1.
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was established as a sovereign state on 1 January 1801 by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. The growing desire for an Irish Republic led to the Irish War of Independence, Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom, and the state was consequently renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Britain financed the European coalition that defeated France in 1815 in the Napoleonic Wars, the British Empire thereby became the foremost world power for the next century. The Crimean War with Russia and the Boer wars were relatively small operations in a largely peaceful century, rapid industrialisation that began in the decades prior to the states formation continued up until the mid-19th century. A devastating famine, exacerbated by government inaction in the century, led to demographic collapse in much of Ireland. It was an era of economic modernization and growth of industry, trade and finance. Outward migration was heavy to the colonies and to the United States. Britain also built up a large British Empire in Africa and Asia, India, by far the most important possession, saw a short-lived revolt in 1857. In foreign policy Britain favoured free trade, which enabled its financiers and merchants to operate successfully in many otherwise independent countries, as in South America. Britain formed no permanent military alliances until the early 20th century, when it began to cooperate with Japan, France and Russia, and moved closer to the United States. A brief period of limited independence for Ireland came to an end following the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the British governments fear of an independent Ireland siding against them with the French resulted in the decision to unite the two countries. This was brought about by legislation in the parliaments of both kingdoms and came into effect on 1 January 1801, however, King George III was bitterly opposed to any such Emancipation and succeeded in defeating his governments attempts to introduce it. When the Treaty of Amiens ended the war, Britain agreed to return most of the territories it had seized, in May 1803, war was declared again. In 1806, Napoleon issued the series of Berlin Decrees, which brought into effect the Continental System and this policy aimed to eliminate the threat from the British by closing French-controlled territory to foreign trade. Frances population and agricultural capacity far outstripped that of the British Isles, Napoleon expected that cutting Britain off from the European mainland would end its economic hegemony. The Spanish uprising in 1808 at last permitted Britain to gain a foothold on the Continent, after Napoleons surrender and exile to the island of Elba, peace appeared to have returned. The Allies united and the armies of Wellington and Blucher defeated Napoleon once, simultaneous with the Napoleonic Wars, trade disputes, arming hostile Indians and British impressment of American sailors led to the War of 1812 with the United States. The war was little noticed in Britain, which could devote few resources to the conflict until the fall of Napoleon in 1814, American frigates inflicted a series of defeats on the Royal Navy, which was short on manpower due to the conflict in Europe
2.
Symbolism (arts)
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Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style originates with the 1857 publication of Charles Baudelaires Les Fleurs du mal, the works of Edgar Allan Poe, which Baudelaire admired greatly and translated into French, were a significant influence and the source of many stock tropes and images. The aesthetic was developed by Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine during the 1860s and 1870s, in the 1880s, the aesthetic was articulated by a series of manifestos and attracted a generation of writers. The name symbolist itself was first applied by the critic Jean Moréas, distinct from, but related to, the style of literature, symbolism in art is related to the gothic component of Romanticism and Impressionism. In ancient Greece, the symbolon was a shard of pottery which was inscribed, Symbolism was a reaction in favour of spirituality, the imagination, and dreams. Some writers, such as Joris-Karl Huysmans, began as naturalists before becoming symbolists, for Huysmans, the Symbolist poets have a more complex relationship with Parnassianism, a French literary style that immediately preceded it. The Symbolists continued to admire Théophile Gautiers motto of art for arts sake, many Symbolist poets, including Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine, published early works in Le Parnasse contemporain, the poetry anthologies that gave Parnassianism its name. One of Symbolisms most colourful promoters in Paris was art and literary critic Joséphin Péladan, a number of Symbolists were associated with the Salon. Symbolists believed that art should represent absolute truths that could only be described indirectly, thus, they wrote in a very metaphorical and suggestive manner, endowing particular images or objects with symbolic meaning. Jean Moréas published the Symbolist Manifesto in Le Figaro on 18 September 1886, the Symbolist Manifesto names Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Paul Verlaine as the three leading poets of the movement. In a nutshell, as Mallarmé writes in a letter to his friend Cazalis, to not the thing. Symbolist poems were attempts to evoke, rather than primarily to describe, – both poets seek to identify one sense experience with another. The earlier Romanticism of poetry used symbols, but these symbols were unique, the symbolists were more extreme, investing all things, even vowels and perfumes, with potential symbolic value. The physical universe, then, is a kind of language that invites a privileged spectator to decipher it, Symbolist symbols are not allegories, intended to represent, they are instead intended to evoke particular states of mind. The nominal subject of Mallarmés Le cygne is of a trapped in a frozen lake. Significantly, in French, cygne is a homophone of signe, un cygne d’autrefois se souvient que c’est lui Magnifique mais qui sans espoir se délivre. They were also portrayed as at odds with society, having tragic lives and these traits were not hindrances but consequences of their literary gifts. Schopenhauers aesthetics represented shared concerns with the symbolist programme, they tended to consider Art as a contemplative refuge from the world of strife and will
3.
Sappho
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Sappho was an archaic Greek poet from the island of Lesbos. Sapphos poetry was lyric poetry, and she is best known for her poems about love, most of Sapphos poetry is now lost, and survives only in fragmentary form. As well as poetry, three epigrams attributed to Sappho are preserved, but these are in fact Hellenistic imitations. Little is known of Sapphos life and she was from a wealthy family from Lesbos, though the names of both of her parents are uncertain. Ancient sources say that she had three brothers, the names of two of them are mentioned in the Brothers Poem discovered in 2014 and she was exiled to Sicily around 600 BC, and may have continued to work until around 570. Sapphos poetry was well-known and greatly admired through much of antiquity, today, Sapphos poetry is still considered extraordinary, and her works have continued to influence other writers up until the modern day. Beyond her poetry, she is known as a symbol of love. There are three sources of information about Sapphos life, her own poetry, other ancient sources. The only contemporary source for Sapphos life is her own poetry, despite this, though they are a valuable source on the reception of Sappho in antiquity, it is difficult to assess how accurate a picture they paint of Sapphos life. The testimonia are almost entirely derived from Sapphos poetry, and the inferences made by ancient scholars, Sappho was from Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, and was probably born around 630 BC. Tradition names her mother as Cleïs, though ancient scholars may simply have guessed this name for Sapphos mother, Sapphos fathers name is less certain. The Suda gives eight possible names, suggesting that he was not explicitly named in any of Sapphos poetry, in Ovids Heroides, Sapphos father died when she was seven, Campbell suggests that this may have been based on a now-lost poem of Sappho. Sappho was said to have three brothers, Erigyius, Larichus, and Charaxus, according to Athenaeus, Sappho often praised Larichus for pouring wine in the town hall of Mytilene, an office held by boys of the best families. This indication that Sappho was born into a family is consistent with the sometimes rarefied environments that her verses record. One ancient tradition tells of a relation between Charaxus and the Egyptian courtesan Rhodopis, herodotus, the oldest source of the story, reports that Charaxus ransomed Rhodopis for a large sum and that Sappho wrote a poem rebuking him for this. Sappho may have had a daughter called Cleïs, who is referred to in two fragments, therefore, it has been suggested, Cleïs was one of Sapphos younger lovers, rather than her daughter. Judith Hallett argues, however, that the used in fragment 132 suggests that Sappho was referring to Cleïs as her daughter. According to the Suda, Sappho was married to Kerkylas of Andros, thus, the name can be translated as Dick Allcock from the Isle of Man
4.
Colette
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Colette was a French novelist nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Her best known work, the novella Gigi, was the basis for the film and Lerner and she was also a mime, an actress and a journalist. They chart the coming of age of their heroine, Claudine, the story they tell is semi-autobiographical, but not entirely—most strikingly, Claudine, unlike Colette, is motherless. It was he who chose the titillating subject-matter of the Claudine novels, Colette later said that she would never have become a writer if not for Willy. Colette and Willy separated in 1906, although it was not until 1910 that the divorce became final and this period of her life is recalled in La Vagabonde, which deals with womens independence in a male society, a theme to which she would regularly return in future works. During these years she embarked on a series of relationships with women, notably with Mathilde de Morny, Marquise de Belbeuf. In 1912 she married Henry de Jouvenel, the editor of Le Matin, a daughter, Colette de Jouvenel, nicknamed Bel-Gazou, was born in 1913. During the war she devoted herself to journalism, but marriage allowed her to devote her time to writing, in 1920 Colette published Chéri, portraying love between an older woman and a much younger man. The marriage to Jouvenel ended in divorce in 1924, partly due to Jouvenels infidelities and partly to Colettes own affair with her sixteen-year-old stepson, in 1925 she met Maurice Goudeket, who became her final husband. Already an established writer, the decades of the 1920s and 1930s were Colettes most productive and innovative period, set mostly in Burgundy or Paris during the Belle Époque, her work treated married life, sexuality, and the problems of a womans struggle for independence. La Naissance du Jour is her explicit criticism of the lives of women, expressed in a meditation on age. By this period Colette was frequently acclaimed as Frances greatest woman writer and it. has no plot, and yet tells of three lives all that should be known, wrote Janet Flanner of Sido. Once again, and at greater length than usual, she has been hailed for her genius, humanities, lifted nothing at all in her direction except the finger of scorn. Colette was 67 years old at the fall of France, and remained in Paris, during the Occupation she produced two volumes of memoirs, Journal à rebours and De ma fenêtre. In 1944 she published what became perhaps her most famous work, Gigi, born into a family of demimondaines, Gigi is being trained as a courtesan to captivate a wealthy lover, but breaks with tradition by marrying him instead. In the postwar years, she became a public figure, crippled by arthritis and cared for by Goudeket who supervised the preparation of her collected works. She continued to write during these years, bringing out LEtoile vesper and Le fanal bleu, Colette was elected to the Belgian Royal Academy, the Académie Goncourt, and a Chevalier and Grand Officer of the Légion dhonneur. Initially considered a limited if talented novelist, she has been recognised as an important voice in womens writing
5.
Natalie Clifford Barney
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Natalie Clifford Barney was an American playwright, poet and novelist who lived as an expatriate in Paris. She was openly lesbian and began publishing love poems to women under her own name as early as 1900, in her writings she supported feminism and pacifism. Barney was born in 1876 in Dayton, Ohio, to Albert Clifford Barney and her father was the son of a wealthy manufacturer of railway cars and of English descent, and her mother was of French, Dutch and German ancestry. Her maternal grandfathers father was Jewish, when Barney was five years old her family spent the summer at New Yorks Long Beach Hotel where Oscar Wilde happened to be speaking on his American lecture tour. Wilde scooped her up as she ran past him fleeing a group of boys, held her out of their reach then sat her down on his knee. She later studied under Carolus-Duran and James McNeill Whistler, many of Alice Pike Barneys paintings are now in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Like many girls of her time, Barney had a haphazard education and her interest in the French language began with a governess who read Jules Verne stories aloud to her so she would have to learn quickly to understand them. Later she and her younger sister Laura Clifford Barney attended Les Ruches, as an adult she spoke French fluently without an accent and made her home in Paris. Nearly all her works were written in French. When she was ten her family moved from Ohio to Washington, D. C. spending summers in Bar Harbor, as the rebellious and unconventional daughter of one of the wealthiest families in town, she was often mentioned in Washington newspapers. In her early twenties she made headlines by galloping through Bar Harbor while driving a horse on a lead ahead of her. Barney later said she knew by age 12 she was lesbian and was determined to live openly, without hiding anything. In 1899 after seeing the courtesan Liane de Pougy at a hall in Paris, Barney presented herself at de Pougys residence in a page costume. Although de Pougy was one of the most famous women in France, constantly sought after by wealthy and titled men and their brief affair became the subject of de Pougys tell-all roman à clef, Idylle Saphique. Published in 1901, this became the talk of Paris. Barney was soon known as the model for one of the characters. By this time, however, the two had broken up after quarreling repeatedly over Barneys desire to rescue de Pougy from her life as a courtesan. Barney herself contributed a chapter to Idylle Saphique in which she described reclining at de Pougys feet in a box at the theater
6.
Rothschild family
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During the 19th century, the Rothschild family possessed the largest private fortune in the world, as well as the largest private fortune in modern world history. The Rothschild family has frequently been the subject of conspiracy theories, the first member of the family who was known to use the name Rothschild was Izaak Elchanan Rothschild, born in 1577. The name is derived from the German zum rothen Schild, meaning with the red sign, the familys ascent to international prominence began in 1744, with the birth of Mayer Amschel Rothschild in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He was the son of Amschel Moses Rothschild, a money changer who had traded with the Prince of Hesse, the family motto appears below the shield, Concordia, Integritas, Industria. Paul Johnson writes he Rothschilds are elusive, there is no book about them that is both revealing and accurate. Libraries of nonsense have been written about them, a woman who planned to write a book entitled Lies about the Rothschilds abandoned it, saying, ‘It was relatively easy to spot the lies, but it proved impossible to find out the truth. Their assets were held in financial instruments, circulating through the world as stocks, bonds, changes made by the Rothschilds allowed them to insulate their property from local violence, Henceforth their real wealth was beyond the reach of the mob, almost beyond the reach of greedy monarchs. Another essential part of Mayer Rothschilds strategy for success was to control of their banks in family hands. By this means, Jewish financiers obtained a share of international finance during the middle. The head of the group was the Rothschild family. It also states, Of more recent years, non-Jewish financiers have learned the same method, and, on the whole. Mayer Rothschild successfully kept the fortune in the family with carefully arranged marriages, by the late 19th century, however, almost all Rothschilds had started to marry outside the family, usually into the aristocracy or other financial dynasties. The surname Rothschild is rare in Germany, the German surname Rothschild is not related to the Protestant surname Rothchilds from the United Kingdom. Another line, of the British branch of the family, was elevated by Queen Victoria, research conducted by GreatGameIndia Magazine has revealed that the Rothschild family was one of the controller families of the East India Company. The Rothschilds already possessed a significant fortune before the start of the Napoleonic Wars, in 1815 alone, the Rothschilds provided £9.8 million in subsidy loans to Britains continental allies. The brothers helped coordinate Rothschild activities across the continent, and the family developed a network of agents, in one instance, the family network enabled Nathan to receive in London the news of Wellingtons victory at the Battle of Waterloo a full day ahead of the governments official messengers. It was then repeated in popular accounts, such as that of Morton. The basis for the Rothschilds most famously profitable move was made after the news of British victory had made public
7.
Classics
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Classics or Classical Studies is the study of classical antiquity. It encompasses the study of the Graeco-Roman world, particularly of its languages, and literature but also it encompasses the study of Graeco-Roman philosophy, history, and archaeology. Traditionally in the West, the study of the Greek and Roman classics was considered one of the cornerstones of the humanities and it has been traditionally a cornerstone of a typical elite education. The word Classics is derived from the Latin adjective classicus, meaning belonging to the highest class of citizens, the word was originally used to describe the members of the highest class in ancient Rome. By the 2nd century AD the word was used in literary criticism to describe writers of the highest quality, for example, Aulus Gellius, in his Attic Nights, contrasts classicus and proletarius writers. By the 6th century AD, the word had acquired a meaning, referring to pupils at a school. Thus the two meanings of the word, referring both to literature considered to be of the highest quality, and to the standard texts used as part of a curriculum. In the Middle Ages, classics and education were tightly intertwined, according to Jan Ziolkowski, while Latin was hugely influential, however, Greek was barely studied, and Greek literature survived almost solely in Latin translation. The works of even major Greek authors such as Hesiod, whose names continued to be known by educated Europeans, were unavailable in the Middle Ages. Along with the unavailability of Greek authors, there were differences between the classical canon known today and the works valued in the Middle Ages. Catullus, for instance, was almost entirely unknown in the medieval period, the Renaissance led to the increasing study of both ancient literature and ancient history, as well as a revival of classical styles of Latin. From the 14th century, first in Italy and then increasingly across Europe, Renaissance Humanism, Humanism saw a reform in education in Europe, introducing a wider range of Latin authors as well as bringing back the study of Greek language and literature to Western Europe. This reintroduction was initiated by Petrarch and Boccaccio who commissioned a Calabrian scholar to translate the Homeric poems, the late 17th and 18th centuries are the period in Western European literary history which is most associated with the classical tradition, as writers consciously adapted classical models. Classical models were so prized that the plays of William Shakespeare were rewritten along neoclassical lines. From the beginning of the 18th century, the study of Greek became increasingly important relative to that of Latin, in this period Johann Winckelmanns claims for the superiority of the Greek visual arts influenced a shift in aesthetic judgements, while in the literary sphere, G. E. Lessing returned Homer to the centre of artistic achievement, in the United Kingdom, the study of Greek in schools began in the late 18th century. The poet Walter Savage Landor claimed to have one of the first English schoolboys to write in Greek during his time at Rugby School. The 19th century saw the influence of the world, and the value of a classical education, decline, especially in the US
8.
Istanbul
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Istanbul, historically known as Constantinople and Byzantium, is the most populous city in Turkey and the countrys economic, cultural, and historic center. Istanbul is a city in Eurasia, straddling the Bosphorus strait between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. Its commercial and historical center lies on the European side and about a third of its population lives on the Asian side, the city is the administrative center of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, both hosting a population of around 14.7 million residents. Istanbul is one of the worlds most populous cities and ranks as the worlds 7th-largest city proper, founded under the name of Byzantion on the Sarayburnu promontory around 660 BCE, the city developed to become one of the most significant in history. After its reestablishment as Constantinople in 330 CE, it served as a capital for almost 16 centuries, during the Roman and Byzantine, the Latin. Overlooked for the new capital Ankara during the period, the city has since regained much of its prominence. The population of the city has increased tenfold since the 1950s, as migrants from across Anatolia have moved in, arts, music, film, and cultural festivals were established at the end of the 20th century and continue to be hosted by the city today. Infrastructure improvements have produced a complex transportation network, considered a global city, Istanbul has one of the fastest-growing metropolitan economies in the world. It hosts the headquarters of many Turkish companies and media outlets and accounts for more than a quarter of the gross domestic product. Hoping to capitalize on its revitalization and rapid expansion, Istanbul has bid for the Summer Olympics five times in twenty years, the first known name of the city is Byzantium, the name given to it at its foundation by Megarean colonists around 660 BCE. The name is thought to be derived from a personal name, ancient Greek tradition refers to a legendary king of that name as the leader of the Greek colonists. Modern scholars have hypothesized that the name of Byzas was of local Thracian or Illyrian origin. He also attempted to promote the name Nova Roma and its Greek version Νέα Ῥώμη Nea Romē, the use of Constantinople to refer to the city during the Ottoman period is now considered politically incorrect, even if not historically inaccurate, by Turks. By the 19th century, the city had acquired other names used by foreigners or Turks. Europeans used Constantinople to refer to the whole of the city, pera was used to describe the area between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, but Turks also used the name Beyoğlu. The name İstanbul is commonly held to derive from the Medieval Greek phrase εἰς τὴν Πόλιν and this reflected its status as the only major city in the vicinity. The importance of Constantinople in the Ottoman world was reflected by its Ottoman name Der Saadet meaning the gate to Prosperity in Ottoman. An alternative view is that the name evolved directly from the name Constantinople, with the first, a Turkish folk etymology traces the name to Islam bol plenty of Islam because the city was called Islambol or Islambul as the capital of the Islamic Ottoman Empire
