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George Eliot produced literary works of great value and universal recognition. Middlemarch is her greatest novel and masterpiece. It is decidedly George Eliot’s most outstanding novel. It received wide acclaim when it first appeared. Much work has been done on this novel. Critics and students of literature have tried to explore the elements of Victorianism in the novel; they have discussed and analysed it as an intellectual, psychological and philosophical novel, showing the competence and extraordinary intelligence of the author in communicating and addressing different intellectual, psychological and philosophical ideas. Bernard Paris focuses on George Eliot’s philosophy and religion of humanity and how she grew skeptical after freeing from church and developed her own religion of humanity and her doctrine of “extension of our sympathies.” He also discusses how Eliot was influenced by the philosophy of Comte, Feuerbach and others, pointing out how this religion of human relationship shaped her views of art, making her sympathetic with all her characters. Bernard Paris (1970: 34) says, “Eliot is sympathetic towards almost her characters.” On his part, Darrel Mansell, Jr. studies the conception of form in Geroge Eliot’s fiction and how she considers form of art a higher element that art should exhibit. He argues that her art shows complexity as she believes that the more complex the art, the higher it is. Mansell (1970: 68) says, “She [Eliot] strives to make the relations in her fiction as complex as possible.” Similarily, Barbara Hardy highlights some of the artistic values and features of Eliot; her images, her characters, character and form and character and plot, exploring the power of form in her novels. David Cecil has another approach to the art of George Eliot. He compares and contrasts her with other novelists like Thackeray, Dickens and Hardy and how she is different from them. Cecil (1934: 328) says, “She stands at the gateway between the old novel and the new, a massive caryatid, heavy of countenance, uneasy of attitude; but noble, monumental, profoundly impressive.” There has also been much work done on Middlemarch, studying various aspects of the novel. Joan Bennet presents in her book, George Eliot: Her Mind and Her Art a chapter on the novel, pointing out in general terms the main theme and plot and characters and how the book is well-designed. She argues that the weaving of a massive plot and a heap of characters show her artistic power. According to Bennet (1966: 162) “in the finished novel there is nothing irrelevant to the design.” She adds (174), “Middlemarch is George Eliot’s supreme achievement. While its characters are at least as various and as deeply studied as any she has created; they are more perfectly combined into a single whole than those in any other of her novels.” Bennet does not give a detailed study of the society of Middlemarch. Bert G. Hornback, however, finds the power of the novel in its realism. He (1977: 676) argues “one of the most remarkable aspects of Middlemarch has been, for many critics, its realism: the way in which the real world is woven together with the fictional. The history of England from 1828-1881 is an impressive part of the texture of the novel–so much so that English history and Middlemarch seem to be complementary.” On his part Edith Simcox focuses on the psychological aspect of the novel which gives a vivid analysis of the inner life of mankind. He (1965: 74) declares that Middlemarch “marks an epoch in the history of fiction in so far as its incidents are taken from the inner life,” and “as giving a background of a perfect realistic truth to a profoundly imaginative psychological study.” There is also much work on regional novelists and writers like Mrs. Gaskell, Hardy and others. In his book The Literature of Change: Studies in the Nineteenth-Century Provincial Novel, John Lucas (1977) gives a full account of Mrs. Gaskell and nature of social change and that of Manchester. The book also makes a good study of Hardy’s women. But it does not deal with George Eliot and her regionalism. There are some studies on the regionalism of George Eliot’s novels. For example, we find in Henry Auster’s Local Habitation: Regionalism in the Early Novels of George Eliot (1970) a good study of Adam Bede, Scenes of Clerical Life and Mill on the Floss. However, there is nothing on Middlemarch. In his study of Middlemarch, David Daiches (1963) makes a chapter-wise analysis of the events with a special focus on the characters and how they are depicted. None of these works give a full length study on Middlemarch as a regional novel, giving a detailed approach to the various aspects of the provincial life of the society of Middlemarch. This study aims to investigaate Middlemarch as a regional novel depicting the provincial life of rural England and analyse the elements that make it so. It will show how George Eliot gives a portrait of the English society in the countryside and how her experience in the Midlands affects her portraiture of Middlemarch society. In fact, our purpose in this work is to analyse and study the book as a regional novel and show the provincial aspects of the book and how the book portrays the changes in the English society taking place at that time as depicted in the novel. We aim to scrutinize and explore the provincial life of the society of the country town of Middlemarch from different political, social and economic angles in a vivid and comprehensive manner that brings about the greatness of Middlemarch. We shall place greater emphasis on the regionality of the novel. This work, in passing, also deals with the plot and art of characterization of the novel but only in so far as they are related to the main topic of the dissertation, which is the provincial life in the novel and how the regional represents the universal. This study is based on the researcher’s own interpretation and analysis of the primary and secondary sources. The primary source is the novel. The secondary sources include books on George Eliot, her biography, and critical works. They also include books and articles on social, political, cultural and economic life in rural England during the Victorian Age and the concept of regionalism. Middlemarch, the action of which lasts from 1829 to 1832, is an important social document presenting the life of the Midlands where Eliot spent most of her life during the time period of the 1830s. It investigates the social, political and economic aspects of life of the society during that time with reference to some historical facts like that of the First Reform Act. We try here to study the politics of the society represented by some characters like Mr. Brooke and Will Ladislaw, the social classes and their impact on the life of these people, the use of power by people like Bulstrode to influence people. We also give an account of the relationship between these people of Middlemarch and how they deal with each other in such a provincial society. We shall demonstrate how this narrow-minded conventional society operates to cripple and crack down all possibilities of change and modernity. It defeats ambitious people capable of bringing about change and breathe a new life into this traditional society sticking to traditional and conventional way of life and resisting any kind of change. This theme of defeated ambitions, which is a universal theme, is worked out better in this regional society which is a symbol of the whole universe. Middlemarch thus is not merely a regional novel about a particular society or locality; it is rather a represenation of life at large. The thesis is divided into seven chapters with a conclusion. The first chapter deals with the life, philosophy and art of the author as it is important to study George Eliot’s life because it is her life in the countryside of Warwickshire which has shaped her vision of life and art. This countryside is the setting of her works. It also deals with the factors and experiences that influenced George Eliot during her life. These influences made her mind the moral battle-field, struggling between extremes–religion and agnosticism, free-thinking and conventionalism. In chapter two, an idea about the Victorian age and countryside has been given so as to highlight the situation in which the novel was written. As our focus is on studying the book as a regional novel, the third chapter provides the background of the genre of the regional novel and its development. The fourth chapter is the focus of the thesis, studying Middlemarch as a provincial society. The fifth chapter focuses on the plot of the novel and how it represents a single whole despite the vastness and variousness of its characters and events. Symbolically, the regional society of Middlemarch is well-connected and remains a single whole despite the various number of people with different interests. The sixth chapter studies the major themes of the novel with emphasis on the theme of the ambition frustrated by the meanness of society. This theme brings out the universality of the novel in presenting human life. The last chapter discusses the people of Middlemarch and how they are inter-related in a small society of Middlemarch. |
كلمة" يترجم رائعة "مدل مارش" لجورج إليوت صدر مؤخراً عن مشروع "كلمة" للترجمة التابع لهيئة أبوظبي للثقافة والتراث، الترجمة الكاملة لرواية "مِدِل مارش" للشاعرة والروائية الإنجليزية الشهيرة جورج إليوت، وترجمها للعربية الدكتور حيان جمعة الساعي. وبحسب وكالة أنباء الشعر تعد الرواية هي إحدى أهم اضغط لقراءة المزيد: http://adab.akhbarway.com/news.asp?c=2&id=73190 == Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life is a novel by George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Anne Evans, later Marian Evans. It is her seventh novel, begun in 1869 and then put aside during the final illness of Thornton Lewes, the son of her companion George Henry Lewes. During the following year Eliot resumed work, fusing together several stories into a coherent whole, and during 1871–72 the novel appeared in serial form. The first one-volume edition was published in 1874, and attracted large sales. Subtitled "A Study of Provincial Life," the novel is set in the fictitious Midlands town of Middlemarch during the period 1830–32. It has multiple plots with a large cast of characters, and in addition to its distinct though interlocking narratives it pursues a number of underlying themes, including the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism and self-interest, religion and hypocrisy, political reform, and education. The pace is leisurely, the tone is mildly didactic (with an authorial voice that occasionally bursts through the narrative),[1] and the canvas is very broad. Although it has some comical characters (Mr. Brooke, the "tiny aunt" Miss Noble) and comically named characters (Mrs. Dollop), Middlemarch is a work of realism. Through the voices and opinions of different characters we become aware of various broad issues of the day: the Great Reform Bill, the beginnings of the railways, the death of King George IV and the succession of his brother, the Duke of Clarence (who became King William IV). We learn something of the state of contemporary medical science. We also encounter the deeply reactionary mindset within a settled community facing the prospect of what to many is unwelcome change. The eight "books" which compose the novel are not autonomous entities, but merely reflect the form of the original serialisation. A short prelude introduces the idea of the latter-day St. Theresa, presaging the character Dorothea; a postscript or "finale" after the eighth book gives the post-novel fates of the main characters. In general Middlemarch has retained its popularity and status as one of the masterpieces of English fiction,[2] although some reviewers have expressed dissatisfaction at the destiny recorded for Dorothea. In separate centuries, Florence Nightingale and Kate Millet both remarked on the eventual subordination of Dorothea's own dreams to those of her admirer, Ladislaw;[3] however, Virginia Woolf gave the book unstinting praise, describing Middlemarch as "the magnificent book that, with all its imperfections, is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people."[4] Martin Amis and Julian Barnes have cited it as probably the greatest novel in the English language.[5][6] Background On 1 January 1869, George Eliot listed her tasks for the coming year in her journal. The list included "A Novel called Middlemarch," along with a number of poetry and other projects.[7] Her most recent novel, Felix Holt, had been published more than two years earlier and had not sold well.[8] Despite this, the projected new novel was to be set in the same pre–Reform Bill England as Felix Holt, and would again deal with the reform issue, although less centrally. In its first conception, Middlemarch was a story involving an ambitious doctor, Lydgate, the Vincy family, and Mr. Featherstone. Progress on the novel was slow; by September, only three chapters of the story had been completed. The main reason for this lack of development was the distraction caused by the illness of Lewes’s son Thornie, who was dying slowly of tuberculosis.[9] Following his death on 19 October 1869, all work on the novel stopped. At this point, it is uncertain whether Eliot intended to revive the original project; in November, 1870, more than a year later, she began work on an entirely new story, "Miss Brooke," introducing Dorothea. Exactly when she started to combine this narrative with the earlier Lydgate-Vincy-Featherstone plot is unrecorded, but the process was certainly under way by March 1871.[10] As the scope of the novel grew, a decision was taken as to the form of its publication. In May, 1871, Lewes asked publisher John Blackwood to bring the novel out in eight parts, at two-monthly intervals from December 1871. Blackwood agreed, and the eight books duly appeared throughout 1872, the last instalments appearing in successive months, November and December 1872.[11] Plot outline Dorothea Brooke is an idealistic, well-to-do young woman, engaged in schemes to help the lot of the local poor. She is seemingly set for a comfortable, idle life as the wife of neighbouring landowner Sir James Chettam, but to the dismay of her sister, Celia (who later marries Chettam), and of her loquacious uncle Mr. Brooke, she marries instead Edward Casaubon, a middle-aged pedantic scholar who, she believes, is engaged on a great work, The Key to All Mythologies. She wishes to find fulfilment through sharing her husband’s intellectual life, but during an unhappy honeymoon in Rome she experiences his coldness towards her ambitions. Slowly she realises that his great project is doomed to failure and her feelings for him descend to pity. She forms a warm friendship with a young cousin of Casaubon’s, Will Ladislaw, but her husband’s antipathy towards him is clear (partly based on his belief that Ladislaw is trying to seduce Dorothea in order to gain access to Casaubon's fortune) and Ladislaw is forbidden to visit. In poor health, Casaubon attempts to extract from Dorothea a promise that, should he die, she will "avoid doing what I should deprecate and apply yourself to do what I desire" — meaning either that she should shun Ladislaw, or, as Dorothea believes, that she will complete The Key to All Mythologies in his place. Before Dorothea can give her reply, Casaubon dies. She then learns that he has added the extraordinary provision to his will that, if she should marry Ladislaw, Dorothea will lose her inheritance from Casaubon. Meanwhile, an idealistic young doctor, Tertius Lydgate, has arrived in Middlemarch, with advanced ideas for medical reform. His voluntary hospital work brings him into contact with the town’s financier, Mr. Bulstrode, who has philanthropic leanings, but who is also a religious zealot with a secret past. Bulstrode's niece is Rosamond Vincy, the mayor's daughter and the town's recognised beauty, who sets her sights on Lydgate, attracted by what she believes to be his aristocratic connections and his novelty. She wins him, but the disjunction between her self-centredness and his idealism ensures that their marriage is unhappy. Lydgate manages his financial affairs badly and he is soon deep in debt and has to seek help from Bulstrode. He is partly sustained emotionally in his marital and financial woes by his friendship with Camden Farebrother, the generous-spirited and engaging parson from a local parish. At the same time we have become acquainted with Rosamond's university-educated, restless, and somewhat irresponsible brother, Fred, reluctantly destined for the Church. He is in love with his childhood sweetheart, Mary Garth, a sensible and forthright young woman, who will not accept him until he abandons the Church (which she knows he has no interest in) and settles in a more suitable career. Mary has been the unwitting cause of Fred’s loss of a considerable fortune, bequeathed to him by the aged and irascible Mr. Featherstone, then rescinded by a later will which Featherstone, on his death-bed, begs Mary to destroy. Mary, unaware of what is at stake, refuses to do so. Fred, in trouble over some injudicious horse-dealing, is forced to borrow from Mary’s father, Caleb Garth, to meet his commitments. This humiliation shocks Fred into a reassessment of his life and he resolves to train as a land agent under the forgiving Caleb. These three interwoven narratives, with side-plots such as the disastrous though comedic attempt by Mr. Brooke to enter Parliament as a sponsor of Reform, are the basis of the story until it is well into its final third. Then a new thread emerges, with the appearance of John Raffles, who knows about Bulstrode’s past and is determined to exploit this knowledge. Bulstrode’s terror of public exposure as a hypocrite leads him to hasten the death of the mortally sick Raffles by giving him access to forbidden alcohol and excess amounts of opium. But he is too late; Raffles had already spread the word. Bulstrode’s disgrace engulfs the luckless Lydgate, as knowledge of the financier’s loan to the doctor becomes public, and he is assumed to be complicit with Bulstrode. Only Dorothea and Farebrother maintain faith in Lydgate, but Lydgate and Rosamond are threatened by the general opprobrium with the necessity of leaving Middlemarch. The disgraced and reviled Bulstrode’s only consolation is that his wife stands by him as he, too, faces exile. The final thread in the complex weave concerns Ladislaw, who, since their initial meeting, has kept his love for Dorothea to himself. He has remained in Middlemarch, working for Mr. Brooke, and has also become a focus for Rosamond’s treacherous attentions. After Brooke’s election campaign collapses, there is nothing to keep Ladislaw and he visits Dorothea to make his farewell. But Dorothea, released from life with Casaubon, but still the prisoner of his will, now sees Ladislaw as the means of her escape to a new life. Renouncing her independence, and Casaubon's fortune, she shocks her family again, by announcing she will marry Ladislaw. At the same time Fred, who has proved an apt pupil in Caleb’s profession, finally wins the approval and hand of Mary. Beyond the principal stories we are given constant glimpses into other scenes. We observe Featherstone’s avaricious relatives gathering for the spoils, visit Farebrother’s strange ménage, and become aware of enormous social and economic divides. But these are the backdrops for the main stories which, true to life, are left largely suspended, leaving a short finale to summarise the fortunes of our protagonists over the next thirty years or so. The book ends as it began, with Dorothea: "Her full nature [ . . . ] spent itself in channels which had no great name on the Earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts." Themes [education The book examines the role of education in the lives of the characters and how such education and study has affected the characters. Rosamond Vincy's finishing school education is a foil to Dorothea Brooke's thirst for purposeful education, which was generally denied women of the era. Rosamond initially admires Lydgate for his exotic education and his intellect. A similar dynamic is present in Dorothea and Casaubon's relationship, with Dorothea revering her new husband's intellect and eloquence. Dorothea comes to question Casaubon's depth and penetration, while Rosamond is too self-obsessed to sympathize with Lydgate's focus and ambition. Despite extreme erudition,[citation needed] Mr. Casaubon is afraid to publish because he believes that he must write a work that is utterly above criticism. In contrast, Lydgate at times arrogantly drives ahead, alienating his more conservative fellow physicians. He regards the residents of Middlemarch with some disdain, his sympathy tempered by the belief that they are intellectually backward. Despite his education he lacks tact and the politicking skills necessary for advancement in a small town. [ Self-delusion Most of the central characters of this novel have a habit of building castles in the air and then attempting to live in them. Because they are idealistic, self-absorbed, or otherwise out of touch with reality, they make serious mistakes. These mistakes cause them great unhappiness and eventually their illusions are shattered. Some characters learn from this process and others do not. Those who learn not to build castles in the air generally end up happy, while those who persist in ignoring pragmatism are miserable. |
Mary Anne (alternatively Mary Ann or Marian) Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880), better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She is the author of seven novels, including Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch (1871–72), and Daniel Deronda (1876), most of them set in provincial England and known for their realism and psychological insight. Early life and educationShe used a male pen name, she said, to ensure her works would be taken seriously. Female authors were published under their own names during Eliot's life, but she wanted to escape the stereotype of women only writing lighthearted romances. An additional factor in her use of a pen name may have been a desire to shield her private life from public scrutiny and to prevent scandals attending her relationship with the married George Henry Lewes, with whom she lived for over 20 years.[1] Her 1872 work, Middlemarch, has been described as the greatest novel in the English language by Martin Amis[2] and by Julian Barnes.[3] Mary Anne Evans was the third child of Robert Evans (1773–1849) and Christiana Evans (née Pearson) (1788–1836), the daughter of a local farmer. Mary Anne's name was sometimes shortened to Marian.[4] Her full siblings were Christiana, known as Chrissey (1814–59), Isaac (1816–1890), and twin brothers who survived a few days in March 1821. She also had a half-brother, Robert (1802–64), and half-sister, Fanny (1805–82), from her father's previous marriage to Harriet Poynton (?1780–1809). Robert Evans, of Welsh ancestry, was the manager of the Arbury Hall Estate for the Newdigate family in Warwickshire, and Mary Anne was born on the estate at South Farm. In early 1820 the family moved to a house named Griff, between Nuneaton and Bedworth. Move to CoventryThe young Evans was obviously intelligent and a voracious reader. Because she was not considered physically beautiful, and thus not thought to have much chance of marriage, and because of her intelligence, her father invested in an education not often afforded women.[5] From ages five to nine, she boarded with her sister Chrissey at Miss Latham's school in Attleborough, from ages nine to thirteen at Mrs. Wallington's school in Nuneaton, and from ages thirteen to sixteen at Miss Franklin's school in Coventry. At Mrs. Wallington's school, she was taught by the evangelical Maria Lewis—to whom her earliest surviving letters are addressed. In the religious atmosphere of the Miss Franklin's school, Evans was exposed to a quiet, disciplined belief opposed to evangelicalism.[6] After age sixteen, Eliot had little formal education.[7] Thanks to her father's important role on the estate, she was allowed access to the library of Arbury Hall, which greatly aided her self-education and breadth of learning. Her classical education left its mark; Christopher Stray has observed that "George Eliot's novels draw heavily on Greek literature (only one of her books can be printed correctly without the use of a Greek typeface), and her themes are often influenced by Greek tragedy".[8] Her frequent visits to the estate also allowed her to contrast the wealth in which the local landowner lived with the lives of the often much poorer people on the estate, and different lives lived in parallel would reappear in many of her works. The other important early influence in her life was religion. She was brought up within a narrow low churchAnglican family, but at that time the Midlands was an area with a growing number of religious dissenters. In 1836 her mother died and Evans (then 16) returned home to act as housekeeper, but she continued correspondence with her tutor Maria Lewis. When she was 21, her brother Isaac married and took over the family home, so Evans and her father moved to Foleshill near Coventry. The closeness to Coventry society brought new influences, most notably those of Charles and Cara Bray. Charles Bray had become rich as a ribbon manufacturer and had used his wealth in building schools and other philanthropic causes. Evans, who had been struggling with religious doubts for some time, became intimate friends with the progressive, free-thinking Brays, whose home was a haven for people who held and debated radical views. The people whom the young woman met at the Brays' house included Robert Owen, Herbert Spencer, Harriet Martineau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Through this society, Evans was introduced to more liberal theologies, and writers such as David Strauss and Ludwig Feuerbach, who cast doubt on the literal veracity of Biblical stories. In fact, her first major literary work was translating into English Strauss' Life of Jesus (1846), which she completed after it had been begun by another member of the Rosehill circle. Move to London and editorship of the Westminster ReviewWhen Evans began to question her religious faith, her father threatened to throw her out, although that did not happen. Instead, she respectably attended church for years and continued to keep house for him until his death in 1849, when she was 30. Five days after her father's funeral, she travelled to Switzerland with the Brays. She decided to stay in Geneva alone, living first on the lake at Plongeon (near the present United Nations buildings) and then at the Rue de Chanoines (now the Rue de la Pelisserie) with François and Juliet d’Albert Durade on the second floor ("one feels in a downy nest high up in a good old tree"). Her stay is recorded by a plaque on the building. She read avidly and took long walks amongst a natural environment that inspired her greatly. François painted a portrait of her.[9] On her return to England the following year (1850), she moved to London with the intent of becoming a writer and calling herself Marian Evans. She stayed at the house of John Chapman, the radical publisher whom she had met at Rosehill (near Coventry) and who had printed her translation. Chapman had recently bought the campaigning, left-wing journal The Westminster Review, and Evans became its assistant editor in 1851. Although Chapman was the named editor, it was Evans who did most of the work in running the journal, contributing many essays and reviews, from the January 1852 number until the dissolution of her arrangement with Chapman in the first half of 1854.[10] Relationship with George LewesWomen writers were not uncommon at the time, but Evans's role at the head of a literary enterprise was. She was considered to have an ill-favoured appearance,[11] and she formed a number of embarrassing, unreciprocated emotional attachments, including that to her employer, the married Chapman, and Herbert Spencer. The philosopher and critic George Henry Lewes met Evans in 1851, and by 1854 they had decided to live together. Lewes was married to Agnes Jervis. They had agreed to have an open marriage, and in addition to the three children they had together, Agnes had also had four children by Thornton Leigh Hunt.[12] Since Lewes was named on the birth certificates as the father of these children despite knowing this to be false, and was therefore considered complicit in adultery, he was not able to divorce Agnes. In July 1854, Lewes and Evans travelled to Weimar and Berlin together for the purpose of research. Before going to Germany, Evans continued her interest in theological work with a translation of Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity, and while abroad she wrote essays and worked on her translation of Baruch Spinoza's Ethics, which she completed in 1856, but which was not published in her lifetime.[13] The trip to Germany also served as a honeymoon as Evans and Lewes now considered themselves married, with Evans calling herself Marian Evans Lewes, and referring to Lewes as her husband. It was not unusual for men and women in Victorian society to have affairs; Charles Bray, John Chapman, Friedrich Engels, and Wilkie Collins all had affairs, though more discreetly than Lewes and Evans. What was scandalous was their open admission of the relationship. |
ماري آن إيفانس حياتها- Mary Ann (Marian) Evans هي روائية أنجليزية ولدت في (22 نوفمبر1819) وتوفيت في (22 ديسمبر 1880) وهي أكثر شهرة ً باسمها القلمي جورج إليوت رواياتها التي تحصل معظم أحداثها في إنجلترا معروفة بواقعيتها والبعد النفسي فيها. وقد اختارت اسماً قلمياً ذكورياً لأنه بحسب رأيها أرادت ان تكون واثقة من أن تأخذ أعمالها محمل الجد وكي لا يعتربها أحد كاتبة رومنسية لمجرد أنها امرأة، رغم أن العديد من النساء كُن مؤلفات في ذلك الوقت في أوروبا ويُعتقد أيضاً انها غيرت اسمها لتبتعد عن عالم الشهرة كي لا يتطرق أحد إلى علاقتها مع الفيلسوف (جورج هنري لويس) الذي كان متزوجاً في ذلك الوقت. ماري آن إيفانس هي الابنة الثالثة لروبرت إيفانس وكرستينا إيفانس ولها أخ وأخت من زواج سابق لأبيها. أبدت في طفولتها ذكاءاً واضحاً ونظراً لأهمية موقع والدها في المدينة سُمح لها بالدخول إلى مكتبة المدينة مما طور قدرتها إلى حد بعيد وكان من الواضح فيما بعد مدى تأثرها بالكتابات اليونانية كما كان تأثرها بالديانة كبير جداً حيث تلقت بعض تعليمها من المدرسة المعمدانية. أعمالها الأدبيةفي عام 1836 توفيت أمها فأخذت ماري آن على عاتقها مهمة رعاية البيت لكنها أكملت تعليمها من خلال معلم خاص في البيت وعندما كانت في الواحدة والعشرين من عمرها تزوج أخيها وأخذ البيت له فانتقلت هي ووالدها للعيش في مكان آخر حيث تعرفت على تشارلز براي وتعرفت في منزله على العديد من الشخصيات اللبرالية وتأثرت بهم لكن هذا لم يبعدها عن تعلقها بالدين حيث أن أول عمل أدبي لها كان ترجمة لكتاب دايفد شتراوس (حياة السيد المسيح) 1846. قبل وفاة والدها سافرت إلى سويسرا وبعد عودتها انتقلت لتعيش في لندن وكانت مصممة في ذلك الوقت على ان تكون كاتبة وهناك عاشت في منزل الناشر جون تشابمان الذي كان يملك صحيفة عملت هي فيها كمحررة في العام 1858 لمدة ثلاث سنوات لكن كل كتاباتها كان تنشر باسم تشابمان. في العام 1851 قابلت الفيلسوف (جورج هنري لويس) الذي كان متزوجاً في ذلك الوقت وفي العام 1854 قررا أن يعيشا معاً بالرغم من ذلك وسافرا معاً إلى برلين وبعد عودتهما عاشا في لندن لكن بعيداً عن مجتمع الكتاب وفي ذلك الوقت قررت هي أن تتخذ الاسم جورج إليوت ونشرت أول رواية كاملة لها بهذا الاسم في العام 1859 بعنوان Adam Bede وحققت تلك الرواية نجاحاً مباشر وفوري لكن تلك الرواية اطلقت العديد من التكهنات حول هذا الكاتب الجديد لكن في النهاية وبعد فترة اعترفت ماري آن بأنها هي جورج إليوت فكان لذلك الخبر تأثير قوي على قرائها الذين صدموا بمعرفة تفاصيل حياتها الشخصية. ستمرت ماري آن بعد ذلك بالكتابة لمدة 15 عاماً وقد نشرت آخر رواية لها في العام 1873 بعنوان Daniel Deronda وبعد نشر تلك الرواية بعامين توفي (جورج هنري لويس). لكن ماري آن لم تتوقف عن توجيه الصدمات لقرائها حيث تعرفت بعد ذلك على رجل أمريكي أصغر منها بعشرين عاماً اسمه جون والتر كروس وتزوجته في عام 1880 فكانت تلك صدمة للجميع وتوفيت بعد ذلك بأشهر حين كان عمرها 61 عاماً. الروايات
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- ماري آن إيفانس Mary Ann (Marian) Evans هي روائية أنجليزية ولدت في (22 نوفمبر1819) وتوفيت في (22 ديسمبر 1880). - وهي أكثر شهرة ً باسمها القلمي جورج إليوت رواياتها التي تحصل معظم أحداثها في إنجلترا معروفة بواقعيتها والبعد النفسي فيها - قد اختارت اسماً قلمياً ذكورياً لأنه بحسب رأيها أرادت ان تكون واثقة من أن تأخذ أعمالها محمل الجد وكي لا يعتربها أحد كاتبة رومنسية لمجرد أنها امرأة، رغم أن العديد من النساء كُن مؤلفات في ذلك الوقت في أوروبا ويُعتقد أيضاً انها غيرت اسمها لتبتعد عن عالم الشهرة كي لا يتطرق أحد إلى علاقتها مع الفيلسوف (جورج هنري لويس) الذي كان متزوجاً في ذلك الوقت - ماري آن إيفانس هي الابنة الثالثة لروبرت إيفانس وكرستينا إيفانس ولها أخ وأخت من زواج سابق لأبيها. - عاشت في مدارس داخلية منها مدرسة راهبات حتى سن 16 سنه. - في عام 1836 توفيت أمها فأخذت ماري آن على عاتقها مهمة رعاية البيت لكنها أكملت تعليمها من خلال معلم خاص في البيت وعندما كانت في الواحدة والعشرين من عمرها تزوج أخيها وأخذ البيت له فانتقلت هي ووالدها للعيش في مكان آخر ( وعمرها 17 سنة ). - قبل وفاة والدها سافرت إلى سويسرا وبعد عودتها انتقلت لتعيش في لندن . - في العام 1851 قابلت الفيلسوف (جورج هنري لويس) الذي كان متزوجاً في ذلك الوقت وفي العام 1854 قررا أن يعيشا معاً بالرغم من ذلك وسافرا معاً إلى برلين وبعد عودتهما عاشا في لندن لكن بعيداً عن مجتمع الكتاب وفي ذلك الوقت قررت هي أن تتخذ الاسم جورج إليوت ونشرت أول رواية كاملة لها بهذا الاسم في العام 1859 بعنوان Adam Bede وحققت تلك الرواية نجاحاً مباشر وفوري لكن تلك الرواية اطلقت العديد من التكهنات حول هذا الكاتب الجديد لكن في النهاية وبعد فترة اعترفت ماري آن بأنها هي جورج إليوت فكان لذلك الخبر تأثير قوي على قرائها الذين صدموا بمعرفة تفاصيل حياتها الشخصية. - لكن ماري آن لم تتوقف عن توجيه الصدمات لقرائها حيث تعرفت بعد ذلك على رجل أمريكي أصغر منها بعشرين عاماً اسمه جون والتر كروس وتزوجته في عام 1880 فكانت تلك صدمة للجميع وتوفيت بعد ذلك بأشهر حين كان عمرها 61 عاماً. يتيمة الام في سن 17 |
Salman Rushdie, India/Britain, (b. 1947 Saleem Sinai was born at midnight, the midnight of India's independence, and found himself mysteriously 'handcuffed to history' by the coincidence. He is one of 1,001 children born at the midnight hour, each of them endowed with an extraordinary talent - and whose privilege and curse it is to be both master and victims of their times. Through Saleem's gifts - inner ear and wildly sensitive sense of smell - we are drawn into a fascinating family saga set against the vast, colourful background of the India of the 20th century. == Midnight's Children is a 1980 book by Salman Rushdie that deals with India's transition from British colonialism to independence and the partition of British India. It is considered an example of postcolonial literature and magical realism. The story is told by its chief protagonist, Saleem Sinai, and is set in the context of actual historical events as with historical fiction.Midnight's Children won both the Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1981. It was awarded the "Booker of Bookers" Prize and the best all-time prize winners in 1993 and 2008 to celebrate the Booker Prize 25th and 40th anniversary.[1][2] In 2003, the novel was listed on the BBC's survey The Big Read.[3] It was also added to the list of Great Books of the 20th Century, published by Penguin Books. The novel has a multitude of named characters; see the List of Midnight's Children characters. Major themes</SPAN>Midnight's Children is a loose allegory for events in India both before and, primarily, after the independence and partition of India. The protagonist and narrator of the story is Saleem Sinai, born at the exact moment when India became an independent country. He was born with telepathic powers, as well as an enormous and constantly dripping nose with an extremely sensitive sense of smell. The novel is divided into three books. The book begins with the story of the Sinai family, particularly with events leading up to India's Independence and Partition. Saleem is born precisely at midnight, August 15, 1947, and is, therefore, exactly as old as the independent republic of India. He later discovers that all children born in India between 12 a.m. and 1 a.m. on that date are imbued with special powers. Saleem, using his telepathic powers, assembles a Midnight Children's Conference, reflective of the issues India faced in its early statehood concerning the cultural, linguistic, religious, and political differences faced by a vastly diverse nation. Saleem acts as a telepathic conduit, bringing hundreds of geographically disparate children into contact while also attempting to discover the meaning of their gifts. In particular, those children born closest to the stroke of midnight wield more powerful gifts than the others. Shiva "of the Knees", Saleem's nemesis, and Parvati, called "Parvati-the-witch," are two of these children with notable gifts and roles in Saleem's story. Meanwhile, Saleem's family begin a number of migrations and endure the numerous wars which plague the subcontinent. During this period he also suffers amnesia until he enters a quasi-mythologicalexile in the jungle of Sundarban, where he is re-endowed with his memory. In doing so, he reconnects with his childhood friends. Saleem later becomes involved with the Indira Gandhi-proclaimed Emergency and her son Sanjay's "cleansing" of the Jama Masjid slum. For a time Saleem is held as a political prisoner; these passages contain scathing criticisms of Indira Gandhi's overreach during the Emergency as well as a personal lust for power bordering on godhood. The Emergency signals the end of the potency of the Midnight Children, and there is little left for Saleem to do but pick up the few pieces of his life he may still find and write the chronicle that encompasses both his personal history and that of his still-young nation; a chronicle written for his son, who, like his father, is both chained and supernaturally endowed by history. The technique of magical realism finds liberal expression throughout the novel and is crucial to constructing the parallel to the country's history.[4] Nicholas Stewart in his essay, "Magic realism in relation to the post-colonial and Midnight's Children," argues that the "narrative framework of Midnight's Children consists of a tale – comprising his life story – which Saleem Sinai recounts orally to his wife-to-be Padma. This self-referential narrative (within a single paragraph Saleem refers to himself in the first person: 'And I, wishing upon myself the curse of Nadir Khan.' and the third: 'I tell you,' Saleem cried, 'it is true. ...') recalls indigenous Indian culture, particularly the similarly orally recounted Arabian Nights. The events in Rushdie's text also parallel the magical nature of the narratives recounted in Arabian Nights (consider the attempt to electrocute Saleem at the latrine (p.353), or his journey in the 'basket of invisibility' (p.383))."[4] He also notes that, "the narrative comprises and compresses Indian cultural history. 'Once upon a time,' Saleem muses, 'there were Radha and Krishna, and Rama and Sita, and Laila and Majnun; also (because we are not unaffected by the West) Romeo and Juliet, and Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn," (259). Stewart (citing Hutcheon) suggests that Midnight's Children chronologically entwines characters from both India and the West, "with post-colonial Indian history to examine both the effect of these indigenous and non-indigenous cultures on the Indian mind and in the light of Indian independence |
Winner of the Booker of Bookers أطفال منتصف الليلSaleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India's independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with India's 1,000 other "midnight's children," all born in that initial hour and endowed with magical gifts. This novel is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people-a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy. Twenty-five years after its publication, Midnight's Children stands apart as both an epochal work of fiction and a brilliant performance by one of the great literary voices of our time == (بالإنكليزية: Midnight's children) رواية بقلم سلمان رشدي صدرت في سنة 1981 تتناول مسيرة الهند من الاستعمار البريطاني إلى الاستقلال والانقسام، وتعتبر مثالاً على أدب ما بعد الاستعمار والواقعية السحرية. تسرد أحداث الرواية على لسان بطلها الرئيسي سليم سينائي وتجري في سياق الأحداث التاريخية الحقيقية يشوبها أدب الخيال التاريخي. حصلت الرواية على جائزة بوكر الأدبية وجائزة ذكرى جيمس تيت بلاك (بالإنجليزية) في 1981، كما حصلت على جائزة بوكر البوكر في سنة 1993 بمناسبة الذكرى الخامسة والعشرين لجائزة بوكر وجائزة أفضل فائز بجائزة بوكر في سنة 2008 بمناسبة الذكرى الأربعين للجائزة.[ |
سلمان أحمد رشدي المهنة كمؤلف</SPAN>ويسمى سلمان رشدي ولد في مدينة بومباي في 19 يونيو 1947، وهو بريطاني من أصل هندي تخرج من جامعة كنج كولج في كامبردج بريطانيا، سنة 1981 حصل على جائزة بوكر الإنجليزية الهامة عن كتابه "أطفال منتصف الليل". نشر أشهر رواياته آيات شيطانية سنة 1988 وحاز عنها على جائزة ويتبيرد لكن شهرة الرواية جاءت بسبب تسببها في إحداث ضجة في العالم الإسلامي حيث اعتبر البعض أن فيها إهانة لشخص رسول الإسلام محمد. غريموس تعتبر الرواية الأولى لسلمان رشدي ولكنها لم تحظ بأي اهتمام أو شهرة. الرواية التي اخذت الحيز الواسع من الشهرة والتقدير هي روايته الثانية أطفال منتصف الليل وبها دخل سلمان رشدي تاريخ الأدب وتعتبر اليوم أحد أهم اعماله الادبية. علماء الأدب الإنجليزي أشاروا إلى أن رواية طفل منتصف الليل أثرت بشكل كبير على شكل الأدب الهندي-الإنكليزي وتطوره خلال العقود القادمة. حياته الشخصية</SPAN>بعد هذا النجاح جاء سلمان رشدي برواية جديدة بعنوان عيب وبعد هذه الرواية أصدر عمل جديد بني على تجربة شخصية وهو ابتسامة جكوار ثم تأتي اعمال أخرى كثيرة. وفي الفترة الأخيرة ظهر سلمان رشدي في دور قصير في فيلم بريدجيت جونز دايري مع رينية زيلويغر. هو الابن الوحيد لأنيس أحمد رشدي، محامي خريج جامعة كامبردج تحول إلى رجل اعمال، ونيجين بهات، مدرسة. ولد رشدي في مومباي بالهند. تلقى تعليمه في مدرسة كاتدرائية جون كونن في مومباي، قبل أن ينتقل إلى مدرسة الرجبي الداخلية في انكلترا، ومن ثم درس دراسته الجامعية في الكلية الملكية، في جامعة كامبردج حيث درس التاريخ. عمل لدى اثنين من وكالات الاعلان (اوجلفي& ماثر وآير باركر) قبل أن يتفرغ للكتابة. تزوج رشدي أريعة مرات، أول زوجاته كانت كلارسيا لوارد من الفترة 1976 إلى 1987 وانجب منها ابنه زافار. زوجته الثانية هي ماريان ويجينز الروائية الأمريكية حيث تزوجا في عام 1988 وتم الطلاق في عام 1993. زوجته الثالثة (من 1997 إلى 2004) كانت إليزابيث ويست، انجبا ابن يدعا ميلان. في عام 2004 تزوج من الممثلة الهندية الأمريكية والموديل بادما لاكشمي. انتهى الزواج في 2 يوليو 2007 حيث صرحت لاكشمي ان نهاية الزواج كات نتيجة لرغبتها هي. في الصحافة البوليودية، كان هناك حديث في 2008 عن علاقة بينه وبين الموديل الهندية ريا سين التي كانت صديقته، وفي رد على ما جاء في وسائل الاعلام قالت ريا في تصريح لها "اعتقد حينما تكون سلمان رشدي، من المؤكد ان تصاب بالملل من الناس الذين دائما ما يتكلمون معك عن الأدب". في عام 1999، خضع سلمان لعملية "تصحيح وتر" حيث -حسبما صرح- كان يعاني من صعوبة متزايدة في فتح عينيه. وقال" لو لم اخضع لهذه العملية لما تمكنت من فتح عيني نهائيا". |
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie Early life and family background(Kashmiri: अहमद सलमान रुशदी (Devanagari), احمد سلمان رشدی (Nastaʿlīq); pron.: /sælˈmɑːn ˈrʊʃdi/;[2] born 19 June 1947) is a British Indian novelist and essayist. His second novel, Midnight's Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981. Much of his fiction is set on the Indian subcontinent. He is said to combine magical realism with historical fiction; his work is concerned with the many connections, disruptions and migrations between East and West. His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), was the centre of a major controversy, provoking protests from Muslims in several countries, some violent. Death threats were made against him, including a fatwā issued by AyatollahRuhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, on 14 February 1989. Rushdie was appointed Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France in January 1999.[3] In June 2007, Queen Elizabeth IIknighted him for his services to literature.[4] In 2008, The Times ranked him thirteenth on its list of the fifty greatest British writers since 1945.[5] Since 2000, Rushdie has lived in the United States, where he has worked at Emory University and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His most recent book is Joseph Anton: A Memoir, an account of his life in the wake of the controversy over The Satanic Verses. The only son of Anis Ahmed Rushdie, a University of Cambridge-educated lawyer turned businessman, and Negin Bhatt, a teacher, Rushdie was born in Bombay, India, into a Muslim family of Kashmiri descent.[6][7][8] Rushdie wrote in his 2012 memoir that his father adopted the name Rushdie in honour of Averroes (Ibn Rushd). He was educated at Cathedral and John Connon School in Mumbai, Rugby School, and King's College, University of Cambridge, where he studied history. |
Salman Rushdie Salman Rushdie views the main purpose of an author as being an antagonist to the state. He has been described as a disaffected intellectual who criticizes or makes fun of nearly everything, but he is nevertheless a highly acclaimed writer whose books continue to trigger arguments on the nature of free speech and an author's social responsibility. Salman Rushdie was born in Bombay, India, on June 19, 1947, almost exactly two months before India gained her independence from Britain. His parents, Anis Ahmed and Negin (nee Butt) Rushdie, were devout Muslims, and Salman grew up a believer in the Islamic faith. After the partition of India and Pakistan, many of the Rushdies relatives moved to Pakistan, but Salman's parents chose to remain in the predominantly Hindu and cosmopolitan Bombay, where Salman could receive a British education. The Rushdies were wealthy, and Salman and his three sisters had a sheltered and privileged childhood; he never saw the misery or the thousands of homeless people who slept in the streets of Bombay every night. Instead, most of his time as a child was spent in the world of Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor, and the flying carpets of his favorite book Arabian Nights. In his family life, Rushdie was "the little prince." "Being the only son and eldest child in a middle-class Indian family does make you think that the world revolves round you," Rushdie once commented. This status certainly spoiled him, but it also had the more long-term effect of convincing him that "he had a special role to play in the world." As an old family friend describes it, Rushdie felt "a responsibility to right wrongs and correct the errors of lesser mortals." - At the age of 14, Rushdie left for England to attend Rugby School. - He had always idealized British society, so it was a shock for him to find that he was considered an outsider at school, a "wog," an inferior. - He was treated with hostility by both students and teachers and was often excluded from social activities. - This bitter experience with racial prejudice was a shock that caused him to rethink much of what he'd been taught growing up. During this period of his life, he poured his thoughts into a short autobiographical novel called The Terminal Report. It was the first time that he'd used writing as an outlet for his emotions, and it made him seriously consider writing as a profession. - When he graduated from Rugby, he went to Pakistan, where his family had moved since he had left for England. - But even at home he was now an outsider. At school he had become more independent, more forceful with his opinions, and his English articulation had changed from its original Bombay accent to the more superior sounding English that older Indians associated with former British colonial officials. - This was no longer his home: Rushdie was a displaced person, and although he'd hated Rugby, he decided, with much urging from his father, to attend Cambridge, where he'd won a scholarship. - He didn't want to return to England, but it was really his only choice. He described this return in 1965 as "one of the most disorienting moments of my life." It took Rushdie a few weeks to realize that Cambridge was very different from the Rugby sequel he'd expected. He began to excel in school, studying history in class and English literature on his own. He found an interest in acting and became involved in London's artistic circles, but his secret dream was still to become a writer. These years at school also made him aware of the world beyond his small circle. The Civil Rights movement was closely followed at Cambridge, and there was much opposition to the American involvement in the Vietnam War. Rushdie was very much caught up in this anti-establishment wave at Cambridge, and its influence would be felt in his writings later on in life. Rushdie graduated in 1968 with a Master of Arts in history with honors, and again returned to his family's home in Karachi. He spent two unsuccessful years working at a television station, whose constant censorship frustrated him. He returned to London in 1970. There Rushdie married a British woman, Clarissa Luard, making him a British subject. To pay the bills, Rushdie worked as an advertising copywriter. His first book, Grimus: A Novel, was published in 1976, but this bizarre science fiction version of an old Sufi poem received mixed, though mostly poor, reviews. It was only after a decade working as an ad copywriter that he had his breakthrough. His second book, Midnight's Children, brought him critical acclaim and the Booker Prize in 1981. This unflattering allegory of India's independence gave him the freedom to devote himself full time to writing at a young age, which also meant the freedom from worrying about how to support his wife and his son Zafir, who was born in 1979. His third book, Shame, which criticized the leaders and society of Pakistan, also won acclaim when it was published in 1983, but not to the degree of Midnight's Children. It kept the money flowing in, however, and Rushdie was able to travel and to continue focusing on his books. The Jaguar Smile, a short travel book, chronicled Rushdie's brief trip to Nicaragua in 1986 and his wholehearted admiration of the Sandanistas, perhaps the only group and place that he ever described fondly. It was also around this time that he divorced Luard, and three months later married Marianne Wiggins, an American novelist living in London. The Satanic Verses was published in 1988 and earned widespread critical praise, establishing Rushdie as a leading member of the London intelligentsia. This story of migration presents challenges against Islam and brought about widespread protest from Muslims. It was almost immediately banned in India. The most severe reaction, however, came from the Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. On Valentine's Day, 1989, a "fatwa," or decree, from the Ayatollah was announced, sentencing not only Salman Rushdie, but also all of the publishers and translators of The Satanic Verses, to death. He called "on all zealous Muslims to execute them quickly, wherever they may find them, so that no one will dare to insult the Islamic sanctions. Whoever is killed on this path will be regarded as a martyr, God willing." Rushdie immediately entered into hiding in London. Bounties, which quickly rose to number in millions, were placed on his head for this blasphemy against Islam. Khomeini himself died that year, but for many years to come Rushdie nevertheless had to live under constant police protection, and all his public appearances took place only with the highest security. Nevertheless, he still managed to write. During his years in hiding, Rushdie wrote a series of novels and stories, among them Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990) and The Moor's Last Sigh (1995). It was also during this time that Rushdie separated from his second wife and married a third. In 1999, almost entirely out of hiding, although he was still constantly shadowed by bodyguards, Rushdie published his most recent novel, a love story entitled The Ground Beneath Her Feet. This rock-and-roll retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice opens with the death of a rock star, on Valentine's Day 1989. This date was very much intentional "because I thought, well, one of the reasons I'm writing a novel about cataclysms in people's lives, about earthquakes, about the fact that the world is provisional and the life that you think is yours can be removed from you at any moment -- one of the reasons I'm writing this book is because of what happened in my life." In continuing to write, he has succeeded in sidestepping "two traps set by the fatwa: writing timid novels and writing bitter ones." It is his personal philosophy that 'if somebody's trying to shut you up, sing louder and, if possible, better. My experience just made me all the more determined to write the very best books I could find it in myself to write." And now, from his home in New York City, he continues to do so; he continues to push his work to a place where he never thought it could go, and he takes us with him. |
سلمان رشدي لم اطلع حتى الآن على مذكرات رشدي، لكني أتصور انه عاش حياة اقرب إلى اليتم إن لم يكن يتيما حقا، والمعروف ان بطل رواياته أطفال منتصف الليل يتيم وظن بعض المحللين انه اقرب إلى سيرة ذاتية لكنه نفى ذلك في إحدى المقابلات. على كل حال أن ظروف نشأة رشدي وطبيعة العائلة التي عاش فيها ثم إرساله إلى بريطانيا للدراسة وهو في سن الرابعة عشرة ومعاناته هناك من التمييز العنصري وصدمته في الهوية حيث أدرك انه ليس بريطاني وليس شخص مقبول حتى من البريطانيين ، ثم عودته بعد ذلك إلى باكستان بدلا الهند لان الأسرة انتقلت إلى هناك كل هذه الظروف تجعلني اقو لان رشدي إن لم يكن يتيم فعلي ، فهو يتيم اجتماعي بسبب المدرسة الداخلية في بلد آخر عاني منه التمييز العنصري ،وعلى الاقل يمكننا ان نقول انه شخص عاني كثيرا من ازمة في الهوية وكل ما كتبه وكل ما يقوله يعكس أزمة الهوية تلك فهو في تقدير شخص يصرخ لعل أحدا يعترف بوجوده. مأزوم أزمة هوية. |
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, United States, (1819-1891) Moby Dick is the story of Captain Ahab's quest to avenge the whale that 'reaped' his leg. The quest is an obsession and the novel is a diabolical study of how a man becomes a fanatic. But it is also a hymn to democracy. Bent as the crew is on Ahab's appalling crusade, it is equally the image of a co-operative community at work: all hands dependent on all hands, each individual responsible for the security of each. Among the crew is Ishmael, the novel's narrator, ordinary sailor, and extraordinary reader. Digressive, allusive, vulgar, transcendent, the story Ishmael tells is above all an education: in the practice of whaling, in the art of writing == موبي ديك (بالإنجليزية: Moby Dick) هي رواية من تأليف الروائي الأمريكي هيرمان ملفيل أصدرت في 18 أكتوبر 1851، تدور حول صراع تراجيدي بين حوت وإنسان تتخذ من هذا الصراع الضاري وسيلة لتأمل الوضع البشري وعلاقته بالوجود كما تحوله إلى كيان رمزي معقد وحكاية الليغورية عن كيفية العيش مطلق عيش وعن المشروع الاميركي الذي وجد في عمل ملفيل شكلا من اشكال التعبير عن نفسه في منتصف القرن التاسع عشر أي حين كانت اميركا تكتشف ذاتها كقوة كونية وامبراطورية إمبريالية أمريكية بالقوة والإمكان. فكانت رواية موبي ديك وروايات ملفيل الأخرى بمثابة نبوءة لما ستصير اليه هذه القوة الكامنة. مكانتها في الأدب العالمي</SPAN> تحتل القصة مكانة مرموقة بين كلاسيكيات الأدب العالمي، فهي إضافة إلى كونها الملحمة الكبرى المكتوبة عن، مر على صدور "موبي ديك" للمرة الأولى زهاء المئة وخمسين عاما لاقت الرواية خلالها من الاهمال ما جعل نفس كاتبها تمتلئ باليأس والاحساس بالعجز ليصرف بقية حياته موظفا في سلك الجمارك الاميركية ويموت مهملا مجهولا في العقد الأخير من القرن التاسع عشر. ولم يلتفت إلى الرواية وينظر إليها بصفتها أحد الكتب العظيمة سوى عام 1907 أي بعد وفاة صاحبها بستة عشر عاما، عندما تم ادراجها ضمن سلسلة "ايفري مان لايبراري" الشهيرة التي تنشر الكلاسيكيات الكبرى ولم يهتم النقد بالرواية الا في العشرينات من القرن الماضي حين بدأ الباحثون والنقاد واساتذة الجامعات يكتبون عن هذا العمل الروائي المدهش الذي طور شكل الكتابة الروائية في منتصف القرن التاسع عشر وجعل الرواية الاميركية تحتل مكانة متقدمة في تاريخ الرواية العالمية. ولقد قام الممثل الكبير جريجورى بيك بتمثيل تلك الرواية فى فيلم حمل نفس الإسم حيث قام بأعظم أدواره على الإطلاق فى تمثيل شخصيىة البحار الباحث عن غريمه موبى ديك عبر البحار == |
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a novel by Herman Melville, first published in 1851.[2] It is considered to be one of the Great American Novels and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab. Ishmael soon learns that Ahab has one purpose on this voyage: to seek out Moby Dick, a ferocious, enigmatic white sperm whale. In a previous encounter, the whale destroyed Ahab's boat and bit off his leg, which now drives Ahab to take revenge. Background</SPAN>In Moby-Dick, Melville employs stylized language, symbolism, and the metaphor to explore numerous complex themes. Through the journey of the main characters, the concepts of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of God are all examined, as the main characters speculate upon their personal beliefs and their places in the universe. The narrator's reflections, along with his descriptions of a sailor's life aboard a whaling ship, are woven into the narrative along with Shakespeareanliterary devices, such as stage directions, extended soliloquies, and asides. The book portrays destructive obsession and monomania, as well as the assumption of anthropomorphism—projecting human instincts, characteristics and motivations onto animals. Moby Dick is ruthless in attacking the sailors who attempt to hunt and kill him, but it is Ahab who invests Moby Dick's natural instincts with malignant and evil intentions. In fact, it is not the whale but the crippled Ahab who alone possesses this characteristic. Moby-Dick has been classified as American Romanticism. It was first published by Richard Bentley in London on October 18, 1851, in an expurgated three-volume edition titled The Whale, and weeks later as a single volume, by New York City publisher Harper and Brothers as Moby-Dick; or, The Whale on November 14, 1851. The book initially received mixed reviews, but Moby-Dick is now considered part of the Western canon,[3] and at the center of the canon of American novels. "Moby-Dick" begins with the line "Call me Ishmael." According to the American Book Review's rating in 2011, this is one of the most recognizable opening lines in Western literature.[4] Moby-Dick was published in 1851 during what has been called the American Renaissance, which saw the publication of Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850) and Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) as well as Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854), and the first edition of Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1855). Plot</SPAN>Two actual events served as the genesis for Melville's tale. One was the sinking of the Nantucket ship Essex in 1820, after it was rammed by a large sperm whale 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the western coast of South America.[5][6][7] First mate Owen Chase, one of eight survivors, recorded the events in his 1821 Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex. The other event was the alleged killing in the late 1830s of the albino sperm whale Mocha Dick, in the waters off the Chilean island of Mocha. Mocha Dick was rumored to have twenty or so harpoons in his back from other whalers, and appeared to attack ships with premeditated ferocity. One of his battles with a whaler served as subject for an article by explorer Jeremiah N. Reynolds[8] in the May 1839 issue of The Knickerbocker or New-York Monthly Magazine. Melville was familiar with the article, which described: This renowned monster, who had come off victorious in a hundred fights with his pursuers, was an old bull whale, of prodigious size and strength. From the effect of age, or more probably from a freak of nature... a singular consequence had resulted - he was white as wool![8] Significantly, Reynolds writes a first-person narration that serves as a frame for the story of a whaling captain he meets. The captain resembles Ahab and suggests a similar symbolism and single-minded motivation in hunting this whale, in that when his crew first encounters Mocha Dick and cowers from him, the captain rallies them:As he drew near, with his long curved back looming occasionally above the surface of the billows, we perceived that it was white as the surf around him; and the men stared aghast at each other, as they uttered, in a suppressed tone, the terrible name of MOCHA DICK! "Mocha Dick or the d----l [devil],' said I, 'this boat never sheers off from any thing that wears the shape of a whale."[9] Mocha Dick had over 100 encounters with whalers in the decades between 1810 and the 1830s. He was described as being gigantic and covered in barnacles. Although he was the most famous, Mocha Dick was not the only white whale in the sea,[10] nor the only whale to attack hunters.[11][12][13] While an accidental collision with a sperm whale at night accounted for sinking of the Union in 1807,[14] it was not until August 1851 that the whaler Ann Alexander, while hunting in the Pacific off the Galapagos Islands, became the second vessel since the Essex to be attacked, holed and sunk by a whale. Melville remarked:Ye Gods! What a commentator is this Ann Alexander whale. What he has to say is short & pithy & very much to the point. I wonder if my evil art has raised this monster.[15] While Melville had already drawn on his different sailing experiences in his previous novels, such as Mardi, he had never focused specifically on whaling. The eighteen months he spent as an ordinary seaman aboard the whaler Acushnet in 1841-42, and one incident in particular, now served as inspiration. It was during a mid-ocean "gam" (rendezvous at sea between ships) that he met Chase's son William, who lent him his father's book. Melville later wrote:I questioned him concerning his father's adventure; . . . he went to his chest & handed me a complete copy . . . of the Narrative [of the Essex catastrophe]. This was the first printed account of it I had ever seen. The reading of this wondrous story on the landless sea, and so close to the very latitude of the shipwreck, had a surprising effect upon me.[16] The book was out of print, and rare.[17] Knowing that Melville was looking for it, his father-in-law, Lemuel Shaw, managed to find a copy and buy it for him. When Melville received it, he fell to it almost immediately, heavily annotating it.[18]Moby-Dick contains large sections—most of them narrated by Ishmael—that seemingly have nothing to do with the plot but describe aspects of the whaling business. Although there had been a successful earlier novel about Nantucket whalers, Miriam Coffin or The Whale-Fisherman (1835) by Joseph C. Hart.,[19] which is credited with influencing elements of Melville's work, most accounts of whaling tended to be sensational tales of bloody mutiny, and Melville believed that no book up to that time had portrayed the whaling industry in as fascinating or immediate a way as he had experienced it. Early Romantics also proposed that fiction was the exemplary way to describe and record history, so Melville wanted to craft something educational and definitive. Despite his own interest in the subject, Melville struggled with composition, writing to Richard Henry Dana, Jr. on May 1, 1850: I am half way in the work ... It will be a strange sort of book, tho', I fear; blubber is blubber you know; tho' you might get oil out of it, the poetry runs as hard as sap from a frozen maple tree; — and to cook the thing up, one must needs throw in a little fancy, which from the nature of the thing, must be ungainly as the gambols of the whales themselves. Yet I mean to give the truth of the thing, spite of this.[20] There are scholarly theories that purport a literary legend of two Moby-Dick tales, one being a whaling tale as was Melville's experience and affinity, and another deeper tale, inspired by his literary friendship with and respect for Nathaniel Hawthorne. These merged into the latter, the morality tale.[21][22] Hawthorne and his family had moved to a small red farmhouse near Lenox, Massachusetts, at the end of March 1850.[23] He became friends with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. and Herman Melville beginning on August 5, 1850, when the authors met at a picnic hosted by a mutual friend.[24] Melville had just read Hawthorne's short story collection Mosses from an Old Manse, and his unsigned review of the collection, titled "Hawthorne and His Mosses", was printed in the The Literary World on August 17 and 24.[25] Melville wrote that these stories revealed a dark side to Hawthorne, "shrouded in blackness, ten times black".,[22] and dedicated Moby-Dick to him:In token of my admiration for his genius, this book is inscribed to Nathaniel Hawthorne.[26] The narrator, Ishmael, is an observant young man setting out from Manhattan who has experience in the merchant marine but has recently decided his next voyage will be on a whaling ship. On a cold, gloomy night in December, he arrives at the Spouter-Inn in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and agrees to share a bed with a then-absent stranger. When his bunk mate, a heavily tattooedPolynesianharpooner named Queequeg, returns very late and discovers Ishmael beneath his covers, both men are alarmed, but the two quickly become close friends and decide to sail together from Nantucket, Massachusetts on a whaling voyage. In Nantucket, the pair signs on with the Pequod, a whaling ship that is soon to leave port. The ship’s captain, Ahab, is nowhere to be seen; nevertheless, they are told of him — a "grand, ungodly, godlike man,"[27] who has "been in colleges as well as 'mong the cannibals," according to one of the owners. The two friends encounter a mysterious man named Elijah on the dock after they sign their papers and he hints at troubles to come with Ahab. The mystery grows on Christmas morning when Ishmael spots dark figures in the mist, apparently boarding the Pequod shortly before it sets sail that day. The ship’s officers direct the early voyage while Ahab stays in his cabin. The chief mate is Starbuck, a serious, sincere Quaker and fine leader; second mate is Stubb, happy-go-lucky and cheerful and always smoking his pipe; the third mate is Flask, short and stout but thoroughly reliable. Each mate is responsible for a whaling boat, and each whaling boat of the Pequod has its own pagan harpooneer assigned to it. Some time after sailing, Ahab finally appears on the quarter-deck one morning, an imposing, frightening figure whose haunted visage sends shivers over the narrator. One of his legs is missing from the knee down and has been replaced by a prosthesis fashioned from a sperm whale's jawbone. He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness... Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it, and without wrenching a single twig, peels and grooves out the bark from top to bottom ere running off into the soil, leaving the tree still greenly alive, but branded. —Moby-Dick, Ch. 28 Soon gathering the crewmen together, with a rousing speech Ahab secures their support for his single, secret purpose for this voyage: hunting down and killing Moby Dick, an old, very large sperm whale, with a snow-white hump and mottled skin, that crippled Ahab on his last whaling voyage. Only Starbuck shows any sign of resistance to the charismatic but monomaniacal captain. The first mate argues repeatedly that the ship’s purpose should be to hunt whales for their oil, with luck returning home profitably, safely, and quickly, but not to seek out and kill Moby Dick in particular — and especially not for revenge. Eventually even Starbuck acquiesces to Ahab's will, though harboring misgivings.The mystery of the dark figures seen before the Pequod set sail is explained during the voyage's first lowering for whales. Ahab has secretly brought along his own boat crew, including a mysterious harpooneer named Fedallah (also referred to as 'the Parsee'), an inscrutable figure with a sinister influence over Ahab. Later, while watching one night over a captured whale carcass, Fedallah gives dark prophecies to Ahab regarding their twin deaths. The novel describes numerous "gams," social meetings of two ships on the open sea. Crews normally visit each other during a gam, captains on one vessel and chief mates on the other. Mail may be exchanged and the men talk of whale sightings or other news. For Ahab, however, there is but one relevant question to ask of another ship: “Hast seen the White Whale?” After meeting several other whaling ships, which have their own peculiar stories, the Pequod enters the Pacific Ocean. Queequeg becomes deathly ill and requests that a coffin be built for him by the ship’s carpenter. Just as everyone has given up hope, Queequeg changes his mind, deciding to live after all, and recovers quickly. His coffin becomes his sea chest, and is later caulked and pitched to replace the Pequod's life buoy. Soon word is heard from other whalers of Moby Dick. The jolly Captain Boomer of the Samuel Enderby has lost an arm to the whale, and is stunned at Ahab's burning need for revenge. Next they meet the Rachel, which has seen Moby Dick very recently. As a result of the encounter, one of its boats is missing; the captain’s youngest son had been aboard. The Rachel's captain begs Ahab to aid in the search for the missing boat, but Ahab is resolute; the Pequod is very near the White Whale now and will not stop to help. Finally the Delight is met, even as its captain buries a sailor who had been killed by Moby Dick. Starbuck begs Ahab one final time to reconsider his thirst for vengeance, but to no avail. The next day, the Pequod meets Moby Dick. For two days, the Pequod's crew pursues the whale, which wreaks widespread destruction, including the disappearance of Fedallah. On the third day, Moby Dick rises up to reveal Fedallah's corpse tied to him by harpoon ropes. Even after the initial battle on the third day, it is clear that while Ahab is a vengeful whale-hunter, Moby Dick, while dangerous and fearless, is not motivated to hunt humans. As he swims away from the Pequod, Starbuck exhorts Ahab one last time to desist, observing that: "Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!". —Moby-Dick, Ch. 135 Ahab ignores this voice of reason and continues with his ill-fated chase. As the three boats sail out to hunt him, Moby Dick damages two of them, forcing them to go back to the ship and leaving only Ahab's vessel intact. Ahab harpoons the whale, but the harpoon-line breaks. Moby Dick then rams the Pequod itself, which begins to sink. As Ahab harpoons the whale again, the unfolding harpoon-line catches him around his neck and he is dragged into the depths of the sea by the diving Moby Dick. The boat is caught up in the whirlpool of the sinking ship, which takes almost all the crew to their deaths. Only Ishmael survives, clinging to Queequeg’s coffin-turned-life buoy for an entire day and night before the Rachel rescues him. |
Herman Melville Biography</SPAN>(August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick. His first three books gained much contemporary attention (the first, Typee, became a bestseller), but after a fast-blooming literary success in the late 1840s, his popularity declined precipitously in the mid-1850s and never recovered during his lifetime. When he died in 1891, he was almost completely forgotten. It was not until the "Melville Revival" in the early 20th century that his work won recognition, especially Moby-Dick, which was hailed as one of the literary masterpieces of both American and world literature. In 1919, the unfinished manuscript for his novella Billy Budd was discovered by his first biographer. He published a version in 1924, which was quickly acclaimed by notable British critics as another masterpiece of Melville's. He was the first writer to have his works collected and published by the Library of America. Early life, education, and family</SPAN> Herman Melville was born in New York City on August 1, 1819,[1] the third of eight children of Allan and Maria Gansevoort Melvill. Herman's younger brother, Thomas Melville, eventually became a governor of Sailors Snug Harbor. Part of a well-established and colorful Boston family, Melville's father, Allan, spent a good deal of time abroad as a commission merchant and an importer of French dry goods. After her husband Allan died, between 1832 and 1834, Maria added an "e" to the family surname — seemingly at the behest of her son Gansevoort.[2] Early working life</SPAN>The author's paternal grandfather, Major Thomas Melvill, was honored as a participant in the Boston Tea Party. Thomas Melvill, who refused to change the style of his clothing or manners to fit the times, was depicted in Oliver Wendell Holmes's poem "The Last Leaf." Herman Melville visited his grandfather in Boston, and Allan Melvill also turned to him in his frequent times of financial need. The maternal side of Melville's family had been among Dutch settlers of the Hudson Valley in present-day New York state. His maternal grandfather was General Peter Gansevoort, a hero of the Siege of Fort Schuyler; in his gold-laced uniform, the general sat for a portrait painted by Gilbert Stuart, which is described in Melville's 1852 novel, Pierre. Melville drew upon his familial as well as his nautical background. Like the titular character in Pierre, Melville found satisfaction in his "double revolutionary descent."[3] In 1826 Melville contracted scarlet fever, permanently weakening his eyesight.[4] Allan Melvill sent his sons to the New York Male School (Columbia Preparatory School). Overextended financially and emotionally unstable, the senior Melvill tried to recover from his setbacks by moving his family to Albany in 1830 and going into the fur business. The new venture was unsuccessful; the embargo of the War of 1812 had ruined businesses that traded with Great Britain and Canada. He was forced to declare bankruptcy. He died soon afterward, when Herman was 12, and left his family penniless.[5] Although Maria had well-off kin and expected some inheritance from her mother's estate, the process was slow. Her kin were apparently concerned with protecting their own interests rather than settling their mother's estate so that Maria's young family would be more secure. Melville attended the Albany Academy from October 1830 to October 1831, and again from October 1836 to March 1837, where he studied the classics.[6] Melville's roving disposition and a desire to support himself led him to seek work as a surveyor on the Erie Canal. This effort failed, and his older brother helped him get a job as a "boy"[7] (a green hand) on a New York ship bound for Liverpool. He made the voyage and returned on the same ship. Redburn: His First Voyage (1849) is partly based on his experiences of this journey. Travels in the Pacific (1841-45)</SPAN>For three years after Albany Academy (1837 to 1840), Melville mostly taught school. From 1838 to 1847, he resided at what is now known as the Herman Melville House in Lansingburgh, New York.[8] In late 1840, he decided to sign up for more work at sea. On January 3, 1841, he sailed from Fairhaven, Massachusetts on the whaler Acushnet,[9] which was bound for the Pacific Ocean. He was later to comment that his life began that day. The vessel sailed around Cape Horn and traveled to the South Pacific. Melville left little direct accounts of the events of this 18-month voyage, although his whaling romance, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, probably describes many aspects of life on board the Acushnet. Melville deserted the Acushnet in the Marquesas Islands in July 1842.[10] For three weeks he lived among the Typee natives, who were called cannibals by the two other tribal groups on the island—though they treated Melville very well. Typee, Melville's first novel, describes a brief love affair with a beautiful native girl, Fayaway, who generally "wore the garb of Eden" and came to epitomize the guileless noble savage in the popular imagination. Melville did not seem to be concerned about consequences of leaving the Acushnet. He boarded an Australian whaleship, the Lucy Ann, bound for Tahiti; took part in a mutiny and was briefly jailed in the native Calabooza Beretanee. After release, he spent several months as beachcomber and island rover (Omoo in Tahitian), eventually crossing over to Moorea. He signed articles on yet another whaler for a six-month cruise (November 1842 − April 1843), which terminated in Honolulu. While in Hawaii, he became a controversial figure for his vehement opposition to the activities of Christian missionaries seeking to convert the indigenous Hawaiian population. After working as a clerk for four months, he joined the crew of the frigateUSS United States, which reached Boston in October 1844. He drew from these experiences in his books Typee, Omoo, and White-Jacket. These were published as novels because the publisher thought few readers without similar experience would have believed their veracity. Melville completed Typee in the summer of 1845. After some difficulty in arranging publication,[11] he saw it first published in 1846 in London, where it became an overnight bestseller. The Boston publisher subsequently accepted Omoo sight unseen. Typee and Omoo gave Melville overnight renown as a writer and adventurer, and he often entertained by telling stories to his admirers. As the writer and editor Nathaniel Parker Willis wrote, "With his cigar and his Spanish eyes, he talks Typee and Omoo, just as you find the flow of his delightful mind on paper".[11] The novels did not generate enough royalties to support him financially. Omoo was not as colorful as Typee; readers began to realize Melville was not producing simple adventure stories |
Herman Melville
هرمان ملفل ( 1819-1891م ) Herman Melville وُلد ملفيل هرمان في مدينة نيويورك عام 1819. من أبرز الروائيين في أمريكا. كتب موبي ديك، وهي واحدة من أشهر الروايات الأدبية. ترجع شهرته إلى هذا الكتاب بشكل رئيسي، لكنَّ كثيرًا من أعماله الأخرى، هي إبداعات أدبية عالية المستوى، تمتزج فيها الحقيقة والخيال والمغامرة والرمزية البارعة, كتب ملفيل عن تجاربه بطريقة جذابة، جعلته أحد أكثر الكُتَّاب شعبية في زمانه. وقد أضفى على مغامراته خيالاً خصبًا وشكلاً فلسفيًا، إلى جانب مهارةٍ فائقة في استعمال اللغة الإنجليزية الأمريكية. موبي ديك . Moby Dick رواية موبي ديك نشرت الرواية لأول مرة بإسم الحوت في ثلاثة مجلدات ونشرها ريتشارد بنتلي، في لندن بتاريخ 18 أكتوبر ، 1851م. بينما نشرها هاربر وإخوانه، في نيويورك، وكانت الطبعة الامريكية الأولى في 14 نوفمبر 1851 هي رواية من تأليف الروائي الأمريكي هيرمان ملفيل وتدور حول صراع تراجيدي بين حوت وإنسان تتخذ من هذا الصراع الضاري وسيلة لتأمل الوضع البشري وعلاقته بالوجود. |
هيرمن ملفل - ولد عام 1819 ومات عام 1891. - روائي وكاتب قصة ومقالات وشاعر. - أشهر رواياته موبي دك. - عندما مات لم يكد احد يذكره. - الثالث من بين 8 اطفال. - كان والده يعمل في الخارج وامضى وقت كثير بعيد عن العائلة. - مات والده عام 1832 وعمره ( 12 سنة). - عام 1826 مرض بالحمى القرمزية مما اضعف بصرة بشكل مزمن. - تعرض والده الى خسارة في عمله التجاري واعلن افلاسه ومات على اثر ذلك وترك العائلة معدمة. يتيم الأب في سن الثانية عشرة وطفولة صعبة وشبه فقدان للبصر بسبب المرض ( الحمى ). |
by Virginia Woolf, England, (1882-1941) 'Fear no more the heat of the sun.' Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf's fourth novel, offers the reader an impression of a single June day in London in 1923. Clarissa Dalloway, the wife of a Conservative member of parliament, is preparing to give an evening party, while the shell-shocked Septimus Warren Smith hears the birds in Regent's Park chattering in Greek. There seems to be nothing, except perhaps London, to link Clarissa and Septimus. She is middle-aged and prosperous, with a sheltered happy life behind her; Smith is young, poor, and driven to hatred of himself and the whole human race. Yet both share a terror of existence, and sense the pull of death. The world of Mrs Dalloway is evoked in Woolf's famous stream of consciousness style, in a lyrical and haunting language which has made this, from its publication in 1925, one of her most popular novels. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe.Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. == Mrs Dalloway (published on 14 May 1925) is a novel by Virginia Woolf that details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a fictional high-society woman in post-World War I England. It is one of Woolf's best-known novels.Created from two short stories, "Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street" and the unfinished "The Prime Minister", the novel's story is of Clarissa's preparations for a party of which she is to be hostess. With the interior perspective of the novel, the story travels forwards and back in time and in and out of the characters' minds to construct an image of Clarissa's life and of the inter-war social structure. In 2005, Mrs Dalloway was included on Time magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923.[1] Clarissa Dalloway goes around London in the morning, getting ready to host a party that evening. The nice day reminds her of her youth spent in the countryside in Bourton and makes her wonder about her choice of husband; she married the reliable Richard Dalloway instead of the enigmatic and demanding Peter Walsh and she "had not the option" to be with Sally Seton. Peter reintroduces these conflicts by paying a visit that morning. 1. السيدة دالاوي وقصة حياتها من كتاب روايات خالده للكاتبه رشا المالح Septimus Warren Smith, a veteran of World War I suffering from deferred traumatic stress, spends his day in the park with his Italian-born wife Lucrezia, where they are observed by Peter Walsh. Septimus is visited by frequent and indecipherable hallucinations, mostly concerning his dear friend Evans who died in the war. Later that day, after he is prescribed involuntary commitment to a psychiatric hospital, he commits suicide by jumping out of a window. Clarissa's party in the evening is a slow success. It is attended by most of the characters she has met in the book, including people from her past. She hears about Septimus' suicide at the party and gradually comes to admire the act of this stranger, which she considers an effort to preserve the purity of his happiness. == ولدت أدلين فيرجينيا سيفن عام1882 في كنف عائله ذات ارتباط وثيق بالأدب.................... وحينما توفيت والدتها, أصيبت فيرجينيا وكانت في الثالثه عشر من عمرها بانهيار عصبي كان الأول لعدة أزمات بعدها ........ وبعد وفات والدها عام 1904 انتقلت فيرجينيا مع أخويها واختها إلى بيت بلومبزبيري.............وبات الأشقاء محوا لمجموعه استثنائيه من الكتاب والفنانين دعاها النقاد آنذاك بمجموعة بلومبزبيري........... بعد مضي عام على سكنهم الجديد , بدأت فيرجينيا بتقديم عروض الكتب في إحدى الصحف ومن ثم العمل للملحق تايمز الأدبي . أما روايتها الأولى ((رحله إلى الخارج)) التي انجزتها عام 1913 لم تنشر إلى بعد عامين بسبب وضعها الصحي. في الثلاثين من عمرها تزوجت من ليونارد وولف , وهو منظر سياسي عمل سابقا في الخدمه المدنيه في سيريلانكا . قرر الزوجان أن يكون مصدر دخلهما من الصحافة والنشر , وبعد خمسة أعوام أسس زوجها عمله في النشر وأحضر آلة طباعة يدويه كانت سابقة من نوعها آنذاك,واستقرا في بيت هو غارث في ريتشموند التي اختارها الزوج آخذ في الاعتبار حالة فيرجينيا الصحيه. وفي 28 مارس 1941ملأت فيرجينيا جيوبها بحجاره ثقيله وسارت إلى نهر أوس بجوار سكنهما في ساسكس وأغرقت نفسها وذكرت في الرساله التي تركتها لزوجها ((بت أسمع أصواتا في عقلي ولم اعد استطيع التركيز في عملي أدين لك بكل سعادتي لكنن لا استطيع الاستمرار والتسبب في افساد حياتك ومن اهم رواياتها ((ليل ونهار)) ونشرت عام 1919 ((والإثنين والثلاثاء)) عام 1921 و((غرفة يعقوب)) عام 1922 ((ونحو المناره)) عام 1927 و((الأمواج)) عام 1931. == نبذة النيل والفرات: كتبت فرجينيا وولف (1882-1941) تسع روايات ظهرت بين 1915 و1941. وكانت رواية "السيدة دالاوي" التي نقدم لها رابع رواية تظهر لنا. وقد نشرت سنة 1925. ينحصر زمن الرواية بيوم واحد فقط من زمن حياة كلاريسا دالاوي، الزوجة العصرية لأحد أعضاء البرلمان، لكنه زمن يتشعب إلى أيام ماضية تتوقف فيها الذكريات. وبهذا قطعت الكاتبة صلتها بالشكل التقليدي لكتابة الرواية الانلكيزية، إذ أخذ يجري عرض الأحداث ورسم الشخوص لا بطريقة التصوير المباشر بل عن طريق الانطباعات التي تحدث، الذكريات التي تمر، في عقل الشخصية الأولى في الرواية وفي عقول الشخصيات الأخرى. الرئيسية منها والثانوية، في ذلك اليوم الواحد الذي كانت السيدة "دالاوي" ستقيم فيه حفلة كبرى. يتميز هذا الأسلوب الجديد بظهور ما يسمى بتيار الوعي، أو تداعي الذاكرة، ويفوق في أهميته تيار السرد النظامي للعالم الخارجي وما فيه والذي كان يطبع الأسلوب التقليدي. نبذة الناشر: جبرا إبراهيم جبرا: هذا الكتاب رواية مشهورة، لكاتبة إنكليزية من أعظم كتاب النصف الأولى من هذا القرن. وروايتها هذه بالذات أحد أسباب شهرتها وقيمتها في عالم الأدب، إذ إن المؤلفة بروايتها "السيدة دالاواي" ساهمت في تأسيس طريقة جديدة في الكتابة الروائية تتعدى السرد التقليدي-وهي التي عرفت بتيار الوعي. وهي طريقة تعتمد التداعي الحر وترابط الحاضر والماضي، وتداخل الوعي والحلم، مع شاعرية تستمر في نبضها ووهجها من البداية حتى النهاية. والمؤلفة بطريقتها هذه تنساب بالقارئ الى دواخل كل شخصية، وتجعله يشاطر الضحية ذكراياتها واحاسيسها وردود فعلها الآنية ورؤاها، بحيث يرى ابطال الرواية في النهاية من زوايا لا يتيحها السرد التقليدي. وقد كان في "تيار الوعي" الذي ابدعت فيه فرجينيا وولف إضافة أساسية كبرى الى أساليب الفن الروائي في القرن العشرين. ومن هنا أهمية هذه الرواية. |
ولدت أدلين فيرجينيا ستيفن عام 1882 في كنف عائلة ذات ارتباط وثيق بالأدب. وحينما توفيت والدتها، أصيبت فيرجينيا وكانت في الثالثة عشرة من عمرها بانهيار عصبي كان الأول لعدة أزمات بعدها. وبعد وفاة والدها عام 1904 انتقلت فيرجينيا مع أخويها وأختها إلى بيت بلومبزبيري. وبات الأشقاء محورا لمجموعة استثنائية من الكتاب والفنانين دعاها النقاد آنذاك بمجموعة بلومبزبيري. ==بعد مضي عام على سكنهم الجديد، بدأت فيرجينيا بتقديم عروض الكتب في إحدى الصحف ومن ثم العمل لملحق تايمز الأدبي. أما روايتها الأولى «رحلة إلى الخارج» التي أنجزتها عام 1913 لم تنشر إلا بعد عامين بسبب وضعها الصحي. في الثلاثين من عمرها تزوجت من ليونارد وولف، وهو منظر سياسي عمل سابقا في الخدمة المدنية في سيريلانكا. قرر الزوجان أن يكون مصدر دخلهما من الصحافة والنشر، وبعد خمسة أعوام أسس ليونارد عمله في النشر وأحضر آلة طباعة يدوية كانت سابقة من نوعها آنذاك، واستقرا في بيت هوغارث في ريتشموند التي اختارها ليونارد آخذا في الاعتبار حالة فيرجينيا الصحية. وفي 28 مارس 1941، ملأت فيرجينيا جيوبها بحجارة ثقيلة وسارت إلى نهر أوس بجوار سكنهما في ساسكس وأغرقت نفسها. وذكرت في الرسالة التي تركتها لزوجها، «بت أسمع أصواتا في عقلي ولم أعد أستطيع التركيز في عملي. أدين لك بكل سعادتي، لكنني لا أستطيع الاستمرار والتسبب في إفساد حياتك». ومن أهم رواياتها «ليل ونهار» ونشرت عام 1919 و«الإثنين والثلاثاء» عام 1921 و«غرفة يعقوب» عام 1922 و«نحو المنارة» عام 1927 و«الأمواج» عام 1931. أما أهم أعمالها فهي رواية «السيدة دالاوي» التي تندرج ضمن حركة الكتاب الأدبية في أوائل القرن العشرين حيث يتم التعبير بالكلمات عن أفكار ومشاعر الشخصيات، وتهدف هذه التقنية إلى إعطاء القارئ الانطباع بأنه يعيش داخل فكر تلك الشخصيات. كما قدمت فيرجينيا من خلال روايتها تلك أسلوبا جديدا في اللغة والسرد. وعملها هذا، بمثابة لوحة موزاييك لعوالم مجموعة من الشخصيات من خلال الانتقال بين الداخل والخارج ومن الحاضر إلى الماضي وبالعكس عبر تداخل نسيج السرد. كل ذلك من خلال تقديمها لصورة حية ليوم واحد في حياة سيدة تدعى كلاريسا دالاوي في الخمسينات. في البداية تعد كلاريسا التي تعافت مؤخرا من مرضها، اللمسات الأخيرة لحفل تقيمه في تلك الليلة. تبدأ بالقيام بجولة في لندن لشراء زهور الحفل. وخلال فترة الصباح تعود كلاريسا إلى ماضيها بما في ذلك قرارها بالزواج من ريتشار دالاوي قبل 30 عاما بدلا من صديقها المحب بيتر وولش. بعد تركها في محل الأزهار، تنتقل الراوية إلى أحداث قصة ثانية تبدأ مع سيبتيموث سميث، الذي يعاني من صدمة نفسية لتبعات الحرب، ويكون بصحبة زوجته لوكريزيا. وحينما تطلق إحدى السيارات العابرة صوتا يشبه الطلقات النارية، يشكل هذا الأمر حدثا كبيرا في المنطقة المحيطة بتلك السيارة الفارهة، وفي حين يصاب هو بجمود الرعب وعودته إلى ساحة الحرب وتعكس وولف من خلال ردود أفعال بعض الأفراد في الطريق ومنهم كلاريسا رؤيا نقدية للمجتمع الانجليزي بمختلف فئاته. تعود كلاريسا إلى منزلها، وتبدأ بتذكر صديقتها الأقرب إلى نفسها في مرحلة الشباب سالي سيتون، التي تميزت بالتمرد والجموح وبجميع الصفات التي تخفيها كلاريسا. وتسترجع بسعادة ذكريات تلك الصداقة المتينة. تبدأ كلاريسا بإصلاح ثوبها الحريري الأخضر الذي سترتديه في الحفل، حينما تتلقى زيارة مفاجئة من بيتر وولش حبيبها السابق الذي عاد من الهند بعد مضي خمس سنوات. وتتذكر ما قاله لها بيتر في يوم ما في لحظة غضب ويأس بأنها يوما ما ستصبح سيدة صالون من الطراز الأول. واتضح لها مع مضي الزمن صحة نبوءته العابرة. يتحدث الاثنان ببساطة عن الحاضر، وإن كان الاثنان يفكران بالماضي والقرارات التي أوصلتهم إلى ما هم عليه الآن، وحينما يبدآن بالحديث عن المشاعر تدخل إليزابيت ابنة كلاريسا الشابة فينهي بيتر زيارته وينسحب.يذهب إلى الحديقة لتمضية الوقت حيث كان سيبتيموث مع لوكريزيا يتجادلان بحدة عن الانتحار، في حين يبدوان لبيتر مجرد شابين عاشقين من دون إدراكه لعمق مشاعرهما أو حالة الشاب غير المستقرة. كان الشابان متوجهي ن إلى موعدهما مع الطبيب الأخصائي بالأمراض العصبية الشهير، سير ويليام برادشو الذي ينفي جنونه ويقترح عليه الاستجمام في إحدى مصحاته حتى يتعافى من حالة الانهيار العصبي ويصر على أن يكون بمفرده. وفي تلك الأثناء يكون ريتشارد زوج كلاريسا، بصحبة عدد من الأصدقاء في بيت السيدة براتون يتناولون الغداء. تشعر كلاريسا بالضيق لعدم دعوتها بصحبة زوجها، وترى في ذلك إنقاصا من مكانتها على الصعيد الاجتماعي والفكري. يشعر ريتشارد خلال الدعوة بتوق لزوجته وبحاجة ملحة للبوح بحبه لها. وللأسف لا يتمكن من الإفصاح عن مشاعره لاسيما وقد مضى سنوات على ذلك. تتوجه كلاريسا لرؤية ابنتها التي تأخذ درسا مع معلمة التاريخ دوريس كليمان. ويتجلى احتقار كل منهما للأخرى وبدوافع مختلفة فكلاريسا ترى في دوريس دونيتها ومحاولتها سلبها ابنتها والأخرى ترى فيها سلوكيات البرجوازية التافهة وثرائها مقابل فقرها. يعود سيبتيموث وزوجته إلى شقتهما بانتظار وصول مرافقي المصحة ويعيشان في ألفة افتقدتها لوكريزيا من تدهور حالته وتقرر مرافقته إلى المصحة. ولكن حينما يصل المرافقون يقرر الشاب الهرب منهم، وعلى الرغم من عدم رغبته في الموت إلى أن حاجته إلى الهرب كانت أقوى وبذا يرمي نفسه من النافذة ليفارق الحياة. تلتقي كلاريسا خلال حفلها، بعدد من أشباح الماضي بما فيهم بيتر وسالي. وفي وقت متأخر يصل سير ويليام برادشو وزوجته التي تعتذر لكلاريسا ساردة عليها قصة الشاب الذي انتحر برمي نفسه من النافذة. وحينما ينتهي الحفل تشعر كلاريسا للمرة الأولى بإحباط شديد من النجاح الذي حققه حفلها |
Virginia Woolf was born in London in 1882. In 1904 Virginia and her sister, the painter Vanessa Bell, moved to Bloomsbury and became the centre of 'The Bloomsbury Group'. This informal collective of artists and writers which included Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry, exerted a powerful influence over early twentieth-century British culture. In 1912 Virginia married Leonard Woolf. Her first novel The Voyage Out was published in 1915, followed by Night and Day (1919) and Jacob's Room (1922). It was during this time that she and Leonard Woolf founded The Hogarth Press. The majority of Virginia Woolf's work was first published by The Hogarth Press, and these original texts are now available, together with her selected letters and diaries, from Vintage Classics, which belongs to the publishing group that Hogarth became part of in 1987. Between 1925 and 1931 Virginia Woolf produced what are now regarded as her finest masterpieces, from Mrs Dalloway (1925) to the poetic and highly experimental novel The Waves (1931). She also maintained an astonishing output of literary criticism, short fiction, journalism and biography, including the playfully subversive Orlando (1928) and A Room of One's Own (1929) a passionate feminist essay. On 28 March 1941, a few months before the publication of her final novel, Between the Acts, Virginia Woolf committed suicide. Helen Dunmore was born in Yorkshire in 1952. She is a poet, short story writer and novelist.Her novels include Zennor in Darkness, Talking to the Dead, Your Blue-Eyed Boy, With Your Crooked Heart, The Siege, Mourning Ruby , House of Orphans and Betrayal. Her second novel, A Spell of Winter, about a brother and sister brought up by their grandfather in his decaying house in the country won the first Orange Prize for Fiction in 1995 == Adeline Virginia Woolf (/ˈwʊlf/; 25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941) was an English writer, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929), with its famous dictum, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." Contents - Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen in London in 1882 to Sir Leslie Stephen and Julia Prinsep Stephen (née Jackson). Bloomsbury- Virginia's father, Sir Leslie Stephen (1832–1904), was a notable historian, author, critic and mountaineer. He was the editor of the Dictionary of National Biography, a work that would influence Woolf's later experimental biographies. - Virginia's mother Julia Stephen (1846–1895) was a renowned beauty, born in India to Dr. John and Maria Pattle Jackson. She was also the niece of the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and first cousin of the temperance leader Lady Henry Somerset. Julia moved to England with her mother, where she served as a model for Pre-Raphaelite painters such as Edward Burne-Jones.[2] Woolf was educated by her parents in their literate and well-connected household at 22 Hyde Park Gate, Kensington. - Her parents had each been married previously and been widowed, and, consequently, the household contained the children of three marriages. Julia had three children by her first husband, Herbert Duckworth: George, Stella, and Gerald Duckworth. Leslie first married Harriet Marian (Minny) Thackeray (1840–1875), the daughter of William Thackeray, and they had one daughter: Laura Makepeace Stephen, who was declared mentally disabled and lived with the family until she was institutionalised in 1891.[3] Leslie and Julia had four children together: Vanessa Stephen (1879), Thoby Stephen (1880), Virginia (1882), and Adrian Stephen (1883). Sir Leslie Stephen's eminence as an editor, critic, and biographer, and his connection to William Thackeray, meant that his children were raised in an environment filled with the influences of Victorian literary society. Henry James, George Henry Lewes, and Virginia's honorary godfather, James Russell Lowell, were among the visitors to the house. Julia Stephen was equally well connected. Descended from an attendant of Marie Antoinette,[citation needed] she came from a family of beauties who left their mark on Victorian society as models for Pre-Raphaelite artists and early photographers, including her aunt Julia Margaret Cameron who was also a visitor to the Stephen household. Supplementing these influences was the immense library at the Stephens' house, from which Virginia and Vanessa were taught the classics and English literature. Unlike the girls, their brothers Adrian and Julian (Thoby) were formally educated and sent to Cambridge, a difference which Virginia would resent. The sisters did, however, benefit indirectly from their brothers' Cambridge contacts, as the boys brought their new intellectual friends home to the Stephens' drawing room.[citation needed] According to Woolf's memoirs, her most vivid childhood memories were not of London but of St. Ives in Cornwall, where the family spent every summer until 1895. The Stephens' summer home, Talland House, looked out over Porthminster Bay, and is still standing today, though somewhat altered. Memories of these family holidays and impressions of the landscape, especially the Godrevy Lighthouse, informed the fiction Woolf wrote in later years, most notably To the Lighthouse. - The sudden death of her mother in 1895, when Virginia was 13, and that of her half-sister Stella two years later, led to the first of Virginia's several nervous breakdowns. She was, however, able to take courses of study (some at degree level) in Greek, Latin, German and history at the Ladies’ Department of King's College London between 1897 and 1901, and this brought her into contact with some of the early reformers of women’s higher education such as Clara Pater, George Warr and Lilian Faithfull (Principal of the King’s Ladies’ Department and noted as one of the Steamboat ladies).[4] Her sister Vanessa also studied Latin, Italian, art and architecture at King’s Ladies’ Department. - The death of her father in 1904 provoked her most alarming collapse and she was briefly institutionalised. - Modern scholars (including her nephew and biographer, Quentin Bell) have suggested[5] her breakdowns and subsequent recurring depressive periods were also influenced by the sexual abuse to which she and her sister Vanessa were subjected by their half-brothers George and Gerald Duckworth (which Woolf recalls in her autobiographical essays A Sketch of the Past and 22 Hyde Park Gate). - Throughout her life, Woolf was plagued by periodic mood swings and associated illnesses. Though this instability often affected her social life, her literary productivity continued with few breaks throughout her life. After the death of their father and Virginia's second nervous breakdown, Vanessa and Adrian sold 22 Hyde Park Gate and bought a house at 46 Gordon Square in Bloomsbury. Woolf came to know Lytton Strachey, Clive Bell, Rupert Brooke, Saxon Sydney-Turner, Duncan Grant, Leonard Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, and Roger Fry, who together formed the nucleus of the intellectual circle of writers and artists known as the Bloomsbury Group. Several members of the group attained notoriety in 1910 with the Dreadnought hoax, which Virginia participated in disguised as a male Abyssinian royal. Her complete 1940 talk on the Hoax was discovered and is published in the memoirs collected in the expanded edition of The Platform of Time (2008). In 1907 Vanessa married Clive Bell, and the couple's interest in avant garde art would have an important influence on Woolf's development as an author.[6] Virginia Stephen married writer Leonard Woolf on the 10th August, 1912.[7] Despite his low material status (Woolf referring to Leonard during their engagement as a "penniless Jew") the couple shared a close bond. Indeed, in 1937, Woolf wrote in her diary: "Love-making—after 25 years can’t bear to be separate ... you see it is enormous pleasure being wanted: a wife. And our marriage so complete." The two also collaborated professionally, in 1917 founding the Hogarth Press, which subsequently published Virginia's novels along with works by T.S. Eliot, Laurens van der Post, and others.[8] The Press also commissioned works by contemporary artists, including Dora Carrington and Vanessa Bell. The ethos of the Bloomsbury group encouraged a liberal approach to sexuality, and in 1922 she met the writer and gardener Vita Sackville-West, wife of Harold Nicolson. After a tentative start, they began a sexual relationship, which, according to Sackville- West, was only twice consummated.[9] In 1928, Woolf presented Sackville-West with Orlando, a fantastical biography in which the eponymous hero's life spans three centuries and both sexes. Nigel Nicolson, Vita Sackville-West's son, wrote "The effect of Vita on Virginia is all contained in Orlando, the longest and most charming love letter in literature, in which she explores Vita, weaves her in and out of the centuries, tosses her from one sex to the other, plays with her, dresses her in furs, lace and emeralds, teases her, flirts with her, drops a veil of mist around her".[10] After their affair ended, the two women remained friends until Woolf's death in 1941. Virginia Woolf also remained close to her surviving siblings, Adrian and Vanessa; Thoby had died of an illness at the age of 26 |
اديلين فيرجينيا وولف 25 يناير 1882 — 28 مارس 1941 أديبة إنجليزية، اشتهرت برواياتها التي تمتاز بإيقاظ الضمير الإنساني, ومنها :السيدة دالواي, الأمواج, تعد واحدة من أهم الرموز الأدبية المحدثة في القرن العشرين. مسيرة حياتها هي روائية إنجليزية، ومن كتاب المقالات. تزوجت 1912 من ليونارد وولف، الناقد والكاتب الاقتصادي، وهي تعد من كتاب القصة التأثيرين. كانت روايتها الأولى ذات طابع تقليدي مثل رواية «الليل والنهار» 1919، واتخذت فيما بعد المنهج المعروف بمجرى الوعي أو تيار الشعور، كما في "غرفة يعقوب" 1922، و«السيدة دالواي» 1925 و«إلى المنارة» 1927، و"الأمواج" 1931، ولها روايات أخرى ذات طابع تعبيري، منها رواية «أورلاندو» 1928 و«الأعوام» 1937، و«بين الفصول» 1941. اشتغلت بالنقد، ومن كتبها النقدية «القارئ العادي» 1925، و«موت الفراشة ومقالات أخرى» 1943. كتبت ترجمة لحياة «روجر فراي» 1940، وكتبت القصة القصيرة، وظهرت لها مجموعة بعنوان الاثنين أو الثلاثاء 1921 انتحرت غرقاً مخافة أن يصيبها انهيار عقلي. الروايات
بعد أن انهت روايتها (بين الأعمال) والتي نشرت بعد وفاتها, أصيبت فيرجينيا بحالة اكتئاب مشابهة للحالة التي أصابتها مسبقا. وزادت حالتها سوءا بعد اندلاع الحرب العالمية الثانية وتدمير منزلها في لندن والإستقبال البارد الذي حظيت به السيرة الذاتية التي كتبتها لصديقها الراحل روجر فراي حتى أصبحت عاجزة عن الكتابة.[1] وفي 28 مارس 1941 ارتدت فيرجينيا معطفها وملأته بالحجارة وأغرقت نفسها في نهر أوس القريب من منزلها. وجد جسد وولف في 18 أبريل 1941[2] ودفن زوجها رفاتها تحت علم في حديقة مونكس هاوس في رودميل ساسيكس. وفي رسالة انتحارها كتبت لزوجها: “ عزيزي, أنا على يقين بأنني سأجن, ولا أظن بأننا قادرين على الخوض في تلك الأوقات الرهيبة مرة أخرى, كما ولا أظن بأنني سأتعافى هذه المرة. لقد بدأت أسمع أصواتاَ وفقدت قدرتي على التركيز. لذا, سأفعل ما أراه مناسبا. لقد أشعرتني بسعادة عظيمة ولا أظن أن أي احداَ قد شعر بسعادة غامرة كما شعرنا نحن الإثنين سوية إلى أن حل بي هذا المرض الفظيع. لست قادرة على المقاومة بعد الآن وأعلم أنني أفسد حياتك وبدوني ستحظى بحياة أفضل. أنا متأكدة من ذلك, أترى؟ لا أستطيع حتى أن أكتب هذه الرسالة بشكل جيد, لا أستطيع أن أقرأ. جل ما أريد قوله هو أنني أدين لك بسعادتي. لقد كنت جيدا لي وصبوراَ علي. والجميع يعلم ذلك. لو كان بإمكان أحد ما أن ينقذني فسيكون ذلك أنت. فقدت كل شئ عدا يقيني بأنك شخص جيد. لا أستطيع المضي في تخريب حياتك ولا أظن أن أحد شعر بالسعادة كما شعرنا بها."[3] - يتمة الام في سن 13 - توفيت اختها غير الشقيقة وهي في الخامسة عشره. - تعرضت لاعتداءت جنسيه من اخيها غير الشقيق. - اصيبت بانهيار عصبي نتيجة لوفاة امهها ةاختها غير الشقيقة. - مات ابوها وعمرها 22 سنة - اصيبت بانهيار عصبي قوي ةادخلت مستشفى الامراض العقلية. يتيمة الام في سن 13 وعاشت حياة ازمة ومات ابوها وهي في سن الـ 22. |
, Iceland, (c 1300) Njal's Saga is the finest of the Icelandic sagas, and one of the world's greatest prose works. Written c.1280, about events a couple of centuries earlier, it is divided into three parts: the first recounts the touching friendship between noble Gunnar and the statesman Njal, together with the fatal enmity between their wives. The second part works out the central tragedy of the saga, while the third describes the retribution wrought by Flosi and Kari. The saga is remarkable not only for the details of everyday life - the farming, the feasting and the charcoal-burning - but also for the social structure of the society in which that life took place - the Althing or Parliament, the lawmaking and the lawgiving. The grandeur of the narrative and the beauty and distinction of the characters mark Njal's Saga as an essential text for all who love adventure and great literature. == Njáls saga (also Njála, Brennu-Njáls saga or "The Story of Burnt Njal") is one of the sagas of Icelanders. The most prominent characters are the friends Njáll Þorgeirsson,[1] a lawyer and a sage, and Gunnarr Hámundarson, a formidable warrior. In the course of a feud, Gunnarr is exiled and must leave Iceland but as he rides away from his home he is struck by the beauty of the land and resolves to stay; this quickly leads to his death. Some years later, Njál is burned alive in his home as a part of a cycle of killing and vengeance. The saga deals with the process of blood feuds in the Icelandic Commonwealth, showing how the requirements of honor could lead to minor slights spiralling into destructive and prolonged bloodshed. Insults where a character's manhood is called into question are especially prominent and may reflect an author critical of an overly restrictive ideal of masculinity. Another characteristic of the narrative is the presence of omens and prophetic dreams. It is disputed whether this reflects a fatalistic outlook on the part of the author. The saga dates to the late 13th century while the events described take place between 960 and 1020. The work is anonymous, although there has been extensive speculation on the author's identity. The major events described in the saga are probably historical but the material was shaped by the author, drawing on oral tradition, according to his artistic needs. Njáls saga is the longest and most highly developed of the sagas of Icelanders. It is often considered the peak of the saga tradition.[2] Authorship and sources Njáls saga, like the other sagas of Icelanders, must be considered anonymous - its author is not mentioned in any medieval source. There are, however, many theories about the saga's authorship. The oldest idea, attested in the early 17th century, is that Sæmundr fróði wrote the work. Other suggested authors include Sæmundr's sons, Jón Loftsson, Snorri Sturluson, Einarr Gilsson, Brandr Jónsson and Þorvarðr Þórarinsson.[3] ThemesThe saga is now believed to have been composed in the period from 1270 to 1290.[4] Among written sources which the author likely used are Laxdœla saga, Eyrbyggja saga and Ljósvetninga saga as well as the lost sagas Brjáns saga and Gauks saga Trandilssonar.[5] The author must, however, have derived the bulk of the material in the saga from oral tradition which he manipulated for his own artistic purposes.[6] Opinions on the historicity of the saga have varied greatly, ranging from pure fiction to nearly verbatim truth to any number of nuanced views.[7] It can be regarded as certain that Njáll and Gunnarr were real historical people and their fateful deaths are referred to in other sources.[8] Gabriel Turville-Petre said, "It was not the author's purpose to write a work of history, but rather to use an historical subject for an epic in prose".[9] Njáls saga explores the consequences of vengeance as a defence of family honor by dealing with a blood feud spanning some 50 years. The saga shows how even worthy people can destroy themselves by disputes and demonstrates the tensions in the Icelandic Commonwealth which eventually led to its destruction.[10] Any insult to one's honor had to be revenged: sometimes this includes slights which seem trivial to modern readers. Magnus Magnusson finds it "a little pathetic, now, to read how vulnerable these men were to calls on their honour; it was fatally easy to goad them into action to avenge some suspicion of an insult".[11] SynopsisInsults involving a character's manliness are especially prominent in the saga. Thus, Njáll's lack of a beard is repeatedly referred to and used by his opponents to call his manhood into question. Another example, among many, is when the gift of a silk garment is considered an insult by Flosi and a hard-won settlement breaks down as a consequence. Ármann Jakobsson has argued that it is "difficult to find a man whose manhood is not vulnerable"[12] and that Njáls saga criticizes the norms of a misogynist society by showing that the ideal of masculinity can be so restrictive that it becomes oppressive to men and destructive to society.[13] Omens, prophetic dreams and supernatural foresight figure prominently in Njáls saga. The role of fate and, especially, of fatalism is, however, a matter of scholarly contention. Halldór Laxness argued that the saga is primarily a book about the fatalism inherent in Norse paganism. In his view, the course of events is forordained from the moment Hrútr sees the thieves' eyes in his niece and until the vengeance for Njáll's burning is completed to the southeast in Wales. In this way, Laxness believed that Njáls saga attested to the presence of a "very strong heathen spirit",[14] antithetical to Christianity, in 13th century Iceland.[15] Magnus Magnusson wrote that "[t]he action is swept along by a powerful under-current of fate" and that Njáll wages a "fierce struggle to alter its course" but that he is nevertheless "not a fatalist in the heathen sense".[16] Thorsteinn Gylfason rejects the idea that there is any fatalism in Njáls saga, arguing that there is no hostile supernatural plan which its characters are subject to.[17] Hrútr and Hallgerðr he first episode covers the period from the betrothal of Hrútr Herjólfsson and Unnr to the ugly legacy of their divorce. We are shown Hrútr's exploits in Norway, where he gains honour at court and in battle, but he ruins his subsequent marriage by becoming the lover of the aging queen mother Gunnhildr. When he denies having a woman in Iceland, she curses him so that he is unable to consummate his marriage. After Unnr divorces him, he retains the dowry by challenging Unnr's father, Mörðr, to combat. Mörðr refuses, as he knows Hrútr's reputation and that he will lose the fight. Because of this, Hrútr keeps the dowry. While this conforms to Icelandic law, it offends justice. Gunnarr and NjállThe first chapter gives one of Hrútr's insights when he comments of his beautiful niece, "I do not know how thieves' eyes came into the family". The saga next follows this niece, Hallgerðr, through her first two marriages. Both husbands die by the axe of Hallgerðr's doting, brutish foster-father, Þjóstólfr. Hallgerðr provokes the first death but not the second, although it follows from a disagreement between her and her husband. It is Hrútr who, despite the family ties, avenges the death by killing Þjóstólfr. Gunnarr Hámundarson and Njáll Þorgeirsson are now introduced. Gunnarr is a man of outstanding physical prowess, and Njáll has outstanding sagacity; they are close friends. When Gunnarr is obliged to revive Unnr's dowry-claim against Hrútr, Njáll gives him the means to do so. By skillful play-acting, Gunnarr begins the legal process in Hrútr's own house. He follows Hrútr's doubtful example when it comes to court, and Hrútr, who has previously won by threat of violence, loses to a threat of violence. Despite his humiliation, he sees future links with Gunnarr. Gunnarr's feudsThis comes about when Gunnarr returns with honours from a trip to Scandinavia. He goes to the Althing – the annual assembly – in splendour, and meets Hallgerðr. They are impressed with one another and are soon betrothed, despite Hrútr's warnings about Hallgerðr's character, and Njáll's misgivings. Hrútr and Njáll are proven right when Hallgerðr clashes with Njál's wife, Bergþóra. Hallgerðr charms a number of dubious characters into killing members of Njáll's household and the spirited Bergþóra arranges vengeance. After each killing, their husbands make financial settlements according to the status of the victims. The fifth victim is Þórðr, foster-father of Njáll's sons. Þráinn Sigfússon, Gunnarr's uncle and Hallgerðr's son-in-law, accompanies the killers. When the feud ends and settlements are made, Þráinn’s presence at that killing later causes conflict. Hallgerðr now uses one of her slaves, Melkólfr, to burgle the home of a churlish man named Otkell. Gunnarr immediately seeks to make amends, but his handsome offers are not accepted. A lawsuit is started against him which, with Njáll's help, he wins, gaining great honour. However, while remonstrating with Hallgerðr about the burglary, Gunnarr slaps her. Kári and the sons of NjállThis is followed by Otkell accidentally wounding Gunnarr. Insult follows injury and Gunnarr reluctantly goes to avenge himself. With belated help from his brother Kolskeggr, he kills Otkell and his companions. Under Njáll's influence a new settlement is arranged, and Gunnarr's reputation grows. Njáll warns him that this will be the start of his career of killings. Next, Gunnarr accepts a challenge to a horse-fight from a man called Starkaðr. In the course of the fight, his opponents cheat, and Gunnarr find himself in a fresh squabble. Njáll tries to mediate but Þorgeir Starkaðsson refuses to accept it. On a journey with his two brothers, Gunnarr is ambushed by Starkaðr and his allies. In the battle, fourteen attackers and Gunnarr's brother Hjörtr are killed. Worming through all this is Unnr's son, Mörðr Valgarðsson. Mörðr envies and hates Gunnarr, and uses other men to attain his aims. He has learned that Njáll prophesied that Gunnarr will die if he kills twice in the same family. He instigates an attack on Gunnarr by persons dissatisfied by the settlement. Again, Gunnarr wins the fight, but he kills a second man in the same family. The settlement that follows requires that Gunnarr and Kolskeggr leave Iceland for three years. Arrangements are made for exile. But as Gunnarr leaves home, he looks homeward and, touched by the beauty of his homeland, resolves not to leave Iceland, thus becoming an outlaw. He goes about as though nothing has changed but his enemies, Mörðr among them, seek revenge. He defends himself in his home until his bowstring is cut. Hallgerðr refuses to give him strands of her hair to restring his bow; this is in revenge for the slap he once gave her. Some readers choose to interpret this episode as her forgiveness since human hair is unusable as bowstring; i.e. he asks for something he knows is useless and she answers by denying as revenge, fully knowing too. Gunnarr's enemies resist Mörðrs proposal to burn him in the house as shameful, but eventually they take the roof off to get to Gunnarr. Njáll's son Skarp-Heðinn assists Högni Gunnarsson in some acts of vengeance before a settlement is achieved. Scandinavian rulers honor two Icelandic expeditions: those of Þráinn Sigfússon and of Njáll's two younger sons. Both return with enhanced honor, but also with companions. Þráinn brings back the malevolent Hrappr; the sons of Njáll and the noble Kári Sölmundarson, who marries their sister. But Njáll's sons also bring back a grievance, blaming Þráinn for the way in which the de facto ruler of Norway, Jarl Hákon, has treated them while looking for Hrappr, who had been hidden by Þráinn. While Njáll says they have been foolish in raising the matter, he advises them to publicise it so that it will be seen as a matter of honor. Þrain refuses a settlement, and his retainers, including Hallgerðr, on her last appearance, insult them. Höskuldr and Flosi, the burningThe most dramatic of the saga's battles follows. Njáll's sons, with Kári, prepare to ambush Þráinn and his followers. There is a bridge of ice over the river between them. Skarp-Heðinn overtakes his brothers, leaps the river, and slides on the ice past Þráinn, beheading him in passing. Between them the attackers kill four men, including Hrappr. Þráinn's brother, Ketill, has married Njáll's daughter, and between them they bring about a settlement. Wishing to stop further contention, Njáll adopts Þráinn's son Höskuldr as his foster-son. Höskuldr grows up in Njáll's household, and is loved and favoured by him. When he is fully grown, Njáll attempts to find a suitable wife for him, Hildigunnr. However, she refuses, saying that she will only marry Höskuldr if he becomes a chieftain. Njáll manages to get Höskuldr a chieftaincy by instituting the Fifth Court at the Althing, and Höskuldr and Hildigunnr are married. At this point the saga recounts the conversion of Iceland to Christianity in AD 999. Mörðr Valgarðsson now finds Höskuldr to be such a successful chief that his own chieftaincy is declining. He sets the sons of Njáll against Höskuldr; the tragedy of the saga is that they are so susceptible to his promptings that they, with Mörðr and Kári, murder him as he sows in his field. As one character says, "Höskuldr was killed for less than no reason; all men mourn his death; but none more than Njal, his foster-father". The AlthingFlosi, the uncle of Höskuldr's wife, takes revenge against the killers, and seeks help from powerful chieftains. He is pressured (against his better judgement) by Hildigunnr to accept only blood vengeance. Njáll's sons find themselves at the Althing having to plead for help. Skarp-Heðinn has become grimly fatalistic, and insults many who might help them. After some legal sparring, arbitrators are chosen, including Snorri goði, who proposes a weregild of three times the normal compensation for Höskuldr. This is so much that it can only be paid if the arbitrators, and many at the Althing, contribute. The great collection is gathered, and Njáll adds a gift of a fancy cloak. Flosi claims to be insulted by the offer of a unisex garment (an insult from Skarp-Heðinn also adds fuel to the fire) and the settlement breaks down. Everyone leaves the Althing and prepares, amid portents and prophecies, for the showdown. A hundred men descend on Njáll's home, Bergthorsknoll (Bergþórshváll), to find it defended by about thirty. Any victory for Flosi will be at some cost. But Njáll suggests that his sons defend from within the house, and they, while realizing that this is futile, agree. Flosi and his men set fire to the building. Both the innocent and the guilty are surrounded. Flosi allows the women to leave but beheads Helgi Njálsson, who attempts to escape disguised as a woman. Although Flosi invites Njáll and Bergþóra to leave, they refuse, preferring to die with their sons and their grandson Þórðr (the son of Kári). Eventually eleven people die, not including Kári who escapes under cover of the smoke by running along the beam of the house. Flosi knows that Kári will exact vengeance for the burning. At the Althing, both sides gather. Flosi bribes Eyjólfr Bölverksson, one of the finest lawyers in Iceland, into taking over the case, while his opponents blackmail Mörðr Valgarðsson into prosecuting, advised by Þórhallr, Njáll's foster-son, who was trained in the law by Njáll, but is kept away from the proceedings by an infected leg. There is a legal joust between the parties. Eventually, when his legal action seems to be failing, Þórhallr lances his boil with his spear and begins fighting. Flosi's men are driven back until Snorri separates the parties. In the confusion, several are killed including Ljótr, Flosi's brother-in-law. Ljótr's father, Hallr of Síða, takes advantage of the truce to appeal for peace, and seeks no compensation for his son. Moved by this, all but Kári and Njáll's nephew Þorgeir reach a settlement, while everyone contributes to Ljótr's weregild, which in the end amounts to a quadruple compensation. The burners are exiled. Before the sons of Sigfús reach home, Kári attacks them, and most of the rest of the saga describes his vengeance for the burning. He is supported by Þorgeir and an attractive anti-hero named Björn. He pursues them to Orkney and Wales. The most dramatic moment is when he breaks into the earl's hall in Orkney and kills a man who is giving a slanderous account of those killed at the burning. After a pilgrimage to Rome, Flosi returns to Iceland. Kári follows, and is shipwrecked near Flosi's home. Testing Flosi's nobility he goes to him for help, and they arrange a final peace. Kári marries Höskuldr's widow. Finally, there is a full reconciliation |
Authorship and sources Sæmundur Sigfússon(or Sæmundur fróði) (Sæmundur the Learned) (1056–1133) was an Icelandic priest and scholar. Sæmundur is known to have studied abroad. Previously it has generally been held that he studied in France, but modern scholars rather believe his studies were carried out in Franconia. In Iceland he founded a long-lived school at Oddi. He was a member of the Oddaverjar clan and had the son Loftur Sæmundsson. Sæmundur wrote a work, probably in Latin, on the history of Norwegian kings. The work is now lost but was used as a source by later authors, including Snorri Sturluson. The poem Nóregs konungatal summarizes Sæmundur's work. The authorship of the Poetic Edda, or, more plausibly, just the editor's role in the compilation, was traditionally attributed to Sæmundur but is not accepted today. In Icelandic folklore, Sæmundur is a larger-than-life character who repeatedly tricks the Devil into doing his bidding. == Snorri Sturluson[1] (1179 – 23 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was twice elected lawspeaker at the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He was the author of the Prose Edda or Younger Edda, which consists of Gylfaginning ("the fooling of Gylfi"), a narrative of Norse mythology, the Skáldskaparmál, a book of poetic language, and the Háttatal, a list of verse forms. He was also the author of the Heimskringla, a history of the Norwegian kings that begins with legendary material in Ynglinga saga and moves through to early medieval Scandinavian history. For stylistic and methodological reasons, Snorri is often taken to be the author of Egil's saga. As an historian and mythographer, Snorri is remarkable for proposing the theory (in the Prose Edda) that mythological gods begin as human war leaders and kings whose funeral sites develop cults (see euhemerism). As people call upon the dead war leader as they go to battle, or the dead king as they face tribal hardship, they begin to venerate the figure. Eventually, the king or warrior is remembered only as a god. He also proposed that as tribes defeat others, they explain their victory by proposing that their own gods were in battle with the gods of the others.[citation needed] Snorri Sturluson was born at Hvammr[2] into the wealthy and powerful Sturlungar family of the Icelandic Commonwealth, in 1179. His parents were Sturla Þórðarson[3] of Hvamm and Guðný Böðvarsdóttir.[4] He had two older brothers, Þórðr Sturluson (the oldest) and Sighvatr Sturluson. By a quirk of circumstance he was raised from the age of three (or four) by Jón Loftsson, a relative of the Norwegian royal family, in Oddi, Iceland. As Sturla was trying to settle a lawsuit with Father Páll Sölvason, the latter's wife lunged suddenly at him with a knife, intending, she said, to make him like his hero Odin (who was one-eyed), but bystanders deflected the blow to the cheek. The resulting settlement would have beggared Páll. Jón Loftsson intervened in the Althing to mitigate the judgement and to compensate Sturla, offered to raise and educate Snorri. Snorri therefore received an education and made connections that he might not otherwise have made. He attended the school of Sæmundr fróði, grandfather of Jón Loftsson, at Oddi, and never returned to his parents' home. His father died in 1183 and his mother as guardian soon wasted Snorri's share of the inheritance. Jón Loftsson died in 1197. The two families then arranged a marriage in 1199 between Snorri and Herdís, the first daughter of Bersi. From her father, Snorri inherited an estate at Borg and a chieftainship. He soon acquired more property and chieftainships. Snorri and Herdís were together for four years at Borg. They had a few children. The marriage succumbed to Snorri's philandering, and in 1206 he settled in Reykholt as manager of an estate there, but without Herdís. He made significant improvements to the estate, including a hot outdoor bath (Snorralaug). The bath and the buildings have been preserved to some extent. During the initial years at Reykholt he had several more children by different women: Gudrun, Oddny, and Thuridur. - طبعا لا يمكننا الا ان نسلم بأن مؤلف هذه القصيدة مجهول لكن اذا اخذنا ان Snorri Sturluson قد ساهم في تأليفها كما هو مذكور اعلاه فانظروا ماذا ترون في سيرته الذاتية اعلاه انه طفل متبنى. مجهول الطفولة. |
by Joseph Conrad, England,(1857-1924) Nostromo is a 1904 novel by Polish-born British novelist Joseph Conrad, set in the fictitious South American republic of "Costaguana". It was originally published serially in two volumes of T.P.'s Weekly.In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Nostromo 47th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "I'd rather have written Nostromo than any other novel." [1] Conrad set his novel in the mining town of Sulaco, an imaginary port in the occidental region of the imaginary country of Costaguana. The book has more fully developed characters than any other of his novels, but two characters dominate the narrative: Señor Gould and the eponymousanti-hero, the "incorruptible" Nostromo. Plot summaryNostromo is set in the South American country of Costaguana; though a fictional nation, Costaguana's geography as described in the book resembles real-life Colombia. Costaguana has a long history of tyranny, revolution and warfare, but has recently experienced a period of stability under the dictator Ribiera. ==Charles Gould is a native Costaguanero of English descent who owns an important silver-miningconcession near the key port of Sulaco. He is tired of the political instability in Costaguana and its concomitant corruption, and uses his wealth to support Ribiera's government, which he believes will finally bring stability to the country after years of misrule and tyranny by self-serving dictators. Instead, Gould's refurbished silver mine and the wealth it has generated inspires a new round of revolutions and self-proclaimed warlords, plunging Costaguana into chaos. Among others, the revolutionary Montero invades Sulaco; Gould, adamant that his silver should not become spoil for his enemies, orders Nostromo, the trusted "capataz de los cargadores" (head longshoreman) of Sulaco, to take it offshore so it can be sold into international markets. Nostromo is an Italian expatriate who has risen to his position through his daring exploits. ("Nostromo" is Italian for "shipmate" or "boatswain", but the name could also be considered a corruption of the Italian phrase "nostro uomo," meaning "our man.") Nostromo's real name is Giovanni Battista Fidanza — Fidanza meaning "trust" in archaic Italian. Nostromo is a commanding figure in Sulaco, respected by the wealthy Europeans and seemingly limitless in his abilities to command power among the local population. He is, however, never admitted to become a part of upper-class society, but is instead viewed by the rich as their useful tool. He is believed by Charles Gould and his own employers to be incorruptible, and it is for this reason that Nostromo is entrusted with removing the silver from Sulaco to keep it from the revolutionaries. Nostromo's power and fame continues to grow, as he daringly rides over the mountains to summon the army which saves Sulaco's powerful leaders from the revolutionaries. His exploits during the revolution do not bring Nostromo the fame he had hoped for, and he feels slighted and used. Feeling that he has risked his life for nothing, he is consumed by resentment, which leads to his corruption and ultimate destruction, for he has kept secret the true fate of the silver after all others believed it lost at sea. In recovering the silver for himself, he is shot and killed, mistaken for a trespasser, by the father of his fiancée, the keeper of the lighthouse on the island of Great Isabel. |
جوزيف كونراد في البَرّ اللاتينيّ لقـد تحـرر ابـن الشعـب يعود اهتمامي بجوزيف كونراد، المولود فيالعام 1857 بأوكرانيا القيصرية من أبوين بولنديين، والمتوفّى بقرية بيشوبسبورن منمقاطعة «كَنتْ» بشرقيّ المملكة المتحدة، في العام ,1924 أقول يعود اهتمامي بالرجلإلى عقودٍ خلت، قرأتُ فيها مُعظمَ ما كتبه، وقرأتُ أيضاً الكثيرَ ممّا كُتِبَ عنه،ومن بين هذا الكثيرِ كتاب الراحل قريبا، كيفن يونغ، الموسوم «بحثاً عن جوزيفكونراد» الذي يتابع فيه مسار البحّار والمؤلف، مبتدئاً بكورنوال التي هبطَها يونغفي مقتبَل حياته، بَحّارا، حتى قرية بيشوبسبورن التي قضى فيها أعوامه الأخيرة، وقضىفيها أيضا، ليُدفَن في كانتربري، إذ ليس في هذه القرية، حتى اليوم، مقبرةٌللكاثوليك، وإن احتفظت القريةُ هذه بقاعةٍ للاجتماعات أطلقتْ عليها اسم جوزيفكونراد. لا أقول إنني تتبّعت، على البرّ واليابسة، رحلةَ كونراد كما تتبّعهاكيفن يونغ، لكنني ذهبت، في الأقل إلى البداية حيث كورنوال، وإلى النهاية حيثبيشوبسبورن والبيت الذي كان لكونراد مسكنا، بيت الكلاب الشرسة التي تمنع حتىالإطلالةَ إن طالت للتأمُّل! جوزيف كونراد، البحّار، يكتب عن البحر، وبخاصة عنمنطقة الأرخبيلات في سنغافورة والملايو وإندونيسيا، حيث قيل إنه اشتغل، فترة، فيتهريب البنادق، شأنه شأن رامبو في الحبشة، أيام منيليك الثاني! عملَ أيضاً علىخطٍّ بحريّ بين مرسيليا وجزر الهند الغربية، كما وصل إلى الكونغو البلجيكية، مكانروايته القصيرة الخطيرة «قلب الظلام»، التي تجلّت في فيلم كوبولا الشهير «القيامةالآن»، في مقارَبةٍ بين نهر الكونغو ونهر الميكونغ. روايات كونراد كلّها، ذواتُأجواء بحرية، طافحة بالمغامرة، والخطر، أجواء يضطربُ في رياحها وأمواجها مغامرونوأفّاقون قدِموا من أوربا طمعاً في المال والأرض؛ هؤلاء الأفّاقون تدهمهم الخيبةبعد الخيبة، لكنهم يواصلون رحلة اللاعودة، الجشعة، غير المبالية، حتى النهاية،النهايةِ المأساةِ في أحيانٍ كثيرة. في الرواية البحرية، لدى كونراد، لا تطلّالسياسةُ إلا لـمحا، حتى ليبدو الرجل غير مَعنيٍّ بالسياسة إطلاقا، لكنه لا يحجبالأمر السياسيّ إنْ أطل، ولم يُطِل. الرواية التي أنا بصددها، «نوسترومو»،روايةٌ برّيّـة، أي ليست بحرية، شأن رواياته الأخرى. وهي لا تدور في منطقةالأرخبيلات الأثيرة، بل في أميركا اللاتينية، على الساحل الغربي منها، السلفادور،أو كوستاريكا، أو نيكاراغوا. هو يكنّي عن الدولة باسم «كوستاغوانا»، أمّا نوستروموفهو مغامرٌ إيطاليّ اسمه الحقيقيّ جيوفاني باتيستا. Nostromo «نوسترومو» قد تعنيفي مقاربة الأصل اللاتيني: رَجُلـنا، وهو لقبٌ حظيَ به جيوفاني باتيستا، بسببٍ منالخدمات الـجُلّـى، الخطرة، التي كان يقوم بها للناس والمتنفذين في بلدة سولاكو،المرفأ الهام، وموقع منجم الفضة. الرواية صدرت في العام ,1904 وطبِعتْمرارا. في العام ,1917 كتب كونراد مقدمةً للرواية، تطرّقَ فيها إلى نوستروموباعتباره «ابن الشعب»، الرجل الذي يحْضر اجتماعات الفوضويين، وينصت إلى خُطَبهم،وهم يحلمون بثوراتٍ آتيةٍ لا ريبَ فيها. ربما كان ذلك إفصاحاً متأخراً لكونرادعن مَجاذبَ مكنونة، لكن هذا واضحٌ بجلاءٍ في بِنيةِ الرواية وعُقدتها الأساس، إذ انمنجم الفضّة الذي يملك امتيازَه شخصٌ بريطاني، معتمَدٌ من مموِّلٍ أميركيّ فيكاليفورنيا، هذا المنجم هو المحرِّكُ الحقيقيّ للكثير من الشخوص والأحداث،والانقلابات، والانقلابات المضادّة. كتاب «تاريخ خمسين عاماً من الانفلات» History of Fifty Years of Misrule الذي يشير إليه كونراد في متن الرواية، سجلٌّلهذا الصراع بين أهل البلاد، الوطنيين، والأجانب الذين يريدون الاستيلاء على ثرواتالبلاد، والتحكّمَ بمصيرها، حاضراً ومستقبلا. قلتُ إن منجم الفضة، كحقل البترولاليوم، هو المتحكِّم بالأحداث. وثمّتَ امرؤٌ شـاهدُ حق. هذا الشخص هو جيورجيوفيولا، شيخٌ من جنَوا، رفيقٌ لغاريبالدي، حتى النهاية المريرة. السيد فيولا،يرقب الأحداث، ويفسرها، من موقعه الذي لا يزال تحت راية غاريبالدي وأصحابه ذويالقمصان الحُمر. وهو يكنّ لنوسترومو حبّـاً عميقا. بل أراد أن يزوِّجه إحدىابنتَيه، وفاءً لذكرى زوجته المتوفّاة ووصيّتها. نوسترومو يظل «ابن الشعب» حتىيتدخل منجم الفضة، ليحوِّل خياراتِه إلى مجرىً آخر. إثْرَ تهــديدٍ من قــواتٍانقلابية زاحفة على سولاكو، يقرر تشــارلس جولد، مالكُ المنجم، نقلَ سبــائكالفضـة، فيــتمّ الأمر بمساعدة نوسترومو. تُخَـبّـأ السبائك في جزيرة مهجورة. نوسترومو، وحده، يعلم بالمكان، حيث مدفَن السبائك. يتسلل نوسترومو، في الليلالبهيم، إلى المكان، ليأخذ عدداً من السبائك (أراد أن يكون غنياً علىمهلٍ). جيورجيو فيولا، الغاريبالديّ العجوز، كان يحرس المكان خوفاً من خطف إحدىابنتَيه من طرفِ عاشقٍ مُدنَف. الغاريبالديّ العجوز، وقد كلَّ بصرُه، يطلقالنار... القتيل كان نوسترومو، لا المختطِف المزعوم. يقول كونراد في نهايةالمقدمة: لقد تحرّرَ ابنُ الشعب، مع آخِرِ نفَس، من أعباء الحبّوالمال |
جوزيف كونراد... سيرة الكاتب البحري
كتب الأربعاء 11-7-2012 إن قوة كونراد كروائي تكمن في أنه لا يمكن وصفه ضمن التراث الروائيالأنغلو- أميركي- رغم جهود(ليفيز) في الأربعينيات من القرن العشرين، إن تشككهوسخريته القادحة وتصميمه على كشف عيوب الناس فريدة من نوعها كتب يقول عننفسه:( لقد دعيت بالكاتب البحري وبكاتب المناطق الاستوائية وبالكاتب الوصفيوبالكاتب الرومانسي وأيضاً بالكاتب الواقعي ولكن الحقيقة هي أن كل اهتمامي كانمنصباً على القيمة المثالية للأمور والأحداث والناس ولا أي شيء آخر). كان الدفاع عنكونراد هو التاريخ اللاحق للقرن العشرين والسنوات الأولى من القرن الحادي والعشرينلا تزال (قلب الظلام) تلقي الضوء على بربرية القرن العشرين. إن حقائق حياةكونراد استثنائية بما فيها الكفاية: شخص بولندي منفي برغبة منه أصبح قبطاناً بحرياًتجارياً بريطانياً. ثم ها هو يحولنفسه إلى واحد من أعظم الروائيين(الإنكليز) في القرن العشرين ، ولكن كونراد لم يكنليحجم عن إضفاء الروعة على الوقائع في محاولاته للوصول إلى الحقيقة الشعرية ليس منالسهل فك لغات خيط الغزل، إن حياة كونراد محيرة بقدر ما هو فنه. ولد جوزيفكونراد باسم(يوزن تيودور كونراد كوجينيوفسكي) في الثالث من كانون الأول1857 فيبردتيشوف في أواكرانيا البولندية منذ عام 1795 لم تعد بولندا دولة مستقلة بعد أنتقاسمتها النمسا وبروسيا وروسيا. على شاهدة قبركونراد كتب اسمه بطريقة لا هي بولندية ولا إنكليزية(جوزيف تيودور كوجينوفسكي) وهذارمز للتشوشات التي لا حقته طوال حياته كما نقش على الشاهدة العبارة التي استخدمهاهو في رواية الجوال(النوم بعد التعب، الميناء بعد البحار العاصفة، الراحة بعدالحرب، الموت بعد الحياة، كلها تبعث الكثير من السرور) هذان البيتان من قصيدةالملكة الجنية للشاعر البريطاني(سبنسر). لدى مراجعةكونراد من الصعب فهم شخصيته المزاجية العصابية كما هي مع ألمعيته الجريئة ، لم يكنيرحم نفسه كما يعامل الآخرين بقسوة في رسائله يبدو كمزيج من الفنان المعذب والمشتكيالدائم ولكنه كان قادراً على حس النكتة النافذة. تقريباً تحويجميع رواياته لحظات من الهزل الضاري حيث ترمى الرؤيةالتهكمية بحدة شديدة على وضعمعين فلا يستطيع القارئ سوى الضحك دون مرح. لا شك أن كونرادكان حتى في شبابه أخرق وحاد المزاج ولخشيته من فوضاه الداخلية اختار حياة البحارلتغطية النظام الذي كان في حاجة إليه وحين حل الملل اختار صرامة الفن الروائي فمارسبتفان أشبه بتفاني النساك إبداع فن روائي لم يسبق له مثيل في الأدب الأنغلو أميركي،إن إخلاصه في العمل يجعل حتى هنري دجميز يبدو كسولاً كما أن جديته قد تجعل دجميزجويس يبدو كشبح انتشل كونراد الرواية الإنكليزية من انشغالها البورجوازي بالحبوالزواج والثروة وشأنه شأن كيبلنغ فقد ركز على علاقة الفرد بالعمل والواجب وعلىالعكس من كيبلينغ . كان هو مفتوناًَ بالخيانة وخيانة الذات،( في قلب الظلام وروايةنوسترومو) أوضح بجلاء كافٍ أن المثاليات والمعتقدات لا تستطيع إنقاذ الفرد ولاالمجتمع المشاعر التي تتحكم بالبشر هي الأنانية والهوس بالذات وفوقهما كره مرضيللحقيقة. حياته بعد موته كان تأثيركونراد الأدبي شاملاً ورغم أن عدد قرائه انخفض بعد وفاته، فقد بقي (رقم واحد) بلامنازع بالنسبة إلى الكتاب. وها هو كبير الحداثيين (ت.س إليوت) يحدد نمطاً منالتقدير لكونراد (فيقتبس آخر كلمات (كورتس) كمقدمة لقصيدته ( الرجال والجوف) كما أنالأميركيين كانوا يبجلبون كونراد على الدوام. لقد كان انطباعهم عنه أنه كاتب ذوصبغة عالمية وليس كاتباً بريطانياً . إن (غاتسبي) في رواية (غاتسبي العظيم) لسكوتفيتزجيرالد يبدو كابن عم رمث لكورتس كما أن راوي الرواية (نيك) يشبه الراوي (مارلو) في روايات كونراد ولكنه أكثر رضا عن نفسه، حفلات غاتسبي هي إعادة تصوير في عشرينياتالقرن العشرين لطقوس (قلب الظلام) التي تفوق الوصف. أعاد هيمنغوايتفسير تأكيد كونراد على تضامن البحارة محولاً إياه إلى شيء ما أكثر مبالغة وأكثر لاموثوقية على نحو متعمد. أما استخدام ويليام فوكنر لوجهات النظر المتعددة (أو الرواةالمتعددين) والتلاعب بالمخططات الزمنية فيدين كثيراً لنوسترومو وقلب الظلام. لقد أعجب كاتبانمختلفان أشد الاختلاف شأن (أندريه جيد) وتوماس مان بكونراد وتعلما منه.. أعجب مانبموضوعيته الباردة ، بينما ساعد جيد على ترجمة أعمال عديدة إلى الفرنسية وأشرف علىترجمات في هذا المجال.. كان مهتماً على وجه الخصوص برواية ( لورد جيم): إن قفزة جيم (قفزة لورد جيم من السفينة الآخذة بالغرق لينقذ نفسه تاركاً الركاب لمصيرهم..) أولفعل وجودي لا يلهم (جيد) فحسب بل شركاؤه أيضاً في هذا المجال: جان بول سارتر وألبير كامو. في بريطانيا كانتأثير أدب كونراد قوياً ونامياً، إن المشاهد الطبيعية والمدينية الرثة في أعمال (غراهام غرين) . تبدأ في دكان (السيد فرلوك) العميل السري المريب. في عمله قضية محترقة يقدم غرين فروض الطاعة إلىكونراد على نحو مباشر فهو بفتحه بباخرة تمخر نهر الكونغو، أما رائعة (مالكولم لوري) المسماة تحت البركان فلها الكثافة التطبيقية اللغوية التي لرواية (نوسترومو) وتستعيد على نحو مشابه مشاهد طبيعية غريبة للتأكيد على فساد البشر حتى فرجينيا وولفتبدو وكأنها تقر بتأثير كونراد في التزويقات الخطابية العالية لمقطع (الوقت يمر) منرواية (إلى المنارة) التي تشبه مقاطع من (شباب) كونراد مع تفاصيل دقيقة من أجلالتوكيد المضاف. أما فيما يخصالكتاب الأقرب إلى عصرنا فإن (جون لوكاريه) وويليام غولدينغ يدينان لكونراد إناهتمام لوكاريه بالخيانة والهوس بالذات يفوق حتى اهتمام غراهام غرين بهما. كما أنإيمانه بطبيعة (الاختبار) تربط شخصياته بشخصية جيم ورازوموف . استكشاف غولدينغللتضامن والعزلة والشر في (طقوس العبور) له سابقة في دزنجي النارسيوس: إن موت كل من (جيمس ويت والقس كولي) دون أن يبكيهما أحد في مقصورتيهما يحمل تشابهاً مبهماً. الأدب الذي أتىبعد فترة الاستعمار فيه إلهام من كونراد وضيق به على حد سواء، تبقى رواية (قلبالظلام) نصاً مثيراً للجدل. فبالنسبة إلى (تشينوا اتشيبه) تمثل كل ماهو زائف عنالموقف الأوروبي من إفريقيا ، أما بالنسبة إلى (ف.س. نايبول) فهي قد برهنت أنهانقطة انطلاق لواحدة من أجمل رواياته (منحنى في النهر) أما رواية الكاتب الكيني (نغوغي واثيونو) المسماة (حبة قمح) فتنقل الوضع الوارد في (تحت أنظار غريبة) إلىالتاريخ الحديث للنضال الإفريقي في سبيل الاستقلال . الكتاب: جوزيفكونراد- سيرة موجزة - تأليف: غافين غريفيث ترجمة : توفيق الأسدي - صادر عن وزارةالثقافة- الهيئة العامة السورية للكتاب- قطع متوسط في 127 صفحة. |
أمّا نوسترومو (1904)، وهي تحفة روائية، فهي صورة الاستعمار البشعة التي تنطبق صورتها (من الناحية الجغرافية على الأقل) على أمريكا اللاتينية، وفيها نبوءة لم يسبق لها مثيل، إذ تنبأ كونراد في بداية القرن العشرين أنّ أمريكا ستكون صاحبة ذلك النظام العالمي الذي يعطيها السيادة على المعمورة. يقول هولرويد، المستثمر الأمريكي، وهو شخصية رئيسية في نوسترومو: "سيكون لدينا متّسع من الوقت نستولي فيه على جزر وقارات المعمورة. سندير أعمال العالم قاطبة سواء رضي العالم أم غضب. لن يكون للعالم خيار في ذلك، وأعتقد أنّه لن يكون لنا الخيار أيضاً."(ص77).
لا أعرف روائياً غربيّاً يمكن مقارنة عبد الرحمن منيف به أكثر من كونراد. فعلى الرغم من أنّ عبد الرحمن منيف لا يعالج قضية الاستعمار مباشرة لأنّها تقع خارج مجال المحلية التي ينطلق منها عبد الرحمن منيف، فإنّ عبد الرحمن منيف يتّفق مع كونراد الذي يعالج قضية الجشع المادي وتأثيره في إنسانية الفرد، فالجشع المادي وتأثيره في بني البشر، ليس مرهوناً بالاستعمار، بالرغم من أنّ الاستعمار يعرف به وغالباً ما يعرَّف به. أقرأ عبد الرحمن منيف فأتذكّر نوسترومو على الرغم من كلّ ما في الرواية من أبعاد تاريخية للاستعمار، لا توجد عند عبد الرحمن منيف طبعاً. فافتتاحية نوسترومو التي تقدّم وصفاً جماليّاً للمكان يُعدُّ أنموذجاً في بعث الحياة الأسطورية من جديد في مكان الرواية، ليجعلنا نتمثّل روحها الصامتة المتحفّزة وكأنّها بركان أسطوري ساكن يحذّر بني البشر من العبث به أو الاقتراب منه تجنّباً لوقوع الطوفان مثلاً. هذه سولاكو، مسرح أحداث الرواية في جمهورية كوستجوانا (وهي أسماء خياليّة لا يمكن مطابقة مكانها إلاّ بأمريكا اللاتينية) تقع بين السهل والجبال المحاذية على مسافة بسيطة من الخليج وليست متّصلة اتصالاً مباشراً بالبحر. أمّا الجزر الثلاث التي تقع على مدخل الخليج الذي تقع عليه سولاكو فتحتفظ بأسرار كونية والجزر هي: أزابيلا الكبيرة، والأزابيلا الصغيرة وهيرموزا الصغرى. ويتناقل الناس أساطيرها على الدوام، وعلى مرّ العصور. تبدأ الأخدود بوصف موران الذي يذكّرنا سكونها الحذر المخادع بسولاكو وجزرها وأخدودها السحيق الذي يظنّه الناس مكاناً اندفنت فيه الفضّة منذ زمن بعيد، وكل من حاول الاقتراب منه حلّت عليه اللعنة. هذا هو الوصف التمهيدي لمدينة موران: "بدت موران في تلك الأيام المبكّرة في فصل الربيع غارقة في الصمت والتأمل، وكأنّها لا تنتظر شيئاً، لكن العين النافذة المدقّقة ترى في صمتها انتظاراً أو بقية من ترقّب، وترى في هذا السكون حذراً مخادعاً، إذ لابدّ أن ينتهي فجأة كأنّه لم يكن، ولذلك، ودون اتّفاق أو تدبير، شارك الجميع في هذا الصمت، وجعلوا لحركتهم البطيئة الموزونة طابعاً في الخفاء المشوب بالتآمر، وبالغوا في ذلك أ شد المبالغة؛ لأنّ خطأ أيّاً كان سببه أو مصدره، لابدّ أن يعكر الكثير، وقد يخلق صعوبات ليس من السهل معالجتها"(منيف، ص5). == كونراد(جوزيف ـ) (1857ـ 1924) ولد كونراد في بيرديشيف Berdichiv (التي كانت آنذاك تابعة لبولونيا (بولندا)، لكنها باتت اليوم من مدن أُكرانيا)، واسمه الأصلي جوزيف تيودور كونراد نالتش كورجنيوفسكي Józef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski. كانت أمه من عائلة ثرية نبيلة، وكان أبوه شاعراً ومترجماً، وقد قرأ كونراد الفتى مع أبيه ترجمات بولونية وفرنسية للروايات الإنكليزية. وحين تورط والده في نشاطات سياسية ضد السلطة القيصرية، كان مصيره النفي مع عائلته إلى فولوغداVologdaالواقعة في شمالي روسيا، وفي أثناء هذه الرحلة أصيب كونراد بذات الرئة، ولم تلبث والدته أن توفيت عام 1865، ثم لحق بها والده في عام 1869. عاش كونراد في كنف خاله الذي عُنيَ بتعليمه وخلّف لديه أثراً باقياً. كان تلميذاً شكساً ومتمرداً، وتمكّن من إقناع خاله بالسماح له بالعمل في البحر، فسافر إلى فرنسا، حيث أمضى بضع سنوات أتقن خلالها اللغة الفرنسية وعَمَل البحّارة، والتحق بالبحرية التجارية الفرنسية بحاراً متدرباً، فقام بثلاث رحلات إلى جزر الهند الغربية، كما كوّن في أثناء إقامته في فرنسا علاقات شتّى، وتعرف من خلال أصدقائه «البوهيميين» على الدراما والأوبرا والمسرح، وتمتنت صلاته بالعمّال الذين التقاهم على متن السفن، فكونت تجاربه معهم خلفية ذلك الوصف الحيّ الذي اشتهرت به رواياته. عمل كونراد في صفوف البحرية التجارية البريطانية على مدى ستة عشر عاماً. وقد ترقى هناك من بحار عادي إلى رئيس للبحارة. مُنح الجنسية البريطانية عام 1886، وأطلق على نفسه اسم جوزيف كونراد. وفَّرت له تجربته قبطاناً لمركب بخاري نهري في الكونغو مادة روايته «قلب الظلام» Heart of Darkness (1902)، كما أبحر إلى أنحاء كثيرة من العالم، بما في ذلك أستراليا، وموانئ المحيط الهندي، وبورنيو، والملايو، وجزر المحيط الهادئ، وأمريكا الجنوبية، إلى أن انتهت حياته البحرية في عام 1894. بدأ كونراد الكتابة في أثناء رحلاته، فقرّر وهب نفسه للأدب بعد أن استقر في إنكلترا وهو في السادسة والثلاثين. وترك وراءه ثلاث عشرة رواية وثمان وعشرين قصة ومجلدات من الرسائل والمذكرات، على الرغم من أن الكتابة، بالنسبة إليه، كانت مثقلةً بالألم والمصاعب - فهو لم يكتب سوى بالإنكليزية، لغته الثالثة التي تعلمها على كبر بعد البولونية والفرنسية - فضلاً عمّا لازمه طويلاً من الفاقة والمرض والشعور الحاد بالعزلة. من أعمال كونراد الأولى روايته «حماقة ألماير» Almayer’s Folly، التي أمضى خمس سنوات في العمل عليها قبل أن تُنشَر عام 1895، وهي تصوّر ألمانياً مشرَّداً يتخبّط في أنهار بورنيو وغاباتها، ويبدأ فيها كونراد استخدام أسلوب التكرار في مؤلفاته، حيث يكون الراوي غالباً رئيس بحارة متقاعد، رأى بعض النقـاد أنه يمثّل الأنـا البديل alter ego لكونراد ويسبغ على أعماله صفة السيرة الذاتية. أما «زنجي السفينة نرجس» The Nigger of the Narcissus (1897)، فهي قصة معقدة عن عاصفة تهب عند رأس الرجاء الصالح وعن بحّار أسود يلفّه الإبهام والغموض. وتُعد رواية «لورد جيم» Lord Jim (1900) من أبرز أعماله وأشهرها، وفيها يستكشف مفهوم الشرف الشخصي من خلال أفعال وعواطف رجل يقضي حياته في محاولة للتكفير عن فعل جبان كان قد اقترفه وهو ضابط شاب عند تحطّم إحدى السفن. أما روايته«قلب الظلام» التي أثارت خيال مخرجين سينمائيين ونقّاد بارزين، مثل فرانسيس فورد كوبولا الذي بنى على أساسها فيلمه الشهير عن الحرب الفييتنامية «القيامة الآن» Apocalypse Now (1979)وإدوارد سعيد[ر] الذي أشار إليها كثيراً في مؤلفاته، فتستكشف خفايا النفس البشرية؛ فبطل الرواية مارلو Marlow يبدأ رحلة طويلة في نهر إفريقي كبير للوصول إلى قلب القارة حيث يقيم ويعمل كُرتز Kurtz ويسيطر على السكان المحليين بوسائل بربرية. وتسبر رواية «نوسترومو»Nostromo (1904) أغوار الهشاشة والفساد لدى الإنسان، فضلاً عن اشتمالها على واحد من أشد الرموز إيحاءً لدى كونراد، ألا وهو منجم الفضة، حيث تقود شهوة المغامرة والمجد الإيطالي نوسترومو إلى الهلاك، ويضيع بموته سر الفضة إلى الأبد. من مؤلفات كونراد الأخرى: «الورثة» The Inheritors (1901)، و«الشباب» Youth (1902)، و«مرآة البحر» The Mirror of the Sea (1906)، و«العميل السري» The Secret Agent (1907) وهي الرواية التي كان ألفرد هتشكوك[ر] قد بنى عليها فيلمه «عمل تخريبي» Sabotage (1936)، و«تحت أنظار غربية» Under Western Eyes (1911)، و«الإنقاذ» The Rescue (1920). تشكل مؤلفات كونراد جسراً يصل بين التقليد الأدبي لدى كتّاب مثل ديكنز[ر] ودستويفسكي[ر] وبين مدارس الكتابة الحداثية الناشئة. وإذا ما نُظر إلى مؤلفاته من منظور خلفيته البولونية واختياره اللاحق للإنكليزية وسيلةً للتعبير، فإنها تشكّل مأثرة أدبية مدهشة من حيث قيمتها الأدبية والنفسية الرفيعة. ومع كون البحر والسفن موضوع كونراد الأثير، لكنهما والظواهر الطبيعية كافة لا تشكّل جوهر أعماله الذي يتجلى في استكناه القوى الغامضة التي تقف خلف الشجاعة والخوف، خلف الخير والشر، وخلف الكائنات التي تعيش ضروباً من العزلة بفعل قوىً خارجية لا تكاد تزيّن لها الوصول إلى شيء من الراحة حتى تلقي بها في مهاوي اضطراب عميق. رفض كونراد لقب النبالة الذي عُرِضَ عليه في عام1924، كما رفض من قبل درجات الشرف التي قُدِّمَت له من خمس جامعات، وتوفي في بلدة بشوبزبورنBishopsbourneفي مقاطعة كنت Kent الإنكليزية إثر نوبة قلبية، بعد أن ترك أثره البالغ في القصّ الحديث، إذ يُعدّ واحداً من أوائل الحداثيين الذين كتبوا باللغة الإنكليزية. وكانت أعماله قد حظيت باعتراف أبرز معاصريه، قبل أن يزيدها إدوارد سعيد قيمةً واعتباراً، سواء في أطروحته للدكتوراه «جوزيف كونراد وقصّ السيرة الذاتية» Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography (1966) أم في باقي كتبه. ثائر ديب |
Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski;[1]:11-12 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Polish author who wrote in English after settling in England. He was granted British nationality in 1886, but always considered himself a Pole.[note 1] Conrad is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in English,[2] although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties (and always with a marked accent). He wrote stories and novels, often with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of an indifferent universe. He was a master prose stylist, who brought a distinctly non-English[note 2] tragic sensibility into English literature.[3] While some of his works have a strain of romanticism, he is viewed as a precursor of modernist literature. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced many authors, including D. H. Lawrence, F. Scott Fitzgerald,[4] William Faulkner,[4] Ernest Hemingway,[5] George Orwell,[6]:254 Graham Greene,[4] Malcolm Lowry, William Golding,[4] William S. Burroughs, Joseph Heller, Italo Calvino, Gabriel García Márquez,[4] J. G. Ballard, John le Carré,[4] V.S. Naipaul,[4] Hunter S. Thompson, J.M. Coetzee[4] and Salman Rushdie.[note 3] Films have been adapted from or inspired by Conrad's Almayer's Folly, An Outcast of the Islands, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Nostromo, The Secret Agent, The Duel, Victory, The Shadow Line, and The Rover. Writing in the heyday of the British Empire, Conrad drew on his native Poland's national experiences and on his personal experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world, while also plumbing the depths of the human soul. Appreciated early on by literary cognoscenti, his fiction and nonfiction have gained an almost prophetic cachet in the light of subsequent national and international disasters of the 20th and 21st centuries.[6]:172 Early life Joseph Conrad was born on 3 December 1857 in the Ukrainian town of Berdychiv,[note 4] the only child of Apollo Korzeniowski, a member of the impoverished Polish nobility (szlachta), a writer, translator and would-be political reformer and revolutionary, and Ewa née Bobrowska. The child was named Józef Teodor Konrad after his grandfathers Józef (maternal) and Teodor (paternal) and after the heroes, both named Konrad, of two poems by Adam Mickiewicz, Dziady and Konrad Wallenrod. The great majority of the area's inhabitants were Ukrainians, but most of the land was owned by a Polish upper class of szlachta (nobility) to which Conrad's parents belonged; Conrad's father bore the Polish Nałęcz coat of arms. In the virtual absence of a higher bourgeoisie, that nobility was the sole repository of polite culture. Literature, particularly patriotic literature, was held in high esteem.[7]:1 Due to the father's agricultural endeavors and political activism, young Konrad (as he was known to family and friends—rather than Józef, "Joseph", his actual first name) experienced several moves early in life. In May 1861 the family transferred to Warsaw, where Apollo participated in the resistance movement against the Russian Empire. This led to his imprisonment in the infamous Pavilion X ("Ten") of the Warsaw Citadel.[note 5] Conrad would later write: "in the courtyard of this Citadel — characteristically for our nation — my childhood memories begin".[1]:17-19 On 9 May 1862 Apollo (and Ewa) were exiled to Vologda (500 kilometers north of Moscow), known for its unhealthy climate.[1]:19-20 In January 1863 the sentence was commuted and the family was transferred to Chernihiv in northeast Ukraine, where the conditions and climate were much better. However, on 18 April 1865, amid the privations of their life in exile, Ewa died of tuberculosis.[1]:19-25 Apollo did his best to home-school Conrad. The boy's early reading introduced him to the two elements that later dominated his life: in Victor Hugo's Toilers of the Sea he encountered the sphere of activity to which he would devote his youth; Shakespeare brought him into the orbit of English literature. Most of all, though, he read Polish Romantic poetry. Half a century later he explained that "The Polishness in my works comes from Mickiewicz and Słowacki. My father read [Mickiewicz's] Pan Tadeusz aloud to me and made me read it aloud.... I used to prefer [Mickiewicz's] Konrad Wallenrod [and] Grażyna. Later I preferred Słowacki. You know why Słowacki?... [He is the soul of all Poland]".[1]:27 In December 1867, Apollo took his son to the Austrian-held part of Poland, which for two years had been enjoying considerable internal freedom and a degree of self-government. After sojourns in Lwów and several smaller localities, on 20 February 1869 they moved to Kraków (till 1596 the capital of Poland), likewise in Austrian Poland. A few months later, on 23 May 1869, Apollo Korzeniowski died, leaving Conrad orphaned at the age of eleven.[1]:31-34 Like Conrad's mother, Apollo had been gravely ill with tuberculosis. The young Conrad was placed in the care of Ewa's brother, Tadeusz Bobrowski. Conrad's poor health and his unsatisfactory schoolwork caused his uncle constant problems and no end of financial outlays. Conrad was not a good student; despite tutoring, he excelled only in geography.[1]:43 Since the boy's illness was clearly of nervous origin, the physicians supposed that fresh air and physical work would harden him; his uncle hoped that well-defined duties and the rigors of work would teach him discipline. Since he showed little inclination to study, it was essential that he learn a trade; his uncle saw him as a sailor-cum-businessman who would combine his maritime skills with commercial activities.[1]:44-46 In fact, in the autumn of 1871, thirteen-year-old Conrad announced his intention to become a sailor. He later recalled that as a child he had read (apparently in French translation) Leopold McClintock's book about his 1857-59 expeditions in the Fox, in search of Sir John Franklin's lost ships Erebus and Terror.[note 6] He also recalled having read books by the American James Fenimore Cooper and the English Captain Frederick Marryat.[1]:41-42 A playmate of his adolescence recalled that Conrad spun fantastic yarns, always set at sea, presented so realistically that listeners thought the action was happening before their eyes. In August 1873 Bobrowski sent fifteen-year-old Conrad to Lwów to a cousin who ran a small boarding house for boys orphaned by the 1863 Uprising; group conversation there was in French. The owner's daughter recalled: He stayed with us ten months... Intellectually he was extremely advanced but disliked school routine, which he found tiring and dull; he used to say... he... planned to become a great writer.... He disliked all restrictions. At home, at school, or in the living room he would sprawl unceremoniously. He... suffer[ed] from severe headaches and nervous attacks...[1]:43-44 Conrad had been at the establishment for just over a year when in September 1874, for uncertain reasons, Bobrowski removed him from school in Lwów and took him back to Kraków. On 13 October 1874, the sixteen-year-old set off for Marseilles, France, and a planned career at sea. Bobrowski saw him as a sailor-cum-businessman who would combine his maritime skills with commercial activities.[1]:44-46 Though Konrad had not completed secondary school, his accomplishments included fluency in French (with a correct accent), some knowledge of Latin, German and Greek, probably a good knowledge of history, some geography, and probably already an interest in physics. He was well read, particularly in Polish Romantic literature. He belonged to only the second generation in his family that had to earn a living outside the family estates: he was a member of the second generation of the intelligentsia, a social class that was starting to play an important role in Central and Eastern Europe.[1]:46-47 He had absorbed enough of the history, culture and literature of his native land to be able eventually to develop a distinctive world view and make unique contributions to the literature of his adoptive Britain.[7]:1-5 It was tensions that originated in his childhood in Poland and grew in his adulthood abroad that would give rise to Conrad's greatest literary achievements.[7]:246-47 Najder, himself an emigrant from Poland, observes: Living away from one's natural environment — family, friends, social group, language — even if it results from a conscious decision, usually gives rise to... internal tensions, because it tends to make people less sure of themselves, more vulnerable, less certain of their... position and... value... The Polish szlachta and... intelligentsia were social strata in which reputation... was felt... very important... for a feeling of self-worth. Men strove... to find confirmation of their... self-regard... in the eyes of others... Such a psychological heritage forms both a spur to ambition and a source of constant stress, especially if [one has been inculcated with] the idea of [one]'s public duty.. |
Temperament and health
Conrad was a reserved man, wary of showing emotion. He scorned sentimentality, and his manner of portraying emotion in his books was full of restraint, skepticism and irony; yet he was a deeply emotional man.[1]:575 In the words of his uncle Bobrowski, as a young man Conrad was "extremely sensitive, conceited, reserved, and in addition excitable. In short [...] all the defects of the Nałęcz family."[1]:65 [ Attempted suicideConrad suffered throughout life from ill health, physical and mental. A newspaper review of a Conrad biography suggested that the book could have been subtitled "Thirty Years of Debt, Gout, Depression and Angst".[37] In 1891 he was hospitalized for several months, suffering from gout, neuralgic pains in his right arm, and recurrent attacks of malaria. He also complained of swollen hands "which made writing difficult". Taking his uncle Tadeusz Bobrowski's advice, he convalesced at a spa in Switzerland.[1]:169-70 Conrad had a phobia of dentistry, neglecting his teeth till they had to be extracted. In one letter he remarked that every novel he had written had cost him a tooth.[6]:258 Conrad's physical afflictions were, if anything, less vexatious than his mental ones. In letters, he often described symptoms of depression; "the evidence," writes Najder, "is so strong that it is nearly impossible to doubt it."[1]:167 In March 1878, at the end of his Marseilles period, 20-year-old Conrad attempted suicide by shooting himself in the chest with a revolver. According to his uncle, who was summoned by a friend of Conrad's, Conrad had gotten himself badly into debt. Bobrowski described his subsequent "study" of his nephew in an extensive letter to Stefan Buszczyński, his own ideological opponent and a friend of Conrad's late father Apollo.[note 29] To what extent the suicide attempt had been made in earnest, likely will never be known, but it is suggestive of a situational depression.[1]:65-7 == Death On 3 August 1924 Conrad died, probably of a heart attack. He was interred at Canterbury Cemetery, Canterbury, England, under a misspelled version of his original Polish name, as "Joseph Teador Conrad Korzeniowski".[1]:573 Inscribed on his gravestone are the lines from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene which he had chosen as the epigraph to his last complete novel, The Rover: Twelve years later, Conrad's wife Jessie died on 6 December 1936 and was interred with him.Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas, Ease after warre, death after life, doth greatly please [1]:574 Conrad's modest funeral took place amid great crowds. His old friend Edward Garnett recalled bitterly: To those who attended Conrad's funeral in Canterbury during the Cricket Festival of 1924, and drove through the crowded streets festooned with flags, there was something symbolical in England's hospitality and in the crowd's ignorance of even the existence of this great writer. A few old friends, acquaintances and pressmen stood by his grave.[1]:573 Another old friend of Conrad's, Cunninghame Graham, wrote Garnett: "Aubry was saying to me... that had Anatole France died, all Paris would have been at his funeral."[1]:573 |
أيضا, إذا كنت قد قرأت رواية جوزيف كونراد نوسترومو (1904) فسوف تعرف ان فيها حبكة معقدة جدا, فالرواية استطاعت ان تكون مروية بطريقة التسلسل التاريخي المستقيم والسهل للغاية. لكن لماذا رواها كونراد بطريقة كهذه معقدة وغير متسلسلة تاريخيا؟ وفي تلك الحالة, لماذا لم تشأ إيميلي برونتي ان تروي لنا مرتفعات ويذرينج بسحبة واحدة مسلسلة تسلسلا تاريخيا ملائما ــ ربما عن طريق جعل نيلي دين يقصها في اجتماع واحد مع لوكوود؟ == جوزف كونراد هو أديب إنجليزي بولندي الأصل ولد في ما يعرف بأوكرانيا البولندية عام 1857 لوالد أديب مغمور انتقل مع والده إلى بولندا حيث توفى والده ومنها انتقل إلى فرنسا عام 1874 حيث عمل بالملاحة ثم انتقل إلى إنجلترا واستمر في عمله بالبحر. توفي عام 1924 بنوبة قلبية وترك 13 رواية و 28 قصة قصيرة. أغلب رواياته لها علاقة بالبحر ويرويها بحار عجوز اسمه مارلو من رواياته "قلب الظلام" "العميل السري" و"النصر" و"تحت عين غريبة " و"لورد جيم". تخيلوا هذا كل ما هو مكتوب عن هذا العبقري في وكيبيدا العربية؟! == " نوم بعد مشقة ، ومرفغأ بعد عاصفة ، ويسر بعد حرب ، وموت بعد حياة . تجلب أعظم السرور ". هذه الكلمات تعتلي قبر الكاتب الأنجليزي جوزيف كونراد المتوفي في عام 1924 م. الكلمات التي ختم بها إحدى أواخر أعماله وطلب أن تكون على ناصية قبره. جوزيف كونراد، من أعظم كتاب القرن العشرين والكاتب الوحيد الذي له 3 روايات في قائمة أعظم 100 رواية في القرن العشرين، شخصية فذة ومكافحة؛ إختار البحر وسرقته منها الكتابة. هذا ليس كل شيء. جوزيف كونراد الكاتب البريطاني ذو الأصول البولندية لم تكن اللغة الأنجليزية لغته الأم ولا لغته الثانية، لكنها اللغة الثالثة التي تعلمها في منتصف العشرينات من عمره ولم يمارس الكتابة إلا عندما أتم الثلاثين عاماً بقليل. اختار الكتابة بهذه اللغة الغريبة عنه ليصبح أكثر الكتاب تأثيراً في الحركة الحداثية في الأدب الأنجليزي قُبيل الحرب العالمية الأولى. كتب بالأنجليزية بشكل ملفت وباهر. كتب بالأنجليزية في براعة متناهية وتفوق على جميع كتاب جيله بخمس روايات تعتبر من الأعمال الخالدة التي كُتبت باللغة الأنجليزية. رواياته التي تُدرس لطلاب الأدب الأنجليزي في أمريكا وبريطانيا في وقتنا الحاض. هذا شيء يدفعك للتأمل حقاً. إنها معجزة بحق. بدأ حياته بحاراً في الأسطول التجاري الفرنسي وهو ابن السادسة عشر ربيعاً في مدينة مارسيليا، بعد أن هُجر والديه من بولندا المستعمرة من قبل روسيا القيصرية إلى أوكرانيا وهو في الثالثة من عمره، تعلم الفرنسية في البحر، ثم إنتقل إلى الأسطول التجاري البريطاني بعد إصابته بطلق ناري كاد أن يودي بحياته. أمضى وقته في القراءة وسبر أغوار اللغة الأنجليزية على متن السُفن. إنه الكاتب الذي يكتب "لمن لا صوت لهم"، تميزت كتاباتها بتعرية المستعمر الأوروبي وجشعه من أجل المال والسلطة والعراقيل التي تكون أمامه. بشخصيات تضحي بكل شيء من أجل المُثل العليا والمباديء. كتب عن البحر كما لم يكتب أحد آخر عنه. كتب عن الانسان وطموحاته وخيباته وكفاحه من أجل المباديء والبحث عن الإستقلالية والعيش بكرامة. طريقته في الكتابة تميزت بحرصه على إختار الألفاظ الدقيقة في وصف الحدث، الحركة والإنفعال. ربما أنه يعود إلى أنه يتحدث أكثر من لغة فإختياره للفظ يكون بهذه الدقة المنتاهية. فمثلا بدلاً من أن يكتب: أحمد ذهب إلى السوق، يجعل الجملة أكثر دقة في وصف هذا الحدث البسيط إلى أحمد ذهب إلى السوق ماشياً أو مشى إلى السوق. وربما يكون أكثر دقة في وصفه إلى درجة أن يصف كيف كان أحمد يمشي، متخبطاً سريعاً ببطأ وهلمجرا. إنه لا يكتفي بإي فعل لوصف الحدث أو الحالة – لستُ لغويا للأسف- لكنه يتعمق في اللغة ليختار الفعل المناسب والنعت الدقيق ليكتب بدقة متناهي ويصور لك المشهد متكاملاً ويضع القاريء في منتصفه. الخاصية الثانية كثرة إستخدامة للنعوت حين يتطرق إلى تحليل الحدث بكل تفاصيله مما لا يدع مجالاً للقاريء بأن يخمن المجهول. قال عنه الكاتب البريطاني العظيم فورد مادوكس فورد أن كونراد حين يقوم بوصف حادثة قتل فإنه سيأخذك إلى أسبابها وعلاقة القاتل بالمقتول. سينتقل بك معه إلى الطريقة التي حصلت بها الجريمة وكيف طعن القاتل القتيل، وبأي يد كان يمسكها، وحدت السكين وشكلها وصانعها. وربما أنه يعود بك للوراء إلى الوقت الذي إشترى فيه القاتل السكين وشخصيته المضطربة والتي أثارت الشك في البائع. وما الذي دفع البائع إلى تجاوز شكوكه ليبيع هذه السكين له. وربما أنه يعود بنا إلى البائع وحالته المادية ومشاوراته مع العاملين معه حول بيع هذه السكين. إنتهى كلامه بتصرف كبير. جوزيف كونراد يحلل ويتعمق في الحدث بكل تفاصيله وحذافيره من أجل أن يقنع القاريء بما يكتبه. إنه من النوع من الكتاب الذين يحترمون القراء بشكل كبير ولا يدعون ثغرة واحدة في نصوصه تقع في دائرة الشك. جوزيف كونراد لم يتخذ الكتابة عملاً أو هواية، لكنها كانت حياته التي أختارها. إنه شخص متفاني جداً في حبه للكتابة إلى الدرجة التي كان يجعل زوجته تغلق عليه باب مكتبه في الصباح والمساء ولا تفتح الباب إلا من أجل تناول وجبتي الغداء والعشاء ثم الذهاب إلى النوم. هذه الشخصية العظيمة لا يمكن تجاهل مدى تفانيها وإخلاصها من أجل الكتابة الأدبية الإبداعية برغم أنه عاش فقيراً ولم يحضى بنصيب من الشهرة إلى في أواخر عمره. حيث كانت رواياته تناقش قضايا انسانية عميقة وتهاجم الإمبريالية الأوروبية وحب المال والتسلط وإستغلالها للشعوب الأخرى ونهب أموالها وممتلكاتها. إنه يكتب كما لو أنه ينحت على الصخر، تقول أحدى الروايات التي ذكرتها زوجته أنه أمضى يوم كامل يراجع جملة واحد في رواية نوسترومو، لم يكن يراجعها من أجل تركيب الجملة أو كلماتها لكن من أجل الفاصلة. تقول زوجته أنه حذف الفاصلة في الصباح وأعادها في المساء. أو كما تقول الحكاية أنه في أحد الأيام سألته على وجبة الغداء ماذا فعلت اليوم فقال "حذفت فاصلة" بعد ذلك سألته على طعام العشاء ماذا فعلت فقال "أعدت الفاصلة". أهم رواياته : ـ زنجي السفينة نرجس ـ 1897م. ـ قلب الظلام - 1899 - لورد جيم ـ 1900 م . ـ نوسترومو ـ 1904 م. ـ العميل السري ـ 1907 م . ـ تحت عيون الغرب ـ 1911 م . ـ الصدفة ـ 1913 م . ـ النصر ـ 1915 م . ومن مجموعاته القصصية : ـ الشباب وقصتان أخريان 1902 م. ـ العاصفة وقصص أخري 1903م . ومن أعماله النثرية : ـ سجل شخصي 1912 م. ـ مذكرات عن الحياة والأدب 1921م . |
جوزف كونراد 1- كاتب بولدني ابدع كتاباته في اللغة الانجليزية بعد ان استقر في انجلترا. روائي انجليزي ولد في بولندا عام 1857. 2- تم مصادرة املاك العائلة عام 1839 بسبب ثورة ضدالروس. 3- كان الولد الوحيد لوالديه. 4- اعتقل والده عام 1861 ( عندما كان عمر جوزف اربعسنوات ) وسجن بسبب مشاركته في مقاومه الروس. 5- عام 1862 تم نفي العائلة الى مكان غير صحي. 6- في عام 1863 تم تحويلهم الى منفي شمال اكورانيا. 7- عانت الام من مرض السل وماتت عام 1865 عندما كانكونراد في سن الثامنة . 8- عام 1867 هاجر الوالد الى بولدنا ومعه ابنه. 9- مع العام 1869 كان والداه ( الأم والأب ماتا قبل أن يصل جوزف سن الـ 11 سنة ) و قد ماتا بمرض السل وارسلجوزف الى سويسرا للعيش عند خاله والذي كان له تأثير كبيرعليه. 10- كان معتل الصحة وكان فاشلا في المدرسة. 11- طبيعة مرضه كان أعصاب وظل طول عمره مريض جسدي وعقلي. 12- عام 1873 الحقه خاله في مدرسة داخلية مخصصه لايتام ثورة 1863. 13- كان في المدرسة يعاني من اوجاع في الرأس ، وخرج من المدرسة بعد 10 اشهر. 14- سافر وعمره 16 عام الى فرنسا. 15- عام 1878 حاول الانتحار باطلاق النار على نفسه. 16- في عام 1891 دخل المستشفى لعدة اشهر وهو ياعن من الام متعددة. 17- مات خاله عام 1894 وترك له ورثه ضخمة بمقايساليوم 18- درس جوزف في مدرسة داخليه في كراكو واقنع خاله بأن يتركهيسافر في البحر 19- في عام 1875 بدأ يعمل لدى بحارفرنسي وشارك في تهريب الأسلحة الى الأسبان 20- حاول الانتحار بإطلاق النار على نفسه وعمره 16 عاما. 21- عانا من الديون لكن عمه ساعده في نهايةالامر. 22- قال في عام 1897 ما يجعل حياة الانسان مأساوية هو ان الناس هو ليسانهم ضحايا الطبيعة ولكن هو وعيهم بتلك الحقيقة . وان يكون الانسان جزء من مملكةالحيوان امر جيد ولكن عاجلا ما تبدأ تتعرف على العبودية والالم والغضب والكفاحوعندها تبدأ المأساة 23- عمل بحارا وابحر كونراد الى معظم مناطقالعالم كما انه ابحر عبر نهر الكنغو وقد وفرت له الرحلة مادة لروايته الرائعة "قلبالظلام"وانتهى عمله في البحر عام 1894. 24- استقر كونراد عندما بلغ السادسة والثلاثين فيبريطانيا 25- تزوج عام 1896 من بريطانية وانجب منها طفلان 26- سافر مرات عديدة الى فرنسا وايطاليا وامريكيا 27- عانا في اخر حياتة من الروماتزم ورفض استلامشهادات تقدير من خمس جامعات 28- مات كونراد عام 1924 بسبب جلطة قلبية حياة كارثية ضربتها سلسلة من المآسي، سجن والده وعمره 3 سنوات، ثم المنفي وعمره 4 ثم موت الام وهو في الثامنة ثم موت الاب وهو في الـ 11، ثم المدرسة الداخلية وهو في 15، ثم السفر ثم العمل في البحر من سن 16. ولا ننسى المرض النفسي والجسدي الذي دفعه لمحاولة الانتحار ثم عزلته في البحر كل ذلك قبل ان يصل الى سن 21. يتيم الام في سن 8 ويتيم الاب 11 ويتيم الوطن ويتيم اجتماعي ومأزوم قبل سن 21 - لطيم. ملاحظة الدارس: هو الكاتب الوحيد الذي له ثلاث كتب ضمن قائمة افضل 100 كتاب في التاريخ. ولو ان ادجر الن بو عاش اكثر من 40 سنة لربما كان له نفس عدد الكتب ذلك لانه عاش حياة ليست اقل مأساوية بل هي اكثر مأساوية من كنراد. |
The Odyssey by Homer, Greece, (c 700 BC) The Greeks attributed both the Iliad and the Odyssey to a single poet whom they named Homer. Nothing is known of his life, though received opinion dates him c. 700 BC and places him in Ionia, the Greek-inhabited coast and islands off central western Turkey. Most modern scholars place the composition of the Iliad in the second half of the eighth century BC. Robert Graves was born in 1895 in Wimbledon. He went from school to the First World War, where he became a captain in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Apart from a year as Professor of English Literature at Cairo University in 1926 he earned his living by writing, mostly historical novels which include I, Claudius and Claudius the God. He wrote his autobiography, Goodbye to All That in 1929 and it rapidly established itself as a modern classic. He translated Apuleius, Lucan and Suetonius for the Penguin Classics series, and compiled the first modern dictionary of Greek Mythology. He was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1961, and made an Honorary Fellow of St John's College, Oxford, in 1971. He died on 7 December 1985 in Majorca, his home since 1929. == The Odyssey (Greek: Ὀδύσσεια, Odysseia) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second oldest extant work of Western literature, the Iliad being the first. It is believed to have been composed near the end of the 8th century BC, somewhere in Ionia, the Greek coastal region of Anatolia.[1] The poem mainly centers on the Greek hero Odysseus (or Ulysses, as he was known in Roman myths) and his journey home after the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War.[2] In his absence, it is assumed he has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors, the Mnesteres (Greek: Μνηστῆρες) or Proci, who compete for Penelope's hand in marriage. It continues to be read in the Homeric Greek and translated into modern languages around the world. Many scholars believe that the original poem was composed in an oral tradition by an aoidos (epic poet/singer), perhaps a rhapsode (professional performer), and was more likely intended to be heard than read.[1] The details of the ancient oral performance, and the story's conversion to a written work inspire continual debate among scholars. The Odyssey was written in a poetic dialect of Greek—a literary amalgam of Aeolic Greek, Ionic Greek, and other Ancient Greek dialects—and comprises 12,110 lines of dactylic hexameter.[3][4] Among the most noteworthy elements of the text are its non-linear plot, and the influence on events of choices made by women and serfs, besides the actions of fighting men. In the English language as well as many others, the word odyssey has come to refer to an epic voyage. The Odyssey has a lost sequel, the Telegony, which was not written by Homer. It was usually attributed in Antiquity to Cinaethon of Sparta, but in one source was said to have been stolen from Musaeus by Eugamon or Eugammon of Cyrene (see Cyclic poets). Synopsis Exposition The Odyssey begins ten years after the end of the ten-year Trojan War (that is the subject of the Iliad), and Odysseus has still not returned home from the war. Odysseus' son Telemachus is about 20 years old and is sharing his absent father’s house on the island of Ithaca with his mother Penelope and a crowd of 108 boisterous young men, "the Suitors", whose aim is to persuade Penelope to marry one of them, all the while enjoying the hospitality of Odysseus' household and eating up his wealth. Odysseus’ protectress, the goddess Athena, discusses his fate with Zeus, king of the gods, at a moment when Odysseus' enemy, the god of the sea Poseidon, is absent from Mount Olympus. Then, disguised as a Taphian chieftain named Mentes (otherwise known as “Mentor”), she visits Telemachus to urge him to search for news of his father. He offers her hospitality; they observe the Suitors dining rowdily while the bard Phemius performs a narrative poem for them. Penelope objects to Phemius' theme, the "Return from Troy",[5] because it reminds her of her missing husband, but Telemachus rebuts her objections. That night Athena, disguised as Telemachus, finds a ship and crew for the true Telemachus. The next morning, Telemachus calls an assembly of citizens of Ithaca to discuss what should be done with the suitors. Accompanied by Athena (still disguised as Mentor), he departs for the Greek mainland and the household of Nestor, most venerable of the Greek warriors at Troy, now at home in Pylos. From there, Telemachus rides overland, accompanied by Nestor's son, Peisistratus, to Sparta, where he finds Menelaus and Helen who are now reconciled. He is told that they returned to Sparta after a long voyage by way of Egypt. There, on the island of Pharos, Menelaus encountered the old sea-god Proteus, who told him that Odysseus was a captive of the nymph Calypso. Incidentally, Telemachus learns the fate of Menelaus’ brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and leader of the Greeks at Troy: he was murdered on his return home by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. |
الأوديسة المحتوىباليونانية (ούνταξις)هي ملحمة شعرية وضعها هوميروس في القرن 8 قبل الميلاد. وتتكون من 24 جزئا. تبدأ الملحمة من منتصف القصة، ثم تروي ما حدث بالبداية وتنتهي بوصول البطل إلى الجزيرة. تبدأ قصة الأوديسة بعد نهاية ملحمة الإلياذة. وتروي قصة عودة أحد أبطال الإلياذة وهو أوديسيوس ملك إيثاكا الذي من المعروف عنه أنه صاحب فكرة حصان طروادة. كما تروي الملحمة قصة بينيلوبي زوجة أوديسيوس. القصةتبدأ الملحمة بنهاية حصار طروادة وبدء عودة المحاربين إلى بيوتهم، لكن بسبب غضب إله البحر بوصيدون على أوديسيوس، تمتلئ رحلته بالمشاكل التي يضعها في طريقه بوصيدون أو بسبب تهور بحارته. يبقى في رحلته مدة عشر سنوات يواجه خلالها الكثير من المخاطر، وطوال هذه الفترة تبقى زوجته بينيلوبي بانتظاره، ممتنعة عن الزواج، رغم العروض الكثيرة التي تتلقاها، خاصة بعد وصول أغلب المحاربين في حرب طروادة ما عدا زوجها. تنتهي الملحمة بوصوله إلى إيثاكا وقيامه بالانتقام من الذين اضطهدوا زوجته بتلك الفترة. خط الرحلةمر أوديسيوس بالمناطق التالية، وتم وضع ما يُظن أنها الأسماء الحالية:
الأحداث هنا مرتبة حسب الملحمة: جزيرة أوجيجياحيث تبدأ الملحمة يكون فيها أوديسيوس سجينا للحورية كاليبسو لمدة 7 سنوات. ثم يقرر زيوس، أنه آن أوان عودة أوديسيوس إلى زوجته بينيلوبي في إيثاكا. فيرسل هرمس الذي يحرر أوديسيوس. جزيرة كورفولوتوفاجي في هذه الجزيرة يقدم سكانها زهرة اللوتس لكن تكون من نوع خاص لأوديسيوس وبحارته، فهذه الزهرة تجعل آكليها ينسون كل شيء، ويتذكرون فقط أن هذه الجزيرة هي وطنهم. أراد بعض رجاله الذين أكلوا منها البقاء مع أكلة اللوتس. لكن أوديسيوس أجبرهم على الذهاب معه. كومايقع أوديسيوس ورجاله أسرى لدى بوليفميوس ابن بوسيدون، وهو عملاق بعين واحدة يطلق عليه اسم سيكلوب. وقد تمكنوا من الهرب بعد أن فقؤوا عين سيكلوب، وهذه الحادثة أدت إلى زيادة غضب بوسيدون عليهم. الساحرة تسيرسبعد عدة مغامرات، رست السفينة التي كانت تحمل أوديسيوس ورجاله في جزيرة الساحرة تسيرس. التي قامت بتحويل رجال أوديسيوس إلى خنازير وجعلت من أوديسيوس عشيقا لها. نجا أوديسيوس منها بمساعدة من هرمس مبعوث الأوليمب الذي قام بإعطائه عشبة خاصة لها زهرة بيضاء وجذور سوداء اسمها " مولي " تمنع تأثير السائل السحري الذي يحول من يتناوله إلى حيوان. مضيق مسينا
خسر أوديسيوس الكثير من رجاله عند هذا المضيق. جزيرة الأيوليينيقوم البحارة بفتح جرة كانت قد أعطيت لهم من قبل ملك هذه الجزيرة. وتحتوي هذه الهدية على الرياح التي قام زيوس بحبسها. وتدمر العديد من السفن بسبب هذه الرياح. جزيرة كابريحيث توجد السيرينات " عرائس البحر " ينشدن أغاني ساحرة للغاية بأصوات لا يمكن وصفها ومن يذهب اليهن يبقي بجوارهن مدي الحياة، قام أوديسيوس بالنجاة عن طريق وضع الشمع في أذان البحارة، وقام بربط نفسه إلى الصارية كي يسمع أصواتهن دون أن يذهب إليهن. صقليةكانت صقلية أو مدينة الشمس هي المكان الذي يحتفظ به أبولو (إله إغريقي) بقطعان أغنامه. حذر أوديسيوس بحارته من الاقتراب من الأغنام. لكنهم قاموا بذبح بعضها وأكله. كان عقاب أبولو شديدا، فقام بتحطيم السفن بعاصفة رعدية، وبعد هذا العاصفة وصل إلى جزيرة أوجيجا، حيث بداية الملحمة. العودةحذرت أثينا أوديسيوس من النبلاء الموجودين حول منزله، فعاد متنكرا إلى بيته. قام بعدها بوليمة لجميع النبلاء انتهت بمقتلهم جميعا بقوسه الذي لا يقدر على استعماله سواه. قصة بنلوبتروي الملحمة بشكل متقطع، قصة بنلوب زوجة أوديسيوس. قام بعض النبلاء بمحاصرة قصرها، ومطالبتها بالزواج من أحدهم ،وعرضوا الكثير عليها. قامت بإقناعهم بالانتظار حتى تنتهي من خياطة ثوب العرس. فكانت تقوم بحياكته في النهار أمامهم، أما في المساء فتقوم بحل ما حاكته. منتظرة عودة زوجها أوديسيوس. عندما عاد أوديسيوس، قامت بإعطائه قوسه، فقام بجمع النبلاء إلى وليمة وقتلهم. أبطال الأوديسة |
هوميروس حياة هوميروس(بالإغريقية: Ὅμηρος) شاعرٌ ملحمي إغريقي أسطوري يُعتقد أنه مؤلف الملحمتين الإغريقيتين الإلياذة والأوديسة. بشكلٍ عام، آمن الإغريق القدامى بأن هوميروس كان شخصية تاريخية، لكن الباحثين المحدثين يُشككون في هذا، ذلك أنه لا توجد ترجمات موثوقة لسيرته باقية من الحقبة الكلاسيكية (Classical Antiquity)،] كما أن الملاحم المأثورة عنه تمثل تراكماً لقرونٍ عديدة من الحكي الشفاهي وعروضاً شعرياً محكماً. ويرى مارتن وست أن هوميروس ليس اسماً لشاعرٍ تاريخية، بل اسماً مستعاراً.تواريخ حياة هوميروس كانت موضع جدلٍ في الحقبة الكلاسيكية واستمر هذا الجدل إلى الآن. قال هيرودوت إن هوميروس عاش قبل زمانه بأربعمائة سنة، مما قد يعني أنه عاش في 850 ق. م. تقريباً. بينما ترى مصادر قديمة أخرى أنه عاش في فترة قريبة من حرب طروادة المفترضة.[]. ويعتقد إيراتوسثينيس الذي جاهد لإثبات تقويم علمي لأحداث حرب طروادة أنها كانت بين 1184 و1194 ق. م. بالنسبة للباحثين المعاصرين، يعني "تاريخ هوميروس" تاريخ تأليف القصائد بالنسبة لحياة شخصٍ واحد، ويُجمعون على أن الإلياذة والأوديسة تعود إلى نهاية القرن التاسع قبل الميلاد، أو تبدأ من القرن الثامن، حيث تسبق الإلياذة الأوديسةبعقود.",ويسبق هذا التاريح هسيود مما يجعل الإلياذة أقدم نصٍ أدبي مكتوب في الأدب الغربي. في العقود القليلة الماضية، حاجج بعض الباحثين ليثبتوا تاريخاً يعود إلى القرن السابع قبل الميلاد. ويُعطي من يعتقدون أن القصائد الهوميروسية تطورت تدريجياً خلال حقبة زمنية طويلة نسبياً تاريخاً متأخراً لها، إذ يرى غريغوري ناجي أنها لم تصبح نصوصاً ثابتة إلا بحلول القرن السادس قبل الميلاد.يقول ألفرد هيوبك أن تأثير أعمال هوميروس الذي شكل تطور الثقافة الإغريقية وأثر فيها قد أقر به الإغريق الذين اعتبروه معلمهم. رغم أن "هوميروس" اسم إغريقي معروف في المناطق الناطقة بالأيولية،[9] فلا يُعرف شيء مؤكد بشأنه، ومع ذلك، فقد نشأت تقاليد غنية وُحفظت مُعطية تفاصيل معينة عن مكان ميلاده وخلفيته. وكثير من هذه الروايات خيالية: يجعل الهجاء لوشيان في عمله التاريخ الحقيقي منه بابلياً يُدعى تغرانِس، يُسمى نفسه هوميروس عندما يأخذه الإغريق رهينة (هوميروس).[10] سأل الإمبراطور هارديان معبد دلفي عمن كانه هوميروس حقاص، فأتاه الجواب بأنه كان من إيثاكا، وأبواه إبيكاسته وتليماخوس من الأوديسة.[11] جُمعت هذه الحكايات ورُتبت في عددٍ[12] من حيوات هوميروس جُمعت ابتداء من الحقبة الإسكندرية.[13] أكثر هذه الروايات ذيوعاً يرى أن هوميروس وُلد في إيونيا الواقعة في آسيا الصغرى، قرب سميرنا أو جزيرة خيوس، ومات في كيكلادس.وتظهر إشارة إلى سميرنا في الأسطورة التي تقول إن اسمه الأصلي "ميليسجنس" (مولود من نهر ميليس الذي يجري قرب المدينة)، وأنه ابن الحورية كريثيس. وتدل القصائد على هذه الصلة، فهوميروس كان يألف طبوغرافية آسيا الصغرى بشكلٍ يظهر في معرفته بالتضاريس وأسماء الأماكن بالتفاصيل، وفي تشبيهاته التي تأتي من المشاهد المحلية، حين يُصور في الإلياذة السهول المحيطة بنهر كايستر، وعواصف البحر الإيكاري.[15] كما في وصفه لمزج النساء العاج باللون القرمزي في ميونيا وكاريا.[16] يعود الارتباط بخيوس إلى سيمونايدس الأمورغي الذي اقتبس سطراً شهيراً من الإلياذة على أنه من نظم "رجل خيوسي". وتظهر نقابة شعرية من نوعٍ ما تحمل اسم الهوميروسيين أو "أبناء هوميروس" في الجزيرة.[17] يظهر أن الجماعة وجدت هُناك مقتفية أثر سلفٍ أسطوري,[18] أو مجتمعة لتتخصص في إلقاء الشعر الهوميروسي.[19] لنطق اسم الشاعر ذات طريقة نطق كلمة ὅμερος التي تعني "رهينة"، أو "المُرافق، المفروض عليه أن يتبع"، وفي بعض اللكنات: "الأعمى".[19] وقد ألهم هذا التماثل اللفظي العديد من الحكايات التي تجعل من هوميروس رهينة أو رجلاً أعمى. وبخصوص العمى، فإن التقليد الذي يرى أنه أعمى قد يكون ناشئاً عن التقليد الإيوني حيث كلمة "هوميروس" تعني: "قائد الأعمى"،[20] والتقليد الإيولي حيث تعني كلمة "هوميروس": "الأعمى".[21] ويرجع تشخيص هومر بوصفه شاعراً أعمى إلى بعض مقاطع قصيدة ديلوس "أغنية إلى أبولو"، ثالثة الأغاني الهوميروسية،[22] ودعمت مقاطع أخرى عند ثوكيديدس هذا الاعتقاد.[23] وكان للمؤرخ الكومي إفوروس رؤية مماثلة، فصارت هذه رؤية الحقبة الكلاسيكية المعتمدة مستمدة قوتها من تجذير خاطئ يشتق اسم اشاعر من هو مي هورون (ὁ μὴ ὁρών: "الذي لا يرى"). وقد اعتقد الباحثون لوقتٍ طويل بأن هوميروس قد أشار إلى نفسه في الأوديسة عندما وصف شاعراً أعمى في بلاطٍ ملكي يروي قصصاً عن طروادة للملك أوديسيوس الذي تحطمت سفينته. يميل كثيرٌ من الباحثين إلى أخذ اسم الشاعر بوصفه مؤشراً على وظيفة عامة. فيعتقد غريغوري ناجي أنه يعني "الشخص الذي يُنسق الأغنية".[26] كما يعني فعل ὁμηρέω (هوميرو) "يُقابل" و"يغني نغمات متسقة"،[27] ويرى البعض أن "هوميروس" كلمة قد تعني "مُلحن الأصوات".ويربط مارشيلو ديورانتي كلمة "هوميروس" بوصف زيوس "رب التجمعات"، ويُحاجج بأن الاسم يخفي استخداماً قديماً لكلمة "تجمع".صور كتاب الحيوات القديمة هوميروس بوصفه شاعراً متجولاً مثل ثاميريس[32] أو هسيود الذي مشى إلى خالكيذا ليُغني في مباريات جنازة أمفيداماس.[33] مما يُشكل صورة "مغنِ أعمى شحاذ يتجول في الطرقات مع العامة: الإسكافيين، الصيادين، الخزافين، البحارة، العجائز المجتمعين في المدن المطلة على موانئ.[34] وتدل القصائد نفسها على مغنين في بلاطات النبلاء، مما يقسم الباحثين بين من يعتقدون أنه كان متسولاً في الشارع، أم مغنياً في البلاط، ولا زال الجدل غير محسوم حول هوية هوميروس التاريخي.[35] |
Homer In the Western classical tradition, Homer (pron.: /ˈhoʊmər/; Greek: Ὅμηρος, Hómēros) is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest of ancient Greek epic poets. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature. When he lived is unknown. Herodotus estimates that Homer lived 400 years before Herodotus' own time, which would place him at around 850 BC,[1] while other ancient sources claim that he lived much nearer to the supposed time of the Trojan War, in the early 12th century BC.[2] Modern researchers appear to place Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. The formative influence played by the Homeric epics in shaping Greek culture was widely recognized, and Homer was described as the teacher of Greece.[3] Homer's works, which are about fifty percent speeches, provided models in persuasive speaking and writing that were emulated throughout the ancient and medieval Greek worlds. Fragments of Homer account for nearly half of all identifiable Greek literary papyrus finds.[4] Period For modern scholars "the date of Homer" refers not to an individual, but to the period when the epics were created. The consensus is that "the Iliad and the Odyssey date from around the 8th century BC, the Iliad being composed before the Odyssey, perhaps by some decades,"[5] i.e. earlier than Hesiod,[6] the Iliad being the oldest work of Western literature. Over the past few decades, some scholars have argued for a 7th century BC date. Oliver Taplin believes that the conclusion of modern researchers is that Homer dates to between 750 to 650 BC.[7] Some of those who argue that the Homeric poems developed gradually over a long period of time give an even later date for the composition of the poems; according to Gregory Nagy for example, they only became fixed texts in the 6th century BC.[8] The question of the historicity of Homer the individual is known as the "Homeric question"; there is no reliable biographical information handed down from classical antiquity.[9] The poems are generally seen as the culmination of many generations of oral story-telling, in a tradition with a well-developed formulaic system of poetic composition. Some scholars, such as Martin West, claim that "Homer" is "not the name of a historical poet, but a fictitious or constructed name."[10] Life and legends "Homer" is a Greek name, attested in Aeolic-speaking areas,[11] and although nothing definite is known about him, traditions arose purporting to give details of his birthplace and background. The satirist Lucian, in his True History, describes him as a Babylonian called Tigranes, who assumed the name Homer when taken "hostage" (homeros) by the Greeks.[12] When the Emperor Hadrian asked the Oracle at Delphi about Homer, the Pythia proclaimed that he was Ithacan, the son of Epikaste and Telemachus, from the Odyssey.[13] These stories were incorporated into the various[14] Lives of Homer compiled from the Alexandrian period onwards.[15] Homer is most frequently said to be born in the Ionian region of Asia Minor, at Smyrna, or on the island of Chios, dying on the Cycladic island of Ios.[15][16] A connection with Smyrna seems to be alluded to in a legend that his original name was Melesigenes ("born of Meles", a river which flowed by that city), with his mother the nymph Kretheis. Internal evidence from the poems gives evidence of familiarity with the topography and place-names of this area of Asia Minor; for example, Homer refers to meadow birds at the mouth of the Caystros,[17] a storm in the Icarian sea,[18] and mentions that women in Maeonia and Caria stain ivory with scarlet.[19][20] The association with Chios dates back to at least Semonides of Amorgos, who cited a famous line in the Iliad (6.146) as by "the man of Chios".[21] An eponymousbardicguild, known as the Homeridae (sons of Homer), or Homeristae ('Homerizers')[22] appears to have existed there, tracing descent from an ancestor of that name,[23] or upholding their function as rhapsodes or "lay-stitchers" specialising in the recitation of Homeric poetry. Wilhelm Dörpfeld[24] suggests that Homer had visited many of the places and regions which he describes in his epics, such as Mycenae, Troy, the palace of Odysseus at Ithaca and more. According to Diodorus Siculus, Homer had even visited Egypt.[25] The poet's name is homophonous with ὅμηρος (hómēros), "hostage" (or "surety"), which is interpreted as meaning "he who accompanies; he who is forced to follow", or, in some dialects, "blind".[26] This led to many tales that he was a hostage or a blind man. Traditions which assert that he was blind may have arisen from the meaning of the word in both Ionic, where the verbal form ὁμηρεύω (homēreúō) has the specialized meaning of "guide the blind",[27] and the Aeolian dialect of Cyme, where ὅμηρος (hómēros) is synonymous with the standard Greek τυφλός (tuphlós), meaning 'blind'.[28] The characterization of Homer as a blind bard goes back to some verses in the Delian Hymn to Apollo, the third of the Homeric Hymns,[29] verses later cited to support this notion by Thucydides.[30] The Cymean historian Ephorus held the same view, and the idea gained support in antiquity on the strength of a false etymology which derived his name from ho mḕ horṓn (ὁ μὴ ὁρῶν: "he who does not see"). Critics have long taken as self-referential[31] a passage in the Odyssey describing a blind bard, Demodocus, in the court of the Phaeacian king, who recounts stories of Troy to the shipwrecked Odysseus.[32] Many scholars take the name of the poet to be indicative of a generic function. Gregory Nagy takes it to mean "he who fits (the Song) together".[33] ὁμηρέω (homēréō), another related verb, besides signifying "meet", can mean "(sing) in accord/tune".[34] Some argue that "Homer" may have meant "he who puts the voice in tune" with dancing.[35][36] Marcello Durante links "Homeros" to an epithet of Zeus as "god of the assemblies" and argues that behind the name lies the echo of an archaic word for "reunion", similar to the later Panegyris, denoting a formal assembly of competing minstrels.[37][38] Some Ancient Lives depict Homer as a wandering minstrel, like Thamyris[39] or Hesiod, who walked as far as Chalkis to sing at the funeral games of Amphidamas.[40] We are given the image of a "blind, begging singer who hangs around with little people: shoemakers, fisherman, potters, sailors, elderly men in the gathering places of harbour towns".[41] The poems, on the other hand, give us evidence of singers at the courts of the nobility. There is a strong aristocratic bias in the poems demonstrated by the lack of any major protagonists of non-aristocratic stock, and by episodes such as the beating down of the commoner Thersites by the king Odysseus for daring to criticize his superiors. In spite of this scholars are divided as to which category, if any, the court singer or the wandering minstrel, the historic "Homer" belonged.[42] For more details on this topic, see Ancient accounts of Homer, Life of Homer (Pseudo-Herodotus). هناك من يعتقد بعدم وجوده اصلا وهناك من يعتقد انه كان شاعر كفيف ولكن لا يوجد معلومات حقيقية عنه ولذلك سنعتبره مجهول الطفولة. |
Sophocles, Greece, (496-406 BC) Oedipus the King (Ancient Greek: Οἰδίπους Τύραννος, Oidipous Tyrannos), also known by the Latin title Oedipus Rex, is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed c. 429 BCE[1]It was the second of Sophocles's three Theban plays to be produced, but it comes first in the internal chronology, followed by Oedipus at Colonus and then Antigone. Oedipus Rex chronicles the story of Oedipus, a man who becomes the king of Thebes who was destined from birth to murder his father Laius and marry his mother Jocasta. The play is an example of a classic tragedy, noticeably containing an emphasis on how Oedipus's own faults contribute to the tragic hero's downfall, as opposed having fate be the sole cause. Over the centuries, Oedipus Rex has come to be regarded by many as the Greek tragedy par excellence.[2] Background As is the case in most climactic drama, much of what constitutes the myth of Oedipus takes place before the opening scene of the play. In his youth, Laius was a guest of King Pelops of Elis, and became the tutor of Chrysippus, youngest of the king's sons, in chariot racing. He then violated the sacred laws of hospitality by abducting and raping Chrysippus, who according to some versions killed himself in shame. This cast a doom over Laius and his descendants. The action of the playThe protagonist of the tragedy is the son of King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes. After Laius learns from an oracle that "he is doomed/To perish by the hand of his own son", he tightly binds the feet of the infant together with a pin and orders Jocasta to kill the infant. Hesitant to do so, she orders a servant to commit the act for her. Instead, the servant takes the baby to a mountain top to die from exposure. A shepherd rescues the infant and names him Oedipus (or "swollen feet"). The shepherd carries the baby with him to Corinth, where Oedipus is taken in and raised in the court of the childless King Polybus of Corinth as if he were his own. As a young man in Corinth, Oedipus hears a rumour that he is not the biological son of Polybus and his wife Merope. When Oedipus questions the King and Queen, they deny it, but, still suspicious, he asks the Delphic Oracle who his parents really are. The Oracle seems to ignore this question, telling him instead that he is destined to "Mate with [his] own mother, and shed/With [his] own hands the blood of [his] own sire". Desperate to avoid his foretold fate, Oedipus leaves Corinth in the belief that Polybus and Merope are indeed his true parents and that, once away from them, he will never harm them. On the road to Thebes, he meets Laius, his true father. Unaware of each other's identities, they quarrel over whose chariot has right-of-way. King Laius moves to strike the insolent youth with his sceptre, but Oedipus throws him down from the chariot and kills him, thus fulfilling part of the oracle's prophecy. He kills all but one of the other men. Shortly after, Oedipus solves the riddle of the Sphinx, which has baffled many a diviner: "What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three in the evening?" To this Oedipus replies, "Man" (who crawls on all fours as an infant, walks upright later, and needs a walking stick in old age), and the distraught Sphinx throws herself off the cliffside. Oedipus' reward for freeing the kingdom of Thebes from her curse is the kingship and the hand of Queen Dowager Jocasta, his biological mother. The prophecy is thus fulfilled, although none of the main characters know it. A priest and the chorus of Thebans arrive at the palace to call upon their King, Oedipus, to aid them with the plague. Oedipus had sent his brother-in-law Creon to ask help of the oracle at Delphi, and he returns at that moment. Creon says the plague is the result of religious pollution, caused because the murderer of their former King, Laius, had never been caught. Oedipus vows to find the murderer and curses him for the plague that he has caused. Oedipus summons the blind prophet Tiresias for help. When Tiresias arrives he claims to know the answers to Oedipus's questions, but refuses to speak, instead telling Oedipus to abandon his search. Oedipus is enraged by Tiresias's refusal, and says the prophet must be complicit in the murder. Outraged, Tiresias tells the king that Oedipus himself is the murderer. Oedipus cannot see how this could be, and concludes that the prophet must have been paid off by Creon in an attempt to undermine him. The two argue vehemently and eventually Tiresias leaves, muttering darkly that when the murderer is discovered he shall be a native citizen of Thebes; brother and father to his own children; and son and husband to his own mother. Creon arrives to face Oedipus's accusations. The King demands that Creon be executed, however the chorus convince him to let Creon live. Jocasta enters and attempts to comfort Oedipus, telling him he should take no notice of prophets. Many years ago she and Laius received an oracle which never came true. It was said that Laius would be killed by his own son, but, as all Thebes knows, Laius was killed by bandits at a crossroads on the way to Delphi. The mention of this crossroads causes Oedipus to pause and ask for more details. He asks Jocasta what Laius looked like, and Oedipus suddenly becomes worried that Tiresias's accusations were true. Oedipus then sends for the one surviving witness of the attack to be brought to the palace from the fields where he now works as a shepherd. Jocasta, confused, asks Oedipus what the matter is, and he tells her. Many years ago, at a banquet in Corinth, a man drunkenly accused Oedipus of not being his father's son. Bothered by the comment Oedipus went to Delphi and asked the oracle about his parentage. Instead of answers he was given a prophecy that he would one day murder his father and sleep with his mother. Upon hearing this he resolved to leave Corinth and never return. While traveling he came to the very crossroads where Laius was killed, and encountered a carriage which attempted to drive him off the road. An argument ensued and Oedipus killed the travelers, including a man who matches Jocasta's description of Laius. Oedipus has hope, however, because the story is that Laius was murdered by several robbers. If the shepherd confirms that Laius was attacked by many men, then Oedipus is in the clear. A man arrives from Corinth with the message that Oedipus's father has died. Oedipus, to the surprise of the messenger, is made ecstatic by this news, for it proves one half of the prophecy false, for now he can never kill his father. However, he still fears that he may somehow commit incest with his mother. The messenger, eager to ease Oedipus's mind, tells him not to worry, because Merope was not in fact his real mother. It emerges that this messenger was formerly a shepherd on Mount Cithaeron, and that he was given a baby, which the childless Polybus then adopted. The baby, he says, was given to him by another shepherd from the Laius household, who had been told to get rid of the child. Oedipus asks the chorus if anyone knows who this man was, or where he might be now. They respond that he is the same shepherd who was witness to the murder of Laius, and whom Oedipus had already sent for. Jocasta, who has by now realized the truth, desperately begs Oedipus to stop asking questions, but he refuses and Jocasta runs into the palace. When the shepherd arrives Oedipus questions him, but he begs to be allowed to leave without answering further. However, Oedipus presses him, finally threatening him with torture or execution. It emerges that the child he gave away was Laius's own son, and that Jocasta had given the baby to the shepherd to secretly be exposed upon the mountainside. This was done in fear of the prophecy that Jocasta said had never come true: that the child would kill its father. Everything is at last revealed, and Oedipus curses himself and fate before leaving the stage. The chorus laments how even a great man can be felled by fate, and following this, a servant exits the palace to speak of what has happened inside. When Jocasta enters the house, she runs to the palace bedroom and hangs herself there. Shortly afterward, Oedipus enters in a fury, calling on his servants to bring him a sword so that he might kill himself. He then rages through the house, until he comes upon Jocasta's body. Giving a cry, Oedipus takes her down and removes the long gold pins that held her dress together, before plunging them into his own eyes in despair. A blind Oedipus now exits the palace and begs to be exiled as soon as possible. Creon enters, saying that Oedipus shall be taken into the house until oracles can be consulted regarding what is best to be done. Oedipus's two daughters (and half-sisters), Antigone and Ismene, are sent out, and Oedipus laments that they should be born to such a cursed family. He asks Creon to watch over them and Creon agrees, before sending Oedipus back into the palace. On an empty stage the chorus repeat the common Greek maxim, that no man should be considered fortunate until he is dead |
Sophocles LifeAncient Greek: Σοφοκλῆς, Sophoklēs, Greek pronunciation:. 497/6 BC – winter 406/5 BC)[1] is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides. According to the Suda, a 10th century encyclopedia, Sophocles wrote 123 plays during the course of his life, but only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus.[2] For almost 50 years, Sophocles was the most-fêted playwright in the dramatic competitions of the city-state of Athens that took place during the religious festivals of the Lenaea and the Dionysia. He competed in around 30 competitions, won perhaps 24, and was never judged lower than second place. Aeschylus won 14 competitions, and was sometimes defeated by Sophocles, while Euripides won only 4 competitions.[3] The most famous tragedies of Sophocles feature Oedipus and Antigone: they are generally known as the Theban plays, although each play was actually a part of a different tetralogy, the other members of which are now lost. Sophocles influenced the development of the drama, most importantly by adding a third actor, thereby reducing the importance of the chorus in the presentation of the plot. He also developed his characters to a greater extent than earlier playwrights such as Aeschylus.[4] Sophocles, the son of Sophilus, was a wealthy member of the rural deme (small community) of Colonus Hippius in Attica, which was to become a setting for one of his plays, and he was probably born there.[1][5] He was born a few years before the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC: the exact year is unclear, although 497/6 is the most likely.[1][6] Sophocles' first artistic triumph was in 468 BC, when he took first prize in the Dionysia theatre competition over the reigning master of Athenian drama, Aeschylus.[1][7] According to Plutarch the victory came under unusual circumstances. Instead of following the usual custom of choosing judges by lot, the archon asked Cimon and the other strategoi present to decide the victor of the contest. Plutarch further contends that following this loss Aeschylus soon left for Sicily.[8] Although Plutarch says that this was Sophocles' first production, it is now thought that his first production was probably in 470 BC.[5] Triptolemus was probably one of the plays that Sophocles presented at this festival.[5] At the age of 16, Sophocles was chosen to lead the paean (a choral chant to a god), celebrating the Greek victory over the Persians at the Battle of Salamis. He was elected as one of ten strategoi, high executive officials that commanded the armed forces, as a junior colleague of Pericles. Sophocles was born into a wealthy family (his father was an armour manufacturer) and was highly educated. Early in his career, the politician Cimon might have been one of his patrons, although if he was there was no ill will borne by Pericles, Cimon's rival, when Cimon was ostracized in 461 BC[1] In 443/2 he served as one of the Hellenotamiai, or treasurers of Athena, helping to manage the finances of the city during the political ascendancy of Pericles.[1] According to the Vita Sophoclis he served as a general in the Athenian campaign against Samos, which had revolted in 441 BC; he was supposed to have been elected to his post as the result of his production of Antigone.[9] In 420 BC he welcomed and set up an altar for the image of Asclepius at his house, when the deity was introduced to Athens. For this he was given the posthumous epithet Dexion (receiver) by the Athenians.[10] He was also elected, in 413 BC, one of the commissioners (probouloi) who responded to the catastrophic destruction of the Athenian expeditionary force in Sicily during the Peloponnesian War.[11] Sophocles died at the age of ninety or ninety-one in the winter of 406/5 BC, having seen within his lifetime both the Greek triumph in the Persian Wars and the bloodletting of the Peloponnesian War.[1] As with many famous men in classical antiquity, his death inspired a number of apocryphal stories. The most famous is the suggestion that he died from the strain of trying to recite a long sentence from his Antigone without pausing to take a breath. Another account suggests he choked while eating grapes at the Anthesteria festival in Athens. A third holds that he died of happiness after winning his final victory at the City Dionysia.[12] A few months later, a comic poet, in a play titled The Muses, wrote this eulogy: "Blessed is Sophocles, who had a long life, was a man both happy and talented, and the writer of many good tragedies; and he ended his life well without suffering any misfortune."[13] According to some accounts however his own sons tried to have him declared incompetent near the end of his life; he is said to have refuted their charge in court by reading from his as yet unproduced Oedipus at Colonus.[14] One of his sons, Iophon, and a grandson, also called Sophocles, also became playwrights.[15] |
سوفقليس أهم أعماله(Σοφοκλής باللغة اليونانية) (ولد حوالي سنة 496 ق.م. بأثينا وتوفي سنة 405 ق.م.) أحد أعظم ثلاثة كتاب تراجيديا إغريقية، مع ايسخسلوس ويوربيديس. وحسب سودا فقد كتب 123 مسرحية، في المسابقات المسرحية في مهرجان ديونيسيوس، حيث كل تقدمة من أي كاتب كان يجب أن تتضمن أربع مسرحيات، ثلاث تراجيديات بالإضافة إلى مسرحية ساخرة). وقد نال الجائزة الأولى (حوالي عشرين مرة) أكثر من أي كاتب آخر، وحصل على المركز الثاني في جميع المسابقات الأخرى. فقط سبعة من تراجيدياته بقت إلى يومنا هذا. مسرحيات طيبة (سلسلة أوديب) ΕΚ مسرحيات أخرىفيلوكتيتس |
سوفقليس
(Σοφοκλής باللغة اليونانية) (و. ح. 496 ق.م. بأثينا وت. 405 ق.م.) أحد أعظم ثلاثة كتاب تراجيديا إغريقية، مع إسخيلوس و يوريپيدس. وحسب سودا فقد كتب 123 مسرحية، في المسابقات المسرحية في مهرجان ديونيسوس، حيث كل تقدمة من أي كاتب كان يجب أن تتضمن أربع مسرحيات، ثلاث تراجيديات بالإضافة إلى مسرحية ساخرة). وقد نال الجائزة الأولى (حوالي عشرين مرة) أكثر من أي كاتب آخر، وحصل على المركز الثاني في جميع المسابقات الأخرى. فقط سبعة من تراجيدياته بقت إلى يومنا هذا. حياته في عام 468 انتزع الجائزة الأولى للمأساة من إسكلس قادم حديث في سن السابعة والعشرين يسمى سفكليز (سوفكل) أي العاقل المكرم. وكان سفكليز هذا أسعد الناس حظاً ويكاد أن يكون أشدهم تشاؤماً. وكان موطنه الأصلي ضاحية كولونس إحدى ضواحي أثينة، وكان ابن صانع سيوف، ومن أجل هذا فإن الحروب الفارسية والبلوبونيزية التي أفقرت الأثينيين كلهم تقريباً جاءت لهذا الكاتب المسرحي بثروة طائلة(57). وكان فضلاً عن ثرائه رجلاً عبقرياً وسيماً جيد الصحة، نال جائزتي المصارعة والموسيقى - فجمع بذلك بين كفايتين لو شهدهما أفلاطون لاغتبط أشد الاغتباط بوجودهما في رجل واحد. وقد أمكنته مهارته في لعب الكرة وفي العزف على القيثارة من أن يقيم حفلات عامة في الفنين، وكان هو الذي اختارته المدينة بعد واقعة سلاميس ليقود شبان أثينة العراة في رقصة النصر ونشيده(58). وقد ظل محتفظاً ببهاء طلعته إلى أواخر أيامه، ويظهره تمثاله المحفوظ في متحف لاتران Lateran شيخاً ملتحياً بديناً ولكنه قوي طويل القامة. وقد نشأ في أسعد عهود أثينة، وكان صديقاً لبركليز وشغل في عهده أعلى مناصب الدولة؛ فكان في عام 443 أمين بيت المال الإمبراطوري؛ وفي عام440 كان أحد القواد الذين تولوا قيادة قواد أثينة في الحملة التي سيرها بركليز على ساموس، وإن كان من واجبنا أن نضيف إلى هذا أن بركليز كان يعجب بشعره أكثر من إعجابه بخططه الحربية. وعين بعد الكارثة التي حلت بأثينة في سرقوصة عضواً في لجنة الأمن العام(59)، واقترع بحكم منصبه هذا على عودة الدستور الألجركي في عام 411. وكان الشعب يعجب بأخلاقه أكثر من إعجابه بسياسته، فقد كان ظريفاً، لبقاً، متواضعاً، محباً للهو، وهب من قوة الجاذبية ما يكفر عن جميع أخطائه. وكان يحب المال(60)والغلمان(61)، حتى إذا ما بلغ سن الشيخوخة تحول حبه هذا نحو السراري(62)؛ وكان شديد الصلاح، وقد شغل مراراً منصب الكاهن(63). وكتب سفكليز 113 مسرحية، لم يبق منها إلا سبع لا نعرف الترتيب الذي خرجت به. وقد نال الجائزة الأولى في الحفلات الديونيشية ثماني عشرة مرة، ونالها مرتين في الحفلات اللينيائية Lenaean، وحصل على أولى جوائزه في سن الخامسة والعشرين وعلى آخرها وهو في الخامسة والثمانين، وظل يسيطر على المسرح الأثيني ثلاثين عاماً، وكان له عليه من السلطان أكثر مما كان لمعاصره بركليز على الحكومة الأثينية. وهو الذي زاد عدد الممثلين إلى ثلاثة، وظل يقوم ببعض الأدوار حتى فقد صوته. وقد غير نظام المسرحية الثلاثية الذي كان يتبعه إسكلس وفضل أن يدخل المباريات بثلاث مسرحيات مستقلة كل منها عن الأخرى (وحذا حذوه يوربديز من بعده). وكان إسكلس مولعاً بالموضوعات الكونية التي تطغى على أشخاص مسرحياته، أما سفكليز فكان مولعاً بالأخلاق، ويكاد أن يكون حديث النزعة في إدراكه للآثار النفسانية. ومسرحية "المرأة التراقينية" في ظاهرها مسرحية غنائية عاطفية؛ وخلاصتها : أن ديانيرا Deianeira تتملكها الغيرة من حب زوجها هرقل لأيولا Iola فتبعث إليه على غير علم منها بثوب مسمم يقضي عليه فتقتل هي نفسها. وليس الذي يعني به سفكليز في هذه القصة هو العقاب الذي يحل بهرقل - أي العقاب الذي كان يبدو لإسكلس أنه أهم ما في المسرحية - وليس هو عاطفة الحب القوية نفسها - وهي التي كانت تبدو أهم ما فيها في نظر يوربديز - بل الذي يعني به هو سيكولوجية الغيرة. وفي مسرحية أجاكس لا يعني المؤلف بأعمال القوة التي يقوم بها بطل المسرحية، بل إن الذي يعني به هو دراسة رجل ذهب عقله. ولا نكاد نرى في فلكتيتس حادثة ما، بل الذي نراه هو تحليل سافر للسذاجة التي أوذيت وللخيانة الدبلوماسية. والقصة في مسرحية إلكترا قليلة الشأن قديمة، ولقد كان إسكلس يفتتن بما تثيره القصة من مشاكل أخلاقية، أما سفكليز فيكاد يغفل هذه المشاكل في حرصه على دراسة كراهية الفتاة لأمها دراسة تحليلية نفسانية لا أثر للعاطفة أو للشفقة فيها. وقد اشتق من اسم هذه المسرحية اسم لنوع من الاضطراب العصبي كان موضوع البحث في يوم من الأيام، كما اشتق من مسرحية أوديب الملك اسم لنوع آخر من هذا الاضطراب. وأشهر المسرحيات اليونانية بأجمعها مسرحية أوديب تيرانس. والفصل الأول من فصولها قوي الأثر: ترى فيه خليطاً من الرجال، والنساء، والغلمان، والبنات، والأطفال جالسين أمام قصر الملك في طيبة يحملون أغصان الغار والزيتون رمزاً لأنهم جاءوا راجين متوسلين. ذلك أن وباء قد اجتاح المدينة فاجتمع الشعب يطلب إلى الملك أوديب أن يقرب للآلهة قرباناً يسترضيها به. وتعلن إحدى النبوءات أن الطاعون سيذهب عن طيبة إذا خرج القاتل غير المعروف الذي اغتال ملكها السابق. ويعلن أوديب هذا القاتل أياً كان لعنة شديدة، لأن جريمته قد سببت هذا الشقاء كله للمدينة. وبداية المسرحية على هذا النحو خير مثل لتلك الطريقة التي يشير بها هوراس طريقة الاندفاع في وسط الأشياء In Medias Res أي مفاجأة النظارة بالمشكلة أولاً على أن يأتي شرحها فيما بعد. لكن النظارة في هذه المسرحية كانوا يعرفون مجرى الحوادث بطبيعة الحال لأن قصة ليوس Laius وأوديب وأبي الهول كانت جزءاً من القصص الشعبي اليوناني. وتقول الرواية المأثورة إن لعنة قد حلت بليوس وأبنائه لأنه أدخل إلى هلاس رذيلة غير طبيعية(64)، وكانت نتائج هذه الخطيئة التي أهلكت الناس جيلاً بعد جيل موضوعاً شائعاً للمآسي اليونانية. وقد قال الوحي إن ليوس وزوجته جكستا Jocasta سيرزقان ولداً يقتل أباه ويتزوج أمه. وكانت نتيجة هذه النبوءة أن وجد في العالم للمرة الأولى زوجان يريدان أن يكون أول أبنائهما بنتاً؛ ولكنهما رزقا ولداً، وأرادا ألا تتحقق النبوءة فعرضاه للموت على أحد التلال، حيث وجد راعٍ وسماه أوديب لتورم قدميه، وأهداه إلى ملك كورنثة وملكتها فتبنياه وربياه. ولما كبر أوديب عرف من مهبط الوحي أيضاً أنه قد كتب عليه أن يقتل أباه ويتزوج أمه. واعتقد أن ملك كورنثة وملكتها هما أبوه وأمه، ففر من المدينة واتخذ طريقه إلى طيبة. والتقى في الطريق بشيخ طاعن في السن فتشاجر معه وقتله وهو لا يعرف أن هذا الشيخ أبوه. ولما اقترب من طيبة التقى بأبي الهول، وهو مخلوق له وجه امرأة، وذنب أسد، وجناحا طائر. وقد سأل أبو الهول أوديب أن يجيب عن ذلك اللغز المشهور : "ما قولك في مخلوق ذي أربع أقدام، وثلاث أقدام، وقدمين؟". وكان أبو الهول يقتل كل من لا يعرف الجواب الصحيح عن هذا السؤال؛ واستولى الهلع على أهل طيبة واشتدت رغبتهم في تطهير طريق مدينتهم من هذا المخلوق المهول، فنذروا أن يكون ملكهم الثاني هو الرجل الذي يحل هذا اللغز، وذلك لأن أبا الهول قد قرر أن ينتحر إذا عرف إنسان الجواب الصحيح. وأجابه أوديب بقوله : "هو الإنسان؛ لأن الطفل الرضيع يحبو أولاً على أربع أقدام، فإذا كبر مشى على قدمين، وإذا هرم استعان بعصاً". وكانت إجابة عرجاء، ولكن أبا الهول رضي بها ووفى بوعده فقتل نفسه. ورحب الطيبيون بأوديب وعدوه منقذاً لهم، ولما لم يعد ليوس إلى المدينة اختاروا هذا القادم الجديد ملكاً عليهم. واتبع أوديب العادة المألوفة في المدينة فتزوج الملكة ورزق منها أربعة أبناء : أنتجوني، وبولينيسيز Polynices، وإتيكليز Eteocles وإزميني Ismene. طبعا كل الاحتمالات مفتوحة بخصوص حياة هذا الكاتب التراجيدي الكبير فقد عاش قبل الميلاد ويبدو انه عصره كان عصر الحروب والامراض التاكة مثل الطاعون الذي تحدث عنه في مسرحياته التراجيدية. لا بد ان حياته الشخصية كانت ترجيديا من نوع ما لكننا لا بد ان نعتبره مجهول الطفولة بسبب غياب اية معلومة حقيقية عنه. مجهول الطفولة. |
by Honore de Balzac, France, (1799-1850) Le Père Goriot (French pronunciation: [lə pɛʁ ɡɔʁjo], Old Goriot or Father Goriot) is an 1835 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), included in the Scènes de la vie Parisienne section of his novel sequence La Comédie humaine. Set in Paris in 1819, it follows the intertwined lives of three characters: the elderly doting Goriot; a mysterious criminal-in-hiding named Vautrin; and a naive law student named Eugène de Rastignac.Originally published in serial form during the winter of 1834/35, Le Père Goriot is widely considered Balzac's most important novel.[1] It marks the first serious use by the author of characters who had appeared in other books, a technique that distinguishes Balzac's fiction. The novel is also noted as an example of his realist style, using minute details to create character and subtext. The novel takes place during the Bourbon Restoration, which brought profound changes to French society; the struggle by individuals to secure a higher social status is a major theme in the book. The city of Paris also impresses itself on the characters – especially young Rastignac, who grew up in the provinces of southern France. Balzac analyzes, through Goriot and others, the nature of family and marriage, providing a pessimistic view of these institutions. The novel was released to mixed reviews. Some critics praised the author for his complex characters and attention to detail; others condemned him for his many depictions of corruption and greed. A favorite of Balzac's, the book quickly won widespread popularity and has often been adapted for film and the stage. It gave rise to the French expression "Rastignac", a social climber willing to use any means to better his situation. Le Père Goriot begins in June 1819, following Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, after the House of Bourbon had been restored to the throne of France. Tension was mounting between the aristocracy, which had returned with King Louis XVIII, and the bourgeoisie produced by the Industrial Revolution.[2] During this era, France saw a tightening of social structures, with a lower class steeped in overwhelming poverty. By one estimate, almost three-quarters of Parisians did not make the 500–600 francs a year required for a minimal standard of living.[3] At the same time, this upheaval made possible a social mobility unthinkable during the Ancien Régime of previous centuries. Individuals willing to adapt themselves to the rules of this new society could sometimes ascend into its upper echelons from modest backgrounds, much to the distaste of the established wealthy class.[4] Literary backgroundWhen Balzac began writing Le Père Goriot in 1834, he had written several dozen books, including a stream of pseudonymously published potboiler novels. In 1829 he published Les Chouans, the first novel to which he signed his own name; this was followed by Louis Lambert (1832), Le Colonel Chabert (1832), and La Peau de chagrin (1831).[5] Around this time, Balzac began organizing his work into a sequence of novels that he eventually called La Comédie humaine, divided into sections representing various aspects of life in France during the early 19th century.[6] Writing and publicationOne of these aspects which fascinated Balzac was the life of crime. In the winter of 1828–29, a French grifter-turned-policeman named Eugène François Vidocq published a pair of sensationalized memoirs recounting his criminal exploits. Balzac met Vidocq in April 1834, and used him as a model for a character named Vautrin he was planning for an upcoming novel.[7] In the summer of 1834 Balzac began to work on a tragic story about a father who is rejected by his daughters. His journal records several undated lines about the plot: "Subject of Old Goriot – A good man – middle-class lodging-house – 600 fr. income – having stripped himself bare for his daughters who both have 50,000 fr. income – dying like a dog."[8] He wrote the first draft of Le Père Goriot in forty autumn days; it was published as a serial in the Revue de Paris between December and February. It was released as a novel in March 1835 by the publishing house of Werdet, who also published the second edition in May. A much-revised third edition was published in 1839 by Charpentier.[9] As was his custom, Balzac made copious notes and changes on proofs he received from publishers, so that the later editions of his novels were often significantly different from the earliest. In the case of Le Père Goriot, he changed a number of the characters into persons from other novels he had written, and added new paragraphs filled with detail.[10] Plot summaryThe character Eugène de Rastignac had appeared as an old man in Balzac's earlier philosophical fantasy novel La Peau de chagrin. While writing the first draft of Le Père Goriot, Balzac named the character "Massiac", but he decided to use the same character from La Peau de chagrin. Other characters were changed in a similar fashion. It was his first structured use of recurring characters, a practice whose depth and rigor came to characterize his novels.[11] In 1843 Balzac placed Le Père Goriot in the section of La Comédie humaine entitled "Scènes de la vie parisienne" ("Scenes of life in Paris"). Quickly thereafter, he reclassified it – due to its intense focus on the private lives of its characters – as one of the "Scènes de la vie privée" ("Scenes of private life").[12] These categories and the novels in them were his attempt to create a body of work "depicting all society, sketching it in the immensity of its turmoil".[13] Although he had prepared only a small predecessor for La Comédie humaine, entitled Études de Mœurs, at this time, Balzac carefully considered each work's place in the project and frequently rearranged its structure.[14] The novel opens with an extended description of the Maison Vauquer, a boarding house in Paris' rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève covered with vines, owned by the widow Madame Vauquer. The residents include the law student Eugène de Rastignac, a mysterious agitator named Vautrin, and an elderly retired vermicelli-maker named Jean-Joachim Goriot. The old man is ridiculed frequently by the other boarders, who soon learn that he has bankrupted himself to support his two well-married daughters. Rastignac, who moved to Paris from the south of France, becomes attracted to the upper class. He has difficulty fitting in, but is tutored by his cousin, Madame de Beauséant, in the ways of high society. Rastignac endears himself to one of Goriot's daughters, Delphine, after extracting money from his own already-poor family. Vautrin, meanwhile, tries to convince Rastignac to pursue an unmarried woman named Victorine, whose family fortune is blocked only by her brother. He offers to clear the way for Rastignac by having the brother killed in a duel. Rastignac refuses to go along with the plot, balking at the idea of having someone killed to acquire their wealth, but he takes note of Vautrin's machinations. This is a lesson in the harsh realities of high society. Before long, the boarders learn that police are seeking Vautrin, revealed to be a master criminal nicknamed Trompe-la-Mort ("Cheater of Death"). Vautrin arranges for a friend to kill Victorine's brother, in the meantime, and is captured by the police. Goriot, supportive of Rastignac's interest in his daughter and furious with her husband's tyrannical control over her, finds himself unable to help. When his other daughter, Anastasie, informs him that she has been selling off her husband's family jewelry to pay her lover's debts, the old man is overcome with grief at his own impotence and suffers a stroke. Neither Delphine nor Anastasie will visit Goriot as he lies on his deathbed, and before dying he rages about their disrespect toward him. His funeral is attended only by Rastignac, a servant named Christophe, and two paid mourners. Goriot's daughters, rather than being present at the funeral, send their empty coaches, each bearing their families' respective coat of arms. After the short ceremony, Rastignac turns to face Paris as the lights of evening begin to appear. He sets out to dine with Delphine de Nucingen and declares to the city: "À nous deux, maintenant!" ("It's between the two of us now!") |
Honoré de Balzac Family(French pronunciation: [ɔ.nɔ.ʁe d(ə) bal.zak]; 20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon. Due to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multifaceted characters, who are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. His writing influenced many subsequent novelists such as Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gustave Flaubert, Benito Pérez Galdós, Marie Corelli, Henry James, William Faulkner, Jack Kerouac, and Italo Calvino, and philosophers such as Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. Many of Balzac's works have been made into or have inspired films, and they are a continuing source of inspiration for writers, filmmakers and critics. An enthusiastic reader and independent thinker as a child, Balzac had trouble adapting to the teaching style of his grammar school. His willful nature caused trouble throughout his life and frustrated his ambitions to succeed in the world of business. When he finished school, Balzac was an apprentice in a law office, but he turned his back on the study of law after wearying of its inhumanity and banal routine. Before and during his career as a writer, he attempted to be a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician; he failed in all of these efforts. La Comédie humaine reflects his real-life difficulties, and includes scenes from his own experience. Balzac suffered from health problems throughout his life, possibly due to his intense writing schedule. His relationship with his family was often strained by financial and personal difficulties, and he ended several friendships over critical reviews. In 1850 he married Ewelina Hańska, his longtime love; he died five months later. Honoré Balzac was born into a family which had struggled nobly to achieve respectability. His father, born Bernard-François Balssa, was one of eleven children from a poor family in Tarn, a region in the south of France. In 1760 the elder Balzac set off for Paris with only a louis coin in his pocket, determined to improve his social standing; by 1776 he had become Secretary to the King's Council and a Freemason. (He had also changed his name to that of an ancient noble family, and added—without any official cause—the nobiliary particle de.)[1] After the Reign of Terror (1793–94), he was sent to Tours to coordinate supplies for the Army.[2] Early lifeBalzac's mother, born Anne-Charlotte-Laure Sallambier, came from a family of haberdashers in Paris. Her family's wealth was a considerable factor in the match: she was eighteen at the time of the wedding, and Bernard-François fifty.[3] As British writer and critic V. S. Pritchett explained, "She was certainly drily aware that she had been given to an old husband as a reward for his professional services to a friend of her family and that the capital was on her side. She was not in love with her husband."[4] Honoré (so named after Saint Honoré of Amiens, who is commemorated on 16 May, four days before Balzac's birthday) was actually the second child born to the Balzacs; exactly one year previous, Louis-Daniel had been born, but he lived for only a month. Honoré's sisters Laure and Laurence were born in 1800 and 1802, and his brother Henry-François in 1807.[5][6] As an infant Balzac was sent to a wet-nurse; the following year he was joined by his sister Laure and they spent four years away from home. First literary efforts(Although Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau's influential book Émile convinced many mothers of the time to nurse their own children, sending babies to wet-nurses was still common among the middle and upper classes.) When the Balzac children returned home, they were kept at a frigid distance by their parents, which affected the author-to-be significantly. His 1835 novel Le Lys dans la Vallée features a cruel governess named Miss Caroline, modeled after his own caregiver.[8] At age eight Balzac was sent to the Oratorian grammar school in Vendôme, where he studied for seven years. His father, seeking to instill the same hardscrabble work ethic which had gained him the esteem of society, intentionally gave little spending money to the boy. This made him the object of ridicule among his much wealthier schoolmates.[ Balzac had difficulty adapting to the rote style of learning at the school. As a result, he was frequently sent to the "alcove," a punishment cell reserved for disobedient students. (The janitor at the school, when asked later if he remembered Honoré, replied: "Remember M. Balzac? I should think I do! I had the honour of escorting him to the dungeon more than a hundred times!")[12] Still, his time alone gave the boy ample freedom to read every book which came his way. Balzac worked these scenes from his boyhood—as he did many aspects of his life and the lives of those around him—into La Comédie Humaine. His time at Vendôme is reflected in Louis Lambert, his 1832 novel about a young boy studying at an Oratorian grammar school at Vendôme. The narrator says : "He devoured books of every kind, feeding indiscriminately on religious works, history and literature, philosophy and physics. He had told me that he found indescribable delight in reading dictionaries for lack of other books."[13] Although his mind was receiving nourishment, the same could not be said for Balzac's body. He often fell ill, finally causing the headmaster to contact his family with news of a "sort of a coma".[14] When he returned home, his grandmother said: "Voilà donc comme le collège nous renvoie les jolis que nous lui envoyons!" ("Look how the academy returns the pretty ones we send them!")[15] Balzac himself attributed his condition to "intellectual congestion", but his extended confinement in the "alcove" was surely a factor. (Meanwhile, his father had been writing a treatise on "the means of preventing thefts and murders, and of restoring the men who commit them to a useful role in society", in which he heaped disdain on prison as a form of crime prevention.)[16] - In 1814 the Balzac family moved to Paris, and Honoré was sent to private tutors and schools for the next two and a half years. This was an unhappy time in his life, during which he attempted suicide on a bridge over the Loire River.[17] In 1816 Balzac entered the Sorbonne, where he studied under three famous professors. François Guizot, who later became Prime Minister, was Professor of Modern History. Abel-François Villemain, a recent arrival from the Collège Charlemagne, lectured on French and classical literature. And—most influential of all—Victor Cousin's courses on philosophy encouraged his students to think independently.[18] Once his studies were completed, Balzac was persuaded by his father to follow him into the law; for three years he trained and worked at the office of Victor Passez, a family friend. During this time Balzac began to understand the vagaries of human nature. In his 1840 novel Le Notaire, he wrote that a young person in the legal profession sees "the oily wheels of every fortune, the hideous wrangling of heirs over corpses not yet cold, the human heart grappling with the Penal Code."[19] In 1819 Passez offered to make Balzac his successor, but his apprentice had had enough of the law. He despaired of being "a clerk, a machine, a riding-school hack, eating and drinking and sleeping at fixed hours. I should be like everyone else. And that's what they call living, that life at the grindstone, doing the same thing over and over again.... I am hungry and nothing is offered to appease my appetite."[20] He announced his intention to be a writer. The loss of this opportunity caused serious discord in the Balzac household, although Honoré was not turned away entirely. Instead, in April 1819 he was allowed to live in the French capital—as English critic George Saintsbury describes it—"in a garret furnished in the most Spartan fashion, with a starvation allowance and an old woman to look after him", while the rest of the family moved to a house twenty miles [32 km] outside Paris.[21] Balzac's first project was a libretto for a comic opera called Le Corsaire, based on Lord Byron's The Corsair. Realizing he would have trouble finding a composer, however, he turned to other pursuits. In 1820 Balzac completed the five-act verse tragedy Cromwell. Although it pales in comparison to later works, some critics consider it a quality text.[22][23] When he finished, Balzac went to Villeparisis and read the entire work to his family; they were unimpressed.[24] He followed this effort by starting (but never finishing) three novels: Sténie, Falthurne, and Corsino. In 1821 Balzac met the enterprising Auguste Lepoitevin, who convinced the author to write short stories, which Lepoitevin would then sell to publishers. Balzac quickly turned to longer works, and by 1826 he had written nine novels, all published under pseudonyms and often produced in collaboration with other writers.[25] For example, the scandalous novel Vicaire des Ardennes (1822)—banned for its depiction of nearly-incestuous relations and, more egregiously, of a married priest—attributed to a 'Horace de Saint-Aubin'.[26] These books were potboiler novels, designed to sell quickly and titillate audiences. In Saintsbury's view, "They are curiously, interestingly, almost enthrallingly bad."[27] Saintsbury indicates that Robert Louis Stevenson tried to dissuade him from reading these early works of Balzac.[28] American critic Samuel Rogers, however, notes that "without the training they gave Balzac, as he groped his way to his mature conception of the novel, and without the habit he formed as a young man of writing under pressure, one can hardly imagine his producing La Comédie Humaine."[29] Biographer Graham Robb suggests that as he discovered the Novel, Balzac discovered himself.[30] During this time Balzac wrote two pamphlets in support of primogeniture and the Society of Jesus. The latter, regarding the Jesuit order, illustrated his lifelong admiration for the Catholic Church. In the preface to La Comédie Humaine he wrote: "Christianity, and especially Catholicism, being a complete repression of man's depraved tendencies, is the greatest element in Social Order |
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