Intrigue

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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Intrigue

 

in literature, a complicated and intense interweaving of events as a method of structuring the action or plot in novels (mostly in adventure novels) and in drama. It develops out of the sharp clash between the main characters’ interests and their purposeful, often secret struggle. An example is the intrigue over the letter about the guardianship in F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel A Raw Youth. The peripeteia involving the letter also reveals the “tragedy of the underground” and the “ethical duality” of the protagonists.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

Intrigue

See also Conspiracy.
Borgias
15th-century family who stopped at nothing to gain power. [Ital. Hist.: Plumb, 59]
Ems dispatch
Bismarck’s purposely provocative memo on Spanish succession; sparked Franco-Prussian war (1870). [Ger. Hist.: NCE, 866]
Machiavelli, Nicolò
(1469–1527) author of book extolling political cunning. [Ital. Hist.: The Prince]
Mannon, Lavinia
undoes adulterous mother by brainwashing brother. [Am. Lit.: Mourning Becomes Electra]
Mission Impossible
team of investigators with Byzantine modus operandi. [TV: “Mission Impossible” in Terrace, II, 100–101]
Paolino
has cohort woo his covertly wed wife. [Ital. Opera: Cimarosa, The Secret Marriage, Westerman, 63]
Phormio
slick lawyer finagles on behalf of two men. [Rom. Lit.: Phormio]
Ruritania
imaginary pre-WWI kingdom, rife with political machinations. [Br. Lit.: Prisoner of Zenda]
X Y Z Affair
thinly disguised extortion aroused anti-French feelings (1797–1798). [Am. Hist.: Jameson, 564]
Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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References in periodicals archive ?
Intriguer, however, is the first 'true' Crowded House album since their reformation.
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Of all the Machiavellian intriguers of the play, Fortinbras is the only one Hamlet admired at all, and his endorsement of his candidacy for the throne of Denmark just before his death reinforces his admiration with emphasis.
Hamlet as mourning-play: a Benjaminesque interpretation
He found it difficult to discern whether Octavio was actually an intriguer. He judged sweepingly that this was because the living world was foreign to Schiller, and that consequently his 'political intrigues look and sound like stage intrigues rather than acts of hard Realpolitik'.
In the Bard's shadow: Shakespearian affinities as an obstacle to the reception of Schiller's plays in Britain, 1945-2005
plot-maker and intriguer, as well, which gives her the privileged seat
"Sportful malice," or what Maria wills: revenge comedy in Twelfth Night
(38) On their first meeting in 1808, Story took an instant liking to Marshall, impressed by his "great subtilty of mind" and captivated by his "laugh," which was "too hearty for an intriguer. (39) During more than two decades of service together on the Court, they formed an intimate friendship founded on mutual affection and compatibility of beliefs and principles--most notably in their common devotion to nationalism.
Defining the office: John Marshall as Chief Justice
Ambitious, autocratic, and vindictive, he was a skillful and ruthless intriguer, and those who fell afoul of him did so to their misfortune; his victims included his quondam secretaire Jean Francois Lallouette (1651-1728), the claveciniste Jacques Champion, Sieur de Chambonnieres (1601/2-1672), and the great actor-manager-playwright Moliere (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, 1622-1673).
Jean-Baptiste Lully
The so-called Black Queen, she was long supposed to have been not only a master intriguer but also an accomplished plotter and poisoner, the personification of all that the world found sinister in Renaissance Italy.
The White Queen?
The problem, however, is not in regarding the Vice only as jester, as the quotation would imply, but rather in regarding the Vice only as knave, a devilish intriguer, whose function within the play is ultimately to be condemned.
Haphazardly ambidextrous: interpretations of the Vice in 16th-century English drama
The best work I did in the three Marivaux translations, I think, is in a sense the freest--it's a speech in Act 1, Scene 3 of Changes of Heart, in which Flaminia, the court intriguer, describes her sister's arsenal of coquetry with the aim of explaining to her sister that it's not what's needed to seduce Harlequin.
In other words: four theatrical translators unravel the intricacies of their craft
The primary delusion Golyadkin labors under is not one of grandeur but rather one of denial--denial that he is a hypocrite, toady, and intriguer.
Dostoevsky's other Quixote

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