Magus Turris

  Tolstoy: The Genius of War and Peace and the Moralist "Mess" Post- Anna Karenina ___________________________________ Leo Tolstoy is a writer whose greatness needs no introduction. The human condition is painted with extraordinary depth and power in War and Peace (1867). Contrary to what our contemporary image of Tolstoy might suggest, War and Peace is not a pacifist manifesto at all. The idle Russian bourgeoisie, immersed in balls, philosophical discussions, and socialites, is incapable of perceiving the gravity of the Napoleonic invasion; only the defeat and the horror of Austerlitz awaken the protagonists' humanity, allowing them to understand the meaning of existence (both individual and collective) in a Russia threatened by destruction. It is in this confrontation with necessity that Tolstoy is a genius: Napoleon is not an imaginary tyrant, but a man of flesh and blood; Russia is not a mere stage, it is life, it is the motherland. War is not a game, it i...

  WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH The masterpiece of dystopian literature, George Orwell's 1984, is the landmark text of the fantasy-political genre. Written in 1948, that novel foresaw many of the socio-political characteristics of advanced modernity, but how much of Orwell's gloomy predictions have actually come true, and in what ways has power implemented its aims of control over citizens? Orwell took his cue from the great dictatorships of the 20th century of which he was a keen observer. The 'Big Brother' regime can be likened to Nazi-fascism in its warmongering aspects, its militarisation of society and its pursuit of a public enemy: the figure of the 'traitor' Goldstein is deliberately modelled by Orwell on the Jewish stereotype as it was characterised in extreme right-wing propaganda. However, it is undeniable that the system described in the novel is much closer to Soviet totalitarianism. The characteristics of socia...

Female acquiescence to submission is one of the most intriguing elements of the male/female relationship. This factor of romantic alchemy can manifest with various nuances and modalities, reaching as far as erotic fantasies of sexual dominance. Western culture itself debuts with the story of a master/slave relationship: Achilles and Briseis. In more recent times, women themselves have been able to describe this aspect of the couple's relationship, producing a 20th-century masterpiece like Pauline Réage’s Story of O , as well as a major pop success like E.L. James’s Fifty Shades of Grey . Even the Fantasy genre found an original interpreter of this narrative vein in John Norman, the American author who created the Gor saga. John Norman is actually the pseudonym used by John Frederick Lange Jr., who was a professor of philosophy at several American universities and who, alongside his academic career, developed successful lines of both fiction and non-fiction writing. The...

  Anonymous Woman Writer Female Re-education Center A Satirical Dystopia

Afterlife Beliefs ____________ The Victrix publishing house performs a commendable service in disseminating classical culture; a truly significant title in its catalog is Le credenze d’oltretomba nelle opere dell’antichità classica (Afterlife Beliefs in the Works of Classical Antiquity) by Carlo Pascal . First published in 1911, the book remains a useful guide today for surveying the sources regarding conceptions of the afterlife in the ancient world. The general conception of the afterlife in the Western world is essentially shaped by the descriptions in the Divine Comedy , yet Dante was himself deeply indebted to the depictions of the underworld provided by ancient literature. Furthermore, references to the afterlife in the Bible are quite vague in both the Old and New Testaments, whereas the pagan world appears to have held more precise ideas about the otherworldly realm. Among the oldest recorded customs is the offering of crowns to the dead, as if they were vic...

Xenophanes of Colophon and the Eleatic School _______________________________________ «But if oxen and horses and lions had hands and were able to draw with their hands and do the same things as men, horses would draw figures of gods similar to horses and oxen similar to oxen, and they would fashion bodies just as each of them is fashioned». This is the most famous fragment of Xenophanes of Colophon , the Pre-Socratic philosopher whom some have considered the champion of radical skepticism , or even a pioneer of monotheism. The figure of Xenophanes is, in reality, far more complex; anyone wishing to deepen their knowledge of his thought must take into account the book by Prof. Renzo Vitali, which is the most substantial monograph written in Italian on the subject: Senofane di Colofone e la scuola eleatica ( Xenophanes of Colophon and the Eleatic School ) . Vitali’s book takes its cue from K. Reinhardt's study Parmenides und die Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie ...