Showing results by narrator "Denis Daly" in All Categories

Rosmersholm is a play surrounding the deep and intense political and cultural change in Norway in the middle of the 1880s, a period during which the traditional ruling class were forced to relinquish their right to impose their ideals on the rest of society. We follow Johannes Rosmer, a pastor who has resigned from his position; Rebecca West, a woman who sees Rosmer's potential and believes she can help him to realize his dream of creating a world of "happy, noble people"; and Headmaster Kroll, Rosmer's former best friend.

The Swedish playwright August Strindberg was one of the founding fathers of naturalistic theater. A feature of many of his plays is the minute dissection of attitude and motivation by individuals within tightly bound groups. As in the present drama, such relentless inspection of behavior often has drastic consequences. Thekla, married to the needy Adolf, has a surprise encounter with her former husband, the lordly Gustav. Or is it really a surprise?

Together with Omar Khayyam and Jalāl ud-Din Mohammad Rumi, Khwaja Shams-ud-din Mohammed Hafiz-e Shirazi, more commonly known just as Háfiz, is considered one of the major figures of classical Persian literature. Gertrude Lothian Bell (1868 - 1926) was a traveler, archeologist, political advisor, and authority on Middle Eastern history and literature.

Joseph McCabe (1867-1955) was a Catholic priest and scholar who abandoned his faith in the 1890s and later became a very prominent secular activist. He published over 250 books and pamphlets, covering a wide range of genres, including history, politics, biography, and popular science.

Sense and Sensibility follows the fortunes of sensible Elinor and her volatile younger sister, Marianne, as each searches for a spouse—a quest made urgent by the family’s financial embarrassment. While Elinor pursues the heart of clergyman, Edward Ferrars, Marianne impulsively falls in love with a glamorous but unscrupulous adventurer, Willoughby. Elinor sees trouble brewing but the enraptured Marianne does not. The sisters question each other’s choices in love.

Although Rupert Brooke is known today as a "war poet", he was never actually engaged in combat: His death was the result of an infection from an insect bite that occurred while he was in transit to commence duty in Turkey. Unlike Wilfred Owen, who had a bitter experience of life in the trenches, Brooke's vision was of the glory rather than the horror of war. Only the first section focuses on issues stemming from the war. Poems in the other sections are generally wistful evocations of places that the poet had visited in his travels and reflections on youthful love.

After early adventures as a soldier, journalist and lecturer Henry Harrison Brown established himself as a practitioner and teacher of metal healing in 1893. In 1900 he became editor and publisher of NOW magazine in San Francisco which became a popular vehicle for his distinctively muscular presentations of the New Thought philosophy. In the first decade of the Twentieth Century Brown produced a number of tracts, which he categorized as "Lessons in Soul Culture."

Little is known of the life of Zen master Huang-Po (Obaku in Japanese). He was born in Fuzhou, China, and died about 850 AD. His main teacher was Pai Chang (Hyakujo) (720 - 814). The main source for Huang-Po's teaching is the Treatise of the Essentials of the Transmission of the Mind, compiled by his student, Pei Xiu. Huang-Po's teaching is focused on the concept of Mind, the essence of intrinsic Buddahood. According to the master, the search for enlightenment was a useless distraction, as seeking for something inevitably separates the seeker from what is being sought.

A prominent focus of the works of New Thought author Christian Larson (1874-1954) was the cultivation of positive mental states for the attainment of success and happiness. In this short treatise, he analyzes some common mental maladies and gives suggestions for their treatment.

Giovanni Carmelo Verga (1840-1922) was one of the most prominent Sicilian writers of the 19th century. Today, his stories are best known through their use as the basis of the libretti of iconic verismo operas, like Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana.

This poem was composed in 1875 and 1876, but was not published until 1918. It is considered by many to be Hopkins' masterpiece. One hundred and sixty-eight passengers and crew died when the steamship Deutschland ran aground on the Kentish Knock. Hopkins weaves many Christian themes into his poetic retelling of the tragedy, including the inevitability of suffering, divine providence, salvation, and the hiddenness of God.

European tourists travel languidly along the Nile River to Abousir, at the southern frontier of Egypt, aboard “a turtle-bottomed, round-bowed stern-wheeler,” the Korosko. But Dervish warriors threaten danger and then attack and kidnap the tourists. In this novel, Doyle explores themes of British Imperialism and a defensive European perspective on North Africa; racial paternalism; and debates on interference with other countries’ politics and religions. This wonderful novel was first published in 1898, long before Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile.

On 16 August 1819, a crowd of about 60,000 people gather at Manchester in a peaceful demonstration to demand reform of the parliamentary electoral system. The government of the day interpreted the gathering as an act of rebellion and ordered the militia to disperse the crowd. In the resulting fracas, fifteen demonstrators were killed and several hundred injured. Shelly was living at Leghorn at the time of the massacre, and the news of the massacre roused his fiery republican sentiments. The result was The Mask Of Anarchy, a rousing call to action on behalf of the oppressed.

In regard to Christianity and, especially, Catholicism, Joseph McCabe was one of the most learned atheist writers of the 20th century. McCabe was a former Catholic priest, fluent in Latin and several other languages, who had taught philosophy and ecclesiastical history in a Catholic university. During his lifetime he wrote hundreds of books and pamphlets, and translated dozens of others, on various aspects of science and history, and a great many texts on religious topics.

Baudelaire’s most famous collection of poems is The Flowers of Evil, which was published in 1857 and which was widely condemned as being unwholesome and decadent. The publication actually led to Baudelaire being prosecuted on a charge of offending public morals. There have been numerous translations of Baudelaire’s work into English, but many of them have been judged as not being particularly successful. Strum’s version of The Flowers of Evil is unusual and notable for its accuracy in capturing the elusive appeal of the originals.

Thomas Troward (1847-1916) was a divisional Judge in British-administered India. In his retirement, he became well known as a lecturer on metaphysical subjects and developed a unique New Thought philosophy, which he discussed in a number of books. The Law and the Word was published posthumously in 1917. The book explores the power of the word as the fundamental element in manifestation. Troward held the word to be the expression of the immutable law of creation and supports his claim with extensive citations from the Bible.

First published in 1874, "The City of Dreadful Night" is an extended poetic meditation on melancholy, or what is generally termed today as depression. Thomson's "city" is the "città dolente" of Dante, the domain of souls trapped in a round of ceaseless misery. However, the inhabitants of Thomson's world endure a torment more subtle and more devastating than the acute and picturesque tortures of Dante's Inferno - a complete loss of purpose and a relentless draining of energy, a desperate and ever wakeful ennui.

This short text is widely accepted as one of the canonical wisdom books of the Bible. It is narrated by one who calls himself a teacher, and also a king, traditionally held to be Solomon. The general recommendation is that the wise man should consider all created things as symbols of vanity and that one's prime concern should be to avoid offending God. As with the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, commentators have been arguing for centuries about the true philosophical orientation of the author. View range from the advocacy of a radical nihilism to the recommendation of a stringent and unwavering piety.

This is the first of Tennyson's poems to be based on Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur. The first draft was composed in 1834, and the finished work was published in Poems (1842). Later Tennyson incorporated the poem into the Idylls of the King (1870) under the title of "The Passing of Arthur". The narrative of this poem was drawn from the third, fourth, and fifth chapters of the 21st book of Thomas Malory's romance.

In The Amethyst Box, a vial of incredibly potent poison goes missing on the eve of a wedding. The groom and the best man set out to find it and prevent its misuse. A man's unexpected but natural death in a hotel become more and more mysterious when we learn his obituary was printed before he died. In "The Ruby and the Cauldron", a precious gem is lost then found then lost again...finding it will save one woman from shame but will condemn another.