The Death of a Soul, The Glance of History
And meet the time as it seeks us.
Cymberline
Before the preface, I saw the sentence adopted from Shakespeare¡¯s Cymberline . All of the sudden, a sense of seriousness and heaviness mounted up in my heart. I felt the author¡¯s tone of despair and disillusionment. ¡°at most, one generation had gone though a revolution, another experienced a putsch, the third a war, the fourth a famine, the fifth national bankruptcy¡But we, who are sixty today and who, de jure, still have a space of time before us, what have we not seen, not suffered, not lived though?¡± Such struggling words can only be composed by a writer in unbearable agonies. Actually, the author was forced to witness the most terrible defeat of reason and the wildest triumph of brutality in the chronicle of the ages. What an embarrassing situation it was to an intellectual with great concern for the humanity and morality.
Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 in a middle class family in Austria and died at his own hands in 1942 at the age of 60, crossing two centuries, witnessing two contemporary wars. He was well-known as a novelist, a playwright, a biographer a manuscript collector and a pacifist. In 1934, he was exiled to Britain and then to Brazil where he lived his rest of life with his wife. The World of Yesterday is his autobiography written between 1939 and 1940. Zweig always encouraged his friends to set down their reminiscences, not necessarily for publication but for the pleasure and benefit of their children, their families. As for his own autography, he was to ¡°give some reflection of his life before it sinks into the darkness.¡±(P.9)
It is not so much an autobiography as a ¡°biography¡± of his time. It is a vivid, moving and nostalgic portrayal of Europe before wars; it is a story about intellectual brotherhood which tried to prevent national madness that destroyed the Europe and the world, twice. In the book, we picture the dramatic progress of material wealth and despairing collapse of morality. It also provides a source for us to know other great figures like Dostoyevsky, Goethe, Tolstoy and Freud who constituted the most glorious and attractive scenery at that time, making the sky not so sad.
If we intend to figure out one of the best times in history, there is no doubt that the time before the World War I¡ªZweig¡¯s childhood and youth hood¡ªis definitely one.
In the history of modern western civilization, there have been few incidents of war, famine, and other calamities that severely affected the modern European society. The First World War was one such incident which served as a reflection of modern European society in its industrial age, altering mankind’s perception of war into catastrophic levels of carnage and violence. As a transition to modern warfare, the experiences of the Great War were entirely new and unfamiliar. In this anomalous environment, a range of first hand accounts have emerged, detailing the events and experiences of the authors. For instance, both the works of Ernst Junger and Erich Maria Remarque emphasize the frightening and inhumane nature of war to some degree – more explicit in Jünger’s than in Remarque’s – but the sense of glorification, heroism, and nationalism in Jünger’s The Storm of Steel is absent in Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. Instead, they are replaced by psychological damage caused by the war – the internalization of loss and pain, coupled with a sense of helplessness and disconnectedness with the past and the future. As such, the accounts of Jünger and Remarque reveal the similar experiences of extreme violence and danger of World War I shared by soldiers but draw from their experiences differing ideologies and perception of war.
During Russia’s transition to communism in the early 20th century, conflict and unease permeated every part of life. Nothing was stable and very little of what the Bolsheviks had fought for had come to fruition by the time the USSR disbanded in 1991. The “classless society”, which was to work together for the prosperity of everyone, never became a reality. In the end, the majority of Russia’s 20th century was an utter failure on a grand scale. However, there were many amazing products of the system do to the great importance of education in Russian culture. Priceless novels were written, timeless movies were made, and great scientific endeavors were realized despite the rigid control placed upon Russian persons by the government. In fact, some of the most memorable written works of the time were written protests to the creativity-stifling situation many writers found themselves in. Because of the danger to their lives should the wrong people be upset by their writings, Yevgeny Zamyatin and Mikhail Bulgakov wrote their most popular, Soviet-life condemning novels under the guise of satire. Even though they’re satirizing the same subject, in both We and The Master and Margarita respectively, they take very different paths to do so.
William Shakespeare is widely known for his ability to take a sad story, illustrate it with words, and make it a tragedy. Usually human beings include certain discrepancies in their personalities that can at times find them in undesirable or difficult situations. However, those that are exemplified in Shakespeare’s tragedies include “character flaws” which are so destructive that they eventually cause their downfall. For example, Prince Hamlet, of Shakespeare’s tragedy play “Hamlet,” is seemingly horrified by what the ghost of his father clarifies concerning his death. Yet the actions executed by Hamlet following this revelation do not appear to coincide with the disgust he expresses immediately after the ghost alerts him of the true cause of his death. Thus, it is apparent that the instilled self doubt of Prince Hamlet is as the wand that Shakespeare uses to transform an otherwise sad story to an unfortunate tragedy.
War and Peace illustrates the conflict between the reality of war and the pretense of peace postured in Russia during the Napoleonic Wars and depicts a social dilemma of society’s prioritization of personal interests above the concerns of others. Throughout the novel, Tolstoy stresses the inauthenticity and selfishness ...
William Shakespeare’s dramatic and poetic techniques and his use of hyperbole are used to describe the characters emotions and weaknesses. The use of dramatic irony is used to create personal conflict. This is done throughout the play to describe the characters concerns and their situations.
The preeminence of woe has the potential to devour the vivacity of oneself. This faring of one’s internal afflictions is embedded in Shakespeare’s illustrious tragedy of Hamlet, most notably through the ceaseless complexity of the protagonist. Through his timeless mastery over the intricacy of detail, Shakespeare propels Hamlet, inconsolably stricken with the matter of demise, through interminable depression thereby initiating his fabricated, subsequently candid, lunacy ultimately contributing to his utter ignorance and culmination of life in order to reveal the calamity bestowed in the excessive contemplation of decease.
... as it unfolds. It is saddening to see these characters fail again and again to understand each other, and themselves. Within our own lives however, we are not so different from the characters of the play. Many things are beyond our comprehension, and it is easy for suffering to arise when people are without understanding. Alas, Shakespeare has given us fair warning of the tragedy that could spring from incomprehension. It would be unwise to take this warning for granted; perhaps a pursuit of greater understanding will correlate with less tragedy among our lives.
The soliloquy that appears in Act 3 Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet is easily one of the most popular speeches in English literature. It has been referenced to in Star Trek, Calvin and Hobbes and A Nightmare on Elm Street. However, this speech was not intended to be a lighthearted reference as indicated by Hamlet’s contemplative, philosophical, and bitter tones he uses while questioning the nature of life and death in this soliloquy.
Hansen, Bruce. “Dostoevsky’s Theodicy.” Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, 1996. At . accessed 18 November 2001.
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy shows reader how not to live their everyday life. Of course we have to work day in and day out to provide for our families, but there comes a time when your work life should be put on hold. No life is ever perfect, we must make the best out of what we can accomplish. The Death of Ivan Ilyich teaches us about three themes: the right life, your mental “phony” life versus reality, and the unavoidable death to come.
In Hamlet’s speech, Shakespeare’s efforts to target his Elizabethan audience develop the theme of the frailty of man. Shakespeare conveys this underlying theme of the play by subt...
In this poem, Dickenson depicts the particular word Despair through contrasting similes. The difference between Despair and Fear is like the difference between a wreck and its aftermath. The reader must expend thought on the wreck and its aftermath to determine how to assign Despair and Fear for she introduces one set in seemingly the reverse order of the other. This reverse is shown in the difference between how Despair and Fear is like that between “the instant of a Wreck” and “when the Wreck has been.” However, this poem brings up the peculiarity of the key word choice of “between:” because how can anything be “between” the instant and when something “has been?” Since the “instant of a Wreck” and “when the Wreck has been” are in two separate
While confronting Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground seems a difficult task initially, one must be able to transcend the elaborate diction and parodies, and comprehend the author himself, while also taking root the message Dostoevsky had originally intended in the time it was addressed. Understanding the author himself, along with the period in which the work was written, augments one’s overall discernment of the passage. In the age he wrote, Dostoevsky must have seemed eccentric and outlandish; nevertheless, looking back on him from today with a literary understanding of modernism, he appears ahead of his time. His central premise, although difficult to determine amongst the satire, is humanity’s necessity for freedom and religion, specifically Christianity.
To many individuals the word “progress” has a positive meaning behind it. It suggests improvement, something humans have been obsessed with since the dawn of society. However, if closely examined, progress can also have a negative connotation as well. While bringing improvement, progress can simultaneously spark conformity, dependency, and the obsession of perfection within the individuals caught in its midst. It is this aspect of progress within modern society that negatively affects Ivan Ilych, Leo Tolstoy’s main character in The Death of Ivan Ilych. Ivan’s attempt to conform to modern society’s view of perfection takes away his life long before he dies. Furthermore, his fear of death and reactions towards it reflects modern society’s inability to cope with the ever present reminder that humans still suffer and die, despite all attempts to make life painless, perfect, and immortal.
In this soliloquy, Shakespeare strikes a chord with a fundamental human concern: the validity and worthiness of life. Would it not be easier for us to simply enter a never-ending sleep when we find ourselves facing the daunting problems of life than to "suffer / the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune"? However, it is perhaps because we do not know what this endless sleep entails that humans usually opt against suicide. "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil / Must give us pause." Shakespeare seems to understand this dilemma through his character Hamlet, and thus the phrase "To be, or not to be" has been immortalized; indeed, it has pervaded our culture to such a remarkable extent that it has been referenced countless times in movies, television, and the media. Popular movies such as Billy Madison quote the famous phrase, and www.tobeornottobe.com serves as an online archive of Shakespeare's works. Today, a Shakespeare stereotype is held up by the bulk of society, where they see him as the god of drama, infallible and fundamentally superior to modern playwrights. However, this attitude is not new. Even centuries ago, the "holiness" of Shakespeare's work inspired and awed audiences. In ...