eBooks de Biografías, página 11 de 1015

Romeo and Juliet is a tragic play written early in the career of William Shakespeare about two teenage "star-crossd lovers" whose untimely deaths ultimately unite their feuding households. It was among Shakespeares most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal "young lovers".

Written in the form of a Socratic dialogue, The Republic is an investigation into the nature of an ideal society. In this far-reaching and profoundly influential treatise, Plato explores the concept of justice, the connection between politics and psychology, the difference between words and what they represent, and the roles of art and education, among many other topics. A towering achievement of philosophical insight, The Republic is as relevant to readers today as it was to the citizens of ancient Athens.This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes. With this startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first opening, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetle-like insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing though absurdly comic meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the most widely read and influential works of twentieth-century fiction...

Dubliners is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. They form a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century.The stories were written when Irish nationalism was at its peak, and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging; at a crossroads of history and culture, Ireland was jolted by various converging ideas and influences. They centre on Joyces idea of an epiphany: a moment where a character experiences a life-changing self-understanding or illumination. Many of the characters in Dubliners later appear in minor roles in Joyces novel Ulysses. The initial stories in the collection are narrated by child protagonists, and as the stories continue, they deal with the lives and concerns of progressively older people. This is in line with Joyces tripartite division of the collection into childhood, adolescence and maturity.

"A whole moment of happiness!Is that too little for the whole of a mans life?"White Nights is a novella by Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881).First published in 1848, it was translated in English by Constance Garnett (18611946) in 1918.White Nights is a masterpiece of romantic love. It tells the story of a young man who lives in St. Petersburg and uses to walk alone all night long.One night, he encounters a girl, alone as him, named NastenkaThe novella has been adapted for the screen numerous times, including the 2008 movie Two Lovers, starring Gwyneth Paltrow.

Il fu Mattia Pascal e un celebre romanzo di Luigi Pirandello che apparve dapprima a puntate sulla rivista "Nuova Antologia" nel 1904 e che fu pubblicato in volume nello stesso anno. Fu il primo grande successo di Pirandello, scritto in un momento difficile della sua vita.Luoghi e tempi non sono molto bene specificati, in quanto la storia e un enorme flashback. Possiamo tuttavia identificare dei luoghi chiave (come la Via Ripetta a Roma, Oneglia (Imperia), Nizza e Montecarlo). Possiamo inoltre immaginare che il periodo sia a cavallo tra la fine dellOttocento e gli inizi del Novecento (periodo in cui e vissuto Pirandello), anche se questo romanzo e incredibilmente attuale. La storia non ha una durata precisa pero possiamo affermare che vi e un periodo di tempo in cui si svolge il clou della storia (cioe due anni e mezzo circa).

Voi credete di conoscervi se non vi costruite in qualche modo? E chio possa conoscervi, se non vi costruisco a modo mio? E voi me, se non mi costruite a modo vostro? Possiamo conoscere soltanto quello a cui riusciamo a dar forma. Ma che conoscenza puo essere? È forse questa forma la cosa stessa? Si, tanto per me, quanto per voi; ma non cosi per me come per voi: tanto vero che io non mi riconosco nella forma che mi date voi, ne voi in quella che vi do io; e la stessa cosa non e uguale per tutti e anche per ciascuno di noi puo di continuo cangiare, e difatti cangia di continuo Vitangelo Moscarda, e un individuo ordinario, che ha ereditato dal padre una fortuna e vive senza troppo interrogarsi sulla sua condizione. Un giorno, guardandosi allo specchio, scopre che la gente, compresa sua moglie e i suoi amici piu intimi, hanno di lui unimmagine completamente diversa da quella che lui aveva associato a se stesso fino a quel momento. Anzi, si rende conto che gli altri non hanno una sola immagine di lui, ma una serie infinita di immagini sempre cangianti. Da questa scoperta agghiacciante Moscarda decide di risalire alla sua vera identita, di scoprire ossessivamente chi e davvero, al di la di come lo rappresentano gli altri. Ultimo romanzo di Pirandello, senzaltro uno dei piu complessi, Uno, nessuno e centomila e unacutissima riflessione di portata universale sulla condizione umana e cerca di rispondere alla domanda: Chi siamo? .

"The last word of the landlords literature and the brilliant one at that." Fyodor Dostoyevsky"The best ever Russian historical novel." Nikolai Leskov"One of the most remarkable books of our age." Ivan Turgenev"This is the first class work! This is powerful, very powerful indeed." Gustave Flaubert"The best novel that had ever been written." John Galsworthy"This work, like life itself, has no beginning, no end. It is life itself in its eternal movement." Romain Rolland"The greatest ever war novel in the history of literature." Thomas Mann"There remains the greatest of all novelists for what else can we call the author of War and Peace?" Virginia Woolf"Tolstoy is the greatest Russian writer of prose fiction." Vladimir NabokovTolstoys epic masterpiece intertwines the lives of private and public individuals during the time of the Napoleonic wars and the French invasion of Russia. The fortunes of the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys, of Pierre, Natasha, and Andrei, are intimately connected with the national history that is played out in parallel with their lives. Balls and soirees alternate with councils of war and the machinations of statesmen and generals, scenes of violent battles with everyday human passions in a work whose extraordinary imaginative power has never been surpassed. The prodigious cast of characters, both great and small, seem to act and move as if connected by threads of destiny as the novel relentlessly questions ideas of free will, fate, and providence. Yet Tolstoys portrayal of marital relations and scenes of domesticity is as truthful and poignant as the grand themes that underlie them.

I promessi sposi e un celebre romanzo storico di Alessandro Manzoni, ritenuto il piu famoso e il piu letto tra quelli scritti in lingua italiana. Preceduto dal Fermo e Lucia, spesso considerato romanzo a se, fu pubblicato in una prima versione nel 1827 (detta edizione ventisettana); rivisto in seguito dallo stesso autore, soprattutto nel linguaggio, fu ripubblicato nella versione definitiva fra il 1840 e il 1842 (edizione quarantana).Ambientato tra 1628 e il 1630 in Lombardia durante il dominio spagnolo, fu il primo esempio di romanzo storico della letteratura italiana. Secondo uninterpretazione risorgimentista il periodo storico era stato scelto da Manzoni con lintento di alludere al dominio austriaco sullItalia settentrionale. Quella che Manzoni vuole descrivere e la societa italiana di tutti i tempi anche con le imperfezioni di adesso.Il romanzo si basa su una rigorosa ricerca storica e gli episodi del XVII secolo, come ad esempio le vicende della monaca di Monza e la grande peste del 1629-1631, si fondano tutti su documenti darchivio e cronache dellepoca. Manzoni per il suo romanzo prese come base la religione cattolica: infatti uno dei personaggi principali che viene nominato raramente allinterno della vicenda (anche se importantissimo, se si vuole capire laspetto religioso) e la Divina Provvidenza, la mano di Dio che tutto volge verso il bene. In questo senso si possono considerare Renzo e Lucia (i personaggi principali del romanzo) non come unici protagonisti, che si possono invece dividere in tre gruppi distinti.Protagonista storico: il XVII secolo (1600). Manzoni tesse il suo racconto su una base di fatti realmente accaduti durante questo secolo.Protagonista religioso: la Provvidenza, la mano di Dio.Protagonisti materiali: Renzo Tramaglino e Lucia Mondella (i "promessi sposi" del titolo). Altri due personaggi, Fra Cristoforo e la monaca di Monza, sono comunque protagonisti assoluti dei capitoli loro dedicati.Il romanzo di Manzoni viene considerato non solo una pietra miliare della letteratura italiana, ma anche un passaggio fondamentale nella nascita stessa della lingua italiana. Nei dialoghi riporta anche diversi esempi di parlato spontaneo non ammissibili nella lingua standard, tra cui il frequente uso dellanacoluto. È considerata lopera piu rappresentativa del Risorgimento, del romanticismo italiano e una delle massime della letteratura italiana. Dal punto di vista strutturale e il primo romanzo moderno nella storia di tutta la letteratura italiana. Ebbe anche unenorme influenza nella definizione di una lingua nazionale italiana.

"The Picture of Dorian Gray" is Oscar Wildes classic tale of the moral decline of its title character, Dorian Gray. When Dorian has his portrait painted by Basil Hallward and wishes that he would stay young while his picture changes, his wish comes true. In exchange for this Dorian gives up his soul and as he ages the bad deeds that he commits are reflected in his painting and not him. "The Picture of Dorian Gray", arguably Wildes most popular work, was considered quite scandalous when it was first published in the late 1800s in Victorian England.

Jonathan Swift - Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, better known simply as Gullivers Travels (1726, amended 1735), is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the "travellers tales" literary subgenre. It is Swifts best known full-length work.

Scandalously frank, wittily erudite, mercurially eloquent, resourcefully comic and generously humane, Ulysses offers the reader a life-changing experience. James Joyces astonishing masterpiece tells of the diverse events which befall Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus in Dublin on 16 June 1904, during which Blooms voluptuous wife, Molly, commits adultery. Initially deemed obscene in England and the USA, this richly-allusive novel, revolutionary in its Modernistic experimentalism, was hailed as a work of genius by W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway.

Jane Eyre, the story of a young girl and her passage into adulthood, was an immediate commercial success at the time of its original publication in 1847. Its representation of the underside of domestic life and the hypocrisy behind religious enthusiasm drew both praise and bitter criticism, while Charlotte Brontes striking expose of poor living conditions for children in charity schools as well as her poignant portrayal of the limitations faced by women who worked as governesses sparked great controversy and social debate. Jane Eyre, Brontes best-known novel, remains an extraordinary coming-of-age narrative, and one of the great classics of literature.

Discussed and debated from time immemorial, the concept of personal liberty went without codification until the 1859 publication of On Liberty. John Stuart Mills complete and resolute dedication to the cause of freedom inspired this treatise, an enduring work through which the concept remains well known and studied.The British economist, philosopher, and ethical theorists argument does not focus on "the so-called Liberty of the Willbut Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual." Mill asks and answers provocative questions relating to the boundaries of social authority and individual sovereignty. In powerful and persuasive prose, he declares that there is "one very simple principle" regarding the use of coercion in society one may only coerce others either to defend oneself or to defend others from harm.The new edition offers students of political science and philosophy, in an inexpensive volume, one of the most influential studies on the nature of individual liberty and its role in a democratic society.

This historical romance of seventeenth-century Milan, first published in 1827, is the most famous of Italian novels. It has great breadth and depth-- indeed its moral, religious, and political themes are as applicable to the problems of our own day as they were to the Napoleonic times when it was written, or the period of the Thirty Years War in which it is set.

Bram Stokers vampire novel Dracula, which paved the way for vampire lore in popular culture, was published today in 1897. Here are 10 facts about the former Daily Telegraph journalist.Bram Stoker wrote 12 novels, including Dracula and The Jewel of Seven Stars, and also published collections of short stories. Dracula was originally titled The Undead. As Dracula says: My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. To date, more than 1000 novels and 200 films have been made about the vampire Dracula.Stoker, who had been an occasional freelance contributor to The Daily Telegraph in the 1890s, began working regularly for the paper as part of the literary staff from 1905 until 1910, during which time he also wrote theatre reviews for the paper. During this period, he was also working on The Lair of the White Worm.Born in Dublin on 8 November 1847, Stoker had an ancient, colourful lineage on his mothers side including the legendary sheriff of Galway, who hanged his own son. It was material the writer mined in his fiction.A key inspiration for Dracula was always said to have been Vlad the Impaler, the 15th-century Transylvanian-born prince also known as Vlad III Dracula of Wallachia. However, historian Fiona Fitzsimons says: Stoker did not use overtly Irish references in Dracula, but his main theme is taken from Irish history the history, we now learn, of his own family recast in the writers imagination. Manus the Magnificent (Manus ODonnell,who once ruled much of Ireland) was Stokers direct ancestor and was an influence on the book."

TREASURE ISLAND is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "buccaneers and buried gold". It was originally serialized in the childrens magazine Young Folks between 1881 through 1882 under the title Treasure Island, or the mutiny of the Hispaniola, credited to the pseudonym "Captain George North". It was first published as a book on 14 November 1883 by Cassell & Co.Treasure Island is traditionally considered a coming-of-age story, and is noted for its atmosphere, characters, and action. It is also noted as a wry commentary on the ambiguity of morality-as seen in Long John Silver-unusual for childrens literature. It is one of the most frequently dramatized of all novels. Its influence is enormous on popular perceptions of pirates, including such elements as treasure maps marked with an "X", schooners, the Black Spot, tropical islands, and one-legged seamen bearing parrots on their shoulders.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (German: Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch fur Alle und Keinen, also translated as Thus Spake Zarathustra) is a philosophical novel by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, composed in four parts between 1883 and 1885 and published between 1883 and 1891. Much of the work deals with ideas such as the "eternal recurrence of the same", the parable on the "death of God", and the "prophecy" of the Ubermensch, which were first introduced in The Gay Science.Thus Spoke Zarathustra was conceived while Nietzsche was writing The Gay Science; he made a small note, reading "6,000 feet beyond man and time," as evidence of this. More specifically, this note related to the concept of the eternal recurrence, which is, by Nietzsches admission, the central idea of Zarathustra; this idea occurred to him by a "pyramidal block of stone" on the shores of Lake Silvaplana in the Upper Engadine, a high alpine region whose valley floor is at 6,000 feet (1,800 m). Nietzsche planned to write the book in three parts over several years. He wrote that the ideas for Zarathustra first came to him while walking on two roads surrounding Rapallo, according to Elisabeth Forster.

"Three Men in a Boat" is the story of three Englishman who pile into a boat with food, clothes, and a fox terrier named Montmorency and set off on the Thames to see the English countryside. "Three Men in a Boat" is a first-class comic masterpiece. As the three well-to-do upper class gentleman set out on their excursion they are beset by a series of comic mishaps. Jerome K. Jerome masterfully weaves a tale that is a hilarious critique of the self-centered behavior of the English upper classes so typical of Victorian England.

Oliver Twist, or The Parish Boys Progress, is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens and was first published as a serial 183739. The story is of the orphan Oliver Twist, who starts his life in a workhouse and is then sold into apprenticeship with an undertaker. He escapes from there and travels to London, where he meets the Artful Dodger, a member of a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal, Fagin.Oliver Twist was born into a life of poverty and misfortune in a workhouse in an unnamed town (although when originally published in Bentleys Miscellany in 1837, the town was called Mudfog and said to be within 70 miles north of London in reality, this is the location of the town of Northampton). Orphaned by his mothers death in childbirth and his fathers unexplained absence, Oliver is meagerly provided for under the terms of the Poor Law and spends the first nine years of his life living at a baby farm in the care of a woman named Mrs. Mann. Oliver is brought up with little food and few comforts. Around the time of Olivers ninth birthday, Mr. Bumble, the parish beadle, removes Oliver from the baby farm and puts him to work picking and weaving oakum at the main workhouse. Oliver, who toils with very little food, remains in the workhouse for six months. One day, the desperately hungry boys decide to draw lots; the loser must ask for another portion of gruel. The task falls to Oliver, who at the next meal tremblingly comes up forward, bowl in hand, and begs Mr. Bumble for gruel with his famous request: "Please, sir, I want some more".