^^^^^^^^^^ HENRY FIELDING: THE AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES The outspoken eighteenth-century man of letters, Samuel Johnson, wrote to a woman who had read the novel Tom Jones: I am shocked to hear you quote from so vicious a book. I am sorry to hear you have read it: a confession which no modest lady should ever make. I scarcely know a more corrupt work. That's an unusual judgment about a landmark book in the history of world literature, but it's a sample of the kind of passionate response--both favorable and unfavorable--Tom Jones has inspired since it was published. Its author, Henry Fielding, was born on April 22, 1707, in Somerset, in southwest England, the area where his hero is born and raised. Unlike Tom, Fielding had...

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Tags: novel, restoration, study guide

Volpone, a Venetian nobleman, has no relative to make his heir; he must name someone his beneficiary. Several rivals try to attain his favor by bringing the sick Volpone gifts that they hope will be returned tenfold. Mosca, a clever parasite to Volpone, encourages the three major gulls to give until it hurts. These birds of prey are Voltore, a lawyer; Corbaccio, an old miser about to die himself; and Corvino, a rich merchant and husband to Celia, a beautiful lady of Venice. Also naively competing for Volpone's wealth is Lady Would-be, the affected wife of an English knight, Sir Politic Would-be. After each gull is fleeced before our eyes, Mosca encourages Volpone to think of seeking a greater treasure than gold: the wife of Corvino. After a...

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Tags: comedy, play, restoration, study guide

  The Duchess of Malfi takes place in Italy, mostly at the Duchess’s palace in Malfi, in the sixteenth century. The Duchess is a young widow whose two brothers, Ferdinand and the Cardinal, are visiting her from Rome at the play’s start. Antonio, the manager of her household, has just returned from France. Before leaving the Duchess, Ferdinand engages Bosola, previously used by the Cardinal as a hit man, to ostensibly manage the Duchess’s horses, but in reality to spy on her for the brothers so they can be sure she remains chaste and does not remarry...

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Tags: play, restoration, study guide

  Spanish is one of the great European languages, rich in heritage from its more than nine centuries of existence. This is the language that comes from the region of Spain that English-speakers call Castile. As Christopher Columbus and other Spanish explorers came to the New World, Spanish became the lan-guage of all the peoples from Florida to Tierra del Fuego (with the exception of Brazil, where Portuguese is spoken). When you go to places like Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Costa Rica, Panama, Honduras, or Nicaragua, you speak in or are spoken to in Spanish. If you visit cities like Santiago de Chile, Montevideo, Asuncion, Buenos Aires, Lima,...

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Tags: for dummies, spanish

  I don’t believe in God, but I miss Him. That’s what I say when the question isput.  I asked  my  brother,  who  has  taught  philosophy  at  Oxford,  Geneva,  and  theSorbonne, what he thought of such a statement, without revealing that it was my own.He replied with a single word: “ Soppy.”The person to begin with is my maternal grandmother, Nellie Louisa Scoltock,née Machin. She was a teacher in Shropshire until she married my grandfather, BertScoltock. Not Bertram, not Albert, just Bert: so christened, so called, so cremated. Hewas a headmaster with a certain mechanical  dash to him:  a motorcycle-and-sidecarman,  then owner of a Lanchester,  then, ...

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Tags: literature, no-fiction, prose

Whether you are too busy to take a class or merely want to supplement your language learningexperience with additional materials, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Learning Italian, Second Edition,was written specifically for the independent study of Italian.Any idiot can speak Italian, and lots of them do. The word “idiot” comes from the Greek rootidios and means “of a particular person, private, own.” In Latin, an idiota simply refers to a pri-vate person. You see this root in the words “idiom” and “idiosyncrasy.”Beware of the idiots! Lame and suffering from a speech impediment, Claudius (10 B.C.–54 A.D.)is remembered as a scholar and a competent administrator during the time he reigned. Againstall odds, this “idiot” rose up to become Roman...

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Tags: for dummies, italian, linguistics

  The Phonology of Italian offers an overview of the main characteristics of Italiansound patterns under consideration of regional variation and an analysis couched inthe framework of Optimality Theory.With regard to this goal immediately two questions arise. 1. What is Italian? 2. Whyis there a need for such a book? The first question might be raised by readers whoare aware of the complex linguistic situation of Italy and the Italian language—orlanguages, one might say. Section 1.1 will be dedicated to a clarification of this situation.The second question could be expected from anyone familiar with the literature onItalian phonology. Italian is by no means an understudied language. It has receiveda lot of attention in the linguistic literature,...

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Tags: italian, linguistics, oxford, phonetics