-
Skip These Ads
-
Skip These Ads|
|
 |
Click here and add this page to your favorites!
|
Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: LEO-LOB |
|
|
LERWICK , a municipal and police burgh of Shetland, Scot-land, the most northerly town in the British Isles. Pop. (19o,) 4281. It is situated on Brassay Sound, a fine natural harbour, on the east coast of the island called Mainland, 115 M. N.E. of Kirkwall, in Orkney, and 340 M. from Leith by steamer. The town dates from the beginning of the 17th century, and theolder part consists of a flagged causeway called Commercial Street, running for 1 m. parallel with the sea (in which the gable ends of several of the quaint-looking houses stand), and so narrow in places as not to allow of two vehicles passing each other. At right angles to this street lanes ascend the hill-side to Hillhead, where the more modern structures and villas have been built At the north end stands Fort Charlotte, erected by Cromwell, repaired in 1665 by Charles II. and altered in 1781 by George III., after whose queen it was named. It is now used as a depot for the Naval Reserve, for whom a large drill
hall
hall
gift of citizens of Amster-dam and Hamburg, in gratitude for services rendered by the islanders to fishermen and seamen of those ports. Lerwick's main industries are connected with the fisheries, of which it is anLE SAGE which is curiously like certain works of Defoe. Besides all this, Le Sage was also the author of La Valise trout*, a collection of imaginary letters, and of some minor pieces, of which Une journee des parques is the most remarkable. This laborious life he continued until 1740, when he was more than seventy years of age. His eldest son had become an actor, and Le Sage had disowned him, but the second was a canon at Boulogne in comfortable circumstances. In the year just mentioned his father and mother went to live with him. At Boulogne Le Sage spent the last seven years of his life, dying on the 17th of November 1747. His last work, Melange amusant de saillies d'esprit et de traits historiques les plus frappants, had appeared in 1743 Not much is known of Le Sage's life and personality, and the foregoing paragraph contains not only the most important but almost the only facts available for it. The few anecdotes which we have of him represent him as a man of very independent temper, declining to accept the condescending patronage which in the earlier part of the century was still the portion of men of letters. Thus it is said that, on being remonstrated with, as he thought impolitely, for an unavoidable delay in appearing at the duchess of Bouillon's house to read Turcaret, he at once put the play in his pocket and retired, refusing absolutely to return. It may, however, be said that as in time so in position he occupies a place apart from most of the great writers of the 17th and 18th centuries respectively. He was not the object of royal patronage like the first, nor the pet of salons and coteries like the second. Indeed, he seems all his life to have been purely domestic in his habits, and purely literary in his interests. The importance of Le Sage in French and in European literature is not entirely the same, and he has the rare distinction of being more important in the latter than in the former. His literary work may be divided into three parts. The first contains his Theatre de la Foire and his few miscellaneous writings, the second his two remarkable plays Crispin and Turcaret, the third his prose fictions. In the' first two he swims within the general literary current in France; he can be and must be compared with others of his own nation. But in the third he emerges altogether from merely national comparison. It is not with Frenchmen that he is to be measured. He formed no school in France; he followed no French models. His work, admirable as it is from the mere point of view of style and form, is a parenthesis in the general development of the French novel. That product works its way from Madame de la Fayette through Marivaux and Prevost, not through Le Sage. His literary ancestors are Spaniards, his literary contemporaries and successors are Englishmen. The position is almost unique; it is certainly interesting and remarkable in the highest degree. Of Le Sage's miscellaneous work, including his numerous farce-operettas, there is not much to be said except that they are the very best kind of literary hack-work. The pure and original
Turcaret are unquestionably Molieresque, though they are perhaps more original
act and many scenes, after the earlier manner of motion. Its important centre. Docks, wharves, piers, curing stations and warehouses have been provided or enlarged to cope with the growth of the trade, and an esplanade has been constructed along the front. The town is also the chief
LE SAGE, ALAIN RENE (1668-1747), French novelist and dramatist, was born at Sarzeau in the peninsula of Rhuys, between the Morbihan and the sea, on the 13th of December 1668. Rhuys was a legal district, and Claude le Sage, the father of the novelist, held the united positions of advocate, notary and registrar of its royal court. His wife's name was Jeanne Brenugat. Both father and mother died when Le Sage was very young, and his property was wasted or embezzled by his guardians. Little is known of his youth except that he went to school with the Jesuits at Vannes until he was eighteen. Conjecture has it that he continued his studies at Paris, and it is certain that he was called to the bar at the capital in 1692. In August 1694 he married the daughter of a joiner, Marie Elizabeth Huyard. She was beautiful but had no fortune, and Le Sage had little practice. About this time he met his old schoolfellow, the dramatist Danchet, and is said to have been advised by him to betake himself to literature. He began modestly as a translator, and published in 1695 a French version of the Epistles of Aristaenetus, which was not successful. Shortly afterwards he found a valuable patron and adviser in the abbe de Lyonne, who bestowed on him an annuity
Le Sage began by translating plays chiefly from Rojas and Lope de Vega. Le Traitre puni and Le Point d'honneur from the former, Don Felix de Mendoce from the latter, were acted or published in the first two or three years of the 18th century. In 1704 he translated the continuation of Don Quixote by Avellaneda, and soon afterwards adapted a play from Calderon, Don Cesar Ursin, which had a divided fate, being successful at court and damned in the city. He was, however, nearly forty before he obtained anything like decided success. But in 1707 his admirable farce of Crispin rival de son maitre was acted with great applause, and Le Diable boiteux was published. This latter went through several editions in the same year, and was frequently reprinted till 1725, when Le Sage altered and improved it considerably, giving it its present form. Notwithstanding the success of Crispin, the actors did not like Le Sage, and refused a small piece of his called Les Etrennes (1707). He thereupon altered it into Turcaret, his theatrical masterpiece, and one of the best comedies in French literature. This appeared in 1709. Some years passed before he again attempted romance writing, and then the first two parts of Gil Blas de Santillane appeared in 1715. Strange to say, it was not so popular as Le Diable boiteux. Le Sage worked at it for a long time, and did not bring out the third part till 1724, nor the fourth till 1735. For this last he had been part paid to the extent of a hundred pistoles some years before its appearance. During these twenty years he was, however, continually busy. Notwithstanding the great merit and success of Turcaret and Crispin, the Theatre Francais did not welcome him, and in the year of the publication of Gil Bias he began to write for the Theatre de la Foirethe comic opera held in booths at festival time. This, though not a very dignified occupation, was followed by many writers of distinction at this date, and by none more assiduously than by Le Sage. According to one computation he produced, either alone or with others, about a hundred pieces, varying from strings of songs with no regular dialogues, to comediettas only distinguished from regular plays by the introduction of music. He was also industrious in prose fiction. Besides finishing Gil Bias he translated the Orlando innamorato (1721), rearranged Guzman d'Alfarache (1732), published two more or less original novels, Le Bachelier de Salamanque and Estevanille Gonzales, and in 1733 produced the Vie et aventures de M. de Beauchesne, plot is somewhat extravagant, inasmuch as it lies in the effort of a knavish valet, not as usual to further his master's interests, but to supplant that master in love and gain. But the charm of the piece consists first in the lively bustling action of the short scenes which take each other up so promptly and smartly that the spectator has not time to cavil at the improbability of the action, and secondly in the abundant wit of the dialogue. Turcaret is a far more important piece of work and ranks high among comedies dealing with the actual society of their time. The only thing which prevents it from holding the very highest place is a certain want of unity in the plot. This want, however, is compensated in Turcaret by the most masterly profusion of character-drawing in the separate parts. Turcaret, the ruthless, dishonest and dissolute financier, his vulgar wife as dissolute as himself, the harebrained marquis, the knavish chevalier, the baroness (a coquette with the finer edge taken off her fineladyhood, yet by no means unlovable), are each and all finished portraits of the best comic type, while almost as much may be said of the minor characters. The style and dialogue are also worthy of the highest praise; the wit never degenerates into mere " wit-combats." It is, however, as a novelist that the world has agreed to remember Le Sage. A great deal of unnecessary labour has been spent on the discussion of his claims to originality. What has been already said will give a sufficient clue through this thorny ground. In mere form Le Sage is not original. He does little more than adopt that of the Spanish picaroon romance of the 16th and 17th century. Often, too, he prefers merely to rearrange and adapt existing work, and still oftener to give himself a kind of start by adopting the work of a preceding writer as a basis. But it may be laid down as a positive truth that he never, in any work that pretends to originality at all, is guilty of anything that can fairly be called plagiarism. Indeed we may go further, and say that he is very fond of asserting or suggesting his indebtedness when he is really dealing with his own funds. Thus the Diable boiteux borrows the title, and for a chapter or two the plan and almost the words, of the Diablo Cojuelo of Luis Velez de Guevara. But after a few pages Le Sage leaves his predecessor alone. Even the plan of the Spanish original is entirely discarded, and the incidents, the episodes, the style, are as independent as if such a book as the Diablo Cojuelo had never existed. The case of Gil Bias is still more remarkable. It was at first alleged that Le Sage had borrowed it from the Marcos de Obregon of Vincent Espinel, a curiously rash assertion, inasmuch as that work exists and is easily accessible, and as the slightest consultation of it proves that, though it furnished Le Sage with separate incidents and hints for more than one of his books, Gil Bias as a whole is not in the least indebted to it. Afterwards Father Isla asserted that Gil Blas was a mere translation from an actual Spanish bookan assertion at once incapable of proof and disproof, inasmuch as there is no trace whatever of any such book. A third hypothesis is that there was some manuscript original which Le Sage may have worked up in his usual way, in the same way, for instance, as he professes himself to have worked up the Bachelor of Salamanca. This also is in the nature of it incapable of refutation, though the argument from the Bachelor is strong against it, for there could be no reason why Le Sage should be more reticent of his obligations in the one case than in the other. Except, however, for historical reasons, the controversy is one which may be safely neglected, nor is there very much importance in the more impartial indication of sourceschiefly works on the history of Olivareswhich has sometimes been attempted. That Le Sage knew Spanish literature well is of course obvious; but there is as little doubt (with the limitations already laid down) of his real originality as of that of any greatwriter in the world . Gil Blas then remains his property, and it is admittedly the capital example of its own style. For Le Sage has not only the characteristic, which Homer and Shakespeare have, of absolute truth to human nature as distinguished from truth to this or that national character, but he has what has been called the quality of detachment,which they also have. He never takes sides with his characters as Fielding (whose master, with Cervantes, he certainly was) sometimes does. Asmodeus and Don Cleofas, Gil Blas and the Archbishop and Doctor
The dates of the original editions of Le Sage's most important works have already been given. He published during his life a collection of his regular dramatic works, and also one of his pieces for the Foire, but the latter is far from exhaustive; nor is there any edition which can be called so, though the CEuvres choisies of 1782 and 1818 are useful, and there are so-called G uvres completes of 1821 and 1840. Besides critical articles by the chief
Eugene
End of Article: LERWICK If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/LEO_LOB/LERWICK.html"> LERWICK </a> |
|
|
(Previous) LEROUX, PIERRE (1798-1871) |
(Next) LES |
Jesus Christ Saves Ministries, P.O. Box 70696, Pasadena, CA 91117JCSM is a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization. Copyright © 1997-present. |
Free & Cheap Cell
Phones |
Cheap Long Distance
Phone Service Carriers |
Talk America Local Phone Service
|
Ztel & MCI - Unlimited Long Distance
Compare
Cell Phone Plans & Companies |
International Calling Cards & Prepaid Phone Cards |
Voice Over IP Broadband Internet Phone
Service | Wireless
Phone Plans & Cheap Cell Phones
|
_____________________________________________________________________________
Online First Aid and CPR Certification . The Online Christ Centered Ministries . The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained . The Inerrancy Discussion Board . Free Email Accounts . Home Equity Loans . JasonGastrich.com . The Missions, Apologetics, and Creation Bible Conference . Young Earth Creation Science . San Diego Music Lessons . 10,000 Wise Quotes and Spiritual Sayings . Gastrich.net . Maximizing the Internet: 12 Keys to Success . Louisiana Baptist University . NKJV Web Hosting and Services . Michael Newdow . San Diego Soccer Training . Christian Guitar Lessons . Jesus Christ Saves Ministries . Eternal Security
