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 It might be outdated or ideologically biased.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 ?
In dozens of Hollywood thrillers the hero is a well-meaning innocent, an amateur who stumbles into the middle of some foreign intrigue.
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Its whole structure is based exclusively on intrigues. Intrigues, intrigues, intrigues!
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But Songlian is ultimately unsuited to such vicious and dangerous intrigue, and as her own plans collapse and backfire, she finds herself in a deepening cycle of emotional and physical violence.
The homosexual Douzi is obsessed with Shitou, who has wed an ex-prostitute named Juxian (Gong Li), and the ensuing triangle is full of anguish, intrigue, and recrimination.
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366, Legarda proposed to amend Articles 363 and 364 of the Revised Penal Code to increase the penalty for the crime of incriminatory machination or implicating a crime to an innocent person or sowing intrigue to tarnish another person's reputation.
The present penalties imposed by the law are not commensurate to the injury or damage caused to the victim of false prosecution and intrigue. There is therefore a need to punish with greater severity individuals who are found guilty of incriminatory machinations," said Legarda in her explanatory note.
Legarda pushes stiffer penalty for intrigue
"They are back to sowing intrigue, they are starting to sound out of tune," said UNA secretary general and Navotas Representative Toby Tiangco, reacting to accusations that the Binay-led coalition was merely riding on the President's popularity.
UNA exec plea to LP: Stop sowing intrigue, recycling old issues
This tale of Vatican intrigue by the creator of the Father Dowling mysteries--Notre Dame professor Ralph M.
The Red Hat

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