Drafts for a Third Sketchbook

Drafts for a Third Sketchbook

Author: Max Frisch

Publisher: Swiss List

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780857421692

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'New York . . . I HATE IT. I LOVE IT. I DON'T KNOW' This could serve as a motto to large parts of Drafts for a Third Sketchbook, much of which focuses on America, where Frisch had an apartment, as well as his house in rural Switzerland. He wrote three Sketchbooks, of which the third was left unpublished at his death in 1991, that record his reactions to events of the time and people he encountered in his daily life. Despite the German title Tagebuch, they are not diaries in the formal sense, though they do progress chronologically but mostly without dates and only contain the pieces Frisch felt were significant. These 'sketches', ranging from a couple of sentences to several pages, are not casual jottings but carefully crafted pieces. Central to them is his reaction to the America of the Reagan years and the threat of nuclear war but another important theme is his own sense of growing old and the prospect of dying; this is particularly movingly portrayed in the decline and death from cancer of his close friend, Peter Noll. Max Frisch (1911-91) was one of the giants of twentieth-century literature, achieving fame as a novelist, playwright, diarist and essayist. He received the Georg Büchner prize in 1958 and the Neustadt Literature prize in 1986. For many years a lecturer in German with a special interest in Austrian literature, Mike Mitchell has worked as a literary translator since 1995. Publisher's note.


Drafts for a Third Sketchbook

Drafts for a Third Sketchbook

Author: Max Frisch

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 9780857422750

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This could serve as a motto to large parts of Drafts for a Third Sketchbook, much of which focuses on America, where Frisch had an apartment, as well as his house in rural Switzerland. He wrote three Sketchbooks, of which the third was left unpublished at his death in 1991, that record his reactions to events of the time and people he encountered in his daily life. Despite the German title Tagebuch, they are not diaries in the formal sense, though they do progress chronologically but mostly without dates and only contain the pieces Frisch felt were significant. These 'sketches', ranging from a couple of sentences to several pages, are not casual jottings but carefully crafted pieces. Central to them is his reaction to the America of the Reagan years and the threat of nuclear war but another important theme is his own sense of growing old and the prospect of dying; this is particularly movingly portrayed in the decline and death from cancer of his close friend, Peter Noll


Beethovens Diabelli Variations

Beethovens Diabelli Variations

Author: William Kinderman

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2008-03-15

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 0199711747

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The Thirty-three Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli, Op. 120, represent Beethovens most extraordinary achievement in the art of variation-writing. In their originality and power of invention, they stand beside other late Beethoven masterpieces such as the Ninth Symphony, the Missa Solemnis, and the last quartets. William Kindermans study of the compositional history of the work includes the first extended investigation and reconstruction of the sketches and drafts, and reveals, contrary to earlier views of its chronology, that it was actually begun in 1819, then put aside, and completed in 1822-3. Kinderman also provides an analytical discussion of the complete work, and he demonstrates how insights derived from a close study of the sketches can illuminate Beethovens compositional ideas and attitudes and contribute substantially to a better understanding of this massive and complex set of variations. The book includes complete transcriptions of the two central documents in the genesis of the Diabelli variations - the reconstructed Wittgenstein Sketchbook and the Paris - Landsberg - Montauban Draft.


Humanities, Provocateur

Humanities, Provocateur

Author:

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-12-30

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 9389867126

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This highly original collection is a far cry from the demand on the literary humanities to offer the soothing hum of theory to a world of breaks, crises and pain. Instead, it exemplifies a way ahead for the critical humanities.... -Arjun Appadurai, New York University 'Doing the Humanities' comes to life in this passionate, provocative set of experiments in descriptive poetics. Failure, fantasy, freefall are reconceived as forms of aesthetic achievement across the creative arts.... -Ros Ballaster, University of Oxford ....This timely volume inspires a collective undertaking to learn 'to do' the humanities through the untimeliness of a work of art. A humanities that remains attentive to this form of techné will prove indispensable to remaking the world in the aftermath of a pandemic. -Premesh Lalu, University of the Western Cape ....exhilarating in the democratic breadth of its interests, the emotional fervour of its commitments and its yoking of systemic criticism to the work of poetic language. -Helen Small, University of Oxford How can the humanities make an intervention in such a time as this, when life as we have known it hangs in pandemic balance since the spring of 2020-and when contagion calls for distancing and isolation, while loneliness cries out for the solace of touch? Perhaps only by being, at once, fearless, critical, sorrowing, exultant, enraged, intimate. Humanities, Provocateur brings you fourteen essays and two creative pieces by established as well as younger scholars and writers from America, Europe, the Middle East, South Africa and South Asia, in a bracing invitation to a freefall of reading. They travel from classical literatures and philosophy to twentieth-century writing, cinema and critical-imaginative thinking, grouped whimsically around a set of provocations-Gleaning, Perforation, Caprice, Paraphernalia, Descent, Flux, Flesh, Ephemera-and welcome you to argue, to cherish or to distrust. Taking sharp, sparkling twists and turns in thought and style, this eclectic collection of writings incites you to be intellectually adventurous and destitute at the same time. And, invoking Dante, to never be afraid, for our fate is our gift.


Vaughan Williams's Ninth Symphony

Vaughan Williams's Ninth Symphony

Author: Alain Frogley

Publisher: Studies in Musical Genesis, St

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 9780198162841

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Ever since its premiere just before the composer's death, Vaughan Williams's Ninth Symphony has divided critical opinion and remained something of an enigma. Yet the composer thought highly of the work, and went against his usual practice by preserving all the sketches. This study, the firstof its kind on a work of Vaughan Williams, analyses the symphony and traces its genesis through hundreds of pages of sketches and drafts; it also offers a general introduction to the composer's working methods. The manuscripts show how the composer worked meticulously to create the complexexpressive ambivalence of the finished work, transforming in the process simpler conceptions redolent of his earlier music. Most crucially, however, the sketches reveal an underlying programme, centred on the theme of innocent sacrifice and drawing on Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Stonehenge,and Salisbury Cathedral. Vaughan Williams's new musical path in the symphony, it emerges, was closely allied to the continuing evolution of his visionary agnosticism.


Autonomy

Autonomy

Author: Beate Roessler

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2021-05-18

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 1509538011

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In everyday life, we generally assume that we can make our own decisions on matters which concern our own lives. We assume that a life followed only according to decisions taken by other people, against our will, cannot be a well-lived life – we assume, in other words, that we are and should be autonomous. However, it is equally true that many aspects of our lives are not chosen freely: this is true of social relations and commitments but also of all those situations we simply seem to stumble into, situations which just seem to happen to us. The possibility of both the success of an autonomous life and its failure are part of our everyday experiences. In this brilliant and illuminating book, Beate Roessler examines the tension between failing and succeeding to live an autonomous life and the obstacles we have to face when we try to live our life autonomously, obstacles within ourselves as well as those that stem from social and political conditions. She highlights the ambiguities we encounter, examines the roles of self-awareness and self-deception, explores the role of autonomy for the meaning of life, and maps out the social and political conditions necessary for autonomy. Informed by philosophical perspectives but also drawing on literary texts, such as those of Siri Hustvedt and Jane Austen, and diaries, including those of Franz Kafka and Sylvia Plath, Roessler develops a formidable defense of autonomy against excessive expectations and, above all, against overpowering skepticism.


Human Dignity

Human Dignity

Author: Peter Bieri

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2017-01-12

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 0745689051

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Dignity is humanitys most prized possession. We experience the loss of dignity as a terrible humiliation: when we lose our dignity we feel deprived of something without which life no longer seems worth living. But what exactly is this trait that we value so highly? In this important new book, distinguished philosopher Peter Bieri looks afresh at the notion of human dignity. In contrast to most traditional views, he argues that dignity is not an innate quality of human beings or a right that we possess by virtue of being human. Rather, dignity is a certain way to lead ones life. It is a pattern of thought, experience and action in other words, a way of living. In Bieris account, there are three key dimensions to dignity as a way of living. The first is the way I am treated by others: they can treat me in a way that leaves my dignity intact or they can destroy my dignity. The second dimension concerns the way that I treat other people: do I treat them in a way that allows me to live a dignified life? The third dimension concerns the view that I have of myself: which ways of seeing and treating myself allow me to maintain a sense of dignity? In the actual flow of day-to-day life these three dimensions of dignity are often interwoven, and this accounts in part for the complexity of the situations and experiences in which our dignity is at stake. So, why did we invent dignity and what role does it play in our lives? As thinking and acting beings, our lives are fragile and constantly under threat. A dignified way of living, argues Bieri, is humanitys way of coping with this threat. In our constantly endangered lives, it is important to stand our ground with confidence. Thus a dignified way of living is not any way of living: it is a particular way of responding to the existential experience of being under threat. It is also a particular way of answering the question: What kind of life do we wish to live? This beautifully written reflection on our most cherished human value will be of interest to a wide readership.


The Gilded Chalet

The Gilded Chalet

Author: Padraig Rooney

Publisher: Nicholas Brealey

Published: 2016-09-27

Total Pages: 458

ISBN-13: 1473645026

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Part detective work, part treasure chest, full of history and scandal, The Gilded Chalet takes you on a grand tour of two centuries of great writing by both Swiss and foreign authors and shows how Switzerland has always been at the center of literary Europe. Two centuries after the Romantics went there to invent Gothic horror, the lure of Switzerland hasn't left us. Writers from the Fitzgeralds to Fleming, Highsmith to Hemingway, Conan Doyle to le Carré, came to escape world wars, political persecution, tuberculosis. They came for sanctuary (from oppression or the tax man), for fresh air and nude sunbathing, for scenery resembling, as Rooney puts it, 'Mother Nature on steroids.' Patricia Highsmith spent her last years in a granite home in Ticino with a fridge containing little but peanut butter and vodka. Hermann Hesse had himself buried to the neck as a cure for alcoholism. Nabokov chased butterflies and played tennis on the hotel courts. When it comes to literature, it seems all roads lead to Switzerland. Padraig Rooney peers through the chalet windows and discovers how Switzerland has influenced some of the greatest authors and characters of literature.


The Sketchbook

The Sketchbook

Author: Gerd Presler

Publisher: XinXii

Published: 2017-06-01

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 3969318122

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Sketchbooks are an outstanding feature in more than a few exhibitions: they have a downright prominent place in showcases, above them monitors where all sheets can be seen on touch screens – a visual pleasure and an exciting event. Unfortunately, however, many people continue to be rather baffled by sketchbooks. What goes on there? Most are convinced that the purpose of a sketchbook is to prepare for a work – typically a painting. Its pages contain impressions of a preliminary nature, sketched in a few strokes, which are completed at another time and another place. But things have changed, and this is a development we have to examine at long last in greater depth: sketchbooks can accomplish more; they plough a field other than that of “pre-liminarity”! To date there is no publication that explores their true significance within the creative process. Is it not called for to take a close look at the weight artists attach to the “silent companion in their jacket pocket”? This is the purpose of this book.