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Simplex starts out in life as innocent as any child - even more so. But then the soldiers came. And Simplex takes his first stumbling step out into the wide world. He is pressed into service as a court jester and carried off by the Croats. He fights in the war, now on this side, now on that. As a fancy-free lighthearted gallant, he slips into a pretty girl's boudoir only to be escorted from it the same night as a trapped and heavyhearted husband. He acquires great wealth by robbery and sinks into poverty out of magnanimity.
"Daniel Randolph Deal is a Southern aristocrat, having the required bloodline, but little of the nobility. A man resistant to the folly of ethics, he prefers a selective, self-indulgent morality. He is a confessed hedonist, albeit responsibly so."--Back cover
The novel follows a boy from the Spessart named Simplicius in the Holy Roman Empire during the 30 Years War as he grows up in the depraved environment and joins the armies of both warring sides, switching allegiances several times. Born to an illiterate peasant family, he is separated from his home by foraging dragoons and is eventually adopted by a forest hermit. He is conscripted at a young age into service, and from there embarks on years of foraging, military triumph, wealth, prostitution, disease, travels to Russia, and countless other adventures.
'Gaudy, wild, raw, amusing, rollicking and ragged, boiling with life, on intimate terms with death and evil - but in the end, contrite and fully tired of a world wasting itself in blood, pillage and lust' Thomas Mann A story of war in all its absurdity and horror, this incomparable novel describes the fortunes of a young boy travelling through a world ravaged by conflict, and the terrible things he witnesses. Written by someone who fought in the Thirty Years War which decimated Europe in the seventeenth century, it combines brutal, documentary realism with fantastical, knockabout humour to depict a universe turned upside down. This pioneering work of fiction is considered to be the first great German novel. Translated by J. A. Underwood with an Introduction by Kevin Cramer
A companion volume to Simplicissimus: the story of young girl named Courage, caught up in the turmoil of the Thirty Years' War, who survives, even prospers, by the use of her native cunning and sexual attraction. Completely amoral, she flits through a succession of husbands and lovers and ends her life with a band of Gypsies. The conceit here is that Courage supposedly tells her story to get back at Simplicissimus, who treats her dismissively in his own memoirs. This is a remorseless tale of lechery, knavery and trickery.
Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) was one of the most influential of all playwrights, the author of deeply moving dramas that explored human fears, desires and ideals. Written at the age of twenty-one, The Robbers was his first play. A passionate consideration of liberty, fraternity and deep betrayal, it quickly established his fame throughout Germany and wider Europe. Wallenstein, produced nineteen years later, is regarded as Schiller's masterpiece: a deeply moving exploration of a flawed general's struggle to bring the Thirty Years War to an end against the will of his Emperor. Depicting the deep corruption caused by constant fighting between Protestants and Catholics, it is at once a meditation on the unbounded possible strength of humanity, and a tragic recognition of what can happen when men allow themselves to be weak.
Candide is a French satire by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. It begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism (or simply Optimism) by his mentor, Pangloss. The work describes the abrupt cessation of this lifestyle, followed by Candide's slow, painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes with Candide, if not rejecting optimism outright, advocating a deeply practical precept, "we must cultivate our garden", in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds". Candide is characterized by its sarcastic tone, as well as by its erratic, fantastical and fast-moving plot. A picaresque novel it parodies many adventure and romance clichés, the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is mordantly matter-of-fact. Still, the events discussed are often based on historical happenings, such as the Seven Years' War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. As philosophers of Voltaire's day contended with the problem of evil, so too does Candide in this short novel, albeit more directly and humorously. Voltaire ridicules religion, theologians, governments, armies, philosophies, and philosophers through allegory; most conspicuously, he assaults Leibniz and his optimism. As expected by Voltaire, Candide has enjoyed both great success and great scandal. Immediately after its secretive publication, the book was widely banned because it contained religious blasphemy, political sedition and intellectual hostility hidden under a thin veil of naïveté. However, with its sharp wit and insightful portrayal of the human condition, the novel has since inspired many later authors and artists to mimic and adapt it. Today, Candide is recognized as Voltaire's magnum opus and is often listed as part of the Western canon; it is arguably taught more than any other work of French literature. It was listed as one of The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written.
Written against a background of the Thirty Years' War and firstpublished in 1669, this renowned picaresque classic recounts withwonderful biting satire the vagabond adventures of a not-so-simplesimpleton during one of Europe'sfiercest, yet ultimately most futilewars. Simplicius is an earthy character; he humiliates the mighty, confounds the gods, ridicules the pretentious. The translationuses the authoritative first edition for its text, andthough it hasbeen slightly abbreviated, no essential passages have been sacrificed.This unexpurgated translation reflects the linguistic turmoil andrichness of German in the 17th century; it is ideal as the centrepiecefor courses in German literature in translation and courses in theEuropean Baroque
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