title: In Search of Lost Time

text: Two years later, the Narrator, his grandmother, and Françoise set out for the seaside town of Balbec. The Narrator is almost totally indifferent to Gilberte now. During the train ride, his grandmother, who only believes in proper books, lends him her favorite: the "Letters" of Mme. de Sévigné. At Balbec, the Narrator is disappointed with the church and uncomfortable in his unfamiliar hotel room, but his grandmother comforts him. He admires the seascape, and learns about the colorful staff and customers around the hotel: Aimé, the discreet headwaiter; the lift operator; M. de Stermaria and his beautiful young daughter; and M. de Cambremer and his wife, Legrandin's sister. His grandmother encounters an old friend, the blue-blooded Mme. de Villeparisis, and they renew their friendship. The three of them go for rides in the country, openly discussing art and politics. The Narrator longs for the country girls he sees alongside the roads, and has a strange feeling—possibly memory, possibly something else—while admiring a row of three trees. Mme. de Villeparisis is joined by her glamorous great-nephew Robert de Saint-Loup, who is involved with an unsuitable woman. Despite initial awkwardness, the Narrator and his grandmother become good friends with him. Bloch, the childhood friend from Combray, turns up with his family, and acts in typically inappropriate fashion. Saint-Loup's ultra-aristocratic and extremely rude uncle the Baron de Charlus arrives. The Narrator discovers Mme. de Villeparisis, her nephew M. de Charlus, and his nephew Saint-Loup are all of the Guermantes family. Charlus ignores the Narrator, but later visits him in his room and lends him a book. The next day, the Baron speaks shockingly informally to him, then demands the book back. The Narrator ponders Saint-Loup's attitude towards his aristocratic roots, and his relationship with his mistress, a mere actress whose recital bombed horribly with his family. One day, the Narrator sees a "little band" of teenage girls strolling beside the sea, and becomes infatuated with them, along with an unseen hotel guest named Mlle. Simonet. He joins Saint-Loup for dinner and reflects on how drunkenness affects his perceptions. Later they meet the painter Elstir, and the Narrator visits his studio. The Narrator marvels at Elstir's method of renewing impressions of ordinary things, as well as his connections with the Verdurins (he is "M. Biche") and Mme. Swann. He discovers the painter knows the teenage girls, particularly one dark-haired beauty who is Albertine Simonet. Elstir arranges an introduction, and the Narrator becomes friends with her, as well as her friends Andrée, Rosemonde, and Gisèle. The group goes for picnics and tours the countryside, as well as playing games, while the Narrator reflects on the nature of love as he becomes attracted to Albertine. Despite her rejection, they become close, although he still feels attracted to the whole group. At summer's end, the town closes up, and the Narrator is left with his image of first seeing the girls walking beside the sea.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: The Narrator's family has moved to an apartment connected with the Guermantes residence. Françoise befriends a fellow tenant, the tailor Jupien and his niece. The Narrator is fascinated by the Guermantes and their life, and is awed by their social circle while attending another Berma performance. He begins staking out the street where Mme. de Guermantes walks every day, to her evident annoyance. He decides to visit her nephew Saint-Loup at his military base, to ask to be introduced to her. After noting the landscape and his state of mind while sleeping, the Narrator meets and attends dinners with Saint-Loup's fellow officers, where they discuss the Dreyfus Affair and the art of military strategy. But the Narrator returns home after receiving a call from his aging grandmother. Mme. de Guermantes declines to see him, and he also finds he is still unable to begin writing. Saint-Loup visits on leave, and they have lunch and attend a recital with his actress mistress: Rachel, the Jewish prostitute, toward whom the unsuspecting Saint-Loup is crazed with jealousy. The Narrator then goes to Mme. de Villeparisis's salon, which is considered second-rate despite its public reputation. Legrandin attends and displays his social climbing. Bloch stridently interrogates M. de Norpois about the Dreyfus Affair, which has ripped all of society asunder, but Norpois diplomatically avoids answering. The Narrator observes Mme. de Guermantes and her aristocratic bearing, as she makes caustic remarks about friends and family, including the mistresses of her husband, who is M. de Charlus's brother. Mme. Swann arrives, and the Narrator remembers a visit from Morel, the son of his uncle Adolphe's valet, who revealed that the "lady in pink" was Mme. Swann. Charlus asks the Narrator to leave with him, and offers to make him his protégé. At home, the Narrator's grandmother has worsened, and while walking with him she suffers a stroke.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: The family seeks out the best medical help, and she is often visited by Bergotte, himself unwell, but she dies, her face reverting to its youthful appearance. Several months later, Saint-Loup, now single, convinces the Narrator to ask out the Stermaria daughter, newly divorced. Albertine visits; she has matured and they share a kiss. The Narrator then goes to see Mme. de Villeparisis, where Mme. de Guermantes, whom he has stopped following, invites him to dinner. The Narrator daydreams of Mme. de Stermaria, but she abruptly cancels, although Saint-Loup rescues him from despair by taking him to dine with his aristocratic friends, who engage in petty gossip. Saint-Loup passes on an invitation from Charlus to come visit him. The next day, at the Guermantes's dinner party, the Narrator admires their Elstir paintings, then meets the cream of society, including the Princess of Parma, who is an amiable simpleton. He learns more about the Guermantes: their hereditary features; their less-refined cousins the Courvoisiers; and Mme. de Guermantes's celebrated humor, artistic tastes, and exalted diction (although she does not live up to the enchantment of her name). The discussion turns to gossip about society, including Charlus and his late wife; the affair between Norpois and Mme. de Villeparisis; and aristocratic lineages. Leaving, the Narrator visits Charlus, who falsely accuses him of slandering him. The Narrator stomps on Charlus's hat and storms out, but Charlus is strangely unperturbed and gives him a ride home. Months later, the Narrator is invited to the Princesse de Guermantes's party. He tries to verify the invitation with M. and Mme. de Guermantes, but first sees something he will describe later. They will be attending the party but do not help him, and while they are chatting, Swann arrives. Now a committed Dreyfusard, he is very sick and nearing death, but the Guermantes assure him he will outlive them.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: The Narrator describes what he had seen earlier: while waiting for the Guermantes to return so he could ask about his invitation, he saw Charlus encounter Jupien in their courtyard. The two then went into Jupien's shop and had intercourse. The Narrator reflects on the nature of "inverts", and how they are like a secret society, never able to live in the open. He compares them to flowers, whose reproduction through the aid of insects depends solely on happenstance. Arriving at the Princesse's party, his invitation seems valid as he is greeted warmly by her. He sees Charlus exchanging knowing looks with the diplomat Vaugoubert, a fellow invert. After several tries, the Narrator manages to be introduced to the Prince de Guermantes, who then walks off with Swann, causing speculation on the topic of their conversation. Mme. de Saint-Euverte tries to recruit guests for her party the next day, but is subjected to scorn from some of the Guermantes. Charlus is captivated by the two young sons of M. de Guermantes's newest mistress. Saint-Loup arrives and mentions the names of several promiscuous women to the Narrator. Swann takes the Narrator aside and reveals the Prince wanted to admit his and his wife's pro-Dreyfus leanings. Swann is aware of his old friend Charlus's behavior, then urges the Narrator to visit Gilberte, and departs. The Narrator leaves with M. and Mme. de Guermantes, and heads home for a late-night meeting with Albertine. He grows frantic when first she is late and then calls to cancel, but he convinces her to come. He writes an indifferent letter to Gilberte, and reviews the changing social scene, which now includes Mme. Swann's salon centered on Bergotte.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: He decides to return to Balbec, after learning the women mentioned by Saint-Loup will be there. At Balbec, grief at his grandmother's suffering, which was worse than he knew, overwhelms him. He ponders the intermittencies of the heart and the ways of dealing with sad memories. His mother, even sadder, has become more like his grandmother in homage. Albertine is nearby and they begin spending time together, but he starts to suspect her of lesbianism and of lying to him about her activities. He fakes a preference for her friend Andrée to make her become more trustworthy, and it works, but he soon suspects her of knowing several scandalous women at the hotel, including Léa, an actress. On the way to visit Saint-Loup, they meet Morel, the valet's son who is now an excellent violinist, and then the aging Charlus, who falsely claims to know Morel and goes to speak to him. The Narrator visits the Verdurins, who are renting a house from the Cambremers. On the train with him is the little clan: Brichot, who explains at length the derivation of the local place-names; Cottard, now a celebrated doctor; Saniette, still the butt of everyone's ridicule; and a new member, Ski. The Verdurins are still haughty and dictatorial toward their guests, who are as pedantic as ever. Charlus and Morel arrive together, and Charlus's true nature is barely concealed. The Cambremers arrive, and the Verdurins barely tolerate them.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: Back at the hotel, the Narrator ruminates on sleep and time, and observes the amusing mannerisms of the staff, who are mostly aware of Charlus's proclivities. The Narrator and Albertine hire a chauffeur and take rides in the country, leading to observations about new forms of travel as well as country life. The Narrator is unaware that the chauffeur and Morel are acquainted, and he reviews Morel's amoral character and plans towards Jupien's niece. The Narrator is jealously suspicious of Albertine but grows tired of her. She and the Narrator attend evening dinners at the Verdurins, taking the train with the other guests; Charlus is now a regular, despite his obliviousness to the clan's mockery. He and Morel try to maintain the secret of their relationship, and the Narrator recounts a ploy involving a fake duel that Charlus used to control Morel. The passing station stops remind the Narrator of various people and incidents, including two failed attempts by the Prince de Guermantes to arrange liaisons with Morel; a final break between the Verdurins and Cambremers; and a misunderstanding between the Narrator, Charlus, and Bloch. The Narrator has grown weary of the area and prefers others over Albertine, but she reveals to him as they leave the train that she has plans with Mlle. Vinteuil and her friend (the lesbians from Combray), which plunges him into despair. He invents a story about a broken engagement of his, to convince her to go to Paris with him, and after hesitating she suddenly agrees to go immediately. The Narrator tells his mother: he must marry Albertine.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: The Narrator is living with Albertine in his family's apartment, to Françoise's distrust and his absent mother's chagrin. He marvels that he has come to possess her, but has grown bored with her. He mostly stays home, but has enlisted Andrée to report on Albertine's whereabouts, as his jealousy remains. The Narrator gets advice on fashion from Mme. de Guermantes, and encounters Charlus and Morel visiting Jupien and his niece, who is being married off to Morel despite his cruelty towards her. One day, the Narrator returns from the Guermantes and finds Andrée just leaving, claiming to dislike the smell of their flowers. Albertine, who is more guarded to avoid provoking his jealousy, is maturing into an intelligent and elegant young lady. The Narrator is entranced by her beauty as she sleeps, and is only content when she is not out with others. She mentions wanting to go to the Verdurins, but the Narrator suspects an ulterior motive and analyzes her conversation for hints. He suggests she go instead to the Trocadéro with Andrée, and she reluctantly agrees. The Narrator compares dreams to wakefulness, and listens to the street vendors with Albertine, then she departs. He remembers trips she took with the chauffeur, then learns Léa the notorious actress will be at the Trocadero too. He sends Françoise to retrieve Albertine, and while waiting, he muses on music and Morel. When she returns, they go for a drive, while he pines for Venice and realizes she feels captive. He learns of Bergotte's final illness. That evening, he sneaks off to the Verdurins to try to discover the reason for Albertine's interest in them. He encounters Brichot on the way, and they discuss Swann, who has died. Charlus arrives and the Narrator reviews the Baron's struggles with Morel, then learns Mlle. Vinteuil and her friend are expected (although they do not come). Morel joins in performing a septet by Vinteuil, which evokes commonalities with his sonata that only the composer could create. Mme. Verdurin is furious that Charlus has taken control of her party; in revenge the Verdurins persuade Morel to repudiate him, and Charlus falls temporarily ill from the shock. Returning home, the Narrator and Albertine fight about his solo visit to the Verdurins, and she denies having affairs with Léa or Mlle. Vinteuil, but admits she lied on occasion to avoid arguments. He threatens to break it off, but they reconcile. He appreciates art and fashion with her, and ponders her mysteriousness. But his suspicion of her and Andrée is renewed, and they quarrel. After two awkward days and a restless night, he resolves to end the affair, but in the morning Françoise informs him: Albertine has asked for her boxes and left.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: The Narrator is anguished at Albertine's departure and absence. He dispatches Saint-Loup to convince her aunt Mme. Bontemps to send her back, but Albertine insists the Narrator should ask, and she will gladly return. The Narrator lies and replies he is done with her, but she just agrees with him. He writes to her that he will marry Andrée, then hears from Saint-Loup of the failure of his mission to the aunt. Desperate, he begs Albertine to return, but receives word: she has died in a riding accident. He receives two last letters from her: one wishing him and Andrée well, and one asking if she can return. The Narrator plunges into suffering amid the many different memories of Albertine, intimately linked to all of his everyday sensations. He recalls a suspicious incident she told him of at Balbec, and asks Aimé, the headwaiter, to investigate. He recalls their history together and his regrets, as well as love's randomness. Aimé reports back: Albertine often engaged in affairs with girls at Balbec. The Narrator sends him to learn more, and he reports other liaisons with girls. The Narrator wishes he could have known the true Albertine, whom he would have accepted. He begins to grow accustomed to the idea of her death, despite constant reminders that renew his grief. Andrée admits her own lesbianism but denies being with Albertine. The Narrator knows he will forget Albertine, just as he has forgotten Gilberte.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: He happens to meet Gilberte again; her mother Mme. Swann became Mme. de Forcheville and Gilberte is now part of high society, received by the Guermantes. The Narrator publishes an article in "Le Figaro". Andrée visits him and confesses her relations with Albertine. She also explains the truth behind Albertine's departure: her aunt wanted her to marry another man. The Narrator and his mother visit Venice, which enthralls him. They happen to see Norpois and Mme. de Villeparisis there. A telegram signed from Albertine arrives, but the Narrator is indifferent. Returning home, the Narrator and his mother receive surprising news: Gilberte will marry Saint-Loup, and Jupien's niece will be adopted by Charlus and then married to Legrandin's nephew, an invert. There is much discussion of these marriages among society. The Narrator visits Gilberte in her new home where he also realizes that the telegram was from her, not Albertine, who is not alive, and is shocked to learn of Saint-Loup's affair with Morel, among others. He despairs for their friendship.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: The Narrator is staying with Gilberte at her home near Combray. They go for walks, on one of which he is stunned to learn the Méséglise way and the Guermantes way are actually linked. Gilberte also tells him she was attracted to him when young, and had made a suggestive gesture to him as he watched her. Also, it was Léa she was walking with the evening he had planned to reconcile with her. He considers Saint-Loup's nature and reads an account of the Verdurins' salon, deciding he has no talent for writing.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: The scene shifts to a night in 1916, during World War I, when the Narrator has returned to Paris from a stay in a sanatorium and is walking the streets during a blackout. He reflects on the changed norms of art and society, with the Verdurins now highly esteemed. He recounts a 1914 visit from Saint-Loup, who was trying to enlist secretly. He recalls descriptions of the fighting he subsequently received from Saint-Loup and Gilberte, whose home was threatened. He describes a call paid on him a few days previously by Saint-Loup; they discussed military strategy. Now on the dark street, the Narrator encounters Charlus, who has completely surrendered to his impulses. Charlus reviews Morel's betrayals and his own temptation to seek vengeance; critiques Brichot's new fame as a writer, which has ostracized him from the Verdurins; and admits his general sympathy with Germany. The last part of the conversation draws a crowd of suspicious onlookers. After parting the Narrator seeks refuge in what appears to be a hotel, where he sees someone who looks familiar leaving. Inside, he discovers it to be a male brothel, and spies Charlus using the services. The proprietor turns out to be Jupien, who expresses a perverse pride in his business. A few days later, news comes that Saint-Loup has been killed in combat. The Narrator pieces together that Saint-Loup had visited Jupien's brothel, and ponders what might have been had he lived.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: Years later, again in Paris, the Narrator goes to a party at the house of the Prince de Guermantes. On the way he sees Charlus, now a mere shell of his former self, being helped by Jupien. The paving stones at the Guermantes house inspire another incident of involuntary memory for the Narrator, quickly followed by two more. Inside, while waiting in the library, he discerns their meaning: by putting him in contact with both the past and present, the impressions allow him to gain a vantage point outside time, affording a glimpse of the true nature of things. He realizes his whole life has prepared him for the mission of describing events as fully revealed, and (finally) resolves to begin writing. Entering the party, he is shocked at the disguises old age has given to the people he knew, and at the changes in society. Legrandin is now an invert, but is no longer a snob. Bloch is a respected writer and vital figure in society. Morel has reformed and become a respected citizen. Mme. de Forcheville is the mistress of M. de Guermantes. Mme. Verdurin has married the Prince de Guermantes after both their spouses died. Rachel is the star of the party, abetted by Mme. de Guermantes, whose social position has been eroded by her affinity for theater. Gilberte introduces her daughter to the Narrator; he is struck by the way the daughter encapsulates both the Méséglise and Guermantes ways within herself. He is spurred to writing, with help from Françoise and despite signs of approaching death. He realizes that every person carries within them the accumulated baggage of their past, and concludes that to be accurate he must describe how everyone occupies an immense range "in Time".


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: "À la recherche" made a decisive break with the 19th-century realist and plot-driven novel, populated by people of action and people representing social and cultural groups or morals. Although parts of the novel could be read as an exploration of snobbery, deceit, jealousy and suffering, and although it contains a multitude of realistic details, the focus is not on the development of a tight plot or of a coherent evolution but on a multiplicity of perspectives and on the formation of experience. The protagonists of the first volume (the narrator as a boy and Swann) are, by the standards of 19th-century novels, remarkably introspective and passive, nor do they trigger action from other leading characters; to contemporary readers, reared on Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo and Leo Tolstoy, they would not function as centers of a plot. While there is an array of symbolism in the work, it is rarely defined through explicit "keys" leading to moral, romantic or philosophical ideas. The significance of what is happening is often placed within the memory or in the inner contemplation of what is described. This focus on the relationship between experience, memory and writing and the radical de-emphasizing of the outward plot, have become staples of the modern novel but were almost unheard of in 1913.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: Roger Shattuck elucidates an underlying principle in understanding Proust and the various themes present in his novel:


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: Thus the novel embodies and manifests the principle of intermittence: to live means to perceive different and often conflicting aspects of reality. This iridescence never resolves itself completely into a unitive point of view. Accordingly, it is possible to project out of the "Search" itself a series of putative and intermittent authors ... The portraitist of an expiring society, the artist of romantic reminiscence, the narrator of the laminated "I," the classicist of formal structure—all these figures are to be found in Proust ...


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: The role of memory is central to the novel, introduced with the famous madeleine episode in the first section of the novel and in the last volume, "Time Regained", a flashback similar to that caused by the madeleine is the beginning of the resolution of the story. Throughout the work many similar instances of involuntary memory, triggered by sensory experiences such as sights, sounds and smells conjure important memories for the narrator and sometimes return attention to an earlier episode of the novel. Although Proust wrote contemporaneously with Sigmund Freud, with there being many points of similarity between their thought on the structures and mechanisms of the human mind, neither author read the other.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory—this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. ... Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? ... And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: Gilles Deleuze believed that the focus of Proust was not memory and the past but the narrator's learning the use of "signs" to understand and communicate ultimate reality, thereby becoming an artist. While Proust was bitterly aware of the experience of loss and exclusion—loss of loved ones, loss of affection, friendship and innocent joy, which are dramatized in the novel through recurrent jealousy, betrayal and the death of loved ones—his response to this, formulated after he had discovered Ruskin, was that the work of art can recapture the lost and thus save it from destruction, at least in our minds. Art triumphs over the destructive power of time. This element of his artistic thought is clearly inherited from romantic platonism, but Proust crosses it with a new intensity in describing jealousy, desire and self-doubt. (Note the last quatrain of Baudelaire's poem "Une Charogne": "Then, O my beauty! say to the worms who will / Devour you with kisses, / That I have kept the form and the divine essence / Of my decomposed love!")


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: Proust begins his novel with the statement, "For a long time I used to go to bed early." This leads to lengthy discussion of his anxiety at leaving his mother at night and his attempts to force her to come and kiss him goodnight, even on nights when the family has company, culminating in a spectacular success, when his father suggests that his mother stay the night with him after he has waylaid her in the hall when she is going to bed.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: His anxiety leads to manipulation, much like the manipulation employed by his invalid aunt Léonie and all the lovers in the entire book, who use the same methods of petty tyranny to manipulate and possess their loved ones.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: The nature of art is a motif in the novel and is often explored at great length. Proust sets forth a theory of art in which we are all capable of producing art, if by this we mean taking the experiences of life and transforming them in a way that shows understanding and maturity. Writing, painting, and music are also discussed at great length. Morel the violinist is examined to give an example of a certain type of "artistic" character, along with other fictional artists like the novelist Bergotte, the composer Vinteuil, and the painter Elstir.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: As early as the "Combray" section of "Swann's Way", the narrator is concerned with his ability to write, since he desires to pursue a writing career. The transmutation of the experience of a scene in one of the family's usual walks into a short descriptive passage is described and the sample passage given. The narrator presents this passage as an early sample of his own writing, in which he has only had to alter a few words. The question of his own genius relates to all the passages in which genius is recognized or misunderstood because it presents itself in the guise of a humble friend, rather than a passionate "artiste".


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: The question of taste or judgement in art is also an important theme, as exemplified by Swann's exquisite taste in art, which is often hidden from his friends who do not share it or subordinated to his love interests.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: Questions pertaining to homosexuality appear throughout the novel, particularly in the later volumes. The first arrival of this theme comes in the "Combray" section of "Swann's Way", where the daughter of the piano teacher and composer Vinteuil is seduced, and the narrator observes her having lesbian relations in front of the portrait of her recently deceased father.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: The narrator invariably suspects his lovers of liaisons with other women, a repetition of the suspicions held by Charles Swann about his mistress and eventual wife, Odette, in "Swann's Way". The first chapter of "Cities of the Plain" ("Sodom and Gomorrah") includes a detailed account of a sexual encounter between M. de Charlus, the novel's most prominent male homosexual, and his tailor. Critics have often observed that while the character of the narrator is ostensibly heterosexual, Proust intimates that the narrator is a closeted homosexual. The narrator's manner towards male homosexuality is consistently aloof, yet the narrator is unaccountably knowledgeable. This strategy enables Proust to pursue themes related to male homosexuality—in particular the nature of closetedness—from both within and without a homosexual perspective. Proust does not designate Charlus's homosexuality until the middle of the novel, in "Cities"; afterwards the Baron's ostentatiousness and flamboyance, of which he is blithely unaware, completely absorb the narrator's perception. Lesbianism, on the other hand, tortures Swann and the narrator because it presents an inaccessible world. Whereas male homosexual desire is recognizable, insofar as it encompasses male sexuality, Odette's and Albertine's lesbian trysts represent Swann and the narrator's painful exclusion from characters they desire.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: There is much debate as to how great a bearing Proust's sexuality has on understanding these aspects of the novel. Although many of Proust's close family and friends suspected that he was homosexual, Proust never admitted this. It was only after his death that André Gide, in his publication of correspondence with Proust, made public Proust's homosexuality. In response to Gide's criticism that he hid his actual sexuality within his novel, Proust told Gide that "one can say anything so long as one does not say 'I'." Proust's intimate relations with such individuals as Alfred Agostinelli and Reynaldo Hahn are well-documented, though Proust was not "out and proud", except perhaps in close-knit social circles.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: In 1949, the critic Justin O'Brien published an article in the Publications of the Modern Language Association called "Albertine the Ambiguous: Notes on Proust's Transposition of Sexes", in which he proposed that some female characters are best understood as actually referring to young men. Strip off the feminine ending of the names of the Narrator's lovers, Albertine, Gilberte, and Andrée, and one has their masculine counterparts. This theory has become known as the "transposition of sexes theory" in Proust criticism, but it has been challenged in "Epistemology of the Closet" (1990) by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and in "Proust's Lesbianism" (1999) by Elisabeth Ladenson. Feminized forms of masculine names were and are commonplace in French.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: "In Search of Lost Time" is considered, by many scholars and critics, to be the definitive modern novel. It has had a profound effect on subsequent writers, such as the British authors who were members of the Bloomsbury Group. Virginia Woolf wrote in 1922: "Oh if I could write like that!"


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: Harold Bloom wrote that "In Search of Lost Time" is now "widely recognized as the major novel of the twentieth century". Vladimir Nabokov, in a 1965 interview, named the greatest prose works of the 20th century as, in order, "Joyce's "Ulysses", Kafka's "The Metamorphosis", Bely's "Petersburg", and the first half of Proust's fairy tale "In Search of Lost Time"". J. Peder Zane's book "The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books", collates 125 "top 10 greatest books of all time" lists by prominent living writers; "In Search of Lost Time" is placed eighth. In the 1960s, Swedish literary critic Bengt Holmqvist described the novel as "at once the last great classic of French epic prose tradition and the towering precursor of the 'nouveau roman'", indicating the vogue of new, experimental French prose but also, by extension, other post-war attempts to fuse different planes of location, temporality and fragmented consciousness within the same novel. Michael Dirda wrote that "To its admirers, it remains one of those rare encyclopedic summas, like Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales", the essays of Montaigne or Dante's "Commedia", that offer insight into our unruly passions and solace for life's miseries." Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon has called it his favorite book.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: Proust's influence (in parody) is seen in Evelyn Waugh's "A Handful of Dust" (1934), in which Chapter 1 is entitled "Du Côté de Chez Beaver" and Chapter 6 "Du Côté de Chez Tod". Waugh did not like Proust: in letters to Nancy Mitford in 1948, he wrote, "I am reading Proust for the first time ... and am surprised to find him a mental defective" and later, "I still think [Proust] insane ... the structure must be sane & that is raving." Another hostile critic is Kazuo Ishiguro, who said in an interview: "To be absolutely honest, apart from the opening volume of Proust, I find him crushingly dull."


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: Since the publication in 1992 of a revised English translation by The Modern Library, based on a new definitive French edition (1987–89), interest in Proust's novel in the English-speaking world has increased. Two substantial new biographies have appeared in English, by Edmund White and William C. Carter, and at least two books about the experience of reading Proust have appeared, Alain de Botton's "How Proust Can Change Your Life" and Phyllis Rose's "The Year of Reading Proust". The Proust Society of America, founded in 1997, has three chapters: at The New York Mercantile Library, the Mechanic's Institute Library in San Francisco, and the Boston Athenæum Library.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: The first six volumes were first translated into English by the Scotsman C. K. Scott Moncrieff under the title "Remembrance of Things Past", a phrase taken from Shakespeare's Sonnet 30; this was the first translation of the "Recherche" into another language. The individual volumes were "Swann's Way", in two books (1922), "Within a Budding Grove", in two books (1924), "The Guermantes Way", in two books (1925), "Cities of the Plain", in two books (1927), "The Captive" (1929), and "The Sweet Cheat Gone" (1930). The final volume, "Le Temps retrouvé", was initially published in English in the UK as "Time Regained" (1931), translated by Stephen Hudson (a pseudonym of Sydney Schiff), and in the US as "The Past Recaptured" (1932) in a translation by Frederick Blossom. There were thus eleven books in the original English translation. Although cordial with Scott Moncrieff, Proust grudgingly remarked in a letter that "Remembrance" eliminated the correspondence between "Temps perdu" and "Temps retrouvé" (Painter, 352). Terence Kilmartin revised the Scott Moncrieff translation in 1981, using the new French edition of 1954. An additional revision by D. J. Enright—that is, a revision of a revision—was published by the Modern Library in 1992. It is based on the "La Pléiade" edition of the French text (1987–89), and rendered the title of the novel more literally as "In Search of Lost Time". It also includes an index/concordance to the novel compiled by Terence Kilmartin that was published in 1983 as the "Reader's Guide to the Remembrance of Things Past". The guide contains four indices: fictional characters from the novels; actual persons; places; and themes.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: In 1995, Penguin undertook a fresh translation based on the "La Pléiade" French text (published in 1987–89) of "In Search of Lost Time" by a team of seven different translators overseen by editor Christopher Prendergast. The six volumes were published in Britain under the Allen Lane imprint in 2002, each volume under the name of a separate translator, the first volume being American writer Lydia Davis, and the others under English translators and one Australian, James Grieve. The first four volumes were published in the US under the Viking imprint as hardcover editions in 2003–2004, while the entire set is available in paperback under the Penguin Classics imprint.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: Both the Modern Library and Penguin translations provide a detailed plot synopsis at the end of each volume. The last volume of the Modern Library edition, "Time Regained", also includes Kilmartin's "A Guide to Proust", a set of four indexes covering the (fictional) characters, (real) persons, places (both real and fictional), and themes in the novel. The Modern Library volumes include a handful of endnotes, and alternative versions of some of the novel's famous episodes. The Penguin volumes each provide an extensive set of brief, non-scholarly endnotes that help identify cultural references perhaps unfamiliar to contemporary English readers. Reviews that discuss the merits of both translations can be found online at the "Observer", the "Telegraph", "The New York Review of Books", "The New York Times", "TempsPerdu.com", and Reading Proust.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: Since 2013, Yale University Press has been publishing a new revision of Scott Moncrieff's translation, edited and annotated by William C. Carter, at the rate of one volume every two or three years.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is a 2018 British-American jukebox musical romantic comedy film written and directed by Ol Parker, from a story by Parker, Catherine Johnson, and Richard Curtis. It is the sequel to the 2008 film "Mamma Mia!", which in turn is based on the 1999 musical of the same name using the music of ABBA. The film features an ensemble cast, including Dominic Cooper, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Jeremy Irvine, Josh Dylan, Hugh Skinner, Lily James, Jessica Keenan Wynn, Alexa Davies, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, Andy García, Meryl Streep, and Cher. Both a prequel and a sequel, the plot is set after the events of the previous film, and is intersected with flashbacks to Donna's youth in 1979, with some scenes from the two time periods mirroring each other.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: Due to the financial success of the first film, Universal Pictures had long been interested in a sequel. The film was officially announced in May 2017, with Parker hired to write and direct. In June 2017, many of the original cast confirmed their involvement, with James being cast in the role of Young Donna that July. Filming took place from August to December 2017 in Croatia (most prominently Vis), Bordeaux, Stockholm, Oxford, Hampton and at Shepperton Studios. A British and American joint venture, the film was co-produced by Playtone, Littlestar Productions, Perfect World Pictures, and Legendary Entertainment.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again" was premiered at the Hammersmith Apollo in London on July 16, 2018, and was released in the United Kingdom and the United States on July 20, 2018, ten years to the week after its predecessor's release, in both standard and IMAX formats. The film was a box office success, grossing $402 million worldwide and received generally positive reviews, as an improvement over its predecessor with critics praising the performances and musical numbers.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: In a flashback to the year 1979, a young Donna Sheridan graduates from Oxford's New College with Rosie and Tanya ("When I Kissed the Teacher"), and dreams of a Greek island named Kalokairi. Donna's mother, Ruby, is a famous singer, but she has a strained relationship with her daughter and is consistently away on tour, and does not attend the graduation. Fed up with her mother's constant negligence and determined to spend her life making memories, Donna decided to travel to Kalokairi to find her destiny.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: In the present, five years after the events of the first film, Sophie is in Kalokairi preparing for the grand reopening of the Hotel Bella Donna, in honour of her recently deceased mother. Harry and Bill are unable to attend due to overseas business ventures and Sophie also feels estranged from Sky, who's been offered a permanent job in New York ("One of Us").


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: In Paris, Donna meets the sweet but awkward Harry Bright, who instantly falls in love with her ("Waterloo"). They spend the night together, but Donna leaves soon after for Greece. She misses her boat to Kalokairi but is offered a ride by Bill Anderson in his yacht, and the two dance and flirt ("Why Did It Have to Be Me?"). On the way, they help a stranded fisherman, Alexio, back to shore in time to save the love of his life from having to marry another. Unbeknownst to Donna, Harry has followed her to Greece; however, he arrives too late and sadly watches the boat sailing off in the distance.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: In the present, Rosie and Tanya arrive to support Sophie, and she shows them the new hotel ("I Have a Dream"). This mirrors the past, in which Donna explores an abandoned farmhouse that would eventually become the hotel. A heavy storm then breaks out and Donna discovers a trapped horse and soothes it with the assistance of Sam Carmichael. In the present, a heavy storm destroys the decorations and prevents transportation to Kalokairi, much to Sophie's dismay.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: Sam, who has been living in a cabin on the island, reassures Sophie that she can never let her mother down, telling her the story of how he once let Donna down. Years ago, before Sophie was born, Donna and Sam were enjoying a whirlwind romance ("The Name of the Game"), but it ended badly when Donna found out Sam was engaged to another woman, Lorraine. Heartbroken, Donna breaks up with him and tearfully watches him leave the island ("Knowing Me, Knowing You"), while the present Sam reassures Sophie of her mother's value for her.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: Following Sam's departure, Donna is visited by Tanya and Rosie, who cheer her up by singing with her as Donna and the Dynamos ("Mamma Mia"). Bill returns to the island, and Donna joins him on his boat, much to the chagrin of Rosie who falls for Bill. While they are gone, Sam returns, having ended his engagement for Donna, but is saddened to hear that she is with another man. Donna discovers she is pregnant but has no idea which one of her three recent lovers is the father. Bill's great-aunt Sofia overhears Donna's wish to stay on the island and reveals she owns the abandoned farmhouse Donna has been staying in. Donna happily accepts her offer to stay there, where she eventually gives birth to Sophie.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: In the present, Sophie opens up to Rosie and Tanya about her conflict with Sky and Rosie explains to Sophie how she and Bill broke up ("Angel Eyes"). Meanwhile, Bill, Harry, and Sky leave their ventures abroad to support Sophie but are told there are no boats to Kalokairi. However, a much older Alexio recognises Bill and offers the trio safe boat passage to the island as gratitude for saving his relationship. Bill convinces the others to join them for a party on Kalokairi. When the guests arrive ("Dancing Queen"), Bill and Rosie quickly reunite over their mutual grief over Donna's death, and Sophie reveals to Sky that she is pregnant, and she has never felt closer to her mother.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: The celebration is suddenly disrupted when Ruby arrives, despite Sophie having decided to not invite her. Ruby explains that Sky tracked her down in New York, and she wants to build a true relationship with her granddaughter. Sophie then performs with the Dynamos in honor of Donna ("I've Been Waiting for You"), much to the pride of Ruby, who expresses slight but sincere grief over her daughter's death. It is then revealed that the hotel manager, Señor Fernando Cienfuegos, is actually Ruby's long-lost lover from 1959, and the two are joyously reunited ("Fernando").


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: Nine months later, Sophie has given birth to a baby boy, named Donny. At the christening, Donna's ghost proudly watches over her daughter as the two of them have one final moment before Donna fully passes on ("My Love, My Life"). The end credits show all the characters, including Donna and the younger cast, at a huge party at Hotel Bella Donna ("Super Trouper").


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: A soundtrack album was released on July 13, 2018, by Capitol and Polydor Records in the United States and internationally, respectively. The album was produced by Benny Andersson, who also served as the album's executive producer alongside Björn Ulvaeus and Judy Craymer. Each song is featured within the film, with the exception of "I Wonder (Departure)" and "The Day Before You Came".


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: Additionally, short and instrumental versions of other ABBA songs were included in the movie, but omitted from the soundtrack. These are in chronological order


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again" was announced on May 19, 2017, with a release date of July 20, 2018. It was written and directed by Ol Parker. On September 27, 2017, Benny Andersson confirmed 3 ABBA songs that would be featured in the film: "When I Kissed the Teacher," "I Wonder (Departure)," and "Angeleyes." "I Wonder (Departure)" was cut from the film, but is included on the soundtrack album.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: On June 1, 2017, it was announced that Seyfried would return as Sophie. Later that month, Dominic Cooper confirmed that he would return for the sequel, along with Streep, Firth and Brosnan as Sky, Donna, Harry, and Sam, respectively. In July 2017, Baranski was also confirmed to return as Tanya. On July 12, 2017, Lily James was cast to play the role of young Donna. On August 3, 2017, Jeremy Irvine and Alexa Davies were also cast in the film, with Irvine playing Brosnan's character Sam in a past era, and Hugh Skinner to play Young Harry, Davies as a young Rosie, played by Julie Walters. On August 16, 2017, it was announced that Jessica Keenan Wynn had been cast as a young Tanya, who is played by Baranski. Julie Walters and Stellan Skarsgård also reprised their roles as Rosie and Bill, respectively. On October 16, 2017, it was announced that singer and actress Cher had joined the cast, in her first on-screen film role since 2010. The part was written specifically for Cher, and she got to choose Andy García as her romantic partner.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: Principal photography on the film began on August 12, 2017, in Croatia, including the island of Vis. In October 2017, the cast gathered at Shepperton Studios in Surrey, England, to film song and dance numbers with Cher. Filming wrapped on December 2, 2017.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again" was released on July 20, 2018, by Universal Pictures, in the UK, US and other selected countries in both standard and IMAX formats. The film premiered on July 16, 2018, at the Hammersmith Apollo in London.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: The first trailer for the film was released on December 21, 2017, in front of "Pitch Perfect 3", another Universal Pictures film. Cher performed "Fernando" at the Las Vegas CinemaCon on April 25, 2018, after footage of the film was shown.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: Universal sponsored YouTube stars the Merrell Twins to perform a cover version of the song "Mamma Mia" to promote the film.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again" was released via digital copy on October 9, 2018, and released on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K UHD Combo Pack on October 23, 2018. The film debuted at the top of the


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: NPD VideoScan First Alert chart for the week ending on October 27, 2018. It retained the top spot on the chart for the week ending on November 3, 2018.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again" grossed $120.6 million in the United States and Canada, and $281.6 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $402.3 million, against a production budget of $75 million.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: In June 2018, three weeks prior to its release, official industry tracking had the film debuting to $27–33 million, which increased to as much as $36 million by the week of its release. It made $14.3 million on its first day, including $3.4 million from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $35 million, finishing second, behind fellow newcomer "The Equalizer 2" ($36 million), and besting the opening of the first film ($27.8 million) by over 24%. It fell 57% to $15.1 million in its second weekend, finishing second behind newcomer "". In its third weekend the film grossed $9 million, dropping to fourth place, and $5.8 million in its fourth weekend, finishing seventh.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: In the United Kingdom, the film grossed $12.7 million in its opening weekend, topping the box office and achieving the fourth biggest opening for a film in 2018. In its second weekend of international release, the film made $26.6 million (for a running total of $98.6 million). Its largest new markets were France ($1.7 million), Poland ($1.3 million), Switzerland ($223,000) and Croatia ($151,000), while its best holdovers were Australia ($9.5 million), the UK ($8.6 million) and Germany ($8.2 million). In the United Kingdom, the film was the second highest-grossing film of 2018, following "".


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, and an average of . The website's critical consensus reads, ""Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again" doubles down on just about everything fans loved about the original—and my my, how can fans resist it?" On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 60 out of 100 based on 46 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, the same score as its predecessor, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it an 83% overall positive score.


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" termed the sequel as "weirdly irresistible" and gave it three out of five stars. He described his reaction to the first film as "a combination of hives and bubonic plague," but concedes that this time, the relentlessness and greater self-aware comedy made him smile. He concludes: "More enjoyable than I thought. But please. Enough now." Mark Kermode of "The Observer" gave the film five stars and commented, "This slick sequel delivers sharp one-liners, joyously contrived plot twists and an emotional punch that left our critic reeling."


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" awarded the film two and a half stars out of five, noting the absence of Streep for the majority of the film hindered his enjoyment, and saying, "her absence is deeply felt since the three-time Oscar winner sang and danced her heart out as Donna Sheridan". Lindsay Bahr of "Associated Press" awarded the film three out of four stars, calling it "wholly ridiculous", but complimenting its self-awareness. She also praised James' performance and singing talent. Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the sequel a mixed review, awarding it two stars out of four, criticizing the reprises of "Dancing Queen" and "Super Trouper" as uninspired, and feeling that some of the musical numbers dragged the pacing. He considered the younger counterparts to the main characters "energetic" and "likeable." Stephanie Zacharek of "Time" gave the film a mixed review, writing ""Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again" is atrocious. And wonderful. It's all the reasons you should never go to the movies. And all the reasons you should race to get a ticket."


title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

text: In June 2020, Judy Craymer announced that a third film was in development, with the producer confirming that some of the new ABBA songs written for the band's reunion could feature in the soundtrack, although stating that the COVID-19 pandemic had caused delays with development of the project. After months of postponement, ABBA released their new album "Voyage" in November 2021.


title: BBK Electronics

text: BBK Electronics Corporation is a Chinese multinational conglomerate. The company specializes in developing consumer electronics products such as smartphones, tablet computers, smartwatches, smart TVs, Hi-Fi equipment, Blu-ray players, and digital cameras. It is one of the world's largest smartphone manufacturers.


title: BBK Electronics

text: Guangdong BBK Electronics Corporation limited was established on 18 September 1995, in Dongguan, Guangdong, China.


title: BBK Electronics

text: BBK Electronics Corporation is the parent company of Oppo and Vivo. Oppo's subsidiaries include OnePlus and Realme (a former sub-brand of Oppo). Vivo's subsidiaries include iQOO (a former sub-brand of Vivo). It also markets Blu-ray players, headphones, headphone amplifiers and smartwatches under Oppo Digital brand. In March 2019, BBK Electronics announced imoo as its newest member and also a performance sub-brand.


title: BBK Electronics

text: BBK Electronics' headquarters and production base are located in Chang'an, Dongguan. It is the biggest taxpayer in Chang'an.


title: BBK Electronics

text: In Q1 2017, BBK Electronics shipped 56.7 million smartphones, surpassing both Huawei and Apple to become the 2nd largest smartphone manufacturer in the world, just behind Samsung.


title: BBK Electronics

text: In 2020, the BBK series represented by Oppo announced its involvement in independent research and development of chips. Vivo also followed up to manufacture chips, mainly in cooperation with MediaTek.


title: BBK Electronics

text: As of October 2022, BBK Electronics' Chinese-market website redirects to its subsidiary, Guangdong Little Genius Limited Technology Corporation, a manufacturer of smartwatches marketed for children.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: The Merchant of Venice is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Although classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is most remembered for its dramatic scenes, and it is best known for the character Shylock and his famous demand for a "pound of flesh" in retribution. The play contains two famous speeches, that of Shylock, "Hath not a Jew eyes?" on the subject of humanity, and that of Portia on "the quality of mercy". Debate exists on whether the play is anti-Semitic, with Shylock's insistence on his legal right to the pound of flesh being in opposition to Shylock's seemingly universal plea for the rights of all people suffering discrimination.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Bassanio, a young Venetian of noble rank, wishes to woo the beautiful and wealthy heiress Portia of Belmont. Having squandered his estate, he needs 3,000 ducats to subsidise his expenditures as a suitor. Bassanio approaches his friend Antonio, a wealthy merchant of Venice, who has previously and repeatedly bailed him out. Antonio agrees, but since he is cash-poor – his ships and merchandise are busy at sea to Tripolis, the Indies, Mexico and England – he promises to cover a bond if Bassanio can find a lender, so Bassanio turns to the Jewish moneylender Shylock and names Antonio as the loan's guarantor.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Antonio has already antagonized Shylock through his outspoken antisemitism and because Antonio's habit of lending money without interest forces Shylock to charge lower rates. Shylock is at first reluctant to grant the loan, citing abuse he has suffered at Antonio's hand. He finally agrees to lend the sum to Bassanio without interest upon one condition: if Antonio were unable to repay it at the specified date, Shylock may take a pound of Antonio's flesh. Bassanio does not want Antonio to accept such a risky condition; Antonio is surprised by what he sees as the moneylender's generosity (no "usance" – interest – is asked for), and he signs the contract. With money in hand, Bassanio leaves for Belmont with his friend Gratiano, who has asked to accompany him. Gratiano is a likeable young man, but he is often flippant, overly talkative, and tactless. Bassanio warns his companion to exercise self-control, and the two leave for Belmont.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Meanwhile, in Belmont, Portia is awash with suitors. Her father left a will stipulating that each of her suitors must choose correctly from one of three caskets, made of gold, silver and lead respectively. Whoever picks the right casket wins Portia's hand. The first suitor, the Prince of Morocco, chooses the gold casket, interpreting its slogan, "Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire", as referring to Portia. The second suitor, the conceited Prince of Aragon, chooses the silver casket, which proclaims, "Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves", as he believes he is full of merit. Both suitors leave empty-handed, having rejected the lead casket because of the baseness of its material and the uninviting nature of its slogan, "Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath". The last suitor is Bassanio, whom Portia wishes to succeed, having met him before. As Bassanio ponders his choice, members of Portia's household sing a song that says that "fancy" (not true love) is "engend'red in the eyes, / With gazing fed"; Bassanio chooses the lead casket and wins Portia's hand.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: At Venice, Antonio's ships are reported lost at sea, so the merchant cannot repay the bond. Shylock has become more determined to exact revenge from Christians because his daughter Jessica eloped with the Christian Lorenzo and converted. She took a substantial amount of Shylock's wealth with her, as well as a turquoise ring which Shylock had been given by his late wife, Leah. Shylock has Antonio brought before court.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: At Belmont, Bassanio receives a letter telling him that Antonio has been unable to repay the loan from Shylock. Portia and Bassanio marry, as do Gratiano and Portia's handmaid Nerissa. Bassanio and Gratiano leave for Venice, with money from Portia, to save Antonio's life by offering the money to Shylock. Unknown to Bassanio and Gratiano, Portia sent her servant, Balthazar, to seek the counsel of Portia's cousin, Bellario, a lawyer, at Padua.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: The climax of the play is set in the court of the Duke of Venice. Shylock refuses Bassanio's offer of 6,000 ducats, twice the amount of the loan. He demands his pound of flesh from Antonio. The Duke, wishing to save Antonio but unable to nullify a contract, refers the case to a visitor. He identifies himself as Balthazar, a young male "doctor of the law", bearing a letter of recommendation to the Duke from the learned lawyer Bellario. The doctor is Portia in disguise, and the law clerk who accompanies her is Nerissa, also disguised as a man. As Balthazar, Portia in a famous speech repeatedly asks Shylock to show mercy, advising him that mercy "is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes" (Act IV, Sc 1, Line 185). However, Shylock adamantly refuses any compensations and insists on the pound of flesh.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: As the court grants Shylock his bond and Antonio prepares for Shylock's knife, Portia deftly appropriates Shylock's argument for "specific performance". She says that the contract allows Shylock to remove only the "flesh", not the blood, of Antonio (see quibble). Thus, if Shylock were to shed any drop of Antonio's blood, his "lands and goods" would be forfeited under Venetian laws. She tells him that he must cut precisely one pound of flesh, no more, no less; she advises him that "if the scale do turn, But in the estimation of a hair, Thou diest and all thy goods are confiscate."


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Defeated, Shylock consents to accept Bassanio's offer of money for the defaulted bond: first his offer to pay "the bond thrice", which Portia rebuffs, telling him to take his bond, and then merely the principal; but Portia also prevents him from doing this, on the ground that he has already refused it "in the open court". She cites a law under which Shylock, as a Jew and therefore an "alien", having attempted to take the life of a citizen, has forfeited his property, half to the government and half to Antonio, leaving his life at the mercy of the Duke. The Duke spares Shylock's life and says he may remit the forfeiture. Portia says the Duke may waive the state's share, but not Antonio's. Antonio says he is content that the state waive its claim to half Shylock's wealth if he can have his one-half share "in use" until Shylock's death, when the principal would be given to Lorenzo and Jessica. Antonio also asks that "for this favor" Shylock convert to Christianity and bequeath his entire estate to Lorenzo and Jessica. The Duke then threatens to recant his pardon of Shylock's life unless he accepts these conditions. Shylock, re-threatened with death, accepts with the words, "I am content." (IV, i).


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Bassanio does not recognise his disguised wife, but offers to give a present to the supposed lawyer. First she declines, but after he insists, Portia requests his ring and Antonio's gloves. Antonio parts with his gloves without a second thought, but Bassanio gives the ring only after much persuasion from Antonio, as earlier in the play he promised his wife never to lose, sell or give it. Nerissa, as the lawyer's clerk, succeeds in likewise retrieving her ring from Gratiano, who does not see through her disguise.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: At Belmont, Portia and Nerissa taunt and pretend to accuse their husbands before revealing they were really the lawyer and his clerk in disguise (V). After all the other characters make amends, Antonio learns from Portia that three of his ships were not stranded and have returned safely after all.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: The forfeit of a merchant's deadly bond after standing surety for a friend's loan was a common tale in England in the late 16th century. In addition, the test of the suitors at Belmont, the merchant's rescue from the "pound of flesh" penalty by his friend's new wife disguised as a lawyer, and her demand for the betrothal ring in payment are all elements present in the 14th-century tale "Il Pecorone" by Giovanni Fiorentino, which was published in Milan in 1558. Elements of the trial scene are also found in "The Orator" by Alexandre Sylvane, published in translation in 1596. The story of the three caskets can be found in "Gesta Romanorum", a collection of tales probably compiled at the end of the 13th century.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: The date of composition of "The Merchant of Venice" is believed to be between 1596 and 1598. The play was mentioned by Francis Meres in 1598, so it must have been familiar on the stage by that date. The title page of the first edition in 1600 states that it had been performed "divers times" by that date. Salerino's reference to his ship the "Andrew" (I, i, 27) is thought to be an allusion to the Spanish ship "St. Andrew," captured by the English at Cádiz in 1596. A date of 1596–97 is considered consistent with the play's style.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: The play was entered in the Register of the Stationers Company, the method at that time of obtaining copyright for a new play, by James Roberts on 22 July 1598 under the title "the Marchaunt of Venyce or otherwise called the Jewe of Venyce." On 28 October 1600 Roberts transferred his right to the play to the stationer Thomas Heyes; Heyes published the first quarto before the end of the year. It was printed again in 1619, as part of William Jaggard's so-called False Folio. (Later, Thomas Heyes' son and heir Laurence Heyes asked for and was granted a confirmation of his right to the play, on 8 July 1619.) The 1600 edition is generally regarded as being accurate and reliable. It is the basis of the text published in the 1623 First Folio, which adds a number of stage directions, mainly musical cues.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: The play is frequently staged today, but is potentially troubling to modern audiences because of its central themes, which can easily appear antisemitic. Critics today still continue to argue over the play's stance on the Jews and Judaism.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: English society in the Elizabethan and Jacobean era has been described as "judeophobic". English Jews had been expelled under Edward I in 1290 and were not permitted to return until 1656 under the rule of Oliver Cromwell. Poet John Donne, who was Dean of St Paul's Cathedral and a contemporary of Shakespeare, gave a sermon in 1624 perpetuating the Blood Libel – the entirely unsubstantiated antisemitic lie that Jews ritually murdered Christians to drink their blood and achieve salvation. In Venice and in some other places, Jews were required to wear a red hat at all times in public to make sure that they were easily identified, and had to live in a ghetto.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Shakespeare's play may be seen as a continuation of this tradition. The title page of the Quarto indicates that the play was sometimes known as "The Jew of Venice" in its day, which suggests that it was seen as similar to Marlowe's early 1590s work "The Jew of Malta". One interpretation of the play's structure is that Shakespeare meant to contrast the mercy of the main Christian characters with the Old Testament vengefulness of a Jew, who lacks the religious grace to comprehend mercy. Similarly, it is possible that Shakespeare meant Shylock's forced conversion to Christianity to be a "happy ending" for the character, as, to a Christian audience, it saves his soul and allows him to enter Heaven.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Regardless of what Shakespeare's authorial intent may have been, the play has been made use of by antisemites throughout the play's history. The Nazis used the usurious Shylock for their propaganda. Shortly after Kristallnacht in 1938, "The Merchant of Venice" was broadcast for propagandistic ends over the German airwaves. Productions of the play followed in Lübeck (1938), Berlin (1940), and elsewhere within the Nazi territory.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: In a series of articles called "Observer", first published in 1785, British playwright Richard Cumberland created a character named Abraham Abrahams, who is quoted as saying, "I verily believe the odious character of Shylock has brought little less persecution upon us, poor scattered sons of Abraham, than the Inquisition itself." Cumberland later wrote a successful play, "The Jew" (1794), in which his title character, Sheva, is portrayed sympathetically, as both a kindhearted and generous man. This was the first known attempt by a dramatist to reverse the negative stereotype that Shylock personified.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: The depiction of Jews in literature throughout the centuries bears the close imprint of Shylock. With slight variations much of English literature up until the 20th century depicts the Jew as "a monied, cruel, lecherous, avaricious outsider tolerated only because of his golden hoard".


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Many modern readers and theatregoers have read the play as a plea for tolerance, noting that Shylock is a sympathetic character. They cite as evidence that Shylock's "trial" at the end of the play is a mockery of justice, with Portia acting as a judge when she has no right to do so. The characters who berated Shylock for dishonesty resort to trickery in order to win. In addition to this Shakespeare gives Shylock one of his most eloquent speeches:


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: It is difficult to know whether the sympathetic reading of Shylock is entirely due to changing sensibilities among readersor whether Shakespeare, a writer who created complex, multi-faceted characters, deliberately intended this reading.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: One of the reasons for this interpretation is that Shylock's painful status in Venetian society is emphasised. To some critics, Shylock's celebrated "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech redeems him and even makes him into something of a tragic figure; in the speech, Shylock argues that he is no different from the Christian characters. Detractors note that Shylock ends the speech with a tone of revenge: "if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" Those who see the speech as sympathetic point out that Shylock says he learned the desire for revenge from the Christian characters: "If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction."


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Even if Shakespeare did not intend the play to be read this way, the fact that it retains its power on stage for audiences who may perceive its central conflicts in radically different terms is an illustration of the subtlety of Shakespeare's characterisations. In the trial Shylock represents what Elizabethan Christians believed to be the Jewish desire for "justice", contrasted with their obviously superior Christian value of mercy. The Christians in the courtroom urge Shylock to love his enemies, although they themselves have failed in the past. Jewish critic Harold Bloom suggests that, although the play gives merit to both cases, the portraits are not even-handed: "Shylock's shrewd indictment of Christian hypocrisy delights us, but ... Shakespeare's intimations do not alleviate the savagery of his portrait of the Jew..."


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Antonio's unexplained depression – "In sooth I know not why I am so sad" – and utter devotion to Bassanio has led some critics to theorise that he is suffering from unrequited love for Bassanio and is depressed because Bassanio is coming to an age where he will marry a woman. In his plays and poetry Shakespeare often depicted strong male bonds of varying homosociality, which has led some critics to infer that Bassanio returns Antonio's affections despite his obligation to marry:


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: In his essay "Brothers and Others", published in "The Dyer's Hand," W. H. Auden describes Antonio as "a man whose emotional life, though his conduct may be chaste, is concentrated upon a member of his own sex." Antonio's feelings for Bassanio are likened to a couplet from Shakespeare's "Sonnets": "But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,/ Mine be thy love, and my love's use their treasure." Antonio, says Auden, embodies the words on Portia's leaden casket: "Who chooseth me, must give and hazard all he hath." Antonio has taken this potentially fatal turn because he despairs, not only over the loss of Bassanio in marriage but also because Bassanio cannot requite what Antonio feels for him. Antonio's frustrated devotion is a form of idolatry: the right to live is yielded for the sake of the loved one. There is one other such idolator in the play: Shylock himself. "Shylock, however unintentionally, did, in fact, hazard all for the sake of destroying the enemy he hated, and Antonio, however unthinkingly he signed the bond, hazarded all to secure the happiness of the man he loved." Both Antonio and Shylock, agreeing to put Antonio's life at a forfeit, stand outside the normal bounds of society. There was, states Auden, a traditional "association of sodomy with usury", reaching back at least as far as Dante, with which Shakespeare was likely familiar. (Auden sees the theme of usury in the play as a comment on human relations in a mercantile society.)


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Other interpreters of the play regard Auden's conception of Antonio's sexual desire for Bassanio as questionable. Michael Radford, director of the 2004 film version starring Al Pacino, explained that, although the film contains a scene where Antonio and Bassanio actually kiss, the friendship between the two is platonic, in line with the prevailing view of male friendship at the time. Jeremy Irons, in an interview, concurs with the director's view and states that he did not "play Antonio as gay". Joseph Fiennes, however, who plays Bassanio, encouraged a homoerotic interpretation and, in fact, surprised Irons with the kiss on set, which was filmed in one take. Fiennes defended his choice, saying "I would never invent something before doing my detective work in the text. If you look at the choice of language ... you'll read very sensuous language. That's the key for me in the relationship. The great thing about Shakespeare and why he's so difficult to pin down is his ambiguity. He's not saying they're gay or they're straight, he's leaving it up to his actors. I feel there has to be a great love between the two characters ... there's great attraction. I don't think they have slept together but that's for the audience to decide."


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: The earliest performance of which a record has survived was held at the court of King James in the spring of 1605, followed by a second performance a few days later, but there is no record of any further performances in the 17th century. In 1701, George Granville staged a successful adaptation, titled "The Jew of Venice", with Thomas Betterton as Bassanio. This version (which featured a masque) was popular, and was acted for the next forty years. Granville cut the clownish Gobbos in line with neoclassical decorum; he added a jail scene between Shylock and Antonio, and a more extended scene of toasting at a banquet scene. Thomas Doggett was Shylock, playing the role comically, perhaps even farcically. Rowe expressed doubts about this interpretation as early as 1709; Doggett's success in the role meant that later productions would feature the troupe clown as Shylock.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: In 1741, Charles Macklin returned to the original text in a very successful production at Drury Lane, paving the way for Edmund Kean seventy years later (see below).


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Jewish actor Jacob Adler and others report that the tradition of playing Shylock sympathetically began in the first half of the 19th century with Edmund Kean, and that previously the role had been played "by a comedian as a repulsive clown or, alternatively, as a monster of unrelieved evil." Kean's Shylock established his reputation as an actor.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: From Kean's time forward, all of the actors who have famously played the role, with the exception of Edwin Booth, who played Shylock as a simple villain, have chosen a sympathetic approach to the character; even Booth's father, Junius Brutus Booth, played the role sympathetically. Henry Irving's portrayal of an aristocratic, proud Shylock (first seen at the Lyceum in 1879, with Portia played by Ellen Terry) has been called "the summit of his career". Jacob Adler was the most notable of the early 20th century: Adler played the role in Yiddish-language translation, first in Manhattan's Yiddish Theater District in the Lower East Side, and later on Broadway, where, to great acclaim, he performed the role in Yiddish in an otherwise English-language production.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Kean and Irving presented a Shylock justified in wanting his revenge; Adler's Shylock evolved over the years he played the role, first as a stock Shakespearean villain, then as a man whose better nature was overcome by a desire for revenge, and finally as a man who operated not from revenge but from pride. In a 1902 interview with "Theater" magazine, Adler pointed out that Shylock is a wealthy man, "rich enough to forgo the interest on three thousand ducats" and that Antonio is "far from the chivalrous gentleman he is made to appear. He has insulted the Jew and spat on him, yet he comes with hypocritical politeness to borrow money of him." Shylock's fatal flaw is to depend on the law, but "would he not walk out of that courtroom head erect, the very apotheosis of defiant hatred and scorn?"


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Some modern productions take further pains to show the sources of Shylock's thirst for vengeance. For instance, in the 2004 film adaptation directed by Michael Radford and starring Al Pacino as Shylock, the film begins with text and a montage of how Venetian Jews are cruelly abused by bigoted Christians. One of the last shots of the film also brings attention to the fact that, as a convert, Shylock would have been cast out of the Jewish community in Venice, no longer allowed to live in the ghetto. Another interpretation of Shylock and a vision of how "must he be acted" appears at the conclusion of the autobiography of Alexander Granach, a noted Jewish stage and film actor in Weimar Germany (and later in Hollywood and on Broadway).


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Edmond Haraucourt, French playwright and poet, was commissioned in the 1880s by the actor and theatrical director Paul Porel to make a French-verse adaptation of "The Merchant of Venice". His play "Shylock", first performed at the Théâtre de l'Odéon in December 1889, had incidental music by the French composer Gabriel Fauré, later incorporated into an orchestral suite of the same name.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Ralph Vaughan Williams' choral work "Serenade to Music" (1938) draws its text from the discussion about music and the music of the spheres in Act V, scene 1.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: In both versions of the comic film "To Be or Not to Be" (1942 and 1983) the character "Greenberg", specified as a Jew in the later version, gives a recitation of the "Hath Not a Jew eyes?" speech to Nazi soldiers.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: The rock musical "Fire Angel" was based on the story of the play, with the scene changed to the Little Italy district of New York. It was performed in Edinburgh in 1974 and in a revised form at Her Majesty's Theatre, London, in 1977. Braham Murray directed.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Arnold Wesker's play "The Merchant" (1976) is a reimagining of Shakespeare's story. In this retelling, Shylock and Antonio are friends and share a disdain for the crass anti-Semitism of the Christian community's laws.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: David Henry Wilson's play "Shylock's Revenge", was first produced at the University of Hamburg in 1989, and follows the events in "The Merchant of Venice". In this play Shylock gets his wealth back and becomes a Jew again.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: The "Star Trek" franchise sometimes quote and paraphrase Shakespeare, including "The Merchant of Venice". One example is the Shakespeare-aficionado Chang in "" (1991), a Klingon, who quotes Shylock.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List" (1993) depicts SS Lieutenant Amon Göth quoting Shylock's "Hath Not a Jew eyes?" speech when deciding whether to rape his Jewish maid.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: In David Fincher's 1995 crime thriller "Seven", a lawyer, Eli Gould, is coerced to remove a pound of his own flesh and place it on a scale, alluding to the play.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: The German Belmont Prize was established in 1997, referring to 'Belmont' as "a place of destiny where Portia's intelligence is at home." The eligibility for the award is encapsulated by the inscription on the play's lead casket, "Who chooses me must give and hazard all he hath."


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: One of the four short stories comprising Alan Isler's "The Bacon Fancier" (1999) is also told from Shylock's point of view. In this story, Antonio was a converted Jew.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: "The Pianist" is a 2002 film based on a memoir by Władysław Szpilman. In this film, Henryk Szpilman reads Shylock's "Hath Not a Jew eyes?" speech to his brother Władysław in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Nazi occupation in World War II.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Christopher Moore combines "The Merchant of Venice" and "Othello" in his 2014 comic novel "The Serpent of Venice", in which he makes Portia (from "The Merchant of Venice") and Desdemona (from "Othello") sisters. All of the characters come from those two plays with the exception of Jeff (a monkey); the gigantic simpleton Drool; and Pocket, the Fool, who comes from Moore's earlier novel "Fool", based on "King Lear".


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Naomi Alderman's "The Wolf in the Water" is a radio-play first broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2016. The play continues the story of Shylock's daughter Jessica, who lives in an anti-semitic Venice and practices her Jewish faith in secret. Part of the BBC's Shakespeare Festival, the play also marked that 500 years had passed since the Venetian Ghetto was instituted.


title: The Merchant of Venice

text: Sarah B. Mantell's "Everything that Never Happened" is a play first produced in 2017 at the Yale School of Drama. Similar to "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", the play occurs in the gaps between scenes of the canonical "The Merchant of Venice", with the characters gradually recognizing how conflicts over assimilation and anti-Semitism recur throughout past, present, and future.


title: Natalie Portman filmography

text: Natalie Portman is an actress and filmmaker with dual Israeli and American citizenship. She made her film debut in Luc Besson's action thriller "", which starred her as the young protégée of a hitman. She followed this by appearing in Michael Mann's crime thriller "Heat" (1995), Ted Demme's romantic comedy "Beautiful Girls" (1996), and Tim Burton's science fiction comedy "Mars Attacks!" (1996). Three years later, her supporting role as the precocious, responsible daughter of a narcissistic mother played by Susan Sarandon in the drama "Anywhere but Here" earned Portman her first Golden Globe Award nomination. In the same year, she played Padmé Amidala in the first of the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy "", which brought her international recognition. She reprised the role in its sequels "" (2002), and "" (2005).


title: Natalie Portman filmography

text: For her performance as a stripper in Mike Nichols' romantic drama "Closer" (2004), she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture, and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Two years later Portman portrayed vigilante Evey Hammond in the political thriller "V for Vendetta" for which she won the Saturn Award for Best Actress. In the same year, she hosted "Saturday Night Live". In 2009, she starred as an adulteress in "The Other Woman", which she also executively produced. In 2010, Portman's performance as a mentally tortured ballerina in Darren Aronofsky's psychological horror "Black Swan" won her the Academy Award for Best Actress, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.


title: Natalie Portman filmography

text: In 2011, she appeared in the comedies "No Strings Attached" and "Your Highness". In the same year, Portman also played Jane Foster, the titular superhero's scientist girlfriend in "Thor". She reprised the role in its sequels "" (2013) and "" (2022), she also reprised the role in "" (2019). In 2015, she starred in Terrence Malick's romantic drama "Knight of Cups", and made her feature film directorial debut with "A Tale of Love and Darkness", an adaptation of Amos Oz's autobiographical novel of the same name; she also starred in the film. The following year, Portman portrayed Jacqueline Kennedy in the biographical drama "Jackie", for which she received nominations for Best Actress at the BAFTA Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and Academy Awards. In 2018, Portman starred in the science fiction horror film "Annihilation", and the drama "Vox Lux".


title: Linda Tripp

text: Linda Rose Tripp (née Carotenuto; November 24, 1949 – April 8, 2020) was an American civil servant who played a prominent role in the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal of 1998. Tripp's action in illegally and secretly recording Monica Lewinsky's confidential phone calls about her relationship with President Bill Clinton caused a sensation with their links to the earlier "Clinton v. Jones" lawsuit and with the disclosing of intimate details. Tripp claimed that her motives were purely patriotic, and she avoided a wiretap charge by agreeing to hand over the tapes.


title: Linda Tripp

text: She later claimed that her firing from the Pentagon at the end of the Clinton administration was vindictive, but the administration called it standard procedure for a political appointee.


title: Linda Tripp

text: From 2002, Tripp and her husband, Dieter Rausch, owned and ran a year-round holiday store, The Christmas Sleigh, in Middleburg, Virginia.


title: Linda Tripp

text: Tripp was born Linda Rose Carotenuto in Jersey City, New Jersey. She was the daughter of Albert Carotenuto, a high school math and science teacher, and his wife, Inge, a German woman whom he had met while he was an American soldier stationed in Germany. They divorced in 1968, after he had an affair with a fellow teacher. She graduated from Hanover Park High School in East Hanover, New Jersey in 1968 and then worked as a secretary in Army Intelligence at Fort Meade, Maryland. In 1971, she married Bruce Tripp, a military officer with whom she had a son and a daughter. They divorced in 1990.


title: Linda Tripp

text: A White House employee in the George H. W. Bush administration, she kept her job when Bill Clinton became president in 1993. Later, she was moved to a position in the White House Counsel's office under Bernard Nussbaum and his deputy Vince Foster During the summer of 1994, senior White House aides wanted Tripp removed from the White House and transferred her to the public affairs office in the Pentagon, which raised her salary by $20,000.


title: Linda Tripp

text: Tripp became a close confidante of Monica Lewinsky, another former White House employee, while both were working in the Pentagon's public affairs office. According to Tripp, who was about 24 years older than Lewinsky, they had known each other for a year and a half before the scandal began to reach its critical stage. After Lewinsky revealed to Tripp that she had been in a physical relationship with Clinton, Tripp, acting on the advice of the literary agent Lucianne Goldberg, began secretly recording phone conversations with Lewinsky and encouraging Lewinsky to document details of her relationship with the president.


title: Linda Tripp

text: In August 1997, Michael Isikoff from "Newsweek" reported that Tripp said that she had encountered Kathleen Willey coming out of the Oval Office "disheveled" and that "her face red and her lipstick was off." Willey alleged that Clinton groped her. Clinton's lawyer Robert S. Bennett said in the "Newsweek" article, "Linda Tripp is not to be believed."


title: Linda Tripp

text: In January 1998, Tripp gave the tapes to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Tripp disclosed to Starr that she was aware of the relationship between Lewinsky and Clinton, that Lewinsky had submitted a false affidavit denying the relationship to the federal court in Arkansas in the "Clinton v. Jones" lawsuit, and that Lewinsky had attempted to suborn Tripp's perjury in that suit to conceal what she knew of the Clinton–Lewinsky relationship and of Kathleen Willey from the federal court. As Tripp explained, she was being solicited to commit a crime to conceal evidence in the Jones civil rights case. Jones' lawsuit, initially filed in April 1994 through her attorneys Joseph Cammarata and Gilbert K. Davis, eventually resulted in the landmark US Supreme Court decision in "Clinton v. Jones" that held that sitting US presidents do not have immunity against civil lawsuits for acts done before they take office that are unrelated to the office.


title: Linda Tripp

text: Tripp also informed Starr of the existence of a navy blue dress that Lewinsky owned that was soiled with Clinton's semen. During their friendship, Lewinsky had shown the dress to Tripp and said she intended to have it dry-cleaned. Tripp convinced her not to have it cleaned.


title: Linda Tripp

text: Based on Tripp's tapes, Starr obtained approval from Attorney General Janet Reno and the special court overseeing the independent counsel to expand Starr's investigation into the Clinton–Lewinsky relationship, look for potential incidents of perjury, and investigate Lewinsky for perjury and suborning perjury as a witness in the lawsuit that Paula Jones had brought against Clinton.


title: Linda Tripp

text: Eventually, both Clinton and Lewinsky had to appear before a grand jury to answer questions, but Clinton appeared via closed circuit television. At the conclusion of Lewinsky's interrogation, the jurors offered Lewinsky the chance to offer any last words. She said, "I hate Linda Tripp."


title: Linda Tripp

text: Tripp was a resident of Hickory Ridge, Columbia, Maryland, while she made her surreptitious recordings of the conversations with Lewinsky, and 49 Democrats in the Maryland Legislature signed a letter to the state prosecutor to demand for Tripp to be prosecuted under Maryland's wiretap law. Before the trial, the state court ruled that because of the immunity agreements that the independent counsel's office had entered with Tripp, Lewinsky, and others, a substantial amount of the evidence that the prosecution had intended to use was inadmissible.


title: Linda Tripp

text: At a pre-trial hearing, the prosecution called Lewinsky as a witness to try to establish if her testimony against Tripp was untainted by the independent counsel's investigation. However, the Maryland state court ruled that Lewinsky, who "admitted that she lied under oath in a federal proceeding and has stated that lying has been a part of her life," was not credible and that Lewinsky's proposed testimony against Tripp was "bathed in impermissible taint." As a result, all charges against Tripp were dismissed on May 26, 2000, when the prosecution decided not to proceed with the trial of the case.


title: Linda Tripp

text: Tripp had been arrested in 1969 when she was 19 years old in Greenwood Lake, New York, on charges of stealing $263 in cash as well as a wristwatch worth about $600. The charges were dismissed before they could come to trial. Years later, Tripp answered "no" to the question "Have you ever been either charged or arrested for a crime?" on her form for a US Department of Defense security clearance. In March 1998, shortly before Tripp was scheduled to appear before the grand jury in the Lewinsky investigation, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Kenneth Bacon and his deputy, Clifford Bernath, leaked how Tripp had answered that question to Jane Mayer of "The New Yorker". The Department of Defense then leaked other confidential information from Tripp's personnel and security files to the news media. The Department of Defense inspector general investigated the leaks and found that Bacon and Bernath had violated the Privacy Act of 1974. The US Department of Defense inspector general concluded that both Bacon and Bernath should have known that the release of information from Tripp's security file was improper.


title: Linda Tripp

text: On January 19, 2001, the last full day of the Clinton administration, Tripp was fired from her job in the Pentagon. She claimed that the firing was vindictive, but the Clinton administration said that all political appointees such as Tripp are normally asked to submit their resignation when a new administration takes over. Those who refuse to do so may be fired.


title: Linda Tripp

text: Tripp sued the US Department of Defense and the US Department of Justice for releasing information from her security file and employment file to the news media in violation of the Privacy Act of 1974. On November 3, 2003, Tripp reached a settlement with the federal government. The settlement included a one-time payment of more than $595,000; a retroactive promotion; and retroactive pay at the highest salary for 1998, 1999, and 2000. She also received a pension and was cleared to work for the federal government again. Her rights to remain part of a class action against the government were preserved.


title: Linda Tripp

text: Tripp married the German architect Dieter Rausch in 2004. The couple lived in Middleburg, Virginia, where they owned and operated a German winter-themed holiday store, called the Christmas Sleigh.


title: Linda Tripp

text: In an appearance with Larry King on "Larry King Live" on December 1, 2003, Tripp talked about living with breast cancer. On the subject of her successful invasion of privacy lawsuit against the federal government, Tripp said she actually came out behind financially because of attorneys' fees and the derailment of her government career. She also said her violations of Lewinsky's privacy and the Clinton administration's violations of her privacy were not equivalent, as the Clinton administration's leaking of her employment history was illegal. She noted that although her wiretapping was also illegal, she was able to avoid prosecution for such by accepting immunity in exchange for her testimony.


title: Linda Tripp

text: In 2018, Tripp said that "she was the victim of 'a real high-tech lynching'" (referencing a statement by Clarence Thomas made in 1991).


title: Linda Tripp

text: Tripp was portrayed by John Goodman in recurring "Saturday Night Live" sketches. Tripp had mixed feelings about the impression, saying she enjoyed most of the sketches, but mentioning that at least one had hurt her feelings.


title: Linda Tripp

text: Tripp was portrayed by Sarah Paulson in the television series "," which premiered on September 7, 2021, on FX.


title: Heavy water

text: Heavy water (deuterium oxide, ', ') is a form of water that contains only deuterium ( or D, also known as "heavy hydrogen") rather than the common hydrogen-1 isotope ( or H, also called "protium") that makes up most of the hydrogen in normal water. The presence of the heavier hydrogen isotope gives the water different nuclear properties, and the increase in mass gives it slightly different physical and chemical properties when compared to normal water.


title: Heavy water

text: Deuterium is a hydrogen isotope with a nucleus containing a neutron and a proton; the nucleus of a protium (normal hydrogen) atom consists of just a proton. The additional neutron makes a deuterium atom roughly twice as heavy as a protium atom.


title: Heavy water

text: A molecule of heavy water has two deuterium atoms in place of the two protium atoms of ordinary "light" water. The term heavy water as defined by the IUPAC Gold Book can also refer to water in which a higher than usual proportion of hydrogen atoms are deuterium rather than protium. For comparison, ordinary water (the "ordinary water" used for a deuterium standard) contains only about 156 deuterium atoms per million hydrogen atoms, meaning that 0.0156% of the hydrogen atoms are of the heavy type. Thus heavy water as defined by the Gold Book includes hydrogen-deuterium oxide (HDO) and other mixtures of , , and HDO in which the proportion of deuterium is greater than usual. For instance, the heavy water used in CANDU reactors is a highly enriched water mixture that contains mostly deuterium oxide , but also some hydrogen-deuterium oxide (HDO) and a smaller amount of ordinary hydrogen oxide . It is 99.75% enriched by hydrogen atom-fraction—meaning that 99.75% of the hydrogen atoms are of the heavy type; however, heavy water in the Gold Book sense need not be so highly enriched. The weight of a heavy water molecule, however, is not substantially different from that of a normal water molecule, because about 89% of the molecular weight of water comes from the single oxygen atom rather than the two hydrogen atoms.


title: Heavy water

text: Heavy water is not radioactive. In its pure form, it has a density about 11% greater than water, but is otherwise physically and chemically similar. Nevertheless, the various differences in deuterium-containing water (especially affecting the biological properties) are larger than in any other commonly occurring isotope-substituted compound because deuterium is unique among heavy stable isotopes in being twice as heavy as the lightest isotope. This difference increases the strength of water's hydrogen–oxygen bonds, and this in turn is enough to cause differences that are important to some biochemical reactions. The human body naturally contains deuterium equivalent to about five grams of heavy water, which is harmless. When a large fraction of water (> 50%) in higher organisms is replaced by heavy water, the result is cell dysfunction and death.


title: Heavy water

text: Heavy water was first produced in 1932, a few months after the discovery of deuterium. With the discovery of nuclear fission in late 1938, and the need for a neutron moderator that captured few neutrons, heavy water became a component of early nuclear energy research. Since then, heavy water has been an essential component in some types of reactors, both those that generate power and those designed to produce isotopes for nuclear weapons. These heavy water reactors have the advantage of being able to run on natural uranium without using graphite moderators that pose radiological and dust explosion hazards in the decommissioning phase. The graphite moderated Soviet RBMK design tried to avoid using either enriched uranium "or" heavy water (being cooled with ordinary "light" water instead) which produced the positive void coefficient that was one of a series of flaws in reactor design leading to the Chernobyl disaster. Most modern reactors use enriched uranium with ordinary water as the moderator.