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Hippolytus
(Ἱππολυτος) Euripides 429 BC (Disaster ensues when Phaedra falls for her stepson!) The gods will have their play, and we piteous humans must suffer in double jeopardy. First, vice will eventually bring destruction, and yet we are by nature weak and prone to vice. Second, everyone is subject to fate, which is not kinder to […]
First Love
(Первая любовь) Ivan Turgenev 1860 (A young man is thrown into the sweet agony of unrequited love for his beautiful new neighbor.) Woldemar, a young man of sixteen, experiences the whirlwind of love descending on him for the first time, as he becomes acquainted with the beautiful and elegant Zinaida, the daughter of a princess, […]
Great Expectations
Charles Dickens 1860-1861 (Pip tells us of his lifelong love, the unexpected rise and fall of his fortunes, and the lessons he learned about what makes a gentleman.) In describing a novel, everyone, myself included, seems to have as the central focus an explanation of what the book is about, whether plotwise or themewise. So it […]
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
June 16, 2019 / 2 Comments on The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
(Notre-Dame de Paris) Victor Hugo 1831 (Love for a young gypsy woman allows an ugly man to rise above the world’s hatred of him, and to show his inner beauty). Beauty and beast stories are thousands of years old. Here is how they generally go: a beautiful maiden somehow must associate with a character of […]
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