Imaginary Lives
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Vies imaginaires ("Imaginary Lives", 1896) is a series of fictional biographies written by French author Marcel Schwob.
From the publisher:
- Imaginary Lives contains twenty-two mythopoeic literary portraits of figures from ancient history, art history, and the history of crime and punishment. From demi-gods, sorcerers, incendiaries, wantons and philosophers of the ancient world, to the "poet of hate" Cecco Angiolieri and the painter Paolo Uccello, through to the pirates William Kidd and Major Stede-Bonnet, and finally Burke and Hare, the serial killers; Schwob presents a vivid array of characters who display all that is macabre, deviant and magnificently terrifying in human beings and in life. In Imaginary Lives, Schwob has created a "secret" masterpiece that joins other biographical glossaries such as Jorge Luis Borges' A Universal History Of Infamy and Alfonso Reyes' Real And Imagined Portraits in the pantheon of classic speculative fiction, of which Schwob's book is the dark progenitor. Livid with decadent imagery, Imaginary Lives resonates loudly today with its themes of temporality, myth, violence and sexuality, and stands as a major work of the fin-de-siecle.
Contents |
Wikipedia page[1]
Imaginary Lives (original French title: Vies imaginaires ), is a collection of twenty-two semi-biographical short stories by Marcel Schwob, first published as a book in 1896. Mixing known and fantastical elements, it was the first of the genre of Biographical Fiction. The book was an acknowledged influence in Jorge Luis Borges’s first book A Universal History of Infamy. Borges also translated the last story Burke and Hare, Assassins into Spanish.
Most had been published individually in the newspaper Le Journal between 1894 and 1985. For the collected edition he substituted “Vie de Morphiel, démiurge” with ‘’Matoaka’’ which had appeared in 1893 in ‘’L’Echo de Paris’ and that he renamed Pocahontas, princesse.
Contents
| Original French title | English translation (2013) | Central characters | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Empédocle, Dieu supposé | Empedocles, Supposed God | Empedocles | |
| Erostrate, Incendiaire | Erostate, Incendiary | Herostratus | |
| Cratès, Cynique | Crates, Cynic | Crates of Thebes | |
| Septima, Incantatrice | Septima, Enchantress | ||
| Lucrèce, Poète | Lucretius, Poet | Lucretius | |
| Clodia, Matronne impudique | Clodia, Impure Woman | Clodia | |
| Pétrone, Romancier | Petronius, Romancier | Petronius | |
| Sufrah, Géomancien | Sufrah, Geomancer | Sorcerer from Aladdin | |
| Frate Dolcino, Hérétique | Fra Dolcino, Heretic | Fra Dolcino | |
| Cecco Angiolieri, Poète haineux | Cecco Angiolieri, Poet of Hate | Cecco Angiolieri | |
| Paolo Uccello, Peintre | Paolo Uccello, Painter | Paolo Uccello | |
| Nicolas Loyseleur, Juge | Nicolas Loysenleur, Judge | Judge of Joan of Arc | |
| Katherine la Dentellière, Fille amoureuse | Katherine the Lacemaker, Girl of the Streets | ||
| Alain le Gentil, Soldat | Alain the Gentle, Soldier | ||
| Gabriel Spenser, Acteur | Gabriel Spencer, Actor | Gabriel Spencer | |
| Pocahontas, Princesse | Pocahontas, Princess | Pocahontas | |
| Cyril Tourneur, Poète tragique | Cyril Tourneur, Tragic Poet | Cyril Tourneur | |
| William Phips, Pêcheur de trésors | William Phips, Treasure Hunter | William Phips | |
| Le Capitaine Kid, Pirate | Captain Kidd, Pirate | William Kidd | |
| Walter Kennedy, Pirate illettré | Walter Kennedy, Unlettered Pirate | Walter Kennedy (pirate) | |
| Le Major Stede Bonnet, Pirate par humeur | Major Stede-Bonnet, Pirate by Fancy | Stede Bonnet | |
| MM. Burke et Hare, Assassins | Burke and Hare, Assassins | Burke and Hare murders |
See also
Full text[2]
