Tag: Literary Vignettes
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August Von Platen, inspiration for Death in Venice
Nicolas Roberto Robles Bandajoz, Spain Figure 1. Portrait of August Graft von Platen. Unknown Author – Holzstich 1879 In Gustav Adolf von Klöden: “Unser Deutsches Land und Volk” (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München/Porträtsammlung). Via Wikimedia. Public Domain. Weil da, wo Schönheit waltet, Liebe waltet Because where beauty reigns, love reigns – Sonette aus Venedig. August…
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Who is “Dr. Filth”?
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Child survivors of Auschwitz, wearing adult-size prisoner jackets, stand behind a barbed wire fence. The group includes a few twins. Still from the Soviet Film of the liberation of Auschwitz by the film unit of the First Ukrainian Front-Alexander Voronzow. 1945. Via Wikimedia. Public Domain. Bob Dylan’s song “Desolation Row”…
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Indo-European for health professionals
Logo of the Asiatic Society of Bengal depicting Sir William Jones. 1905. Via Wikimedia. The Indo-Europeans were a group of people whose language is presumed to be the ancestor of most modern languages spoken in Europe and in parts of Asia. They left behind almost no tangible evidence of their existence other than some funeral…
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A Regency epitaph for a child
Stephen Martin County Durham, UK In some spot where common herbage grows Perchance a violet rears its purple head: Some careful gardener plucks it ere it blows To spread and flourish in a nobler bed: Such was thy fate dear child, thy opening such Pre-eminence in early bloom was shown: Too good for earth…
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Companionable books
“Many books are dry and dusty, there is no juice in them; and many are soon exhausted, you would no more go back to them than to a squeezed orange; but some have in them an unfailing sap, both from the tree of knowledge and from the tree of life. “By companionable books I mean…
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A treatment for “circular insanity”: Joseph Roth’s Radetzky March
Sally Metzler Chicago, Illinois, United States Madness and decay of society permeate Joseph Roth’s brooding novel The Radetsky March (1932). One character, Herr von Taussig, experiences attacks of “circular insanity.”1 The recommended cure is an institution on Lake Constance, where Von Taussig receives treatment by “mundane and feather-brained physicians who prescribe ‘spiritual emotions,’ just…