用于开始列举时:
D’abord...
Tout d’abord...
En premier lieu...
Mon premier point portera sur…
J’aborderai d’abord…
Le premier facteur semble être…
Une première remarque s’impose …
开始一个新的论述阶段时：
Ensuite…
En second lieu…
Passons maintenant à…
Venons-en à présent à…
Second facteur …
Il nous faut considérer aussi…
Outre ce que l’on vient d’, il faut aborder également… Outre cela…
En outre…
Par ailleurs…
D’autre part… De plus…
用于罗列最后一点时：
Enfin…
Ma dernière remarque portera sur…
Abordons pour finir…
Je terminerai par…
Je voudrais noter pour finir…
Le dernier point concerne…
用于总结时：
En conclusion...
Pour conclure…
Bref…
En bref…
En somme…
En un mot…
Pour résumer d’un mot …
En résumé, on peut dire que…
Il ressort de tout ce qui précède que…
En définitive…
Finalement…
Au total…
从给出的数据做分析时：
-on peut noter/on notera que/il est à noter que… -on peut remarquer que/ remarquons d’abord….une première remarque s’impose… -on constate que/on peut constater que /une constatation immédiate s’impose… -soulignons tout d’abord que / nous soulignons d’abord… -on voit bien(que) -l’examen des chiffres indique que …. -Au vu des chiffres , on constate que… -un simple coup d’?il sur les chiffres permet de dire que -une étude un peu attentive des chiffre indique -si nous considérons les chiffres, nous constatons…. ----augmenter , diminuer, rester au même niveau exprimer la cause 表达原因时：
-à cause de / gr?ce à
-en raison de / à la suite de /par suite de /pour cause de / compte tenu de -en effet / car
-parce que / étant donné que / vu que /du fait que/comme / puisque exprimer la conséquence 表达结果时：
-donc/d’où/aussi / ainsi/ ainsi donc
-alors/de là/
-par conséquent/ en conséquence/ c’est pourquoi
-si bien que/ de telle manière que /de telle fa?on que / de telle sorte que -de manière que
exprimer la concession 表达转折让步时：
-malgré / en dépit de
-mais/pourtant/cependant/toutefois/néanmoins/tout de même/quand même/même si/en tout cas
-bien que/quoi que / encore que /moins que /ceci étant, n'oublions pas que/en revanche / par contre / au contraire
exprimer la comparaison / opposition 表达对比反对时：
-au lieu de / à
c?té de
-en échange/ en revanche
-alors que / au lieu que
exprimer la condition et l’hypothèse 表达假设时：
-en cas de/ avec/ sans
-à moins de/ à condition de
-à moins que / pour peu que/en admettant que/ pourvu que /
condition que / sans que
-un gérondif
-si
exprimer l’insistance 表达坚决要求时：
-ceci à plus forte raison parce que
-ceci d’autant plus que
-et qui plus est
-non seulement
-mais encore
-d’ailleurs
illustrant par l’exemple 用于举例说明时：
-Je citerai par exemple
-J e prendrai un exemple, celui de
-Un exemple me suffira , celui de
-On peut prendre l’exemple de
-Je voudrais illustrer ce fait à l’aide d’un exemple
exprimer son opinion personnelle 用于表达个人观点时：
-Je pense que / je crois que /il me semble que /j’ai l’impression que/j’estime que
-à mon avis/ pour moi/ pour ma part/ selon moi
-en ce qui me concerne/quant à moi
pour opposer 用于反对时：
les deux théories s’opposent l’une à l’autre, se différencient l’une de l’autre, différent, divergent ces deux opinions sont opposées , sont dissemblables , sont contraires, sont contradictoires, sont totalement différentes -il existe une profonde contradiction entre ces deux théories , une divergence de vues , un désaccord.
2.entre 2 idées ou informations(表达两种观点或者两种信息)
opposition(对立面): mais , cepentant , pourtant/toutefois
conclution(结论): donc , ainsi , c’est pourquoi
addition(补充): aussi , de plus , également/en outre
cause(原因): car , parce que , en effet/en fait/en réalité
ex(例证): par exemple , notament , ainsi
résumé(总结): bref , donc , en sommes/en un mot
3. entre 2 parties du texte précidentes en récuit()
开始 接着 最后
au début , un peu plus tard , finalement
d’abord , ensuite , puis , enfin
premièrement , deuxièmement , troisièmement
il est vrais que , et pourtant , dans le fonds/après tout
法语常用句型（一）
1... être en ...ième année ...[谁]在....[几]年级
... être dans le département de ......... ...[谁]在....系
à l`Universite de（s） .... 在.... 大学
2... être difficile pour qn .... [东西] 对...[某人]是难的
... être difficile à f .... ....[某事]难于 f （如何干）...
3... profiter de（du,des） qch pour f qch
...谁]利用... 干.... [某事]
4... venir de（du,des）地名（点） ...[谁]从....[地方]来 ... venir à（en, au, aux ） 地名（点） ...[谁]来到....[地方] ... venir f ......... ...来做...... [某事]
5... aller à（en, au, aux）地点（名） ...[谁]到....[地方]去
aller（inviter qn, venir） chez qn 去（请[谁]...,来）.... [谁]家
6... de（du） .... à （au）......... 从[时.地]....到[时.地]....（每）
7... inviter qn à f qch 请...[某人]干....[某事]
8... aider qn à f qch 帮...[某人]干....[某事]
9... vouloir f ......... 想要干....[某事]
10... être （pays） ...[某人]是....[某国]人
... être de （地名） ...[某人]是....[某地]人
... venir de（du,des）地名（点） ...[某人]从....[地方]来 ... habiter à 地名 ...[某人]住在... [某地]
11... être（3） à （名词，moi,...）...... ....[东西]是属于.........的
12... écritre...en + （语言） ....用...[某种] 语言写....
13... écouter qch ......听（到）......... [东西]事
... écouter qn ......听......... [某人]的话
14... parler à（au......） qn de qch .........对[某人]讲.... [某事] ... parler à（au......） qn .........和[某人]讲话
... parler de qch & qn .........谈起.... [某事]＆[某人]
...parler .... （语言） ...[某人]说...... [某种] （语言）
Parler-（moi,...）en + （语言） 用...语言与[某人]讲....＊
（二）
15...louer qch ......租入.........[东西]
...louer qch à（au......） qn ......租出......[东西]给... .[某人]
16...s'adresser à（au......） qn ... 向. ......[某人]请教＆帮忙
17...prendre ......... pour f à .... .........乘.........去干（到）......... ...venir à ....地 en.........交通工具 .........去....[某地]乘...... ...monter dans ......（车） ......... ...... 上......（车）
18... être à la retraite . ...[谁]退休（表状态
... être en retraite . ...[谁]退休（表状态）
... prendre sa retraite...... ...[谁]退休（表动作）
19..être gentil（le） avec qn. ...[谁]....对[某人]亲切
20...être d'accord avec qn. ...[谁]同意...[某人]的意见＆看法
21...faire un voyage à .... ....去......... [某地]旅行（远）
22...être de .........（number） ......[东西]是...（多少）...
23...téléphoner à qn ...打电话给...[某人]....
passer X a Y 让Y 接X电话
réveiller qn 叫醒某人 qn se réveiller 某人醒了
être ravi de f qch 非常高兴干某事
emmener qn 带某人 （干,去）
emporter qch 带走某物
inviter qn à f qch 邀请某人作某事
inviter qn à qch 邀请某人干某事
quitter qn & qch 离开某人或某地
s'en dormir 入睡 se coucher 上床睡 dormir 睡觉
appeler qn 叫来某人 打电话给某人
chercher qch & qn 找某物或某人
venir （aller） chercher qn 来（去）接某人
（三）
approcher（v. t.ind.） de… 走近 向…靠近
être proche（adj.） de… 离…很近
à la place de… 代替…
passer （se metter ） à table 入席
être à table 正吃饭 à table 该上桌了
se sentir 感觉 sentir qch 闻… sentir （v.ind.）散发…气味 avoir du temps 有时间
avoir le temps de f qch 有时间作某事
avoir du temps pour f qch 有时间，可以作…
préfèrer A qch à B qch 喜欢A 甚于B
préfèrer f que de f 宁愿干某事，而不干某事
passer …（temps） à f 花了…（时间）干
qch passer avant qch …比…更重要
aimer f （à f） 喜欢作
第二篇：【法语学习】Mpmxne托福雅思考试很有用的写作资料-英文版的名人生平大全 写作素材 共(35页)
秋风清，秋月明,落叶聚还散,寒鸦栖复惊。
Biography of Homer
Homer is the man who, according to legend, wrote the two great epics of Greek history: the Iliad (the tale of the Trojan War) and the Odyssey (about the travels of). Both books are considered landmarks in human literature and Homer is therefore often cited as the starting point of Western literary and historical
tradition. The details of Homer's life are a mystery; some scholars believe that no such man ever existed, and that the works credited to him were actually told and gathered by many people over many centuries. Other stories give various
birthplaces and ages for Homer and suggest he was a wandering poet or minstrel. Homer is usually said to have been blind, a point on which nearly all the legends agree.
Biography of Aristotle
Aristotle is one of the "big three" in ancient Greek philosophy, along with and. (Socrates taught Plato, who in turn instructed Aristotle.) Aristotle spent nearly 20 years at Plato's Academy, first as a student and then as a teacher. After Plato's death he travelled widely and educated a famous pupil, , the Macedonian who
nearly conquered the world. Later Aristotle began his own school in Athens, known as the Lyceum. Aristotle is known for his carefully detailed observations about nature and the physical world, which laid the groundwork for the modern study of biology. Among his works are the texts Physics, Metaphysics, Rhetoric and Ethics. Biography of Archimedes Archmedes (ar-ke-me'-deez), a renowned mathematician. His astonishing skill in mechanics was such that some of the greatest real triumphs of antiquity may be ascribed to him. His inventions amazed his contemporaries: the lifting of weights by means of pulleys and the endless screw are among them. A Roman historian celebrates the warlike engines produced by the skill of Archimedes. His mind ever fruitful of extraordinary resources, when Syracuse was besieged by Marcellus, he constructed a burning-glass on a scale of such magnitude that by means of it the enemy's fleet was fired. Eventually, the city being taken, he was found among the slain.
Biography of Dante
An exiled and wandering figure during his writing lifetime, Dante is now considered Italy's greatest poet -- so much a literary giant that he is generally known by his first name alone. The Divine Comedy, by far his most famous work, is the story of a journey through Hell, Purgatory
and finally Paradise. (The journey through Hell is often referred to independently as "Dante's Inferno.") In the poem the first two stages are guided by the Roman poet, and the final visit to Paradise is led by a woman named Beatrice -- a girl Dante met briefly when he was nine and whom he idolized the rest of his life. The Divine Comedy is the source of many famous classical images, inspiring works by and others, and is famous for its inscription on the gates of Hell: "All hope abandon, ye who enter here." Joan of Arc (1412-1431)
A hero of the Hundred Years War, Joan of Arc remains a French national hero six centuries later. As a teenager she heard voices from on high urging her to save France from English domination. Despite being a young woman, she was placed at the head of an army; she attacked the
English and forced them to retreat from Orléans. Later she was captured by the English, tried for heresy, and burned at the stake. In 1920 she was canonized by the Catholic Church. Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was born in 1451 Calvi (), northwest of the island, 200km from Ajaccio. He was the oldest of five children. As a child, he helped his father as a weaver. He always liked the sea. Genoa was an important seaport. There is no doubt that as a child he caught rides on ships. He had little schooling but was a genius with the sea. His plan was not to prove that the world was flat, but it was to find a shortcut to the Spice Islands. He wanted to establish a city there for trade, seaports, and much more. When he grew into a man he was interested in sailing to Asia by going west. First he went to the king of and presented his idea before him. Italy wasn't looking for a way to Asia, they were still recieving riches from their old trade routes. His three ships were the Santa Maria, the Nina, and the Pinta.
Pensacola News Journal - 路 FOUNDED/ESTABLISHED: 1828. 路 HISTORY: This city, named for Christopher Columbus, is located on a bluff overlooking the Chattahoochee River. It is the third largest city in Georgia and the fourth largest metropolitan area in the state. Coca-Cola ...
Philadelphia Enquirer - COLUMBUS, Ga. - Georgia schools students usually are allowed no more than five non-excused absences before they are considered truant. The boys of summer from Columbus who are still swinging away in the Little League World Series have been given the ...
Toledo Blade - COLUMBUS - St. Francis de Sales outgained Columbus DeSales by 187 yards, but DeSales' special teams were superior in knocking off the Knights 24-21 last night in a season-opener. After Knights quarterback Matt Meinert hit Mike Jesionowski for a six ...
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci is best remembered as the painter of the (1503-1506) and The Last Supper (1495). But he's almost equally famous for his astonishing multiplicity of talents: he dabbled in architecture, sculpture, engineering, geology, hydraulics and the military arts, all with success, and in his spare time doodled parachutes and flying machines that resembled inventions of the 19th and 20th centuries. He made detailed drawings of human anatomy which are still highly regarded today. Leonardo also was quirky enough to write notebook entries in mirror
(backwards) script, a trick which kept many of his observations from being widely known until decades after his death.
Nicolas Copernicus
Nicolas Copernicus was born into a well-to-do family, and after his father died in 1483 he was put under the guardianship of his uncle, a bishop of Warmia (Poland). He went to university in Krakow and spent a decade in Italy, studying law and mathematics. A canon of the cathedral at Frombork, Copernicus carried out administrative duties and, from his house, observed the stars and planets. For years he worked on his theory that the planets in our solar system revolved around the sun (Ptolemy of ancient Greece had explained that the universe was a closed system revolving around the earth, and the Catholic church concurred). Hesitant to publish his work for fear of being charged with heresy, Copernicus summarized it in 1530 and circulated it among Europe's scholars, where it was greeted with enthusiasm. His work, titled De revolutionibus orbium coelestium was finally published in 1543, apparently just a few weeks before he died
Socrates
Socrates is credited with laying the foundation for Western philosophical thought. His "Socratic Method" involved asking probing questions in a give-and-take which would eventually lead to the truth. Socrates's iconoclastic attitude didn't sit well with everyone, and at age 70 he was charged with heresy and corruption of local youth. Convicted, he carried out the death sentence by drinking hemlock, becoming one of history's earliest martyrs of conscience. Socrates's most famous pupil was, who in turn instructed the philosopher
Confucius
Also Known As: Kong Fu-Zi
Confucius was a teacher, scholar and minor political figure, whose commentary on Chinese literary classics developed into a pragmatic philosophy for daily life. Not strictly religious, his teachings were a utilitarian approach to social harmony and the moral obligations between individuals and social systems.
Biography of Michelangelo Buonarroti
Perhaps the greatest influence on western art in the last five centuries, Michelangelo was an Italian sculptor, architect, painter and poet in the period known as the High Renaissance. His great works were almost entirely in the service of the Catholic Church, and include a huge
statue of the Biblical hero David (over 14 feet tall) in Florence, sculpted between 1501 and 1504, and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome (commissioned by), painted between 1508 and 1512. After 1519 Michelangelo was increasingly active in architecture; he designed the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, completed after his death. Along with contemporaries and, he is considered one of the great masters of European art.
Ferdinand Magellan
Portuguese name: Fernao de Magalhaes
Magellan was born in Portugal, but it was under the Spanish flag that he sailed in 1519 with the intention of reaching the Spice Islands by sailing west around South America. After much hardship he succeeded in reaching and then sailing across the Pacific Ocean. Soon thereafter he was killed while trying to subdue the natives on what is now the island of Mactan in the Philippines. After still more hardships, one of his original five ships, Victoria, eventually made it back to Spain. Though Magellan didn't complete the entire circumnavigation, as the expedition's leader he is usually credited with being the first man to circle the globe Miguel de Cervantes
Full name: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Cervantes wrote the epic satire, regarded as the first true modern novel. Little is known of Cervantes's early life; at 23 he enlisted in the Spanish militia and then fought against the Turks in the battle of Lepanto (1571) where a gunshot wound permanently crippled his left hand. He spent four more years at sea and then another five as a slave after being captured by Barbary pirates. Ransomed by his family, he returned to Madrid but his disability hampered him; it was in debtor's prison that he began to write Don Quixote. The, a dreamy middle-aged nobleman,
sets out through Spain on a makeshift quest to fight injustice through acts of chivalry.
Cervantes wrote many other works, including poems and plays, but none had the impact or popularity of his masterpiece.
Shakespeare
1564?616, English dramatist and poet, b. Stratford-on-Avon. He is considered the greatest playwright who ever lived.
Life
His father, John Shakespeare, was successful in the leather business during Shakespeare's early childhood but later met with financial difficulties. During his prosperous years his father was also involved in municipal affairs, holding the offices of alderman and bailiff during the 1560s. While little is known of Shakespeare's boyhood, he probably attended the grammar school in Stratford, where he would have been educated in the classics, particularly Latin grammar and literature. Whatever the veracity of Ben Jonson's famous comment that Shakespeare had "small Latine, and less Greeke," much of his work clearly depends on a knowledge of Roman comedy, ancient history, and classical mythology.
In 1582 Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior and pregnant at the time of the marriage. They had three children: Susanna, born in 1583, and twins, Hamnet and Judith, born in 1585. Nothing is known of the period between the birth of the twins and Shakespeare's emergence as a playwright in London (c.1592). However, various suggestions have been made regarding this time, including those that he fled Stratford to avoid prosecution for stealing deer, that he joined a group of traveling players, and that he was a country schoolteacher. The last suggestion is given some credence by the academic style of his early plays; The Comedy of Errors, for example, is an adaptation of two plays by Plautus.
In 1594 Shakespeare became an actor and playwright for the Lord Chamberlain's Men, the company that later became the King's Men under James I. Until the end of his London career Shakespeare remained with the company; it is thought that as an actor he played old men's roles, such as the ghost in Hamlet and Old Adam in As You Like It. In 1596 he obtained a coat of arms, and by 1597 he was prosperous enough to buy New Place in Stratford, which later was the home of his retirement years. In 1599 he became a partner in the ownership of the Globe theatre, and in 1608 he was part owner of the Blackfriars theatre. Shakespeare retired and returned to Stratford c.1613. He undoubtedly enjoyed a comfortable living throughout his career and in retirement, although he was never a wealthy man.
The Plays
Chronology of Composition
The chronology of Shakespeare's plays is uncertain, but a reasonable approximation of their order can be inferred from dates of publication, references in contemporary writings, allusions in the plays to contemporary events, thematic relationships, and metrical and stylistic comparisons. His first plays are believed to be the three parts of Henry VI; it is uncertain whether Part I was written before or after Parts II and III. Richard III is related to these plays and is usually grouped with them as the final part of a first tetralogy of historical plays.
After these come The Comedy of Errors, Titus Andronicus (almost a third of which may have been written by George), The Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love's
Labour's Lost, and Romeo and Juliet. Some of the comedies of this early period are classical imitations with a strong element of farce. The two tragedies, Titus Andronicus and Romeo and Juliet, were both popular in Shakespeare's own lifetime. In Romeo and Juliet the main plot, in which the new love between Romeo and Juliet comes into conflict with the longstanding hatred between their families, is skillfully advanced, while the substantial development of minor characters supports and enriches it.
After these early plays, and before his great tragedies, Shakespeare wrote Richard II, A Midsummer Night's Dream, King John, The Merchant of Venice, Parts I and II of Henry IV, Much Ado about Nothing, Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night. The comedies of this period partake less of farce and more of idyllic romance, while the history plays successfully integrate political elements with individual characterization. Taken together, Richard II, each part of Henry IV, and Henry V form a second tetralogy of historical plays, although each can stand alone, and they are usually performed separately. The two parts of Henry IV feature Falstaff, a vividly depicted character who from the beginning has enjoyed immense popularity. The period of Shakespeare's great tragedies and the "problem plays" begins in 1600 with Hamlet. Following this are The Merry Wives of Windsor (written to meet Queen Elizabeth's request for another play including Falstaff, it is not thematically typical of the period), Troilus and Cressida, All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Timon of Athens (the last may have been partially written by Thomas).
On familial, state, and cosmic levels, Othello, Lear, and Macbeth present clear oppositions of order and chaos, good and evil, and spirituality and animality. Stylistically the plays of this period become increasingly compressed and symbolic. Through the portrayal of political leaders as tragic heroes, Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra involve the study of politics and social history as well as the psychology of individuals.
The last two plays in the Shakespearean corpus, Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen, may be collaborations with John. The remaining four plays?i>Pericles (two acts of which may have been written by George Wilkins), Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest朼re tragicomedies. They feature characters of tragic potential, but resemble comedy in that their conclusions are marked by a harmonious resolution achieved through magic, with all its divine, humanistic, and artistic implications.
Appeal and Influence
Since his death Shakespeare's plays have been almost continually performed, in non-English-speaking nations as well as those where English is the native tongue; they are quoted more than the works of any other single author. The plays have been subject to ongoing examination and evaluation by critics attempting to explain their perennial appeal, which does not appear to derive from any set of profound or explicitly formulated ideas. Indeed, Shakespeare has sometimes been criticized for not consistently holding to any particular philosophy, religion, or ideology; for example, the subplot of A Midsummer Night's Dream includes a burlesque of the kind of tragic love that he idealizes in Romeo and Juliet.
The strength of Shakespeare's plays lies in the absorbing stories they tell, in their wealth of complex characters, and in the eloquent speech杤ivid, forceful, and at the same time lyric杢hat the playwright puts on his characters' lips. It has often been noted that Shakespeare's characters are neither wholly good nor wholly evil, and that it is their flawed, inconsistent
nature that makes them memorable. Hamlet fascinates audiences with his ambivalence about revenge and the uncertainty over how much of his madness is feigned and how much genuine. Falstaff would not be beloved if, in addition to being genial, openhearted, and witty, he were not also boisterous, cowardly, and, ultimately, poignant. Finally, the plays are distinguished by an unparalleled use of language. Shakespeare had a tremendous vocabulary and a corresponding sensitivity to nuance, as well as a singular aptitude for coining neologisms and punning. Editions and Sources
The first collected edition of Shakespeare is the First Folio, published in 1623 and including all the plays except Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen (the latter play also generally not appearing in modern editions). Eighteen of the plays exist in earlier quarto editions, eight of which are extremely corrupt, possibly having been reconstructed from an actor's memory. The first edition of Shakespeare to divide the plays into acts and scenes and to mark exits and entrances is that of Nicholas in 1709. Other important early editions include those of Alexander (1725), Lewis (1733), and Samuel (1765).
Among Shakespeare's most important sources, Raphael 's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1587) is significant for the English history plays, although Shakespeare did not hesitate to transform a character when it suited his dramatic purposes. For his Roman tragedies he used Sir Thomas 's translation (1579) of Plutarch's Lives. Many times he rewrote old plays, and twice he turned English prose romances into drama (As You Like It and The Winter's Tale). He also used the works of contemporary European authors. For further information on Shakespeare's sources, see the table entitled.
The Poetry
Shakespeare's first published works were two narrative poems, Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594). In 1599 a volume of poetry entitled The Passionate Pilgrim was published and attributed entirely to Shakespeare. However, only five of the poems are definitely considered his, two appearing in other versions in the Sonnets and three in Love's Labour's Lost. A love elegy, The Phoenix and the Turtle, was published in 1601. In the 1980s and 90s many Elizabethan scholars concluded that a poem published in 1612 entitled A Funeral Elegy and signed "W.S." exhibits many Shakespearean characteristics; it has not yet been definitely included in the canon.
Shakespeare's sonnets are by far his most important nondramatic poetry. They were first published in 1609, although many of them had certainly been circulated privately before this, and it is generally agreed that the poems were written sometime in the 1590s. Scholars have long debated the order of the poems and the degree of autobiographical content.
The first 126 of the 154 sonnets are addressed to a young man whose identity has long intrigued scholars. The publisher, Thomas Thorpe, wrote a dedication to the first edition in which he claimed that a person with the initials W. H. had inspired the sonnets. Some have thought these letters to be the transposed initials of Henry Wriothesley, 3d earl of, to whom Shakespeare dedicated Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece; or they are possibly the initials of William Herbert, 3d earl of, whose connection with Shakespeare is more tenuous. The identity of the dark lady addressed in sonnets 127?52 has also been the object of much conjecture but no proof. The sonnets are marked by the recurring themes of beauty, youthful beauty ravaged by time, and the ability of love and art to transcend time and even death. Critical Opinion
There has been a great variety of critical approach to Shakespeare's work since his death. During the 17th and 18th cent., Shakespeare was both admired and condemned. Since then, much of the adverse criticism has not been considered relevant, although certain issues have continued to interest critics throughout the years. For instance, charges against his moral propriety were made by Samuel Johnson in the 18th cent. and by George Bernard Shaw in the 20th.
Early criticism was directed primarily at questions of form. Shakespeare was criticized for mixing comedy and tragedy and failing to observe the unities of time and place prescribed by the rules of classical drama. and Johnson were among the critics claiming that he had corrupted the language with false wit, puns, and ambiguity. While some of his early plays might justly be charged with a frivolous use of such devices, 20th-century criticism has tended to praise their use in later plays as adding depth and resonance of meaning.
Generally critics of the 17th and 18th cent. accused Shakespeare of a want of artistic restraint while praising him for a fecund imagination. Samuel Johnson, while agreeing with many earlier criticisms, defended Shakespeare on the question of classical rules. On the issue of unity of time and place he argued that no one considers the stage play to be real life anyway. Johnson inaugurated the criticism of Shakespeare's characters that reached its culmination in the late 19th cent. with the work of A. C.. The German critics Gotthold and Augustus Wilhelm von saw Shakespeare as a romantic, different in type from the classical poets, but on equal footing. Schlegel first elucidated the structural unity of Shakespeare's plays, a concept of unity that is developed much more completely by the English poet and critic Samuel.
While Schlegel and Coleridge were establishing Shakespeare's plays as artistic, organic unities, such 19th-century critics as the German Georg Gervinus and the Irishman Edward were trying to see positive moral tendencies in the plays. The 19th-century English critic William, who continued the development of character analysis begun by Johnson, considered each Shakespearean character to be unique, but found a unity through analogy and gradation of characterization. While A. C. Bradley marks the culmination of romantic 19th-century character study, he also suggested that the plays had unifying imagistic atmospheres, an idea that was further developed in the 20th cent.
The tendency in 20th-century criticism has been to abandon both the study of character as independent personality and the assumption that moral considerations can be separated from their dramatic and aesthetic context. The plays have been increasingly viewed in terms of the unity of image, metaphor, and tone. Caroline Spurgeon began the careful classification of Shakespeare's imagery, and although her attempts were later felt to be somewhat naive and morally biased, her work is a landmark in Shakespearean criticism. Other important trends in 20th-century criticism include the Freudian approach, such as Ernest 's Oedipal interpretation of Hamlet; the study of Shakespeare in terms of the Elizabethan world view and Elizabethan stage conventions; and the study of the plays in mythic terms.
Bibliography
See also biographies by E. K. Chambers (2 vol., 1930), G. E. Bentley (1961), S. Schoenbaum (1970 and 1975), S. Wells (1974), R. Fraser (2 vol., 1988), P. Levi (1988, repr. 1995), E. Sams (1995), P. Honan (1998), A. Holden (1999), and I. L. Matus (1999); bibliographies ed. by G. R. Smith (1963) and E. Quinn et al. (1973); A. Nicoll, Shakespeare: An Introduction (1952); G. Bullough, ed., Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare (8 vol., 1957?5); O. J. Campbell
and E. G. Quinn, ed., The Reader's Encyclopedia of Shakespeare (1966); M. R. Martin and R. C. Harrier, The Concise Encyclopedic Guide to Shakespeare (1972); M. Spevack, A Complete and Systematic Concordance to the Works of Shakespeare (6 vol., 1970); The Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare (1973); S. Wells, ed., Current Approaches to Shakespeare: Language, Text, Theatre, and Ideology (1988); G. Taylor, Reinventing Shakespeare (1989); J. Bate, The Genius of Shakespeare (1997); H. Vendler, The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets (1997); H. Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (1998); D. S. Kastan, ed., A Companion to Shakespeare (1999); S. Orgel, Imagining Shakespeare: A History of Texts and Visions (2003); B. Vickers, Shakespeare, Co-Author (2003); S. Wells, Shakespeare for All Time (2003); S. Greenblatt, Will in the World (2004).
Bacon
Francis Bacon was the son of Nicolas Bacon, the Lord Keeper of the Seal of Elisabeth I. He entered Trinity College Cambridge at age 12. Bacon later described his tutors as "Men of sharp wits, shut up in their cells of a few authors, chiefly Aristotle, their Dictator." This is likely the beginning of Bacon's rejection of Aristotelianism and Scholasticism and the new Renaissance Humanism.
His father died when he was 18, and being the youngest son this left him virtually penniless. He turned to the law and at 23 he was already in the House of Commons. His rich relatives did little to advance his career and Elisabeth apparently distrusted him. It was not until James I became King that Bacon's career advanced. He rose to become Baron Verulam, Viscount St. Albans and Lord Chancellor of England. His fall came about in the course of a struggle between King and Parliament. He was accused of having taken a bribe while a judge, tried and found guilty. He thus lost his personal honour, his fortune and his place at court.
Loren Eiseley in his beautifully written book about Bacon The Man Who Saw Through Time remarks that Bacon: "...more fully than any man of his time, entertained the idea of the universe as a problem to be solved, examined, meditated upon, rather than as an eternally fixed stage, upon which man walked."
This is the title page from Bacon's Instauratio Magna which contains his Novum Organum which is a new method to replace that of Aristotle. The image is of a ship passing through the pillars of Hercules, which symbolized for the ancients the limits of man's possible explorations. The image represents the analogy between the great voyages of discovery and the explorations leading to the advancement of learning. In The Advancement of Learning Bacon makes this analogy explicit. Speaking to James I, to whom the book is dedicated, he writes: "For why should a few received authors stand up like Hercules
columns, beyond which there should be no sailing or discovering, since we have so bright and benign a star as your Majesty to conduct and prosper us." The image also forcefully suggests that using Bacon's new method, the boundaries of ancient learning will be passed.
The Latin phrase at the bottom from the Book of Daniel means: "Many will pass through and knowledge will be increased."
Bacon saw himself as the inventor of a method which would kindle a light in nature - "a light that would eventually disclose and bring into sight all that is most hidden and secret in the universe." This method involved the collection of data, their judicious interpretation, the carrying out of experiments, thus to learn the secrets of nature by organized observation of its regularities. Bacon's proposals had a powerful influence on the
development of science in seventeenth century Europe. Thomas served as Bacon's last amunensis or secretary. Many members of the British Royal Society saw Bacon as advocating the kind of enquiry conducted by that society.
Descartes
Descartes is often called the father of modern science. He established a new, clear way of thinking about philosophy and science by rejecting all ideas based on assumptions or emotional beliefs and accepting only those ideas which could be proved by or systematically deduced from direct observation. He took as his philosophical starting point the statement Cogito ergo sum -- "I think, therefore I am." Descartes made major contributions to modern mathematics, especially in developing the Cartesian coordinate system and advancing the theory of equations.
Newton
Isaac Newton's discoveries were so numerous and varied that many consider him to be the father of modern science. A graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, Newton developed an intense interest in mathematics and the laws of nature which ultimately led to his two most famous works: Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) and Opticks (1704). Newton helped define the laws of gravity and planetary motion, co-founded the field of calculus, and explained laws of light and color, among many other discoveries. A famous story suggests Newton discovered the laws of gravity by watching an apple fall from a tree, though there's no proof that this is true. Newton was knighted in 1705.
Extra credit: Newton was the first scientist given the honor of burial in Westminster Abbey... He is often ranked 1-2 with among history's leading physicists... Newton held the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge -- a post later held by... Newton was good friends with astronomer, of Halley's Comet fame.
Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau is one of the most influential thinkers during the
Enlightenment in eighteenth century Europe. His first major philosophical work,
A Discourse on the Sciences and Arts, was the winning response to an essay contest conducted by the Academy of Dijon in 1750. In this work, Rousseau argues that the progression of the sciences and arts has caused the corruption of virtue and morality. This discourse won Rousseau fame and recognition, and it laid much of the philosophical groundwork for a second, longer work, The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. The second discourse did not win the Academy’s prize, but like the first, it was widely read and further solidified Rousseau’s place as a significant intellectual figure. The central claim of the work is that human beings are basically good by nature, but were corrupted by the complex historical events that resulted in present day civil society. Rousseau’s praise of nature is a theme that continues throughout his later works as well, the most significant of which include his comprehensive work on the philosophy of education, the Emile, and his major work on political
philosophy, The Social Contract: both published in 1762. These works caused great controversy in France and were immediately banned by Paris authorities. Rousseau fled France and settled in Switzerland, but he continued to find
difficulties with authorities and quarrel with friends. The end of Rousseau’s life was marked in large part by his growing paranoia and his continued attempts to justify his life and his work. This is especially evident in his later books, The Confessions, The Reveries of the Solitary Walker, and Rousseau: Judge of Jean-Jacques.
Rousseau greatly influenced Immanuel Kant’s work on ethics. His novel Julie or the New Heloise impacted the late eighteenth century’s Romantic Naturalism movement, and his political ideals were championed by leaders of the French Revolution.
Kant
Immanuel Kant was born in the East Prussian city of K?nigsberg, studied at its university, and worked there as a tutor and professor for more than forty years, never travelling more than fifty miles from home. Although his outward life was one of legendary calm and regularity, Kant's intellectual work easily justified his own claim to have effected a Copernican revolution in philosophy. Beginning with his Inaugural Dissertation (1770) on the difference between right- and left-handed spatial orientations, Kant patiently worked out the most
comprehensive and influential philosophical programme of the modern era. His central thesis—that—is deceptively simple, but the details of its application are notoriously complex.
The monumental () (1781, 1787) fully spells out the conditions for
mathematical, scientific, and metaphysical knowledge in its "Transcendental Aesthetic," "Transcendental Analytic," and "Transcendental Dialectic," but Kant found it helpful to offer a less technical exposition of the same themes in the Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten k?nnen () (1783). Carefully distinguishing judgments as and as, Kant held that the most interesting and useful varieties of human knowledge rely upon, which are, in turn, possible only when the mind determines the conditions of its own experience. Thus, it is we who impose the upon all possible in mathematics, and it is we who render all experience coherent as governed by traditional notions of by applying the to all possible experience. But regulative principles of this sort hold only for, and since propositions seek a truth, they.
Significant applications of these principles are expressed in (Metaphysical Foundations of the Science of Nature) (1786) and (On Comprehension and Transcendental Consciousness) (1788-1791).
Kant's moral philosophy is developed in the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten () (1785). From his analysis of the, Kant derived the necessity of a,
expressed in a that must be regarded as binding upon every agent. In the Third Section of the Grounding and in the () (1788), Kant grounded this conception of moral upon our postulation of.
In later life, Kant drew art and science together under in the () (1790), considered the consequences of transcendental criticism for theology in Die Religion innerhalb die Grenzen der blossen Vernunft () (1793), stated the
fundamental principles for civil discourse in ("What is Enlightenment?" (1784), and made an eloquent plea for in Zum ewigen Frieden () (1795).
Washington
On April 30, 1789, George Washington, standing on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York, took his oath of office as the first President of the United States. "As the first of every thing, in our situation will serve to establish a Precedent," he wrote James Madison, "it is devoutly wished on my part, that these precedents may be fixed on true principles." Born in 1732 into a Virginia planter family, he learned the morals, manners, and body of knowledge requisite for an 18th century Virginia gentleman.
He pursued two intertwined interests: military arts and western expansion. At 16 he helped survey Shenandoah lands for Thomas, Lord Fairfax. Commissioned a lieutenant colonel in 1754,
he fought the first skirmishes of what grew into the French and Indian War. The next year, as an aide to Gen. Edward Braddock, he escaped injury although four bullets ripped his coat and two horses were shot from under him.
From 1759 to the outbreak of the American Revolution, Washington managed his lands around Mount Vernon and served in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Married to a widow, Martha Dandridge Custis, he devoted himself to a busy and happy life. But like his fellow planters, Washington felt himself exploited by British merchants and hampered by British regulations. As the quarrel with the mother country grew acute, he moderately but firmly voiced his resistance to the restrictions.
When the Second Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia in May 1775, Washington, one of the Virginia delegates, was elected Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. On July 3, 1775, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, he took command of his ill-trained troops and embarked upon a war that was to last six grueling years.
He realized early that the best strategy was to harass the British. He reported to Congress, "we should on all Occasions avoid a general Action, or put anything to the Risque, unless compelled by a necessity, into which we ought never to be drawn." Ensuing battles saw him fall back slowly, then strike unexpectedly. Finally in 1781 with the aid of French allies--he forced the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown.
Washington longed to retire to his fields at Mount Vernon. But he soon realized that the Nation under its Articles of Confederation was not functioning well, so he became a prime mover in the steps leading to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia in 1787. When the new
Constitution was ratified, the Electoral College unanimously elected Washington President He did not infringe upon the policy making powers that he felt the Constitution gave Congress. But the determination of foreign policy became preponderantly a Presidential concern. When the French Revolution led to a major war between France and England, Washington refused to accept entirely the recommendations of either his Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who was pro-French, or his Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, who was pro-British. Rather, he insisted upon a neutral course until the United States could grow stronger.
To his disappointment, two parties were developing by the end of his first term. Wearied of politics, feeling old, he retired at the end of his second. In his Farewell Address, he urged his countrymen to forswear excessive party spirit and geographical distinctions. In foreign affairs, he warned against long-term alliances.
Washington enjoyed less than three years of retirement at Mount Vernon, for he died of a throat infection December 14, 1799. For months the Nation mourned him.
Watt
James Watt, the son of a merchant, was born in Greenock, Scotland, in 1736. At the age of nineteen Watt was sent to to learn the trade of a mathematical-instrument maker.
After spending a year in, Watt returned to in 1757 where he established his own instrument-making business. Watt soon developed a reputation as a high quality engineer and was employed on the Forth & Clyde Canal and the Caledonian Canal. He was also engaged in the improvement of harbours and in the deepening of the Forth, Clyde and other rivers in Scotland.
In 1763 Watt was sent a steam engine to repair. While putting it back into working order, Watt discovered how he could make the engine more efficient. Watt worked on the idea for several months and eventually produced a steam engine that cooled the used steam in a condenser separate from the main cylinder. James Watt was not a wealthy man so he decided to seek a partner with money., the owner of a Scottish ironworks, agreed to provide financial backing for Watt's project.
When Roebuck went bankrupt in 1773, Watt took his ideas to, a successful businessman from. For the next eleven years Boulton's factory producing and selling Watt's steam-engines. These machines were mainly sold to colliery owners who used them to pump water from their mines. Watt's machine was very popular because it was four times more powerful than those that had been based on the design.
Watt continued to experiment and in 1781 he produced a rotary-motion steam engine. Whereas his earlier machine, with its up-and-down pumping action, was ideal for draining mines, this new steam engine could be used to drive many different types of machinery. was quick to importance of this new invention, and in 1783 he began using Watt's steam-engine in his textile factories. Others followed his lead and by 1800 there were over 500 of Watt's machines in Britain's mines and factories.
In 1755 Watt had been granted a patent by Parliament that prevented anybody else from making a steam-engine like the one he had developed. For the next twenty-five years, the company had a virtual monopoly over the production of steam-engines. Watt charged his customers a premium for using his steam engines. To justify this he compared his machine to a horse. Watt calculated that a horse exerted a pull of 180 lb., therefore, when he made a machine, he described its power in relation to a horse, i.e. "a 20 horse-power engine". Watt worked out how much each company saved by using his machine rather than a team of horses. The company then had to pay him one third of this figure every year, for the next twenty-five years. When James Watt died in 1819 he was a very wealthy man Jefferson
In the thick of party conflict in 1800, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a private letter, "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
This powerful advocate of liberty was born in 1743 in Albemarle County, Virginia, inheriting from his father, a planter and surveyor, some 5,000 acres of land, and from his mother, a Randolph, high social standing. He studied at the College of William and Mary, then read law. In 1772 he married Martha Wayles Skelton, a widow, and took her to live in his partly constructed mountaintop home, Monticello.
Freckled and sandy-haired, rather tall and awkward, Jefferson was eloquent as a
correspondent, but he was no public speaker. In the Virginia House of Burgesses and the
Continental Congress, he contributed his pen rather than his voice to the patriot cause. As the "silent member" of the Congress, Jefferson, at 33, drafted the Declaration of Independence. In years following he labored to make its words a reality in Virginia. Most notably, he wrote a bill establishing religious freedom, enacted in 1786.
Jefferson succeeded Benjamin Franklin as minister to France in 1785. His sympathy for the French Revolution led him into conflict with Alexander Hamilton when Jefferson was Secretary of State in President Washington's Cabinet. He resigned in 1793.
Sharp political conflict developed, and two separate parties, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, began to form. Jefferson gradually assumed leadership of the Republicans, who sympathized with the revolutionary cause in France. Attacking Federalist policies, he opposed a strong centralized Government and championed the rights of states. As a reluctant candidate for President in 1796, Jefferson came within three votes of election. Through a flaw in the Constitution, he became Vice President, although an opponent of President Adams. In 1800 the defect caused a more serious problem. Republican electors, attempting to name both a President and a Vice President from their own party, cast a tie vote between Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The House of Representatives settled the tie. Hamilton, disliking both Jefferson and Burr, nevertheless urged Jefferson's election.
When Jefferson assumed the Presidency, the crisis in France had passed. He slashed Army and Navy expenditures, cut the budget, eliminated the tax on whiskey so unpopular in the West, yet reduced the national debt by a third. He also sent a naval squadron to fight the Barbary pirates, who were harassing American commerce in the Mediterranean. Further, although the Constitution made no provision for the acquisition of new land, Jefferson suppressed his qualms over constitutionality when he had the opportunity to acquire the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon in 1803.
During Jefferson's second term, he was increasingly preoccupied with keeping the Nation from involvement in the Napoleonic wars, though both England and France interfered with the neutral rights of American merchantmen. Jefferson's attempted solution, an embargo upon American shipping, worked badly and was unpopular.
Jefferson retired to Monticello to ponder such projects as his grand designs for the University of Virginia. A French nobleman observed that he had placed his house and his mind "on an elevated situation, from which he might contemplate the universe."
He died on July 4, 1826.
Adam Smith
1723?0, Scottish economist, educated at Glasgow and Oxford. He became professor of moral philosophy at the Univ. of Glasgow in 1752, and while teaching there wrote his Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), which gave him the beginnings of an international reputation. He traveled on the Continent from 1764 to 1766 as tutor to the duke of Buccleuch and while in France met some of the and began to write An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, finally published in 1776.
In that work, Smith postulated the theory of the division of labor and emphasized that value arises from the labor expended in the process of production. He was led by the rationalist current of the century, as well as by the more direct influence of Hume and others, to believe that in a laissez-faire economy the impulse of self-interest would bring about the public welfare; at the same time he was capable of appreciating that private groups such as manufacturers might at times oppose the public interest. Smith was opposed to monopolies and the concepts of mercantilism in general but admitted restrictions to free trade, such as the, as sometimes necessary national economic weapons in the existing state of the world. He also accepted government intervention in the economy that reduced poverty and government regulation in support of workers.
Smith wrote before the was fully developed, and some of his theories were voided by its development, but as an analyst of institutions and an influence on later economists he has never been surpassed. His pragmatism, as well as the leaven of ethical content and social insight in his thought, differentiates him from the rigidity of David and the school of early 19th-century. In 1778, Smith was appointed commissioner of customs for Scotland. His Essays on Philosophical Subjects (1795) appeared posthumously.
See biographies by J. Rae (1895, repr. 1965) and I. S. Ross (1995); studies by E. Ginzberg (1934, repr. 1964), T. D. Campbell (1971), S. Hollander (1973), and E. Rothschild (2001). Goethe
THE boy, Goethe, was a precocious youngster. At the early age of eight he had already acquired some knowledge of Greek, Latin, French and Italian. He had likewise acquired from his mother the knack of story telling; and from a toy puppet show in his nursery his first interest in the stage.
Goethe's early education was somewhat irregular and informal, and already he was marked by that apparent feeling of superiority that stayed by him
throughout his life. When he was about 16 he was sent to Leipzig, ostensibly to study law. He apparently studied more life than law and put in his time expressing his reactions through some form of writing. On at least two occasions, this form was dramatic.
Finally, in 1770 Goethe went to Strassburg, this time really intent on passing his preliminary examinations in law, and with the somewhat more frivolous
ambition of learning to dance. Along with his study of law, he studied art, music, anatomy and chemistry. A strong friendship with the writer, Herder, was likewise no part of Goethe's experience at this time, a contact which was of considerable importance in these formative years.
In 1771 Goethe returned to Frankfurt, nominally to practice law, but he was soon deep in work on what was to be his first dramatic success, G?tz von Berlichingen. While this was actually the story of a robber baron of the 16th century it really represented Goethe's youthful protest against the established order and his demand for intellectual freedom. Its success made its hitherto unknown author the literary leader of Germany.
Goethe's invitation in 1775 to the court of Duke Karl August at Weimar was a turning point in the literary life of Germany. He became manager of the Court Theater, and interested himself in various other activities, so that for a period of some ten years not much actual writing was done.
The writing of Faust, however, that best known of Goethe's works, extended over practically the whole of Goethe's literary life, a period of 57 years. It was finally finished when Goethe was 81. Faust is in reality a dramatic poem rather than a piece for the stage. While based on the same legend as 's Dr. Faustus, it far transcends both its legendary source and the English play. The latter is little more than a Morality illustrating the punishment of sin; Goethe's work is a drama of redemption.
Others of Goethe's works which have stood the test of time include: Clavigo, Egmont, Stella, Iphigenia in Tauris and Torquato Tasso.
Beethoven
?l?d磜?g v?n bā磘ōvn, Ger. lt磛?kh f鋘 bāt磆ōfn) , 1770?827, German composer. He is universally recognized as one of the greatest composers of the Western European music tradition. Beethoven's work crowned the classical period and also effectively initiated the romantic era in music. He is one of the few artists who genuinely may be considered revolutionary.
Life
Born in Bonn, Beethoven showed remarkable talent at an early age. His father, a court musician, subjected him to a brutal regimen, hoping to exploit him as a child prodigy. While this plan did not succeed, young Beethoven's gifts were recognized and nurtured by his teachers and by members of the local aristocracy. In 1787 Beethoven first visited Vienna, at that time the center of the music world. There he performed for, whom he greatly impressed.
In 1792 invited him to become his student, and Beethoven returned to Vienna, where he was to remain permanently. However, Beethoven's unorthodox musical ideas offended the old master, and the lessons were terminated. Beethoven studied with several other eminent teachers, including Antonio, but was developing according to his own singular genius and could no longer profit greatly from instruction.
Both his breathtaking piano virtuosity and his remarkable compositions won Beethoven favor among the enlightened aristocracy congregated at Vienna, and he enjoyed their generous support throughout his life. They were tolerant, too, of his notoriously boorish manners, careless appearance, and towering rages. His work itself was widely accepted, if controversial, and from the end of the 1790s Beethoven was not dependent on patronage for his income. The year 1801 marked the onset of Beethoven's tragic affliction, his deafness, which became progressively worse and, by 1817, total. Public performance eventually became impossible; but his creative work was not restricted. Beethoven never married; however, he was stormily in and out of love all his life, always with women unattainable because of marriage or station. His personal life was further complicated when he was made the guardian of his nephew Karl, who caused him much anxiety and grief but to whom he nevertheless remained fondly attached. Beethoven died, after a long illness, in the midst of a fierce thunderstorm, and legend has it that the dying man shook his fist in defiance of the heavens.
Compositions
By the 19th cent., Beethoven's work could already be divided into three fairly distinct periods. The works of the first period include the First (1800) and Second (1802) Symphonies; the first three piano concertos (1795?800); the first group of string quartets (1800); and a number of piano sonatas, among them the Path閠ique (1798) and the Moonlight Sonata (1801). Although the compositions of the first period have Beethoven's unmistakable breadth and vitality, they are dominated by the tradition of Haydn and Mozart.
Beginning about 1802, Beethoven's work took on new dimensions. The premiere in 1805 of the massive Third Symphony, known as the Eroica (composed 1803?), was a landmark in cultural history. It signaled a definitive break with the past and the birth of a new era. The length, structure, harmonies, and orchestration of the Eroica all broke the formal conventions of classical music; unprecedented too was its intention杢o celebrate human freedom and nobility. The symphony was originally dedicated to Napoleon, who at first symbolized to Beethoven the spirit of the French Revolution and the liberation of mankind; however, when Napoleon proclaimed himself emperor, the disillusioned composer renamed his work the "Heroic Symphony to celebrate the memory of a great man."
The works of Beethoven's middle period, his most productive, include the Piano Concertos No. 4 (1806) and No. 5 (Emperor Concerto, 1809); the Razumovsky Quartets (1806); his Ninth Sonata for violin, the Kreutzer Sonata (1803), and his one Violin Concerto (1806); the Fourth through Eighth Symphonies (1806?2); a number of piano sonatas, among them the Waldstein and the Appassionata (both 1804). His sole opera, Fidelio, was produced in its first version in 1805 and in its final form in 1814. Beethoven wrote four overtures for the opera, three of them known as the Leonore Overture. He also composed overtures to Collin's Coriolan (1807) and to Goethe's Egmont (1810). From about 1813 to 1820 there was some slackening in Beethoven's productivity, probably due in part to difficulties concerning his nephew.
Beethoven's final period dates from about 1816 and is characterized by works of greater depth and complexity. They include the demanding, nearly symphonic Hammerklavier sonata (1818) and the other late piano sonatas; the monumental Ninth Symphony (1817?3) with its choral finale based on Schiller's Ode to Joy; and the Missa Solemnis (1818?3). The last five string quartets and the Grosse Fuge (also for quartet), composed in his last years, are considered by many music lovers to be Beethoven's supreme creations, and by some the most sublime music ever composed.
An extraordinarily prolific composer, Beethoven produced, in addition to the works mentioned, sonatas for violin and piano and for cello and piano; string and piano trios; music for wind instruments; miscellaneous piano works, including the popular bagatelle F黵 Elise (1810); over 200 songs; a number of shorter orchestral works; and several choral pieces.
Beethoven's influence on subsequent composers has been immeasurable. Aside from his architectonic innovations and expansion of the classical sonata and symphony, he brought to music a new depth and intensity of emotion that was emulated by later romantic composersbut probably never surpassed.
Bibliography
See his letters, ed. by E. Anderson (3 vol., tr. 1961); biographies by A. F. Schindler (tr. 1966), M. Solomon (rev. ed. 1998), and L. Lockwood (2002); studies by D. F. Tovey (1945), W. S. Newman (1971), and R. Kamien (1992); E. Forbes, ed., Thayer's Life of Beethoven (2 vol., rev. ed. 1967); H. C. R. Landon, ed., Beethoven: A Documentary Study (1970); D. Arnold and N. Fortune, ed., The Beethoven Reader (1971); M. Cooper, Beethoven's Last Decade (1985); M. Solomon, Beethoven Essays (1988) and Late Beethoven (2003); S. Burnham, Beethoven Hero (1995
Hegle
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was one of the most influential western philosophers of the 19th century. While a professor in Heidelberg and Berlin he wrote his most famous works, The Phenomenology of the Mind (1806), The Science of Logic (1812) and The Philosophy of Right (1821). Hegel was dubbed an "Absolute Idealist" because his metaphysical system posited that reality is the result of a historical process whose ultimate end is an understanding of the essence of existence, or "the Absolute." This process he called the dialectic: an evolution toward progress that springs out of conflict. (This give-and-take notion is now often called the Hegelian Dialectic.) Hegel also wrote about ethics, religion and politics, and his philosophical system influenced the theories of and
Robert Owen
1771?858, British social reformer and socialist, pioneer in the cooperative movement. The son of a saddler, he had little formal education but was a zealous reader. At the age of 10 he began working in the textile business and by 1794 had become a successful cotton manufacturer in Manchester.
In 1800, Owen moved to New Lanark, Scotland, where he had bought, with others, the mills of David Dale (whose daughter he married). There he reconstructed the community into a model industrial town with good housing and sanitation, nonprofit stores, schools, and excellent working conditions. Mill profits increased. The New Lanark experiment became famous in
England and abroad, and Owen's ideas spread. He instigated the reform that resulted in the passage of the Factory Act of 1819朼 watered down version of his proposals, but still a landmark in social reform. He also proposed the formation of self-sufficient cooperative agricultural-industrial communities. One such community, called, was established (1825) in Indiana but failed after numerous disagreements among its members.
Professing a disbelief in religion (1817) and calling for the transformation of society rather than its reform (1820), Owen gradually lost much of his former upper-class support but was embraced by the working classes. After his return (1829) from the United States he became involved in the trade union movement and advocated the merging of unions with cooperative societies. Soon, however, the government took repressive action, and many workers responded by proclaiming the need for class struggle. Believing in the peaceful reordering of society, Owen ended his association with trade unionism and spent the last 25 years of his life writing and lecturing on his beliefs on education, marriage, and religion. Throughout his life Owen based his social programs on the idea that individual character is molded by environment and can be improved in a society based upon cooperation. Chief among his extensive writings are New View of Society; or, Essays on the Formation of Character (3 vol., 1813?4), Report to the County of Lanark (1821), and his autobiography (1857?8, repr. 1970).
See biographies by F. Podmore (1907, repr. 1971), G. D. H. Cole (3d ed. 1966), R. H. Harvey (1949), and M. I. Cole (1953, repr. 1969); studies by A. Morton (1962); J. Butts, ed. (1971),
and R. G. Garnett (1973).
Faraday
The English chemist and physicist Michael Faraday, b. Sept. 22, 1791, d. Aug. 25, 1867, is known for his pioneering experiments in electricity and magnetism. Many consider him the greatest experimentalist who ever lived. Several
concepts that he derived directly from experiments, such as lines of magnetic force, have become common ideas in modern physics.
Faraday was born at Newington, Surrey, near London. He received little more than a primary education, and at the age of 14 he was apprenticed to a
bookbinder. There he became interested in the physical and chemical works of the time. After hearing a lecture by the famous chemist Humphry Davy, he sent Davy the notes he had made of his lectures. As a result Faraday was appointed, at the age of 21, assistant to Davy in the laboratory of the Royal Institution in London.
During the initial years of his scientific work, Faraday occupied himself mainly with chemical problems. He discovered two new chlorides of carbon and
succeeded in liquefying chlorine and other gases. He isolated benzene in 1825, the year in which he was appointed director of the laboratory.
Davy, who had the greatest influence on Faraday's thinking, had shown in 1807 that the metals sodium and potassium can be precipitated from their
compounds by an electric current, a process known as electrolysis. Faraday's
vigorous pursuit of these experiments led in 1834 to what became known as Faraday's laws of electrolysis.
Faraday's research into electricity and electrolysis was guided by the belief that electricity is only one of the many manifestations of the unified forces of nature, which included heat, light, magnetism, and chemical affinity. Although this idea was erroneous, it led him into the field of electromagnetism, which was still in its infancy. In 1785, Charles Coulomb had been the first to demonstrate the manner in which electric charges repel one another, and it was not until 1820 that Hans Christian Oersted and Andre Marie Ampere discovered that an
electric current produces a magnetic field. Faraday's ideas about conservation of energy led him to believe that since an electric current could cause a
magnetic field, a magnetic field should be able to produce an electric current. He demonstrated this principle of induction in 1831. Faraday expressed the electric current induced in the wire in terms of the number of lines of force that are cut by the wire. The principle of induction was a landmark in applied science, for it made possible the dynamo, or generator, which produces electricity by mechanical means.
Faraday's introduction of the concept of lines of force was rejected by most of the mathematical physicists of Europe, since they assumed that electric charges attract and repel one another, by action at a distance, making such lines unnecessary. Faraday had demonstrated the phenomenon of
electromagnetism in a series of experiments, however. This experimental
necessity probably led the physicist James Clerk Maxwell to accept the concept of lines of force and put Faraday's ideas into mathematical form, thus giving birth to modern field theory.
Faraday's discovery (1845) that an intense magnetic field can rotate the plane of polarized light is known today as the Faraday effect. The phenomenon has been used to elucidate molecular structure and has yielded information about galactic magnetic fields.
Faraday described his numerous experiments in electricity and
electromagnetism in three volumes entitled Experimental Researches in Electricity (1839, 1844, 1855); his chemical work was chronicled in
Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics (1858). Faraday ceased research work in 1855 because of declining mental powers, but he continued as a lecturer until 1861. A series of six children's lectures published in 1860 as The Chemical History of a Candle, has become a classic of science literature. John brown
John Brown was a man of action -- a man who would not be deterred from his mission of abolishing slavery. On October 16, 1859, he led 21 men on a raid of
the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His plan to arm slaves with the weapons he and his men seized from the arsenal was thwarted, however, by local farmers, militiamen, and Marines led by Robert E. Lee. Within 36 hours of the attack, most of Brown's men had been killed or captured.
John Brown was born into a deeply religious family in Torrington, Connecticut, in 1800. Led by a father who was vehemently opposed to slavery, the family moved to northern Ohio when John was five, to a district that would become known for its antislavery views.
During his first fifty years, Brown moved about the country, settling in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York, and taking along his ever-growing family. (He would father twenty children.) Working at various times as a farmer, wool merchant, tanner, and land speculator, he never was finacially successful -- he even filed for bankruptcy when in his forties. His lack of funds, however, did not keep him from supporting causes he believed in. He helped finance the publication of David Walker's Appeal and Henry Highland's "Call to Rebellion" speech. He gave land to fugitive slaves. He and his wife agreed to raise a black youth as one of their own. He also participated in the Underground Railroad and, in 1851, helped establish the League of Gileadites, an organization that worked to protect escaped slaves from slave catchers.
In 1847 Frederick Douglass met Brown for the first time in Springfield, Massachusetts. Of the meeting Douglass stated that, "though a white
gentleman, [Brown] is in sympathy a black man, and as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery." It was at this meeting that Brown first outlined his plan to Douglass to lead a war to free slaves.
Brown moved to the black community of North Elba, New York, in 1849. The community had been established thanks to the philanthropy of Gerrit Smith, who donated tracts of at least 50 acres to black families willing to clear and farm the land. Brown, knowing that many of the families were finding life in this isolated area difficult, offered to establish his own farm there as well, in order to lead the blacks by his example and to act as a "kind father to them."
Despite his contributions to the antislavery cause, Brown did not emerge as a figure of major significance until 1855 after he followed five of his sons to the Kansas territory. There, he became the leader of antislavery guerillas and fought a proslavery attack against the antislavery town of Lawrence. The following year, in retribution for another attack, Brown went to a proslavery town and brutally killed five of its settlers. Brown and his sons would continue to fight in the territory and in Missouri for the rest of the year.
Brown returned to the east and began to think more seriously about his plan for a war in Virginia against slavery. He sought money to fund an "army" he would lead. On October 16, 1859, he set his plan to action when he and 21 other men -- 5 blacks and 16 whites -- raided the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry.
Brown was wounded and quickly captured, and moved to Charlestown, Virginia,
where he was tried and convicted of treason, Before hearing his sentence, Brown was allowed make an address to the court.
. . . I believe to have interfered as I have done, . . . in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it be deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit: so let it be done."
Although initially shocked by Brown's exploits, many Northerners began to speak favorably of the militant abolitionist. "He did not recognize unjust human laws, but resisted them as he was bid. . . .," said Henry David Thoreau in an address to the citizens of Concord, Massachusetts. "No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature. . . ."
John Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859.
H. C. Andersen
A native of (), () is one of the immortals of. he wrote are like no others written before or since. "", "" , "" , ""
was born in () on () in a ( now) in and lived here a short time from 1805 -1807. In 1807 Hans Christian and the family moved to another house, , () in Munkem?llestr?de 3-5 in Odense, where he lived from 1807-1819.
When he was 11 years old, his () (26. april 1816) and he was virtually left alone. He went to only at intervals and spent most of his time imagining stories rather than reading lessons. He could memorize very easily and learned some of his lessons by listening to a neighbourhood boy who was in the habit of studying aloud. He memorized and recited plays to anyone who would listen and imitated, acrobats or.
To put an end on this, apprenticed him first to a, then to a and finally to a tailor. Hans Christian knew these occupations were not for him. The only things that held his interest were the , books and stories. When he was 14, he decided to go to. Few monts after his on the and seek his fortune in.
There followed three bitter years of poverty. Hans Christian earned a little money singing in a boy's choir until his voice changed. He tried to act and to join, but his awkwardness made these careers impossible. He attempted to work with his hands but could not do this either. It never occured to him to return home and admit defeat.
At last, when he was 17, Andersen came to the attention of Chancellor a director of in
Copenhagen. Collin had read a play by Andersen and saw that the youth had talent. He from the for Andersen's education and sent him to a school near Copenhagen. First in and later in ()., a bitter man, treated him harshly and took delight in taunting him about his ambition to become a writer. Finally Collin took the youth from the school and arranged for him to study under a private tutor in Copenhagen. In 1828, when he was 23, Andersen passed his entrance to the Andersen's writings began to be. In 1833 the king gave him a grant of money for travel and he spent 16 months wandering through and his beloved. His works were, , and (he always brought,
because he was afraid of fire).. Hans Christian Andersen lived nearly 15 years in other countries.
In 1835 Andersen published - four short stories he wrote for a little girl, who was the
daughter of the secretary of the Academy of Art. People, who had read the stories - adults as well as children - wanted more. Andersen published in all. He wrote the stories just as he would have told them. Although he never married and had no children of his own, he was at his best as an interpreter of the nature of children.
Hans Christian Andersen () on Aug.4, 1875.
Lincoln
LINCOLN, Abraham (1809?5), 16th president of the U.S. (1861?5), who steered the Union to victory in the American Civil War and abolished slavery.
Early Life.
Lincoln was born on Feb. 12, 1809, near Hodgenville, Ky., the son of Nancy Hanks (1784??818) and Thomas Lincoln (1778?851), pioneer farmers. At the age of two he was taken by his parents to nearby Knob Creek and at eight to Spencer Co., Ind. The following year his mother died. In 1819 his father married Sarah Bush Johnston (1788?869), a kindly widow, who soon gained the boy抯 affection.
Lincoln grew up a tall, gangling youth, who could hold his own in physical contests and also showed great intellectual promise, although he had little formal education. After moving with his family to Macon Co., Ill., in 1831, he struck out on his own, taking a cargo to New Orleans, La., on a flatboat. He then returned to Illinois and settled in New Salem, a short-lived community on the Sangamon River, where he split rails and clerked in a store. He gained the respect of his fellow townspeople, including the so-called Clary Grove boys, who had challenged him to physical combat, and was elected captain of his company in the Black Hawk War (1832). Returning from the war, he began an unsuccessful venture in shopkeeping that ended when his partner died. In 1833 he was appointed postmaster but had to supplement his income with surveying and various other jobs. At the same time he began to study law. That he gradually paid off his and his deceased partner抯 debts firmly established his reputation for honesty. The story of his romance with Ann Rutledge (1816?5), a local young woman whom he knew briefly before her untimely death, is unsubstantiated.
Illinois Politician and Lawyer.
Defeated in 1832 in a race for the state legislature, Lincoln was elected on the Whig ticket two years later and served in the lower house from 1834 to 1841. He quickly emerged as one of the leaders of the party and was one of the authors of the removal of the capital to Springfield, where he settled in 1837. After his admission to the bar (1836), he entered into successive partnerships with John T. Stuart (1807?5), Stephen T. Logan (1800?0), and William Herndon (1818?1), and soon won recognition as an effective and resourceful attorney.
In 1842 Lincoln married Mary Todd (1818?2), the daughter of a prominent Kentucky banker, and despite her somewhat difficult disposition, the marriage seems to have been reasonably successful. The Lincolns had four children, only one of whom reached adulthood.
His birth in a slave state notwithstanding, Lincoln had long opposed slavery. In the legislature he voted against resolutions favorable to the 損eculiar institution?and in 1837 was one of two members who signed a protest against it. Elected to Congress in 1846, he attracted attention
because of his outspoken criticism of the war with Mexico and formulated a plan for gradual emancipation in the District of Columbia. He was not an abolitionist, however. Conceding the right of the states to manage their own affairs, he merely sought to prevent the spread of human bondage.
National Recognition.
Disappointed in a quest for federal office at the end of his one term in Congress (1847?9), Lincoln returned to Springfield to pursue his profession. In 1854, however, because of his alarm at Senator Stephen A. Douglas抯 Kansas-Nebraska Act, he became politically active again. Clearly setting forth his opposition to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, he argued that the measure was wrong because slavery was wrong and that Congress should keep the territories free for actual settlers (as opposed to those who traveled there mainly to vote for or against slavery). The following year he ran for the U.S. Senate, but seeing that he could not win, he yielded to Lyman Trumbull, a Democrat who opposed Douglas抯 bill. He campaigned for the newly founded Republican party in 1856, and in 1858 he became its senatorial candidate against Douglas. In a speech to the party抯 state convention that year he warned that 揳 house divided against itself cannot stand?and predicted the eventual triumph of freedom. Meeting Douglas in a series of debates, he challenged his opponent in effect to explain how he could reconcile his principles of popular sovereignty with the Dred Scott decision. In his reply, Douglas reaffirmed his belief in the practical ability of settlers to keep slavery out of the territories despite the Supreme Court抯 denial of their right to do so. Although Lincoln lost the election to Douglas, the debates won him national recognition.
Election and Secession Crisis.
In 1860 the Republicans, anxious to attract as many different factions as possible, nominated Lincoln for the presidency on a platform of slavery restriction, internal improvements, homesteads, and tariff reform. In a campaign against Douglas and John C. Breckinridge, two rival Democrats, and John Bell, of the Constitutional Union party, Lincoln won a majority of the electoral votes and was elected president.
Immediately after the election, South Carolina, followed by six other Southern states, took steps to secede from the Union. Declaring that secession was illegal but that he had no power to oppose it, President James Buchanan preferred to rely on Congress to find a compromise. The success of this effort, however, depended on Lincoln, the president-elect, who was open to concessions but refused to countenance any possible extension of slavery. Thus, the Crittenden Compromise, the most promising scheme of adjustment, failed, and a new Southern government was inaugurated in February 1861.
Lincoln as President.
When Lincoln took the oath of office on March 4, 1861, he was confronted with a hostile Confederacy determined to expand and threatening the remaining federal forts in the South, the most important of which was Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, S.C. Anxious not to offend the upper South, which had not yet seceded, Lincoln at first refused to take decisive action. After the failure of an expedition to Fort Pickens, Fla., however, he decided to relieve Fort Sumter and informed the governor of South Carolina of his intention to send food to the beleaguered garrison. The Confederates, unwilling to permit continued federal occupation of
their soil, opened fire to reduce the fort, thus starting the Civil War. When Lincoln countered with a call for 75,000 volunteers, the North responded with enthusiasm, but the upper South seceded.
Military leadership.
As commander in chief, Lincoln encountered great difficulties in the search for capable generals. After the defeat of Irvin McDowell (1818?5) at the First Battle of Bull Run, the president appointed George B. McClellan to lead the eastern army but found him excessively cautious. His Peninsular campaign against Richmond, Va., the Confederate capital, failed, and Lincoln, whose own strategy had not succeeded in trapping Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, virtually superseded McClellan with John Pope (1822?2). When Pope was defeated at the Second Battle of Bull Run, the president turned once more to McClellan, only to be disappointed again. Despite his victory at Antietam, Md., the general was so hesitant that Lincoln finally had to remove him. The president抯 next choice, Ambrose Burnside, was also unfortunate. Decisively beaten at Fredericksburg, Va., Burnside gave way to Joseph Hooker, who in turn was routed at Chancellorsville, Va. Then Lincoln appointed George G. Meade, who triumphed at Gettysburg, Pa., but failed to follow up his victory. Persisting in his determination to discover a general who could defeat the Confederates, the president in 1864 entrusted overall command to Ulysses S. Grant, the victor at Fort Donelson, Tenn., Vicksburg, Miss., and Chattanooga, Tenn. This choice was a good one. Grant, in a series of coordinated campaigns, finally brought the war to a successful conclusion.
Emancipation.
In dealing with the problem of emancipation, Lincoln proved himself a masterful statesman. Carefully maneuvering to take advantage of radical pressure to move forward and conservative entreaties to hold back, he was able to retain the loyalty of the Democrats and the border states while still bringing about the final abolition of slavery. Lincoln pleased the radicals in 1861, when he signed the first Confiscation Act, freeing slaves used by the Confederates for military purposes. He deferred to the conservatives when he countermanded emancipation orders of the Union generals John C. Fr閙ont and David Hunter (1802?6), but again courted the radicals by reverting to a cautious antislavery program. Thus, he exerted pressure on the border states to inaugurate compensated emancipation, signed the bill for abolition in the District of Columbia, and consented to the second Confiscation Act.
On July 22, 1862, in response to radical demands and diplomatic necessity, he told his cabinet that he intended to issue an emancipation proclamation but took care to soften the blow to the border states by specifically exempting them. Advised to await some federal victory, he did not make his proclamation public until September 22, following the Battle of Antietam, when he announced that all slaves in areas still in rebellion within 100 days would be 搕hen, thenceforward, and forever, free.?The final Emancipation Proclamation followed on Jan. 1, 1863. Promulgated by the president in his capacity as commander in chief in times of actual armed rebellion, it freed slaves in regions held by the insurgents and authorized the creation of black military units. Lincoln was determined to place emancipation on a more permanent basis, however, and in 1864 he advocated the adoption of an antislavery amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The amendment was passed after Lincoln抯 reelection, when he made use of all the powers of his office to ensure its success in the House of Representatives (Jan. 31, 1865). Political skill.
A consummate politician, Lincoln sought to maintain harmony among the disparate elements of his party by giving them representation in his cabinet. Recognizing former Whigs by the appointment of William H. Seward as secretary of state and Edward Bates (1793?869) as attorney general, he also extended invitations to such former Democrats as Montgomery Blair, who became postmaster general, and Gideon Welles (1802?8), who became secretary of the navy. He honored local factions by appointing Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania secretary of war and Caleb B. Smith (1808?4) of Indiana secretary of the interior, while satisfying the border states with Bates and Blair. At the same time, he offset the conservative Bates with the radical Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase and later with Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Although Lincoln was much closer to the radicals and gradually moved toward ever more radical measures, he did not needlessly offend the conservatives and often collaborated with them. His careful handling of the slavery issue is a case in point, as is his appointment of Democratic generals and his deference to the sensibilities of the border states. In December 1862 he foiled critics demanding the dismissal of the conservative Seward. Refusing to accept Seward抯 resignation and inducing the radical Chase to offer to step down as well, he maintained the balance of his cabinet by retaining both secretaries.
Lincoln抯 political influence was enhanced by his great gifts as an orator. Able to stress essentials in simple terms, he effectively appealed to the nation in such classical short speeches as the Gettysburg Address and his second inaugural address. Moreover, he was a capable diplomat. Firmly rejecting Seward抯 proposal in April 1861 that the country be united by means of a foreign war, he sought to maintain friendly relations with the nations of Europe, used the Emancipation Proclamation to win friends for the Union, and effectively countered Confederate efforts to gain foreign recognition.
Reelection and Reconstruction.
In 1864 a number of disgruntled Republicans sought to prevent Lincoln抯 renomination. Adroitly outmaneuvering his opponents, especially the ambitious Chase, he succeeded in obtaining his party抯 endorsement at Baltimore, Md., even though a few extremists nominated Fr閙ont. Lincoln抯 renomination did not end his political problems, however. Unhappy with his Proclamation of Amnesty (December 1863), which called for the restoration of insurgent states if 10 percent of the electorate took an oath of loyalty, Congress in July 1864 passed the Wade-Davis Bill, which provided for more onerous conditions and their acceptance by 50 percent of the voters. When Lincoln used the pocket veto to kill it, some radicals sought to displace him and in the so-called Wade-Davis Manifesto passionately attacked the administration.
The president, nevertheless, prevailed again. His poor prospects in August 1864 improved when the Democrats nominated Gen. McClellan on a peace platform. Subsequent federal victories and the withdrawal of Fr閙ont, coupled with the resignation of the conservative Blair, reunited the party, and in November 1864 Lincoln was triumphantly reelected.
The president抯 success at the polls enabled him to seek to establish his own Reconstruction policies. To blunt conservative criticism, he met with leading Confederates at Hampton Roads, Va., and demonstrated the impossibility of a negotiated peace. The radicals, however, were also dissatisfied. Because of their demand for black suffrage, Lincoln was unable to induce Congress to accept the members-elect of the free state government of Louisiana, which he had organized. In addition, after the fall of Richmond, he alarmed his critics by inviting the Confederate
legislature of Virginia to repeal the secession ordinance. His Reconstruction policies, however, had been determined by military necessity. As soon as the Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Va., Lincoln withdrew the invitation to the Virginians. He again proved how close he was to the radicals by endorsing a limited black franchise. The Assassination.
At his second inaugural, Lincoln, attributing the war to the evil consequences of slavery, summed up his attitude in the famous phrase 搘ith malice toward none, with charity for all.?A few weeks later, he publicly announced his support for limited black suffrage in Louisiana. This open defiance of conservative opinion could only have strengthened the resolve of one in his audience, John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor of Confederate sympathies, who had long been plotting against the president. Aroused by the prospect of votes for blacks, he determined to carry out his assassination scheme and on April 14, 1865, shot Lincoln at Ford抯 Theater in Washington, D.C. The president died the next day.
The subject of numerous myths, Lincoln ranks with the greatest of American statesmen. His humanitarian instincts, brilliant speeches, and unusual political skill ensured his hold on the electorate and his success in saving the Union. That he also gained fame as the Great Emancipator was due to a large degree to his excellent sense of timing and his open-mindedness. Thus, he was able to bring about the abolition of slavery and to advocate a policy of Reconstruction that envisaged the gradual enfranchisement of the freedmen. It was a disaster for the country that he did not live to carry it out.
Darwin
1809?2, English naturalist, b. Shrewsbury; grandson of Erasmus and of Josiah. He firmly established the theory of organic known as. He studied medicine at Edinburgh and for the ministry at Cambridge but lost interest in both professions during the training. His interest in natural history led to his friendship with the botanist J. S.; through him came the opportunity to make a five-year cruise (1831?6) as official naturalist aboard the Beagle. This started Darwin on a career of accumulating and assimilating data that resulted in the formulation of his concept of evolution. He spent the remainder of his life carefully and methodically working over the information from his copious notes and from every other available source.
Independently, A. R. had worked out a theory similar to Darwin's. Both men were exceptionally modest; they first published summaries of their ideas simultaneously in 1858. In 1859, Darwin set forth the structure of his theory and massive support for it in the superbly organized Origin of Species, supplemented and elaborated in his many later books, notably The Descent of Man (1871). He also formulated a theory of the origin of reefs.
See his autobiography (ed. by N. Barlow, 1958) and Life and Letters (ed. by F. Darwin, 1887; repr. with intro. by G. G. Simpson, 1962); letters of Darwin and Henslow, ed. by N. Barlow (1967); The Corespondence of Charles Darwin ed. by F. Burkhardt et al. (10 vol., 1987?7); J. Barzun, Darwin, Marx, Wagner (rev. ed. 1958); G. Wichler, Charles Darwin: The Founder of the Theory of Evolution and Natural Selection (tr. 1961); A. Moorehead, Darwin and the Beagle (1969, rev. ed. 1979); P. Appleman, ed., Darwin (1970, repr. 1983); D. L Hull, Darwin and His Critics (1983); R. J. Richards, Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior (1989); R. Dawkins, River Out of Eden (1995); D. C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995); N. Eldredge, Reinventing Darwin (1995); S. Jones, Darwin's Ghost: "The Origin of
Species" Updated (2000); J. Browne, Charles Darwin: Voyaging (1995) and Charles Darwin: The Power of Place (2002).
Pasteur
was born on December 27, 1822 in Dole, in the region of Jura, France. His discovery that most infectious diseases are caused by germs, known as the "germ theory of disease", is one of the most important in medical history. His work became the foundation for the science of microbiology, and a cornerstone of modern medicine.
Pasteur's phenomenal contributions to microbiology and medicine can be summarized as
follows. First, he championed changes in hospital practices to minimize the spread of disease by microbes. Second, he discovered that weakened forms of a microbe could be used as an
immunization against more virulent forms of the microbe. Third, Pasteur found that rabies was transmitted by agents so small they could not be seen under a microscope, thus revealing the world of viruses. As a result he developed techniques to vaccinate dogs against rabies, and to treat humans bitten by rabid dogs. And fourth, Pasteur developed "pasteurization", a process by which harmful microbes in perishable food products are destroyed using heat, without destroying the food.
His Works
Each discovery in the body of Pasteur's work represents a link in an uninterrupted chain, beginning with molecular asymmetry and ending with his rabies prophylaxis, by way of his research in fermentation, silkworm, wine and beer diseases, asepsis and vaccines. From Crystallography to Molecular Asymmetry
In 1847 at the age of 26, Pasteur did his first work on molecular asymmetry, bringing together the principles of crystallography, chemistry and optics. He formulated a fundamental law: asymmetry differentiates the organic world from the mineral world. In other words, asymmetric molecules are always the product of life forces. His work became the basis of a new science -- stereochemistry.
Research on Fermentation and Spontaneous Generation
At the request of a distiller named Bigo from the north of France, Pasteur began to examine why alcohol becomes contaminated with undesirable substances during fermentation. He soon demonstrated that each sort of fermentation is linked to the existence of a specific
microorganism or ferment -- a living being that one can study by cultivation in an appropriate, sterile medium. This insight is the basis of microbiology.
Pasteur delivered the fatal blow to the doctrine of spontaneous generation, the theory held for 20 centuries that life could arise spontaneously in organic materials. He also developed a germ theory. At the same time, he discovered the existence of life without oxygen: "Fermentation is the consequence of life without air". The discovery of anaerobic life paved the way for the study of germs that cause septicemia and gangrene, among other infections. Thanks to Pasteur, it became possible to devise techniques to kill microbes and to control contamination.
Technique of "Pasteurization"
Emperor Napoleon III asked Pasteur to investigate the diseases afflicting wine which were causing considerable economic losses to the wine industry. Pasteur went to a vineyard in Arbois in 1864 to study this problem. He demonstrated that wine diseases are caused by
microorganisms that can be killed by heating the wine to 55deg.C for several minutes. Applied to beer and milk, this process, called "pasteurization", soon came into use throughout the world.
Research on Infectious Diseases Afflicting Man and Animal
In 1865, Pasteur began to study the silkworm diseases that were crippling the silk industry in France. He discovered the infectious agents and revealed the manner in which these agents are transmitted--by contagion and hereditary principle -- and how to prevent them. Elaborating on his study of fermentation, he could now confirm that each disease is caused by a specific
microbe and that these microbes are foreign elements. With this knowledge, Pasteur was able to establish the basic rules of sterilization or asepsis. Preventing contagion and infection, his method of sterilization revolutionized surgery and obstetrics.
From 1877 to 1887, Pasteur employed these fundamentals of microbiology in the battle against infectious diseases. He went on to discover three bacteria responsible for human illnesses : staphylococcus, streptococcus and pneumococcus.
Treatment and Prevention of Rabies
Louis Pasteur discovered the method for the attenuation of that is the basis of vaccination. He developed vaccines against chicken cholera, anthrax and swine erysipelas. After mastering his method of vaccination, he applied this concept to rabies. On July 6, 1885, Pasteur tested his pioneering rabies treatment on man for the first time : the young Joseph Meister was saved.
The Creation of the Pasteur Institute
On March 1, 1886, Pasteur presented the results of his rabies treatment to the Academy of Sciences and called for the creation of a rabies vaccine center. An extensive, international public drive for funds financed the construction of the, a private, state-approved institute recognized by the President of France, Jules Grévy, in 1887 and inaugurated by his successor Sadi Carnot in 1888. In accordance with Pasteur's wishes, the Institute was founded as a clinic for rabies treatment, a research center for infectious disease and a teaching center.
The 66-year-old scientist went on to dedicate the last seven years of his life to the Institute that still bears his name. During this period, Pasteur also came to know the joys of fame and was honored throughout the world with prestigious decorations.
His work was continued and amplified throughout the world by his disciples, the Pasteuriens.
A Man of Freedom and Rigor
Pasteur's work is not simply the sum of his discoveries. It also represents the revolution of scientific methodology. Pasteur superimposed two indisputable rules of modern research: the freedom of creative imagination necessarily subjected to rigorous experimentation. He would teach his disciples :
"Do not put forward anything that you cannot prove by experimentation"
Louis Pasteur was a humanist, always working towards the improvement of the human
condition. He was a free man who never hesitated to take issue with the prevailing yet false ideas of his time.
He ascribed particular importance to the spread of knowledge and the applications of research. In the scientist's lifetime, Pasteurien theory and method were put into use well beyond the borders of France.
Fully aware of the international importance of his work, Pasteur's disciples dispersed
themselves wherever their assistance was needed. In 1891, the first Foreign Institut Pasteur was founded in Saigon (today Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) launching what was to become a vast international network of Instituts Pasteur.
Because he changed the world forever, his homeland and the world have long considered him a benefactor of humanity.
The Progress of Humanity
"I beseech you to take interest in these sacred domains so expressively called laboratories. Ask that there be more and that they be adorned for these are the temples of the future, wealth and well-being. It is here that humanity will grow, strengthen and improve. Here, humanity will
learn to read progress and individual harmony in the works of nature, while humanity's own works are all too often those of barbarism, fanaticism and destruction." -- Louis Pasteur Einstein
American theoretical physicist, known for the formulation of the relativity theory, b. Ulm, Germany. He is recognized as one of the greatest physicists of all time.
Life
Einstein lived as a boy in Munich and Milan, continued his studies at the cantonal school at Aarau, Switzerland, and was graduated (1900) from the Federal Institute of Technology, Z黵ich. Later he became a Swiss citizen. He was examiner (1902?) at the patent office, Bern. During this period he obtained his doctorate (1905) at the Univ. of Z黵ich, evolved the special theory of, explained the, and studied the motion of atoms, on which he based his explanation of. In 1909 his work had already attracted attention among scientists, and he was offered an adjunct professorship at the Univ. of Z黵ich. He resigned that position in 1910 to become full professor at the German Univ., Prague, and in 1912 he accepted the chair of theoretical physics at the Federal Institute of Technology, Z黵ich.
By 1913 Einstein had won international fame and was invited by the Prussian Academy of Sciences to come to Berlin as titular professor of physics and as director of theoretical physics at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. He assumed these posts in 1914 and subsequently resumed his German citizenship. For his work in theoretical physics, notably on the photoelectric effect, he received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics. His property was confiscated (1934) by the Nazi government because he was Jewish, and he was deprived of his German citizenship. He had previously accepted (1933) a post at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, which he held until his death in 1955. An ardent pacifist, Einstein was long active in the cause of world peace; however, in 1939, at the request of a group of scientists, he wrote to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to stress the urgency of investigating the possible use of atomic energy in bombs. In 1940 he became an American citizen.
Major Contributions to Science
The Special and General Theories of Relativity
Einstein's early work on the theory of relativity (1905) dealt only with systems or observers in uniform (unaccelerated) motion with respect to one another and is referred to as the special theory of relativity; among other results, it demonstrated that two observers moving at great speed with respect to each other will disagree about measurements of length and time intervals made in each other's systems, that the speed of light is the limiting speed of all bodies having mass, and that mass and energy are equivalent. In 1911 he asserted the equivalence of and, and in 1916 he completed his mathematical formulation of a general theory of relativity that included gravitation as a determiner of the curvature of a space-time continuum. He then began work on his unified field theory, which attempts to explain gravitation, electromagnetism, and subatomic phenomena in one set of laws; the successful development of such a unified theory, however, eluded Einstein.
Photons and the Quantum Theory
In addition to the theory of relativity, Einstein is also known for his contributions to the development of the. He postulated (1905) light quanta (photons), upon which he based his
explanation of the photoelectric effect, and he developed the quantum theory of specific heat. Although he was one of the leading figures in the development of quantum theory, Einstein regarded it as only a temporarily useful structure. He reserved his main efforts for his unified field theory, feeling that when it was completed the quantization of energy and charge would be found to be a consequence of it. Einstein wished his theories to have that simplicity and beauty which he thought fitting for an interpretation of the universe and which he did not find in quantum theory.
Writings
Einstein's writings include Relativity: The Special and the General Theory (1918; tr. 1920, reissued 1947) and excerpts (most of them translated) from letters, articles, and addresses collected in About Zionism (1930), The World as I See It (1934), Out of My Later Years (1950), Ideas and Opinions (1954), and Einstein on Peace (ed. by Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden, 1960). Einstein's manuscripts and correspondence are presently at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. The first volume of an edition of his collected works, under the editorship of John Stachel et al., appeared in 1987.
Bibliography
See the Born-Einstein letters, ed. by M. Born (tr. 1971); biographies by R. W. Clark (1971, repr. 1991), B. Hoffmann (with H. Dukas, 1972, repr. 1989), J. Bernstein (1973, repr. 1997), A. Pais (1982), M. White and J. Gribbin (1995), D. Brian (1997), and A. Folsing (1998); studies by P. A. Schilpp, ed. (1949, repr. 1973), M. Born (rev. ed. 1962), C. Lanczos (1965), A. J. Friedman and
C. Donley (1989), D. Howard and J. Stachel (1989), A. Pais (1994), and D. Overbye (2000). Galileo
Great Italian astronomer, mathematician, and physicist. By his persistent investigation of natural laws he laid foundations for modern experimental science, and by the construction of astronomical telescopes he greatly enlarged humanity's vision and conception of the universe. He gave a mathematical formulation to many physical laws.
Contributions to Physics
His early studies, at the Univ. of Pisa, were in medicine, but he was soon drawn to mathematics and physics. It is said that at the age of 19, in the cathedral of Pisa, he timed the oscillations of a swinging lamp by means of his pulse beats and found the time for each swing to be the same, no matter what the amplitude of the oscillation, thus discovering the isochronal nature of the pendulum, which he verified by experiment. Galileo soon became known through his invention of a hydrostatic balance and his treatise on the center of gravity of solid bodies. While professor (1589?2) at the Univ. of Pisa, he initiated his experiments concerning the laws of bodies in motion, which brought results so contradictory to the accepted teachings of Aristotle that strong antagonism was aroused. He found that bodies do not fall with velocities proportional to their weights, but he did not arrive at the correct conclusion (that the velocity is proportional to time and independent of both weight and density) until perhaps 20 years later. The famous story in which Galileo is said to have dropped weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa is apocryphal. The actual experiment was performed by Simon Stevin several years before Galileo's work. However, Galileo did find that the path of a projectile is a parabola, and he is credited with conclusions foreshadowing Newton's laws of motion.
Contributions to Astronomy
In 1592 he began lecturing on mathematics at the Univ. of Padua, where he remained for 18 years. There, in 1609, having heard reports of a simple magnifying instrument put together by a lens-grinder in Holland, he constructed the first complete astronomical telescope. Exploring the heavens with his new aid, Galileo discovered that the moon, shining with reflected light, had an uneven, mountainous surface and that the Milky Way was made up of numerous separate stars. In 1610 he discovered the four largest satellites of Jupiter, the first satellites of a planet other than Earth to be detected. He observed and studied the oval shape of Saturn (the limitations of his telescope prevented the resolving of Saturn's rings), the phases of Venus, and the spots on the sun. His investigations confirmed his acceptance of the Copernican theory of the solar system; but he did not openly declare a doctrine so opposed to accepted beliefs until 1613, when he issued a work on sunspots. Meanwhile, in 1610, he had gone to Florence as philosopher and mathematician to Cosimo II de' Medici, grand duke of Tuscany, and as
mathematician at the Univ. of Pisa.
Conflict with the Church
In 1611 he visited Rome to display the telescope to the papal court. In 1616 the system of Copernicus was denounced as dangerous to faith, and Galileo, summoned to Rome, was warned not to uphold it or teach it. But in 1632 he published a work written for the nonspecialist, Dialogo爡爏opra i due massimi sistemi del mondo [dialogue on the two chief systems of the world] (tr. 1661; rev. and ed. by Giorgio de Santillana, 1953; new tr. by Stillman Drake, 1953, rev. 1967); that work, which supported the as opposed to the Ptolemaic, marked a turning point in scientific and philosophical thought. Again summoned to Rome, he was tried (1633) by the Inquisition and brought to the point of making an abjuration of all beliefs and writings that held the sun to be the central body and the earth a moving body revolving with the other planets about it. Since 1761, accounts of the trial have concluded with the statement that Galileo, as he arose from his knees, exclaimed sotto voce, "E pur si muove" [nevertheless it does move]. That statement was long considered legendary, but it was discovered written on a portrait of Galileo completed c.1640.
After the Inquisition trial Galileo was sentenced to an enforced residence in Siena. He was later allowed to live in seclusion at Arcetri near Florence, and it is likely that Galileo's statement of defiance was made as he left Siena for Arcetri. In spite of infirmities and, at the last, blindness, Galileo continued the pursuit of scientific truth until his death. His last book, Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences (tr., 3d ed. 1939, repr. 1952), which contains most of his contributions to physics, appeared in 1638. In 1979 Pope John Paul II asked that the 1633 conviction be annulled. However, since teaching the Copernican theory had been banned in 1616, it was technically possible that a new trial could find Galileo guilty; thus it was suggested that the 1616 prohibition be reversed, and this happened in 1992. The pope concluded that while 17th-century theologians based their decision on the knowledge available to them at the time, they had wronged Galileo by not recognizing the difference between a question relating to scientific investigation and one falling into the realm of doctrine of the faith.
Bibliography
See biography by L. Geymonat (tr. 1965); studies by G. de Santillana (1955), S. Drake (1970, 1978, and 1980), and W. R. Shea (1973); G. de Santillana, The Crime of Galileo (1955, repr. 1976); M. A. Finocchiaro, Galileo and the Art of Reasoning (1980).
法语好句子
Ceux qui s'appliquent trop aux petites choses deviennent ordinairement incapables des grandes. 那些过于专注于小事的人通常无法成就大事。
Il y a une infinite de choses qu'on ne fait bien que lorsqu'on les fait par necessite.
只有在迫不得已时，我们才能做好很多事情。
Le temps,qui fortifie les amities,affaiblit l'amour.
时间巩固了友谊，削弱了爱情。
On n'est pas beau apres l'amour.Mouvements ridicules ou on perd chacun un peu de matiere.Grandes saletes!
经历了爱情之后人们变得不再令人满意。每个人的智商都有所下降，做出荒唐的事情来。这真是糟糕的事情。
On ne souffre jamais que du mal que nous font ceux qu'on aime.Le mal qui vient d'un ennemi ne compte pas.
我们忍受的痛苦只来自于我们所爱的人，来自敌人的痛苦算不了什么。
Pour etre aime,il faut ne pas cacher son amour.C'est une verite qui n'a pas fini d'etre vraie. 要别人爱你，你就不应该掩饰自己的爱情。
L'argent a son merite,je ne trouve d'ennuyeux que les moyens de l'avoir.
金钱有它的价值，我感到厌烦的只是获取金钱的种种方式。
Je sais qu'on vit avec de l'argent,mais je sais aussi qu'il ne faut pas vivre pour de l'argent. 我知道人要靠钱生活，但我也知道人不能为了钱而生活。
Le bonheur,c'est d'etre heureux,ce n'est pas de faire croire aux autres qu'on l'est!
幸福是过得开心，不是让别人以为自己过得开心！
Il faut réfléchir avant d’agir 要三思而后行啊
A：Je veux aller dans le sud.
B：Réfléchis avant d’agir.
A：Je reste sur ma décision.
A：我决定去南方闯一闯。
B：要三思而后行啊。
A：我决定的事情不会改变。
A：Je veux vendre ma maison et prendre des actions.
B：Il faut réfléchir avant d’agir.
A：C’est tout réfléchi.
A：我要把房子卖了炒股票。
B：要三思而后行啊。
A：我已经考虑好久了。
浪漫滴ｄê法语o○で~ *句子
La vie sans amour n'est pas une vraie vie
没有爱情的生活不是真正的生活
Pourquoi nous ne pouvons pas vivre ensemble en toute liberté？
为什么你我不能自由地生活在一起？
Je t'aimerai encore,jusqu'à la fin,jusqu'à la mort.
我会依旧爱你,直到最后一刻,直到死亡降临.
Je t'aimerai encore,jusqu'à la fin du dernier jour.
我会依旧爱你,直到世界末日的最后一刻.
Le Cycle de L'amour(爱的轮回)
Passant l'océan du temps, traversant le mur du soupir, je vais arriver à ce parc du rêve là... (游过时间的海，穿越叹息之墙，我将到达梦中的花园...)
Audessous de doux arbres de Sal dans les feuillles sont en train de tomber à profusion, il y avait un homme qui étincelait d'un vif éclat comme l'or, Il était toute ma vénération, ma affection dans le fond de mon ame, il était toute ma vie et même tout le cosmos qui se concentrait. (落英缤纷的沙罗双树下，有个男人闪耀着黄金的光芒。他，就是我灵魂深处敬慕和深爱的全部，是我整个生命乃至宇宙凝聚而成的那个唯一!)
J'en étais certaince, c'était l'amour qui existe depuis plusieurs milliers années, c'était l'amour qui a déjà ouvert ses yeux et c'était l'amour qui a franchi le temps et l'espace pour se fondre avec mon ame... Il a allumé ma vie, il est cette lanterne du lotus qui a guidé ma vie... Tu étais l'homme le plus proche de dieu, mais tu avais déifié mon dieu depuis longtemps. Tu étais mon dieu, ainsi personne ne peut te remplacer, tu étais ma vie, ma croyance et ma force!(我深信这就是爱，这爱存在了好几千年，这爱已张开了它的双眼，这爱跨越时空而来，与我的灵魂洞烛为一。它点亮了我的生命，它是指引我人生的那盏莲灯......你是最接近神的男人，但你早已图腾为我的神，你是无可取代的我的神，我的生命，信仰和力量!)
J'ai rêvé que mon coeur était déchiré dans la guerre; et une larme a coulé sur ta joue sans sensibilité. J'ai rêvé que le ciel et la terre s'écroulaient; j'ai embrassé ton corps glacial et fermé mes yeus éternellement dans la flamme... Si tu te rappelais la signification du grain de beauté entre tes doux yeux; je t'attendrais sans regret jusqu'à ce que ma vie devienne des poussières!(梦见我的心在战争中被撕裂，一滴泪水滑过你毫无知觉的脸。梦见天和地都在迸裂，我拥着你冰冷的身躯在火焰中永恒地闭上双眼......如果你还记得你眉心间的痣的含义，我就不后悔继续等待直到生命化为灰烬!)
On était le plus joli cycle de réincarnation en ce monde...(我们是这世界最美丽的轮回...) On était le phénix, après le nirvana, dans le feu ardent...(我们是涅盘后欲火重生的凤凰...)