Devastating Beauty

Ever since she was young, she had disguised herself as a man, and at the age of ten, she was repudiated by the heavens and earth. At the age of fourteen, she was bestowed with the name of a king, and was given the name of the king. Accept his fate? Accept your fate! Why not? You all regard yourself as the fiend of a country who lost. You all agreed to the words of heaven's will and were defeated by you all! The people of the world viewed him as a bloodthirsty demon, and thus, he had conformed to the will of the world and slaughtered him for the people of the world to see! So what if he was a monster? In this world of extreme flames, it was called the Burning Fire Cave. She grew up in the Burning Fire Cave, and after going through countless hardships, she created a peerless martial art called the Raging Flames Soul. The coldest place in the world was called the Valley of Ice. He grew up in the Valley of Ice, and after experiencing countless hardships, he created a peerless martial art called the Breaking Ice Soul. Wishing? This King never makes a wish! Only those who are incompetent will have a wish. Everything This King asks for, will be given to you! For example ... It commanded the whole world to be in chaos, to prostrate themselves within the Six Paths. He was the complete opposite of her, yet so similar! Ice and fire mutually restrained each other. Were those two fated to fall in love and kill each other as well? He had come from the nine heavens to descend into the mortal world. He was originally an unintentional person without desire or desire, and that person named Cang Qu had overturned the very essence of his life. Before I met you, I was unreal, but now, you are my unreal self! Bloody saffron, the love of this life, how could she let him? He was a man of martial arts, a man of great stature. He was the world's greatest tyrant ... Join Collection

From an Existential Vacuum to a Tragic Optimism: The Search for Meaning and the Presence of God in Modern Literature employs a new theoretical approach to critical analysis: Victor Frankl’s logotherapy (from the Greek “logos” for word or reason and often related to divine wisdom), a unique form of existentialism. On the basis of his observations of the power of human endurance and transcendence – the discovery of meaning even in the midst of harrowing circumstances – Frankl diagnoses the malaise of the current age as an “existential vacuum,” a sense of meaninglessness. He suggests that a panacea for this malaise may be found in creativity, love, and moral choice – even when faced with suffering or death. He affirms that human beings may transcend this vacuum, discover meaning – or even ultimate meaning to be found in Ultimate Being, or God – and live with a sense of “tragic optimism.” This book observes both the current age’s “existential vacuum” – a malaise of emptiness and meaninglessness – and its longing for meaning and God as reflected in three genres: poetry, novel, and fantasy. Part I, “Reflections of God in the Poetic Vision,” addresses “tragic optimism” – hope when there seems to be no reason for hope – in poems by William Butler Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Part II, “American Angst: Emptiness and Possibility in John Steinbeck’s Major Novels,” presents a study of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and The Winter of Our Discontent – novels that together form a uniquely American epic trilogy. Together these novels tell the story of a nation’s avarice, corruption, and betrayal offset by magnanimity, heroism, and hospitality. Set against the backdrop of Frankl’s ways of finding meaning and fulfillment – all obliquely implying the felt presence of God – the characters are representative Every Americans, in whose lives are reflected a nation’s worst vices and best hopes. Part III, “A Tragic Optimism: The Triumph of Good in the Fantasy Worlds of Tolkien, Lewis, and Rowling,” defines fantasy and science fiction as mirrors with which to view reality. J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, C. S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength, and J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series are considered in the light of Frankl’s logotherapy – providing paths to meaning and the ultimate meaning to be found in God. In a postmodern, fragmented age, these works affirm a continuing vision of God (often through His felt absence) and, also, a most human yearning for meaning even when there seems to be none – providing, as Frankl maintains, “a tragic optimism.”

Wonder, Horror, Mystery is a dialogue between two friends, both notable arts critics, that takes the form of a series of letters about movies and religion. One of the friends, J.M. Tyree, is a film critic, creative writer, and agnostic, while the other, Morgan Meis, is a philosophy PhD, art critic, and practicing Catholic. The question of cinema is raised here in a spirit of friendly friction that binds the personal with the critical and the spiritual. What is film? What's it for? What does it do? Why do we so intensely love or hate films that dare to broach the subjects of the divine and the diabolical? These questions stimulate further thoughts about life, meaning, philosophy, absurdity, friendship, tragedy, humor, death, and God. The letters focus on three filmmakers who challenged secular assumptions in the late 20th century and early 21st century through various modes of cinematic re-enchantment: Terrence Malick, Lars von Trier, and Krzysztof Kieślowski. The book works backwards in time, giving intensive analysis to Malick's To The Wonder (2012), Von Trier's Antichrist (2009), and Kieślowski's Dekalog (1988), respectively, in each of the book's three sections. Meis and Tyree discuss the filmmakers and films as well as related ideas about philosophy, theology, and film theory in an accessible but illuminating way. The discussion ranges from the shamelessly intellectual to the embarrassingly personal. Spoiler alert: No conclusions are reached either about God or the movies. Nonetheless, it is a fun ride.

With the great merit of Aristotle's Poetics , poetic logic became a theoretical activity endowed with a philosophical nature allowing it to be more philosophical than the pure representation of existence. Today, however, the theoretical status of poetic logic has been greatly demoted. The Angel's Corpse restores to poetic logic (or lyric philosophy) the cognitive and epistemological significance attributed to it by Aristotle. The Angel's corpse (the central metaphor in this restoration) is a sign-post beyond which there exists an uncharted terrain of human signification. This terrain is expressed in terms of lyric philosophy and its universal trait is a shocking into reawakening, which is linked to the dissolution of the repetitive logic of history. With this book, Colilli aims to bring to life the traits that are close to the Angel and which amount to a new philosophy of culture and interpretation. This philosophy is free from the ideological burden of previous systems, but pivots its cognito-epistemological premises on the idea of reawakening.

A talented bodyguard entering the city, facing the flirtatious young miss of the Wealthy Class, he says that if I don't go to hell, whoever goes to hell, I will take this seductress! In the face of such an overbearing opponent, he used his hot-blooded iron fist to trample his opponent beneath his feet. A dragon is a dragon, he said.

Love yourself. Love the planet. We are facing an urgent climate crisis and we must all take action now. However, it can be difficult to know where to start when bombarded with overwhelming facts and statistics every day. We all want to make a difference, but what can we do? Minimal makes simple and sustainable living attainable for everyone, using practical tips for all areas of everyday life to reduce your impact on the earth. Leading environmentalist Madeleine Olivia shares her insights on how to care for yourself in a more eco-friendly way, as well as how to introduce a mindful approach to your habits. This includes how to declutter your life, reduce your waste and consumption, recipes for eating seasonally and making your own natural beauty and cleaning products. Learn how to minimise the areas that aren’t giving you anything back and discover a happier and more fulfilled life, while looking after the Earth we share.

Ludwig Wittgenstein loved movies, and based on his remarks on watching them, there is a strong connection between his experience of watching films and his thoughts on aesthetics. Furthermore, however, Wittgenstein himself has been invoked in recent cinema. Wittgenstein at the Movies is centered on in-depth explorations of two intriguing experimental films on Wittgenstein: Derek Jarman's Wittgenstein and PZter ForgOcs' Wittgenstein Tractatus. The featured essays look at cinematic interpretations of Wittgenstein's life and philosophy in a manner bound to provoke the lively interest of Wittgenstein scholars, film theorists, and students of film aesthetics. As well, the book engages a broader audience concerned with philosophical issues about film and Wittgenstein's cultural significance, with the world of fin-de-si_cle Vienna, of Cambridge in the first half of the twentieth century, of artistic modernism.

The Letters of Thom Gunn presents the first complete portrait of the private life, reflections, and relationships of a maverick figure in the history of British and American poetry. “I write about love, I write about friendship,” remarked Thom Gunn. “I find that they are absolutely intertwined.” These core values permeate his correspondence with friends, family, lovers, and fellow poets, and they shed new light on “one of the most singular and compelling poets in English during the past half-century” (Hugh Haughton, The Times Literary Supplement). The Letters of Thom Gunn, edited by August Kleinzahler, Michael Nott, and Clive Wilmer, reveals the evolution of Gunn’s work and illuminates the fascinating life that informed his poems: his struggle to come to terms with his mother’s suicide; settling in San Francisco and his complex relationship with England; his changing relationship with his life partner, Mike Kitay; the LSD trips that led to his celebrated collection Moly (1971); and the deaths of friends from AIDS that inspired the powerful, unsparing elegies of The Man with Night Sweats (1992).