مشاكل غير قابلة للحلّ تظهر أمام القاتل؛ وتعذّب قلبه مشاعر غير متوقعة وغير منتظرة. لقد وقع فى نهاية الأمر فى مصيدة الحقيقة الإلهية والقانون الذى صنعه البشر، وهو مضطرّ إلى التبليغ عن نفسه، مضطرّ، حتى إذا كان لا بدّ أن يهلك فى السجن، إلى أن يعود إلى الناس من جديد. لقد أرهقه الشعور بالعزلة والانفصال عن البشر وهو الشعور الذى استولى عليه بمجرّد ارتكابه الجريمة. وأخذ قانون الحقيقة والطبيعة الإنسانية يُحْدثان أثرهما. فالمجرم يقرّر من تلقاء نفسه أن يقبل العذاب ليكفِّر عن جريمته... زدْ على هذا أن قصتى توحى بأن العقاب الذى يحدّده القانون يخيف المجرم أقلّ كثيرا مما يظنّ مشرِّعو القانون؛ ويرجع ذلك إلى أن المجرم نفسه يحتاج إليه أخلاقيًّا".
وهكذا يمكن وصف "الجريمة والعقاب"، كما تصوَّرها دوستويڤسكى فى سپتمبر (أيلول) 1865، فى إطار النقاط الستّ التالية التى تغطِّى، بطبيعة الحال، الحبكة بأسرها:
1: الدوافع وراء الجريمة نبيلة تمامًا؛ 2: لا تتمثّل الجريمة إلَّا فى قتل امرأة عجوز، مُرابية؛ 3: الحدث السابق "للكارثة النهائية" يغطّى مدة شهر تقريبًا؛ 4: الاعتراف الطوعىّ والندم من جانب الطالب لا ينفصلان؛ 5: التكفير عن الجريمة ليس أمرًا أساسيًّا فى الرواية؛ 6: الحبكة جرى تصوُّرها على أنها اعتراف يُدْلى به مجرم.
فى النسخة الأخيرة (المنشورة) تعرَّضتْ هذه النقاط الست لتغييرات جوهريّة:
1: الدوافع وراء جريمة راسكولنيكوڤ تشتمل على الجنون ب نابليون الذى يحجبه خداع النفس حول "الأهداف النبيلة"؛ 2: هناك ضحايا آخرون بالإضافة إلى المرابية العجوز؛ وهم يشملون ليزاڤيتا التى كانت حُبْلَى وأمَّ راسكولنيكوڤ، و ميكولكا الذى نجا بشقّ النفس من الأشغال الشاقّة؛ وفى أحلامه يرى راسكولنيكوڤ العالم بأسره يهلك؛ 3: تغطِّى الحبكة فترة تمتدّ حوالى عامين وعندئذ يبدو أنها تمتدّ إلى أعماق اللّانهاية؛ 4: الاعتراف بالجريمة، والندم عليها، والتكفير عنها، لا تجرى فى نفس الوقت: يعترف راسكولنيكوڤ فى اليوم الحادى عشر بعد الجريمة لكنه لا يندم عليها إلا بعد ذلك بثمانية عشر شهرًا؛ 5: المجرم التائب لا يجد طريقه إلى التكفير فى الحال؛ 6: السرد مكتوب بضمير الغائب.
فى النسخة الأخيرة، المنشورة، هناك أيضا مقال راسكولنيكوڤ وقصة عائلة مارميلادوڤ. والموضوع الذى يبقى دون تغيير، والذى هو أساسىّ فى الكتاب بأسره، هو "الشعور بالعزلة والانفصال عن البشر والذى... أرهقه". لكنّ شيئا واحدا جلىّ: التصوّر المبكّر للرواية حلَّ محلّه تصوُّر جديد ("يجرفنى معه بعيدا الشكل الجديد والخطة الجديدة").
يمكننا الآن أن نلاحظ أنّ رسالة دوستويڤسكى إلى كاتكوڤ قدّمت تصوّرا للرواية لا يعدو أن يكون - بالمقارنة مع الرواية المطبوعة - تصوّرا أوّليًّا ساذجا. والواقع أن المذكرات الخاصة ب "الجريمة والعقاب" هى التى تملأ هذه الفجوة الهائلة. وإذا تأملنا الرواية كما تصوّرتْها الرسالة نجد أنفسنا إزاء اتساق داخلى بحيث لا يمكن الاحتفاظ ببعض عناصرها الرئيسية دون بعضها الآخر، وكان أىّ تصوّر جديد بصورة جوهرية يعنى تحطيم الاتساق القديم بكل عناصره الجوهرية، تلك المتصلة بالمحتوى وتلك المتصلة بالشكل على حدّ سواء.
كان تصوُّر الرسالة ينطلق من فرضية فحواها أن "الدوافع وراء الجريمة كانت نبيلة تماما" وأنّ كلَّ ما هنالك أن راسكولنيكوڤ عمد إلى تحقيقها بوسائل خاطئة وشريرة. وهذا العنصر الجوهرى فى تصوُّر الرسالة يحدِّد بقية العناصر. فمن الطبيعى تماما أن نكون إزاء رواية اعتراف، يسردها البطل، وأن يكون التبليغ الطوعى والاعتراف والندم نفس الشيء الواحد، ومن الطبيعى تماما ألّا يحتاج الأمر إلى وقت طويل حيث لا ينفصل الاعتراف والندم عن بعضِهما البعض فى الزمان وحيث لا حاجة إلى وقت تستغرقه عملية معقدة تصل فى نهاية الأمر إلى الندم وتفتح الباب أمام التكفير عن الجريمة، كما أن من المنطقى أن تكون أبعاد الجريمة والرواية محدودة، وأن يجرى تتويج كل ذلك بنهاية دينية، كما توحى الرسالة.
وكما سوف نرى، ينقلب هذا التصوّر بصورة جوهرية. ويبدأ هذا الانقلاب من صميم المحتوى، من مسألة الدوافع وراء الجريمة. ففى الرواية المطبوعة دوافع ظالمة تحققت من خلال وسائل شريرة وأدّت إلى المأساة والكارثة ودوافع نبيلة تحققت من خلال وسائل طيبة وأدّت إلى نتائج طيبة. واحتدم صراع الدوافع والأهداف داخل البطل، وأصبح كلّ حلّ سهل سريع باطلا ومفتعلا وغير قابل للتصديق. وعلى هذا النحو ينشأ اتساق داخلىّ جديد بصورة جذرية بين عناصر الرواية المطبوعة. فالتبليغ والاعتراف شيء والندم المخلص والتكفير شيء آخر مختلف. ويحتاج ملء هذه الفجوة إلى عملية طويلة حافلة بالصراع. كما يفتح التصوّر الجديد آفاقا جديدة واسعة. فالجريمة ترتدى أبعادًا هائلة بدوافعها المعقدة، بكثرة ضحاياها المباشرين والمحتملين، بتعقيد شخصية البطل التى تنطوى على عناصر متناقضة بحدّة بحيث يمكنها السير فى نهاية الأمر فى اتجاه عالم مختلف وحياة مختلفة. وتحتّم هذه التغيّرات فى المحتوى تعديلات جوهرية فى الشكل، من أهمها التخلّى عن رواية الاعتراف لصالح رواية يسردها المؤلف، ومنها السطر الأخير فى الرواية، ومنها البناء المعقد الذى أصبح محتوما وأصبح يحتّم بدوره حسابا وإعدادا بالغىْ الدقة لمعمار فنّى بالغ التعقيد والروعة والخصوبة.
والواقع أن المذكّرات الخاصة ب "الجريمة والعقاب"، والتى يتبلور من خلالها تدريجيا هذا التصوّر الجديد جوهريا للرواية، تكشف عن الحساب الدقيق لكل العناصر الرئيسية قبل الكتابة النهائية، كما أنها تساعد القارئ والناقد فى إضاءة وتفسير نواح قد لا يسهل كشفها بدونها.
والآن... لقد حدث تحوّل فى الدوافع، فبدلا من راسكولنيكوڤ الذى يرتكب الجريمة (وسيلة خاطئة) بدافع إنقاذ أمّه وأخته ونفسه (ثم "تحقيق واجبه الإنسانى نحو البشرية" فى بقية حياته"... [أهداف تبدو نبيلة] أصبح لدينا راسكولنيكوڤ.. الذى هو فى المقام الأول مؤلف المقال إيّاه الذى يقسّم البشر إلى فئتين ويعنى دفْع هذه الفكرة إلى أقصاها القتل الجماعى لصالح نابليون مّا أو آخر، و راسكولنيكوڤ شخص "مولود من فكرة" شخص ("أكلته" فكرة، مثل كيريلوڤ فى رواية الشياطين) أو كما يقول هو نفسه: "إن مشاريعى استحوذت علىّ تماما، ورؤيتُها تتحقق أصبحت هدف حياتى" (هنا يقدم دوستويڤسكى مفهوم "الجريمة النظرية"). فقد أصبح لدينا راسكولنيكوڤ الذى يستحوذ عليه تصوّر يقسم الناس إلى "نابليونات" و"بؤساء" ويحلّ للفئة الأولى أن تتخطى العقبة عند الضرورة حتى بالقتل، حتى بالقتل بالجملة. وتستولى على هذا الشاب، بحكم طيشه وبحكم خلفيته الاجتماعية البائسة، الرغبة فى أن يكون نابليونا، فى أن يتخطى العقبة، لإنقاذ نفسه وأسرته والإنسانية قاطبة... وهذا الهدف الظالم يحتّم "الوسائل والنتائج" التى تقوم بدورها بكشف "الهدف الحقيقى" الذى يموّهه خداع النفس...
فكيف يؤثر هذا التطور العميق فى الدوافع وراء الجريمة (أىْ فى صميم المحتوى والمحاكمة التى تنبنى عليه)... كيف يؤثر فى تطوّر الأشكال والأساليب الفنية الرئيسية فى الرواية؟...
ليس من المدهش، إذن، أن نجد دوستويڤسكى يعمل فى "التشريح الرئيسى للرواية" (بهدف إزالة "أشكال عدم اليقين" فيما يتعلق بدوافع الجريمة) فى نفس الوقت الذى كان يحاول فيه أن يقرّر ما إذا كان ينبغى أن يكون السرد بضمير المتكلم أم بضمير الغائب، وقد اختار الأخير، رافضا شكل الاعتراف من نمط المذكرات.
حسب الخطة المبكّرة، كان على راسكولنيكوڤ أن يبدأ يوميات-اعترافه فى اليوم الرابع (؟!) بعد جريمة القتل التى جرت فى 9 يونيو. "16 يونيو. فى الليلة الثالثة بدأتُ يومياتى وقضيت أربع ساعات فى الكتابة".
بعد ذلك نقرأ: "لِيكنْ تقريرا... عمّن؟ ولمن؟" شطب دوستويڤسكى هذه الكلمات، لأنّه لا بد أن يكون قد أدرك أنه كان من المستحيل لقاتل أن ينقلب إلى كاتب سجلات عن جريمته فى اليوم الرابع بعد الحادث (فى النسخة "المنشورة" نجد راسكولنيكوڤ لا يزال فى ذلك الحين يرقد فاقد الوعى فى اليوم الرابع).
كان على راسكولنيكوڤ، حسب خطة دوستويڤسكى المبكّرة، أن يصبح "كاتب اختزال" لنفسه: "هنا تنتهى القصة وتبدأ اليوميّات".
غير أنه سرعان ما تغيرت الخطّة، وأصبحت القصة معقولة ظاهريا: "سوف أروى كلّ شيء فى المحكمة. سوف أسجّله كلّه. وأنا أكتب لنفسى، لكن ليقرأه الآخرون أيضا، كلّ قضاتى، إذا شاءوا. وهذا اعتراف، اعتراف كامل. سأريح منه صدرى ولن أكتم أىّ شيء". وهذا ممكن جسمانيا وسيكولوچيا، على حدّ سواء، لكن هل يمكن أن يقوم بالاعتراف بمثل هذه السرعة بعد القتل؟
عندئذ قرّر المؤلف أن تكون القصة "تقريرا فى شكل يوميات".
لكنْ بعد ذلك بنصف صفحة:
"خطة جديدة
قصة مجرم
منذ ثمانية أعوام
(لكى نحتفظ بمسافة منها)"
هذه خطة أكثر واقعية. و"ثمانية أعوام" ليست رقما اعتباطيا، فهى المدة التى حكم بها بالسجن على راسكولنيكوڤ. ولما كان البطل يبدأ فصلا جديدا فى حياته، فمن الطبيعى أن يستدعى أحداث الماضى.
غير أن الخطة الجديدة فرضت صعوبات بعينها، لأنها طرحت السؤال حول معنى الحياة الجديدة التى وجدها راسكولنيكوڤ. كان هذا سؤالا طبيعيا يمكن طرحه حيث إن وقت كتابة الاعتراف كان قد تمّ مدّه. مع ذلك كان على الاعتراف ذاته أن يبقى. لكن ليس طويلا. ففى الصفحة التالية نقرأ:
"خطة أخرى.
"القصة يسردها المؤلّف، وهو شخص لا يُرى لكنه كُلّىّ المعرفة ولا يترك البطل حتى لدقيقة واحدة".
وهكذا قبل دوستويڤسكى، فى نهاية الأمر، دور "كاتب الاختزال".
بعد صفحات قليلة نجد وصفا أكثر تفصيليّة للخطّة الجديدة:
"أعِدْ النظر فى كافّة المسائل فى هذه الرواية. غير أن الحبكة يجب أن تصبح بحيث تكون القصة يسردها المؤلف، وليس البطل. وإذا كان ينبغى أن تكون اعترافا، فلا بدّ من توضيح كلّ شيء بصورة مطلقة. ويجب أن تكون كلّ لحظة فى القصة واضحة بصورة كاملة.
"ملاحظة - إذا كانت اعترافا، فلا بدّ أنها [الرواية] ستكون فى بعض الأجزاء مفتعلة وسيكون من الصعب تصوّر لماذا كُتِبَتْ.
"لكنْ من ناحية المؤلف. هناك حاجة إلى قدر هائل من السذاجة والصراحة. يجب أن يكون المؤلّف كُلّىّ المعرفة وناجحا فى أن يقدّم إلى القارئ فردا من أفراد الجيل الجديد".
وهكذا.. من العبارة المشطوبة، "لِيكُنْ تقريرا... عَمَّنْ؟ ولمنْ؟" ينتهى دوستويڤسكى إلى إدراك "أنه سيكون من الصعب تصوّر لماذا كُتِبَتْ". ومهمة "إعادة النظر فى كافة المسائل" رُدَّتْ إلى المؤلف نفسه.
يعكس هذا التغيير فى الخطة صراعا بين الدوافع: لقد رغب دوستويڤسكى فى بعث راسكولنيكوڤ، فى أن يكتشف الكائنَ الإنسانىَّ فيه، فى أن يمنحه حياة جديدة، وكان يدرك - فى الوقت ذاته - الصعوبات المتصلة بتحقيق هذه الرغبة. ولأنه هو ذاته مرّ بهذه الصعوبات، فقد كان قادرا على الدخول فى أعماق مشاعر بطله بصورة كاملة.
والواقع أن قصةً حول بطل تقتضى تقمّص المؤلف لشخصية ذلك البطل، غير أن قصةً يرويها البطل تحتاج إلى التقمّص الكامل من جانب المؤلف. وفى إعداده للرواية التى جرى تخطيطها أصلا على أساس أنها اعتراف توصّل دوستويڤسكى إلى فهم أعمق الدوافع الحقيقية وراء جريمة راسكولنيكوڤ، وأدّى به هذا الفهم إلى رفض شكل الاعتراف لروايته.. التى احتفظت، مع ذلك، ببعض عناصر اعتراف. [رأينا منذ قليل أن دوستويڤسكى رغب فى بعث راسكولنيكوڤ وفى اكتشاف الكائن الإنسانىّ فيه وفى منحه حياة جديدة]
وتنتهى الرواية بفكرة العملية الطويلة والصعبة للميلاد الجديد المقبل ل راسكولنيكوڤ.
[فما الذى ردّه، وردّ معه سونيا، إلى الحياة؟ يجيب دوستويڤسكى:]
"الحب ردّهما إلى الحياة، وكان قَلْبُ كلِّ منهما يحمل ينابيع لا نهاية لها من الحياة لقلب الآخر". وفى المذكرات نقرأ: "ملاحظة - السطر الأخير للرواية: (غامضة هى الطرق التى يصل بها الله إلى الإنسان)".
غير أن السطر الأخير فى النسخة الأخيرة، المنشورة، يختلف عن هذا السطر. ولدينا هنا مثال ممتاز عن كيف يمكن لفنان أن ينتصر على التصوّرات التى كوّنها فى وقت سابق. ورفْض هذا السطر ليس مسألة صعوبة فى متابعة الاتجاه الدينى حتى النهاية بقدر ما هو تعبير عن صراع بين التصوّرات المتعارضة التى كانت تمزّق الكاتب.
[وننتقل الآن إلى النقطة الأخيرة. يقول المؤلف]
يبرهن تحليلُنا للجريمة والعقاب وللمذكرات الخاصة بهذه الرواية على بُطلان الادعاء الخاص بالطبيعة اللّاواعية، والشبيهة بالسير أثناء النوم، للعملية التى أبدع دوستويڤسكى عن طريقها رواياته.
ويمكن القول إن دوستويڤسكى كان واحدا من أكثر الكتاب انضباطا عقليا، كان كاتبا يبنى حبكة رواياته بأقصى العناية والدقة. وعندما نقول هذا فإننا لا نقلّل بأىّ طريقة من شأن دور حدسه كفنّان.
ومن ناحية بناء الحبكة يمكن أن نقارن "الجريمة والعقاب" ب "الكوميديا الإلهية" التى طبقّ فيها دانتى نظرية المعنى الرباعى للشعر - المباشر، والمجازىّ، والأخلاقىّ، والتماثلىّ - وهى النظرية التى كان قد طبقها من قبل فى "العيد". ويتمثل المعنى المباشر للقصيدة - فى تصوير ما بعد الحياة، والمجازىّ - فى فكرة العقاب، والأخلاقى - فى إدانة الشرّ والإشادة بالخير، والتماثلى - فى تمجيد حبّه ل بياتريس (وهو الحبّ الذى أوحى بالقصيدة) وتمجيد الله، الذى هو الحب الذى يحرّك الشمس والنجوم.
وفى تطوير المستويات المتعدّدة للمعنى وفى بناء الحبكة بعناية، ذهب دوستويڤسكى إلى ما هو أبعد كثيرا من دانتى. لقد عرف دوستويڤسكى جيّدا ذلك القانون من قوانين الفن الذى ينبغى وفقا له أن يُخْفى عن القارئ السرّ الذى اكتشفه، لكنْ بقدر ما يمكّن القارئ من أن يكتشفه بنفسه، وأن يعيشه وكأنه سرّه هو.
والواقع أنّ دوستويڤسكى، الصوفى المزعوم، كان أكثر الكُتّاب عقلانيّة. ومن ناحية الدقة والإحكام يمكن مقارنة تجاربه فى الفن بالتجارب فى العلم، فى حين يمكن مقارنة القوة العاطفية فى كتابته بتلك التى فى الموسيقى.

Dead Souls



by Nikolai Gogol, Russia, (1809-1852)



Nikolai Gogol's 'epic poem in prose', "Dead Souls" is a damning indictment of a corrupt society, translated from the Russian with an introduction and notes by Robert A. Maguire in "Penguin Classics". Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in the provincial town of 'N', visiting a succession of landowners and making each a strange offer. He proposes to buy the names of dead serfs still registered on the census, saving their owners from paying tax on them, and to use these 'dead souls' as collateral to re-invent himself as a aristocrat. In this ebullient picaresque masterpiece, Gogol created a grotesque gallery of human types, from the bear-like Sobakevich to the insubstantial fool Manilov, and, above all, the devilish con man Chichikov. "Dead Souls" (1842), Russia's first major novel, is one of the most unusual works of nineteenth-century fiction and a devastating satire on social hypocrisy. In his introduction, Robert A. Maguire discusses Gogol's life and literary career, his depiction of Russian society, and the language and narrative techniques employed in "Dead Souls". This edition also includes a chronology, further reading, appendices, a glossary, map and notes.Nikolai Gogol (1809-52) was born in the Ukraine. His experience of St Petersburg life informed a savagely satirical play, "The Government Inspector", and a series of brilliant short stories including "Nevsky Prospekt" and "Diary of a Madman". For over a decade, Gogol laboured on his comic epic "Dead Souls" - before renouncing literature and burning parts of the manuscript shortly before he died. If you enjoyed "Dead Souls", you might like Fyodor Dostoyevsksy's "The Brothers Karamazov", also available in "Penguin Classics". "Gogol was a strange creature, but then genius is always strange". (Vladimir Nabokov). "I admire the way in which Maguire has kept his own brilliantly variegated vocabulary away from 20th-century phrases, without ever looking parodic or antiquarian". (A.S. Byatt, author of "Possession").

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أرواح ميته ( بالروسى : ميورتڤي دوشي - Мёртвые души - )، روايه للأديب الروسى نيقولاى جوجل. جوجول كتب حتت من رواية " أرواح ميته " في سويسرا (خريف 1836 ) و كتب حتت تانيه في باريس (نوفمبر 1836 - فبراير 1837 )، لكن روما كات المكان اللي كتب فيه جوجول معظم روايته العظيمه " أرواح ميته " (1837 - 1838 )[1]. الروايه دي اللي سماها جوجول " ملحمه " بتصور روسيا الإقطاعيه بنظام القنانه، و النظام البيروقراطي الفاسد اللي كان سايد أياميها. جوجول كتب الجزء الاول بتاع الروايه دي في حوالي تمن سنين ( من 1834 لـ 1842 )، وقرا لبوشكين الفصول الأولى اللي خلت بوشكين يحس بكأبه لغاية ما صرخ " يا إلاهي ! يا حزن روسيتنا" [1].
مختصر الروايه إن بطلها" تشيتشيكوڤ " راجل نصاب مكار بعد ما خسر ثروته بقى عايز يتغني تاني. فعمل خطه ذكيه لكن إجراميه إنه يشتري من ملاك الإقطاعات " أرواح " ( لقب عبيد الأرض في روسيا أياميها ) العبيد اللي كانوا بيشتغلوا عندهم وماتوا من قريب ولكن وفاتهم لسه ما اتسجلتش في سجلات الحكومه وبكده بيعتبروا لسه عايشين. الملاك اللي كان بيتصل بيهم كانوا بيفرحوا بالموضوع لإنهم كانوا بيدفعوا ضرايب للدوله على عبيد مش موجودين. تشيتشيكوڤ كان ناوي يرهن الأرواح دي في البنوك ويستلف بيهم فلوس تمكنه من العيشه كراجل محترم في إقليم بعيد ماحدش يعرفه فيه.
جوجول في الروايه دي خلق شخصيات كتيره بسلوك و نفسيات مختلفه، اشتهرت في روسيا بأساميها. وبطل الروايه تشيتشيكوڤ طول الروايه كان بيتنقل من بلد لبلد لما يحس إن ملعوبه اتكشف فكان بيقابل شخصيات جديده. جوجول بإسلوب فكاهي متمكن ورى إزاي العبيد دول أياميها كانوا بيتعاملوا وبيتباعوا وبيتشروا زي البهايم.

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دوما فكّر بما هو مفيد وليس فيما هو جميل. لأن الجمال يأتي من تلقاء نفسه»، قول للأديب الروسي نيكولاي فاسيليفيتش غوغول رائد الواقعية الروسية الحديثة، وأحد عمالقة الأدب العالمي. ويعتبر في وطنه الأديب الذي نجح في توصيف المجتمع الروسي والشخصية الروسية بصورة واقعية نقدية ساخرة.
كتب غوغول الذي ولد في قرية سوروشينتسي في القوزاق عام 1809، عن الفئة المتوسطة والبيروقراطية والفساد الحكومي بعمق وتحليل ورؤيا نقدية ساخرة. وقد ساعدته نشأته العائلية في كنف والد ميسور الحال من الفئة الوسطى ووالدة تنحدر من أصول بولونية نبيلة، في استيعاب تركيبة بنية المجتمع. كما ساعدته دراسته على يد أفضل الأساتذة في بيت العائلة في إتقان اللغتين الأوكرانية والروسية. انتقل إلى المدرسة الداخلية عام 1820 وخلال السنوات الثماني التي أمضاها، كان تلميذا عاديا لا يميزه سوى حبه وبراعته في الدراما، حيث أشرف على برامج المسرح طيلة فترة دراسته، استقر بعدها في سانت بطرسبرغ وبدأ بالكتابة، ونشر على نفقته الخاصة ديوانا شعريا تحت اسم مستعار. وحينما تناولته الصحف بالسخرية جمع كافة النسخ وحرقها.
في عام 1831 التقى بالشاعر الروسي الكبير الكسندر بوشكين، وشكلت صداقتهما محورا مفصليا في حياة غوغول. وسرعان ما عاد إلى الكتابة ونشر المجموعة الأولى من قصصه القوزاقية القصيرة في ذات العام، ليتبعها بمجلد آخر في العام التالي، وهكذا استمر في الإنتاج بغزارة وطاقة عالية حتى عام 1836 ولم يكن واثقا خلالها من تفرغه بالكامل للكتابة.
ومع صدور النص الدرامي الكوميدي «المفتش الحكومي» في ذات العام والتي استلهم فكرتها من صديقه بوشكين الذي طرح عليه أيضا فكرة روايته «أرواح ميتة»، حقق نجاحا كبيرا أقنعه بمصداقيته وموهبته ككاتب.
عاش بعد ذلك لمدة 12 عاما في المنفى بسبب نقده اللاذع للبيروقراطية والفساد السائد. وزار خلالها عدة بلدان أوروبية منها ألمانيا وسويسرا وباريس وروما التي أحبها واستقر فيها، ونشر عام 1841 الجزء الأول من ثلاثية روايته «الأرواح الميتة» التي رسخت مكانته كأديب قومي. حاول بعد ذلك كتابة الجزء الثاني إلا أن الصراع الذي عاشه بين الأخذ عليه بتعرية واقع روسيا أمام العالم الخارجي وقناعاته ورغبته في الكمال دفعاه إلى إحراق ما كتبه عدة مرات.
وتجلت ملامح عبقريته في روايته القصيرة «تاراس بولبا» التي نشرها عام 1834 وكتبها بروح رومانسية مشابهة للشاعر اليوناني هوميروس، لتتبلور لاحقا في قصتيه «الأنف» و«المعطف» ونشرتا عام 1935. وخلال زياراته للوطن فيما بعد تعرف على راهب متطرف جعله يزهد في حياته ويصاب باكتئاب نفسي حاد أودى به إلى الموت في 24 فبراير 1852.
يصور غوغول في روايته «الأرواح الميتة» الحياة والشخصية الروسية بدقة متناهية وبأسلوب كوميدي ساخر، وحبكة الرواية في العمل بمثابة خلفية لعرض نماذج مختلفة من شخصيات الفئة العليا من الطبقة الوسطى، التي تتمحور هواجسها حول الإعجاب بالنفس واستعراض المكتبسات والسلوك التي يؤكد انتماءها للمجتمع الراقي.
ويتصف أسلوبه في هذا العمل بالاستطراد في كل موضوع أو فكرة حتى النهاية، مع التحاور مع القارئ من خلال الراوي ليطلب منه تارة الصبر وتارة الاحتمال وتارة أخرى مسامحته، والرواية تجمع ما بين العمل الملحمي في الموضوع الإنساني الشامل وبين رواية المتشردين التي نشأت في اسبانيا وراجت في القرنين السادس عشر والسابع عشر وحتى يومنا هذا.
يصل بطل الرواية تشيتشيكوف إلى بلدة إحدى ضواحي روسيا، بهدف التعرف على الإقطاعيين الأثرياء وبالتالي تنفيذ خطته التي لا يكشف عنها غوغول إلا بعد منتصف الرواية، وتشيتشيكوف رجل خبير بنفوس البشر ومحنك في التعامل معهم ومن خلاله يتعرف القارئ على بنية المجتمع الروسي أو أي مجتمع آخر يقيم الإنسان والنجاح من خلال قيمة الثروات والأنساب.
من خلال تلك اللقاءات يعزز تشيتشيكوف مكانته عند الجميع من المحافظ ورئيس الشرطة إلى الإقطاعيين، وبعد مضي أسبوعين على وجوده في الضاحية يبدأ بتنفيذ مخططه من تلبية دعوات أصحاب المزارع، ويبدأ بمانيلوف الذي توحي ملامحه بالطيبة والرضا والإعجاب بنفسه وكل ما يرجع صدى هذا الإعجاب ومنهم بطلنا، وما يحتويه بيته من أثاث وتحف يعكس جوانب شخصيته. فكما هو لا مبال بإدارة مزرعته واعتماده على مدير عينه، كذلك أثاث بيته حيث تخلو بعض الغرف من الأثاث دون اهتمام أو مبرر وكذلك الأمر مع زوجته.
يطرح تشيتشيكوف خطته بعد انفراده بمضيفه في المكتب. يقترح عليه بصورة فيها الكثير من التمهيد أن يشتري أرواح الأقنان الذين ماتوا، وبذلك يساعده على التخلص من ضريبة الحكومة التي تعتمدها تبعا لإحصائيات غير دورية ولا تأخذ بالاعتبار موت الأقنان حتى الإحصائية القادمة، لذا يساوم البطل على هذا الجانب دون أن يفصح عن غايته.
ومن خلال مفاوضات الشراء تتكشف للقارئ طباع تلك الفئة بين الجشع والشك والترفع والكسب. ينجح البطل في شراء أرواح من الجميع باستثناء نوزدريف الذي خسر ثروته في القمار، والذي بعناده يرفض الصفقة رغم فائدتها له.
تمثل مخطط تشيتشيكوف بعدما اشترى مئتي روح ميتة في طلب قرض من الحكومة برهن أقنانه ليشتري أرض ويعيش في نعيم بقية حياته، لكن ثرثرة نوزدريف في السجن وخارجه تفشل مخططه، فيركب عربته ويهرب من البلدة بعدما كشف أمره.

الأرواح الميتة

http://abuwabdallh900.googlepages.com/DeadSouls.jpg

عندما قرأ بوشكين الفصول الأولى من الأرواح الميتة, شاهده غوغول وهو يعبس وجهه شيئاً فشيئاً, وهو الذي كان يضحك عالياً عندما يقرأ أعمال غوغول. أصبح في منتهى القتامة عندما أكمل القراءة, وما إن انتهى حتى قال بصوت مسموع: يا إله السموات .. ما أتعس بلادنا الروسية!

نستطيع أن نقسم الأرواح الميتة إلى قسمين, القسم الأول هو القصيدة, والقسم الثاني هي الأزمة التي عصفت بالقصيدة. كانت حياة غوغول مكرسة لعمله الضخم الذي أسماه القصيدة. كان لهذه القصيدة هدف ورسالة واحدة, هي كشف معالم سر الحياة الروسية, ورسالة روسيا في التاريخ المعاصر. ولكن ما هي طبيعة هذه الرسالة التي يريد غوغول أن يكتب عنها؟ إنها ليست بيان سياسي, وإنما أعمق من ذلك بكثير, كان هدف غوغول هو فضح الإنحلال الأخلاقي والروحي الروسي في الحياة المعاصرة عبر نظام القنانة. بينما كان هذا النظام يسير على قدم وساق, هز غوغول أسس هذا النظام وشن هجوماً عليه. بطل الرواية, أو البطل الروسي كما يسميه دستويفسكي: بافيل تشيتشيكوف, ينتقل في رحاب الأرض الروسية من أجل هدفه الوحيد: شراء الأرواح الميتة ليتاجر بها. تبدو الفكرة ما يمكن أن يوصف حالياً بالواقعية السحرية - نفس الثيمة التي يكتب فيها أدباء أمريكا اللاتينية -. ليس هذا بشيء غريب, ف غوغول هو مؤسس هذا المذهب الواقعي الأدبي, والذي تفرع منه لاحقاً الواقعية السحرية والواقعية الرمزية, والواقعية الخيالية.

يبدأ غوغول في القسم الأول من الرواية بتصوير قصة عمل تشيتشيكوف ومقابلاته للإقطاعيين بهدف شراء الأرواح الميتة للفلاحين الذين في حوزتهم, وذلك لكي يقوم بعد شرائها بتسجيلها بعقد تمليك كما لو كانوا أحياء. وبناء عليه يستطيع أن يحصل على قرض من مجلس الوصاية مقابل رهن هذه الأرواح, ويستطيع بذلك أن يصبح مليونيراً. من خلال مقابلات تشيتشيكوف لخمسة أنماط من الإقطاعيين يعري غوغول بشدة الوجه الحقيقي لهؤلاء الذين تجردوا من كل ما هو إنساني, والذين يظهر عالمهم كعالم غريب يسوده الخداع والنفاق والفقر الروحي, رغم أن الشخصيات الإقطاعية في الرواية تظهر باستقلالية عن بعضها إلا أنها تلتقي جميعاً في تجسيدها للجشع في أبشع صوره, واللإنسانية في منتهاها. بعد أن يتم بطل الرواية إتمام الصفقات المزمعة, يأتي القسم الثاني من الرواية, وهي المرحلة اللازمة لإتمام الصفقات وتسجيلها ورهنها. وهنا يصطدم البطل بالعالم الثاني الذي يحاول غوغول كشفه أيضاً بالرواية, ألا وهو عالم الموظفين والجهاز الإداري البيروقراطي .. وكل هؤلاء, كل شخصيات المرحلة الأولى والثانية من الرواية, يمثلون الأرواح الميتة التي وصلت إلى الدرك الأسفل من النذالة والحقارة.

أسلوب كتابة الرواية متنوع رغم قتامة الفكرة و الموضوع. عبر شراء الأرواح الميتة يصور غوغول واقعه الروسي المعاصر. وهو أبرز مثال على فكرة الواقعية النقدية التي أرسى دعائمها. الحدث غير طبيعي - شراء الأرواح - وعبر هذا الحدث يرسم غوغول صورة للواقع الروسي المستعبد والمشغل للفلاح, والتي كانت علاقته بالملاك الإقطاعيين التناقض الرئيسي في ذلك العصر. لم يكن الإهتمام في الرواية منصباً على تقديم بطل نموذج, ولكن, عبر واقعيته النقدية, يفضل غوغول تقديمها على أنها نمط سائد وواقعي في المجتمع.

استخدم غوغول الضحك كوسيلة لفضح الحياة الواقعية وكشف عيوبها, وإبراز تفاهة الحياة التي كان يعيشها السادة الإقطاعيون. أشار غوغول إلى ذلك وهو يتحدث عن خصائص روايته, الحياة الضخمة التي يتناول تصويرها تبرز من خلال الضحك المرئي للعالم, والدموع الغير المرئية والخفية بالنسبة له. سخرية غوغول تحتل كل ركن من أركان فصول الرواية. ف مثلاً, أحد الشخصيات كان بخيلاً جداً إلى درجة أن مروره في شارع ما يعني تنظيف الشارع بكل ما فيه, وليس بحاجة للتنظيف. كان يسرق ويأخذ حتى الأشياء التافهه من الأرض, ويدعي لاحقاً أنها ورثها من أبائه وأجداده. وهناك شخصية أخرى ثانية - نوزدريف - يسخر من خلالها غوغول من الطبقة الراقية وألعاب القمار والمراهنات. نوزدريف يجد سعادته الكبرى في اللعب والسكر إلى درجة الإنقلاب على أعز أصدقاءه, ولعل أشهر مثال على السخرية في رواية غوغول هي في فصل الحفلة الراقصة وشتائم نوزدريف تجاه بطل الرواية :

"إيه يا ملاك خارسون العظيم, هل مر عليك عهد طويل وأنت تتاجر بالأرواح الميتة التي انتقلت إلى رحمة الله؟ اسمع يا تشيتشيكوف, أني أقولها لك بروح الصداقة المخلصة, إن كل الموجودين هنا ليحبونك حتى سعادة حاكم الولاية, ولكن الأمر لو كان بيدي, لشنقتك بيدي, أقسم بالله, وإني لأفعل ذلك. هل تصدقني يا صاحب السعادة, إن هذا الإنسان طلب مني أن أبيعه ما لدي من الأروح الميتة, كان الضحك يقتلني ويا للعجب! ما أكاد أصل إلى هذا البلد حتى أسمع أنه أشترى أرواحاً بثلاثة ملايين روبل! لقد ساومني على أرواحي الميتة! اسمع يا تشيتشيكوف, إنك لخنزير, أقسم بالرب, أنت خنزير صرف. لن أدعك تفلت من يدي, لا , إلا إذا علمت ما هو معنى شراء الأرواح الميتة. استمع إلي, يجب أن تخجل من نفسك, أقول هذا لأنك أوفى الأصدقاء إليّ, هل تعلم ياسعادة الحاكم, لو جئت تسألني يوماً وقلت : استحلفك بشرفك أن تخبرني أيها أحب إلى قلبك, أباك أم تشيتشيكوف؟ قلت : تشيتشيكوف, أقسم بالله على ذلك!"

هناك ثيمات ورموز جعلت من الرواية عمل روسي كامل, مثل موضوع اللغة الروسية عند الطبقة الرفعية, وكيف أصبحت تستخدم للشتائم بشكل حصري, أما الكلمات الرائعة والغزل وكلمات العشق والحديث في السياسة, فيجب أن تُستخدم الكلمات الفرنسية والألمانية والإنجليزية التي أصبحت تعبر عن روح العصر والجمال. هناك ثيمة مشتركة غالباً ما يستخدمها الكتاب الروس في أعمالهم, أقصد الحفلات الراقصة, تولستوي استخدم هذه الثيمة في آنا كارينينا بشكل راقي ومذهل, ودستويفسكي استخدمها كذلك في الشياطين بشكل ساخر وعنيف, أما غوغول, فشن هجوماً عنيفاً على هذه الحفلات التي تقام في قصور حكام الولايات والطبقة الراقية. بقراءة فصل الحفلة الراقصة بإمكاننا أن نعرف لماذا قال بوشكين أن روسيا متوحشة, ولماذا قال الناقد الشهير بيلنسكي أن الأرواح الميتة عمل جبار لا مثيل له في الآداب الروسية. لن أخرج عن نطاق الحفلة الراقصة لأنها تستحق الكتابة عنها أكثر, هناك صوت واحد بالتأكيد في فصل الحفلة الراقصة, هو صوت بطل الرواية تشيتشيكوف. ولكن هناك صوت ثاني, هذا الصوت مخفي لا يظهر للعيان إلا إذا أعلن عن نفسه, هو صوت المؤلف بالتأكيد, ولكن إن لم يعلن عن نفسه, هل بالإمكان أن نقول أن هذا الصوت هو لصوتين وليس صوت البطل فقط. أعترف أن تحليل إيكو للأصوات الروائية استحوذ على تفكيري وأنا أقرأ في العمل الأدبي, أحاول اكتشاف الأصوات لأعرف كم صوت يتشارك في الحديث الدائر, وهل المؤلف هو أحد المشاركين في الصوت أم لا, في أحد صفحات فصل الحفلة الراقصة مونولوج داخلي للبطل يلعن فيه الحفلات الراقصة ويشن هجوماً عليها. ما لفت انتباهي هو أن تشيتشيكوف أصبح بصورة أو بأخرى مدافعاً عن الفلاحين العبيد, وهو في الرواية أبعد ما يكون عن خط الدفاع عنهم. إنه يشتري الأرواح لكي يكسب من ورائها, هل هذا الصوت دخيل على النص أم ثغرة وقع فيها غوغول؟ في الحقيقة أعتقد أن النص سليم لا تشوبه شائبة, وليس هناك ثغرة في النص كذلك, ولكن اختلط صوت المؤلف بصوت تشيتشيكوف.

" سحقاً لمن اخترع الحفلات الراقصة! أي إنسان يمكن أن يشعر فيها بالبهجة الخالصة؟ العوز والفاقة ماثلان في كل بقعة من هذه الولاية, والناس يقيمون الحفلات الراقصة! وهؤلاء النسوة السخيفات اللواتي يرتدين أغلى الملابس! إن كل واحدة منهن لا تحمل أقل من ألف روبل على كتفيها, ألف روبل جاءت من عرق الفلاح المثقل عبؤه بالضرائب, أو ما هو ألعن من ذلك ... الخ "

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (Russian: Никола́й Васи́льевич Го́голь, tr. Nikolay Vasilyevich Gogol; IPA: [nʲɪkɐˈlaj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈgogəlʲ]; Ukrainian: Мико́ла Васи́льович Го́голь, Mykola Vasyliovych Hohol; 31 March [O.S. 19 March] 1809 – 4 March [O.S. 21 February] 1852[4]) was a Ukrainian-born Russian dramatist, novelist and short story writer.[4]
Considered by his contemporaries one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in Gogol's work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of Surrealism and the grotesque ("The Nose", "Viy", "The Overcoat," "Nevsky Prospekt"). His early works, such as Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, were influenced by his Ukrainian upbringing, Ukrainian culture and folklore.[5][6] His later writing satirised political corruption in the Russian Empire (The Government Inspector, Dead Souls), leading to his eventual exile. The novel Taras Bulba (1835) and the play Marriage (1842), along with the short stories "Diary of a Madman", "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich", "The Portrait" and "The Carriage", round out the tally of his best-known works.

Gogol was born in the Ukrainian Cossack village of Sorochyntsi,[4] in Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire, present-day Ukraine. His mother was a descendant of Polish landowners.
His father Vasily Gogol-Yanovsky, a descendant of Ukrainian Cossacks, belonged to the 'petty gentry', wrote poetry in Ukrainian and Russian, and was an amateur Ukrainian-language playwright, who died when Gogol was 15 years old.
As was typical of the left-bank Ukrainian gentry of the early nineteenth century, the family spoke Russian as well as Ukrainian. As a child, Gogol helped stage Ukrainian-language plays in his uncle's home theater.
In 1820 Gogol went to a school of higher art in Nizhyn and remained there until 1828. It was there that he began writing. He was not popular among his schoolmates, who called him their "mysterious dwarf", but with two or three of them he formed lasting friendships. Very early he developed a dark and secretive disposition, marked by a painful self-consciousness and boundless ambition. Equally early he developed a talent for mimicry, which later made him a matchless reader of his own works and induced him to toy with the idea of becoming an actor.
In 1828, on leaving school, Gogol came to St Petersburg, full of vague but glowingly ambitious hopes. He had hoped for literary fame, and brought with him a Romantic poem of German idyllic life – Hans Küchelgarten. He had it published, at his own expense, under the name of "V. Alov." The magazines he sent it to almost universally derided it. He bought all the copies and destroyed them, swearing never to write poetry again.
Gogol was one of the first masters of the short story, alongside Alexander Pushkin, Prosper Mérimée, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Edgar Allan Poe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. He was in touch with the "literary aristocracy", had a story published in Anton Delvig's Northern Flowers, was taken up by Vasily Zhukovsky and Pyotr Pletnyov, and (in 1831) was introduced to Pushkin.

In 1831, he brought out the first volume of his Ukrainian stories (Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka), which met with immediate success. He followed it in 1832 with a second volume, and in 1835 by two volumes of stories entitled Mirgorod, as well as by two volumes of miscellaneous prose entitled Arabesques. At this time Russian editors and critics such as Nikolai Polevoy and Nikolai Nadezhdin saw in Gogol the emergence of a Ukrainian, rather than Russian, writer, using his works to illustrate supposed differences between Russian and Ukrainian national characters, a fact that has been overlooked in later Russian literary history.[8] The themes and style of these early prose works by Gogol, as well as his later drama, were similar to the work of Ukrainian writers and dramatists who were his contemporaries and friends, including Hryhory Kvitka-Osnovyanenko and Vasily Narezhny. However, Gogol's satire was much more sophisticated and unconventional.[9]
At this time, Gogol developed a passion for Ukrainian history and tried to obtain an appointment to the history department at Kiev University. Despite the support of Pushkin and Sergey Uvarov, the Russian minister of education, his appointment was blocked by a Kievan bureaucrat on the grounds that he was unqualified.[10] His fictional story Taras Bulba, based on the history of Ukrainian cossacks, was the result of this phase in his interests. During this time he also developed a close and lifelong friendship with another Ukrainian, the historian and naturalist Mykhaylo Maksymovych.[11]
In 1834 Gogol was made Professor of Medieval History at the University of St. Petersburg, a job for which he had no qualifications. He turned in a performance ludicrous enough to warrant satiric treatment in one of his own stories. After an introductory lecture made up of brilliant generalizations which the 'historian' had prudently prepared and memorized, he gave up all pretense at erudition and teaching, missed two lectures out of three, and when he did appear, muttered unintelligibly through his teeth. At the final examination, he sat in utter silence with a black handkerchief wrapped around his head, simulating a toothache, while another professor interrogated the students."[12] This academic venture proved a failure and he resigned his chair in 1835.
Between 1832 and 1836 Gogol worked with great energy, and though almost all his work has in one way or another its sources in these four years of contact with Pushkin, he had not yet decided that his ambitions were to be fulfilled by success in literature. During this time, the Russian critics Stepan Shevyrev and Vissarion Belinsky, contradicting earlier critics, reclassified Gogol from a Ukrainian to a Russian writer.[8] It was only after the presentation, on 19 April 1836, of his comedy The Government Inspector (Revizor) that he finally came to believe in his literary vocation. The comedy, a violent satire of Russian provincial bureaucracy, was staged thanks only to the intervention of the emperor, Nicholas I.
From 1836 to 1848 Gogol lived abroad, travelling through Germany and Switzerland. Gogol spent the winter of 1836–1837 in Paris, among Russian expatriates and Polish exiles, frequently meeting the Polish poets Adam Mickiewicz and Bohdan Zaleski. He eventually settled in Rome. For much of the twelve years from 1836 Gogol was in Italy. He studied art, read Italian literature and developed a passion for opera. He mingled with Russian and other visitors, and in 1838 met Count Ioseph Vielhorskiy, the 23-year-old son of the official who had brought Gogol's Government Inspector to the attention of the emperor. Vielhorsky was travelling in hopes of curing his tuberculosis. Gogol became deeply attached to the young man and attended him in his illness, but in 1839 Vielhorsky died. Gogol left an account of this time in his Nights at the Villa.
Pushkin's death produced a strong impression on Gogol. His principal work during years following Pushkin's death was the satirical epic Dead Souls. Concurrently, he worked at other tasks – recast Taras Bulba and The Portrait, completed his second comedy, Marriage (Zhenitba), wrote the fragment Rome and his most famous short story, The Overcoat.
In 1841 the first part of Dead Souls was ready, and Gogol took it to Russia to supervise its printing. It appeared in Moscow in 1842, under the title, imposed by the censorship, of The Adventures of Chichikov. The book instantly established his reputation as the greatest prose writer in the language

NIKOLAI VASILEVICH GOGOL
was born at Sorotchinetz, in Little Russia, in March, 1809, the exact day being impossible to discover. The year in which he appeared on the planet proved to be the literary annus mirabilis of the century; for in this same twelvemonth were born Charles Darwin, Alfred Tennyson, Abraham Lincoln, Poe, Gladstone, Holmes, Chopin, and Mendelssohn. His father was a literary amateur, who wrote dramatic pieces for his own amusement, and who spent his time on the old family estate, not in managing the farms, but in wandering about the gardens and beholding the fowls of the air. The boy inherited much from his father; but he had the best of all private tutors, a good mother, of whom his biographer says, Elle demeure toujours sa plus intime amie.
At the age of twelve, Nikolai was sent away to the high school at Nyezhin, a town near Kiev. There he remained from 1821 to 1828. He was a poor student, having no enthusiasm for his lessons, and showing no distinction either in scholarship or deportment. Fortunately, however, the school had a theatre of its own, and Gogol, who hated mathematics, and cared little for the study of modern languages, here found an outlet for all his mental energy. He soon became the acknowledged leader of the school in matters dramatic, and unconsciously prepared himself for his future career. Like Schiller, he wrote a tragedy, called The Robbers.
In December, 1828, Gogol took up his residence in St. Petersburg, bringing with him some manuscripts that he had written while at school. He had the temerity to publish one, which was so brutally ridiculed by the critics that the young genius, in despair, burned all the unsold copies. Then he vainly tried various means of subsistence. Suddenly he decided to seek his fortune in America, but he was both homesick and seasick before the ship emerged from the Baltic, and from Lübeck he fled incontinently back to St. Petersburg. Then he tried to become an actor, but his voice was not sufficiently strong. For a short time he held a minor official position, and a little later was professor of history, an occupation he did not enjoy, saying after his resignation, "I am now a free Cossack again." Meanwhile his pen was steadily busy, and his sketches of farm life in the Ukraine attracted considerable attention among literary circles in the capital.
In 1831, he had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of the great poet Pushkin, father of modern Russian literature, and a few months later in the same year he was presented to Madame Smirnova; these friends gave him the entrée to the St. Petersburg salons, and the young writer found himself in a wholly congenial environment. It was Pushkin who suggested to him the subjects for two of his most famous works, Revizor (The Inspector General) and Dead Souls. Another friend, Joukovsky, exercised a powerful influence and gave invaluable aid at several crises of his career. Joukovsky had translated the Iliad and the Odyssey; his enthusiasm for Hellenic poetry was contagious; and under this inspiration Gogol proceeded to write the most Homeric romance in Russian literature, Taras Bulba (1834). This story gave the first indubitable proof of its author's genius, and today in the world's fiction, it holds an unassailable place in the front rank. The book is so short that it may be read through in less than two hours; but it gives the same impression of vastness and immensity as the huge volumes of Sienkiewicz.
Gogol followed this amazingly powerful romance by two other works, which seem to have all the marks of immortality--the comedy Revizor (The Inspector General) (1836), and a long, unfinished novel, which its author called a poem, Dead Souls (1842). This latter book is the first of the great realistic novels of Russia, of which Fathers and Sons, Crime and Punishment, and Anna Karenina are such splendid examples.
From 1836 to his death in 1852, Gogol lived mainly abroad, and spent much time in travel. His favorite place of residence was Rome, to which city he repeatedly returned with increasing affection. In 1848 he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, for Gogol never departed from the pious Christian faith taught him by his mother; in fact, toward the end of his life, he became a mystic. The last years were marred by illness, and--a common thing among Russian literary geniuses--by intense nervous depression. He died at Moscow, the 21st February, 1852. His last words were the old saying, "And I shall laugh with a bitter laugh." These words were placed on his tomb.

Nikolai Gogol was born in Sorochintsi, Ukraine, where he grew up on his parents' country estate. His real surname was Ianovskii, but the writer's grandfather had taken the name 'Gogol' to claim a noble Cossack ancestry. Gogol's father was an educated and gifted man, who wrote plays, poems, and sketches in Ukrainian.
Gogol started write while in high school. He attended Poltava boarding school (1819-21) and then Nezhin high school (1821-28), where he produced plays for the student's theatre and acted in some productions. However, he was not very highly esteemed by his school and he found it difficult to open up to his schoolmates, who regarded him as the "mysterious dwarf," a secretive individual.
To his mother he wrote: "At home I am considered wilful; here I am called meek . . . in some quarters I am so very quiet, modest, polite; in others – sullen, pensive, uncouth . . . for some I am intelligent, for others I am stupid" (March 1, 1828).
In 1828 Gogol, an aspiring writer, settled in St. Petersburg, with a certificate attesting his right to "the rank of the 14th class". To support himself, Gogol worked at minor governmental jobs and wrote occasionally for periodicals. Although he was interested in literature, he also dreamed of becoming an actor. However, the capital of Russia did not welcome him with open arms and his early narrative poem, Hans Küchelgarten (1829), turned out to be a disaster.
Between the years 1831 and 1834 Gogol taught history at the Patriotic Institute and worked as a private tutor. In 1831 he met Aleksandr Pushkin who greatly influenced his choice of literary material, especially his "Dikinka tales", which were based on Ukrainian folklore. Their friendship lasted until the great poet's death. Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka from 1831-32, Gogol's breakthrough work, showed his skill in mixing fantastic with macabre, and at the same saying something very essential about the Russian character.
After failure as an assistant lecturer of world history at the University of St. Petersburg (1834-35), Gogol became a full-time writer. Under the title Mirgorod (1835) Gogol published a new collection of stories, beginning with 'Old-World Landowners', which described the decay of the old way of life. The book also included the famous historical tale 'Taras Bulba', written under the influence of Walter Scott. The protagonist is a strong, heroic character, not very typical for the author's later cavalcade of bureaucrats, lunatics, swindlers, and humiliated losers. One hostile critic descibed his city dwellers as the "scum of Petersburg". In his short stories, Gogol fully utilized the Petersburg mythology, in which the city was treated "both as 'paradise', a utopian ideal city of the future, the embodiment of Reason, and as the terrible masquerade of Antichrist." (Yuri Lotman in Universe of the Mind, 1990) Gogol was also the first to publish an extended literary comparison between Moscow and Petersburg, concluding, "Russia needs Moscow; Petersburg needs Russia."
"I am destined by the mysterious powers to walk hand in hand with my strange heroes," wrote Gogol once, "viewing life in all its immensity as it rushes past me, viewing it through laughter seen by the world and tears unseen and unknown by it." St. Petersburg Stories (1835) examined social relationships and disorders of mind; Gogol's influence can be seen among others in Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground (1864) and The Crime and the Punishment (1866). Gogolian tradition continued also among others in the stories of Franz Kafka.
In Rome Gogol wrote his major work, The Dead Souls. "The prophet finds no honor in his homeland," he said. Gogol claimed that the story was suggested by Pushkin in a conversation in 1835. Pushkin did not live to see its publication, but on hearing the first chapters read, he exclaimed: "God, how sad our Russia is!"
Wishing to embrace the whole Russian society, Gogol regarded the first volume merely as "a pale introduction to the great epic poem which is taking shape in my mind and will finally solve the riddle of my existence". The story depicted the adventures Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, who arrives in a provincial town to buy '"dead souls", dead serfs. As a character, he is the opposite of starving Akakii Akakievich. By selling these 'souls' with a cheaply-bought lands, Chichikov planned to make a huge profit. He meets local landowners and departs the in a hurry, when rumors start spread about him.

by Leo Tolstoy, Russia, (1828-1910)



The Death of Ivan Ilyich" is one of the masterpieces of Tolstoy's late fiction and the first major fictional work to be published by the author after his crisis and conversion to Christianity. The story of the life and death at the age of forty-five, of a high court prosecutor in 19th-century Russia, it is an intense and moving examination of loss and the possibilities of redemption, in which Tolstoy explores the dichotomy between the artificial and the authentic life. The nine other stories in this new collection include "Hadji Murat" which has been described by Harold Bloom as 'the best story in the world' and "The Devil", a tale of sexual obsession based on Tolstoy's own relationship with a married peasant woman on his estate in the years before his marriage. Magnificently translated by the acclaimed translating team behind "War and Peace", this new volume captures the richness and immediacy of Tolstoy's language and reveals the author as a passionate moral guide, an unflinching seeker of truth, and a creator of enduring and universal art.

Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is best known for War and Peace and Anna Karenina, commonly regarded as amongst the greatest novels ever written. He also, however, wrote many masterly short stories, and this volume contains four of the longest and best in distinguished translations that have stood the test of time. In the early story Family Happiness, Tolstoy explores courtship and marriage from the point of view of a young wife. In The Kreutzer Sonata he gives us a terrifying study of marital breakdown, in The Devil a powerful depiction of the power of sexual temptation, and, in perhaps the finest of all, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, he portrays the long agony of a man gradually coming to terms with his own mortality

==


At the age of forty-one, Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) underwent a profound spiritual crisis, from which he emerged believing that he had encountered death itself. These seven compelling stories explore, in very different ways, his subsequent preoccupation with mortality. "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" is a devastating account of a man fighting his inevitable end, and asks the existential question: why must a good person be taken before his time? In 'Polikushka', a light-fingered drunk's chance to prove himself has tragic repercussions, while 'Three Deaths' depicts the last moments of an aristocrat, a peasant and a tree, and 'The Forged Coupon' shows a seemingly minor offence that leads inexorably to ever more horrific crimes. And in three tales about soldiers, 'After the Ball', 'The Wood-felling' and 'The Raid', Tolstoy portrays the brutality that all too often accompanies military life.

Decameron

by Giovanni Boccaccio, Italy, (1313-1375)

1348. The Black Death is sweeping through Europe. In Florence, ague has carried off one hundred thousand people. In their Tuscan villas, seven young women and three young men tell tales to recreate the world they have lost, weaving a rich tapestry of comedy, tragedy, ribaldry and farce.
Boccaccio's Decameron recasts the storytelling heritage of the ancient and medieval worlds into perennial forms that inspired writers from Chaucer and Shakespeare down to our own day.

Boccaccio makes the incredible believable, with detail so sharp we can look straight into the lives of people who lived six hundred years ago.


His Decameron hovers between the fading glories of an aristocratic past - the Crusades, the Angevins, the courts of France, the legendary East - and the colourful squalor of contemporary life, where wives deceive husbands, friars and monks pursue fleshly ends, and natural instincts fight for satisfaction. Here are love and jealousy, passion and pride - and a shrewd calculation of profit and loss which heralds the rise of a dynamic merchant class. These stories show us early capitalism during a moment of crisis and revelation.

==
Giovanni Boccaccio (Italian: [dʒoˈvanni bokˈkattʃo]; 1313 – 21 December 1375)[1] was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular. Boccaccio is particularly notable for his dialogue, of which it has been said that it surpasses in verisimilitude that of virtually all of his contemporaries, since they were medieval writers and often followed formulaic models for character and plot.

Boccaccio grew up in Florence. His father worked for the Compagnia dei Bardi and in the 1320s married Margherita dei Mardoli, of an illustrious family. It is believed Boccaccio was tutored by Giovanni Mazzuoli and received from him an early introduction to the works of Dante. In 1326 Boccaccio moved to Naples with the family when his father was appointed to head the Neapolitan branch of his bank. Boccaccio was apprenticed to the bank, but it was a trade for which he had no affinity. He eventually persuaded his father to let him study law at the Studium in the city.[5] For the next six years Boccaccio studied canon law there. From there he pursued his interest in scientific and literary studies.[6]
His father introduced him to the Neapolitan nobility and the French-influenced court of Robert the Wise in the 1330s. At this time he fell in love with a married daughter of King Robert of Naples (known as Robert the Wise) and she is immortalized as the character "Fiammetta" in many of Boccaccio's prose romances, particularly Il Filocolo (1338). Boccaccio became a friend of fellow Florentine Niccolò Acciaioli, and benefited from his influence as the administrator, and perhaps the lover, of Catherine of Valois-Courtenay, widow of Philip I of Taranto. Acciaioli later became counsellor to Queen Joan I of Naples and, eventually, her Grand Seneschal.
It seems Boccaccio enjoyed law no more than banking, but his studies allowed him the opportunity to study widely and make good contacts with fellow scholars. His early influences included Paolo da Perugia (a curator and author of a collection of myths, the Collectiones), the humanists Barbato da Sulmona and Giovanni Barrili, and the theologian Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro.

In Naples, Boccaccio began what he considered his true vocation, poetry. Works produced in this period include Filostrato and Teseida (the sources for Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and The Knight's Tale, respectively), Filocolo, a prose version of an existing French romance, and La caccia di Diana, a poem in terza rima listing Neapolitan women.[7] The period featured considerable formal innovation, including possibly the introduction of the Sicilian octave to Florence, where it influenced Petrarch.
Boccaccio returned to Florence in early 1341, avoiding the plague in that city of 1340, but also missing the visit of Petrarch to Naples in 1341. He had left Naples due to tensions between the Angevin king and Florence. His father had returned to Florence in 1338, where he had gone bankrupt. His mother died shortly afterward (possibly, as she was unknown – see above). Although dissatisfied with his return to Florence, Boccaccio continued to work, producing Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine (also known as Ameto) a mix of prose and poems, in 1341, completing the fifty canto allegorical poem Amorosa visione in 1342, and Fiammetta[8] in 1343. The pastoral piece Ninfale fiesolano probably dates from this time also. In 1343, Boccaccio's father re-married, to Bice del Bostichi. His children by his first marriage had all died but he had another son, Iacopo, in 1344.
In Florence, the overthrow of Walter of Brienne brought about the government of popolo minuto ("small people," workers). It diminished the influence of the nobility and the wealthier merchant classes and assisted in the relative decline of Florence. The city was hurt further, in 1348, by the Black Death, which killed some three-quarters of the city's population, later represented in the Decameron.
From 1347, Boccaccio spent much time in Ravenna, seeking new patronage, and despite his claims, it is not certain whether he was present in plague-ravaged Florence. His stepmother died during the epidemic and his father, as Minister of Supply in the city was closely associated with the government efforts. His father died in 1349 and as head of the family Boccaccio was forced into a more active role.
Boccaccio began work on the Decameron[9][10] around 1349. It is probable that the structures of many of the tales date from earlier in his career, but the choice of a hundred tales and the frame-story lieta brigata of three men and seven women dates from this time. The work was largely complete by 1352. It was Boccaccio's final effort in literature and one of his last works in Italian, the only other substantial work was Corbaccio (dated to either 1355 or 1365). Boccaccio revised and rewrote the Decameron in 1370–1371. This manuscript has survived to the present day.
From 1350, Boccaccio, although less of a scholar, became closely involved with Italian humanism and also with the Florentine government. His first official mission was to Romagna in late 1350. He revisited that city-state twice and also was sent to Brandenburg, Milan, and Avignon. He also pushed for the study of Greek, housing Barlaam of Calabria, and encouraging his tentative translations of works by Homer, Euripides, and Aristotle.
In October 1350, he was delegated to greet Francesco Petrarch as he entered Florence and also to have the great man as a guest at his home during his stay. The meeting between the two was extremely fruitful and they were friends from then on, Boccaccio calling Petrarch his teacher and magister. Petrarch at that time encouraged Boccaccio to study classical Greek and Latin literature. They met again in Padua in 1351, Boccaccio on an official mission to invite Petrarch to take a chair at the university in Florence. Although unsuccessful, the discussions between the two were instrumental in Boccaccio writing the Genealogia deorum gentilium; the first edition was completed in 1360 and this would remain one of the key reference works on classical mythology for over 400 years. It served as an extended defense for the studies of ancient literature and thought. Despite the Pagan beliefs at its core, Boccaccio believed that much could be learned from antiquity. Thus, he challenged the arguments of clerical intellectuals who wanted to limit access to classical sources to prevent any moral harm to Christian readers. In that the revival of classical antiquity became necessary to the achievement of the Renaissance, his defense of the importance of ancient literature was an essential requirement for its development.[11] The discussions also formalized Boccaccio's poetic ideas. Certain sources also see a conversion of Boccaccio by Petrarch from the open humanist of the Decameron to a more ascetic style, closer to the dominant fourteenth century ethos. For example, he followed Petrarch (and Dante) in the unsuccessful championing of an archaic and deeply allusive form of Latin poetry. In 1359 following a meeting with Pope Innocent VI and further meetings with Petrarch it is probable that Boccaccio took some kind of religious mantle. There is a persistent, but unsupported, tale that he repudiated his earlier works, including the Decameron, in 1362, as profane.
In 1360, Boccaccio began work on De mulieribus claris, a book offering biographies of one hundred and six famous women, that he completed in 1374.
Following the failed coup of 1361, a number of Boccaccio's close friends and other acquaintances were executed or exiled in the subsequent purge. Although not directly linked to the conspiracy, it was in this year that Boccaccio left Florence to reside in Certaldo, and became less involved in government affairs. He did not undertake further missions for Florence until 1365, and traveled to Naples and then on to Padua and Venice, where he met up with Petrarch in grand style at Palazzo Molina, Petrarch's residence as well as the place of Petrarch's library. He later then returned to Certaldo. He met Petrarch only once again, in Padua in 1368. Upon hearing of the death of Petrarch (19 July 1374), Boccaccio wrote a commemorative poem, including it in his collection of lyric poems, the Rime.
He returned to work for the Florentine government in 1365, undertaking a mission to Pope Urban V. When the papacy returned to Rome from Avignon in 1367, Boccaccio was again sent to Urban, offering congratulations. He also undertook diplomatic missions to Venice and Naples.
Of his later works the moralistic biographies gathered as De casibus virorum illustrium (1355–74) and De mulieribus claris (1361–1375) were most significant.[12] Other works include a dictionary of geographical allusions in classical literature, De montibus, silvis, fontibus, lacubus, fluminibus, stagnis seu paludibus, et de nominibus maris liber (a title desperate for the coining of the word "geography"). He gave a series of lectures on Dante at the Santo Stefano church in 1373 and these resulted in his final major work, the detailed Esposizioni sopra la Commedia di Dante.[13] Boccaccio and Petrarch were also two of the most educated people in early Renaissance in the field of archaeology.
Boccaccio's change in writing style in the 1350s was not due just to meeting with Petrarch. It was mostly due to poor health and a premature weakening of his physical strength. It also was due to disappointments in love. Some such disappointment could explain why Boccaccio, having previously written always in praise of women and love, came suddenly to write in a bitter Corbaccio style. Petrarch describes how Pietro Petrone (a Carthusian monk) on his death bed in 1362 sent another Carthusian (Gioacchino Ciani) to urge him to renounce his worldly studies.[15] Petrarch then dissuaded Boccaccio from burning his own works and selling off his personal library, letters, books, and manuscripts. Petrarch even offered to purchase Boccaccio's library, so that it would become part of Petrarch's library. However, upon Boccaccio's death his entire collection was given to the monastery of Santo Spirito, in Florence, where it still resides.[16]
His final years were troubled by illnesses, some relating to obesity and what often is described as dropsy, severe edema that would be described today as congestive heart failure. He died at the age of sixty-two on 21 December 1375 in Certaldo, where he is buried.

Grande Sertão: Veredas (Portuguese for "Great Backlands: Tracks"; English translation: The Devil to Pay in the Backlands) is a novel published in 1956 by the Brazilian writer João Guimarães Rosa.
The original title refers to the veredas - small paths of wetlands usually located at higher altitudes characterized by the presence of grasses and buritizais, groups of the buriti palm-tree (Mauritia flexuosa),[1] that criss-cross the Sertão region in northern Minas Gerais, Southeast Brazil - as a labyrinthine net where an outsider can easily get lost, and where there is no single way to a certain place, since all paths interconnect in such a way that any road can lead anywhere. The English title refers to a later episode in the book involving an attempt to make a deal with the devil. Most of the book's spirit is however lost in translation, as the Portuguese original is written in a register that is both archaic and colloquial, making it a very difficult book to translate. The combination of its size, linguistic oddness and polemic themes caused a shock when it was published, but now it is considered one of the most important novels of South American literature. In a 2002 poll of 100 noted writers conducted by Norwegian Book Clubs, the book was named among the top 100 books of all time.[2]
Grande Sertão: Veredas is the complex story of Riobaldo, a former jagunço (mercenary or bandit) of the poor and steppe-like inland of the Rio São Francisco, known as Sertão, of the state of Minas Gerais in the dawn of 20th century. Now an old man and a rancher, Riobaldo tells his long story to an anonymous and silent listener coming from the city.
Riobaldo is born into a middle-class family and, unlike most of his contemporaries, receives an education. This enables him to begin his career as a tutor to a prominent local rancher, Ze Bebelo, and he watches as Ze Bebelo raises an army of his own jagunços to stamp out several of the local bandit gangs. Instead, for reasons that are never fully clear—apparently a desire for adventure—he disappears from the ranch and defects to the side of the bandits under the leadership of Joca Ramiro. Due to his excellent aim, Riobaldo becomes a valued member of the band and begins to rise in stature. In the course of the events Riobaldo gets acquainted with Diadorim, who we later find out is someone from his past who used the name, "Reinaldo". Diadorim is a young, pleasant and ambivalent fellow jagunço. The two start a profound and subtly homoerotic friendship. Throughout the book it is hinted that Diadorim is Joca Ramiro's nephew or illegitimate son.
Ramiro's men defeat and capture Ze Bebelo, but after a short trial, Bebelo is released. The war is temporarily over, but news later comes that two of Ramiro's lieutenants, Ricardão and Hermogenes, have betrayed and murdered him. As a result, the victorious army splits in two, Riobaldo staying with the current leader, Medeiro Vaz. When Vaz dies of illness, Ze Bebelo returns from exile and takes ownership of the band (this is actually where the book begins; the previous part is told in a very lengthy retrospective). They survive a lengthy siege by Hermogenes' men, but Ze Bebelo loses the taste for fighting, and the band is idled for nearly a month in a plague-ridden village. When this happens, Riobaldo mounts a challenge and takes command of the band, sending Ze Bebelo away.
Riobaldo, who has mused on the nature of the devil intermittently since the beginning of the book, tries to make a pact with the devil. He goes to a crossroads at midnight, but is uncertain as to whether the deal has been made or not, and he remains unsure for the rest of the story. He leads his band across a hostile desert and successfully ambushes and destroys Ricardão's men and kills Ricardão. He then moves against Hermogenes but is surprised; with difficulty and heavy casualties, his army defeats Hermogenes. The climax of the book is a knife-fight between the two opposing armies. In the fight, Diadorim kills Hermogenes, but is in turn killed.
When Diadorim's body is washed, Riobaldo discovers that Diadorim is in fact a woman, and the mystery of their love is cleared up. Riobaldo resigns command of the jagunços and settles down to a more conventional life.
The book is written in one long section, with no section or chapter breaks.

The question has been raised: Why hasn’t The Devil to Pay in the Backlands, the first and only English translation of Grande Sertão: Veredas, been republished? And to be quite honest, it was with this question that AMB began. As someone who can only read in English, naturally, I asked as I read the novel for the first time: why haven’t more people read this? To me it didn’t make any sense. The Devil to Pay in the Backlands was magnificent, and no one cared. Once I looked into the matter, I found that most every English-only reader who reads the book asks the same. Then I learned that the general consensus among a great deal of Portuguese-English readers is that the English translation is, among other things, a joke, blasphemy, a cowboy story.

As we learn from Piers Armstrong in his essay, “Guimarães Rosa in Translation: scrittore, editore, traduttore, traditore,”[1] Guimarães Rosa maintained a close, working relationship with his English Translator, Harriet de Onís, as was the case with all of his translators (English, German, Spanish, French & Italian), and acted as literary edifier to each, instigating a spirit of rivalry amongst them when necessary to meet deadlines, or to ensure maximum effort be given to the endeavor of translation. We learn that Guimarães Rosa was less an idealist and more a pragmatist “willing to make aesthetic compromises” to see that the translation was completed in his lifetime; and, more importantly, we learn how Guimarães Rosa believed there to be a higher metaphysical meaning to Grande Sertão: Veredas, which could be conveyed with other words (from other languages) without necessarily translating the original Portuguese word for word.
Armstrong quotes the following from one of Guimarães Rosa’s letters to his German translator, Curt Meyer-Clason, which I’ve translated (very roughly) for the general comprehension of the English Reader:
“Of course, even I recognize that much of the ‘daring’ expression stands to be lost in any translation. Most importantly, in the book, is the indeed essential, the content. To attempt to reproduce everything, everything, tone for tone, spark for spark, blow by blow, the sertanejo monologue exacerbated, would be a massive undertaking, a work of arduous recreation, costly, reckless & random. I know neither the publisher, nor the translator, nor the author, [we,] can take such a risk (69-70).”
Understanding that Guimarães Rosa is, to a certain extent, as responsible for the final product in English as Onís, the argument could be made (pale though the English translation may to the original): The Devil to Pay in the Backlands is the author-approved translation—subpar, comparatively, but nothing to scoff at when you can’t read Portuguese.
Of the negative criticism The Devil to Pay in the Backlands receives even till this day, Armstrong says the following under the section of his essay “The Strategies of the Translators”:
“Critics hostile to the North American version, which was executed by highly qualified professionals, should understand that its nature was due to a strategy and not simply to incompetence. The strategy was to minimize foreignness and culturally transpose the material into a context recognizable and familiar to the reader in the target culture. Such a strategy may betray the dignity of high art, which effectively presupposes a pre-requiste familiarity with certain currents within alien cultures through the privilege of education. It is still a legitimate strategy and an arduous stylistic exercise (74).”
I note these passages because I believe they shed a great deal of light on our subject; I don’t intend to suggest we settle for the 1963 translation (because even Guimarães Rosa had his opinion:
“The American book is filled with flaws & still deeper alterations, impairments, omissions and cuts. Just compare it with the original on any page.”[2]).
I only aim to clarify that perhaps the best people, willing & able for the job at the time, carried out Knopf’s translation, and if anything, I wish to remind the reader that David Treece’s translations of The Jaguar & Other Stories, along with the stylistic rendering demonstrated by Charles Perrone, stand as two fine examples of what brilliant potential still exists for Grande Sertão: Veredas—some future, yet unforseen translation, which will undoubtedly exceed far beyond what Guimarães Rosa was willing to settle for back in the sixties, as well as beyond what he could have ever imagined possible from the English language, especially when we consider what Piers Armstrong mentions in his essay about how “within the Rosean repertoire, Grande Sertão: Veredas is comparatively translatable (65).”

I’ve just begun to delve into the work of Piers Armstrong, Professor of the Department of Modern Languages at CalState Los Angeles. He’s written a great deal regarding Guimarães Rosa in recent years, and I’m sure anyone who wishes to form an opinion of the 1963 English translation should undoubtedly read him first.

“Guimarães Rosa in Translation: scrittore, editore, traduttore, traditore,” is the essay which has served as my primary source for this post, and which is divided into the following sections:

João Guimarães Rosa

(27 June 1908 – 19 November 1967) was a Braziliannovelist, considered by many to be one of the greatest Brazilian novelists born in the 20th century. His best-known work is the novel Grande Sertão: Veredas (translated as The Devil to Pay in the Backlands). Some people consider this to be the Brazilian equivalent of Ulysses.[1][2][3]

Guimarães Rosa was born in Cordisburgo in the state of Minas Gerais, the first of six children of Florduardo Pinto Rosa (nicknamed "seu Fulô") and Francisca Guimarães Rosa ("Chiquitinha").
He was self-taught in many areas and from childhood studied many languages, starting with French before he was seven years old, as can be seen in an interview he gave a cousin of his later in life:
I speak: Portuguese, German, French, English, Spanish, Italian, Esperanto, some Russian; I read: Swedish, Dutch, Latin and Greek (but with the dictionary right next to me); I understand some German dialects; I studied the grammar of: Hungarian, Arabic, Sanskrit, Lithuanian, Polish, Tupi, Hebrew, Japanese, Czech, Finnish, Danish; I dabbled in others. But all at a very basic level. And I think that studying the spirit and the mechanism of other languages helps a great deal in the deeper understanding of the national language [of Brazil]. In general, however, I studied for pleasure, desire, distraction.
Still a child, he moved to his grandparents' house in Belo Horizonte, where he finished primary school. He began his secondary schooling at the Santo Antônio School in São João del Rei, but soon returned to Belo Horizonte, where he graduated. In 1925, at only 16, he applied for what was then called the College of Medicine of Minas Gerais University.
On June 27, 1930, he married Lígia Cabral Penna, a girl of only 16, with whom he had two daughters, Vilma and Agnes. Vilma had a son, João Emílio, who had a daughter, Alice (the only granddaughter of the author). In that same year he graduated and began his medical practice in Itaguara, then in the municipality of Itaúna, in Minas Gerais, where he stayed about two years. It is in this town that he had his first contact with elements from the sertão (semi-arid Brazilian outback), which would serve as reference and inspiration in many of his works.
Back in Itaguara, Guimarães Rosa served as a volunteer doctor of the Public Force (Força Pública) in the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932, heading to the so-called Tunel sector in Passa-Quatro, Minas Gerais, where he came into contact with the future president Juscelino Kubitschek, at that time the chief doctor of the Blood Hospital. Later he became a civil servant through examination. In 1933, he went to Barbacena in the position of Doctor of the 9th Infantry Battalion (Oficial Médico do 9º Batalhão de Infantaria). Most of his life was spent as a Brazilian diplomat in Europe and Latin America. In 1938 he served as assistant-Consul in Hamburg, Germany, where he met his future second wife, the Righteous Among the NationsAracy de Carvalho Guimarães Rosa.
In 1963, he was chosen by unanimous vote to enter the Academia Brasileira de Letras (Brazilian Academy of Letters) in his second candidacy. After postponing for 4 years, he finally assumed his position only in 1967: just three days before passing away in the city of Rio de Janeiro, victim of a heart attack. His masterpiece is The Devil to Pay in the Backlands. In this novel, Riobaldo, a jagunço is torn between two loves: Diadorim, another jagunço, and Otacília, an ordinary beauty from the backlands. Following his own existential quest, he contemplates making a deal with Lucifer in order to eliminate Hermógenes, his nemesis. One could say that Sertão (the backlands) represents the whole Universe and the mission of Riobaldo is to pursue its travessia, or crossing, seeking answers for the metaphysical questions faced by mankind. In this sense he is an incarnation of the classical hero in the Brazilian backlands.
Guimarães Rosa died at the summit of his diplomatic and literary career. He was 59.

by Lu Xun, China, (1881-1936)

A Madman's Diary" (simplified Chinese: 狂人日记; traditional Chinese: 狂人日記; pinyin: Kuángrén Rìjì; Wade–Giles: K'uang-jen Jih-chi) was written in 1918 by Lu Xun, commonly considered one of the greatest writers in 20th-century Chinese literature. This short story is considered to be one of the first and most influential modern works written in vernacular Chinese. "A Madman's Diary" is an attempt by Lu Xun to describe the effects of feudal values upon the Chinese people. He uses an analogy of cannibalism to describe the way such outdated values eat away at the individual. The story would become a cornerstone of the New Culture Movement.
It is the first story in the book Call to Arms, a collection of short stories by Lu Xun. Its title is influenced by Nikolai Gogol's short story "Diary of a Madman".[citation needed]
Yi-tsi Mei Fuerwerker, author of "Lu Xun, Yu Dafu, and Wang Meng," said that the story was often referred to as "China's first modern short story".[1]

The story is allegedly a copy of the diary entries (in vernacular Chinese) of a madman who, according to the foreword written in classical Chinese, has now been cured of his delusiveparanoia. After extensively studying Chinese history as outlined in the Four books and five classics of his culture, the diary writer, the supposed "madman", began to see the words "Eat People!" written between the lines of the texts (Lu Xun implies this figuratively, although in the story's context, this could be read literally). Seeing the people in his village as potential man-eaters, he is gripped by the fear that everyone, including his brother, his venerable doctor and his neighbors, who are crowding about to watch him, are harboring cannibalistic thoughts on him.
It is anti-traditional in the sense that the other characters are portrayed as heartless, bound to tradition, and cannibalistic, yet the madman's fears are depicted as genuine. Despite the brother's apparent genuine concern, the narrator still regards him as big a threat as any stranger. The insanity of the narrator is never proven, however. Towards the end the narrator turns his concern to the younger generation, especially his late sister (who died when she was five) as he is afraid they will be cannibalized. By then he is convinced that his late sister had been eaten up by his brother, and that the narrator might have unwittingly tasted her flesh.
The story ends with a famous line: "Save the children..."

Lu Xun
simplified Chinese: 鲁迅; traditional Chinese: 魯迅; pinyin: Lǔ Xùn) or Lu Hsün (Wade-Giles), was the pen name of Zhou Shuren (simplified Chinese: 周树人; traditional Chinese: 周樹人; pinyin: Zhōu Shùrén; Wade–Giles: Chou Shu-jen) (September 25, 1881 – October 19, 1936), one of the major Chinese writers of the 20th century. Considered by many to be the leading figure of modern Chinese literature, he wrote in baihua (白話) (the vernacular) as well as classical Chinese. Lu Xun was a fiction writer, editor, translator, critic, essayist and poet. In the 1930s he became the titular head of the Chinese League of the Left-Wing Writers in Shanghai.
Lu Xun's works exerted a very substantial influence after the May Fourth Movement to such a point that he was highly acclaimed by the Communist regime after 1949. Mao Zedong himself was a lifelong admirer of Lu Xun's works. Though sympathetic to the ideals of the Left, Lu Xun never actually joined the Chinese Communist Party. Like many leaders of the May Fourth Movement, he was primarily a liberal.
Lu Xun's works became known to English readers through numerous translations, beginning in 1960 with Selected Stories of Lu Hsun translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang. More recently, in 2009, Penguin Classics published a complete anthology of his fiction titled The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun which the scholar Jeffrey Wasserstrom[1] said "could be considered the most significant Penguin Classic ever published."[2]

Born in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, Lu Xun was named Zhou Zhangshou (周樟壽, P: Zhōu Zhāngshòu, W: Chou Chang-shou) with his style name Yushan (豫山, P: Yùshān, W: Yü-shan). The style name was later changed to Yucai (豫才, P: Yùcái, W: Yü-ts'ai). In 1898, before he went to Jiangnan Naval Academy, he took the given name of "Shuren" (樹人, P: Shùrén, W: Shu-jen), figuratively, "to be an educated man".[3]
The Shaoxing Zhou family was very well-educated, and his paternal grandfather Zhou Fuqing (周福清, P: Zhōu Fúqīng, W: Chou Fu-ch'ing) held posts in the Hanlin Academy; Zhou's mother, née Lu, taught herself to read. However, after a case of bribery was exposed – in which Zhou Fuqing tried to procure an office for his son, Lu Xun's father, Zhou Boyi – the family fortunes declined.
Zhou Fuqing was arrested and almost beheaded. Meanwhile, a young Zhou Shuren was brought up by an elderly servant Ah Chang, whom he called Chang Ma; one of Lu Xun's favorite childhood books was the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
His father's chronic illness and eventual death during Lu Xun's adolescence, apparently from tuberculosis, persuaded Zhou to study medicine. Distrusting traditional Chinese medicine, he went abroad to pursue a Westernmedical degree at Sendai Medical Academy (now medical school of Tohoku University) in Sendai, Japan, in 1904.[citation needed]

Education

Lu Xun was educated at Jiangnan Naval Academy (T: 江南水師學堂, S: 江南水师学堂, P: Jiāngnán Shuǐshī Xuétáng, W: Chiang-nan Shui-shih Hsüeh-t'ang) (1898–99), and later transferred to the School of Mines and Railways (T: 礦路學堂, S: 矿路学堂, P: Kuànglù Xuétáng, W: K'uang-lu Hsüeh-t'ang) at Jiangnan Military Academy (T: 江南陸師學堂, S: 江南陆师学堂, P: Jiāngnán Lùshī Xuétáng, W: Chiang-nan Lu-shih Hsüeh-t'ang). It was there Lu Xun had his first contacts with Western learning, especially the sciences; he studied some German and English, reading, amongst some translated books, Huxley's Evolution and Ethics, J. S. Mill's On Liberty, as well as novels like Ivanhoe and Uncle Tom's Cabin.
On a Qing government scholarship, Lu Xun left for Japan in 1902. He first attended the Kobun Gakuin (Kobun Institute ZH, JA, Hongwen xueyuan, 弘文學院), a preparatory language school for Chinese students attending Japanese universities. His earliest essays, written in Classical Chinese, date from here. Lu also practised some jujutsu.
Lu Xun returned home briefly in 1903. At age 22, he complied to an arranged marriage with a local gentry girl, Zhu An (朱安, P: Zhū Ān, W: Chu An). Zhu, illiterate and with bound feet, was handpicked by Lu Xun's mother. Lu Xun possibly never consummated this marriage, although he took care of her material needs all his life.

Lu Xun
(or Lu Hsun, pronounced "Lu Shun"; 1881-1936) has been considered China's greatest modern writer for most of the 20th century. Many of the other authors of fictional works of social criticism popular during the 1920s and 1930s have been at least partially discredited or criticized during the various political movements in China since 1949, but Lu Xun's reputation has remained consistently distinguished. Mao Zedong (1893-1976) called him "commander of China's cultural revolution."
Perhaps it was because Lu Xun died relatively early in the Communist movement that he has not been criticized for making the kinds of political "errors" for which his colleagues have suffered. But the sophisticated complexity of his writing style, which lends itself to various interpretations, is also an important factor in his achievement of a position of preeminence. Though he was an influential essayist, Lu Xun is best known for his short stories. Chinese writers of the 1920s and 1930s were deeply distressed by the social and political disasters they saw all around them. Some put all their faith in an ideological movement and wrote propaganda pieces advocating revolution. The most doctrinaire of these works of "revolutionary literature" are hardly literary: They are more concerned with presenting political solutions than with lifelike characters, realistic situations, or deeper insight into human nature. Other writers felt less certain of what solution to propose and used their fiction instead to vividly and sensitively describe the current plight of the Chinese, with the implied intention of stimulating readers to realize the necessity of acting to eliminate such human degradation and corruption.
But Lu Xun chose neither of these options. In the early 1920s, he did not feel absolute optimism that radical social change would occur in China, and he did not project idealized revolutionary heroes or situations in his fiction. Yet on the other hand, he also did not simply offer sensitive descriptions of the sufferings of the Chinese people. Instead, through vivid analogies and exaggerated characters, Lu Xun presented his personal vision of Chinese society. The intensity and darkness of this vision makes reading a Lu Xun story a moving and disturbing experience.
About the Author
Lu Xun is the pen name of the writer born as Zhou Shuren (Chou Shu-jen) in 1881 to a family with a strong Confucian background. His grandfather served as a high official in Peking (Beijing), and his father was also a scholar.
- But Lu Xun's childhood was filled with hardship.
- Not only did he endure the Sino-Japanese War and the Boxer Rebellion [1],
- but his father suffered from chronic illness,
- and the family was so poor they had to pawn their belongings to buy his medicine.
- Moreover, when Lu Xun was thirteen, his grandfather in Peking was accused of complicity in a bribery case and was detained in custody for seven years; every fall during this period the family had to send money to the Ministry of Punishment to insure that the grandfather would not be sentenced to death.
This overt corruption certainly influenced Lu Xun's contempt for the traditional system of government.
In 1904, he went to Sendai, in Japan, to study medicine, but he soon realized that China needed "spiritual medicine" even more than treatment for physical ills. Lu Xun returned to Tokyo in 1906, and decided to devote himself to education and literature rather than medicine, thus expressing his lifelong dedication to teaching and encouraging young people as the major hope for China's future.
Lu Xun's last story, "Divorce," was published in 1925. The following year Lu Xun protested the killing of students in a demonstration, and he had to flee. He went to Amoy (Xiamen), then Canton (Guangzhou), then Shanghai, and continued to aid leftist students [2]. From this time until his death in 1936, Lu Xun supported political change through overt action and "pen warfare": He was a prolific writer of short, biting essays attacking social injustice and political corruption. He avidly encouraged young writers, translators, and artists, and was a particularly enthusiastic supporter of woodblock prints which depicted the intense sufferings of the Chinese people to show the desperate need for a revolution.
[1] The Boxer Rebellion was an uprising of Chinese people against the existence of foreigners in China. They wanted to make all foreigners leave China
[leftist students were those who rebelled against the political system and sought social and political change.

The Divine Comedy begins in a shadowed forest on Good Friday in the year 1300. It proceeds on a journey that, in its intense recreation of the depths and the heights of human experience, has become the key with which Western civilization has sought to unlock the mystery of its own identity.

Allen Mandelbaum’s astonishingly Dantean translation, which captures so much of the life of the original, renders whole for us the masterpiece of that genius whom our greatest poets have recognized as a central model for all poets.

This Everyman’s edition–containing in one volume all three cantos, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso–includes an introduction by Nobel Prize—winning poet Eugenio Montale, a chronology, notes, and a bibliography. Also included are forty-two drawings selected from Botticelli's marvelous late-fifteenth-century series of illustrations
==

The Divine Comedy (Italian: Divina Commedia) is the title usually employed to designate an epic poem written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321; the author's own title for the work was simply "Comedìa". The epithet Divina was later applied to it by Giovanni Boccaccio, and the first printed edition to add the word divine to the title was that of the Venetian humanist Lodovico Dolce,[1] published in 1555 by Gabriele Giolito de' Ferrari. It is widely considered the preeminent work of Italian literature,[2] and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature.[3] The poem's imaginative and allegorical vision of the afterlife is a culmination of the medieval world-view as it had developed in the Western Church. It helped establish the Tuscan dialect, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language.[4] It is divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
On the surface, the poem describes Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven;[5] but at a deeper level, it represents allegorically the soul's journey towards God.[6] At this deeper level, Dante draws on medieval Christian theology and philosophy, especially Thomistic philosophy and the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas.[7] Consequently, the Divine Comedy has been called "the Summa in verse"

Structure and story
The poem is written in the first person, and tells of Dante's journey through the three realms of the dead, lasting from the night before Good Friday to the Wednesday after Easter in the spring of 1300. The Roman poet Virgil guides him through Hell and Purgatory; Beatrice, Dante's ideal woman, guides him through Heaven. Beatrice was a Florentine woman whom he had met in childhood and admired from afar in the mode of the then-fashionable courtly love tradition which is highlighted in Dante's earlier work La Vita Nuova.
The structure of the three realms follows a common numerical pattern of 9 plus 1 for a total of 10: 9 circles of the Inferno, followed by Lucifer contained at its bottom; 9 rings of Mount Purgatory, followed by the Garden of Eden crowning its summit; and the 9 celestial bodies of Paradiso, followed by the Empyrean containing the very essence of God. Within the 9, 7 correspond to a specific moral scheme, subdividing itself into three subcategories, while two others of more particularity are added on for a completion of nine. For example, the seven deadly sins of the Catholic Church that are cleansed in Purgatory are joined by special realms for the Late repentant and the excommunicated by the church. The core seven sins within purgatory correspond to a moral scheme of love perverted, subdivided into three groups corresponding to excessive love (Lust, Gluttony, Greed), deficient love (Sloth), and malicious love (Wrath, Envy, Pride).
In central Italy's political struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines, Dante was part of the Guelphs, who in general favored the Papacy over the Holy Roman Emperor. Florence's Guelphs split into factions around 1300, the White Guelphs, and the Black Guelphs. Dante was among the White Guelphs who were exiled in 1302 by the Lord-Mayor Cante de' Gabrielli di Gubbio, after troops under Charles of Valois entered the city, at the request of Pope Boniface VIII, who supported the Black Guelphs. This exile, which lasted the rest of Dante's life, shows its influence in many parts of the Comedy, from prophecies of Dante's exile to Dante's views of politics to the eternal damnation of some of his opponents.[citation needed]
In Hell and Purgatory, Dante shares in the sin and the penitence respectively. The last word in each of the three parts of the Divine Comedy is stelle, "stars

Durante degli Alighieri,

mononymously referred to as Dante (UK pron.: /ˈdænti/, US /ˈdɑːnteɪ/; Italian: [ˈdante]; c. 1265–1321), was a major Italian poet of the Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy, originally called Commedia and later called Divina by Boccaccio, is widely considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature.[1]
In Italy he is known as il Sommo Poeta ("the Supreme Poet") or just il Poeta. He, Petrarch and Boccaccio are also known as "the three fountains" or "the three crowns". Dante is also called the "Father of the Italian language".[2]

Dante was born in Florence, Italy. The exact date of birth is unknown, although it is generally believed to be around 1265.
This can be deduced from autobiographic allusions in La Divina Commedia. Its first section, the Inferno, begins "Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita" ("Halfway through the journey of our life"), implying that Dante was around 35 years old, since the average lifespan according to the Bible (Psalms 89:10, Vulgate) is 70 years; and since his imaginary travel to the nether world took place in 1300, he must have been born around 1265. Some verses of the Paradiso section of the Divine Comedy also provide a possible clue that he was born under the sign of Gemini: "As I revolved with the eternal twins, I saw revealed, from hills to river outlets, the threshing-floor that makes us so ferocious" (XXII 151-154). In 1265, the sun was in Gemini between approximately May 11 and June 11.[
Dante claimed that his family descended from the ancient Romans (Inferno, XV, 76), but the earliest relative he could mention by name was Cacciaguida degli Elisei (Paradiso, XV, 135), born no earlier than about 1100.
Dante's father, Alaghiero or Alighiero di Bellincione, was a White Guelph who suffered no reprisals after the Ghibellines won the Battle of Montaperti in the middle of the 13th century. This suggests that Alighiero or his family enjoyed some protective prestige and status, although some suggest that the politically inactive Alighiero was of such low standing that he was not considered worth exiling.[
Dante's family had loyalties to the Guelphs, a political alliance that supported the Papacy and which was involved in complex opposition to the Ghibellines, who were backed by the Holy Roman Emperor.
- The poet's mother was Bella, likely a member of the Abati family. She died when Dante was not yet ten years old,
- and Alighiero soon married again, to Lapa di Chiarissimo Cialuffi.
It is uncertain whether he really married her, since widowers were socially limited in such matters, but this woman definitely bore him two children, Dante's half-brother Francesco and half-sister Tana (Gaetana). When Dante was 12, he was promised in marriage to Gemma di Manetto Donati, daughter of Manetto Donati, member of the powerful Donati family.[4] Contracting marriages at this early age was quite common and involved a formal ceremony, including contracts signed before a notary. But Dante by this time had fallen in love with another, Beatrice Portinari (known also as Bice), whom he first met when he was only nine. Years after his marriage to Gemma he claims to have met Beatrice again; he wrote several sonnets to Beatrice but never mentioned Gemma in any of his poems. The exact date of his marriage is not known: the only certain information is that, before his exile in 1301, he had three children (Pietro, Jacopo and Antonia).[4]
Dante fought with the Guelph cavalry at the Battle of Campaldino (June 11, 1289). This victory brought about a reformation of the Florentine constitution. To take any part in public life one had to enroll in one of the city's many commercial or artisan guilds, so Dante entered the physicians' and apothecaries' guild. In the following years, his name is occasionally recorded as speaking or voting in the various councils of the republic. A substantial portion of minutes from such meetings from 1298-1300 was lost during World War II, however, so the true extent of Dante's participation in the city's councils is uncertain.
Gemma bore Dante several children. Although several others subsequently claimed to be his offspring; it is likely that only Jacopo, Pietro, Giovanni and Antonia were his actual children. Antonia later became a nun, taking the name Sister Beatrice.

Don Quixote


by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spain, (1547-1616)



Cervantes' tale of the deranged gentleman who turns knight-errant, tilts at windmills and battles with sheep in the service of the lady of his dreams, Dulcinea del Toboso, has fascinated generations of readers, and inspired other creative artists such as Flaubert, Picasso and Richard Strauss. The tall, thin knight and his short, fat squire, Sancho Panza, have found their way into films, cartoons and even computer games. Supposedly intended as a parody of the most popular escapist fiction of the day, the 'books of chivalry', this precursor of the modern novel broadened and deepened into a sophisticated, comic account of the contradictions of human nature. Cervantes' greatest work can be enjoyed on many levels, all suffused with a subtle irony that reaches out to encompass the reader.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedr[ (Spanish: [29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616)[2] was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered to be the first modern European novel,[3] is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written.[4] His influence on the Spanish language has been so great that the language is often called la lengua de Cervantes ("the language of Cervantes").[5] He was dubbed El Príncipe de los Ingenios ("The Prince of Wits").[6]
In 1569, Cervantes moved to Rome, where he served as a valet to Giulio Acquaviva, a wealthy priest who was elevated to cardinal the next year. By then, Cervantes had enlisted as a soldier in a Spanish Navy infantry regiment and continued his military life until 1575, when he was captured by Algerian corsairs. After five years of slavery he was released on ransom from his captors by his parents and the Trinitarians, a Catholicreligious order. He subsequently returned to his family in Madrid.
In 1585, Cervantes published a pastoral novel named La Galatea. Because of financial problems, Cervantes worked as a purveyor for the Spanish Armada, and later as a tax collector. In 1597, discrepancies in his accounts of three years previous landed him in the Crown Jail of Seville. In 1605, he was in Valladolid, just when the immediate success of the first part of his Don Quixote, published in Madrid, signaled his return to the literary world. In 1607, he settled in Madrid, where he lived and worked until his death. During the last nine years of his life, Cervantes solidified his reputation as a writer; he published the Novelas ejemplares (Exemplary Novels) in 1613, the Journey to Parnassus (Viaje al Parnaso) in 1614, and in 1615, the Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses and the second part of Don Quixote. Carlos Fuentes noted that, "Cervantes leaves open the pages of a book where the reader knows himself to be written."

It is assumed that Cervantes was born in Alcalá de Henares, a Castilian city about 15 miles from Madrid, probably on 29 September (the feast day of Saint Michael the Archangel) 1547.
The probable date of his birth was determined from records in the church register and given the tradition to name a child with the name of the feast day of his birth. He was baptized in Alcalá de Henares on 9 October 1547 at the parish church of Santa María la Mayor. The baptismal act read: "Sunday, the ninth day of the month of October, the year of our Lord one thousand five hundred forty and seven years, Miguel is crowned and baptized, son of Rodrigo Cervantes and his wife doña Leonor. Baptized by the reverend sir Bartolomé Serrano, priest of Our Lady. baptized him and signed this in my name. — Bachelor Serrano"
Miguel's father Rodrigo was a barber-surgeon of Galician descent, who set bones, performed bloodlettings, and attended "lesser medical needs"; at that time, it was common for barbers to do surgery, as well. His paternal grandfather, Juan de Cervantes, was an influential lawyer who held several administrative positions. His uncle was mayor of Cabra for many years.
His mother, Leonor de Cortinas, was a native of Arganda del Rey and the third daughter of a nobleman, who lost his fortune and had to sell his daughter into matrimony in 1543. This led to a very awkward marriage and several affairs by Rodrigo.[10] Leonor died on 19 October 1593.
Little is known of Cervantes' early years. It seems he spent much of his childhood moving from town to town with his family. During this time, he met a young barmaid named Josefina Catalina de Parez. The couple fell madly in love and plotted to run away together. Sadly, her father discovered their plans and forbade Josefina from ever seeing Cervantes again. It seems that, much like Charles Dickens' father, Miguel's father was embargoed for debt. The court records of the proceedings show a very poor household. While some of his biographers argue that he studied at the University of Salamanca, there is no solid evidence for supposing that he did so.[c]
There has been speculation also that Cervantes studied with the Jesuits in Córdoba or Seville.[11]
His siblings were Andrés (1543), Andrea (1544), Luisa (1546), Rodrigo (1550), Magdalena (1554) and Juan - known solely because he is mentioned in his father's will.

The reasons that forced Cervantes to leave Castile remain uncertain. Whether he was a "student" of the same name, a "sword-wielding fugitive from justice", or fleeing from a royal warrant of arrest, for having wounded a certain Antonio de Sigura in a duel, is another mystery. In any event, in going to Italy, Cervantes was doing what many young Spanish of the time did to further their careers in one way or another. Rome would reveal to the young artist its ecclesiastic pomp, ritual, and majesty. In a city teeming with ruins Cervantes could focus his attention on Renaissance art, architecture, and poetry (knowledge of Italian literature is readily discernible in his own productions), and on rediscovering antiquity. He could find in the ancients "a powerful impetus to revive the contemporary world in light of its accomplishments".[13][14] Thus, Cervantes' continuing desire for Italy, as revealed in his later works, was in part a desire for a return to an earlier period of the Renaissance.[15]
By 1570, Cervantes had enlisted as a soldier in a regiment of the Spanish Navy Marines, Infantería de Marina, stationed in Naples, then a possession of the Spanish crown. He was there for about a year before he saw active service. In September 1571 Cervantes sailed on board the Marquesa, part of the galley fleet of the Holy League (a coalition of the Pope, Spain, the Republic of Venice, the Republic of Genoa, the Duchy of Savoy, the Knights Hospitaller based in Malta, and others, under the command of King Philip II's illegitimate half brother, John of Austria) that defeated the Ottoman fleet on October 7 in the Battle of Lepanto, in the Gulf of Patras. Though taken down with fever, Cervantes refused to stay below, and begged to be allowed to take part in the battle, saying that he would rather die for his God and his king than keep under cover. He fought bravely on board a vessel, and received three gunshot wounds – two in the chest, and one which rendered his left arm useless. In Journey to Parnassus he was to say that he "had lost the movement of the left hand for the glory of the right" (he was thinking of the success of the first part of Don Quixote). Cervantes always looked back on his conduct in the battle with pride: he believed that he had taken part in an event that would shape the course of European history.

After the Battle of Lepanto Cervantes remained in hospital for around six months, before his wounds were sufficiently healed to allow his joining the colors again.[16] From 1572 to 1575, based mainly in Naples, he continued his soldier's life: he participated in expeditions to Corfu and Navarino, and saw the fall of Tunis and La Goulette to the Turks in 1574.[17]:220
On 6 or 7 September 1575 Cervantes set sail on the galley Sol from Naples to Barcelona, with letters of commendation to the king from the Duke of Sessa.[18] On the morning of September 26, as the Sol approached the Catalan coast, it was attacked by Algerian corsairs under the command of the redoubtable Arnaut Mami, an Albanian renegade and terror of the narrow seas at that time.[19] After significant resistance, in which the captain and many crew members were killed, the surviving passengers were taken to Algiers as captives.[17]:236 After five years spent as a slave in Algiers, and four unsuccessful escape attempts, he was ransomed by his parents and the Trinitarians and returned to his family in Madrid. Not surprisingly, this period of Cervantes' life supplied subject matter for several of his literary works, notably the Captive's tale in Don Quixote and the two plays set in Algiers – El Trato de Argel (The Treaty of Algiers) and Los Baños de Argel (The Baths of Algiers) – as well as episodes in a number of other writings, although never in straight autobiographical form.[8]

While April 23, 1616 came to be recorded as his date of death in many references, and the date on which his death was widely celebrated, Cervantes in fact died in Madrid the previous day, April 22, 1616; he was buried on April 23.[20]
William Shakespeare also died on April 23, 1616. To honor this, UNESCO established April 23 as the International Day of the Book.[21] However, these dates refer to different days: Spain had adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1582, but England was still using the Julian calendar. Shakespeare's death date of April 23, 1616 (Julian) was equivalent to May 3, 1616 (Gregorian). This was ten days after Cervantes was buried and eleven days after he died.
Of his burial-place nothing is known, except that he was buried, in accordance with his will, in the neighboring convent of Trinitarian nuns. Isabel de Saavedra, Cervantes' daughter, was supposedly a member of this convent. A few years afterwards the nuns moved to another convent and carried their dead with them. Whether the remains of Cervantes were included in the removal or not no one knows, and the clue to their final resting place is now lost
==
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spain's greatest literary figure, was born in Alcalá de Henares, a small university town near Madrid, where he was baptized in the church of Santa María on October 9, 1547; he died in Madrid on April 23, 1616. We know little of his early life. The fourth of seven children, Cervantes, his siblings and mother accompanied his father, an itinerant surgeon, who struggled to maintain his practice and his family by traveling the length and breadth of Spain. Despite his father's frequent travels, Cervantes received some early formal education, in the school of the Spanish humanist, Juan Lopez de Hoyos, who was teaching in Madrid in the 1560s. His first literary efforts--poems written on the death of the wife of Philip II--date from this period.
In 1569 Cervantes traveled to Italy to serve in the household of an Italian nobleman, and joined the Spanish army a year later. He fought bravely against the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, where he received serious wounds and lost the use of his left hand. After a lengthy period of recovery and further military duty, he departed Italy for Spain in 1575, only to be captured during the return journey by Barbary pirates. He was taken to Algiers and imprisoned for five years, until Trinitarian friars paid a considerable sum of money for his ransom. This experience was a turning point in his life, and numerous references to the themes of freedom and captivity later appeared in his work.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was born in 1547 in the city of Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid, Spain, the fourth of seven children born to noble Castilian surgeon Don Rodrigo de Cervantes and doña Leonor de Cortinas (d.1593). "There were but two families in the world, Have-much and Have-little." (ibid) Rodrigo was imprisoned because of debts in 1551, and it brought much hardship to the rest of the family.


سجن والده عندما كان عمره 4 سنوات مما اوقع العائلة في فقرشديد.


After studying philosophy and literature in Italy, Miguel enlisted as a soldier in Naples in 1570. Aboard the ship Marquesa he lost the use of his left hand 'by a musket-shot in the battle of Lepanto' [1571] (ibid).


حارب مع الجيش الاسباني وقطعت يده فيإحدى المعارك عندما كان عمره 23 عام


A few years later the galley that Cervantes was sailing home on was captured by Barbary pirates. He was enslaved in Algiers along with many other Christians. While he did attempt to escape, it was not until 1580 that his family, especially by the efforts of his mother, and the Trinitarians, were able to pay ransom for him.


بعد بضعة سنوات وفي العام 1575 وبينما كان مبحرا عائدا إلى الوطن تمأسره وبيعه كعبد وتم سجنه في الجزائر وظل مسجونا لمدة خمس سنوات حيث أطلق سراحه عام 1580 عندما تمكنت والدته من دفع الفدية عنه وكان عمره حينها 33


Cervantes was born in Alcalá de Henares. In 1568, when he was a student, a number of his poems appeared in a volume published in Madrid, Spain, to commemorate the death of the Spanish queen Elizabeth of Valois.


كانت أولى قصائدهلإحياء ذكرى موت الملكة اليزابيث


Probably during his time in prison Cervantes conceived the idea for a story about a man who imagines himself a knight-errant (a knight who seeks out adventure) performing the splendid feats described in medieval tales of chivalry.


It wasn't until five years later that Cervantes was released — but only after four unsuccessful escape attempts and after his family and friends raised 500 escudos, an enormous sum of money that would drain the family financially, as ransom.


اموال الفدية التي دفعت لاطلاق سراحة كانت ضخمة بحيث انها ارهقتالعئالة ماليا.


He had a daughter from an affair with an actress.


A few years later, Cervantes left his wife, faced severe financial difficulties, and was jailed at least three times (once as a murder suspect, although there was insufficient evidence to try him).


سجن بعد بضعة سنين ثلاث مرات بسبب مشاكله المالية ةمرة بتهمة القتلولكن لم تتوفر ادلة كافية لادانية في التقل


He eventually settled in Madrid in 1606, shortly after the first part of "Don Quijote" was published.


Although publication of the novel didn't make Cervantes rich, it eased his financial burden and gave him recognition and the ability to devote more time to writing. He published the second part of Don Quijote in 1615 and wrote dozens of other plays, short stories, novels and poems (although many critics have little good to say about his poetry).


Cervantes' final novel was Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda ("The Exploits of Persiles and Sigismunda"), published three days before his death on April 23, 1616. Coincidentally, Cervantes' date of death is the same as William Shakespeare's, although in reality Cervantes' death came 10 days sooner because Spain and England used different calendars at the time.

اهم احداثحياته:
1- سجن والده وعمره 4سنوات.
2- فقر العائلةالشديد.
3- يبدو انه يتيم الاب لكن لا يعرف تحديدامتى.
4- قطعت يده وهويحارب في سن العشرين
5- سجنهلمدة خمس سنوات.
6- فقر شديدبسبب اموال الفدية

Essays is the title given to a collection of 107 essays written by Michel de Montaigne that was first published in 1580. Montaigne essentially invented the literary form of essay, a short subjective treatment of a given topic, of which the book contains a large number. Essai is French for "trial" or "attempt".

Montaigne's stated goal in his book is to describe man, and especially himself, with utter frankness. He finds the great variety and volatility of human nature to be its most basic features. A representative quote is "I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself."
He opposed the conquest of the New World, deploring the suffering it brought upon the natives.
Citing the case of Martin Guerre as an example, he believes that humans cannot attain certainty. His skepticism is best expressed in the long essay "An Apology for Raymond Sebond" (Book 2, Chapter 12) which has frequently been published separately. We cannot trust our reasoning because thoughts just occur to us: we don't truly control them. We do not have good reasons to consider ourselves superior to the animals. He is highly skeptical of confessions obtained under torture, pointing out that such confessions can be made up by the suspect just to escape the torture he is subjected to. In the middle of the section normally entitled "Man's Knowledge Cannot Make Him Good," he wrote that his motto was "What do I know?". The essay on Sebond ostensibly defended Christianity. However, Montaigne eloquently employed many references and quotes from classical Greek and Roman, i.e. non-Christian authors, especially the atomistLucretius.
Montaigne considered marriage necessary for the raising of children, but disliked the strong feelings of romantic love as being detrimental to freedom. One of his quotations is "Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside desperate to get out."
In education, he favored concrete examples and experience over the teaching of abstract knowledge that is expected to be accepted uncritically. Montaigne's essay "On the Education of Children" is dedicated to Diana of Foix.
The remarkable modernity of thought apparent in Montaigne's essays, coupled with their sustained popularity, made them arguably the most prominent work in French philosophy until the Enlightenment. Their influence over French education and culture is still strong. The official portrait of former French president François Mitterrand pictured him facing the camera, holding an open copy of the Essays in his hands.[1]

A copy of the fifth edition of the Essais with Montaigne's own "C" additions in his own hand exists, preserved at the Municipal Library of Bordeaux (known to editors as the "Bordeaux Copy"). This edition gives modern editors a text dramatically indicative of Montaigne's final intentions (as opposed to the multitude of Renaissance works for which no autograph exists). Analysis of the differences and additions between editions shows how Montaigne's thoughts evolved over time. Not unremarkably, he does not seem to remove previous writings, even when they conflict with his newer views

Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne,



was born in 1533, the son and heir of Pierre, Seigneur de Montaigne (two previous children dying soon after birth). He was brought up to speak Latin as his mother tongue and always retained a Latin turn of mind; though he knew Greek, he preferred to use translations. After studying law he eventually became counselor to the Parlement of Bordeaux. He married in 1565. In 1569 he published his French version of the Natural Theology of Raymond Sebond; his Apology is only partly a defense of Sebond and sets skeptical limits to human reasoning about God, man and nature. He retired in 1571 to his lands at Montaigne, devoting himself to reading and reflection and to composing his Essays (first version, 1580). He loathed the fanaticism and cruelties of the religious wars of the period, but sided with Catholic orthodoxy and legitimate monarchy. He was twice elected Mayor of Bordeaux (1581 and 1583), a post he held for four years. He died at Montaigne (1592) while preparing the final, and richest, edition of his Essays.



==


Michel Eyquem de Montaigne was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance. Montaigne is known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre. He became famous for his effortless ability to merge serious intellectual speculation with casual anecdotes and autobiography — and his massive volume Essais (translated literally as "Attempts") contains, to this day, some of the most widely influential essays ever written. Montaigne had a direct influence on writers the world over, from William Shakespeare to René Descartes, from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Stephan Zweig, from Friedrich Nietzsche to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He was a conservative and earnest Catholic but, as a result of his anti-dogmatic cast of mind, he is considered the father, alongside his contemporary and intimate friend Étienne de La Boétie, of the 'anti-conformist' tradition in French lierature.


In his own time, Montaigne was admired more as a statesman then as an author. The tendency in his essays to digress into anecdotes and personal ruminations was seen as detrimental to proper style rather than as an innovation, and his declaration that, 'I am myself the matter of my book', was viewed by his contemporaries as self-indulgent. In time, however, Montaigne would be recognized as embodying, perhaps better than any other author of his time, the spirit of freely entertaining doubt which began to emerge at that time. He is most famously known for his skeptical remark, 'Que sais-je?' ('What do I know?'). Remarkably modern even to readers today, Montaigne's attempt to examine the world through the lens of the only thing he can depend on implicitly — his own judgment — makes him more accessible to modern readers than any other author of the Renaissance. Much of modern literary non-fiction has found inspiration in Montaigne, and writers of all kinds continue to read him for his masterful balance of intellectual knowledge and personal story-telling>

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (French: [miʃɛl ekɛm də mɔ̃tɛɲ]; February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592) was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre, and commonly thought of as the father of modern skepticism. He became famous for his effortless ability to merge serious intellectual exercises with casual anecdotes[2] and autobiography—and his massive volume Essais (translated literally as "Attempts" or "Trials") contains, to this day, some of the most widely influential essays ever written. Montaigne had a direct influence on writers the world over, including René Descartes,[3] Blaise Pascal, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, William Hazlitt,[4] Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friedrich Nietzsche, Stefan Zweig, Eric Hoffer,[5] Isaac Asimov, and possibly on the later works of William Shakespeare.
In his own time, Montaigne was admired more as a statesman than as an author. The tendency in his essays to digress into anecdotes and personal ruminations was seen as detrimental to proper style rather than as an innovation, and his declaration that, 'I am myself the matter of my book', was viewed by his contemporaries as self-indulgent. In time, however, Montaigne would be recognized as embodying, perhaps better than any other author of his time, the spirit of freely entertaining doubt which began to emerge at that time. He is most famously known for his skeptical remark, 'Que sçay-je?' ('What do I know?' in Middle French; modern French Que sais-je?). Remarkably modern even to readers today, Montaigne's attempt to examine the world through the lens of the only thing he can depend on implicitly—his own judgment—makes him more accessible to modern readers than any other author of the Renaissance. Much of modern literary non-fiction has found inspiration in Montaigne and writers of all kinds continue to read him for his masterful balance of intellectual knowledge and personal story-telling.

Montaigne was born in the Aquitaine region of France, on the family estate Château de Montaigne, in a town now called Saint-Michel-de-Montaigne, not far from Bordeaux. The family was very rich; his great-grandfather, Ramon Felipe Eyquem, had made a fortune as a herring merchant and had bought the estate in 1477, thus becoming the Lord of Montaigne.
His father, Pierre Eyquem, Seigneur of Montaigne, was a French Roman Catholic soldier in Italy for a time and had also been the mayor of Bordeaux. Although there were several families bearing the patronym 'Eyquem' in Guyenne, his family is suspected to have had some degree of Marrano (Spanish and Portuguese Jew) origins.
His mother, Antoinette López de Villanueva, was a convert to Protestantism. His maternal grandfather, Pedro Lopez,[7] from Zaragoza, was from a wealthy Marrano (Sephardic Jewish) family who had converted to Catholicism. His maternal grandmother, Honorette Dupuy, was from a Catholic family in Gascony, France.[12]
His mother lived a great part of Montaigne's life near him, and even survived him, but is mentioned only twice in his essays. Montaigne's relationship with his father, however, is frequently reflected upon and discussed in his essays.
- From the moment of his birth, Montaigne's education followed a pedagogical plan sketched out by his father and refined by the advice of the latter's humanist friends.
- Soon after his birth, Montaigne was brought to a small cottage, where he lived the first three years of life in the sole company of a peasant family, 'in order to', according to the elder Montaigne, 'draw the boy close to the people, and to the life conditions of the people, who need our help.'
- After these first spartan years, Montaigne was brought back to the château. The objective was for Latin to become his first language. The intellectual education of Montaigne was assigned to a German tutor (a doctor named Horstanus who couldn't speak French).
- His father hired only servants who could speak Latin and they also were given strict orders to always speak to the boy in Latin. The same rule applied to his mother, father, and servants, who were obliged to use only Latin words he himself employed, and thus acquired a knowledge of the very language his tutor taught him. Montaigne's Latin education was accompanied by constant intellectual and spiritual stimulation. He was familiarized with Greek by a pedagogical method that employed games, conversation, and exercises of solitary meditation, rather than books.
The atmosphere of the boy's life, although designed by highly refined rules taken under advisement by his father, created in the boy's life the spirit of "liberty and delight", in order to "to make me relish... duty by an unforced will, and of my own voluntary motion... without any severity or constraint;"[14] yet he would have everything in order to take advantage of his freedom. And so a musician woke him every morning, playing one instrument or another,[15] and an épinettier (with a zither) was the constant companion to Montaigne and his tutor, playing a tune to alleviate boredom and tiredness.
- Around the year 1539, Montaigne was sent to study at a prestigious boarding school in Bordeaux, the Collège de Guyenne, then under the direction of the greatest Latin scholar of the era, George Buchanan, where he mastered the whole curriculum by his thirteenth year.
He then studied law in Toulouse and entered a career in the local legal system. He was a counselor of the Court des Aides of Périgueux and, in 1557, he was appointed counselor of the Parlement in Bordeaux (a high court). From 1561 to 1563 he was courtier at the court of Charles IX; he was present with the king at the siege of Rouen (1562). He was awarded the highest honour of the French nobility, the collar of the order of St. Michael, something to which he aspired from his youth. While serving at the Bordeaux Parliament, he became very close friends with the humanist poet Étienne de la Boétie, whose death in 1563 deeply affected Montaigne. It has been argued that because of Montaigne's "imperious need to communicate," that, after losing Étienne, he began the Essais as his "means of communication;" and that "the reader takes the place of the dead friend."[16]
In a prearranged marriage, Montaigne married Françoise de la Cassaigne. He did not marry her under his own free will and was pressured by family to do so[citation needed]; they had six daughters, though only the second-born survived childhood.
Following the petition of his father, Montaigne started to work on the first translation of the Catalan monk Raymond Sebond's Theologia naturalis, which he published a year after his father's death in 1568 (In 1595, Sebond's Prologue was put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum for its declaration that the Bible is not the only source of revealed truth). After this, he inherited the family's estate, the Château de Montaigne, to which he moved back in 1570, thus becoming the Lord of Montaigne. Another literary accomplishment was Montaigne's posthumous edition of his friend Boétie's works.
In 1571, he retired from public life to the Tower of the Château, his so-called "citadel", in the Dordogne, where he almost totally isolated himself from every social and family affair. Locked up in his library, which contained a collection of some 1,500 works, he began work on his Essais ("Essays"), first published in 1580. On the day of his 38th birthday, as he entered this almost ten-year period of self-imposed reclusion, he had the following inscription crown the bookshelves of his working chamber:
'In the year of Christ 1571, at the age of thirty-eight, on the last day of February, his birthday, Michael de Montaigne, long weary of the servitude of the court and of public employments, while still entire, retired to the bosom of the learned virgins, where in calm and freedom from all cares he will spend what little remains of his life, now more than half run out. If the fates permit, he will complete this abode, this sweet ancestral retreat; and he has consecrated it to his freedom, tranquility, and leisure.’[17]
During this time of the Wars of Religion in France, Montaigne, a Roman Catholic, acted as a moderating force,[citation needed] respected both by the Catholic King Henry III and the Protestant Henry of Navarre.
In 1578, Montaigne, whose health had always been excellent, started suffering from painful kidney stones, a sickness he had inherited from his father's family. From 1580 to 1581, Montaigne traveled in France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy, partly in search of a cure, establishing himself at Bagni di Lucca where he took the waters. His journey was also a pilgrimage to the Holy House of Loreto, to which he presented a silver relief depicting himself and his wife and daughter kneeling before the Madonna, considering himself fortunate that it should be hung on a wall within the shrine.[18] He kept a fascinating journal recording regional differences and customs and a variety of personal episodes, including the dimensions of the stones he succeeding in ejecting from his bladder. This was published much later, in 1774, after its discovery in a trunk which is displayed in his tower.[19]
While in the city of Lucca in 1581, he learned that he had been elected mayor of Bordeaux; he returned and served as mayor. He was reelected in 1583 and served until 1585, again moderating between Catholics and Protestants. The plague broke out in Bordeaux toward the end of his second term in office, in 1585.
Montaigne continued to extend, revise, and oversee the publication of Essais. In 1588 he wrote its third book and also met the writer Marie de Gournay, who admired his work and later edited and published it. King Henry III was assassinated in 1589, and Montaigne then helped to keep Bordeaux loyal to Henry of Navarre, who would go on to become King Henry IV.
Montaigne died of quinsy at the age of 59, in 1592 at the Château de Montaigne. The disease in his case "brought about paralysis of the tongue",[20] and he had once said "the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is conversation. I find it sweeter than any other action in life; and if I were forced to choose, I think I would rather lose my sight than my hearing and voice."[21] Remaining in possession of all his other faculties, he requested mass, and died during the celebration of that mass.[22]
He was buried nearby. Later his remains were moved to the church of SaintAntoine at Bordeaux. The church no longer exists: it became the Convent des Feuillants, which has also disappeared.[citation needed] The Bordeaux Tourist Office says that Montaigne is buried at the Musée Aquitaine, Faculté des Lettres, Université Bordeaux 3 Michel de Montaigne, Pessac. His heart is preserved in the parish church of Saint-Michel-de-Montaigne.

Montaige Time Line

1533

Born near Bordeaux on the family estate named Montaigne to wealthy merchant and a mother from a wealthy Spanish-Portugese Jewish family from Toulouse.

1539

After six years of being raised by servants who only spoke Latin to him, Montaingne is sent to the college de Guienne in Bordeaux, a highly reputable school at the time.

1546

Sent to the University of Toulouse to study law.

1554

Made counceller in the Bordeaux parliament. Travels to Paris frequently and lives a life of excess.

1565

Marries Francoise de la Chassaigne, the daughter of another Bordeaux parliament member.

1568

His father dies.

1569

Publishes his translation of Raymond Seybond's Theologia naturalis which he had worked on at his father's request.

1571

Retires to Montaigne to a life of study and contemplation. Receives the order of Saint-Michel.

1576

Writes "The Defense of Raymond Seybond."

1580

Publication of the first two volumes of his Essays. He travles to Paris to present a copy to the king and then sets out for Germany and Italy. These travels are described in his Travel Journal.

1581

While in Rome, receives word that he is elected mayor of Bordeaux and returns to France.

1588

Complete edition of the Essays published with the addition of the third volume.

1592

September 13, Montaigne dies at the Chateau de Montaigne.

1595

Mlle. de Gournay and Pierre de Brach publishes the authorized edition of the Essays.

- كان والده جندي رومي كاثوليكي يعمل في ايطاليا>
- من لحظة ولادته فصل عن والديه ووضع في رعاية عائلة فلاحين فقيرة في منطقة نائية ( مربية ) لمدة 3 اعوام.
- رباه الخدم حتى أصبح عمره 6 سنوات.
- أرسل وهو في سن ستة سنوات للدراسة في مدرسة داخلية.
- في سن 15 اسل الى جامعة تولوز.

يتيم اجتماعي

His initial attempts at writing fairy tales were rewrites of stories that he heard as a child. Andersen brought this genre to a new level by writing a vast number of fairy tales that were both bold and original. Initially they were not met with recognition, due partly to the difficulty in translating them and capturing his genius for humor and dark pathos.
It was during 1835 that Andersen published the first installment of his immortal Fairy Tales (Danish: Eventyr; lit. "fantastic tales"). More stories, completing the first volume, were published in 1836 and 1837. The collection consists of nine tales that includes The Tinderbox, The Princess and the Pea, Thumbelina, The Little Mermaid, and The Emperor's New Clothes. The quality of these stories was not immediately recognized, and they sold poorly. At the same time, Andersen enjoyed more success with two novels O.T. (1836) and Only a Fiddler (1837); the latter novel was reviewed by the young Søren Kierkegaard.
After a visit to Sweden in 1837, Andersen became inspired by Scandinavism and committed himself to writing a poem to convey his feeling of relatedness between the Swedes, the Danes and the Norwegians.[12] It was in July 1839 during a visit to the island of Funen that Andersen first wrote the text of his poem Jeg er en Skandinav (I am a Scandinavian).[12] Andersen designed the poem to capture "the beauty of the Nordic spirit, the way the three sister nations have gradually grown together" as part of a Scandinavian national anthem.[12] Composer Otto Lindblad set the poem to music and the composition was published in January 1840. Its popularity peaked in 1845, after which it was seldom sung.[12] Andersen spent 2 weeks at the Augustenborg Palace in the autumn of 1844.[13]
Andersen returned to the fairy tale genre in 1838 with another collection; Fairy Tales Told for Children (1838) (Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. Ny Samling.). The collection consists of The Daisy, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, and The Wild Swans.
The year 1845 heralded a breakthrough for Andersen with four different translations of his fairy tales finding recognition. The Little Mermaid appeared in the popular periodical Bentley's Miscellany. It was followed by a second volume, Wonderful Stories for Children. Two other volumes enthusiastically received were A Danish Story Book and Danish Fairy Tales and Legends. A review which appeared in the journal The Anthenaeum (February 1846) said of Wonderful Stories, "…this is a book full of life and fancy; a book for grandfathers no less than grandchildren, not a word of which will be skipped by those who have it once in hand."[2]
Andersen would continue to write fairy tales and published them in installments until 1872. His most popular works are listed below