Online Encyclopedia
Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
LERWICK
Online EncyclopediaEncyclopedia Home :: LEO-LOB
del.icio.us it!
|
LERWICK , a municipal and See also:police See also:burgh of See also:Shetland, See also:Scot-See also:land, the most northerly See also:town in the See also:British Isles. Pop. (19o,) 4281. It is situated on Brassay See also:Sound, a See also:fine natural See also:harbour, on the See also:east See also:coast of the See also:island called Mainland, 115 M. N.E. of See also:Kirkwall, in See also:Orkney, and 340 M. from See also:Leith by steamer. The town See also:dates from the beginning of the 17th See also:century, and theolder See also:part consists of a flagged See also:causeway called Commercial See also:Street, See also:running for 1 m. parallel with the See also:sea (in which the gable ends of several of the See also:quaint-looking houses stand), and so narrow in places as not to allow of two vehicles passing each other. At right angles to this street lanes ascend the See also: This laborious See also:life he continued until 1740, when he was more than seventy years of See also:age. His eldest son had become an actor, and Le Sage had disowned him, but the second was a See also:canon at See also:Boulogne in comfortable circumstances. In the See also:year just mentioned his See also:father and See also:mother went to live with him. At Boulogne Le Sage spent the last seven years of his life, dying on the 17th of See also:November 1747. His last See also:work, Melange amusant de saillies d'esprit et de traits historiques See also:les plus frappants, had appeared in 1743• Not much is known of Le Sage's life and See also:personality, and the foregoing See also:paragraph contains not only the most important but almost the only facts available for it. The few anecdotes which we have of him represent him as a See also:man of very See also:independent See also:temper, declining to accept the condescending patronage which in the earlier part of the century was still the portion of men of letters. Thus it is said that, on being remonstrated with, as he thought impolitely, for an unavoidable delay in appearing at the duchess of See also:Bouillon's See also:house to read Turcaret, he at once put the See also:play in his See also:pocket and retired, refusing absolutely to return. It may, however, be said that as in See also:time so in position he occupies a See also:place apart from most of the See also:great writers of the 17th and 18th centuries respectively. He was not the See also:object of royal patronage like the first, nor the pet of salons and coteries like the second. Indeed, he seems all his life to have been purely domestic in his habits, and purely See also:literary in his interests. The importance of Le Sage in See also:French and in See also:European literature is not entirely the same, and he has the rare distinction of being more important in the latter than in the former. His literary work may be divided into three parts. The first contains his See also:Theatre de la Foire and his few See also:miscellaneous writings, the second his two remarkable plays See also:Crispin and Turcaret, the third his See also:prose See also:fictions. In the' first two he swims within the See also:general literary current in See also:France; he can be and must be compared with others of his own nation. But in the third he emerges altogether from merely See also:national comparison. It is not with Frenchmen that he is to be measured. He formed no school in France; he followed no French See also:models. His work, admirable as it is from the See also:mere point of view of See also:style and See also:form, is a See also:parenthesis in the general development of the French novel. That product works its way from Madame de la Fayette through See also:Marivaux and See also:Prevost, not through Le Sage. His literary ancestors are Spaniards, his literary contemporaries and successors are Englishmen. The position is almost unique; it is certainly interesting and remarkable in the highest degree. Of Le Sage's miscellaneous work, including his numerous See also:farce-operettas, there is not much to be said except that they are the very best See also:kind of literary hack-work. The pure and See also:original style of the author, his abundant wit, his cool, humoristic attitude towards human life, which wanted only greater earnestness and a wider conception of that life to turn it into true See also:humour, are discernible throughout. But this portion of his work is practically forgotten, and its examination is See also:incumbent only on the critic. Crispin and Turcaret show a stronger and more deeply marked See also:genius, which, but for the See also:ill-will of the actors, might have gone far in this direction. But Le Sage's See also:peculiar unwillingness to See also:attempt anything absolutely new discovered itself here. Even when he had devoted himself to the Foire theatre, it seems that he was unwilling to attempt, when occasion called for it, the See also:absolute innovation of a piece with only one actor, a crux which See also:Alexis See also:Piron, a lesser but a bolder genius, accepted and carried through. Crispin and Turcaret are unquestionably Molieresque, though they are perhaps more original in their following of See also:Moliere than any other plays that can be named. For this also was part of Le Sage's See also:idiosyncrasy that, while he was apparently unable or unwilling to strike out an entirely novel See also:line for himself, he had no sooner entered upon the beaten path than he See also:left it to follow his own devices. Crispin See also:rival de son maitre is a farce in one See also:act and many scenes, after the earlier manner of See also:motion. Its important centre. Docks, wharves, piers, curing stations and warehouses have been provided or enlarged to See also:cope with the growth of the See also:trade, and an esplanade has been constructed along the front. The town is also the See also:chief distributing agency for the islands, and carries on some business in knitted woollen goods. One mile See also:west of Lerwick is Clickimin See also:Loch, separated from the sea by a narrow See also:strip of land. On an islet in the See also:lake stands a ruined " broch " or See also:round See also:tower. LE SAGE, ALAIN RENE (1668-1747), French novelist and dramatist, was See also:born at Sarzeau in the See also:peninsula of Rhuys, between the See also:Morbihan and the sea, on the 13th of See also:December 1668. Rhuys was a legal See also:district, and See also:Claude le Sage, the father of the novelist, held the See also:united positions of See also:advocate, See also:notary and registrar of its royal See also:court. His wife's name was Jeanne Brenugat. Both father and mother died when Le Sage was very See also:young, and his See also:property was wasted or embezzled by his guardians. Little is known of his youth except that he went to school with the See also:Jesuits at See also:Vannes until he was eighteen. Conjecture has it that he continued his studies at See also:Paris, and it is certain that he was called to the See also:bar at the See also:capital in 1692. In See also:August 1694 he married the daughter of a joiner, See also:Marie See also: In 1704 he translated the continuation of Don Quixote by Avellaneda, and soon afterwards adapted a play from See also:Calderon, Don Cesar Ursin, which had a divided See also:fate, being successful at court and damned in the See also:city. He was, however, nearly See also:forty before he obtained anything like decided success. But in 1707 his admirable farce of Crispin rival de son maitre was acted with great See also:applause, and Le Diable boiteux was published. This latter went through several See also:editions in the same year, and was frequently reprinted till 1725, when Le Sage altered and improved it considerably, giving it its See also:present form. Notwithstanding the success of Crispin, the actors did not like Le Sage, and refused a small piece of his called Les Etrennes (1707). He thereupon altered it into Turcaret, his theatrical masterpiece, and one of the best comedies in French literature. This appeared in 1709. Some years passed before he again attempted See also:romance See also:writing, and then the first two parts of Gil Blas de Santillane appeared in 1715. See also:Strange to say, it was not so popular as Le Diable boiteux. Le Sage worked at it for a See also:long time, and did not bring out the third part till 1724, nor the See also:fourth till 1735. For this last he had been part paid to the extent of a See also:hundred pistoles some years before its See also:appearance. During these twenty years he was, however, continually busy. Notwithstanding the great merit and success of Turcaret and Crispin, the Theatre See also:Francais did not welcome him, and in the year of the publication of Gil See also:Bias he began to write for the Theatre de la Foire—the comic See also:opera held in booths at festival time. This, though not a very dignified occupation, was followed by many writers of distinction at this date, and by none more assiduously than by Le Sage. According to one computation he produced, either alone or with others, about a hundred pieces, varying from strings of songs with no See also:regular dialogues, to comediettas only distinguished from regular plays by the introduction of See also:music. He was also industrious in prose fiction. Besides See also:finishing Gil Bias he translated the Orlando innamorato (1721), rearranged Guzman d'Alfarache (1732), published two more or less original novels, Le Bachelier de Salamanque and Estevanille Gonzales, and in 1733 produced the See also:Vie et aventures de M. de Beauchesne, See also:plot is somewhat extravagant, inasmuch as it lies in the effort of a knavish See also:valet, not as usual to further his See also:master's interests, but to supplant that master in love and gain. But the See also:charm of the piece consists first in the lively bustling See also:action of the See also:short scenes which take each other up so promptly and smartly that the spectator has not time to cavil at the improbability of the action, and secondly in the abundant wit of the See also:dialogue. Turcaret is a far more important piece of work and ranks high among comedies dealing with the actual society of their time. The only thing which prevents it from holding the very highest place is a certain want of unity in the plot. This want, however, is compensated in Turcaret by the most masterly profusion of See also:character-See also:drawing in the See also:separate parts. Turcaret, the ruthless, dishonest and dissolute financier, his vulgar wife as dissolute as himself, the harebrained See also:marquis, the knavish See also:chevalier, the baroness (a coquette with the finer edge taken off her fineladyhood, yet by no means unlovable), are each and all finished portraits of the best comic type, while almost as much may be said of the minor characters. The style and dialogue are also worthy of the highest praise; the wit never degenerates into mere " wit-combats." It is, however, as a novelist that the See also:world has agreed to remember Le Sage. A great See also:deal of unnecessary labour has been spent on the discussion of his claims to originality. What has been already said will give a sufficient See also:clue through this thorny ground. In mere form Le Sage is not original. He does little more than adopt that of the Spanish picaroon romance of the 16th and 17th century. Often, too, he prefers merely to rearrange and adapt existing work, and still oftener to give himself a kind of start by adopting the work of a preceding writer as a basis. But it may be laid down as a See also:positive truth that he never, in any work that pretends to originality at all, is guilty of anything that can fairly be called See also:plagiarism. Indeed we may go further, and say that he is very fond of asserting or suggesting his indebtedness when he is really dealing with his own funds. Thus the Diable boiteux borrows the See also:title, and for a See also:chapter or two the See also:plan and almost the words, of the Diablo Cojuelo of Luis Velez de See also:Guevara. But after a few pages Le Sage leaves his predecessor alone. Even the plan of the Spanish original is entirely discarded, and the incidents, the episodes, the style, are as independent as if such a See also:book as the Diablo Cojuelo had never existed. The See also:case of Gil Bias is still more remarkable. It was at first alleged that Le Sage had borrowed it from the Marcos de Obregon of See also:Vincent See also:Espinel, a curiously rash assertion, inasmuch as that work exists and is easily accessible, and as the slightest consultation of it proves that, though it furnished Le Sage with separate incidents and hints for more than one of his books, Gil Bias as a whole is not in the least indebted to it. Afterwards Father See also:Isla asserted that Gil Blas was a mere See also:translation from an actual Spanish book—an assertion at once incapable of See also:proof and disproof, inasmuch as there is no trace whatever of any such book. A third See also:hypothesis is that there was some See also:manuscript original which Le Sage may have worked up in his usual way, in the same way, for instance, as he professes himself to have worked up the See also:Bachelor of See also:Salamanca. This also is in the nature of it incapable of refutation, though the See also:argument from the Bachelor is strong against it, for there could be no See also:reason why Le Sage should be more reticent of his obligations in the one case than in the other. Except, however, for See also:historical reasons, the controversy is one which may be safely neglected, nor is there very much importance in the more impartial indication of See also:sources—chiefly works on the See also:history of See also:Olivares—which has sometimes been attempted. That Le Sage knew Spanish literature well is of course obvious; but there is as little doubt (with the limitations already laid down) of his real originality as of that of any greatwriter in the world . Gil Blas then remains his property, and it is admittedly the capital example of its own style. For Le Sage has not only the characteristic, which See also:Homer and See also:Shakespeare have, of absolute truth to human nature as distinguished from truth to this or that national character, but he has what has been called the quality of detachment,which they also have. He never takes sides with his characters as See also:Fielding (whose master, with Cervantes, he certainly was) sometimes does. See also:Asmodeus and Don Cleofas, Gil Blas and the See also:Archbishop and See also:Doctor Sangrado, are produced by him with exactly the same impartiality of attitude. Except that he brought into novel writing this highest quality of See also:artistic truth, it perhaps cannot be said that he did much to advance prose fiction in itself. He invented, as has been said, no new genre; he did not, as Marivaux and Prevost did, help on the novel as distinguished from the romance. In form his books arc undistinguishable, not merely from the Spanish romances which are, as has been said, their See also:direct originals, but from the See also:medieval See also:romans d'aventures and the See also:Greek prose romances. But in individual excellence they have few rivals. Nor should it be forgotten, as it sometimes is, that Le Sage was a great master of French style, the greatest unquestionably between the classics of the 17th century and the classics of the 18th. He is perhaps the last great writer before the decadence (for since the time of See also:Paul See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML. Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide. |
|
|
[back] LEROUX, PIERRE (1798-1871) |
[next] LES |