The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 08: Convent

Casanova, Giacomo, 1725-1798Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.1
Word count
175K words
Chapters
18

Tags

English Originals General Biography Religious SocietySocial PanoramaPersonal LegendHidden PastRomantic TalesMemoirSelf-Reflection18th Century EuropeConvent LifeSocial Observation

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 08: ConventAuthor: Casanova, Giacomo, 1725-1798,Language: English, Class: D: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere, Release Date: Dec 10, 2004

Editor's review

This volume is the eighth installment of Casanova's memoirs, its title pointing to convent scenes and continuing the first-person narrative, presenting a complex picture of eighteenth-century Europe where religious settings and secular life intertwine. Its value lies in refracting the social norms, gender relations, and religious environment of the time through personal experience, offering evocative material for understanding the everyday history of early modern Europe. As a public-domain electronic text, it is easy to search and cite, but it lacks modern editorial annotation, and the narrative's subjectivity and period limitations are pronounced. It is suitable for readers interested in autobiographical literature and eighteenth-century European society and culture. It is best read within the context of the entire memoirs, with attention to distinguishing the author's personal perspective from historical fact and to understanding the multiple functions of the convent in the society of the time in light of relevant background materials.

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Reading tips

  1. First understand this volume's place in the chronology of the whole memoirs, then move on to specific chapters.
  2. As you read, note the different figures who appear in the convent scenes and trace their relationships.
  3. Consult background material on eighteenth-century European religion and society to understand the institutional environment behind the scenes.
  4. Read in comparison with other volumes to observe changes in the author's narrative perspective and selection of material.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18

FAQ

What exactly does "Convent" in Volume 08 refer to? "Convent" in English can mean a monastery or the residence of a religious community. The title of this volume points to convent-related scenes, but the specific content must be judged by the original narrative. Readers should not infer the book's theme from the title alone and should understand it in light of the actual text.
Is this book suitable as an introduction to monastic institutions? Not really. The memoirs offer evocative material from a personal perspective, not a systematic introduction to institutional history. To understand monastic institutions, choose specialized historical studies and use this book as supplementary reading for the atmosphere of the period.
Do public-domain English e-books have annotations? Project Gutenberg public-domain e-books generally present the original text, with few modern scholarly annotations. When readers encounter unfamiliar people, places, or institutions, they need to consult reference works or relevant research materials themselves.
How can one distinguish the author's narrative from historical fact while reading? Read the memoirs as a text about "how the author tells his own story," noting his selective memory, exaggeration, and period prejudices. For key events, look for corroboration in other historical sources and avoid treating a single narrative as definitive.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Casanova, Giacomo, 1725-1798 Author

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) is known to the world for his autobiographical memoirs, The Story of My Life. This database holds forty of his works, most of them complete or partial editions of those memoirs, including volumes on his Venetian years and on his time in Paris and London, as well as one volume recounting his encounters with Voltaire. Written in the first person, these texts describe his travels across Europe, his social life and his romantic experiences in a candid, lively style rich in detail, and they are valued both as personal confession and as a record of eighteenth-century social customs. The memoirs have long been regarded as a distinctive work of autobiographical literature, offering readers a vivid picture of urban life and social culture in contemporary Europe. Because public information is limited, details of his biography cannot be firmly established; this entry therefore presents his writing solely on the basis of the works themselves, which are commonly classified as inspirational and personal-growth reading.