Folk-Tales of Napoleon

Folk-Tales of Napoleon - Napoleonder from the Russian; The Napoleon of the People from the French of Honoré De Balzac

Most of the literature that has its origin in the life and career of a great man may be grouped and classified under two heads: history and biography. The part that relates to the man's actions, and to the influence that such actions have had in shaping the destinies of peoples and states, belongs in the one class; while the part that derives its interest mainly from the man's personality, and deals chiefly with the mental and moral characteristics of which his actions were the outcome, goes properly into the other. The value of the literature included in these two classes depends almost wholly upon truth; that is, upon the precise correspondence of the statements made with the real facts of the man's life and career. History is worse than useless if it does not accurately chronicle and describe events; and biography is valueless and misleading if it does not truly set forth individual character. There is, however, a kind of great-man literature in which truth is comparatively unimportant, and that is the literature of popular legend and tradition. Whether it purports to be historical or biographical, or both, it derives its interest and value from the light that it throws upon the temperament and character of the people who originate it, rather than from the amount of truth contained in the statements that it makes about the man. The folk-tales of Napoleon Bonaparte herewith presented, if judged from the viewpoint of the historian or the biographer, are absurdly and grotesquely untrue; but to the anthropologist and the student of human nature they are extremely valuable as self-revelations of national character; and even to the historian and the biographer they have some interest as evidences of the profoundly deep impression made by Napoleon's personality upon two great peoplesthe Russians and the French. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 11278
Author: Amfiteatrov, Aleksandr
Release Date: Feb 1, 2004
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Contributor (Author): Balzac, Honoré de, 1799-1850


Translator: Kennan, George, 1845-1924