Light classic, big world
Hanfen Bookstore (New Edition)
The Commercial Press, Hanfen Building, Cultural Brand Book Series
"Hanfen Bookstore" is a set of open book series composed of everyone's sketches, which is a collection of open essays by a group of world famous artists, starting from the fundamental issues in different fields such as life, philosophy, history, literature, art, etc., constantly seeking, allowing the divergence and convergence of ideas, full of emotions and flowing, short and relaxed, unique views, and knowledge. It can not only be used as an entry point to understand someone's thoughts, but also to feel the inner world of famous artists, giving readers infinite inspiration and literary enjoyment, and entering a never-ending intellectual journey.
Confessions of a young man
[Ireland] George · Moore
Translated by Sun Yixue
★ George · Moore, a master of prose, considered himself to represent "the beginning of his thought"! ★ Autobiographical memoirs, telling the story of a young man's mental journey ★ from ignorance to art, a true record of the process of literature and art in Europe in the past 30 years, a group portrait ★ of literati, artists, and thinkers is a confession of literary and artistic life, and it is also a wonderful record of thoughts
Portrait of George ·
This book was the beginning of my thoughts, and all my future works will be born from it. This book can also be said to be a manifesto of my thoughts and tastes, showing my love for the best of modern literature and the best of modern art. —George · Moore
1
Maverick character lays an extraordinary life
George ·Moore (1852-1933) was a literary genius who had long been overlooked by the world. Born in Ireland, he received an early Catholic education, but he did not become a good student in school as expected by teachers and parents, and was always placed in the worst class by the teacher, and always the worst in the class. But he also wanted Moore's father to help him figure out whether Moore couldn't learn or didn't want to learn, because Moore showed a great talent for anything that had nothing to do with books.
This is indeed the case. Moore can learn anything he wants, but he can't learn anything that someone else chooses for him. His thirst for knowledge came and went as fast as the wind in a field. It's a character that no one can understand. His father used to lock him in his bedroom to concentrate on learning to spell, but all these efforts proved to be to no avail. His father eventually gave up his efforts on him and said to his wife, "George is just a chrysalis, and we don't know if he can turn into a moth or a butterfly." But to his shock, his son, although he could not spell, was interested in "mediocre poems," such as Shelley's. He was not born to follow the rules of the path that others had arranged for him, but was free from any rules and regulations to develop his genius according to his own wishes, and from this it is clear that he was as inherently out of step as Wilde was.
I came into this world with a nature that was like a smooth piece of wax, without any mark, but accepting everything and being molded into any shape. I thought I could also be a pimp, a groom, or even a bishop, a pharaoh, and that I could achieve a certain level of success in every duty.
—George · Moore
2
A neglected genius, a true master of prose
The formation of Moore's outlook on life and art benefited from his Paris decade (1872-1882), a decade when France's aesthetic decade was flourishing, and this aesthetic trend was later carried forward by Pate to United Kingdom. Pate preached the supreme value of beauty and "love art for art's sake", and a group of writers and artists United Kingdom late Victoria echoed, first the United Kingdom Pre-Raphaelites founded in 1848, and reached a climax in the 90s of the 19th century, which was represented by a group of writers and painters led by Wilde, such as Swinburne, Simmons, Dawson, George · Moore and Johnson's literary works and Beardsley's paintings. Calling friends and singing together, the European literary scene at the end of the century was stirred up with sound and color, forming a major landscape of the United Kingdom literary scene in the 90s of the 19th century, known as the "Mauve Decade". It was in this literary context that Moore developed the artistic characteristics of aestheticism and other artistic styles. During this decade, he also made extensive friends with the literati · famous Parisians, including Edward Manet, Claude · Monet, Edgar · Degas, Camille· Pissarro, Auguste· Renoir, Emile · Zola, especially Mallarmé.
Ten years in Paris also made Moore realize that although he liked painting, he could not stand on it, so he began to turn to literary creation, and soon appeared in literature, like a fish in water, published a series of poems, plays, novels, reviews, autobiographies, etc., so that he can stand unashamedly among the greatest writers in United Kingdom, and in the 20s of the 20th century, some critics even regarded him as "one of the masters of living United Kingdom prose writers". Not only did his own literary group hold this view, but some famous critics did not hide their praise of Moore, but unfortunately after Moore's death, such praise gradually diminished, and biographies of Sheridan, Madame Gaskell, and Wilde appeared again and again in United Kingdom, and even biographies of some French and German writers sprung up, and for Moore, United Kingdom critics seem to have slowly forgotten him, let alone affirmed his literary value. Of course, Moore's forgetfulness is also directly related to the fact that he has had too many grudges throughout his life. Yeats, Hardy, Henry · James, Conrad, Whistler and other celebrities have become his "literary enemies". Yeats regarded them as "hollow turnips," Yeats's father called them "old scoundrels," and Whistler once even kicked Moore out of his home. Moore's criticism has to do with the fact that he is seen as a "cold-blooded animal." He behaved indifferently, which was naturally seen as inhuman and hateful. An anonymous person carved this epitaph for Moore on the rocks of a small island in Lake Kara as a reminder to passing visitors that Moore had "left family and friends" behind for the sake of art. Indeed, Moore had a fickle temperament, with hot and cold feelings for friendship and affection. He can completely ignore yesterday's promises, or he can mercilessly discard his own opinions and feelings, let alone friends. He is a typical person who "crosses the river and demolishes bridges", and he only takes his own needs from his friends, and puts practical interests first. This temperament was used in literary experimentation, prompting him to engage in a variety of literary explorations, and Moore can be seen coming and going in almost every major literary and artistic group of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, but not for long; And treating friends and others in this way is naturally biased, resulting in a cliché surrounded by enemies.
Of course, there are those who think that Moore's temperament is a sign that he had a "passion for self-renewal", calling him one of the most adventurous artists and writers of his time. His life was an incomparable exploration of beauty, wider than that of George Bernard Shaw, Wells, and even Joyce and Yeats, though he was not as rich as they were in any kind of exploration. In fact, Moore was indeed a determined and pragmatic explorer, but the conflicting impulses of his personality caused him to sometimes behave in a way that he did not speak; He was an artist who valued exploration more than practice itself, so there were complaints that he abused his genius. He is also a transitional figure, inheriting both the painful death of the Victorian era and the birth of the painful new era. His life encapsulates the main joys and pains of the entire transitional era, and he represents that era better than Wilde and Beardsley. This is his luck and his misfortune. I have nothing to be ashamed of – I'm a writer, and my profession is nothing to be ashamed of except to be ashamed of shame.
—George · Moore
3
A confession to a literary life
A profound list of thoughts
Moore's autobiographical works are perhaps better known than his novels, plays, etc. He found out that he had an unbearable personality and tried to control it, but found that he couldn't do anything about it, so he tried to figure out why he was always stinging others, only to find that he could study his own character calmly, and realized that writing about his own character was actually a literary subject. So, he turned his attention to himself, tirelessly exploring the good and evil of his own human nature. But it is not difficult for readers who have read these autobiographical works to see that he is not actually a great evildoer, at best a person who has a slight desire to "do evil" and tries some innocuous "evil", which is not at all comparable to people like Gide and Wilde. "Confessions of a Youth" is one such autobiography, a manifesto of Moore's artistic taste, showing his attitude towards the best literary and artistic works of his time, an autobiographical work that forces his heart and society, a record of his life experience from his ignorance of art to the formation of his own unique artistic personality, mainly recalling his artistic life spent in Paris and Ireland. He observed the ups and downs, anecdotes, allusions, literary and artistic schools of the Parisian art world with his own eyes, and faithfully recorded his interactions with famous writers and artists of the time and his evaluation of their works, as well as the conflicts between different artistic styles, including aestheticism, naturalism, symbolism, impressionism, stream of consciousness, realism, etc.; At the same time, he recalls the emotional and outlook turmoil he experienced in his youth. Through this work, readers can not only understand the history of George · Moore's intellectual growth, but also understand the development history of European literature and art for 30 years. Gautier sings on his gurilla, praising the flesh and despising the soul; Baudelaire used the mouthpiece of the Middle Ages to sing about his disbelief in goodness and truth and his hatred of life. But Verlaine goes further. For him, hatred is as cliché as love, and loyalty and disloyalty are equally unreasonable. —George · Moore
Moore's comparison of his "confession" with Rousseau's confession is of course a boast, but it is undeniable that from this memoir of his, people can find the life portraits of many literati and artists of his time, and the value of this to the history of literature is immeasurable. While United Kingdom readers may find it difficult to accept his almost arbitrary assessment of United Kingdom literature, such as "United Kingdom fiction is sometimes frivolous and shallow, sometimes sentimental and sometimes erudite and sometimes flamboyant, but never serious" and "United Kingdom fiction is stale and France and Russian are more educated". As everyone knows, many United Kingdom readers have gained a layer of intimate understanding of Jane · Austen, the Brontë sisters, Dickens, Defoe, Stevenson and other well-known writers through his works, and discovered Balzac, Flaubert, Zola, Turgenev, Cervantes, Tolstoy, Hussmann, and Verlaine outside of United Kingdom literature; His praise for Manet, Degas, Whistler, Monet, Pissarro and others is pale, but his sensitivity and foresight are unquestionable. From Moore's works, it is not difficult to hear his heartfelt call for a beautiful humanity, a yearning for natural beauty, the true voice of a neglected genius, and there seems to be no reason why we should not read such a writer who has devoted his life to writing, and is full of sensibility and emotion. Hypocritical readers, when I reveal my soul to you, I am also revealing your own soul to you. Hypocritical readers, refined hypocrites, you are my brothers, and I salute you. —George · Moore
[Ireland] George · Moore
Translated by Sun Yixue
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