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PAGE CONTENTS: Oscar Wilde William Shakespeare
Edgar Allen
Poe John Milton/Paradise Lost Herman Melville Johann Gutenberg, The Man
Behind All Your Books Jane Austen Charles Dickens Toni
Morrison Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Robert Burns Stephen
Crane Voltaire Stephen King
Helen Keller
Christy Brown
Oscar Wilde
When it comes to pure wit, none measures up to 19th-century poet and
playwright Oscar Wilde.
Wilde took the title "Britain's greatest wit" in a recent
poll of 3,000 comedy fans, conducted for the launch of a new UK TV channel.
Born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1854, Oscar Wilde got a top-flight
literary education--first at Dublin's Trinity College, then at Oxford. After school, he moved to London, and became a fixture
in artistic circles. His philosophy: "art for art's sake."
Soon renowned for his flamboyance and wit, Wilde eventually
won literary acclaim, too--especially for his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) and for plays like The
Importance of Being Ernest (1895). Ever the aesthete, Wilde said of writing, "There is no such thing as a moral or an
immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all."
Wilde's career was cut short by civil and criminal suits
over his sexual orientation. Convicted of gross indecency in 1895, he was sentenced to two years of hard labor at "Reading
Gaol," which he later made famous in a poem. After his release, Wilde moved to Paris, where he died of meningitis in 1900.
His works and wit, of course, live on.
Wilde Wit:
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."
"I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It
is never of any use to oneself."
"I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There
is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect."
"Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing."
"I
am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying."
"A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely
fatal."
"A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally."
"To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable."
"I
like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world."
Steve Sampson
Copyright © 2007, Every Learner, Inc. All rights reserved.
William Shakespeare
Other
than what is found in a few church records and legal documents and in a few contemporary documents such as playgoers'
diaries, most evidence of William Shakespeare's life is circumstantial. More than 80 spelling
variations are recorded for Shakespeare's name, from “Shappere” to “Shaxberd."
Shakespeare was
baptized on April 26th, 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon, just three days before the Stratford parish register recorded an outbreak
of the plague.
In November 1582, Shakespeare applied for a license to marry Anne Whateley. “Anne Whateley”
could be a scribal error for Anne Hathaway, whom he married on or about November 30. She was three months pregnant at the
time. William and Anne Shakespeare had three children. Susanna was christened in May 1583, and the twins Judith and Hamnet
in February 1585.
There is no evidence for what Shakespeare did between 1585 and 1592, the period when he moved to London and began
his writing career. Thus, there is no record of how his career began or how quickly he rose to fame.
Shakespeare
is listed as an actor on documents from 1592, 1598, 1603, and 1608. It is supposed that he played mostly unassuming parts,
such as the ghost in Hamlet, to allow him more time to write.
Even if Shakespeare wrote his own work, he did not
always write alone. As many as a dozen of his later plays are believed to have been collaborations with other authors--including
"The Two Noble Kinsman", known to be written with John Fletcher, "Timon
of Athens" with Thomas Middletonf, and "Pericles" with
George Wilkins.
Copyright 2010 by NextEra Media. All rights
reserved. Please feel free to forward this, in its entirety, to others.
Edgar Allan Poe
Long before Stephen
King wrote a single scary book, there was Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49).
A master storyteller, Poe helped formulate the short story as we know it today: a taut tale to be read in one sitting, with
every word marshaled toward some unified effect.
In Poe's stories, that effect is often a descent into evil,
fear, guilt, and obsession--the long and bony fingers of darkness scratching at your soul. Poe's nightmare world is a world
caught between rational and irrational forces, where reason loses its tenuous hold and our mad and evil impulses seize control.
Perfect stuff for a Halloween scare.
Many a Romantic poet has worn the trappings of woe, but
with Poe, the suit fit. Both his parents died of tuberculosis by the time he was 3. John Allan of Richmond,
Virginia, adopted the young Poe and tried to raise him as a Southern gentleman. But the artistic Poe and the economic
Allan never quite connected as father and son.
After Poe's stepmother died of tuberculosis in 1829, Allan
remarried, acquired new heirs, and wrote Poe off. Poe wrote off Allan, too--and all authority figures along with him. Poe
once said, "My whole nature utterly revolts at the idea that there is any Being in the Universe superior to myself."
Starved for affection, Poe adopted his aunt as a surrogate
mother and married her daughter, his cousin Virginia, when she was just 13 years old. He moved from job to job and city to
city, working as an editor for literary magazines and doing freelance work. Though Poe could exude Southern charm, he frequently
got fired. Never shy about his intellect, he resented having to adapt his thoughts "at the will of men whose imbecility was
evident to all but themselves."
Poe gained prominence as a storyteller with "The Fall
of the House of Usher" in 1839, which paved the way for his first collection of stories: Tales of the Grotesque and
Arabesque. Many critics panned the stories as too "German"--too Gothic. But Poe responded as many readers have responded:
"If in many of my productions terror has been the thesis, I maintain that terror is not of Germany,
but of the soul."
Except for "The Raven," which was an immediate sensation,
Poe never had much popular success as a poet. No matter--Poe saw poetry as a passion, not a purpose. He was a firm and Romantic
believer in art for art's sake. In fact, Poe believed that true poetry focused only on the "rhythmical creation of beauty."
This focus on the rhythm, or music, of a poem helped make Poe a technical master. Few poems can challenge "The Raven" for
the sheer delight of its verse.
Poe was one of the best literary editors of his day. Everywhere
he went, he managed to increase magazine circulation, often to seven or eight times what it had been when he started. He accomplished
this in part by contributing his own well-crafted stories and in part through immensely controversial reviews.
Possessed of strong convictions, a sharp (even cruel) wit,
and a jealous regard for the success of people he deemed to be lesser writers than himself, Poe "tomahawked" the work of other
writers with glee. He wrote, "I intend to put up with nothing that I can put down." He made all kinds of enemies, but
gained recognition as a top critic.
He also gained a reputation as a first-class drunk. Unfortunately,
Poe frequently drank himself into oblivion to escape his life. He wrote, "It has not been in pursuit of pleasure that I have
periled life and reputation and reason. It has been in the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense
of insupportable loneliness, and a dread of some strange impending doom."
The French poet Charles
Baudelaire, who saw Poe as a kindred spirit, said that Poe drank to kill something inside himself--that his life was
really a long, slow suicide. In fact, drinking probably did contribute to his death. When his wife died of tuberculosis in
1847, Poe went on a series of massive benders. He died in October 1849, after being found dangerously drunk and delirious
in a Baltimore gutter.
--Michael Himick
Copyright © 2007, Every Learner, Inc. All rights reserved.
John Milton/Paradise Lost
Satan is the supreme enemy, the monster of all monsters, the incarnation
of absolute evil--but that doesn't mean we can't like him a little bit. Or so John Milton's magisterial epic poem Paradise
Lost (1667) seems to suggest.
The most striking feature of Milton's Satan is neither his deceitfulness
nor his violence, but his sympathetic appeal. The Romantic poet William Blake even claimed that Milton was "of the Devil's
party without knowing it." (For Blake, this amounted to a compliment. He thought all "true Poets" were "of the Devil's party.")
But Milton was no simple-minded Satanist. On the contrary, he was a dedicated
Christian who wanted to use his talents to, as he put it, "justify the ways of God to man." He had spent much of his adult
life preparing to write his epic by studying classical literature, Christian theology, and even contemporary science. He had
also written widely on politics and had served for a decade in Oliver Cromwell's Puritan government following the English
Civil War.
Still, the first two parts of Paradise Lost focus primarily
on Satan, and they depict him as a hero of literally epic proportions. Satan, we learn, was once an archangel, but he and
his formerly angelic followers have been thrown into hell for daring to revolt against God. Awakening in the utter misery,
chaos, and darkness of damnation, Satan rallies his troops, comforts them in spite of everything, and volunteers to venture
forth alone to investigate a rumor that the Lord has created a new sort of creature: human beings.
Compared with his compatriots in hell, Satan is a clear standout, displaying
classically heroic characteristics: leadership, courage, even a sort of nobility. As the epic continues, however, and the
familiar story of Adam and Eve unfolds, we discover that Satan's apparent heroism belies a fundamental depravity and powerlessness.
Filled with envy and spite, he tries to destroy God's new creation through manipulation and deceit. His attempt at temptation
proves fruitful, but his victory is hollow.
God knows all along what Satan is up to and how Adam and Eve will respond.
He also knows that Christ will one day redeem the fallen humans and that, in the end, Satan will be roundly defeated again.
The end of the epic struggle--the end of Milton's Paradise Lost--is a foregone conclusion, known to God from the
start. In hell, Satan looks heroic. In the Garden of Eden, he seems dangerous and demonic. But in relation to God, he appears
as little more than a plot device, a complex figure through which to spin an epic tale.
--Steve Sampson
KnowledgeNews is brought to you by Every Learner, Inc., an independent
small business dedicated to supporting lifelong learners. Copyright © 2007, Every Learner, Inc. All rights reserved.
Herman Melville
The story of Captain Ahab and the white whale Moby-Dick made Herman Melville
a literary immortal--and ruined his career.
Herman Melville was born in New York City in 1819, the
third son of a well-to-do family. His father was a successful importer of fine clothing until economic downturn and debts
ruined his business. Broken and mentally ill, he died in 1832, leaving his once-proud family destitute.
In 1839, desperate for a paycheck, young Herman became
a cabin boy aboard a ship bound for England. He went to sea again in 1841, this time aboard the whaling ship Acushnet.
After 18 months at sea, Melville and a pal jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia and found themselves in
the hands of a tribe of reputed cannibals. The tribe treated them well, but Melville always suspected that the natives just
wanted to fatten up two young snacks.
After escaping the tribe, Melville joined the crew of an
Australian whaling ship. More adventures ensued. He was imprisoned for mutiny in Tahiti, broke out of jail, and ended up in
Honolulu. Finally, he came to Boston by way of Peru in 1844. He was 25, ready to write, and bursting with stories.
Melville's first novel, Typee, was based on his
actual experiences in Polynesia, but a publisher rejected it for being unrealistic. When it did come out in 1846, it was a
hit--the most successful of Melville's books during his lifetime.
Controversy helped sales. Melville's book described his
real-life romance with "Fayaway," a native girl he'd met among the cannibals. After Typee came Omoo (1847),
another successful South Seas adventure, based on his time in Tahiti.
More popular sea stories followed. But Melville got impatient
with adventure yarns. While writing a novel about whaling, he made a new friend--the author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne
inspired him so much that his plans for the book changed. Moby-Dick would be something much greater than anything he'd
ever written before.
Moby-Dick is an epic tale of obsession
and revenge. Its famous first sentence, "Call me Ishmael," introduces the narrator, a young man who signs up for a whaling
voyage in Massachusetts, just as Melville had in 1841. While still onshore, Ishmael befriends a tattooed harpooneer from the
South Seas named Queequeg.
Once aboard the Pequod, Ishmael hears rumors about
their mysterious captain, Ahab. After several days at sea, Ahab emerges from his cabin and tells the crew that the purpose
of their voyage is to hunt and kill Moby-Dick, a legendary white sperm whale. Ahab had lost his leg to Moby-Dick, and the
injury had given him an all-consuming lust for revenge.
Starbuck, the first mate, is a devout Christian who thinks
it "blasphemous" to seek vengeance on a "dumb brute." Ahab replies, "Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun
if it insulted me." He sees the whale as "pasteboard mask" concealing some "inscrutable thing." Whether Moby-Dick is an animal,
monster, force of nature, or God himself, Ahab lives only to destroy it. The final fight with the whale leads to the destruction
of Ahab, his ship, and the entire crew--except for Ishmael, who survives by clinging to a coffin.
Like many great works of art, Moby-Dick was ahead
of its time. When it came out in 1851, many found it bizarre and pretentious. Readers didn't understand it, and critics panned
it. Not until the 20th century would Melville's masterpiece really be appreciated. His next book, Pierre (1852), sank
like a stone. Suddenly, the bestselling author was all washed up.
Melville's latter decades were full of sadness and disappointment.
He pretty much gave up novel-writing, sold his farm, worked as a customs inspector for 19 years to make ends meet, and lost
his son Malcolm to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Melville died, forgotten and poor, in 1891. But Moby-Dick lives
on.
Jeffery Vail
KnowledgeNews is brought to you by Every Learner, Inc., an independent
small business dedicated to supporting lifelong learners. Copyright © 2007, Every Learner, Inc. All rights reserved.
Johann Gutenberg
The Man Behind All Your Books
Johann Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg was born around
1398, in the German town of Mainz. We don't know much about his early life, but we can assume that his well-bred parents gave
him a proper education. He inherited some money, but not enough to live on. So he worked as a goldsmith and looked for that
one big idea that would make him rich. He found it in the pages of the Bible.
At the time, books were copied by hand. The process was
expensive, prone to error, and very slow. Gutenberg's idea was to build a device to print books quickly. "Block printing,"
in which an entire page is carved into a block of wood, had been used in Europe and East Asia for centuries, but it was labor-intensive.
Movable type had been devised in Asia, but complex Asian character systems made it unwieldy.
Gutenberg made a movable type system that was both cheap
and practical. His type was cast from metal, using a process he invented that allowed for mass production of letters. These
could be arranged in a tray and painted with special oil-based ink (also devised by Gutenberg) before a sheet of paper was
laid across them. A modified wine press then squeezed letters and paper together. Presto: a printed page! After, the trays
of type could be disassembled and reused.
Gutenberg was an inventor in constant need of venture capital.
Developing his system involved a lot of tinkering, and the materials weren't free. In 1450, he took on a partner--Johann Fust,
a wealthy financier who invested a hefty sum in his era's coolest communications technology. With Fust's backing, Gutenberg
went into print.
Printing with Gutenberg's press was faster, cheaper, and
more accurate than copying by hand. Nowhere was such accuracy more important than in the Bible business, where a simple scribal
error might change the word of God. So Gutenberg set out to print his own Bible. Completed in 1455, the Gutenberg Bible was
a work of art. The 40 copies that still survive are cherished museum pieces.
Fust, however, was not a museum curator. He was a businessman
who expected a return on his investment. And Gutenberg never paid the interest on his loans. Eventually, Fust sued, and Gutenberg
was ordered to pay back the money his partner had lent him, plus compound interest. He didn't have the money, so he handed
over the printing press and the type for the Gutenberg Bible.
Gutenberg worked as a printer until his death in 1468.
Fust set up shop with Peter Schöffer--a Gutenberg assistant turned Fust son-in-law. In 1457, Fust and Schöffer became the
first printers to put their names on a printed book, using pages that Gutenberg had composed. For centuries, they, not Gutenberg,
were celebrated as the founders of modern printing, until historians finally figured things out.
By 1500, there were printshops throughout Europe. Mass
printing sped the spread of new ideas. It vastly increased literacy, helped power the Protestant Reformation, and provided
part of the foundation on which the Scientific Revolution flourished.
Gutenberg's press didn't make him a rich new media mogul.
But it did change the world.
Mark Diller
KnowledgeNews is brought to you by Every Learner, Inc., an independent
small business dedicated to supporting lifelong learners. Copyright © 2007, Every Learner, Inc. All rights reserved.
| JANE AUSTEN |
|
Jane Austen
Classic books strike back! British book lovers have picked Jane
Austen's Pride and Prejudice as the book they simply "couldn't live without," placing it above gripping blockbusters like
J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.
In an online survey, 2,000 readers were asked to name their 10
must-have books. Pride and Prejudice took top honors, though results varied by age and gender. Young readers favored wizards,
while men preferred hobbits to romantic comedy. Still, it's clear that, 200 years after its publication, Pride and Prejudice
packs plenty of page-turning power. So let's turn a page of our own on the work and its author.
Jane Austen was born in 1775, the daughter of a village minister
in Hampshire, England. She was the seventh of eight children--six boys, two girls--and was especially close to her older sister,
Cassandra. Neither Jane nor Cassandra ever married, though Jane accepted a proposal at one point, only to change her mind
the next day.
Their mother was known for her storytelling, their father was
a bookish sort, and the whole family enjoyed acting. Yet the life they lived wasn't especially dramatic. In fact, by most
standards, Austen's short life (she died at 41) was ordinary and uneventful. Turns out, that was probably one of the keys
to her seemingly timeless appeal.
In six novels--Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice
(1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1816), Northanger Abbey (1818), and Persuasion (1818)--Austen captured, and caricatured,
the manners and morals of her society from close range. She told ordinary stories with extraordinary wit and skill, crafting
compelling domestic dramas centered on beguiling characters, especially women.
Along the way, she helped invent the 19th-century novel, combining
realistic storytelling, social commentary, deft prose, and biting humor to produce books that are still as popular as they
are critically acclaimed. Unlike other novelists of her era (or, for that matter, any era) Austen is about as likely to show
up on a Hollywood screenwriter's desk as on a scholar's shelf. 'Pride and Prejudice' is a case in point.
First drafted between 1796 and 1797, under the title "First Impressions,"
the novel centers on a witty and well-read 20-year-old, Elizabeth Bennet, whose intellect is more impressive than her income.
Elizabeth ultimately meets her match in a well-to-do gentleman, Mr. Darcy--though for much of the novel she can barely stand
the sight of him.
Austen takes her readers along on Elizabeth's journey through
English society and toward self-discovery. Watching the story unfold primarily through Elizabeth's eyes, the reader must adjust
when Austen's protagonist begins to recognize her own mistakes and prejudices. Suddenly, the story appears in a new light,
with a new set of problems, for both Elizabeth and the reader.
Of course, Pride and Prejudice ends happily. Elizabeth and Darcy
sort out their problems and begin a life of marital bliss. Austen's own story wound up less romantically. Because she was
a woman, her books were published anonymously, and she reaped few benefits from their success--though she did get to see them
well reviewed. She died in 1817. Her last two novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, were published posthumously. All six
have long outlived her.
--Steve Sampson
KnowledgeNews is brought to you by Every Learner, Inc., an independent
small business dedicated to supporting lifelong learners. Copyright © 2007, Every Learner, Inc. All rights reserved.
| CHARLES DICKENS |
|
Charles Dickens
Beloved British novelist Charles Dickens will soon have his very own
theme park--"Dickens World"--in Chatham, England. The park was supposed to open last weekend, but hard times mean fans will
have to contain their great expectations until the end of May.
The park's planners say they aim to "reproduce the architecture
of the [Victorian] period" an hour away from modern London. They plan to line their cobblestone streets with rides, animatronics,
and "a host of costumed characters, shop keepers, and street entertainers"--not to mention "Ye Olde Curiosity Gift Shop."
Folks in Chatham hope Dickens World will attract 300,000
people a year to an area that needs an economic boost. We hope it inspires you to join us for a look at Charles Dickens, perhaps
the most famous English novelist of all. After more than 150 years in print, Dickens's books are still going strong. So, what's
the secret of his serial success?
Dickens was born February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth, England.
His father, John, made a decent living as a clerk for the British navy, but he had trouble sticking to a budget. When Charles
was 10, John moved the family to London. Two years later, John went to jail--for not paying his debts.
To help the family foot the bills, 12-year-old Charles
went to work in a shoe-polish factory. His coworkers mocked the "young gentleman," who hated his job. The work was hard and
the pay was low, but firsthand experience of a London factory and debtors' prison eventually repaid Dickens in full.
After a brief (and unremarkable) return to school, a 15-year-old
Dickens found a better job, working as a clerk in a law office. He shortly taught himself shorthand--and became a court reporter,
then a parliamentary reporter, then a newspaper reporter. By the time he was 20, Dickens had firsthand experience with the
courts and parliament, too.
At 21, he began publishing original sketches and stories
in various magazines and newspapers under the pen name "Boz" (rhymes with "nose"). Those won him enough of a following to
merit the publication of Sketches by Boz in 1836. A few weeks later, he embarked on the project that first won him
serious fame: the Pickwick Papers.
The Papers didn't simply emerge from Dickens's authorial
imagination. The project began when a publisher approached him and asked him to write a serialized comic narrative to go along
with a set of engravings by a well-known artist. Dickens said yes--then stole the show with his prose.
A wandering comic adventure, published in 20 monthly installments,
the Pickwick Papers flew off the shelves. When the 20 months were up, Dickens was the most popular writer in London.
He quickly followed up with a succession of serialized successes: Oliver Twist (1837-39), Nicholas Nickleby
(1838-39), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41), and Barnaby Rudge (1841).
And that was just the start. Eleven more novels followed,
including classics like David Copperfield (1849-50), Bleak House (1852-53), A Tale of Two Cities (1859),
and Great Expectations (1860-61)--all first published in serialized form. If that wasn't enough, Dickens also published
annual Christmas stories, beginning with A Christmas Carol in 1843.
Dickens's remarkable run didn't end until 1870, when he
died suddenly from a stroke. Throughout his career (and after), princes and paupers alike consumed his complex tales, crafted
around characters so compelling that several have entered the cultural landscape in their own right--think of Oliver Twist
and the Artful Dodger, or of Scrooge and Tiny Tim. Along the way, readers also got biting satire and social critique, from
a rare writer who knew factories and prisons as well as courts and parliament.
Steve Sampson
Copyright © 2002-2007 Every Learner, Inc. All rights reserved.
| Toni Morrison |
|
Toni Morrison
by Jone Johnson Lewis
Toni Morrison was the first African American woman to receive the Nobel
Prize for Literature. In her novels, Toni Morrison focuses on the experience of black Americans, particularly emphasizing
black women's experience in an unjust society and the search for cultural identity. She uses fantasy and mythic elements along
with realistic depiction of racial, gender and class conflict.
After college, where she changed her first name to Toni, Toni Morrison
taught at Texas Southern University, Howard University, State University of New York at Albany and at Princeton. Her students
at Howard included Stokely Carmichael (of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC) and Claude Brown (author of
Manchild in the Promised Land, 1965).
She married Harold Morrison in 1958, and divorced him in 1964, moving
with their two sons to Lorain, Ohio, and then to New York where she went to work as a senior editor at Random House. She also
began sending her own novel to publishers.
Her first novel was published in 1970, The Bluest Eye. Teaching
at the State University of New York at Purchase in 1971 and 1972, she wrote her second novel, Sula, published in 1973.
Toni Morrison taught at Yale in 1976 and 1977 while working on her next
novel, Song of Solomon, published in 1977. This brought her more critical and popular attention, including a number
of awards and an appointment to the National Council on the Arts. Tar Baby was published in 1981, the same year Morrison
became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Toni Morrison's play, Dreaming Emmett, based on the lynching of
Emmett Till, premiered in Albany in 1986. Her novel Beloved was published in in 1987, and won the fiction Pulitzer
Prize. In 1987, Toni Morrison was appointed to a chair at Princeton University, the first African American woman writer to
hold a named chair at any of the Ivy League universities.
Toni Morrison published Jazz in 1992 and was awarded the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 1993. Paradise was published in 1998 and Love in 2003. Beloved was made into
a film in 1998 starring Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover.
After 1999, Toni Morrison also published a number of children's books
with her son, Slade Morrison, and from 1992, lyrics for music by Andre Previn and Richard Danielpour.
©2007 About, Inc., A part of The New York Times Company. All rights
reserved
| LONGFELLOW |
|
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
When Henry Wadsworth Longfellow turned 70 on February 27, 1877, the United
States of America celebrated the day, hosting parades across the land in his honor and sending "salutations and friendly greetings
from far and near." This year--on what would have been his 200th birthday--the poet's people barely noticed.
Back in the 19th century, Longfellow was a star. More than 15,000
people bought The Courtship of Miles Standish--on the first day it hit the shelves. More than 50,000 bought The
Song of Hiawatha, and children recited Paul Revere's Ride.
Longfellow had private tea with Queen Victoria, and Thanksgiving dinner
with Charles Dickens. His friend Nathaniel Hawthorne said, "No other poet has anything like your vogue." People even knocked
on the door of his Cambridge, Massachusetts, home for autographs.
But the 20th century turned on the popstar poet. Critics said, "Who,
except wretched schoolchildren, now reads Longfellow?" They said his verses were "too decorous, benign, and sweet." They said
his worst fault was that "he made poetry seem so easy that anyone could do it."
The 19th century embraced Longfellow's persistence in the face of sadness
and adversity--his first wife died after a miscarriage, his second was burned to death in their home. But modern readers wanted
something else.
When Longfellow's second wife died from burns she suffered when some
spilled hot wax set her dress ablaze, Longfellow turned to Dante's Divine Comedy for spiritual consolation--and became
the first American translator of that epic poem.
Judge for yourself what reputation Longfellow deserves. "A Psalm of Life"
is one of his best-known works. Others, like "My Lost Youth" ("A boy's will is the wind's will, / And the thoughts of youth
are long, long thoughts"), are more deeply lyrical. But "A Psalm of Life" captures the spirit that made Longfellow 19th-century
America's favorite poet.
Michael Himick
KnowledgeNews is brought to you by Every Learner, Inc., an independent
small business dedicated to supporting lifelong learners. Copyright © 2007, Every Learner, Inc. All rights reserved.
| ROBERT BURNS |
|
Robert Burns
Millions of people ended Thursday night singing
"Auld Lang Syne." No, they didn't forget till now the traditional toast of New Year's Eve. They remembered Burns Night--Scotland's
celebration of its national poet, Robert Burns, who penned the words to "Auld Lang Syne" in 1788.
Burns Night is not some obscure event, kept alive
only by professors of literature and press releases from poetry societies. As any Scot can tell you (Scottish reader John
Paul Liddle told us), January 25--Burns's birthday--is practically a national holiday, a celebration of all Scotland. Why?
Because of the spirit in old "Rabbie's" poems and songs.
Burns lived for only 37 years, from 1759 to 1796.
But in that time, he worked hard--plowing his father's farm, working his own stony land, and collecting taxes for the government
as an armed exciseman. And he played even harder--chasing both Scottish women and Scotch whisky, and mocking those who thought
themselves above these sins.
His first volume of poetry, published in 1786,
brought him instant fame. Edinburgh's literati hailed him as a "Heaven-taught plowman," and common folk embraced his work.
Burns wrote odes "To a Mouse" and "To a Louse," about haggis and scotch, about secret kisses and William Wallace. Most of
all, he wrote in Scots--the actual dialect of the people.
By 1791, he had published what many consider his
masterpiece: "Tam o' Shanter," a mock-heroic tale of a henpecked drunk who finds himself ogling a witch wearing nothing more
than a "cutty sark" (that is, a short-cut undershirt, "in longitude though sorely scanty"). Tam barely escapes with his life,
and at the cost of his mare's tail.
More than 10,000 Scots turned out
for Burns's funeral in 1796, to honor such a poet. But Burns is known for more than his poems. After 1786, his interests turned
more and more toward preserving and writing traditional Scottish songs. He adapted or penned the lyrics for hundreds of them,
and made major contributions to collections like The Scots Musical Museum and A Select Collection of Original Scottish
Airs.
Some have even called Burns "the greatest songwriter
Great Britain has produced." We know lines like "O my luve is like a red, red rose / That's newly sprung in June" and "Should
auld acquaintance be forgot / And never brought to mind?" But Scots still celebrate all of Burns, and raise "a cup o' kindness
yet" for him each year--for old times, for "auld lang syne."
Michael Himick
KnowledgeNews is brought to you by Every Learner, Inc., an independent
small business dedicated to supporting lifelong learners. Copyright © 2007, Every Learner, Inc. All rights reserved.
Stephen Crane
American novelist and poet
In less than ten years as a writer, Stephen Crane left an indelible
mark on the bedrock of American literature. His earliest published work, "Maggie, a Girl of the Streets," was a bleakly realistic
portrait of poverty in New York. While not initially popular, it was re-released after the success of his subsequent writings,
which included "The Red Badge of Courage," a gritty tale of the Civil War published when he was just 24, and the famous short
story "The Open Boat."
Beyond these famous tales, Crane gained renown as a poet. Notable
among his collections of verse are "War is Kind and Other Lines" and "The Black Riders and Other Lines."
Tragically, Crane contracted tuberculosis while still in his
twenties. That illness, combined with a grueling schedule that included work as a war correspondent for the New York Journal,
wore him down. He died while at a health spa in Germany at the age of 28.
More about Stephen Crane:
Although he was born more than six years after the end of the
American Civil War, Stephen Crane's novel The Red Badge of Courage depicted that war so vividly, and rendered the fears
of men in battle so intensely, that many veterans who read the book were convinced that he was one of them. In a career of
less than ten years, Crane produced a body of work that, in its striking and concise phrasing and its unflinching confrontation
of smugness and hypocrisy, helped set the course of American fiction and poetry in the twentieth century.
Born in Newark, New Jersey, on November 1, 1871, Stephen Crane
was his parents' fourteenth (and last) child. His father, Dr. Jonathan Townley Crane, was a Methodist minister, as were his
maternal grandfather and other relatives on both sides of his family. Dr. Crane's successive ecclesiastical appointments led
the family to move in 1876 to Paterson, New Jersey, and in 1878 to Port Jervis, a town in upstate New York that, with its
surrounding countryside, would become the setting for a number of Crane's works, including Whilomville Stories, the
novel The Third Violet, and one of his greatest short stories, "The Monster." After Dr. Crane's death in 1880, his
widow moved the family to Asbury Park, New Jersey.
Crane attended the Hudson River Institute in Claverack, New York,
from 1888 to 1890, where he was taught history by John B. Van Petten, who had been an officer in the Civil War. In September
1890, he enrolled at Lafayette College to study mining engineering, but left without completing his first semester. He entered
Syracuse University in January 1891, where he showed more interest in catching for the varsity baseball team than in his studies.
In his single semester at Syracuse, he passed only one course of six--English literature, for which he received an A. He had
also begun to write for the New York Tribune, and even though he was to lose that position the following year for writing
a satirical account of a parade by the Junior Order of United American Mechanics, journalism would remain one of his principal
means of support and avenues to fame for the rest of his brief life.
Crane later maintained that he wrote his first major work of
fiction, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, in two days just before Christmas of 1891. He borrowed money from one of his
brothers to have it printed, since he was unable to publish it commercially because of its bleak and uncompromising presentation
of life in the slums of New York City: the title character is forced to turn to prostitution after being self-righteously
rejected by everyone she has loved and trusted. The book appeared early in 1893 under the pseudonym Johnston Smith, and, while
very few copies were sold, it won favorable attention from the influential novelists Hamlin Garland and William Dean Howells.
Also in early 1893, Crane wrote a first version of what would
become The Red Badge of Courage. This novel, his masterpiece, was published in 1895 in both the United States, where
it became a bestseller, and England, where it also attracted a great deal of positive notice. In vivid and impressionistic
prose, studded with the kinds of striking similes that were a hallmark of Crane's style, the novel relates the experiences
of "the youth" Henry Fleming and his comrades as they test themselves on the field of battle. Also in 1895 appeared The
Black Riders, the first of Crane's two collections of free verse. These often fable-like little poems, with their stripped-down
lines and stark phrasing concentrated on the rendering of a single effect, were to influence the Imagist movement in Anglo-American
poetry in the second decade of the twentieth century.
Crane was himself a dashing figure, whose life was often as much
of a story as anything that came from his pen. One night in September 1896, he interviewed several chorus girls for a series
of articles about New York City. After leaving a restaurant at two in the morning, Crane and his party were stopped by a policeman
named Charles Becker, who two decades later would be the principal figure in a much more notorious affair.
Becker arrested Dora Clark, one of the women with Crane, on a
charge of soliciting. Crane vigorously asserted her innocence in the matter and appeared in court to denounce the arresting
officer. The incident caused a sensation in the then-lively world of New York City newspapers, with Crane exalted (largely
by his own paper) as a selfless defender of womanhood and scourge of a corrupt police force, pilloried as a meddler and a
publicity hound, and libeled as a drug addict and frequenter of prostitutes.
Whatever Crane's motives may have been, the affair was a highly
stressful one for him and took a great toll, costing him, among much else, the friendship of then New York City Police Commissioner
Theodore Roosevelt.
In November of 1896, Crane met Cora Taylor, an intelligent woman
with literary inclinations several years his senior, who was operating a house of assignation in Jacksonville, Florida. She
was to become his companion for the rest of his life--although she called herself Cora Crane and was introduced by Crane as
his wife, no evidence of a marriage has ever come to light--and an untiring champion of his work and reputation after his
death.
They settled in England in 1897, where they were quickly accepted
into a circle of British and American novelists, including Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Harold Frederic, and Ford Madox Ford.
Meanwhile, Crane continued his astonishing productivity as both journalist and literary artist, covering the Greco-Turkish
War in 1897 and the Spanish-American War in 1898, and publishing in the single year of 1898 some of his finest short stories,
"The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," "Death and the Child," "The Monster," and "The Blue Hotel."
In the last year or so of his life, Crane suffered from increasingly
virulent attacks of tuberculosis, aggravated by a punishing work schedule. Many of these writing projects were hack work undertaken
out of financial need. With their money virtually gone and surviving on the generosity of friends, Cora brought Stephen to
a health spa at Badenweiler, Germany, where he died on June 5, 1900, at the age of twenty-eight.
Although there was an element of romance and swagger in his life
and in some of his writing, his best work remains as fresh and effective as when it was written. Identifying with the fearful
and the outcast, attacking complacency and intolerance, presenting even the most unsavory aspects of existence, disciplining
style and structure to a unity of effect, and doing all of these things in works of great power and insight, Stephen Crane
made permanent contributions not only to the body of American literature but also to its very shape and direction.
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Voltaire: Playwright, Philosopher, Poet, Writer
1694-1778
Had Voltaire been only a playwright, only a philosopher, only a poet, he
might still have been a figure of great historical significance. Born Francois Marie Arouet, he appended "de Voltaire" to
his name after the 1718 premiere of his popular play "Oedipe," perhaps to emulate nobles of the day. It is thought the word
"Voltaire" obliquely referred to the village of Airvault, where relatives owned property.
Voltaire wrote poetry, histories,
essays, and thousands of letters advancing the causes of religious tolerance, freedom of expression and scientific exploration.
His enlightened, sometimes irreverent, opinions found flower in the American and French revolutions. His view on freedom of
speech is capsulized as follows: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Voltaire's
memorable last words were reputed to be "this is no time for making new enemies" -- wryly uttered when he was asked to renounce
Satan on his deathbed.Voltaire
French Author and Philosopher
1694 - 1778Francois Marie Arouet (pen name Voltaire) was born on November
21, 1694 in Paris. Voltaire's style, wit, intelligence and keen sense of justice made him one of France's greatest writers
and philosophers.
Young Francois Marie received an excellent education at a Jesuit school.
He left school at 16 and soon formed friendships with a group of sophisticated Parisian aristocrats. Paris society sought
his company for his cleverness, humor and remarkable ability to write verse. In 1717 he was arrested for writing a series
of satirical verses ridiculing the French government, and was imprisoned in the Bastille. During his eleven months in prison
he wrote his first major play, "Oedipe," which achieved great success in 1718. He adopted his pen name "Voltaire" the same
year.
In 1726 Voltaire insulted a powerful young nobleman and was given two options:
imprisonment or exile. He chose exile and from 1726 to 1729 lived in England. While in England Voltaire was attracted to the
philosophy of John Locke and ideas of the great scientist Sir Isaac Newton. After his return to Paris he wrote a book praising
English customs and institutions. The book was thought to criticize the French government and Voltaire was forced to flee
Paris again.
In 1759 Voltaire purchased an estate called "Ferney" near the French-Swiss
border where he lived until just before of his death. Ferney soon became the intellectual capitol of Europe. Throughout his
years in exile Voltaire produced a constant flow of books, plays, pamphlets, and letters. He was a voice of reason, and an
outspoken critic of religious intolerance and persecution.
Voltaire returned to a hero's welcome in Paris at age 83. The excitement
of the trip was too much for him and he died in Paris. Because of his criticism of the church Voltaire was denied burial in
church ground. He was finally buried at an abbey in Champagne. In 1791 his remains were moved to a resting place at the Pantheon
in Paris.
In 1814 a group of "ultras" (right-wing religious) stole Voltaire's remains
and dumped them in a garbage heap. No one was the wiser for some 50 years. His enormous sarcophagus (opposite Rousseau's)
was checked and the remains were gone. (see Orieux, Voltaire, vol. 2 pp. 382-4.) His heart, however, had been removed from
his body, and now lays in the Bibliotheque nationale in Paris. His brain was also removed, but after a series of passings-on
over 100 years, disappeared after an auction.
Stephen King
THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT STEPHEN KING....
--Stephen's brother, David, was adopted two years before his
birth, after his mother had been told she could never bear children. He was 3 years old when his father permanently deserted
the family.
--King reached his height of 6' 4" when an adolescent. One contemporary
later relates, "He was a big, klutzy kid. Walking down the road, you knew he was going to fall down or walk into a sign, reading
his book."
--His first appearance in print, for which he was not paid, was
a story entitled, "I Was A Teenage Grave Robber." He sold his first story, a short story, "The Glass Floor," for $35. He later
recalls, "I've cashed many bigger checks since, but none gave me more satisfaction."
--His first job after graduating from college was pumping gas.
In 1971 he married his wife, who worked at a Dunkin' Donuts. They had met in the library at the University of Maine. After
the birth of their second child, they still could not afford a telephone.
--His first four novels were rejected. His wife rescued the fifth
from the trash. He titled it "Carrie," and it was accepted and brought him a $2,500 advance. When the rights for paperback
were sold for $400,000, he received half. He celebrated by buying his wife a hairdryer.
--King is a passionate baseball fan, especially of the Boston
Red Sox. He has occasionally grown a beard to mark the end of the baseball season, shaving it off when it begins again.
--He underwrote a $1 million refurbishment of a neighborhood
little league park, which became nicknamed "Field of Screams."
--He usually writes four hours a day with rock and roll music
playing loudly. Early in his career, he used one typewriter so much that his fingerprints became imbedded in the keys.
--He is one of the most banned authors of all time. He said,
"Every one of my books has been banned from one public high school library or another."
--King admits to a fear of the number 13, and is particularly
uneasy when flying in an airplane.
Helen Keller, June 27, 1880 –
June 1, 1968
Helen Adams Keller was an American author, political activist and lecturer. She was the
first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. The story of how Keller’s teacher, Annie Sullivan, broke through
the isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language, allowing the girl to blossom as she learned to communicate, has
become known worldwide through the dramatic depictions of the play and film The Miracle Worker.
Sullivan taught Helen to communicate by spelling words into her hand, beginning with d-o-l-l for the doll that she had brought
her as a present. A prolific author, Keller was well traveled and was outspoken in her opposition to war. She campaigned for
women’s suffrage, workers’ rights, and socialism, as well as many other progressive causes. In 1920, she helped
to found the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Keller
and Sullivan traveled to over 39 countries, making several trips to Japan and becoming a favorite
of the Japanese people. Keller met every US President from Grover
Cleveland to Lyndon B. Johnson and was friends with many famous figures, including
Alexander Graham Bell, Charlie Chaplin, and Mark
Twain.
Copyright ©2010, Listverse.
All rights reserved.
Christy Brown, June 5, 1932
– September 7, 1981
Christy Brown was an Irish author, painter and poet who had severe cerebral
palsy. Born in Crumlin, Dublin to parents Bridget and Paddy, he was one of 13 surviving children
(out of 22 born) in a Catholic family. He was disabled by cerebral palsy and was incapable for years of deliberate movement
or speech. Doctors considered him to be intellectually disabled as well. However, his mother continued to speak to him, work
with him, and try to teach him. One day, he famously snatched a piece of chalk from his sister with his left foot to make
a mark on a slate.
At about five years old, only his left foot responded to his will. Using
his foot he was able to communicate for the first time. He is most famous for his autobiography "My Left Foot",
which was later made into an Academy Award-winning film of the same name. The Irish Times
reviewer Bernard Share said the book was “…the most important Irish novel since Ulysses”. Like Joyce, Brown
employed the stream-of-consciousness technique and captured the Dublin culture in his use of humor, language and unique character
description.
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