| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: that pages are missing from the "original", this refers to the
Russian original, not the translation.
All the foreign words were italicised in the original, a style
not preserved here. Accents and diphthongs have also been left
out.
INTRODUCTION
Dead Souls, first published in 1842, is the great prose classic of
Russia. That amazing institution, "the Russian novel," not only began
its career with this unfinished masterpiece by Nikolai Vasil'evich
Gogol, but practically all the Russian masterpieces that have come
since have grown out of it, like the limbs of a single tree.
Dead Souls |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: II. whose confidence in him was such, that his influence in the
empire became unbounded. The courtiers, envious of his exalted
situation, contrived, by means of forged letters, to make
Frederick believe that he held a secret and traitorous
intercourse with the Pope, who was then at enmity with the
Emperor. In consequence of this supposed crime he was cruelly
condemned by his too credulous sovereign to lose his eyes, and,
being driven to despair by his unmerited calamity and disgrace,
he put an end to his life by dashing out his brains against the
walls of a church, in the year 1245. Both Frederick and Pietro
delle Vigne composed verses in the Sicilian dialect which are yet
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pericles by William Shakespeare: But to prorogue his grief.
LYSIMACHUS.
Upon what ground is his distemperature?
HELICANUS.
'Twould be too tedious to repeat;
But the main grief springs from the loss
Of a beloved daughter and a wife.
LYSIMACHUS.
May we not see him?
HELICANUS.
You may;
|
