Search results for ""Author John Milton""

THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR An expansive biography of John Milton, including an assessment of his poetry and prose and an account of the ways in which he has been presented over the past three and a half centuries—written by a leading scholar in the fieldIt is hard to overstate the role that John Milton played in the historical, political and literary controversies of seventeenth century England; his writings and very life challenged the status quo. Living through one of the most tumultuous periods in British history, Milton was involved at every turn. Struggling to reconcile his private beliefs with his involvement with a radical political experiment, a republic which involved the killing of the monarch, his star rose and fell several times during his life. Married three times, struck blind at a cruelly early age, he was a famed pamphleteer and political activist whose revolutionary political credos placed him in mortal danger after the Restoration. Milton’s varied life makes for fascinating reading but it also produced some of the most important poetry in the English language. Paradise Lost, the only poem in English recognized as an epic, challenged conventional thinking on widespread topics from religion and gender equality to the fundamental question of why we behave as we do.This fascinating new biography is divided into two parts. The first separates the man from the myth, and elucidates the complicated details of Milton’s life from his early years as a literary artist uncertain of his destiny, through his work as a propagandist for the Cromwellian republic, to his rewriting of the Old Testament story of the Fall as a poetic allegory of more recent history. The second looks at how biographers and critics from the seventeenth century to the present day have distorted and manipulated the personality of Milton to suit their biases. Balancing accessibility with academic rigor, this volume: Examines the significant aspects of Milton’s life and work, including his poetry and prose, his government writings, his travels, and his final years Explores Milton’s Protestant and republican influences in Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and his other literary works Highlights the differences and similarities between Milton’s poetry and political prose Follows the history of biographical and critical presentations of Milton from the seventeenth century onwards, including his adoption as a hero of Romanticism and his survival in the twentieth century as, allegedly, a sceptical humanist Addresses modern critiques of Milton in Marxism, Feminism, and other branches of Theory The Life of the Author: John Milton. Poet and Revolutionary is essential reading for undergraduate and graduate students, university lecturers, and academic researchers in relevant fields, particularly seventeenth century poetry and history, as well as literary biography and the history of criticism.

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John Milton was celebrated and denounced in his own time both as a poet and as a polemicist. Today he is remembered first and foremost for his poetry, but his great epic Paradise Lost was published very late in his life, in 1667, and in his own time most readers more readily recognised Milton as a writer of prose. This superbly annotated new book is an authoritative edition of Milton's major prose works, including Of Education, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates and the Divorce tracts, as well as the famous 1644 polemical tract on the opposing licensing and censorship, Areopagitica.

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Reviled as a regicide, isolated in a personal darkness, and aging, John Milton did not relinquish his voice. He somehow used that tireless voice, rather, to create Paradise Lost, one of the enduring masterpieces of English literature. Despite its difficulties-idiosyncratic syntax, densely packed ideas, capacious structure, and epic form-the poem still has the power to dislodge modern readers from our ordinary habits of reading and push us to experience new perspectives and new ideas. This new edition, based on the 1674 text, guides readers through the poem's interpretive challenges with a compact but thorough introduction and a readable and helpfully annotated text. Illuminating contextual materials, including related works by Milton, classical and biblical sources, material on the composition of the poem, and illustrations of Paradise Lost from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries, are also included.

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Blake engaged with the legacy of Milton all his life. These watercolours, made around 1816-20 to illustrate the most perfect of Milton's shorter poems, are some of the finest of all his works. All 12 watercolours are reproduced here in actual size.

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John Milton was a master of almost every type of verse, from the classical to the religious and from the lyrical to the epic. His early poems include the devotional 'On the Morning of Christ's Nativity', 'Comus', a masque, and the pastoral elegy 'Lycidas'. After Cromwell's death and the dashing of Milton's political hopes, he began composing Paradise Lost, which reflects his profound understanding of politics and power. Written when Milton was at the height of his abilities, this great masterpiece fuses the Christian with the classical in its description of the fall of Man. In Samson Agonistes, Milton's last work, the poet draws a parallel with his own life in the hero's struggle to renew his faith in God.

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In one volume. The classic defense of intellectual liberty and the freedom to publish, and Milton's plan for training rulers to be fit to govern. Also includes three autobiographical passages from other prose works. Edited by George H. Sabine, who provides a short introduction, this edition also contains a list of principal dates in the life of Milton and a bibliography.

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John Milton (1608-1674) ofreció a su público en 1671 un juego sutil de contrastes y de ecos entre El Paraíso recobrado y Sansón Agonista al agruparlos en un mismo volumen: un juego que conlleva serias implicaciones teológicas y políticas, que aún hoy puede continuar cada vez que ambos poemas se leen en paralelo. El Paraíso recobrado y Sansón Agonista proponen una reflexión sobre dos modelos de virtud extraídos de las Sagradas Escrituras. La dinámica psicológica de ambas obras es, sin embargo, opuesta: el Cristo miltoniano de El Paraíso recobrado aparece en una posición moral fija, estática, resistiendo a las tentaciones del intelecto y de la voluntad; Sansón avanza, en cambio, hacia una plena regeneración moral desde la esperanza y la autoacusación. Ambas obras proyectan finalmente a sus personajes, desde una situación de inacción, hacia la entrega activa a una causa espiritual y política, por medios violentos en Sansón y pacíficos en Cristo.

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El paraíso perdido se trata de una epopeya que relata la tentación por parte de Satanás hacia Adán y Eva y la posterior expulsión de éstos del Jardín del Edén. La obra gira entorno el problema del mal y el sufrimiento: Satanás, movido por la sed de v

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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘Greedily she engorged without restraint,And knew not eating death;’ Milton’s Paradise Lost is a poem of epic proportions that tells of Satan’s attempts to mislead Eve into disobeying God in the Garden of Eden, by eating from the tree of knowledge. His interpretation of the biblical story of Genesis is vivid and intense in its language, justifying the actions of God to men. In his sequel poem, Paradise Regained, Milton shows Satan trying to seduce Jesus in a similar way to Eve, but ultimately failing as Jesus remains steadfast.

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These were the years in which two of our greatest presidents—Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson—transformed the office into the center of power; in which the United States entered the world stage and fought its first overseas war; in which the government's proper role in the economy became a public question; and in which reform became an imperative for muckraking reporters, progressive politicians, social activists, and writers. It was a golden age in American politics, when fundamental ideas were given compelling expression by thoughtful candidates. It was a trying time, however, for many Americans, including women who fought for the vote, blacks who began organizing to secure their rights, and activists on the Left who lost theirs in the first Red Scare of the century. John Cooper's panoramic history of this period shows us where we came from and sheds light on where we are.

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“Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” Blind, broken by the death of his wife and bitterly disappointed by the Restoration, Milton dictated his sweeping biblical epic Paradise Lost to a series of helpers. While the struggle between God and Satan rages across the cosmos, the human tragedy of Adam and Eve – the temptation and fall – is movingly depicted in language unsurpassed in its musicality and beauty. A staggering and audacious undertaking – seeking, in Milton’s words, to “justify the ways of God to men” – Paradise Lost has been revered since its initial publication, inspiring writers from Mary Shelley to William Wordsworth, and is widely considered to be the greatest poem ever written in the English language.

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Milton's celebrated epic poem, now in a gorgeous new clothbound edition designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. These delectable and collectable editions are bound in high-quality, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design.In Paradise Lost Milton produced a poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time. And yet, in putting a charismatic Satan and naked Adam and Eve at the centre of this story, he also created an intensely human tragedy on the Fall of Man. Written when Milton was in his fifties - blind, bitterly disappointed by the Restoration and briefly in danger of execution - Paradise Lost's apparent ambivalence towards authority has led to intense debate about whether it manages to 'justify the ways of God to men', or exposes the cruelty of Christianity.John Milton (1608-1674) spent his early years in scholarly pursuit. In 1649 he took up the cause for the new Commonwealth, defending the English revolution both in English and Latin - and sacrificing his eyesight in the process. He risked his life by publishing The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth on the eve of the Restoration (1660). His great poems were published after this political defeat. John Leonard is a Professor of English at the University of Western Ontario.

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Satan is out for revenge. His rebellion has failed, he has been cast out from heaven and is doomed to spend eternity in hell. Somehow he must find a way to prove his power and wound his enemies. He fixes upon God's beloved new creations, Adam and Eve, as the vehicles of his vengeance. In this dramatic and influential epic, Milton tells the story of the serpent and the apple, the fall of man and the exile from paradise in stunningly vivid and powerful verse.

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John Milton (1608-74) was celebrated in his time as a public servant of the Cromwellian regime and as the author of brilliant polemical pamphlets about education religion and freedom of speech, but his posthumous reputation rests principally on his work as a poet, noteably in PARADISE LOST. This poem, written after the poet was driven out of public life by the Restoration, and begun when he was already blind, is a worthy successor to the epics of Homer and Virgil. In majestic blank verse it describes Lucifer's fall from heaven, the creation of mankind, Eve's temptation, and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise. After the Bible, this is perhaps the greatest masterpiece of Christian literature. The present volume contains extensive selections from PARADISE LOST, chosen to illustrate its author's genius for high drama, vivid description and savage irony. In addition, there are substantial extracts from COMUS and SAMSON AGONISTES, and many of Milton's sonnets and shorter poems, including the famous LYCIDAS.

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This volume presents a complete text of all Milton's verse. Coleridge linked Milton and Shakespeare as the greatest of English poets, and even in our time Milton continues to exert a powerful influence, both on the writing of poetry and on critical debate.

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Paradise Lost is one of the greatest epic poems in the English language. It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of innocence pitted against corruption, in which God and Satan fight a bitter battle for control of mankind's destiny. The struggle ranges across three worlds - heaven, hell, and earth - as Satan and his band of rebel angels plot their revenge against God. At the centre of the conflict are Adam and Eve, motivated by all too human temptations, but whose ultimate downfall is unyielding love. Milton's influence has been felt by many writers since, none more so in recent times than the novelist Philip Pullman. His acclaimed trilogy His Dark Materials takes it title from a line in the poem, and the worlds he created for Lyra and Will have entranced readers across generations. His introduction to the poem is a tribute that is both personal and full of insight; his enthusiasm for Milton's language, his skill, and his supreme gifts as a storyteller is infectious and instructive. He encourages readers above all to experience the poem for themselves, and surrender to its enchantment.

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'An endless moral maze, introducing literature's first Romantic, Satan' John CareyIn his epic poem Paradise Lost Milton conjured up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos ranging across huge tracts of space and time. And yet, in putting a charismatic Satan and naked Adam and Eve at the centre of this story, he also created an intensely human tragedy on the Fall of Man. Written when Milton was in his fifties - blind, bitter and briefly in danger of execution - Paradise Lost's apparent ambivalence has led to intense debate about whether it manages to 'justify the ways of God to men' or exposes the cruelty of authority.Edited with an introduction and notes by JOHN LEONARD

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Since its publication by Odyssey Press in 1935, Hughes's richly annotated edition--revised in 1962--emains the preferred text of many instructors.

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In this authoritative edition of John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost is presented in the original language of its 1674 publication, with explanatory annotations and word glosses. Edited by one of the world's leading Milton scholars, the author of the acclaimed The Life of Milton (Blackwell 2000), which won the Milton Society of America's James Holly Hanford Book Award Offers readers the opportunity to experience the brilliance and beauty of Paradise Lost as it was experienced by his contemporaries Presents Paradise Lost in its original 1674 form Incorporates accidentals (spelling and punctuation) from the 1674 edition Recovers Miltonic rhythms, pronunciations, and sound qualities often lost in modern editions Annotates names, places, biblical and literary allusions, and unfamiliar words Includes illustrations by John Baptista Medina from the 1688 Folio edition

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This volume contains the principal English poems of Milton's youth and early manhood, most of the sonnets written during the Puritan Revolution, when he was chiefly engaged in arguing public questions in prose, and Samson Agonistes, published three years before his death. Includes "Comus," "Lycidas," "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity," and other shorter poems. With an introduction by Editor A. E. Baker, this edition also contains a list of principal dates in the life of Milton and a selected bibliography.

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In Samson Agonistes, Milton’s last great work, he addresses questions that pressed insistently on the imagination of all who were unhappy with the changes wrought by the Restoration. How do we respond to the experience of defeat, and to fears of having been abandoned by the divine? How do we know when our actions accord with divine will, or when they are fueled instead by our fallen desires and weaknesses? At what point do accommodation and compromise with an enemy become a failure of will? What constitutes true heroism? To what extent is violence justified in the cause of freedom?In this dramatic poem, Milton abandons the regularly maintained blank verse of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained and employs varying line lengths, mixes blank verse with lyric rhyme, and takes such liberties with scansion that the poem often has the feel of modern “free verse.” To many scholars, the poetry of Samson Agonistes seems the culminating literary expression of a poet who had already demonstrated his mastery of traditional forms and felt free to abandon convention to create the poetic effects he desired.In addition to Samson Agonistes, this volume includes a selection of Milton’s best-known short poems (also taken from The Broadview Anthology of British Literature). The biblical material concerning Samson is also included in an appendix.

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For the second catalogue of materials from the John Milton and Ruth Neils Ward Collection of the Harvard Theatre Collection, Professor John Milton Ward has selected over 2,100 items relating to Italian ballet from the seventeenth through the twentieth century. Italian Ballet, 1637–1977 includes published materials (printed scores, librettos, treatises on ballet) as well as hundreds of manuscript scores (many autograph), letters, contracts, choreographic notes, and costume and set designs. Like its predecessor The King’s Theatre Collection, Italian Ballet, 1637–1977 was designed to be a useful scholarly resource, with descriptive citations for each ballet and detailed indexes for titles, choreographers, composers, and theaters. Arranged chronologically, Italian Ballet, 1637–1977 allows the researcher to follow the development of Italian ballet from unnamed comic dances performed between the acts of eighteenth-century opera to the large-scale nineteenth-century ballets choreographed by Antonio Pallerini and Luigi Manzotti. The catalogue is meant not only as a reference to the collection at Harvard, but also as an entryway for scholars to delve into this unexplored area of musicology and dance history.

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John Milton’s epic story of cosmic rebellion and the beginning of human history has long been considered one of the greatest and most gripping narratives ever written in English. Yet its intensely poetic language, now-antiquated syntax and vocabulary, and dense allusions to mythical and Biblical figures make it inaccessible to many modern readers. This is, as the critic Harold Bloom wrote in 2000, “a great sorrow, and a true cultural loss.”Dennis Danielson aims to open up Milton’s epic for a twenty-first-century readership by providing a fluid, accessible rendition in contemporary prose alongside the original. The edition allows readers to experience the power of the original poem without barriers to understanding.

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Regarded by many as the equal of Shakespeare in poetic imagination and expression, Milton was also a prolific writer of prose, applying his potent genius to major issues of domestic, religious and political liberty. This superbly annotated new publication is the most authoritative single-volume anthology yet of Milton's major prose works. Uses Milton's original language, spelling and punctuation Freshly and extensively annotated Notes provide unrivalled contextual analysis as well as illuminating the wealth of Milton's allusions and references Will appeal to a general readership as well as to scholars across the humanities

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This Norton Critical Edition includes: The 1674 text of Paradise Lost, with emendations and adoptions from the first edition and from the scribal manuscript. Spelling and punctuation have been modernised for student readers. An illuminating introduction and abundant explanatory annotations by Gordon Teskey. Source and background materials, including Milton’s greatest prose work, Areopagitica, in its entirety and key selections from the Bible. Topically arranged commentaries and interpretations—seventy-eight in all, thirty-nine of them new to the Second Edition—from classic assessments to current scholarship. A glossary of names and suggestions for further reading.

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Since its publication by Odyssey Press in 1935, Hughes's richly annotated edition--revised in 1962--emains the preferred text of many instructors.

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Paradise Lost remains as challenging and relevant today as it was in the turbulent intellectual and political environment in which it was written. This edition aims to bring the poem as fully alive to a modern reader as it would have been to Milton's contemporaries. It provides a newly edited text of the 1674 edition of the poem--the last of Milton's lifetime--with carefully modernized spelling and punctuation. Marginal glosses define unfamiliar words, and extensive annotations at the foot of the page clarify Milton's syntax and poetics, and explore the range of literary, biblical, and political allusions that point to his major concerns. David Kastan's lively Introduction considers the central interpretative issues raised by the poem, demonstrating how thoroughly it engaged the most vital--and contested--issues of Milton's time, and which reveal themselves as no less vital, and perhaps no less contested, today.The edition also includes an essay on the text, a chronology of major events in Milton's life, and a selected bibliography, as well as the first known biography of Milton, written by Edward Phillips in 1694.

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A collection of anthologies, resource and reference books, including titles from Oscar Wilde, Mary Shelley, Alex Madina, Jo Phillips and Adrian Barlow.

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These controversial epic poems demonstrate Milton's genius for fusing sense and sound, classicism and innovation, narrative and drama in profound explorations of the moral problems of God's justice-and what it truly means to be human.

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One of a series designed to motivate and encourage students who may be working on certain writers for the first time. Each text includes notes to explain literary and historical allusions, tasks to help students explore themes and issues, and suggestions for further reading.

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In this authoritative edition of John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost is presented in the original language of its 1674 publication, with explanatory annotations and word glosses. Edited by one of the world's leading Milton scholars, the author of the acclaimed The Life of Milton (Blackwell 2000), which won the Milton Society of America's James Holly Hanford Book Award Offers readers the opportunity to experience the brilliance and beauty of Paradise Lost as it was experienced by his contemporaries Presents Paradise Lost in its original 1674 form Incorporates accidentals (spelling and punctuation) from the 1674 edition Recovers Miltonic rhythms, pronunciations, and sound qualities often lost in modern editions Annotates names, places, biblical and literary allusions, and unfamiliar words Includes illustrations by John Baptista Medina from the 1688 Folio edition

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Part of the Norton Library series The Norton Library edition of Paradise Lost features the complete text of the second (1674) edition, the last published during Milton’s lifetime, edited for the modern reader by Stephen B. Dobranski. An introduction by Dobranski discusses the epic’s innovations and its historical and religious contexts, illuminating for a new generation of readers the author’s radically ambitious undertaking to “justify the ways of God to men.” The Norton Library is a growing collection of high-quality texts and translations—influential works of literature and philosophy—introduced and edited by leading scholars. Norton Library editions prepare readers for their first encounter with the works that they’ll re-read over a lifetime. Inviting introductions highlight the work’s significance and influence, providing the historical and literary context students need to dive in with confidence. Endnotes and an easy-to-read design deliver an uninterrupted reading experience, encouraging students to read the text first and refer to endnotes for more information as needed. An affordable price (most $10 or less) encourages students to buy the book and to come to class with the assigned edition. About the Editor: Stephen B. Dobranski is Distinguished University Professor of English at Georgia State University and the editor of the journal Milton Studies. He has published nine books including Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England (2005); The Cambridge Introduction to Milton 2012); and?Milton’s Visual Imagination: Imagery in “Paradise Lost” (2015).

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This Norton Critical Edition of Milton’s Selected Poetry and Prose includes “Lycidas”—widely considered the greatest short poem in English—the great tragedy Samson Agonistes, the masque Comus, the brief epic Paradise Regained, and eighteen sonnets as well as other poems. It also contains the complete text of five of Milton’s major prose works, among them Areopagitica and The Doctrine of Discipline and Divorce. Each major work is accompanied by an individual introduction, and all works have ample explanatory annotations. The major biblical sources that inspired Milton’s writing are reprinted, along with fourteen scholarly interpretations of the major texts. From the wealth of commentary on Milton’s poetry and prose, the editor has chosen those works that can be studied and appreciated by the greatest number of readers, including essays that can easily be paired for discussion in the classroom. Contributors include Anthony Hecht, William Kerrigan, Mary Nyquist, Stanley Fish, Barbara K. Lewalski, John Carey, and Sharon Achinstein, among others. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

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'Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world... Sing heavenly muse' From almost the moment of its first publication in 1667, Paradise Lost was considered a classic. It is difficult now to appreciate both how audacious an undertaking it represents, and how astonishing its immediate and continued success was. Over the course of twelve books Milton wrote an epic poem that would 'justify the ways of God to men', a mission that required a complex drama whose source is both historical and deeply personal. The struggle for ascendancy between God and Satan is played out across hell, heaven, and earth but the consequences of the Fall are all too humanly tragic - pride, ambition, and aspiration the motivating forces. In this new edition derived from their acclaimed Oxford Authors text, Stephen Orgel and Jonathan Goldberg discuss the complexity of Milton's poem in a new introduction, and on-page notes explain its language and allusions. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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