Author: William Faulkner
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324000821
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
“A man is the sum of his misfortunes.” —William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner’s provocative and enigmatic 1929 novel, The Sound and the Fury, is widely acknowledged as one of the most important English-language novels of the twentieth century. This revised and expanded Norton Critical Edition builds on the strengths of its predecessors while focusing new attention on both the novel’s contemporary reception and its rich cultural and historical contexts. The text for the Third Edition is again that of the corrected text scrupulously prepared by Noel Polk, whose textual note precedes the novel. David Minter’s annotations, designed to assist readers with obscure words and allusions, have been retained. “Contemporary Reception,” new to the Third Edition, considers the broad range of reactions to Faulkner’s extraordinary novel on publication. Michael Gorra’s headnote sets the stage for assessments by Evelyn Scott, Henry Nash Smith, Clifton P. Fadiman, Dudley Fitts, Richard Hughes, and Edward Crickmay. New materials by Faulkner (“The Writer and His Work”) include letters to Malcolm Cowley about The Portable Faulkner and Faulkner’s Nobel Prize for Literature address. “Cultural and Historical Contexts” begins with Michael Gorra’s insightful headnote, which is followed by seven seminal considerations—five of them new to the Third Edition—of southern history, literature, and memory. Together, these works—by C. Vann Woodward, Richard H. King, Richard Gray, William Alexander Percy, Lillian Smith, William James, and Henri Bergson—provide readers with important contexts for understanding the novel. “Criticism” represents eighty-five years of scholarly engagement with The Sound and the Fury. New to the Third Edition are essays by Eric Sundquist, Noel Polk, Doreen Fowler, Richard Godden, Stacy Burton, and Maria Truchan-Tataryn. A Chronology of Faulkner’s life and work is newly included along with an updated Selected Bibliography.
The Sound and the Fury (Third Edition) (Norton Critical Editions)
Author: William Faulkner
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324000821
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
“A man is the sum of his misfortunes.” —William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner’s provocative and enigmatic 1929 novel, The Sound and the Fury, is widely acknowledged as one of the most important English-language novels of the twentieth century. This revised and expanded Norton Critical Edition builds on the strengths of its predecessors while focusing new attention on both the novel’s contemporary reception and its rich cultural and historical contexts. The text for the Third Edition is again that of the corrected text scrupulously prepared by Noel Polk, whose textual note precedes the novel. David Minter’s annotations, designed to assist readers with obscure words and allusions, have been retained. “Contemporary Reception,” new to the Third Edition, considers the broad range of reactions to Faulkner’s extraordinary novel on publication. Michael Gorra’s headnote sets the stage for assessments by Evelyn Scott, Henry Nash Smith, Clifton P. Fadiman, Dudley Fitts, Richard Hughes, and Edward Crickmay. New materials by Faulkner (“The Writer and His Work”) include letters to Malcolm Cowley about The Portable Faulkner and Faulkner’s Nobel Prize for Literature address. “Cultural and Historical Contexts” begins with Michael Gorra’s insightful headnote, which is followed by seven seminal considerations—five of them new to the Third Edition—of southern history, literature, and memory. Together, these works—by C. Vann Woodward, Richard H. King, Richard Gray, William Alexander Percy, Lillian Smith, William James, and Henri Bergson—provide readers with important contexts for understanding the novel. “Criticism” represents eighty-five years of scholarly engagement with The Sound and the Fury. New to the Third Edition are essays by Eric Sundquist, Noel Polk, Doreen Fowler, Richard Godden, Stacy Burton, and Maria Truchan-Tataryn. A Chronology of Faulkner’s life and work is newly included along with an updated Selected Bibliography.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324000821
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
“A man is the sum of his misfortunes.” —William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner’s provocative and enigmatic 1929 novel, The Sound and the Fury, is widely acknowledged as one of the most important English-language novels of the twentieth century. This revised and expanded Norton Critical Edition builds on the strengths of its predecessors while focusing new attention on both the novel’s contemporary reception and its rich cultural and historical contexts. The text for the Third Edition is again that of the corrected text scrupulously prepared by Noel Polk, whose textual note precedes the novel. David Minter’s annotations, designed to assist readers with obscure words and allusions, have been retained. “Contemporary Reception,” new to the Third Edition, considers the broad range of reactions to Faulkner’s extraordinary novel on publication. Michael Gorra’s headnote sets the stage for assessments by Evelyn Scott, Henry Nash Smith, Clifton P. Fadiman, Dudley Fitts, Richard Hughes, and Edward Crickmay. New materials by Faulkner (“The Writer and His Work”) include letters to Malcolm Cowley about The Portable Faulkner and Faulkner’s Nobel Prize for Literature address. “Cultural and Historical Contexts” begins with Michael Gorra’s insightful headnote, which is followed by seven seminal considerations—five of them new to the Third Edition—of southern history, literature, and memory. Together, these works—by C. Vann Woodward, Richard H. King, Richard Gray, William Alexander Percy, Lillian Smith, William James, and Henri Bergson—provide readers with important contexts for understanding the novel. “Criticism” represents eighty-five years of scholarly engagement with The Sound and the Fury. New to the Third Edition are essays by Eric Sundquist, Noel Polk, Doreen Fowler, Richard Godden, Stacy Burton, and Maria Truchan-Tataryn. A Chronology of Faulkner’s life and work is newly included along with an updated Selected Bibliography.
The Sound and the Fury
Author: William Faulkner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780393912692
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
"A man is the sum of his misfortunes." --William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780393912692
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
"A man is the sum of his misfortunes." --William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
The Sound and the Fury (Third International Edition) (Norton Critical Editions)
Author: William Faulkner
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393617505
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 381
Book Description
“A man is the sum of his misfortunes.” —William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner’s provocative and enigmatic 1929 novel, The Sound and the Fury, is widely acknowledged as one of the most important English-language novels of the twentieth century. This revised and expanded Norton Critical Edition builds on the strengths of its predecessors while focusing new attention on both the novel’s contemporary reception and its rich cultural and historical contexts. The text for the Third Edition is again that of the corrected text scrupulously prepared by Noel Polk, whose textual note precedes the novel. David Minter’s annotations, designed to assist readers with obscure words and allusions, have been retained. “Contemporary Reception,” new to the Third Edition, considers the broad range of reactions to Faulkner’s extraordinary novel on publication. Michael Gorra’s headnote sets the stage for assessments by Evelyn Scott, Henry Nash Smith, Clifton P. Fadiman, Dudley Fitts, Richard Hughes, and Edward Crickmay. New materials by Faulkner (“The Writer and His Work”) include letters to Malcolm Cowley about The Portable Faulkner and Faulkner’s Nobel Prize for Literature address. “Cultural and Historical Contexts” begins with Michael Gorra’s insightful headnote, which is followed by seven seminal considerations—five of them new to the Third Edition—of southern history, literature, and memory. Together, these works—by C. Vann Woodward, Richard H. King, Richard Gray, William Alexander Percy, Lillian Smith, William James, and Henri Bergson—provide readers with important contexts for understanding the novel. “Criticism” represents eighty-five years of scholarly engagement with The Sound and the Fury. New to the Third Edition are essays by Eric Sundquist, Noel Polk, Doreen Fowler, Richard Godden, Stacy Burton, and Maria Truchan-Tataryn. A Chronology of Faulkner’s life and work is newly included along with an updated Selected Bibliography.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393617505
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 381
Book Description
“A man is the sum of his misfortunes.” —William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner’s provocative and enigmatic 1929 novel, The Sound and the Fury, is widely acknowledged as one of the most important English-language novels of the twentieth century. This revised and expanded Norton Critical Edition builds on the strengths of its predecessors while focusing new attention on both the novel’s contemporary reception and its rich cultural and historical contexts. The text for the Third Edition is again that of the corrected text scrupulously prepared by Noel Polk, whose textual note precedes the novel. David Minter’s annotations, designed to assist readers with obscure words and allusions, have been retained. “Contemporary Reception,” new to the Third Edition, considers the broad range of reactions to Faulkner’s extraordinary novel on publication. Michael Gorra’s headnote sets the stage for assessments by Evelyn Scott, Henry Nash Smith, Clifton P. Fadiman, Dudley Fitts, Richard Hughes, and Edward Crickmay. New materials by Faulkner (“The Writer and His Work”) include letters to Malcolm Cowley about The Portable Faulkner and Faulkner’s Nobel Prize for Literature address. “Cultural and Historical Contexts” begins with Michael Gorra’s insightful headnote, which is followed by seven seminal considerations—five of them new to the Third Edition—of southern history, literature, and memory. Together, these works—by C. Vann Woodward, Richard H. King, Richard Gray, William Alexander Percy, Lillian Smith, William James, and Henri Bergson—provide readers with important contexts for understanding the novel. “Criticism” represents eighty-five years of scholarly engagement with The Sound and the Fury. New to the Third Edition are essays by Eric Sundquist, Noel Polk, Doreen Fowler, Richard Godden, Stacy Burton, and Maria Truchan-Tataryn. A Chronology of Faulkner’s life and work is newly included along with an updated Selected Bibliography.
William Faulkner
Author: Nicolas Tredell
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231121880
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 214
Book Description
This Guide explores the wealth of critical material generated by these two exceptional works of modernist fiction. From the initially mixed critical responses to the novels in the early 1930s, the Guide follows the enormous growth of interest in Faulkner's work across six decades. New writings shaped by a range of critical theories are discussed, offering the reader a clear view of the place now given to one of America's most innovative and influential novelists.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231121880
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 214
Book Description
This Guide explores the wealth of critical material generated by these two exceptional works of modernist fiction. From the initially mixed critical responses to the novels in the early 1930s, the Guide follows the enormous growth of interest in Faulkner's work across six decades. New writings shaped by a range of critical theories are discussed, offering the reader a clear view of the place now given to one of America's most innovative and influential novelists.
The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War
Author: Michael Gorra
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1631491717
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 418
Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 How do we read William Faulkner in the twenty-first century? asks Michael Gorra, in this reconsideration of Faulkner's life and legacy. William Faulkner, one of America’s most iconic writers, is an author who defies easy interpretation. Born in 1897 in Mississippi, Faulkner wrote such classic novels as Absolom, Absolom! and The Sound and The Fury, creating in Yoknapatawpha county one of the most memorable gallery of characters ever assembled in American literature. Yet, as acclaimed literary critic Michael Gorra explains, Faulkner has sustained justified criticism for his failures of racial nuance—his ventriloquism of black characters and his rendering of race relations in a largely unreconstructed South—demanding that we reevaluate the Nobel laureate’s life and legacy in the twenty-first century, as we reexamine the junctures of race and literature in works that once rested firmly in the American canon. Interweaving biography, literary criticism, and rich travelogue, The Saddest Words argues that even despite these contradictions—and perhaps because of them—William Faulkner still needs to be read, and even more, remains central to understanding the contradictions inherent in the American experience itself. Evoking Faulkner’s biography and his literary characters, Gorra illuminates what Faulkner maintained was “the South’s curse and its separate destiny,” a class and racial system built on slavery that was devastated during the Civil War and was reimagined thereafter through the South’s revanchism. Driven by currents of violence, a “Lost Cause” romanticism not only defined Faulkner’s twentieth century but now even our own age. Through Gorra’s critical lens, Faulkner’s mythic Yoknapatawpha County comes alive as his imagined land finds itself entwined in America’s history, the characters wrestling with the ghosts of a past that refuses to stay buried, stuck in an unending cycle between those two saddest words, “was” and “again.” Upending previous critical traditions, The Saddest Words returns Faulkner to his sociopolitical context, revealing the civil war within him and proving that “the real war lies not only in the physical combat, but also in the war after the war, the war over its memory and meaning.” Filled with vignettes of Civil War battles and generals, vivid scenes from Gorra’s travels through the South—including Faulkner’s Oxford, Mississippi—and commentaries on Faulkner’s fiction, The Saddest Words is a mesmerizing work of literary thought that recontextualizes Faulkner in light of the most plangent cultural issues facing America today.
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1631491717
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 418
Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 How do we read William Faulkner in the twenty-first century? asks Michael Gorra, in this reconsideration of Faulkner's life and legacy. William Faulkner, one of America’s most iconic writers, is an author who defies easy interpretation. Born in 1897 in Mississippi, Faulkner wrote such classic novels as Absolom, Absolom! and The Sound and The Fury, creating in Yoknapatawpha county one of the most memorable gallery of characters ever assembled in American literature. Yet, as acclaimed literary critic Michael Gorra explains, Faulkner has sustained justified criticism for his failures of racial nuance—his ventriloquism of black characters and his rendering of race relations in a largely unreconstructed South—demanding that we reevaluate the Nobel laureate’s life and legacy in the twenty-first century, as we reexamine the junctures of race and literature in works that once rested firmly in the American canon. Interweaving biography, literary criticism, and rich travelogue, The Saddest Words argues that even despite these contradictions—and perhaps because of them—William Faulkner still needs to be read, and even more, remains central to understanding the contradictions inherent in the American experience itself. Evoking Faulkner’s biography and his literary characters, Gorra illuminates what Faulkner maintained was “the South’s curse and its separate destiny,” a class and racial system built on slavery that was devastated during the Civil War and was reimagined thereafter through the South’s revanchism. Driven by currents of violence, a “Lost Cause” romanticism not only defined Faulkner’s twentieth century but now even our own age. Through Gorra’s critical lens, Faulkner’s mythic Yoknapatawpha County comes alive as his imagined land finds itself entwined in America’s history, the characters wrestling with the ghosts of a past that refuses to stay buried, stuck in an unending cycle between those two saddest words, “was” and “again.” Upending previous critical traditions, The Saddest Words returns Faulkner to his sociopolitical context, revealing the civil war within him and proving that “the real war lies not only in the physical combat, but also in the war after the war, the war over its memory and meaning.” Filled with vignettes of Civil War battles and generals, vivid scenes from Gorra’s travels through the South—including Faulkner’s Oxford, Mississippi—and commentaries on Faulkner’s fiction, The Saddest Words is a mesmerizing work of literary thought that recontextualizes Faulkner in light of the most plangent cultural issues facing America today.
William Faulkner and Southern History
Author: Joel Williamson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195356403
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 539
Book Description
One of America's great novelists, William Faulkner was a writer deeply rooted in the American South. In works such as The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom! Faulkner drew powerfully on Southern themes, attitudes, and atmosphere to create his own world and place--the mythical Yoknapatawpha County--peopled with quintessential Southerners such as the Compsons, Sartorises, Snopes, and McCaslins. Indeed, to a degree perhaps unmatched by any other major twentieth-century novelist, Faulkner remained at home and explored his own region--the history and culture and people of the South. Now, in William Faulkner and Southern History, one of America's most acclaimed historians of the South, Joel Williamson, weaves together a perceptive biography of Faulkner himself, an astute analysis of his works, and a revealing history of Faulkner's ancestors in Mississippi--a family history that becomes, in Williamson's skilled hands, a vivid portrait of Southern culture itself. Williamson provides an insightful look at Faulkner's ancestors, a group sketch so brilliant that the family comes alive almost as vividly as in Faulkner's own fiction. Indeed, his ancestors often outstrip his characters in their colorful and bizarre nature. Williamson has made several discoveries: the Falkners (William was the first to spell it "Faulkner") were not planter, slaveholding "aristocrats"; Confederate Colonel Falkner was not an unalloyed hero, and he probably sired, protected, and educated a mulatto daughter who married into America's mulatto elite; Faulkner's maternal grandfather Charlie Butler stole the town's money and disappeared in the winter of 1887-1888, never to return. Equally important, Williamson uses these stories to underscore themes of race, class, economics, politics, religion, sex and violence, idealism and Romanticism--"the rainbow of elements in human culture"--that reappear in Faulkner's work. He also shows that, while Faulkner's ancestors were no ordinary people, and while he sometimes flashed a curious pride in them, Faulkner came to embrace a pervasive sense of shame concerning both his family and his culture. This he wove into his writing, especially about sex, race, class, and violence, psychic and otherwise. William Faulkner and Southern History represents an unprecedented publishing event--an eminent historian writing on a major literary figure. By revealing the deep history behind the art of the South's most celebrated writer, Williamson evokes new insights and deeper understanding, providing anyone familiar with Faulkner's great novels with a host of connections between his work, his life, and his ancestry.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195356403
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 539
Book Description
One of America's great novelists, William Faulkner was a writer deeply rooted in the American South. In works such as The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom! Faulkner drew powerfully on Southern themes, attitudes, and atmosphere to create his own world and place--the mythical Yoknapatawpha County--peopled with quintessential Southerners such as the Compsons, Sartorises, Snopes, and McCaslins. Indeed, to a degree perhaps unmatched by any other major twentieth-century novelist, Faulkner remained at home and explored his own region--the history and culture and people of the South. Now, in William Faulkner and Southern History, one of America's most acclaimed historians of the South, Joel Williamson, weaves together a perceptive biography of Faulkner himself, an astute analysis of his works, and a revealing history of Faulkner's ancestors in Mississippi--a family history that becomes, in Williamson's skilled hands, a vivid portrait of Southern culture itself. Williamson provides an insightful look at Faulkner's ancestors, a group sketch so brilliant that the family comes alive almost as vividly as in Faulkner's own fiction. Indeed, his ancestors often outstrip his characters in their colorful and bizarre nature. Williamson has made several discoveries: the Falkners (William was the first to spell it "Faulkner") were not planter, slaveholding "aristocrats"; Confederate Colonel Falkner was not an unalloyed hero, and he probably sired, protected, and educated a mulatto daughter who married into America's mulatto elite; Faulkner's maternal grandfather Charlie Butler stole the town's money and disappeared in the winter of 1887-1888, never to return. Equally important, Williamson uses these stories to underscore themes of race, class, economics, politics, religion, sex and violence, idealism and Romanticism--"the rainbow of elements in human culture"--that reappear in Faulkner's work. He also shows that, while Faulkner's ancestors were no ordinary people, and while he sometimes flashed a curious pride in them, Faulkner came to embrace a pervasive sense of shame concerning both his family and his culture. This he wove into his writing, especially about sex, race, class, and violence, psychic and otherwise. William Faulkner and Southern History represents an unprecedented publishing event--an eminent historian writing on a major literary figure. By revealing the deep history behind the art of the South's most celebrated writer, Williamson evokes new insights and deeper understanding, providing anyone familiar with Faulkner's great novels with a host of connections between his work, his life, and his ancestry.
Enormous Changes at the Last Minute
Author: Grace Paley
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1466883987
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 166
Book Description
In Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, originally published in 1974, Grace Paley "makes the novel as a form seem virtually redundant" (Angela Carter, London Review of Books). Her stories here capture "the itch of the city, love between parents and children" and "the cutting edge of combat" (Lis Harris, The New York Times Book Review). In this collection of seventeen stories, she creates a "solid and vital fictional world, cross-referenced and dense with life" (Walter Clemons, Newsweek).
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1466883987
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 166
Book Description
In Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, originally published in 1974, Grace Paley "makes the novel as a form seem virtually redundant" (Angela Carter, London Review of Books). Her stories here capture "the itch of the city, love between parents and children" and "the cutting edge of combat" (Lis Harris, The New York Times Book Review). In this collection of seventeen stories, she creates a "solid and vital fictional world, cross-referenced and dense with life" (Walter Clemons, Newsweek).
Tales from Margaritaville
Author: Jimmy Buffett
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780156026987
Category : Humorous stories
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
The singer/songwriter displays his gift for creating witty, laid-back Southern stories in a collection of bizarre tales and thoughtful essays.
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780156026987
Category : Humorous stories
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
The singer/songwriter displays his gift for creating witty, laid-back Southern stories in a collection of bizarre tales and thoughtful essays.
Ozzy Talking
Author: Ozzy Osbourne
Publisher: Schirmer Trade Books
ISBN: 9780711992900
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 148
Book Description
Hereâs Ozzyâs own take on everything, from the Birmingham slaughterhouse through Black Sabbath to his solo career, Ozzfest, and The Osbournes.
Publisher: Schirmer Trade Books
ISBN: 9780711992900
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 148
Book Description
Hereâs Ozzyâs own take on everything, from the Birmingham slaughterhouse through Black Sabbath to his solo career, Ozzfest, and The Osbournes.
Candide
Author: By Voltaire
Publisher: BookRix
ISBN: 3736801785
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 169
Book Description
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.
Publisher: BookRix
ISBN: 3736801785
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 169
Book Description
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.