As an English speaking college student with only a basic, conversational understanding of French, finding historical information specifically on Jean-Paul Marat has been rather difficult. Nearly every work printed in English that could be located on this intriguing man is printed in a collection of short biographies about famous figures of the French Revolution and so, naturally focuses primarily on his part in the Revolution and less on himself specifically, with what books there are about him alone being written by the same two scholars: Louis R Gottschalk, Ph.D. and Clifford D. Conner.
As has been pointed out, most English books written about Marat are short biographies within books of the same about important figures from the French Revolution. Surprisingly, these mini biographies seem to focus in on attaching Marat’s personal history and character before proceeding to use that to further their argument over his part in the revolution. The most common opening seems to be to make remarks toward Marat’s physical appearance and personality. In fact, Henri Béraud not opens his chapter on Marat with this very topic, but follows it up with a highly opinionated portrayal of Marat’s motives for every aspect of his life. Béraud attempts to counter the negative image that is usually painted of Marat’s physical appearance and personality by first giving examples of how other authors describe Marat and how Marat, supposedly, described himself.
Following the physical description of Marat, Béraud immediately turns to examining the faults in Marat’s personality. As he states, “A disproportionate longing for celebrity, a colossal vanity; such were the dominating characteristics to which all Marat’ actions, good or bad, can be attribute...
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... French Revolution, x
22. Ibid., ix
23. Ibid., 112-115
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Conner, Clifford D. Jean Paul Marat: scientist and revolutionary. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1997.
Conner, Clifford D.. Jean Paul Marat tribune of the French Revolution. London: Pluto Press; EBook. 2012.
Gottschalk, Louis R.. "The Radicalism of Jean Paul Marat." The Sewanee Review 29, no. 2 (1921): 155-170. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27533413 (accessed November 11, 2013).
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Janet Lewis, the author of The Wife of Martin Guerre, illustrates what family dynamics were like in the sixteenth century, “…for the extend of his father’s lifetime Martin would legally remain a minor” whereas, women’s identity and importance were only known through their husbands. However, within this novel Bertrande de Rols, wife of Martin Guerre, is known as herself; this is to express that the novel was written according to her experience as the wife of Martin Guerre. Even though, it wasn’t acceptable for women to go forward with such accusations, Bertrande de Rols did the right thing pursuing Arnaud as an impostor because she knew he was not her husband despite what everyone else said. After all, she knew Martin best.
To summarize the book into a few paragraphs doesn't due it the justice it deserves. The beginning details of the French and Ind...
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Meursault is a fairly average individual who is distinctive more in his apathy and passive pessimism than in anything else. He rarely talks because he generally has nothing to say, and he does what is requested of him because he feels that resisting commands is more of a bother than it is worth. Meursault never did anything notable or distinctive in his life: a fact which makes the events of the book all the more intriguing.
The Memoires de l’Estat de France quoted in R J Knecht Profiles in Power: Catherine de Medici, Essex, 1998
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Furet, Francois ‘Napoleon Bonaparte’ in G, Kate (ed.). The French Revolution: Recent Debates and New Controversies. Clarendon Press, Oxford (1997). Gildea, Robert. Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800-1914, Oxford University Press, New York 2nd edn, 1996.
In his book Gargantua and Pantagruel, Francois Rabelais uses satire to address the dislocation felt by Renaissance Humanists. By providing an exaggerated fable, comical in nature, Rabelais poses a serious introspection into the extremes of both the Medieval and the Renaissance man. More importantly, however, he brings into question his own ideals of Humanism. Through an analysis of Rabelais’ satirical technique and by examining his social parody of the Medieval and the Renaissance man, we are able to better understand Rabelais’ introspection into the ideals of his own generation and to accept his argument that learning is transitory and often a necessary, yet futile, attempt to understand our world.
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