1.
Rhine
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The largest city on the river Rhine is Cologne, Germany, with a population of more than 1,050,000 people. It is the second-longest river in Central and Western Europe, at about 1,230 km, with an average discharge of about 2,900 m3/s. The Rhine and the Danube formed most of the inland frontier of the Roman Empire and, since those days. The many castles and fortifications along the Rhine testify to its importance as a waterway in the Holy Roman Empire, in the modern era, it has become a symbol of German nationalism. The variant of the name of the Rhine in modern languages are all derived from the Gaulish name Rēnos, spanish is with French in adopting the Germanic vocalism Rin-, while Italian, Occitan and Portuguese retain the Latin Ren-. The Gaulish name Rēnos belongs to a class of river names built from the PIE root *rei- to move, flow, run, the grammatical gender of the Celtic name is masculine, and the name remains masculine in German, Dutch and French. The Old English river name was variously inflected as masculine or feminine, the length of the Rhine is conventionally measured in Rhine-kilometers, a scale introduced in 1939 which runs from the Old Rhine Bridge at Constance to Hoek van Holland. The river length is shortened from the rivers natural course due to a number of canalisation projects completed in the 19th and 20th century. The total length of the Rhine, to the inclusion of Lake Constance and its course is conventionally divided as follows, The Rhine carries its name without distinctive accessories only from the confluence of the Vorderrhein and Hinterrhein near Tamins-Reichenau. Above this point is the catchment of the headwaters of the Rhine. It belongs almost exclusively to the Swiss Canton of Graubünden, ranging from Gotthard Massif in the west via one valley lying in Ticino, traditionally, Lake Toma near the Oberalp Pass in the Gotthard region is seen as the source of the Vorderrhein and the Rhine as a whole. The Hinterrhein rises in the Rheinwald valley below Mount Rheinwaldhorn, the Vorderrhein, or Anterior Rhine, springs from Lai da Tuma, near the Oberalp Pass and passes the impressive Ruinaulta formed by the largest visible rock slide in the alps, the Flims Rockslide. A multiday trekking route is signposted along the young Rhine called Senda Sursilvana, the Hinterrhein/Rein Posteriur, or Posterior Rhine, starts from the Paradies Glacier, near the Rheinwaldhorn. One of its tributaries, the Reno di Lei, drains the Valle di Lei on politically Italian territory, after three main valleys separated by the two gorges, Roflaschlucht and Viamala, it reaches Reichenau. The Vorderrhein arises from numerous source streams in the upper Surselva, one source is Lai da Tuma with the Rein da Tuma, which is usually indicated as source of the Rhine, flowing through it. Into it flow tributaries from the south, some longer, some equal in length, such as the Reno di Medel, the Rein da Maighels, and the Rein da Curnera. The Cadlimo Valley in the Canton of Ticino is drained by the Reno di Medel, all streams in the source area are partially, sometimes completely, captured and sent to storage reservoirs for the local hydro-electric power plants. In its lower course the Vorderrhein flows through a gorge named Ruinaulta through the Flims Rockslide, the whole stretch of the Vorderrhein to the Rhine confluence near Reichenau-Tamins is accompanied by a long-distance hiking trail called Senda Sursilvana
2.
St. Goar
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Sankt Goar is a town on the west bank of the Middle Rhine in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Sankt Goar-Oberwesel, whose seat is in the town of Oberwesel, Sankt Goar is well known for its central location in the Rhine Gorge, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since July 2002. The famous Lorelei rock is close-by, slightly upstream on the opposite bank, Sankt Goar lies in the Rhine Gorge and the narrow canal on the Rhine that flows through the Rhein Massive. This part of the gorge on the left bank borders on the edge of the Rhein - Hunsrück, the characteristic narrow-valley form came into use through downcutting in a massive that was undergoing an uplift. The nearest major Towns are the city of Koblenz, some 24 km to the north, Sankt Goar is linked by the Loreley Ferry with its sister town of Sankt Goarshausen directly across the Rhine. The Rhine’s width here is roughly 250 m, in Sankt Goar and the Gründelbach, Rainwater flows from the Hunsrück and empties into the Rhine. The town is made up of parts that belong to St. The area around what is now the town of Sankt Goar was already settled in Roman times, the name in the Early Middle Ages was Wochara, after a short brook emptying into the Rhine here. The name by which the town today is from Goar of Aquitaine. Goar came as a clergyman from Aquitaine in the southwest of France. With leave from the Bishop of Trier, he worked as a missionary to the local people and he was well known for his great hospitality, particularly towards the Rhine boatmen. Later, he built on the site where the now stands a hospice. After his death, about 575, Goar’s grave became a pilgrimage site, Frankish King Pepin the Younger transferred the hospice and chapel in 765 to the Abbot of the Benedictine Prüm Abbey as a personal benefice. From this grew the Sankt Goar Canonical Foundation, witnessed as early as the late 11th century. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that “a small church” was dedicated to Goar of Aquitaine in 1768 “in the little town on the banks of the Rhine which bears his name. ”It is also reported that Charlemagne built a church over the site of Goar’s hermitage. It is around this church that the town of Sankt Goar grew on the bank of the Rhine between Wesel and Boppard. Beginning in 1190, the town was under protection and the jurisdiction of the Counts of Katzenelnbogen, the monastery Vögte. In 1245, Count Diether V of Katzenelnbogen built the castle, when the last of the Counts of Katzenelnbogen died in 1479, Sankt Goar passed to the Landgraviate of Hesse
3.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
4.
Slate
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Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock, foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering, but instead is in planes perpendicular to the direction of metamorphic compression. The foliation in slate is called slaty cleavage and it is caused by strong compression causing fine grained clay flakes to regrow in planes perpendicular to the compression. Slate is frequently grey in color, especially when seen, en masse, Slate is not to be confused with shale, from which it may be formed, or schist. The word slate is used for certain types of object made from slate rock. It may mean a single roofing tile made of slate, or a writing slate and this was traditionally a small smooth piece of the rock, often framed in wood, used with chalk as a notepad or noticeboard, and especially for recording charges in pubs and inns. The phrases clean slate and blank slate come from this usage, before the mid-19th century, the terms slate, shale and schist were not sharply distinguished. In the context of underground mining in the United States. For example, roof slate referred to shale above a coal seam, occasionally, as in the purple slates of North Wales, ferrous reduction spheres form around iron nuclei, leaving a light green spotted texture. These spheres are sometimes deformed by a subsequent applied stress field to ovoids, Slate can be made into roofing slates, a type of roof shingle, or more specifically a type of roof tile, which are installed by a slater. Slate has two lines of breakability – cleavage and grain – which make it possible to split the stone into thin sheets, when broken, slate retains a natural appearance while remaining relatively flat and easy to stack. Slate is particularly suitable as a material as it has an extremely low water absorption index of less than 0. 4%. In fact, this natural slate, which requires only minimal processing, has the lowest embodied energy of all roofing materials, natural slate is used by building professionals as a result of its beauty and durability. Slate is incredibly durable and can last several hundred years, often little or no maintenance. Its low water makes it very resistant to frost damage and breakage due to freezing. Natural slate is also fire resistant and energy efficient, Slate roof tiles are usually fixed either with nails, or with hooks as is common with Spanish slate. In the UK, fixing is typically with double nails onto timber battens or nailed directly onto timber sarking boards, nails were traditionally of copper, although there are modern alloy and stainless steel alternatives. Both these methods, if used properly, provide a long-lasting weathertight roof with a lifespan of around 80–100 years, Slate roofs are still used today
5.
Rhine Gorge
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The Rhine Gorge is a popular name for the Upper Middle Rhine Valley, a 65 km section of the River Rhine between Koblenz and Bingen in Germany. It was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in June 2002 for a combination of geological, historical, cultural and industrial reasons. The regions rocks were laid down in the Devonian period and are known as Rhenish Facies and this is a fossil-bearing sedimentary rock type consisting mainly of slate. The rocks underwent considerable folding during the Carboniferous period, the gorge was carved out during a much more recent uplift to leave the river contained within steep walls 200 m high, the most famous feature being the Loreley. The gorge produces its own microclimate and has acted as a corridor for species not otherwise found in the region and its slopes have long been terraced for agriculture, in particular viticulture which has good conditions on south-facing slopes. Most of the vineyards belong to the wine region Mittelrhein, but the southernmost parts of the Rhine Gorge fall in Rheingau, the river has been an important trade route into central Europe since prehistoric times and a string of small settlements has grown up along the banks. Constrained in size, many of old towns retain a historic feel today. With increasing wealth, many castles appeared and the became a core region of the Holy Roman Empire. It was at the centre of the Thirty Years War, which many of the castles in ruins. At one time forming a border of France, in the 19th Century the valley part of Prussia. This part of the Rhine features strongly in folklore, such as a castle on the Rhine being the setting for the opera Götterdämmerung. The annual Rhine in Flames festivals include spectacular firework displays at Sankt Goar in September and Koblenz in August, Koblenz Lahnstein Rhens Braubach Boppard St
6.
Middle Rhine
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This gorge is quite deep, about 130 metres from the top of the rocks down to the average water-line. The Middle Rhine is one of four sections of the river between Lake Constance and the North Sea, the upper half of the Middle Rhine from Bingen to Koblenz is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with more than 40 castles and fortresses from the Middle Ages and many wine-villages. The lower half from Koblenz to Bonn is famous for the formerly volcanic Siebengebirge with the Drachenfels volcano, both parts together are known as the romantic Rhine. The Middle Rhine Valley has been a major tourist attraction since the 19th century and it is also home to some 450,000 people. The valley owes its appearance to both its natural shape and human alterations. For two millennia, it has one of the most important routes for cultural exchange between the Mediterranean region and northern Europe. Situated in the heart of Europe, it was sometimes a border, the history of the valley reflects the history of Western Europe. It inspired Heinrich Heine to write his famous poem Lorelei and Richard Wagner to write his opera Götterdämmerung, the vineyards along the Middle Rhine form the wine-growing region of the same name, see Mittelrhein. Between Rüdesheim and Lorch, the bank belongs to the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Downstream of Lorch, both belong to Rhineland-Palatinate until the river crosses the border with North Rhine-Westphalia shortly before Bonn. The Middle Rhine basin at Neuwied separates the upper and lower halves of the Middle Rhine, on the Namedyer Werth peninsula, is the Andernach Geyser, which at 50 to 60 metres is the highest cold-water geyser in the world. On 7 July 2006, the geyser was reactivated for tourists, there are major railway lines on both sides of the river, the Linke Rheinstrecke on the left and the Rechte Rheinstrecke on the right. Major roads are the federal roads B9 and B42 and, of course, larger tributaries on the left include Nahe, Moselle and Ahr, on the right Lahn, Wied and Sieg. The Stolzenfels Castle is a synonym for the Rhine romanticism like no other and it did not just encourage the acceptance of the existing castles, it also encouraged their restoration and the building of even more castles. The Electoral Palace in Koblenz was the last residence of the Electors of Trier and it was demolished by the French revolutionary army. The most powerful fortress in Rhineland-Palatinate, the Fortress Koblenz, was built in the 19th century by the Prussians, the Festung Ehrenbreitstein, once part of the fortification system, dominates the Rhine Valley to this day. The following castles are found along the Middle Rhine, in downstream order, evidence of this are the barrow fields around the city forest of Boppard and in the forest of Brey and the ring walls on the Dommelberg in Koblenz and on the giant hill at St. Goarshausen. On the western border of the Middle Rhine region, there are traces of a Celtic settlement, with the grave pillars of Pfalzfeld
7.
Sankt Goarshausen
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It is located within the Nassau Nature Park and the Rhine Gorge UNESCO world heritage site, and was historically part of the Duchy of Nassau. It lies approximately 30 km south of Koblenz, and it is above all famous for the Lorelei rock nearby, Sankt Goarshausen is the seat of the Loreley collective municipality. The towns economy is based on making and tourism. The Sankt Goarshausen railway station connects the town with Wiesbaden, Frankfurt, Sankt Goarshausen was formerly the terminus of the Nassau Light Railway line between Sankt Goarshausen and Nastätten. In 1885, St. Goarshausen had almost 1,456 inhabitants, close to the town in the hillside just above it, lie the ruins of 14th century Castle Katz, ruined since 1806. Around 50% of the population are Protestants, while around 30% are Catholics, Sankt Goarshausen had a small Jewish community from the 17th century to the 1930s, peaking at 2, 4% in 1895. The town has 1,585 inhabitants as of December 31,2002, with the villages Ehrental, Wellmich and Heide, the number of inhabitants is over 2,000. The most important economic areas for St. Goarshausen are tourism, in earlier times was the town an important place along the Rhein for fishing and as an embarcation area. Today, the very busy town is losing its importance. Especially problematic for St. Goarshausen is the distance to the larger city Nastätten. In tourism, the biggest competitor is the twin city St. Goar on the shore of the Rhine. St. Goar is only reachable by ferry, as the closest bridge is 30 km away, while there is an established need for a bridge across the Rhine, plans for connecting the towns have not yet been realised. To help tourism, a centre has been established in connection to the Lorelei rock. The most famous point in town, that brings the most tourists is the site of the Lorelei rock. In St. Goarshausen there are two castles, Burg Katz and Burg Maus, Burg Katz is not open for visitors. There is a view over the town from Burg Maus. The third weekend of September, Rhein in Flammen, large fireworks from Burg Katz in St. Goarshausen, Burg Rheinfels in St. Goar, about Verbandsgemeinde Loreley, with map St. Goarshausen Loreley City
8.
Rhineland
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The Rhineland is the name used for a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine River, chiefly its middle section. In the High Middle Ages, numerous Imperial States along the river emerged from the stem duchy of Lotharingia. The term covered the whole occupied zone west of the Rhine including the bridge-heads on the eastern banks, after the collapse of the French dominated West Bank in the early 19th century, the regions of Lower Rhine and Jülich-Cleves-Berg were annexed to the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1822 the Prussian administration reorganized the territory as the Rhine Province, following the First World War, the western part of Rhineland was occupied by Entente forces, then demilitarized under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. German forces remilitarized the territory in 1936, as part of a diplomatic test of will, stretching down to the North Palatine Uplands in the south, this area, except for the Saarland, more or less corresponds with the modern use of the term. The southern and eastern parts are mainly hill country, cut by valleys, principally the Middle Rhine up to Bingen and its Ahr, Moselle. The border of the North German plain is marked by the lower Ruhr, in the south, the river cuts the Rhenish Massif. The area encompasses the western part of the Ruhr industrial region, toponyms as well as local family names often trace back to the Frankish heritage. The lands on the shore of the Rhine are strongly characterised by Roman influence. In the core territories, large parts of the population are members of the Catholic Church. On the right bank of the Rhine, between the Main and the Lahn, were the settlements of the Mattiaci, a branch of the Germanic Chatti, while farther to the north were the Usipetes and Tencteri. Julius Caesar conquered the tribes on the left bank, and Augustus established numerous fortified posts on the Rhine. The Frankish conquerors of the Rhenish districts were singularly little affected by the culture of the Roman provincials they subdued, by the 8th century the Frankish dominion was firmly established in western Germania and northern Gaul. On the division of the Carolingian Empire at the Treaty of Verdun the part the province to the east of the fell to East Francia. As the central power of the Holy Roman Emperor weakened, the Rhineland split up into small independent principalities, each with its separate vicissitudes. After the Imperial Reform of 1500/12, the territory was part of the Lower Rhenish–Westphalian, Upper Rhenish, aachen was the place of coronation of the German emperors, and the ecclesiastical principalities of the Rhine played a large role in German history. At the Peace of Basel in 1795, the whole of the bank of the Rhine was taken by France. The population was about 1.6 million in small states
9.
Celtic languages
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The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, a branch of the greater Indo-European language family. Modern Celtic languages are spoken on the north-western edge of Europe, notably in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall. There are also a number of Welsh speakers in the Patagonia area of Argentina. Some people speak Celtic languages in the other Celtic diaspora areas of the United States, Canada, Australia, in all these areas, the Celtic languages are now only spoken by minorities though there are continuing efforts at revitalisation. Welsh is the only Celtic language not classified as endangered by UNESCO, the spread to Cape Breton and Patagonia occurred in modern times. SIL Ethnologue lists six living Celtic languages, of four have retained a substantial number of native speakers. These are the Goidelic languages and the Brittonic languages, the other two, Cornish and Manx, died in modern times with their presumed last native speakers in 1777 and 1974 respectively. For both these languages, however, revitalisation movements have led to the adoption of these languages by adults and children, taken together, there were roughly one million native speakers of Celtic languages as of the 2000s. In 2010, there were more than 1.4 million speakers of Celtic languages, shelta, based largely on Irish with influence from an undocumented source. Some forms of Welsh-Romani or Kååle also combined Romany itself with Welsh language, beurla-reagaird, Highland travellers language Celtic divided into various branches, Lepontic, the oldest attested Celtic language. Anciently spoken in Switzerland and in Northern-Central Italy, from the Alps to Umbria, coins with Lepontic inscriptions have been found in Noricum and Gallia Narbonensis. Celtiberian, anciently spoken in the Iberian peninsula, in parts of modern Galicia, Asturias, La Rioja, Aragón, Cantabria, Old Castile, the relationship of Celtiberian with Gallaecian, in the northwest of the peninsula, is uncertain. Gallaecian, anciently spoken in the former Gallaecia, northwest of the peninsula, Gaulish languages, including Galatian and possibly Noric. These languages were spoken in a wide arc from Belgium to Turkey. Brittonic, including the living languages Breton, Cornish, and Welsh, before the arrival of Scotti on the Isle of Man in the 9th century, there may have been a Brittonic language in the Isle of Man. Goidelic, including the living languages Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic, scholarly handling of the Celtic languages has been rather argumentative owing to scarceness of primary source data. Other scholars distinguish between P-Celtic and Q-Celtic, putting most of the Gaulish and Brittonic languages in the former group, the P-Celtic languages are sometimes seen as a central innovating area as opposed to the more conservative peripheral Q-Celtic languages. In the P/Q classification schema, the first language to split off from Proto-Celtic was Gaelic and it has characteristics that some scholars see as archaic, but others see as also being in the Brittonic languages
10.
Waterfall
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A waterfall is a place where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of drops in the course of a stream or river. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of an iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls are commonly formed in the course of a river. At these times the channel is narrow and deep. When the river courses over resistant bedrock, erosion happens slowly, as the watercourse increases its velocity at the edge of the waterfall, it plucks material from the riverbed. Whirlpools created in the turbulence as well as sand and stones carried by the increase the erosion capacity. This causes the waterfall to carve deeper into the bed and to recede upstream, often over time, the waterfall will recede back to form a canyon or gorge downstream as it recedes upstream, and it will carve deeper into the ridge above it. The rate of retreat for a waterfall can be as high as one, eventually, the outcropping, more resistant cap rock will collapse under pressure to add blocks of rock to the base of the waterfall. Waterfalls normally form in an area due to erosion. After a long period of being formed, the water falling off the ledge will retreat. Eventually, as the pit grows deeper, the waterfall collapses to be replaced by a steeply sloping stretch of river bed, a river sometimes flows over a large step in the rocks that may have been formed by a fault line. Waterfalls can occur along the edge of a trough, where a stream or river flowing into a glacier continues to flow into a valley after the glacier has receded or melted. The large waterfalls in Yosemite Valley are examples of this phenomenon, another reason hanging valleys may form is where two rivers join and one is flowing faster than the other. Waterfalls can be grouped into ten classes based on the average volume of water present on the fall using a logarithmic scale. Class 10 waterfalls include Niagara Falls, Paulo Afonso Falls and Khone Falls, young Wrote Waterfalls, form and process this work made waterfalls a much more serious topic for research for modern Geoscientists. Ledge waterfall, Water descends vertically over a cliff, maintaining partial contact with the bedrock. Block/Sheet. Classical, Ledge waterfalls where fall height is equal to stream width. Curtain, Ledge waterfalls which descend over a larger than the width of falling water stream
11.
Bavaria
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Bavaria is a free state and one of 16 federal states of Germany. Located in the German southeast with an area of 70,548 square kilometres and its territory comprises roughly a fifth of the total land area of Germany, and, with 12.9 million inhabitants, it is Germanys second most populous state. Munich, Bavarias capital and largest city, is the third largest city in Germany, the Duchy of Bavaria dates back to the year 555. In the 17th century CE, the Duke of Bavaria became a Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Bavaria existed from 1806 to 1918, when Bavaria became a republic. In 1946, the Free State of Bavaria re-organised itself on democratic lines after the Second World War, Bavaria has a unique culture, largely because of the states Catholic majority and conservative traditions. Bavarians have traditionally been proud of their culture, which includes such as Oktoberfest. The state also has the second largest economy among the German states by GDP figures, modern Bavaria also includes parts of the historical regions of Franconia, Upper Palatinate and Swabia. The Bavarians emerged in a north of the Alps, previously inhabited by Celts. The Bavarians spoke Old High German but, unlike other Germanic groups, rather, they seem to have coalesced out of other groups left behind by Roman withdrawal late in the 5th century. These peoples may have included the Celtic Boii, some remaining Romans, Marcomanni, Allemanni, Quadi, Thuringians, Goths, Scirians, Rugians, the name Bavarian means Men of Baia which may indicate Bohemia, the homeland of the Celtic Boii and later of the Marcomanni. They first appear in written sources circa 520, a 17th century Jewish chronicler David Solomon Ganz, citing Cyriacus Spangenberg, claimed that the diocese was named after an ancient Bohemian king, Boiia, in the 14th century BCE. From about 554 to 788, the house of Agilolfing ruled the Duchy of Bavaria and their daughter, Theodelinde, became Queen of the Lombards in northern Italy and Garibald was forced to flee to her when he fell out with his Frankish overlords. Garibalds successor, Tassilo I, tried unsuccessfully to hold the frontier against the expansion of Slavs. Tassilos son Garibald II seems to have achieved a balance of power between 610 and 616, after Garibald II little is known of the Bavarians until Duke Theodo I, whose reign may have begun as early as 680. From 696 onwards he invited churchmen from the west to organize churches and his son, Theudebert, led a decisive Bavarian campaign to intervene in a succession dispute in the Lombard Kingdom in 714, and married his sister Guntrud to the Lombard King Liutprand. At Theodos death the duchy was divided among his sons, at Hugberts death the duchy passed to a distant relative named Odilo, from neighbouring Alemannia. He was defeated near Augsburg in 743 but continued to rule until his death in 748, saint Boniface completed the peoples conversion to Christianity in the early 8th century. Bavaria was in ways affected by the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century
12.
Speyer
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Speyer is a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located beside the river Rhine, Speyer is 25 km south of Ludwigshafen, founded by the Romans, it is one of Germanys oldest cities. The first known names were Noviomagus and Civitas Nemetum, after the Teutonic tribe, Nemetes, around AD500 the name Spira first appeared in written documents and, as well as the French, this is still reflected in the names Spira and Espira used in Italian and Spanish. The citys name may be the origin of the Ashkenazi Jewish name, Shapiro, Speyer is dominated by the Speyer Cathedral, a number of churches and the Altpörtel. In the cathedral, beneath the altar, are the tombs of eight Holy Roman emperors. In 10 BC, the first Roman military camp is established, in AD150, the town appears as Noviomagus on the world map of the Greek geographer Ptolemy. In 346, a bishop for the town is mentioned for the first time, 4th century, Speyer appears on the Peutinger Map. In 1030, emperor Conrad II starts the construction of Speyer Cathedral, in 1076, emperor Henry IV embarks from Speyer, his favourite town, for Canossa. In 1084, establishment of the first Jewish community in Speyer, in 1294, the bishop loses most of his previous rights, and from now on Speyer is a Free Imperial Town of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1349, the Jewish community of Speyer is wiped out, between 1527 and 1689, Speyer is the seat of the Imperial Chamber Court. In 1526, at the Diet of Speyer interim toleration of Lutheran teaching, in 1529, at the Diet of Speyer the Lutheran states of the empire protest against the anti-Reformation resolutions. In 1635, Marshal of France Urbain de Maillé-Brézé, together with Jacques Nompar de Caumont, duc de La Force, conquers Heidelberg, in 1689, the town is heavily damaged by French troops. Between 1792 and 1814, Speyer is under French jurisdiction, in 1816, Speyer becomes the seat of administration of the Palatinate and of the government of the Rhine District of Bavaria, and remains so until the end of World War II. Between 1883 and 1904, the Memorial Church is built in remembrance of the Protestation of 1529, in 1947, the State Academy of Administrative Science is founded. In 1990, Speyer celebrates its 2000th anniversary
13.
Rheinberg
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Rheinberg is a town in the district of Wesel, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated on the bank of the Rhine, approx. 10 km north of Moers and 15 km south of Wesel and it comprises the municipal districts of Rheinberg, Borth, Budberg, and Orsoy. During the Dutch Revolt Rheinberg became known as the whore of war since it was captured, a century later the Battle of Rheinberg was fought on 12 June 1758, during the Seven Years War. It is the location of a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery, the majority of those now buried in the cemetery were airmen re-interred from German cemeteries after the war. The men of the fighting services buried there mostly lost their lives during the battle of the Rhineland. It is the town of the supermodel Claudia Schiffer, who still sometimes resides in Xanten. It is the town of Isebell Werth, who is a German equestrian. Rheinberg is also the site of a 110,000 square meter Amazon. com fulfilment warehouse, Rheinberg is also home to Underberg, one of the most famous liquor makers in Germany. Conflicts of Empires, Spain, the Low Countries and the Struggle for World Supremacy, 1585-1713
14.
Lorelei
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The Lorelei is a 132 m high, steep slate rock on the right bank of the River Rhine in the Rhine Gorge at Sankt Goarshausen in Germany. The name comes from the old German words lureln, Rhine dialect for murmuring, the translation of the name would therefore be, murmur rock or murmuring rock. The heavy currents, and a waterfall in the area created a murmuring sound. The murmuring is hard to hear owing to the urbanization of the area. Other theories attribute the name to the accidents, by combining the German verb lauern with the same ley ending. The rock and the murmur it creates have inspired various tales, an old legend envisioned dwarfs living in caves in the rock. In 1801, German author Clemens Brentano composed his ballad Zu Bacharach am Rheine as part of a continuation of his novel Godwi oder Das steinerne Bild der Mutter. It first told the story of a female associated with the rock. In the poem, the beautiful Lore Lay, betrayed by her sweetheart, is accused of bewitching men, rather than sentence her to death, the bishop consigns her to a nunnery. On the way thereto, accompanied by three knights, she comes to the Lorelei rock and she asks permission to climb it and view the Rhine once again. She does so and thinking that she sees her love in the Rhine, falls to her death, Brentano had taken inspiration from Ovid and the Echo myth. In 1824, Heinrich Heine seized on and adapted Brentanos theme in one of his most famous poems, in 1837 Heines lyrics were set to music by Friedrich Silcher in the art song Lorelei that became well known in German-speaking lands. A setting by Franz Liszt was also favored and over a score of other musicians have set the poem to music. The French writer Guillaume Apollinaire took up the theme again in his poem La Loreley, works about, or referencing, the Lorelei, German composer Clara Schumann composed another version of Heines poem in 1843. German composer Felix Mendelssohn began an opera in 1846 after a libretto by Emmanuel Geibel based on the legend of the Lorelei Rhine maiden for Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, however, he died before he had the chance to finish it. Austrian composer Johann Strauss I composed the waltz Lorelei Rhein Klänge, besides, another completed opera having Lorelei as main character is the English Lurline, by William Vincent Wallace. In Eichendorffs 1812 poem Waldesgespräch, a rider meets a young woman in the forest who turns out to be the witch Loreley. Robert Schumann set the poem to music in his 1840 song cycle Liederkreis, sylvia Plath wrote a poem entitled Lorelei
15.
Lorelei Fountain
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The Lorelei Fountain, also known as the Heinrich Heine Memorial, is located on East 161st Street in the Concourse neighborhood, in the Bronx, New York City, near the Bronx County Courthouse. It is a marble fountain dedicated to the memory of the German poet. Heine had once written a poem devoted to the Lorelei, a water spirit much like a mermaid that is associated with the Lorelei rock in St. Goarshausen. Instead, it was unveiled on July 8,1899 in the presence of the sculptor, Ernst Herter, three mermaids sit in the fountain bowl resting at the base, which is supported by three volutes. Located on the front side of the base, between two volutes, is a relief of a portrait of Heine. Below that is the signature of the poet, the figure to the left of the relief, the poetry, sits to the right of the figure symbolizing satire, on the back is one signifying melancholy. Between the three figures are three dolphin heads, in addition to the Heine-portrait, there is a depiction of a naked boy with dunce cap points his pen on a dragon, symbolizing the humor. On a third relief, a sphinx hugs a naked man in the kiss of death. The Lorelei is dressed, according to Herters biographer Brigitte Hüfler, in her cleavage, she wears a necklace, and her embroidered jacket is pulled over the hips. The figure symbolizing poetry is the one of the three figures that faces the relief of Heine. It also faces towards a rose, which is supposed to express a particularly intimate relationship between poetry and Heine, from the right of the Heine-relief is the figure of satire, which turns her upper body towards Heine. In the back of the monument is positioned the melancholy, the hair of the figure is long and unadorned, and she looks down sadly. The reliefs on the bridge the space between the auxiliary figures and the Lorelei. The Sphinx is holding a young man and gives him probably the kiss of death. The humorous relief signifying killing a dragon could be interpreted as a matter of prejudice, heines relief is embraced with a palm and a spruce twig. In the autumn of 1887, a committee for the establishment of a Heine Memorial was formed in Düsseldorf, the aim of the initiative was to unveil the monument to the 100th birthday of the poet, in 1897. The Munich-based poet Paul Heyse participated in a call to the committee, following Düsseldorfs lead, other German cities formed committees to support the project. Even in New York there was interest in the project, in December 1887, Herter provided some designs for the monument
16.
Ernst Herter
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Ernst Gustav Herter was a famous German sculptor who worked in Berlin. He specialized in creating statues of mythological figures, among his most famous works is Sterbender Achill, created in Berlin in 1884. The statue was acquired by the Empress of Austria and became the centerpiece at her palace Achilleion in Corfu, Greece. On 8 July 1899, Herter was present in New York when his Heinrich Heine memorial sculpture, known as the Lorelei Fountain, was unveiled in the Bronx, the Lorelei Fountain was originally intended for Heines city of birth, Düsseldorf, to mark the centenary of his birth. This project was squelched due to the antisemitic and nationalistic sentiment that pervaded the German Reich at that time, Herter studied at the Academy of Arts in Berlin and later also as apprentice of Ferdinand August Fischer, Gustav Blaeser and Albert Wolff. In 1869 he created his own studio, in 1875 he made a study trip to Italy. Professor Herter was a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts
17.
Heinrich Heine
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Christian Johann Heinrich Heine was a German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his lyric poetry. Heines later verse and prose are distinguished by their satirical wit and he is considered part of the Young Germany movement. His radical political views led to many of his works being banned by German authorities, Heine spent the last 25 years of his life as an expatriate in Paris. Heine was born at Düsseldorf in what was then the Duchy of Berg and he was called Harry in childhood but became known as Heinrich after his conversion to Lutheranism in 1825. Heines father, Samson Heine, was a textile merchant and his mother Peira, née van Geldern, was the daughter of a physician. Heinrich was the eldest of four children, Heine was also a third cousin once removed of philosopher and economist Karl Marx, also born to a German Jewish family in the Rhineland, with whom he became a frequent correspondent in later life. Düsseldorf was then a town with a population of around 16,000. The French Revolution and subsequent Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars involving Germany complicated Düsseldorfs political history during Heines childhood and it had been the capital of the Duchy of Jülich-Berg, but was under French occupation at the time of his birth. It then went to the Elector of Bavaria before being ceded to Napoleon in 1806 and it was first ruled by Joachim Murat, then by Napoleon himself. Upon Napoleons downfall in 1815 it became part of Prussia, thus Heines formative years were spent under French influence. The adult Heine would always be devoted to the French for introduction of the Napoleonic Code and he glossed over the negative aspects of French rule in Berg, heavy taxation, conscription, and economic depression brought about by the Continental Blockade. Heines parents were not particularly devout, as a young child they sent him to a Jewish school where he learned a smattering of Hebrew, but thereafter he attended Catholic schools. Here he learned French, which would be his second language - although he spoke it with a German accent. He also acquired a love for Rhineland folklore. In 1814 Heine went to a school in Düsseldorf where he learned to read English. The most successful member of the Heine family was his uncle Salomon Heine, in 1816 Heine moved to Hamburg to become an apprentice at Heckscher & Co, his uncles bank, but displayed little aptitude for business. He learned to hate Hamburg with its ethos, but it would become one of the poles of his life alongside Paris
18.
The Bronx
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The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City, within the U. S. state of New York. Since 1914, the Bronx has had the boundaries as Bronx County, a county of New York. The Bronx is divided by the Bronx River into a section in the west, closer to Manhattan. East and west street addresses are divided by Jerome Avenue—the continuation of Manhattans Fifth Avenue, the West Bronx was annexed to New York City in 1874, and the areas east of the Bronx River in 1895. Bronx County was separated from New York County in 1914, about a quarter of the Bronxs area is open space, including Woodlawn Cemetery, Van Cortlandt Park, Pelham Bay Park, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Bronx Zoo in the boroughs north and center. These open spaces are situated primarily on land reserved in the late 19th century as urban development progressed north. The name Bronx originated with Jonas Bronck, who established the first settlement in the area as part of the New Netherland colony in 1639, the native Lenape were displaced after 1643 by settlers. This cultural mix has made the Bronx a wellspring of both Latin music and hip hop. The Bronx, particularly the South Bronx, saw a decline in population, livable housing, and the quality of life in the late 1960s. Since then the communities have shown significant redevelopment starting in the late 1980s before picking up pace from the 1990s until today, the Bronx was called Rananchqua by the native Siwanoy band of Lenape, while other Native Americans knew the Bronx as Keskeskeck. It was divided by the Aquahung River, the origin of Jonas Bronck is contested. Some sources claim he was a Swedish born emigrant from Komstad, Norra Ljunga parish in Småland, Sweden, who arrived in New Netherland during the spring of 1639. Bronck became the first recorded European settler in the now known as the Bronx and built a farm named Emmanus close to what today is the corner of Willis Avenue. He leased land from the Dutch West India Company on the neck of the mainland north of the Dutch settlement in Harlem. He eventually accumulated 500 acres between the Harlem River and the Aquahung, which known as Broncks River or the Bronx. Dutch and English settlers referred to the area as Broncks Land, the American poet William Bronk was a descendant of Pieter Bronck, either Jonas Broncks son or his younger brother. More recent research indicates that Pieter was probably Jonas nephew or cousin, the Bronx is referred to with the definite article as The Bronx, both legally and colloquially. The region was named after the Bronx River and first appeared in the Annexed District of The Bronx created in 1874 out of part of Westchester County
19.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
20.
Clemens Brentano
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Clemens Wenzeslaus Brentano was a German poet and novelist, and a major figure of German Romanticism. He was the uncle, via his brother Christian, of Franz, Clemens Brentano was born to Peter Anton Brentano and Maximiliane von La Roche, a wealthy merchant family in Frankfurt on 9 September 1778. His fathers family was of Italian descent and his sister was writer Bettina von Arnim, who, at a young age, lionised and corresponded with Goethe, and, in 1835, published the correspondence as Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde. Clemens Brentano studied in Halle and Jena, afterwards residing at Heidelberg, Vienna and he was close to Wieland, Herder, Goethe, Friedrich Schlegel, Fichte and Tieck. From 1798 to 1800 Brentano lived in Jena, the first center of the romantic movement, in 1801, he moved to Göttingen, and became a friend of Achim von Arnim. He married writer Sophie Mereau on 29 October 1803, in 1804, he moved to Heidelberg and worked with Arnim on Zeitungen für Einsiedler and Des Knaben Wunderhorn. After his wife Sophie died in 1806 he married a second time in 1807 to Auguste Bussmann, in the years between 1808 and 1818, Brentano lived mostly in Berlin, and from 1819 to 1824 in Dülmen, Westphalia. He took on there the position of secretary to the Catholic visionary nun, the Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich. It was claimed that from 1802 until her death, she bore the wounds of the Crown of Thorns, and from 1812, the stigmata, a cross over her heart. Clemens Brentano made her acquaintance in 1818 and remained at the foot of the stigmatists bed copying her dictation until 1824, when she died, he prepared an index of the visions and revelations from her journal, The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. One of these visions made known by Brentano later resulted in the identification of the real House of the Virgin Mary in Ephesus by Abbé Julien Gouyet. The latter part of his life he spent in Regensburg, Frankfurt and Munich, Brentano assisted Ludwig Achim von Arnim, his brother-in-law, in the collection of folk-songs forming Des Knaben Wunderhorn, which Gustav Mahler drew upon for his song cycle. His first published writings were Satiren und poetische Spiele, a romance Godwi oder Das steinerne Bild der Mutter, of his dramas the best are Ponce de Leon, Victoria und ihre Geschwister and Die Grundung Prags. Brentanos collected works, edited by his brother Christian, appeared at Frankfurt in 9 vols, selections have been edited by J. B. Diel, M. Koch, and J. Dohmke, diel and William Kreiten, Klemens Brentano, the introduction to Kochs edition, and R. Steig, A. von Arnim und K. Brentano. In his honor the Clemens-Brentano prize is awarded for German literature, Brentanos work is referenced in Thomas Manns novel Doctor Faustus. A cycle of thirteen songs, based on Brentanos poems, is noted in Chapter XXI as one of the composer protagonists most significant early works, kohlhammer, Berlin – ISBN 3-17-008658-8 Das bittere Leiden unsers Herrn Jesu Christi ISBN 3-17-012652-0, ISBN 3-17-004917-8 Das Leben der heil. A. Brentano, Clemens Maria Cassells Encyclopedia of World Literature New York, ripley, George, Dana, Charles A. eds
21.
Bacharach
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Bacharach is a town in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Rhein-Nahe, whose seat is in Bingen am Rhein, the original name Baccaracus points to Celtic beginnings. Above the town looms Stahleck Castle, nowadays a youth hostel, the town lies in the Rhine Gorge,48 km south of Koblenz. Bacharach is divided into several Ortsteile, the outlying centre of Steeg lies in the Steeg Valley off to the side, away from the Rhine. This glen lies between Medenscheid and Neurath to the south and Henschhausen to the north on the heights, in the early 11th century, Bacharach had its first documentary mention. The Vögte of the Cologne estate were the Elector of the Palatinate, Count Palatine already had so much influence that he resided at Stahleck Castle. In 1214 the Wittelsbachs became Bacharach’s new lords, together with the Unteramt of Kaub they received here their most important toll and revenue source. In 1314 it was decided to choose Louis the Bavarian as the German king, from then on, the wine bore the designation Bacharacher. The timber trade from the Hunsrück also brought Bacharach importance, and in 1356, widely visible is the Wernerkapelle, a Rheinromantik landmark of the town, lying on the way up to Stahleck Castle from the town. It is the expanded Kunibertkapelle, and is still an unfinished Gothic ruin today and its namesake is Werner of Oberwesel, known in connection with pogroms triggered by his death. On the grounds of alleged ritual murder, there arose an anti-Semitic mob who waged a pogrom, wiping out Jewish communities in the Middle and Lower Rhine. In folk Christianity arose the cult of Werner, which was stricken from the Bishopric of Trier calendar in 1963. In 1344, building began on the town wall, and was already finished about 1400. In 1545, the town, along with the Palatinate, became Protestant under Count Palatine Friedrich II, Stahleck Castle and the town wall could not stop Bacharach from undergoing eight changes in military occupation in the Thirty Years War, nor the war’s attendant sackings. Moreover, further destruction was wrought by several town fires, then, in 1689, French troops fighting in the Nine Years War blew Stahleck Castle and four of the town wall’s towers up. In 1794, French Revolutionary troops occupied the Rhine’s left bank and in 1802, recalling this event is a monument stone somewhat downstream, across from Kaub. After the Congress of Vienna, the town went, along with the Rhine’s left bank, up to and including Bingerbrück, after the harbour silted up, Bacharach fell into a slumber from which it only awoke in the course of the Rheinromantik. Among the first of the prominent visitors at this time was the French writer Victor Hugo and we discover now that a mark of Cain stands on our forehead
22.
Ovid
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Publius Ovidius Naso, known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists and he enjoyed enormous popularity, but, in one of the mysteries of literary history, was sent by Augustus into exile in a remote province on the Black Sea, where he remained until his death. Ovid himself attributes his exile to carmen et error, a poem and a mistake and his poetry was much imitated during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and greatly influenced Western art and literature. The Metamorphoses remains one of the most important sources of classical mythology, Ovid talks more about his own life than most other Roman poets. Information about his biography is drawn primarily from his poetry, especially Tristia 4.10, other sources include Seneca the Elder and Quintilian. Ovid was born in Sulmo, in an Apennine valley east of Rome, to an important equestrian family and that was a significant year in Roman politics. He was educated in rhetoric in Rome under the teachers Arellius Fuscus and Porcius Latro with his brother who excelled at oratory and his father wanted him to study rhetoric toward the practice of law. According to Seneca the Elder, Ovid tended to the emotional, after the death of his brother at 20 years of age, Ovid renounced law and began travelling to Athens, Asia Minor, and Sicily. Ovids first recitation has been dated to around 25 BC, when he was eighteen and he was part of the circle centered on the patron Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, and seems to have been a friend of poets in the circle of Maecenas. 4.10. 41–54, Ovid mentions friendships with Macer, Propertius, Horace, Ovid was very popular at the time of his early works, but was later exiled by Augustus in AD8. He married three times and divorced twice by the time he was thirty years old and he had one daughter, who eventually bore him grandchildren. His last wife was connected in some way to the influential gens Fabia, the first 25 years of Ovids literary career were spent primarily writing poetry in elegiac meter with erotic themes. The chronology of early works is not secure, tentative dates. 2.18. 19–26 that seems to describe the collection as a published work. The authenticity of some of these poems has been challenged, between the publications of the two editions of the Amores can be dated the premiere of his tragedy Medea, which was admired in antiquity but is no longer extant. Ovid may identify this work in his poetry as the carmen, or song. The Ars Amatoria was followed by the Remedia Amoris in the same year and this corpus of elegiac, erotic poetry earned Ovid a place among the chief Roman elegists Gallus, Tibullus, and Propertius, of whom he saw himself as the fourth member
23.
Echo (mythology)
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In Greek mythology, Echo was an Oread who resided on Mount Cithaeron. Zeus loved consorting with beautiful nymphs and often visited them on Earth, eventually, Zeuss wife, Hera, became suspicious, and came from Mt. Olympus in an attempt to catch Zeus with the nymphs. Echo, by trying to protect Zeus, endured Heras wrath, so when Echo met Narcissus and fell in love with him, she was unable to tell him how she felt and was forced to watch him as he fell in love with himself. In Metamorphoses, the poet Ovid tells of Juno and the jealousy she felt towards her husband Jupiter for his many affairs, though vigilant, whenever she was about to catch him, Echo distracted her with lengthy conversations. When at last Juno realized the truth, she cursed Echo, from that moment on, the once loquacious nymph could only repeat the most recently spoken words of another person. Sometime after being cursed, Echo spied a young man, Narcissus and she immediately fell in love with him and, infatuated, followed quietly. The more she looked at the man, the more she longed for him. Though she wished with all her heart to call out to Narcissus, during the hunt, Narcissus became separated from his companions and called out, ‘is anyone there’, and heard the nymph repeat his words. Startled Narcissus answered the voice, ‘come here’, only to be told the same, when Narcissus saw that nobody had emerged from the glade he concluded that the owner of the voice must be running away from him and called out again. Finally he shouted, This way, we must come together, taking this to be a reciprocation of her love, Echo concurred ecstatically, We must come together. In her delight, Echo rushed to Narcissus ready to throw her arms around her beloved, Narcissus, however, was appalled and, spurning her, exclaimed, ‘Hands off. May I die before you enjoy my body. ’ All Echo could whisper in reply was, ‘enjoy my body’ and having done so she fled, scorned, humiliated, despite the harshness of her rejection, Echo’s love for Narcissus only grew. When Narcissus died, wasting away before his own reflection, consumed by a love that could not be, when Narcissus, looking one last time into the pool uttered, Oh marvellous boy, I loved you in vain, farewell, Echo too chorused, Farewell. Eventually, Echo, too, began to waste away and her beauty faded, her skin shrivelled, and her bones turned to stone. Today, all remains of Echo is the sound of her voice. The tale of Daphnis and Chloe is a 2nd-century romance by Greek author Longus, at one point in the novel, Daphnis and Chloe are staring out at the boats gliding across the sea. Chloe, having never heard an echo before, is confused on hearing the song repeated in a nearby valley. Daphnis promises to tell her the story of Echo in exchange for ten more kisses, daphnis’ rendition differs radically from Ovid’s account
24.
Siren (mythology)
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In Greek mythology, the Sirens were dangerous creatures, who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting music and voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island. Roman poets placed them on small islands called Sirenum scopuli. All such locations were surrounded by cliffs and rocks, although a Sophocles fragment makes Phorcys their father, when Sirens are named, they are usually as daughters of the river god Achelous, with Terpsichore, Melpomene, Sterope, or Chthon. In Euripides play, Helen, Helen in her anguish calls upon Winged maidens, although they lured mariners, the Greeks portrayed the Sirens in their meadow starred with flowers and not as sea deities. Roman writers linked the Sirens more closely to the sea, as daughters of Phorcys, Sirens are found in many Greek stories, notably in Homers Odyssey. Their number is reported as from two to five. In the Odyssey, Homer says nothing of their origin or names, according to Ovid, the Sirens were the companions of young Persephone. They were given wings by Demeter to search for Persephone when she was abducted, however, the Fabulae of Hyginus has Demeter cursing the Sirens for failing to intervene in the abduction of Persephone. Their song is continually calling on Persephone, the term siren song refers to an appeal that is hard to resist but that, if heeded, will lead to a bad conclusion. As Jane Ellen Harrison notes of The Ker as siren, It is strange and beautiful that Homer should make the Sirens appeal to the spirit, not to the flesh. The siren song is a promise to Odysseus of mantic truths, with a promise that he will live to tell them, they sing, Once he hears to his hearts content, sails on. We know all the pains that the Greeks and Trojans once endured on the plain of Troy when the gods willed it so— all that comes to pass on the fertile earth. They are mantic creatures like the Sphinx with whom they have much in common and their song takes effect at midday, in a windless calm. The end of song is death. That the sailors flesh is rotting away, suggests it has not been eaten and it has been suggested that, with their feathers stolen, their divine nature kept them alive, but unable to provide food for their visitors, who starved to death by refusing to leave. According to Hyginus, sirens were fated to live only until the mortals who heard their songs were able to pass by them, Sirens were believed to combine women and birds in various ways. In early Greek art, Sirens were represented as birds with womens heads, bird feathers. Later, they were represented as female figures with the legs of birds, with or without wings, playing a variety of musical instruments, especially harps
25.
Friedrich Silcher
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Philipp Friedrich Silcher, was a German composer, mainly known for his lieder, and an important folksong collector. Silcher was meant to be a teacher, but dedicated himself entirely to music in the seminary in Ludwigsburg after he met Carl Maria von Weber. He was taught composition and piano by Conradin Kreutzer and Johann Nepomuk Hummel, in 1817 he was named musical director at the University of Tübingen. He is regarded as one of the most important protagonists of choir singing and he arranged many German and international folk songs that even today remain standard repertoire of many choirs in Germany and became an integral part of German daily life. In 1829 Silcher founded the Akademische Liedertafel in Tübingen and directed it until his death and he was married to Luise Rosine Ensslin. They had two daughters and one son, a wine varietal was named after him, the Silcher. The asteroid 10055 Silcher also bears the composers name
26.
Franz Liszt
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Franz Liszt was a prolific 19th-century Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor, music teacher, arranger, organist, philanthropist, author, nationalist and a Franciscan tertiary. Liszt gained renown in Europe during the nineteenth century for his prodigious virtuosic skill as a pianist. As a composer, Liszt was one of the most prominent representatives of the New German School and he left behind an extensive and diverse body of work in which he influenced his forward-looking contemporaries and anticipated many 20th-century ideas and trends. Franz Liszt was born to Anna Liszt and Adam Liszt on October 22,1811, in the village of Doborján in Sopron County, in the Kingdom of Hungary, Liszts father played the piano, violin, cello and guitar. He had been in the service of Prince Nikolaus II Esterházy and knew Haydn, Hummel, at age six, Franz began listening attentively to his fathers piano playing and showed an interest in both sacred and Romani music. Adam began teaching him the piano at age seven, and Franz began composing in an elementary manner when he was eight and he appeared in concerts at Sopron and Pressburg in October and November 1820 at age 9. After the concerts, a group of wealthy sponsors offered to finance Franzs musical education in Vienna, There Liszt received piano lessons from Carl Czerny, who in his own youth had been a student of Beethoven and Hummel. He also received lessons in composition from Antonio Salieri, then director of the Viennese court. Liszts public debut in Vienna on December 1,1822, at a concert at the Landständischer Saal, was a great success and he was greeted in Austrian and Hungarian aristocratic circles and also met Beethoven and Schubert. In spring 1823, when his one-year leave of absence came to an end, Adam Liszt therefore took his leave of the Princes services. At the end of April 1823, the returned to Hungary for the last time. At the end of May 1823, the family went to Vienna again, towards the end of 1823 or early 1824, Liszts first composition to be published, his Variation on a Waltz by Diabelli, appeared as Variation 24 in Part II of Vaterländischer Künstlerverein. Liszts inclusion in the Diabelli project—he was described in it as an 11 year old boy, born in Hungary—was almost certainly at the instigation of Czerny, his teacher, Liszt was the only child composer in the anthology. After his fathers death in 1827, Liszt moved to Paris, to earn money, Liszt gave lessons in piano playing and composition, often from early morning until late at night. His students were scattered across the city and he often had to long distances. Because of this, he kept uncertain hours and also took up smoking, the following year he fell in love with one of his pupils, Caroline de Saint-Cricq, the daughter of Charles Xs minister of commerce, Pierre de Saint-Cricq. Her father, however, insisted that the affair be broken off, Liszt fell very ill, to the extent that an obituary notice was printed in a Paris newspaper, and he underwent a long period of religious doubts and pessimism. He again stated a wish to join the Church but was dissuaded this time by his mother and he had many discussions with the Abbé de Lamennais, who acted as his spiritual father, and also with Chrétien Urhan, a German-born violinist who introduced him to the Saint-Simonists
27.
Fairy tale
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Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends and explicitly moral tales, including beast fables. The term is used for stories with origins in European tradition and, at least in recent centuries. In less technical contexts, the term is used to describe something blessed with unusual happiness. Colloquially, a tale or fairy story can also mean any far-fetched story or tall tale, it is used especially of any story that not only is not true. Legends are perceived as real, fairy tales may merge into legends, Fairy tales are found in oral and in literary form, the name fairy tale was first ascribed to them by Madame dAulnoy in the late 17th century. Many of todays fairy tales have evolved from stories that have appeared, with variations. The history of the tale is particularly difficult to trace because only the literary forms can survive. Still, according to researchers at universities in Durham and Lisbon, such stories may date back thousands of years, Fairy tales, and works derived from fairy tales, are still written today. Folklorists have classified fairy tales in various ways, the Aarne-Thompson classification system and the morphological analysis of Vladimir Propp are among the most notable. Other folklorists have interpreted the significance, but no school has been definitively established for the meaning of the tales. It moves in a world without definite locality or definite creatures and is filled with the marvelous. In this never-never land, humble heroes kill adversaries, succeed to kingdoms, a fairy tale with a tragic rather than a happy end is called an anti-fairy tale. Although the fairy tale is a genre within the larger category of folktale. The term itself comes from the translation of Madame DAulnoys conte de fées, Vladimir Propp, in his Morphology of the Folktale, criticized the common distinction between fairy tales and animal tales on the grounds that many tales contained both fantastic elements and animals. Were I asked, what is a fairytale, I should reply, Read Undine, that is a fairytale. of all fairytales I know, I think Undine the most beautiful. As Stith Thompson points out, talking animals and the presence of magic seem to be common to the fairy tale than fairies themselves. However, the presence of animals that talk does not make a tale a fairy tale, especially when the animal is clearly a mask on a human face. Steven Swann Jones identified the presence of magic as the feature by which fairy tales can be distinguished from other sorts of folktales, davidson and Chaudri identify transformation as the key feature of the genre
28.
Guillaume Apollinaire
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Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the early 20th century, as well as one of the most impassioned defenders of Cubism and a forefather of Surrealism. He is credited with coining the term cubism in 1911 to describe the art movement. The term Orphism is also his, Apollinaire wrote one of the earliest Surrealist literary works, the play The Breasts of Tiresias, which became the basis for the 1947 opera Les mamelles de Tirésias. Two years after being wounded in World War I, Apollinaire died in the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki was born in Rome, Italy, and was raised speaking French, Italian, and Polish. He emigrated to France in his teens and adopted the name Guillaume Apollinaire. His mother, born Angelika Kostrowicka, was a Polish noblewoman born near Navahrudak and his maternal grandfather was a general in the Russian Imperial Army who was killed in the Crimean War. Apollinaires father is unknown but may have been Francesco Costantino Camillo Flugi dAspermont, Francesco Flugi von Aspermont was a nephew of Conradin Flugi dAspermont, a poet who wrote in ladin putèr, and perhaps also of the Minnesänger Oswald von Wolkenstein. Apollinaire eventually moved from Rome to Paris and became one of the most popular members of the community of Paris. He became romantically involved with Marie Laurencin, who is identified as his muse. In late 1909 or early 1910, Metzinger painted a Cubist portrait of Apollinaire. In his Vie anecdotique, the poet proudly writes, I am honoured to be the first model of a Cubist painter, Jean Metzinger, in 1911 he joined the Puteaux Group, a branch of the Cubist movement soon to be known as the Section dOr. The opening address of the 1912 Salon de la Section dOr—the most important pre-World War I Cubist exhibition—was given by Apollinaire. On 7 September 1911, police arrested and jailed him on suspicion of aiding and abetting the theft of the Mona Lisa and a number of Egyptian statuettes from the Louvre, but released him a week later. The theft of the statues was committed by a secretary of Apollinaires, Honoré Joseph Géry Pieret. Apollinaire implicated his friend Pablo Picasso, who was brought in for questioning in the theft of the Mona Lisa. The theft of the Mona Lisa was perpetrated by Vincenzo Peruggia, Apollinaire was active as a journalist and art critic for Le Matin, Intransigeant, and Paris Journal. He once called for the Louvre to be burnt down, Apollinaire wrote the preface for the first Cubist exposition outside of Paris, VIII Salon des Indépendants, Brussels,1911
29.
Symphony No. 14 (Shostakovich)
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The Symphony No.14 by Dmitri Shostakovich was completed in the spring of 1969, and was premiered later that year. It is a work for soprano, bass and a string orchestra with percussion. Most of the deal with the theme of death, particularly that of unjust or early death. They were set in Russian, although two other versions of the work exist with the texts all back-translated from Russian either into their languages or into German. The symphony is dedicated to Benjamin Britten, besides the soloists, the symphony is scored for a chamber orchestra consisting only of strings and percussion. Interestingly, the section does not include common instruments such as timpani, bass drum, cymbals. The work has eleven linked movements, each a setting of a poem, réponse des Cosaques Zaporogues au Sultan de Constantinople Andante. Schlußstück The first movement begins with the playing a theme reminiscent of the Dies irae. Fragments of the theme are developed in sections throughout the symphony. The work shows Shostakovichs willingness to adopt new techniques, all but two of the movements include themes using tone rows, which he uses to convey a sense of the abstract. He also makes use of tone clusters, such as the fortissimo chord illustrating the lily growing from the suicides mouth in the fourth movement. Like Mussorgsky, Shostakovich brings back the subject of death in various images, the Mussorgsky cycle contains only four songs — too few to do justice to Mussorgskys concept, Shostakovich felt. He proceeded to expand it by selecting 11 poems by Federico Garcia Lorca, Guillaume Apollinaire, Shostakovich attached great importance to this work, commenting in a letter to Glikman, Everything that I have written until now over these long years has been a preparation for this work. Remember the death of Boris Godunov and he dies, then a kind of brightening sets in. When the whole tragedy ends, and Desdemona and Otello die, when the tragic demise of the hero and heroine occurs, it is softened with radiant music. In Mussorgskys song cycle Shostakovich found a model that spoke out against death, in his symphony, the composer wrote in his preface to the score, I want listeners to reflect upon my new symphony. To realise that they must lead pure and fruitful lives for the glory of their Motherland, their people and that is what I was thinking about as I wrote my new work. I want my listeners, as they leave the hall after hearing my symphony, while Shostakovichs intent may have been to emphasise that life is truly beautiful, he did so by starkly underlining the opposite — that the end of life is ugly and irredeemably negative
30.
Dmitri Shostakovich
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Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Russian pianist and composer of the Soviet period. He is regarded as one of the composers of the 20th century. Shostakovich achieved fame in the Soviet Union under the patronage of Soviet chief of staff Mikhail Tukhachevsky, nevertheless, he received accolades and state awards and served in the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. A polystylist, Shostakovich developed a voice, combining a variety of different musical techniques into his works. Shostakovichs orchestral works include 15 symphonies and six concerti and his chamber output includes 15 string quartets, a piano quintet, two piano trios, and two pieces for string octet. His solo piano works include two sonatas, an set of preludes, and a later set of 24 preludes and fugues. Born at Podolskaya street in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Shostakovich was the second of three children of Dmitri Boleslavovich Shostakovich and Sofiya Vasilievna Kokoulina, Shostakovichs paternal grandfather, originally surnamed Szostakowicz, was of Polish Roman Catholic descent, but his immediate forebears came from Siberia. When his term of exile ended, Szostakowicz decided to remain in Siberia and he eventually became a successful banker in Irkutsk and raised a large family. His son, Dmitri Boleslavovich Shostakovich, the father, was born in exile in Narim in 1875 and studied physics and mathematics in Saint Petersburg University. He then went to work as an engineer under Dmitri Mendeleev at the Bureau of Weights, in 1903 he married another Siberian transplant to the capital, Sofiya Vasilievna Kokoulina, one of six children born to a Russian Siberian native. Their son, Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, displayed significant musical talent after he began lessons with his mother at the age of nine. In 1918 he wrote a march in memory of two leaders of the Kadet party, murdered by Bolshevik sailors. In 1919, at the age of thirteen, he was allowed to enter the Petrograd Conservatory, then headed by Alexander Glazunov, Shostakovich also attended Alexander Ossovskys history of music classes. Steinberg tried to guide Shostakovich in the path of the great Russian composers and he also suffered for his perceived lack of political zeal, and initially failed his exam in Marxist methodology in 1926. His first major achievement was the First Symphony, written as his graduation piece at the age of nineteen. After graduation, Shostakovich initially embarked on a career as concert pianist and composer. He nevertheless won a mention at the First International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1927. He explained the disappointment at the competition to suffering from appendicitis and he later had his appendix removed in April 1927
31.
Sulfuric acid
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Sulfuric acid is a highly corrosive strong mineral acid with the molecular formula H2SO4 and molecular weight 98.079 g/mol. It is a pungent-ethereal, colorless to slightly yellow liquid that is soluble in water at all concentrations. Sometimes, it is dyed dark brown during production to alert people to its hazards, the historical name of this acid is oil of vitriol. Sulfuric acid is an acid and shows different properties depending upon its concentration. Its corrosiveness on other materials, like metals, living tissues or even stones, can be ascribed to its strong acidic nature and, if concentrated. It is also hygroscopic, readily absorbing water vapour from the air, Sulfuric acid at a high concentration can cause very serious damage upon contact, since not only does it cause chemical burns via hydrolysis, but also secondary thermal burns through dehydration. It can lead to permanent blindness if splashed onto eyes and irreversible damage if swallowed, Sulfuric acid has a wide range of applications including in domestic acidic drain cleaners, as an electrolyte in lead-acid batteries and in various cleaning agents. It is also a central substance in the chemical industry, principal uses include mineral processing, fertilizer manufacturing, oil refining, wastewater processing, and chemical synthesis. It is widely produced with different methods, such as process, wet sulfuric acid process, lead chamber process. The study of vitriol, a category of glassy minerals from which the acid can be derived, sumerians had a list of types of vitriol that they classified according to the substances color. Some of the earliest discussions on the origin and properties of vitriol is in the works of the Greek physician Dioscorides, galen also discussed its medical use. Ibn Sina focused on its uses and different varieties of vitriol. Sulfuric acid was called oil of vitriol by medieval European alchemists because it was prepared by roasting green vitriol in an iron retort, there are references to it in the works of Vincent of Beauvais and in the Compositum de Compositis ascribed to Saint Albertus Magnus. A passage from Pseudo-Geber´s Summa Perfectionis was long considered to be the first recipe for sulfuric acid, in the seventeenth century, the German-Dutch chemist Johann Glauber prepared sulfuric acid by burning sulfur together with saltpeter, in the presence of steam. As saltpeter decomposes, it oxidizes the sulfur to SO3, in 1736, Joshua Ward, a London pharmacist, used this method to begin the first large-scale production of sulfuric acid. This process allowed the effective industrialization of sulfuric acid production, after several refinements, this method, called the lead chamber process or chamber process, remained the standard for sulfuric acid production for almost two centuries. Sulfuric acid created by John Roebucks process approached a 65% concentration, later refinements to the lead chamber process by French chemist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and British chemist John Glover improved concentration to 78%. However, the manufacture of dyes and other chemical processes require a more concentrated product
32.
Clara Schumann
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Clara Schumann was a German musician and composer, considered one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era. She exerted her influence over a 61-year concert career, changing the format and repertoire of the piano recital and her husband was the composer Robert Schumann. She was the first to perform any work by Brahms. She later premiered some other pieces by Brahms, notably the Variations, Clara Josephine Wieck was born in Leipzig on 13 September 1819 to Friedrich Wieck and Marianne Wieck. Marianne Tromlitz was a singer in Leipzig at the time and was singing solos on a weekly basis at the well-known Gewandhaus in Leipzig. The differences between her parents were irreconcilable, in part due to her fathers unyielding nature. After an affair between Claras mother and Adolph Bargiel, her fathers friend, the Wiecks divorced in 1824, five-year-old Clara remained with her father. From an early age, Claras career and life was planned down to the smallest detail by her father and she daily received a one-hour lesson and two hours of practice, using the teaching methods he had developed on his own. In March 1828, at the age of eight, the young Clara Wieck performed at the Leipzig home of Dr. Ernst Carus, there she met another gifted young pianist who had been invited to the musical evening, named Robert Schumann, who was nine years older. Schumann admired Claras playing so much that he asked permission from his mother to discontinue his law studies, which had never interested him much, while taking lessons, he took rooms in the Wieck household, staying about a year. He would sometimes dress up as a ghost and scare Clara, in 1830, at the age of eleven, Clara left on a concert tour to Paris via other European cities, accompanied by her father. She gave her first solo concert at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, in Weimar, she performed a bravura piece by Henri Herz for Goethe, who presented her with a medal with his portrait and a written note saying, For the gifted artist Clara Wieck. During that tour, Niccolò Paganini was in Paris, and he offered to appear with her, however, her Paris recital was poorly attended, as many people had fled the city due to an outbreak of cholera. From December 1837 to April 1838, Clara Wieck performed a series of recitals in Vienna when she was 18, franz Grillparzer, Austrias leading dramatic poet, wrote a poem entitled Clara Wieck and Beethoven after hearing Wieck perform the Appassionata sonata during one of these recitals. On 15 March, Wieck was named a Königliche und Kaiserliche Kammervirtuosin, Robert was a little more than 9 years older than Clara and moved into the Wieck household as a piano student of Friedrichs by the end of 1830 when she was only 11 and he was 20. In 1837 when she was 18, he proposed to her, then Robert asked Friedrich for Claras hand in marriage. Wieck was strongly opposed to the marriage, as he did not much approve of Robert, Robert and Clara had to go to court and sue Friedrich. The judges decision was to allow the marriage, in 1840, despite Friedrichs objections, Clara and Robert were married
33.
Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff
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Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff was a Prussian poet, novelist, playwright, literary critic, translator, and anthologist. Eichendorff was one of the writers and critics of Romanticism. Ever since their publication and up to the present day, some of his works have been popular in Germany. Eichendorff first became famous for his 1826 novella Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing, the Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing is a typical Romantic novella whose main themes are wanderlust and love. The protagonist, the son of a miller, rejects his fathers trade, as, with his lowly status, she is unattainable for him, he escapes to Italy - only to return and learn that she is the dukes adopted daughter, and thus within his social reach. With its combination of world and realism, Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing is considered to be a high point of Romantic fiction. One critic stated that Eichendorff’s Good-for-Nothing is the personification of love of nature, Thomas Mann called Eichendorffs Good-for-Nothing a combination of the purity of the folk song and the fairy tale. Many of Eichendorffs poems were first published as parts of his novellas and stories. The novella Good-for-Nothing alone contains 54 poems, Eichendorff, a descendant of an old noble family, was born in 1788 at Schloß Lubowitz near Ratibor in Upper Silesia, at that time part of the Kingdom of Prussia. His parents were the Prussian officer Adolf Freiherr von Eichendorff and his wife, Karoline née Freiin von Kloche, Eichendorff sold the family estates Deutsch-Krawarn, Kauthen, and Wrbkau and acquired Lubowitz Castle from his mother-in-law. The castles Rococo reconstruction, which was begun by her, was very expensive, young Joseph was close to his older brother Wilhelm. From 1793-1801 they were home-schooled by tutor Bernhard Heinke, Joseph began writing diaries as early as 1798, witnesses to his budding literary career. The diaries present many insights into the development of the young writer, at a young age, Eichendorff was already well aware of his parents financial straits. On 19 June 1801, the thirteen-year old noted in his diary, Father travelled to Breslau, on the run from his creditors, adding on 24 June, with his brother Wilhelm, Joseph attended the Catholic Matthias Gymnasium in Breslau. In 1804 his sister Luise Antonie Nepomucene Johanna was born, who was to become a friend of Austrian writer Adalbert Stifter, after their final exams, both brothers attended lectures at the University of Breslau and the Protestant Maria-Magdalena-Gymnasium. Eichendorffs diary from this time shows that he valued formal education much less than the theatre, recording 126 plays and his love for Mozart also goes back to these days. Joseph himself seems to have been an actor and his brother Wilhelm a good singer. Together with his brother Wilhelm, Joseph studied law and the humanities in Halle an der Saale, a city near Jena, the brothers frequently attended the theatre of Lauchstädt,13 km where the Weimar court theatrical company performed plays by Goethe
34.
Robert Schumann
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Robert Schumann was a German composer and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era, Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. He had been assured by his teacher Friedrich Wieck that he could become the finest pianist in Europe, Schumann then focused his musical energies on composing. Works such as Carnaval, Symphonic Studies, Kinderszenen, Kreisleriana, and his writings about music appeared mostly in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, a Leipzig-based publication which he jointly founded. In 1840, Schumann married Friedrich Wiecks daughter Clara, against the wishes of her father, following a long and acrimonious legal battle, which found in favor of Clara and Robert. Clara also composed music and had a concert career as a pianist. After a suicide attempt in 1854, Schumann was admitted to an asylum, at his own request. Diagnosed with psychotic melancholia, Schumann died two years later in 1856 without having recovered from his mental illness, Schumann was born in Zwickau, in the Kingdom of Saxony, the fifth and last child of Johanna Christiane and August Schumann. Schumann began receiving general musical and piano instruction at the age of seven from Johann Gottfried Kuntzsch, the boy immediately developed a love of music and worked at creating musical compositions himself, without the aid of Kuntzsch. Even though he often disregarded the principles of composition, he created works regarded as admirable for his age. At age 14, Schumann wrote an essay on the aesthetics of music and also contributed to a volume, edited by his father, titled Portraits of Famous Men. While still at school in Zwickau, he read the works of the German poet-philosophers Schiller and Goethe, as well as Byron and the Greek tragedians. His most powerful and permanent literary inspiration was Jean Paul, a German writer whose influence is seen in Schumanns youthful novels Juniusabende, completed in 1826, and Selene. Schumanns interest in music was sparked by seeing a performance of Ignaz Moscheles playing at Karlsbad and his father, who had encouraged the boys musical aspirations, died in 1826 when Schumann was 16. Neither his mother nor his guardian thereafter encouraged a career in music, in 1828 Schumann left school, and after a tour during which he met Heinrich Heine in Munich, he went to Leipzig to study law. In 1829 his law studies continued in Heidelberg, where he became a member of Corps Saxo-Borussia Heidelberg. During Eastertide 1830 he heard the Italian violinist, violist, guitarist, in July he wrote to his mother, My whole life has been a struggle between Poetry and Prose, or call it Music and Law. During his studies with Wieck, it has claimed that Schumann permanently injured a finger on his right hand
35.
Sylvia Plath
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Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Born in Boston, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College at the University of Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a poet and she was married to fellow poet Ted Hughes from 1956 until they separated in September 1962. They lived together in the United States and then in England and had two children, Frieda and Nicholas, Plath was clinically depressed for most of her adult life, which was treated multiple times with electroconvulsive therapy. Plath is credited with advancing the genre of poetry and is best known for her two published collections, The Colossus and Other Poems and Ariel. She also wrote The Bell Jar, a novel published shortly before her death. In 1982, she won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for The Collected Poems, Plath was born on October 27,1932, in Bostons Jamaica Plain neighborhood. Her mother, Aurelia Schober Plath, was a second-generation American of Austrian descent, Plaths father was an entomologist and a professor of biology at Boston University who authored a book about bumblebees. On April 27,1935, Plaths brother Warren was born, Plaths mother, Aurelia, had grown up in Winthrop, and her maternal grandparents, the Schobers, had lived in a section of the town called Point Shirley, a location mentioned in Plaths poetry. While living in Winthrop, eight-year-old Plath published her first poem in the Boston Heralds childrens section, over the next few years, Plath published multiple poems in regional magazines and newspapers. At age 11, Plath began keeping a journal, in addition to writing, she showed early promise as an artist, winning an award for her paintings from The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in 1947. Even in her youth, Plath was ambitiously driven to succeed, Otto Plath died on November 5,1940, a week and a half after Plaths eighth birthday, of complications following the amputation of a foot due to untreated diabetes. He had become ill shortly after a friend died of lung cancer. Comparing the similarities between his friends symptoms and his own, Otto became convinced that he, too, had lung cancer, raised as a Unitarian Christian, Plath experienced a loss of faith after her fathers death and remained ambivalent about religion throughout her life. Her father was buried in Winthrop Cemetery, Massachusetts, a visit to her fathers grave later prompted Plath to write the poem Electra on Azalea Path. After Ottos death, Aurelia moved her children and her parents to 26 Elmwood Road, Wellesley, Massachusetts in 1942. In one of her last prose pieces, Plath commented that her first nine years sealed themselves off like a ship in a bottle—beautiful inaccessible, obsolete, Plath attended Bradford Senior High School in Wellesley, graduating in 1950. Just after graduating high school, she had her first national publication in the Christian Science Monitor. In 1950, Plath attended Smith College and excelled academically and she wrote to her mother, The world is splitting open at my feet like a ripe, juicy watermelon
36.
The Colossus and Other Poems
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The Colossus and Other Poems is a poetry collection by American poet Sylvia Plath, first published by William Heinemann, in 1960. The 44 poems presented here are in the published order, and she does so with a seriousness that demands only that she be judged equally seriously. There is an admirable no-nonsense air about this, the language is bare but vivid and precise, seamus Heaney said of The Colossus, On every page, a poet is serving notice that she has earned her credentials and knows her trade. Wikilivres has original media or text related to this article, The Colossus and Other Poems
37.
James Merrill
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James Ingram Merrill was an American poet whose awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Divine Comedies. Although most of his work was poetry, he also wrote essays, fiction. He also made a cameo in the 1992 film Lorenzos Oil in a scene where he played a questioning doctor. He was born at a residence which would become the site of the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, which Merrill would lament in the poem 18 West 11th Street. Merrills parents married in 1925, the year before he was born, he would grow up with two half siblings from his fathers first marriage, Doris Merrill Magowan and Charles E. Merrill. As a boy, Merrill enjoyed a privileged upbringing in educational. His fathers 30-acre estate in Southampton, New York, for example, Merrills childhood governess taught him French and German, an experience Merrill wrote about in his 1974 poem Lost in Translation. From 1936-1938, Merrill attended St. Bernards, a prestigious New York grammar school, I found it difficult to believe in the way my parents lived. They seemed so utterly taken up with engagements, obligations, ceremonies, the excitement, the emotional quickening I felt in those years came usually through animals or nature, or through the servants in the house. Whose lives seemed by contrast to make perfect sense. The gardeners had their hands in the earth, the cook was dredging things with flour, making pies. My father was making money, while my mother wrote names on place-cards, planned menus. Merrills parents separated when he was eleven, then divorced when he was thirteen, as a teenager, Merrill boarded at the Lawrenceville School, where he befriended future novelist Frederick Buechner, began writing poetry, and undertook early literary collaborations. When Merrill was 16 years old, his father collected his stories and poems. Initially pleased, Merrill would later regard the book as an embarrassment. Today, it is considered a treasure worth thousands of dollars. Merrill was drafted in 1944 into the United States Army and served for eight months and his studies interrupted by war and military service, Merrill returned to Amherst College in 1945 and graduated summa cum laude in 1947. The Black Swan, a collection of poems Merrills Amherst professor Kimon Friar published privately in Athens, Merrills first mature work, The Black Swan is among Merrills scarcest titles
38.
Nathan Alterman
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Nathan Alterman was born in Warsaw, Poland. He moved to Tel Aviv with his family in 1925, when he was 15 years old, when he was 19 years old, he travelled to Paris to study at the University of Paris, but a year later he decided to go to Nancy to study agronomy. When he returned to Tel Aviv in 1932, he started working at the Mikveh Yisrael agricultural school, Alterman is credited with bringing the seeds of the marmande tomato to Israel, where it was the main species cultivated in the country until the 1960s. Altermans first published book of poetry was Kokhavim Bakhuts, published in 1938 and this volume, with its neo-romantic themes, highly charged texture, and metrical virtuosity, as Israeli critic Benjamin Harshav puts it, established him as a major force in modern Hebrew literature. His next major book was The Joy of the Poor, which many regard as his magnum opus, the dead man wants to protect his living love from war and poverty, but more than anything he wants to drag her into his world. The light from a candle is enough to drive him back. The story reads like a thriller, but the rhyme. Who has chosen us out of all the nations, in this poem Alterman says, At our childrens cry, shadowed by scaffolds, we heard not the worlds furor. For you have chosen us out of all nations, you loved us, for you have chosen us of all nations, of Norwegians, Czechs and Britons. As they march toward scaffolds, Jewish children of reason, they know their blood shant be reckoned among the rest, in 1943, Alterman wrote the maqama The Swedish Tongue, in which he praised Swedens willingness to welcome Jewish refugees from Denmark. In 1943, he wrote a poem that was critical of Pope Pius XII. The most well-known of these is the 1945 In Praise of an Italian Captain, in the early stages of the Israeli War of Independence he wrote numerous patriotic poems, the most well-known of which is The Silver Platter. The partition plan does not give the Jews but an opportunity, and yet, instead of Moses descending with the Tablets of Stone, the people see two unfamiliar youths, a boy and a girl, wounded and near dead with exhaustion. They reply, We are the silver platter on which the state of the Jews was handed to you and he criticized David Ben-Gurion for being too willing to give up the territories captured during the war in return for a peace agreement. Alterman translated Shakespeare, Molière, Racine and Russian classics into Hebrew and he wrote the lyrics of the famous Moshe Vilenski song Kalaniyot, sung by Shoshana Damari. In 1946, Alterman received the Tchernichovsky Prize for exemplary translation, for his translations of plays Phèdre by Jean Racine, in 1947, he received the Ruppin Prize for his book Joy of the Poor. In 1957, Alterman was awarded the Bialik Prize for literature, in 1967, he again received the Tchernichovsky Prize, for translations of the plays of Moliere. In 1968, he was awarded the Israel Prize, for literature, in 2011, his portrait was chosen to be on Israels currency
39.
Stalingrad (battle)
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Marked by fierce close quarters combat and direct assaults on civilians by air raids, it is often regarded as one of the single largest and bloodiest battles in the history of warfare. German forces never regained the initiative in the East and withdrew a vast military force from the West to replace their losses, the German offensive to capture Stalingrad began in August 1942, using the German 6th Army and elements of the 4th Panzer Army. The attack was supported by intensive Luftwaffe bombing that reduced much of the city to rubble, the fighting degenerated into house-to-house fighting, and both sides poured reinforcements into the city. By mid-November 1942, the Germans had pushed the Soviet defenders back at great cost into narrow zones along the west bank of the Volga River. On 19 November 1942, the Red Army launched Operation Uranus, the Axis forces on the flanks were overrun and the 6th Army was cut off and surrounded in the Stalingrad area. Adolf Hitler ordered that the stay in Stalingrad and make no attempt to break out, instead, attempts were made to supply the army by air. Heavy fighting continued for two months. By the beginning of February 1943, the Axis forces in Stalingrad had exhausted their ammunition, the remaining units of the 6th Army surrendered. The battle lasted five months, one week, and three days, elsewhere, the war had been progressing well, the U-boat offensive in the Atlantic had been very successful and Rommel had just captured Tobruk. In the east, they had stabilized their front in a running from Leningrad in the north to Rostov in the south. There were a number of salients, but these were not particularly threatening, neither Army Group North nor Army Group South had been particularly hard pressed over the winter. Stalin was expecting the main thrust of the German summer attacks to be directed against Moscow again, with the initial operations being very successful, the Germans decided that their summer campaign in 1942 would be directed at the southern parts of the Soviet Union. The initial objectives in the region around Stalingrad were the destruction of the capacity of the city. The river was a key route from the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea to central Russia and its capture would disrupt commercial river traffic. The Germans cut the pipeline from the oilfields when they captured Rostov on 23 July, the capture of Stalingrad would make the delivery of Lend Lease supplies via the Persian Corridor much more difficult. On 23 July 1942, Hitler personally rewrote the operational objectives for the 1942 campaign, both sides began to attach propaganda value to the city based on it bearing the name of the leader of the Soviet Union. The expansion of objectives was a significant factor in Germanys failure at Stalingrad, caused by German overconfidence, the Soviets realized that they were under tremendous constraints of time and resources and ordered that anyone strong enough to hold a rifle be sent to fight. If I do not get the oil of Maikop and Grozny then I must finish this war, Army Group South was selected for a sprint forward through the southern Russian steppes into the Caucasus to capture the vital Soviet oil fields there
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Lorelei". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "
