2.28.2020

DAPHNE DU MAURIER, Rebecca (1938)

"REBECCA  (1938) PLAGIARISM FROM JANE EYRE" (1845) :

we have 4 resemblances :

1. The second Mrs.De Winter (name ?) remembered the old mansion Manderley.
   
    The second Mrs.Rochester, Jane Eyre, remembered Thornfield Hall.

2. Daphne Du Maurier tells the life of the first Mrs.De Winter, the beautiful Rebecca, dead but
    never forgotten.
 
   Charlotte Bronte tells the life of the first Mrs.Rochester, Bertha Mason, she still lives, she is a mad,
     lunatic woman.

3. The first Mrs.De Winter, Rebecca, had a servant, the sinister Mrs.Danvers. (see image above)
 
    The first Mrs.Rochester has a servant, the sinister Grace Poole, lives also in the castle.

4. The second Mrs.De Winter returns to Manderley, the castle is burned.
 
    The second Mrs.Rochester returns to Thornfield Hall, a blackened ruin, it was burned to the
      ground. (during the fire, Rochester went back to get his mad wife out of her cel).


2.25.2020

CHARLOTTE BRONTE , "Jane Eyre"

"JANE EYRE" (1847) tells us a lot about :

English history,  of English law of sucession, religion, islamic world and the difference between the

cottage and the manor house.

"This afternoon, I was wondering how a man who wished to do right could act so unjustly und unwisely as Charles the first sometimes did. And I thought what a pity it was that, with his integrity and his concientiousness, he could see no farther than the prerogatives of the Crown. If he had but been able to look to a distance. Still, I like Charles, I respect him, I pity him, poor murdered king. Yers, his ennemies were the worst. They shed blood  they had no right to shed. How dared they kill him..." (p;89).

"I see, he said, the mountain will never be brought to Mahomet, so all you can do is to aid Mahomet to go the mountain. I must beg of you to come here..."(p.146)

"The old gentleman was fond of money, and anxious to keep the family estate together. He did not like to diminish the property by division..." (p.159)

"I keep it and rear it on the Roman Catholic principle of expiating numerous sins, great or small, by one good work..." (p.171)

"I set out for the Continent. I shall take up my abode in a religious house near Lisle. A nunnery, you would call it. I shall devote myself for a time to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas and to a careful study of the workings of their system..." (p.269)

"I first got an idea of its calibre when I heard him preach in his own church at Morton. It began calm, it was calm to the end. Stern allusions to Calvinistic doctrines, election, predestination, reprobation, were frequent...(p.378)

"There is this difference between me and deistic philosophers. I believe, and I believe the Gospel. I am not a pagan, but a Chritian philosopher, a follower of the sect of Jesus. As his disciple I adopt his pure , his merciful, his benignant doctrines...(p.401)

"But perhaps, your accomodations, your cottage, your furniture, have disappointed your expectations ? My cottage is clean and weather-proof; my furniture sufficient...But you feel solitude ? The little house there behind you is dark and empty..."

"The manor-house of Ferndean  was a building of considerable antiquity, moderate seize and no architectural pretensions, deep buried in a wood. Entering  a portal, fastened only by a latch, I stood amidst a space of enclosed ground...The house presented two pointed gables in its front, the windows were latticed and narrow..." (p.454)

2.02.2020

GRAHAM GREENE AND JANSENISM





In the church of Lissewege, near Zeebrugge,
you can admire a crucifix, painted by Duvenede around 1713. 

To understand the meaning, read Graham Greene's "The third man", p.40 :

"...Turning away from dr.Winkler, he confronted yet another crucifix, the figure hanging with arms above the head : a face of elongated El Greco agony. That's a strange crucifix, he said. Jansenist, dr.Winkler commented and closed his mouth sharply as thoug he had been guilty of giving away too much information. 
Never heard the word. Why are the arms above the head ? Dr.Winkler said reluctantly : Because He died, in their view, only for the elect..."

12.18.2019

ADAM SMITH "De welvaart van landen " , 1776


ADAM SMITH ABOUT BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE




"...Nog geen dertig jaar geleden oefende Cameron van Lochiel, een edelman uit de Schotse plaats Lochabar, nog de hoogste vorm van rechterlijk gezag uit over zijn onderdanen zonder dat hij daar wettelijk toe gemachtigd was. Diezelfde edelman, die jaarlijks nooit meer dan 500 pond aan pachtgeld inde, verzamelde in 1745 800 van zijn onderdanen om deel te nemen aan de opstand van 1745

Het gaat hier om de laatste Jacobitische opstand, waarbij Karel Stuart, ook wel Bonnie Prince Charlie genoemd, in opstand kwam tegen het Brits gezag. De Jacobieten wilden dat het rooms-katholieke koningshuis Stuart terugkeerde op de Britse troon. Maar de jacobitische opstand van de Schotten werd neergeslagen in de slag bij Culloden, 1764, en verloor Schotland voorgoed zijn vrijheid" (p.463)

NAPOLEON : "ENGLAND A NATION OF SHOPKEEPERS"
Napoleon read that in Smith's, Inquiry into the causes of the wealth of nations" :

"Op het eerste gezicht lijkt het stichten van een wereldrijk met het uitsluitende doel om daar een volk van klanten mee te kweken misschien een project dat alleen geschikt is voor een land van winkeliers, maar uitermate geschikt voor een land met een regering die onder invloed staat van winkeliers..." (p.673)

12.02.2019

OSWALD SPENGLER "De Ondergang van het Avondland" 1918



"De passie voor kennistheoretische vraagstukken heeft niet langer de prioriteit 

en

 moet plaatsmaken voor praktische behoeften :

 socialisme, stoïcisme en boeddhisme zijn filosofieën in deze trant. 

De wereld niet langer vanuit de hoogte beschouwen, 

zoals Aeschylus, Plato, Dante en Goethe hebben gedaan, 

maar vanuit het oogpunt van alledaagse behoefte

 en 

van een opdringerige werkelijkheid  

dat noem ik 

het vogelperspectief op het leven verruilen voor het kikkerperspectief,

en dat kenmerkt precies de neergang van een cultuur tot civilisatie. " (uitg.Boom, p.449,450).