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Skaespeare

2016-02-08T12:16:12.887-05:00

Life William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon to John Shakespeare and Mary Arden and was baptised on 26 April, 1564. He was the third of eight children but went on to become the oldest as his two older siblings didn’t survive childhood. He was believed to have lived in a small house on Henley Street and it was believed that he went to King’s New School, although all attendance records have been lost. Shakespeare was married to 26 year old Anne Hathaway, aged 18 on 15 November, 1582. She was already three months pregnant with their first child, Susanna. They went on to have two more children, Hamnet and Judith. Although Hamnet died at 11, the two girls lived past 65. Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616 aged 52, in Stratford-upon-Avon. His wife, Anne, also died in 1616, aged 60. The Theatre - In Elizabethan England In Elizabethan England theatres were a lot different. For starters there were no female actors as it wasn’t seen as an honourable job. The roles of women were played by young males/ boys who hadn’t gone through puberty because they had high voices. Another difference is that actors back then didn’t have time to learn their lines. They were usually given to them just before the performance or even during it. Someone sat behind the curtains whispering the actor’s lines; this was called ‘cue acting’. There were three different seating options back then. The cheapest was to stand around the stage. People who stood to watch the play were called ‘Groundlings’. The next seating option was seats in the gallery. People in the gallery could pay one penny extra for a cushion. The most expensive option was to sit on a chair on the stage, right up close with the action. Plays were done during the evening. This was because it was too bright to perform during the day as the sun was out fully and it was too dark to perform during the night as they didn’t have light-bulbs back then. Plays Shakespeare wrote three different types of plays: Comedy, Tragedy and History. His history plays were about famous kings including Henry V, Henry VIII, Richard II and King John. His comedies included: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest and Twelfth Night and usually they end in something happy like a marriage. His tragedies included: Hamlet, Macbeth and Romeo and

Free Essay on the Biography of John Steinbeck

2012-10-10T08:55:12.043-04:00

John Steinbeck Biography John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California, in 1902. He was the third of four children and the only son of John Steinbeck, Sr. and Olive Hamilton Steinbeck. Growing up in a rural valley near the Pacific coast, Steinbeck was an intense reader, and both his father, a local government official, and his mother, a former schoolteacher, encouraged his literary pursuits. In 1919 he graduated from Salinas High School and matriculated at Stanford University, where he studied literature and writing. In 1925, without a degree, Steinbeck left Stanford to pursue work as a reporter in New York City. He returned to California the following year, supporting his endeavors at writing with a steady income from manual labor. Over the next several years his literary career gained momentum with the publication of his first novels. Although his first three—Cup of Gold, The Pastures of Heaven, and To a God Unknown—were critical and commercial failures, he achieved major success in 1935 with the publication of Tortilla Flat, a collection of stories about the ethnic working poor in California. During this time, Steinbeck began to gain recognition from critics for his short stories. Steinbeck’s extensive travels in the 1930s partly inspired two of his finest works, Of Mice and Men, in 1937, and The Grapes of Wrath, in 1939. Both novels, fictional portraits of the western United States during the Great Depression, are still read widely. Steinbeck received the Pulitzer Prize for The Grapes of Wrath in 1940. Steinbeck’s simple, touching novella The Pearl originally appeared in the magazine Woman’s Home Companion in 1945 under the title “The Pearl of the World.” The story explores the destructive effect of colonial capitalism on the simple piety of a traditional native culture. Set in a Mexican Indian village on the Baja Peninsula around the turn of the century, the novella tells the story of Kino, an Indian pearl diver who discovers a massive, beautiful, and extremely valuable pearl. The pearl fills Kino with a new desire to abandon his simple, idyllic life in favor of dreams of material and social advancement, dreams that run headlong into the oppressive resistance of the Spanish colonial powers that top the social hierarchy of Kino’s world. While less complex than Steinbeck’s other works, The Pearl ranks among his most popular, and it is certainly one of his most accessible. The novella was originally conceived as a film project

Lorenzo Valla

2007-08-17T18:29:43-04:00

Lorenzo Valla was born into an affluent Roman family in 1407, and died there in 1457. Valla was a humanist as well as a philosopher, philologist, priest and author. Valla single-handedly disproved the dubious, yet sacred document enabling the Papacy to own territory in Constantinople in his book, Falsely-Believed and Forged Donation of Constantine, or under its abridged original title, Declamatio. His discovery of the forgery led to a questioning of the Church and its integrity. But his motive for the book was not to hurt the Church in any way, but rather to sanction the truth. Valla published several books disproving other questioned Church documents, including Christ to Abgarus. Valla was an archetypal Italian humanist. During his time, Valla wrote and published approximately ten books (not including his contentious Declamatio). Valla was a fervent spokesperson for reform in language and in education (as many humanists were at the time). Valla was very interested in the Church from a young age. His father worked as a lawyer for the Papal court. Valla longed for a job in the Pope dominion, and so applied for a job as papal secretary in 1430. After being denied the position, Valla traveled about northern Italy. He trekked throughout Milan and Genoa for 5 years, until setting down in the kingdom of Naples in 1435. There he was able to work for the Royal court under King Alfonso of Aragon. Valla continued his work there until 1448. During this time, an astringent discrepancy between Pope Eugenius IV or Rome and Alfonso of Aragon over the Kingdom of Naples ensued. Valla, though a religious man, was still employed by, and in favor of the king, and so published his discovery of the False Donation of Constantine to discredit the Pope eligibility to take over the kingdom. The manuscript donating the land was allegedly sign by both Constantine and Pope Sylvester I. But this forged document was about to be disproved¦. Valla Falsely-Believed and Forged Donation of Constantine, was written in 1439, and published one year after. Valla yearned to assist his employer in his battle against the Church. As a philologist, Valla was very intrigued by the unconvincing document reifying the donation. He began his research by attempting to excavate the oldest document stating the contribution.

What Thoughts I Have of You Tonight, Allen Ginsberg

2007-05-23T03:11:19-04:00

Thomas Paine. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Martin Luther King, Jr. When one thinks of people who began a new generation, inspiring people, motivating people, and leading them, these names may come to mind. However, one that many neglect is the genius of Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg’s actions and opinions, built by his background, caused the eternal and cultural birth known as the 1960s. Allen Ginsberg’s colorful childhood led him to a deviant youth, causing an eruption of unique and intellectual poetry, which not only incited a new genre of literature and life, but inspired countless others to take a stand—no matter how differently they thought. Truly, Ginsberg proved to be a real individual, especially seen in his stylistic, liberal poetry. Unfortunately, his life began awkwardly, and he struggled to cope with his family’s dysfunction. Many of the things which occurred while he was still a youth molded him into the poetic giant the world now knows today. While he may be very famous, his poetry outweighs his name. One of his most renowned works, “A Supermarket in California” still remains unclear to many, but it stands as an innovating and thought-provoking piece of literature, expressing his views of the world and its future, while praising the poetic idols of the past. While Ginsberg drew inspiration from artists of the past, he inspired an entire generation and is indeed considered a forerunner of ‘60s culture and life. Precisely one month after Napoleon Bonaparte died at age sixty-three, Allen Ginsberg was born. June 3, 1926, created the boy, born of a Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey, two days after the World’s Fair hit Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Wikipedia). The son of a high school teacher and part time poet, Ginsberg developed a love of great literature and often wrote to the New York Times as a teen, expressing his views on World War Two and worker’s rights (Wikipedia). Sadly, he never got along well with his father. His mother, Naomi Levi Ginsberg, aside from being a nudist and member of Communist Party USA, suffered from epilepsy and paranoia. When Ginsberg became a teenager, his mother asked him to accompany her by bus to a mental home, where she could receive electroshock therapy and a lobotomy. His mother and that trip gave Ginsberg “enormous empathy and tolerance for madness, neurosis, and psychosis” (Poet.org, Wikipedia, Charters). After graduating from Eastside High School in 1943, Ginsberg briefly studied

Gestrude Stein Biography

2007-04-25T20:48:26-04:00

Gestrude Stein Biography The fifth and youngest child of the Daniel and Amelia Stein family, Gertrude Stein was born on February 3, 1874 into upper middle class surroundings in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. When she was 3 years old the family moved to Vienna and then on to Paris before returning to American in late 1878 Her father moved the family to Oakland, California soon after their return. Her brother Leo, 2 years her senior, and Gertrude found like interest and became close allies through much of their early lives. Gertrude was 8 years old when she made her first attempt at writing. Reading became an obsession for her beginning with Shakespeare and books on natural history. Gertrude’s love affair with words would later reveal itself in her own works. In school she was fascinated with the structuring of sentences “I suppose other things may be more exciting to others…I like the feeling the everlasting feeling of sentences as they diagram themselves.” In 1891 her father died suddenly, and the oldest brother Michael assumed the position of earning a living for the family. The Stein family moved to San Francisco where Gertrude became intrigued by the theater and opera. In 1892, she moved to Baltimore to live with a wealthy aunt. Gertrude entered Radcliffe College in 1893. As a student she developed a special philosophical relationship with her teacher, William James. On a particularly nice spring day during final exams in James’ course she wrote at the top of her paper… “Dear Professor James, I am sorry but I really do not feel a bit like an examination paper in philosophy today.” The next day she received a postcard from James saying, “I understand perfectly how you feel I often feel like that myself.” And then gave her the highest mark in his course. She became more interested in philosophy and psychology courses and then she decided on a career in medicine and enrolled at Johns Hopkins University. She later studied medicine in Europe and eventually dismissed the whole area. She returned to America to live with friends in New York. It was here that she wrote her first novel “Q.E.D”. It would, for some reason, be lost for 30 years and not be published until 4 years

Biogrpahy of Female Author Maya Angelou

2007-04-19T21:20:10-04:00

Biogrpahy of Female Author Maya Angelou Maya Angelou is one of the most moving, talented writers of our time. She has so many sides to her as a person that play into her writing and teachings. I have for a long time revered the lady for her passion and ability to portray feeling in words to her reader. I was turned on to her as a writer after I read some of her poems, and then I grasped an understanding of her personal story when I read her best selling autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Maya Angelou was born on April 4, 1928 in Saint Louis, Missouri. She was named Marguerite Johnson and changed her name in her early twenties after her first performance as a dancer. She was born into a two parent home until her parents divorced when she was three. Her brother, Bailey, and she were sent to live with her grandmother in Arkansas. Stamps, Arkansas and her grandmother taught her a lot of life’s lessons. There she learned what a black girl’s world was held by. Maya experienced many hardships while growing up. One of her biggest dreams during her childhood was to have long blonde hair. This was only because she felt white girls’ lives were more enjoyable than that of hers. Even though her conditions could not be changed, pride was given to her by her grandmother, who raised the great writer to place God in the center of her life and realize that she could change the world around her. The children were sent back to their mothers after five years of being with their grandmother. At first this moved seemed to be great but soon turned to into hell. Here Maya at the age of eight was raped by her mother’s live in boyfriend. After the rape, Maya went mute for five years. During this time she was sent back to be with her grandmother because she was considered to be unable to be handled. At this time another strong woman walked into her life that changed and shaped her into the person she is today. Mrs. Flowers slowly helped Maya find herself again. In 1940, her brother and herself were sent back to live with their Mom in San

Biography of Aldous Huxley

2007-04-19T21:10:46-04:00

Biography of Aldous Huxley Aldous Huxley, English novelist, established himself as one of the premiere fiction writers of the twentieth century. Such works as Brave New World and Doors of Perception sparked positive reviews from critics and readers across the globe. He was born on July 26, 1894, in Godalming, Surrey, England. Ever since he was very young, Huxley’s peers and family considered him to be “different”. This was not necessarily a bad thing to anyone. Aldous’ brother considered this to be a form of “superiority”. It was a good life for Aldous, as he was a part of a family that was considered to be some of the most distinguished members of that part of the ruling class in England that made of the intellectual elite. His first real family tragedy was at the age of fourteen when his mother died of cancer. All of his success took place even though he was stricken with keratitis and became nearly blind at the age of sixteen. Not long after his vision became impaired, Huxley entered the literary world by attending Oxford. He met with writers such as Lytton Strachey and Bertrand Russell, who got him off to a good start with his writing career. He retained enough eyesight to read with difficulty, and in 1916 got through college, graduating from Ballial College, Oxford. Here, he learned to write with elegance and wit, which earned him even more respect and an exceptional fan base for the remainder of his writing career. In 1916 Huxley published his first book, a collection of poems, which was called The Burning Wheel. Over the next twenty years, he released four more very popular novels before releasing Brave New World in 1932. This was definitely Aldous Huxley’s most popular book ever. It was about a futuristic utopian society. In this “utopia”, human beings are scientifically created in labs from cells, and they are brainwashed from a very young age to conform to the standards of the world. A drug, soma, is taken to ease people’s pain and unhappiness. If someone is considered to be “unhappy”, they are sent away from the larger society to live on a desolate island with other people of the same kind. The Utopians go to great lengths to deny the unpleasantness of

The Life and Works of Author C.S. Lewis

2007-04-18T23:30:13-04:00

The Life and Works of Author C.S. Lewis Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland on November 29, 1898, Clive Staples ("Jack") Lewis was raised in a very educated home, one in which the reality he found on the pages of the books within his parents' extensive library seemed as tangible and meaningful to him as anything that transpired outside their doors. As adolescents, Lewis and his older brother, Warren, were more at home in the world of ideas and books of the past, than with the material, technological world of the 20th Century. When the tranquility and sanctity of the Lewis home was shattered beyond repair by the death of his mother when he was ten, Lewis sought refuge in composing stories and excelling in scholastics. Soon thereafter he became precociously oriented toward the metaphysical and ultimate questions. The rest of his saga and the particulars of his writing career might be seen as the melancholy search for the security he had took granted during the peace and grace of his childhood. By Lewis's testimony, this recovery was to be had only in the "joy" he discovered in an adult conversion to Christianity. Long-time friend and literary executor of the Lewis estate, Owen Barfield has suggested that there were, in fact, three "C. S. Lewises." That is to say, during his lifetime Lewis fulfilled three very different vocations-- and fulfilled them successfully. There was, first, Lewis the distinguished Oxbridge literary scholar and critic; second, Lewis, the highly acclaimed author of science fiction and children's literature; and thirdly, Lewis, the popular writer and broadcaster of Christian apologetics. The amazing thing, Barfield notes, is that those who may have known of Lewis in any single role may not have known that he performed in the other two. In a varied and comprehensive writing career, Lewis carved out a sterling reputation as a scholar, a novelist, and a theologian for three very different audiences. No brief summary can thus do justice to the many and varied works Lewis produced in his lifetime between 1919-1961. Indeed, more Lewis volumes--collection of essays, chiefly--have appeared after his death than during his lifetime. A sampling of the range and depth of his achievements in criticism, fiction, and apologetics might begin, however, with the first books Lewis published, two volumes of poetry: Spirits in Bondage, published in 1919 when Lewis was but 23, and his long narrative poem,

James Mercer Langston Hughes

2007-04-18T05:19:12-04:00

Langston Hughes was a very gentle man who spent much of his life at the center of controversy. He was very faithful to his art--the true expression of the lives, hopes, fears, and angers of ordinary black people--without sugar coating it. Arnold Rampersad shows Hughes dedication to writing his thoughts and views has been repaid with extraordinary and continuing popularity, as well as critical acceptance. James Mercer Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, on February 1, 1902, to James Nathaniel Hughes, a lawyer and businessman, and his mother Carrie Mercer Hughes, a teacher. The couple separated shortly after his birth. James Hughes was, by his son's account, a cold man who hated blacks and hated himself for being one. He felt that most of them deserve their ill fortune because of what he considers their ignorance and laziness. Langston Hughes' youthful visits to his father were tense and painful. When James Nathaniel Hughes died, he left everything to three elderly women who cared for him in his last days, and Langston was not even in his will. Hughes mother went through many separations and reconciliation’s in her second marriage. Langston Hughes was brought up by Carrie, his maternal grandmother, and family friends. Langston Hughes was a very busy young man. At the age of fourteen, he had already lived in Joplin, Buffalo, Cleveland, Lawrence, Mexico City, Topeka, Colorado Springs, Kansas City, and Illinois. In 1915, he was the class poet in grammar school. From 1916 to 1920, he attends Central High School in Cleveland; where he was a star athlete, a writer of poetry, and short stories. On his own, he also read such modern poets as Paul Laurence Dunbar, Edgar Lee Masters, Vachel Lindsay, and Carl Sandburg. His classmates were the children of European immigrants, who treated him largely without discrimination and introduced him to the leftist political ideas (Rampersad). After his high school graduation in 1920, he went to Mexico to teach English for a year. While on the train to Mexico, he wrote the poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers", which was available in the June 1921 issue of The Crisis, a leading black publication. Hughes went to Columbia University from 1921 to 1922. After his academic year at Columbia he lived for a year in Harlem, and embarks on a six-month voyage as a cabin boy on a merchant freighter heading for West Africa. After its

Emily Dickinson Biography

2006-12-20T01:50:59-05:00

Emily Dickinson Biography Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 in Amherst Massachusetts. She had a younger sister named Lavina and an older brother named Austin. Her mother Emily Norcross Dickinson, was largely dependent on her family and was seen by Emily as a poor mother. Her father was lawyer, Congressman, and the Treasurer for Amherst College. Unlike her mother, Emily loved and admired her father. Since the family was not emotional, they lived a quiet secure life. They rarely shared their problems with one another so Emily had plenty of privacy for writing. During her childhood, Emily and her family attended The First Congregational Church on a regular basis. Emily did not like going to church because she didn’t think of herself as being very religious. She refused to believe that Heaven was a better place than Earth and eventually rebelled from the church. Emily saw herself as a woman who had her own way of thinking, a way of thinking shaped neither by the church or society. By the time she was twelve, her family moved to a house on Pleasant Street where they lived from 1840 to 1855. Emily was already writing letters, but composed most of her poetry in this home. Emily only left home to attend Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for two semesters. Even though her stay there was brief, she impressed her teachers with her courage and directness. They felt her writing was sensational. At the age of twenty-one, Emily and her family moved to the Dickinson Homestead on Main Street. This move proved to be very difficult for Emily. This was difficult for Emily because she became very attached to her old house, which shaped her writing and personality for fifteen years. They now lived next door to her brother Austin and his wife Susan and their daughter Martha. Emily and Susan became so close that many people believe they may have been lovers. A rumor perpetuated by the fact that Emily was known to have written many love letters and poems to Susan. Martha attempted to protect both of their images and suppress the rumors. It became common knowledge that Emily had some type of very strong feelings for Susan. At the age of thirty-one Emily sent some of her poems to a publisher, Thomas Higginson, from whom she got a very good response and a strong friendship developed. He acted as

Biography of T.S. Eliot

2006-12-19T03:50:57-05:00

Biography of T.S. Eliot Through the centuries, decades, and years the world has come by many amazing authors and poets but there are always that select renowned few that will stick out in your memory, one of which being Thomas Stearns Eliot. As you read on you will be taken through the journey of T.S. Eliot’s amazing and intriguing life, and his works of poetry. His authoritative prose style he developed in his 20’s helped him re-establish the premises upon which poetry was read, evaluated, and written. In writing strange and impersonal seeming poems written out of his own personal torments, he helped redirect the course of twentieth-century poetry in English. Proving to be such a pivotal part in literary history T.S. Eliot has without a doubt gained his spot in literature, being a poet, playwright, literary critic, a winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, and a leader of the modernist movement in literature. T.S. Eliot was born on September 26, 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri. He was the seventh and last child of Henry Ware Eliot, a brick manufacturer, and Charlotte Stearns Eliot, who herself was a poet. Both parents’ families had emigrated from England to Massachusetts in the seventeenth century. The poet’s paternal grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot had moved to St. Louis in the 1830’s where he became a Unitarian Minister but he still kept a very close New England connection. As a young boy T.S. Eliot attended Miss Locke’s Primary School and Smith Academy Record, graduating high school in 1905. He spent the year following his graduation at Milton academy, a private prep school in Massachusetts. In late September 1906 he began to study at Harvard University. There he took classes from professors such as Paul Elmer More and Irving Abbott, who both would later become Eliot’s main influence in his writing career. They will both influence Eliot through his classicism and emphasis on tradition. Also Eliot studied the poetry of Dante, who would soon be Eliot’s prime source of inspiration and enthusiasm. In 1909, Eliot earned a B.A. at Harvard, and stayed to earn a master’s degree in English literature. Leaving in the beginning of the fall in the following year, Eliot went off to Paris to spend a year taking courses at the Sorbonne, writing, reading, and mostly soaking up the atmosphere.

Biography on Stephen King

2006-12-05T15:54:40-05:00

Biography on Stephen King Stephen King an American author has truly made a significant impact on today’s readers. King can turn marital stress, peer pressure, or adultery into a terrifying epic that would make your skin crawl. Stephen Edwin King was born September 21,1947 in Portland, Maine. Stephen’s birth was a tremendous surprise to his parents as they had been told they could not have children. When Stephen was 2 years old his parents began experiencing problems in their marriage. One-day Stephen’s father went out to buy a pack of cigarettes and never returned. Stephen hasn’t seen his father since. After Stephen’s father left the rest of the family relocated to Massachusetts. After living in Massachusetts for several years he returned to Maine and began his schooling. Stephen Kings passion for writing quickly began in 1959 when he wrote articles for his brothers local newspaper entitled “Dave’s Rag. At the age of 13 Stephen began writing articles and even his opinions on upcoming television shows. Stephen copied some of his short stories and sold them to the town’s local people for a 30 cents. King tried selling his stories at school but his teachers stopped him. During these years King published many short stories. These early stories had science fiction themes however due to his lack of scientific knowledge they were said to be “a bit thin on detail”. Stephen’s interest in writing fiction began in 1959 when he was at his Aunts home and found a box of horror comics. The authors of these comics, Howard Phillips, Lovecraft, and Jack Finney inspired King. Shortly after this encounter he began to think about writing fiction stories. His first published comic was titled “I Was a Teenage Grave Robber”. Despite this first publication Kings first professional sale occurred in 1967 when Startling Mystery Stories accepted his story “The Glass Floor”. After King graduated high school he attended the University of Maine. He earned his bachelors degree in English. While a student at the university Stephen met Tabitha Spruce. After a short courtship they married. The Kings currently

The Life of Jack London

2006-12-05T15:36:53-05:00

The Life of Jack London The short lived life of Jack London is a direct reflection of his literary works major theme, the struggle for survival of strong men driven by primitive emotions. “To Build A Fire” and White Fang are two of his works that coincide his life experiences and illustrate his literary theme. London was born the illegitimate son of W.H. Chaney and Flora Wellmen in 1876. He never saw his biological father and his mother had little to do with him. Eight months after his birth, his mother married a man named John London. This is where Jack received his name. Even with his new family, that included two step-sisters, Jack still received little time or love from them. “He claimed to have felt that he was a boy without a boyhood” (Marshall 749). In “To Build A Fire,” a man is on a journey through the Yukon. He takes this journey alone, and therefore must face all challenges alone. This is much like the childhood of Jack London. London had to accept all challenges and obstacles in his childhood alone, because his family was not there to support him. Both Jack London and the man in “To Build A Fire” are in control of their own destiny. As it turns out for the man in “To Build A Fire,” he faces his death because of his solitude. ! London may be implying that if he had someone to guide him through the early stages of life, he might have turned out to be a more fulfilled and successful person. By the age of twenty-three, London had held a numerous variety of jobs. He had been everything from a newsboy to an oyster bed pirate. He even bummed his way through the United States. In 1897, he traveled to Canada to try his luck in the Yukon Territory gold rush. This is the motivation behind his 1906 novel, White Fang. White Fang Centers around the ability of a man, through love and kindness, to tame a savage wolf, and turn it into a loyal domestic animal.

The Biography of John Steinbeck

2006-12-04T21:17:15-05:00

The Biography of John Steinbeck Born February 27, 1902 to a County Treasurer and a schoolteacher, John Steinbeck was raised in the small town of Salinas, California. With no more than a population of 2500, this rural farming community influenced and formed many of John Steinbeck’s stories. Being the third of four children and the only boy, John Steinbeck discovered writing and even though he was very shy nature, he sent in numerous articles to various publishings. Olive Hamilton Steinbeck, John Steinbeck’s mother, was an Irish immigrant. As described in a small portion of John Steinbeck’s book, East of Eden, his mother left her parents at fifteen to become a schoolteacher. Unlike his mother, John Steinbeck Senor, was considered very stern and “a man intensely disappointed in himself” (Reef 12). His father was a government official in Salinas County. The reason his father was disappointed with himself was partly due because he had chosen a safe practical course of life. He would later support and admire his son for “laying down his line and following it undeflected to the end.” (Reef 12). John Steinbeck first began his academic career at West End School, the local public school, where he earned good grades. He then moved on to the small town’s high school where he excelled in writing, but began to become shy, socially secluding himself. John Steinbeck’s ninth-grade English teacher, Miss Cupp was the one he credited, with inspiring him to become a writer. She said, “like Malory and Stevenson, he could create magic words” (Reef 19). John Steinbeck entered Stanford University in the fall of 1919. Unlike the other freshmen attending their first year of collage, John Steinbeck was there to learn not for a degree. He decided to study topics that interested him, taking classes that would aid his writing career. He took everything from literature, classical Greek and history, to human anatomy. When he did not like a professor or their assignments he either dropped the class or simply did not do them. In 1925 John Steinbeck graduated Stanford University, but without a degree. On November 5, 1925 John Steinbeck moved to New York and worked as both a manual laborer (working on the construction of Madison Square Garden) and journalist while writing his first two novels, which were not successful (Reef 25). In 1930, John Steinbeck moved back to California and

Biography of Arthur Miller Literary Works

2006-08-29T15:06:03-04:00

Biography of Arthur Miller Literary Works Arthur Miller was born in New York City on October 17, 1915. He was the second of three children. In growing up, Miller was more interested in his athletics than his curriculum. He was then rejected from the University of Michigan in 1932. Since his scholarship was out of reach he started to progress into a private course in which he read many books and developed his unique writing style. After many tries, Miller was accepted in the University of Michigan in 1934. Miller was a fabulous screenwriter of many plays along with a few novels. Many of his plays have won awards and even have been displayed as motion pictures in the box-office. His works aren’t as famous as William Shakespeare’s, but they are world famous and are always being read. Miller’s Works consist of very dramatic plays and books that have meaningful morals, and tell of great dramas and conflicts. Some of Miller’s works are: -“All My Sons”, Written in 1947. -“Death of a Salesman”, Written in 1949. -“The Crucible”, Written in 1953. -“A View From The Bridge”, Written in 1955. -“After the fall”, Written in 1964. -“Incident at Vicky”, Written in 1964. -“The Price”, Written in 1968. -“The Creation of the World and other business”, Written in 1972. -“The ride down Mount Morgan”, Written in 1981. Miller’s writing outside the theater was prolific and varied. His novel, Focus (1945), is an ironic tale of anti-Semitism. Also the screenplay of the “Misfits”, (1961), is on of seven he has written. “In Russia”, (1969), was a travel peace with illustrations by his wife. “Chinese Encounters”, (1979), is another travelers tale, with “Salesman of Beijing” (1984), is an account of the production of his play in Chinese. “The theater essay of Arthur Miller”, were collected in 1978. In 1987, Miller published Timebends: A life, his biography. Arthur was deeply involved with Merilyn Monroe. They were married and Monroe helped Arthur through many life struggles and through his writing career. Miller didn’t have many artistic and cultural influences, as well as social and economic influences. The only influence that was strong within him was the fact that he has had many struggles in his life and also that he was rejected from college. This made him fight and over come many obstacles, which have formed him into

Rupert Chawner Brooke's Biography

2006-08-25T17:34:20-04:00

Rupert Chawner Brooke's Biography Rupert Chawner Brooke was born in 1887 in England. The son of the Rugby School's housemaster, Brooke excelled in both academics and athletics. He entered his father's school at the age of fourteen. A lover of verse since the age of nine, he won the school poetry prize in 1905. A year later, he attended King's College, Cambridge, where he was known for his striking good looks, charm, and intellect. While at Cambridge, he developed an interest in acting and was president of the University Fabian Society. Rupert Brook published his first poems in 1909; his first book, Poems, appeared in 1911. While working on his thesis on John Webster and Elizabethan dramatists, he lived in the house that he made famous by his poem "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester." Popular in both literary and political circles, he befriended Winston Churchill and Henry James. Although he was popular, Brooke had a troubled love life. Between 1908 and 1912 he fell in love with three women. None of the relationships were long lasting. In 1912, after his third romance failed, Brooke left England to travel in France and Germany for several months. Upon his return to England, Brooke received a scholarship at King's College and spent time in both Cambridge and London. In 1912 he compiled an anthology entitled Georgian Poetry, 1911-12, with Edward Marsh. The Georgian poets wrote in an anti-Victorian style, using rustic themes and subjects such as friendship and love. Some critics viewed Brooke's poetry as too sentimental and lacking depth, they also considered his work a reflection of the mood in England during the years leading up to the First World War. After experiencing a mental breakdown in 1913, Brooke traveled again, spending several months in Canada, United States, and the South Seas. While in the South Seas, he wrote some of his best poems, including "Tiare Tahiti" and "The Great Lover." He returned to England at the outbreak of World War I and enlisted in the Royal Naval Division. His most famous work, the sonnet sequence “1914 and Other Poems” appeared in 1915. Later that year, after taking part in the Antwerp Expedition, he died of blood poisoning from a mosquito bite while en route to Gallipoli with the Navy. He was buried on the island of Skyros in the Aegean Sea. Following his death in 1915, Brooke, who was already famous, became a symbol

Dante Alighieri Italian Poet's Biography

2006-08-12T16:55:56-04:00

Dante Alighieri: Italian Poet's Biography The Italian poet Dante Alighieri is known worldwide as one of the greatest poets of all time. His works, including La Vita Nuova and La Commedia Divina or The Divine Comedy, have been translated into several different languages and have inspired great artists both of the past and of modern times to create works of their own concerning the Divine Comedy. However, there is much more to be known about Dante. Not only was he a talented poet, he was also a politician, a statesman, a philosopher, a noble, an exile, and a theologian. Dante was a sort of Renaissance man, even before the idea came into being. There are many aspects about Dante’s character, personality, and his life that are worthy of further knowledge and exploration. Dante Alighieri was born in Florence, Italy in 1265. He states in the Paradisio that he was born when the sun was in Gemini, fixing his birthday between May 18 and June 17 (Gardner 1). When he was just nine years old, an event happened in his life that would forever be the driving force of his existence (Howell 9-10). It was at this time that he met Beatrice, whose name is found in both La Vita Nuova and in The Divine Comedy. She too was only nine years old. They did not have an intimate relationship since for the first nine years he loved her, she never spoke to him. Only when he was nearly eighteen did Beatrice, now grown up into a “marvelous lady,” even bow to him (Walsh 102). Although the two married other people, Beatrice’s death in 1290 at the age of 24 had a profound affect on Dante. As he once said, “The things of the present, with their false pleasure turned my steps aside as soon as your face was hidden.“ (Howell 13). However, he later goes on to say that whatever delinquencies he charged himself were bitterly repented of and nobly atoned for. By 1294, Dante had already completed his La Vita Nuova, a medley of lyric verse and poetic prose, that tells of his love for Beatrice. In it, Dante describes his love for Beatrice as purely spiritual and mystical, showing his philosophical and religious ideals, as well as his thoughts on “Divine Love.” In the Divine Comedy Beatrice holds a very high spiritual position. She is seen as the “blessed soul

Biographical Report on Robert Frost

2006-07-31T12:45:48-04:00

Biographical Report on Robert Frost Robert Frost was born in San Francisco in 1874. He moved to New England at the age of eleven and became interested in reading and writing poetry during his high school years in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Analysis of Hersey and Hiroshima

2006-07-31T12:35:40-04:00

Analysis of Hersey and Hiroshima Hiroshima traces the experiences of six residents who survived the atomic blast of August 6, 1945 at 8:15 am. The six people vary in age, education, financial status and employment. Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a personnel clerk; Dr. Masakazu Fuji, a physician; Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura, a tailor's widow with three small children; Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, a German missionary priest; Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, and the Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto are the six Hersey chose from dozens of people he interviewed. The book opens with what each person was doing moments before the blast and follows their next few hours, continuing through the next several days and then ending with their situation a year later. In the opening chapter, "A Noiseless Flash" he gives short scenarios of what each was doing moments before the blast and immediately after. The second chapter, "The Fire," picks up with each victim as they begin to assess their surroundings. All face a different sort of horror as they realize their lives have been spared yet the world as they knew it is gone. "Details Are Being Investigated" is the title of the third chapter. As the title suggests, inhabitants of Hiroshima are being bombarded with rumors about the bomb and eagerly await any official word. Information is scarce and the phrase "details are being investigated" is repeated throughout the city over makeshift communications. This chapter is the longest and details what is happening to the six as the day passes into night. Some readers might be confused by the significance of the title of the fourth chapter: "Panic Grass and Feverfew." The effect the bomb had not only left the underground organs of plants intact but also had stimulated growth of the wild flowers and plants. Two of these plants that grew profusely around the scars of the city were panic grass and Feverfew. This chapter traces the effect of the nuclear radiation on the residents. Four of the six suffer from radiation sickness in varying degrees. This is the final chapter in the original book. Hersey concludes the stories with a report of where each victim is at this point in his or her life a year after the bomb had fallen. In his addition to the original text, the fifth chapter called the Aftermath, Hersey returns to interview the six survivors and see how their lives have been altered by the blast

James Boswell Biography

2006-07-31T08:37:20-04:00

James Boswell Biography James Boswell is a unique figure in English literature: a classic by virtue of the three masterpieces he published, he is also, in one sense, a contemporary (Collins 7). Much of his best work has been published only in the last thirty years, and some still awaits publication, so that our ideas of the man and his art are still being continuously modified (Collins 7). James Boswell was born in Edinburgh on October 29, 1740 (Collins 6). He is the son of Alexander Boswell, Lord Auchinleck, who was a judge in the Scotland supreme courts (“James Boswell (1740-1795)”). Boswell’s mother, Euphemia Erskire, was descended from a minor branch of Scottish royalty (“James Boswell (1740-1795)”). James was the eldest child in the family (“James Boswell: Biographer, Diarist & Travel Writer 1740-1795”). Boswell attended the University of Edinburgh where he studied arts and law. He was already keeping a journal at age 18 (“James Boswell (1740-1795)”). In 1759, Boswell’s father sent him to the University of Glasgow to separate his son from an actress (“James Boswell (1740-1795)”). James ran away to London in 1759 and embraced Roman Catholicism, planning to become a monk (“James Boswell (1740-1795)”). In 1762, Boswell was permitted another trip to London, where he made full use of his freedom, overindulging in drink and sex (“James Boswell: Biographer, Diarist & Travel Writer 1740-1795”). In 1763, he was sent to study law at Utrecht and then traveled widely over the continent (“James Boswell: Biographer, Diarist & Travel Writer 1740-1795”). In Davies’s Bookshop in May 1763, Boswell met the man who was to become the central figure in his life, Dr. Samuel Jackson (“James Boswell: Biographer, Diarist & Travel Writer 1740-1795”). Moving back to Scotland in 1766, James was admitted to the bar and he practiced law in Edinburgh for 20 years (“James Boswell (1740-1795)”). Then he visited Corsica, meeting the Corsica leader General Paoli and in 1768 he published An Account of Corsica, which won him an international reputation (“James Boswell: Biographer, Diarist & Travel Writer 1740-1795”). In 1769, Boswell married Margaret Montgomerie, his cousin; and they had 7 children together (“James Boswell (1740-1795)”). Though his visits to London were restricted to the vacations of the Court of Session, Boswell kept his contacts to Johnson, and was elected to the Literary

Biography of Children's Writers Jan and Stan Berenstein

2006-07-31T08:24:09-04:00

Biography of Children's Writers Jan and Stan Berenstein Jan Berenstein was born on July 26, 1923, Pennsylvania. Her husband and partner Stan

Biography on Clive Cussler; 1931-Present

2006-07-30T21:41:51-04:00

Biography on Clive Cussler; 1931-Present Eric Clive Cussler was born in 1931 in Aurora Illinois. He attended Pasadena city college in 1949 and remained their until 1951. He also attended Orange Coast College and California State University. He was enrolled in the military from 1950 to 1954. While enrolled he became a sergeant. In 1955 he Married Barbara Knight and they now have three children, Teri, Dirk, Dana. In his working career he started out with Bestgen & Cussler Advertising in which he was the owner from 1961-65. He was the copy director for Darcys Advertising in Hollywood from 1965 to 1967. He then became the vice president and creative director for Mefford Advertising 1970-75 (Contemporary Popular Writers). Then he established NUMA which stands for National Underwater Marine Agency. This agency consists of a crew of marine experts and NUMA volunteers. They have discovered more than 60 historical significant underwater wreck sites. This organization takes all their findings and turn them over to non-profits, universities, or government entities throughout the country (www.numa.net/CliveCussler/bio.htm). Clive is also a member of several organizations. They are Royal Geographic society in London, Writers Guild, Colorado Author’s club in which he is the president, and the Explorers Club in New York. Clive writes adventure novels for the young at heart. He began writing novels in 1965, He published his first book in 1973. In his main series of books there is one main character. His name is Dirk Pitt and he has been referred to by many as a mix between James Bond and Jacques Cousteau. He solves mysteries that most times have to do with the sea. In the books Pitt works for NUMA a United States Government agency like the CIA. Every book he writes has Dirk ending up in some unbelievable situation that is almost impossible to deal with. His first novel was Raise the Titanic (1976), in this book Pitt was introduced and the series took off. As the series has developed so has the counterparts and villains. Cussler does however start out each book with a side story. It always takes place in the past and involves a ship of some sort. After the side story the real novel begins but in the end the novels

Biography on Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks

2006-07-30T19:55:29-04:00

Biography on Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was born on June 7, 1917, in Topeka, Kansas. Her parents were David Anderson Brooks and Keziah Wims Brooks. Her mother had come home to Topeka from Chicago to give birth to her child. When Gwendolyn was one month old, the family returned to Chicago. Despite her extensive travels and periods in some of the major universities of the country, she has remained associated with the city's South Side. She was one of two children. Her brother, Raymond, became an artist. Encouraged by her parents, Gwendolyn began to write poetry at about age 7. When she was a teenager, her first poem she wrote 'Eventide' appeared in a well-known magazine of her time, called American Childhood. This was a first clue to her parents that she would soon become a famous writer or a poet. Brooks met the leading black writers James Weldon Johnson and Langston Hughes, who told her to read modern poetry and eventually encouraged her to begin write poetry as a profession. She continued to write poetry while attending school. More than 75 of her poems were printed in the Chicago Defender, a local newspaper. She originally went to an all-white school called Hyde Park High School but was then transferred to an all-black High school where she graduated from. The name of the school she graduated from was Englewood High School in 1934, she entered Wilson Junior College, where she majored in literature. She graduated in 1938, then worked as a typist until after she got married, in 1938, to Henry Lowington Blakely, a Chicago businessman. They had two children, a son, Henry Lowington, Jr., and a daughter, Nora. Gwendolyn Brooks's first book of poems, 'A Street in Bronzeville', was published in 1945. 'Annie Allen' (1949), a ballad of Chicago African American life, earned its author the Pulitzer prize for poetry in 1950.'Bronzeville Boys and Girls', a book of children's poems, was published in 1956. Gwendolyn Brooks's other books of verse include 'The Bean Eaters' (1960), contains poems about the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi, lynching, and the integration of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. 'Selected Poems' (1963), 'In the Mecca' (1968), ("the Mecca" referring to a South Side apartment building) which included poems to Malcolm X, slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, and

Biography of Ernest Hemingway

2006-07-29T15:37:29-04:00

Biography of Ernest Hemingway What do working at a newspaper, driving an ambulance in World War I, and traveling throughout the world have in common? These diverse experiences helped to shape Ernest Miller Hemingway into a great American author, an author who would shape and influence the styles of writers since his time. Growing up in Oak Park, Illinois, Hemingway lived a middle class childhood with a controlling mother, who he felt bitter toward as he grew older, and a father was also strict, selfish and domineering. He graduated high school in 1917 and became a reporter for the Kansas City Star. During World War I, he drove ambulance in Italy, was wounded in both knees by shrapnel from an explosion, and fell in love with an American nurse who took care of him. After the war, he became a correspondent for the Toronto Star, and lived in Paris. His work as a correspondent would continue into two more wars, during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), and for the United States during World War II. After the war, he settled in Havana, Cuba and in 1958, moved to Ketchum, Idaho, where he ended his life with a shotgun blast to the head. While a writer for the Kansas City Star, Ernest Hemingway learned the skills that he would use throughout his career. The style sheet in the newsroom contained these instructions: “Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English.” He was also influenced by the writings of Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein. Hemingway abandoned the too-flowery descriptive writing of the Victorian era, and was said to “…write(s) as if he had never read anybody’s writing, as if he had fashioned the art of writing himself.” He also created a character that has become known as the “Hemingway Hero.” These heroes will risk their lives for a principle, but will never sacrifice their honor. The “principle” that the Hemingway hero tried to live up to, has been described by Hemingway scholar Phillip Young as the: “Hemingway Code Hero.” This code hero could be a person that the hero tried to be like, or the code hero might be a principle or idea that the hero tried to uphold. The hero grew out of Hemingway’s belief that the trials a

Biography of Nobel Prize Winner, William Butler Yeats

2006-07-28T08:40:02-04:00

Biography of Nobel Prize Winner, William Butler Yeats William Butler Yeats was not just an extremely well-known Nobel Prize winning author, he was a very influential Irishman in the political and social fields of the time. Although given much more credit for his poetry rather than the social groups which arose from his influence, he was very involved in society. Yeats was born near Dublin, Ireland in Silgo on June 13, 1865, into an Anglo-Irish Protestant family. He was educated at Dublin and London. During his education he studied art and writing. At the age of twenty-three, Yeats wrote his first book, and during 1888 he became madly entranced with a woman by the name of Maud Gonne. Although he asked for her hand in marriage on many different occasions, she always returned him a declination in response. Finally, in 1916 Maud Gonne married a soldier and Yeats surrendered his pursuit. Yeats was not discontented for too long however, for he married Georgina Hyde-Lees in 1917. Yeats’ writings underwent many changes. From 1900 until 1907, William endeavored into the field of writing plays, which were esoteric (full of poetry and prose writings) and expressed his critical ideas, after which he returned to his most familiar field, poetry. Soon after his return to poetry (1923 to be precise), he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He published The Tower (1928), and then in 1933 he published yet another, The Winding Stair. Both of these books are based on Georgina’s writing and speech, which greatly influenced Yeats’ writings. The titles of these refer to a Norman fortification that Yeats acquired in 1917 called Thoor Balleylee in County Galway. Yeats’ writings consisted mainly of lyrical, romantic, and mythological poetry. His poetry was full of individual idioms and tones of allusiveness that were nurtured by his interests. Yeats continued to write poetry throughout the rest of his life, until a day or two before his death at Roqueburne, France in 1939. Yeats’ political pursuits began early in his life. During his time of schooling in London and Dublin, he founded the fin de siècle, a society of poets. With the aid of Ernest Rhys, he helped to found the Rhymers Club which dabbled in theosophy and the occult. He lead the Irish Literary Revival which lead to his founding

Life and Career of Edgar Allan Poe

2006-07-28T08:20:00-04:00

Life and Career of Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe’s whole fifteen-year career was a constant struggle for survival. He received only ten dollars for “The Raven” which was first published in 1845, and, within a few months, read, and recited wherever the English language was spoken. Less than a year later his brother poet, N. P. Willis, issued this touching appeal on the behalf of the Edgar. "Here Born in poverty at Boston, January 19 1809, dying painfully in Baltimore, October 7, 1849 is one of the finest scholars, one of the most original men of genius, and one of the most industrious of the literary profession of our country, whose temporary suspension of labor, from bodily illness, drops him immediately to a level with the common objects of public charity. There is no intermediate stopping-place, no respectful shelter, where, with the delicacy due to genius and culture, be might secure aid, till, with returning health, he would resume his labors, and his un-mortified sense of independence." {An Appreciation} Edgar's father, a son of General David Poe, the American revolutionary patriot and friend of Lafayette, had married Elizabeth Arnold Poe, an English actress and pursued the stage as a profession for himself. Alcoholism destroyed his acting career and he abandoned his wife and three children of which Edgar was the infant. Edgar’s mother fell ill while performing in Richmond Virginia and died on December 8, 1811, at the age of twenty-four. Her three children, who would maintain contact with one another throughout their lives, were sent to live with different foster families. Apparently the future poet was to be cast upon the world’s homeless. Fate decreed that a few glimmers of sunshine were to occur in his life for he was adopted by John Allan, a wealthy merchant of Richmond, VA. Other foster homes cared for his brother and sister. In his new home Edgar found all the luxury and advantages money could provide. He was spoiled and shown off to visitors and friends of the household. In Mrs. Allan he found all the affection a childless woman could bestow. Mr. Allan took much pride in the little boy. At the age of five he recited, with fine form, passages of English poetry to visitors of the Allan household. Although never formally adopted by them, Poe regarded the couple, especially Mrs. Allan, as parents, and he took

Life and Career of Edgar Allan Poe

2006-07-28T08:19:40-04:00

Life and Career of Edgar Allan Poe

2006-07-28T08:18:44-04:00

Langston Hughes an American Poet

2006-07-27T15:33:39-04:00

American Poet, Langston Hughes Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902 and died May 22, 1967, was an African-American author. James Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri. He published works in all forms of literature, but he was best known for his poetry and his sketches about a black

Biography of Poet Alfred Tennyson

2006-07-23T13:34:28-04:00

Biography of Poet Alfred Tennyson Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron 1809-92, English poet. The most famous poet of the Victorian age, he was a profound spokesman for the ideas and values of his times. Tennyson was the son of an intelligent but unstable clergyman in Lincolnshire. His early literary attempts included a play, The Devil and the Lady, composed at 14, and poems written with his brothers Frederick and Charles but entitled Poems by Two Brothers (1827). In his three years at Cambridge, Tennyson wrote a prizewinning poem, Timbuctoo (1829), and Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830) and began his close friendship with Arthur Henry Hallam, son of the historian Henry Hallam. Upon the death of his father in 1831, Tennyson became responsible for the family and its precarious finances. His volume Poems (1832) included some of his most famous pieces, such as The Lotus-Eaters, A Dream of Fair Women, and The Lady of Shalott. In 1833 he was overwhelmed by the sudden death of Hallam. Tennyson's next published work, Poems (1842), expressed his philosophic doubts in a materialistic, increasingly scientific age and his longing for a sustaining faith. The new poems included Locksley Hall, Ulysses, Morte d'Arthur, and Break, Break, Break. With this book he was acclaimed a great poet, and in addition, he was granted an annual government pension of £200 in 1845. The Princess (1847) was followed in 1850 by the masterful In Memoriam, an elegy sequence that records Tennyson's years of doubt and despair after Hallam's death and culminates in an affirmation of immortality. The same year saw his appointment as poet laureate and his marriage to Emily Sellwood, whom he had courted since 1836 but had been unable to marry because of his precarious financial position. Occasional poems, such as the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington (1852) and The Charge of the Light Brigade (1855), were part of his duties as laureate. The first group of Idylls of the King appeared in 1859; it was expanded in 1869 and 1872, and in 1885 Tennyson added the final poem. He arranged the 12 poems chronologically in 1888 to constitute a somber ethical epic of the glory and the downfall of King Arthur. In the Arthurian legend, Tennyson projected his vision of the hollowness of his own civilization. Included among his other works are Maud (1855), a monodrama; Enoch Arden (1864); several poetic dramas, most notably

Biography of French Writer Albert Camus

2006-07-18T13:12:26-04:00

Biography of French Writer Albert Camus Albert Camus is a French novelist, essayist and journalist whose works had great influence in the mid-20th century. He was recognized as a man of great personal integrity as he "sought to define the way of life that would respect in equal measure the logic of the heart, the logic of the mind, and the limitations imposed on the individual by reality". Compared to the other existentialists, Albert Camus is considered to be more optimistic in his views. Camus was born in Mondovi, Algeria on November 7, 1913. His father who was of Alsatian descent, was a farm labourer while his mother worked as a servant. Despite poor living conditions, Camus' interest in education allowed him to move beyond the limitations of his environment. He attended the University of Algiers where he developed a life-long interest in literature and philosophy through the influence of Jean Grenier, a philosopher. In the 1930's, he became committed to politics, theatre and writing. He was a member of the communist party as a non-doctrinal socialist. He also participated in an amateur theatrical group as an actor and director. He then travelled in Europe for quite a bit and in 1940, he returned to Algeria to teach in a private school. His writings greatly reflected his views about different things. In 1937, he wrote L'envers et l'endroit and in 1938, Noces, which are two small volume of essays that reflect his lyrical commitment to life, beauty and happiness and at the same time express his revolt against the burden of suffering, death and solitude. L'etranger (1942, English tr. The Stranger, 1946) is narrated by a man named Mersault, a clerk in Algeria who blindly commits murder and then realizes the unique value of life and solidarity of man. Le mythe de Sisyphe (1943 English tr. The Myth of Sisyphus and other essays, 1955) is a greek mythology where Sisyphus is condemned eternally to push a boulder uphill only to have it roll down again as a symbol of man's fate and possibilitites. Caligula (1938 published in 1945, translated 1958) is a story about a Roman emperor so driven by his sense of absurdity of life that he indulges in excessive cruelty that destroys even himself. One of his most important writing is about the bubonic plague in the Algerian town of Oran, La peste (1947, English tr. The

Life in Algeria for Albert Camus

2006-07-16T20:35:01-04:00

Life in Algeria for Albert Camus Although born in extreme poverty, Camus attended the lycee and university in Algiers, where he developed an abiding interest in sports and the theater. His university career was cut short by a severe attack of tuberculosis, an illness from which he suffered periodically throughout his life. The themes of poverty, sport, and the horror of human mortality all figure prominently in his volumes of so-called Algerian essays: L'Envers et l'endroit (The Wrong Side and the Right Side, 1937), Noces (Nuptials, 1938), and L'Ete (Summer, 1954). In 1938 he became a journalist with Alger-Republicain, an anticolonialist newspaper. While working for this daily he wrote detailed reports on the condition of poor Arabs in the Kabyles region. These reports were later published in abridged form in Actuelles III (1958). The War Years Such journalistic experience proved invaluable when Camus went to France during World War II. There he worked for the Combat resistance network and undertook the editorship of the Parisian daily Combat, which first appeared clandestinely in 1943. His editorials, both before and after the liberation, showed a deep desire to combine political action with strict adherence to moral principles. During the war Camus published the main works associated with his doctrine of the absurd--his view that human life is rendered ultimately meaningless by the fact of death and that the individual cannot make rational sense of his experience. These works include the novel The Stranger (1942; Eng. trans., 1946), perhaps his finest work of fiction, which memorably embodies the 20th-century theme of the alienated stranger or outsider; a long essay on the absurd, The Myth of Sysiphysus (1942; Eng. trans., 1955); and two plays published in 1944, Cross Purpose (Eng. trans., 1948) and Caligula (Eng. trans., 1948). In these works Camus explored contemporary nihilism with considerable sympathy, but his own attitude toward the "absurd" remained ambivalent. In theory, philosophical absurdism logically entails total moral indifference. Camus found, however, that neither his own temperament nor his experiences in occupied France allowed him to be satisfied with such total moral neutrality. The growth of his ideas on moral responsibility is partly sketched in the four Letters to a German Friend (1945) included, with a number of other political essays, in Resistance, Rebellion, and Death (1960). Rebellion From this point on, Camus was concerned mainly with exploring avenues of rebellion against the absurd as

Examining the Life and Writing of James Baldwin

2006-07-04T16:01:39-04:00

Examining the Life and Writing of James Baldwin In the four decades of his writing career, James Baldwin made an extraordinarily prolific and wide-ranging contribution to American letters. He published six novels, a collection of short stories, two plays, a screenplay about the life of Malcolm X that later became one of the bases for the Spike Lee film, a volume of poems, two book-length dialogues (one with anthropologist Margaret Mead, the other with poet Nikki Giovanni), a short book (part autobiographically-based and part sociologically) about American movies, a long essay on a series of murders of young African-American children in Atlanta, Georgia, in the early 1980s, and five other volumes of essays and nonfiction. His early novels, especially the first two, excited substantial notice and critical acclaim, and they have continued to hold their reputations, but there is a strong body of opinion to the effect that it is in his nonfiction writings that his greatest and most enduring work is to be found. James Baldwin was born in Harlem on August 2, 1924. His name at birth was James Arthur Jones. Baldwin never knew his father; his mother, who was originally from Maryland, was named Emma Burdis Jones. In 1927, she married David Baldwin, a Baptist preacher and factory worker from New Orleans with a twelve-year-old son, and thus the future writer received the last name that he was to make famous. Together the couple went on to have six children of their own, three sons and three daughters, the last of whom was born on the very day--July 29, 1943--that David Baldwin died. In 1935, James entered P.S. 139 (Frederick Douglass Junior High School), where he wrote for and helped to edit the school magazine, and where he came to know the poet Countee Cullen, a faculty member at the school who had been one of the principal writers of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. From 1938 until his graduation in 1942, Baldwin attended De Witt Clinton High School in the Bronx, where his friends and classmates included the photographer Richard Avedon and the publisher and novelist Sol Stein. He had a religious experience in 1938, and for the next three years was a boy preacher at Fireside Pentecostal Assembly, a phase of his life that ended at the time of his high-school graduation. For the next several years, he worked at

Biographical Synopsis of Andrew Lloyd Webber

2006-07-03T13:31:02-04:00

Biographical Synopsis of Andrew Lloyd Webber Andrew Lloyd Webber was born on March 22, 1948 to William and Jean Lloyd Webber. In 1951 his younger brother Julian was born. Even at a young age, Andrew loved to make his own music. Andrew also had a great interest in inspecting ancient monuments around England. It and history were what many thought he would choose to do for a career. However, his Aunt Vi introduced him to the theatre, and under her advice started writing music of his own. In 1956, Andrew went to Westminster and started composing music for the school's plays. In 1962, Andrew won a Challenge Scholarship that reduced his tuition at Westminster. Andrew won another scholarship in 1964 to transfer to Oxford. Time Rice and Andrew met in 1965 and consequently, Andrew dropped out of Oxford to pursue music with Tim. The first musical, The Likes of Us, was a failure, but soon afterwards Joseph was created. The first showing was at Colet Court in 1968. Jesus Christ Superstar came next. In 1971, Andrew married Sarah Jane Hugill. Andrew and Alan Ayckbourn, in 1975, started work on a new musical, Jeeves. Jeeves was not a success and Andrew went back to Tim. Together they wrote Evita in late 1975. The next musical, Cats, paired Andrew with the deceased poet T.S. Eliot and producer, Cameron Mackintosh. It was an incredible hit and beat A Chorus Line for longest running musical and highest grossing musical. Cats made Andrew rich and famous and ready to start a musical about trains. Starlight Express was created in 1984, the most expensive musical created up to that point. The same year, Andrew divorced Sarah Hugill and married Sarah Brightman. Andrew's next work was Requiem. It isn't a musical, but serious music for a Mass. Sarah Brightman sang the female soprano part. Andrew's next work, Phantom of the Opera also included Sarah. One of Andrew's most famous works, Phantom was created in 1986. Aspects of Love, Andrew's next venture, opened in 1989. Its intimate setting and songs were critically praised. In 1991, Andrew and Sarah decided to call it quits and on February 15, 1991, Andrew got married yet again to Madeleine Gurdon. The glittery and tragic musical, Sunset Boulevard came out in 1993, but closed after a few years due to lack of "star power". In 1997, Andrew was knighted and became Sir Andrew Lloyd

Psychological Analysis of Edgar Allen Poe

2006-06-22T14:36:02-04:00

Psychological Analysis of Edgar Allen Poe When picking a topic for my research paper. I thought of many different ideas. I started to think about my interests is reading literature, and I decided to write about my favorite author Edgar Allan Poe. This paper is going to look at Poe from a psychological perspective. There seems to be few attempts to look at the psychological causes of humor in Poe’s work, and how his personal life may have had an impact on his writings. Many of Poe’s tales are distinguished by the author’s unique grotesque ideas in addition to his superb plots. In an article titled “Poe’s humor: A Psychological Analysis,” by Paul Lewis, he states: “Appropriately it seems to me, that to see Poe only as an elitist whose jokes could not be grasped by a general audience is to sell him short. He does not deny this elitist side of Poe; but he holds for a broader, more universal less intellectual humor that screams out from the center of Poe’s work. (532) This article provides important insight to understanding the nature of the humor and its relationship to the overwhelming horror in some of Poe’s work. Lewis’ believes that humor and fear have a special relationship in Poe’s tales. Humor, taken to its limits, leads the reader to fear. He says, “Over and over, when humor fails, we are left with images of fear: the raven’s shadow, the howling cat, the putrescence corpse, or the fallen house. (535) According to Lewis, in The Black Cat and Ligeia, he argues that are first impressions of the narrators are half comic. “We are led gradually away from this humor into an expanding horror of men driven to acts of obscene cruelty. The combination with humor and horror occurs differently in Hop Frog where cruelty and joking co-mingle. (537) To agree with Lewis, I feel what happens in this tale is not just that cruel jokers are destroyed by a cruel joke but that joking itself gives good way to horror, as the cruelty of joke destroys its ability to function as a joke. The appeal of Lewis’ article about psychological insight of Poe rings true. I agree that fear and humor are linked together in Poe’s tales. I have seen it in hospitals, and at funerals, or even when humor helps pass the time during a threat of a destructive storm

Walt Whitman and the Romanticism Movement

2006-06-20T18:18:17-04:00

Walt Whitman and the Romanticism Movement Romanticism, is a movement in the literature of virtually every country of Europe, United States and Latin America . It lasted from about 1750 to 1870. This epoch is characterized by the reliance on the imagination and subjectivity of approach, freedom of thought and expression and idealization of nature. This movement was developed everywhere, imagination was praised over the reason, emotions were over the logic and intuition over science. The literature will emphasized a new flexibility of form adapted to varying content, encourage development of complex and fast-moving plots and allowed mixed genres and a freer style. There was an increasing demand for spontaneity and lyricism , it led to a rejection of regular meters, strict forms and other convention of the classical tradition. The romantic writers replaced the static universal types of classical 18th century literature with more complex, idiosyncratic characters and a great deal of drama, fiction and poetry. The 18th and 19th century is characterized by the libertarian and abolitionist movements. They were engendered by the romantic philosophy of desire to be free of convention and tyranny and the emphasis of the rights and dignity of the individual. An example is the American Civil War, where the abolitionist fight for the rights of the slaves of the southern part of the United States. The central interest of the romantic movement is the concern with nature and the natural surroundings. This tradition is absorbed in the literary movement of transcendentalism that is expressed by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. This movement were influenced by Romanticism, specially in the aspects of self-examination, the celebration of individualism, and the extolling of the beauties of nature and humankind. All the characteristics of this movement, specially the celebration of the individual, of the new creations and thinks, formed the most important author of the 19th century : WALT WHITMAN . Walter Whitman was born on May 31, 1819 in Huntington, Long Island in a working class family. He was the second son of nine children. His father was a carpenter and a farmer, he was also a liberal thinker. Walter had a very special relationship with his mother. When he was four years, he moved to Brooklyn, near the East River and the ferries. Later in his life this was his inspiration to write the poem called "Crossing the Brooklyn Ferry" where he wrote the experiences

Biography of John Saul

2006-06-20T17:43:37-04:00

Biography of John Saul I chose to do my paper on John Saul. I chose this author because I have already read many works by him. His books are psychological thrillers that keep you turning pages. Every book of his that I’ve read has been awesome. I plan to read his 15th novel, Second Child. I have already learned a minimum amount of information about him from reading some of his books. During this research project I hope to gain more information about his life. John Saul was born in Pasadena, California on February 25, 1942. He grew up in Whittier where he graduated from Whittier High School in 1959. He attended several colleges after graduation. They included Antioch, in Ohio -Cerritos, in Norwalk, California, -Montana State University and San Francisco State College. He majored in anthropology, liberal arts, and theater, but never obtained a degree. After leaving college, he decided the best thing for him, being a college drop out, to do was become a writer. He spent the next fifteen years working in various jobs while attempting to write a book someone would want to publish. During those years he gained a collection of unpublished manuscripts, but not a lot of money. He eventually found an agent in New York, who spent several years sending his manuscripts around, and trying to make rejection sound hopeful. Then, in 1976, one of his manuscripts reached Dell, who didn’t want to buy it, but asked if he’d be interested in writing a psychological thriller. He put together an outline, and hoped for the best. After that, things started getting strange. His agent decided the outline had all the makings of a best seller. They decided to gamble on a first novel. They backed the book with television advertising. That was one of the first times a paperback original was promoted on television. The gambling paid off. Within a month, Suffer the Children appeared on all the best-seller lists in the country and made the #1 spot in Canada. All 19 of his books have made all the best-seller lists and have been published world- wide. Though many of his books were published by Bantam/Doubleday/Dell, his last three books have been published by Ballantine/Fawcett/Columbine. In addition to his works as a novelist, John is also interested in theater. He has acted, and as a playwright has had several one-act plays produced in Los

Biography the American Writer Upton Sinclair

2006-06-12T01:45:14-04:00

Biography the American Writer Upton Sinclair Upton Sinclair was an American writer whose works reflects not only the inside but also the socialists view on things. Upton sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He was born into a family which held to it’s Southern aristocracy in every thing that was done. When Sinclair was ten years old, the family packed up and moved to New York City ( Where there were more opportunities to succeed ). Upton Beall Sinclair began writing when he was 15 years old. He mostly wrote ethnic jokes and fiction for a fun magazine. He wrote these silly stories and jokes in order for the magazine to pay for his studies at New York City College. After he was done at New York City College, in 1897, he enrolled at Columbia University. By this time, Upton was putting out many novels and respected works. He was already being realized as one of the greatest writers of his time. Upton was putting out up to two novels per week. This was unheard of at this point in time. During these years he wrote Clif Faraday stories such as "Ensign Clarke Fitch." He was also writing Mark Mallory Stories like "Lieutenant Frederick Garrison" for boys’ weekly magazine. His writing was on the right track, but he still didn’t have that one book to put him over the top. In 1900 Sinclair married his first wife. This was a start of a whole new era of writing for him. By 1904 Sinclair was moving toward a realistic fiction type of writing. He had become a regular reader of the "Appeal to Reason", which was a popular socialist-populist weekly magazine at that time. Upton’s big break came in 1906 when he published a book called, " The Jungle." As a writer this is where Sinclair gained most of his fame. This book gave him not only fame, but it also led to the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906. This book had the deepest impact since Harriet Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The books popularity enabled Sinclair to establish and support the socialistic Helicon Home Colony in Englewood, N.J. However the popularity of his type of writing fell away after that year. After " The Jungle" was written it set off many similar studies of a group, and industry. or a region. Among some of them were: "The Metropolis" (1908) which

How Giovanni Boccaccio became such an influential writer

2006-06-11T02:47:59-04:00

How Giovanni Boccaccio became such an influential writer Giovanni Boccaccio was born in Paris on December 21, 1375 to a merchant from Certaldo who was a man of some prominence in Florence. Shortly after his birth his father deserted his mother and took Giovanni to Florence. There he was put in school until he was ten years old. He was sent to Naples to study law in 1323. He abandoned law and dedicated

The Career of James Fennimore Cooper

2006-06-11T02:07:57-04:00

The Career of James Fennimore Cooper James Fennimore Cooper was a romantic writer in the mid 1880s. Cooper wrote to entertain and wasn’t held back by the rules of literature, which were set forth by the boring writers of his time. Cooper in his work exaggerated greatly, this however was not a flaw of Coopers. Cooper was harassed greatly by Mark Twain because of Coopers wide imagination and unique style of writing. Twain tried to state that Cooper was a terrible writer and that when it came to literature, Cooper broke about every rule in literary law. These accusations against Cooper however are garbage, and come from the jealous mind of twain. Cooper added adventure and excitement like no other writer before him had, and a person could be entertained for hours by picking out the crazy parts of Cooper’s stories. Cooper was on of the most entertaining writers of his time, and the criticisms from Twain were bogus. Before Cooper started writing himself, he spent many hours reading to himself and to his family. Cooper however grew tired of the dull books he was reading, so he took it into his own hands to come up with something more entertaining. Coopers main purpose of writing was to entertain, so he did not concentrate on trying to use perfect grammar or using the perfect word for what was being said. The protagonists in Coopers stories were stronger, faster, and a better shot then any other man they confronted. Making the protagonist in the story so perfect made the reader have great respect for him, and made the reader cheer for the protagonist. Cooper wrote to entertain, not to try to see how many laws of physics he could follow, or to perfect his usage of words. Cooper wrote about miraculous things such as the Pathfinder shooting a nail that is stuck in a tree from a hundred yards away or Chingachgook turning a running stream out of its course to find the tracks of his enemies. Of coarse Cooper knew that these ideas were a little far fetched, but he new with out these ideas the story would not be as good Coopers creativity just adds to his stories, if a person isn’t amazed by what the protagonist is doing in the story, then he his probably being amused by the impracticalness of what is being done Cooper

Life and times of American author, novelist Richard Wright

2006-06-06T14:51:21-04:00

The life and times of American author, novelist Richard Wright Richard Wright had to face many challenges in his life that ultimately made him the man that he turned out to be. From his family struggles and his unending hunger to his troubles with racism and bigotry, Richard had to face a whole lot of adversity. Part of his struggle with society, beyond the obviousness of racism, was that he often times found himself having trouble communicating with people. He simply couldn’t understand why these people around him, both white and black, acted the way in which they did. Did skin color warrant such segregation and hate? Because of his thirst for knowledge, knowledge of other people, Richard often had to defend himself and his pride. Richard holds pride, knowledge, and the quest for equality in very high regards, because these beliefs shape the way in which he interacts with the people he meets in his life, and causes him to wonder what other people, both black and white, are thinking, feeling, and believing. It is these beliefs that form the foundation of his life. To Richard Wright, there is nothing more basic and essential to man than pride. Without it, a man is nothing: nothing to himself and nothing to society. Even at an early age, Richard could appreciate the value of pride. The scene where Richard and his mother are at their father’s house seeking money to leave for Arkansas is a perfect example of Richard holding on to his pride. Neither of them wants to be here, but they are desperate and are acting out of will for the moment. Richard’s father says to him, “I ain’t got nothing…Here Richard…don’t be a fool, take the nickel.” Richard’s father is being a jerk, offering Richard a nickel, knowing full well that Richard is going hungry. He is taunting his own son. He sarcastically asks if Richard wants to live with him, to which Richard replies, “I may be hungry now, but I won’t stay with you.” Even when offered to live with his father, where he will have plenty to eat, he refuses to live with this man; this cowardly man who abandoned him. He has enough pride in himself and his mother to be able to rise above his father’s level of

The Life and Times of Author Charles Dickens

2006-06-02T16:34:04-04:00

The Life and Times of Author Charles Dickens Charles Dickens is one of the greatest English writers that ever lived. There is no other writer so well known and widely read. Many people loved him and this was shown by his sold out performances. An endless amount of people mourned his death. Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, at Landport near the city of Portsmouth, England. His father John was friendly and well read. He was a devoted parent. John worked as a clerk in a Navy Pay Office and was paid fairly well. The only problem was he spent so much, their family was always on the brink of poverty. Charles had very loving parents. They had eight children all together (Haines 7). Charles was a bright, active child who was full of imagination. His mother taught him to read when he was very young. Charles would read books by the hour. He wanted to go to school but his family could not afford it. Charles ended up doing housework and running errands. Charles, who loved reading, writing, and studying, was very disappointed. Not only did he have to run errands, at the age of twelve, Charles had to work as a potboy in Warren’s Blacking Factory. He worked eight in the morning to eight in the evening. His father ended up not paying his debts and going to jail for it. He never paid them off until his mother died and left him money. With this, Charles was sent to the Wellington House Academy, where he did very well. The worst for Charles as a child was over (Haines 18). When he left the Academy at age fifteen, he went to work as a clerk and messenger boy in a lawyer’s office in London. After he taught himself shorthand, he left his job and became a free-lance shorthand reporter. Doing this job he had to go to Doctors Commons buildings everyday and write down everything that was said. During this time he met Maria Beadnell. Charles fell in love with her. He went to her house as often as he could. The Beadnell’s did not want Charles as a future son-in-law. Maria did not love Charles anyway. She only played with his

A Biography of Emily Dickinson's Life and Writing

2006-05-31T23:55:06-04:00

A Biography of Emily Dickinson's Life and Writing Emily Dickinson was a woman who lived in times that are more traditional; her life experiences influence and help us to understand the dramatic and poetic lines in her writing. Although Dickinson’s poetry can often be defined as sad and moody, we can find the use of humor and irony in many of her poems. By looking at the humor and sarcasm found in three of Dickinson’s poems, "Success Is Counted Sweetest", "I am Nobody", and "Some keep the Sabbath Going to Church", one can examine each poem show how Dickinson used humor and irony for the dual purposes of comic relief and to stress an idea or conclusion about her life and the environment in the each poem. Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst Massachusetts; a small farming town that had a college and a hat factory. There, she was raised in a strict Calvinist household while receiving most of her education at a boarding school that followed the American Puritanical tradition. She seldom left her hometown; virtually, her only contact with her friends came to be made through letters. As a young woman, Dickinson rejected comforting traditions, resisted male authority, and wrestled alone with her complex and often contrary emotions. Although she was claimed to be a high-spirited and active young woman, Dickinson began to withdraw from society in the 1850's. The many losses she experienced throughout her life, the death of her father, mother, close neighbors, and friends influenced her life largely and led her to write about death to an enormous amount. Dickinson made a few attempts during her life to be taken as more than an amateur poet; on one occasion, she sent a collection of her poems to a correspondent who was a published poet. His criticism of her poetry devastated Dickinson, and she never made another attempt towards publishing her works. Evident through her letters and poems, her poetry records intense devotion, sharp, skeptical independence, doubt, and what repeatedly reflects her happiness and despair. In the poem, "Success is Counted Sweetest"; Dickinson’s emphasis is less on humor and more on expressing irony. Here it is bitterness expressed towards the status or notion of success that is most felt by the reader as Dickinson reflects on the nature of success and how it can be best appreciated and understood by those who have not achieved it. While the

Edgar Allan Poe Biography

2005-12-25T23:27:20-05:00

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809. His parents were two struggling actors. After he was born, his father abandoned him. His mother died before he was three. This left Edgar Allan Poe a foster child. Poe’s father was an alcoholic and an indigent actor. Poe’s mother was a remarkably talented actress. She was sick with tuberculosis, and at the age of 24 she died. Poe’s memories of his mother were of when she died in a painful way on a straw mattress. Edgar was the second of their three children. When Poe’s mother died, he was left alone. He was taken as a foster child into the home of John Allan. John took Poe to Great Britain where Poe was educated. During the fall of 1823, when Edgar was 14, one of his classmates, Rob Standard, introduced Poe to his mother, Jane Standard. Edgar went to her when he had problems at home or school. In many ways, she became his mother. Poe graduated with the highest honors of his class for high school. After high school, Poe served in the U.S Army under a false name, Edgar A. Perry, and an incorrect age. After the Army, he attended West Point from 1830-31. After that, he went to Baltimore to live with his aunt. Poe then married his cousin. Poe’s style of writing might have come from the fact that the death of his mother haunted him for his life. He wrote an essay, “Theory of Composition,” in which he writes, “And equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such a topic are those of a bereaved lover”. Poe wrote those in memory of his mother who died at a young age. Poe attended the University of Virginia to study law. He then went to Boston where he published “Tamer lane” another poems. During the fall of

Geoffrey Chaucer: The Man, The Myth

2005-11-28T00:21:38-05:00

Geoffrey Chaucer, one of English Literature’s best-known writers, has influenced many people through his writing, and also fueled the curiosity of those same people as well. Geoffrey Chaucer was a relatively normal man, except for the minor fact that no one knows a precise date of his birth or the manner of his death. He wrote poetry and short stories as amusement while he passed the time that he spent working for his country. He traveled to many other countries on diplomatic engagements. While traveling he spent a lot of time writing. In this period of time he wrote many famous works, such as The Canterbury Tales. Many of his works, like The Canterbury Tales, were about people that he encountered in his everyday life; there are even poems linked to his marriage. “For example, in The Book of the Duchesse Chaucer speaks of a ‘sicknesse/That I have suffred this eight yeere’ and says his cure is no nearer: there is only one physician who can heal him (Howard, 98).” Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London, England between 1340 and 1345; an exact date has yet to be determined. His father was a successful wine merchant and was also deputy to the king’s butler. Chaucer’s education level was never revealed, but evidence shows that he could read French, Latin, and Italian. Chaucer did many different types of civil jobs for the monarchy. He did diplomatic customs and served as Clerk of the King’s Works, later he was elected as justice of the peace. In 1359, Chaucer was captured by the Ardennes during the siege of Reims, King Edward III paid Chaucer's ransom of 16 pounds. In 1366, he married Phillipa Roet, daughter of Sir Gilles de Roet. The marriage was arranged by Phillipa's foster mother, ironically named, Queen Phillipa. The two [Chaucer and Phillipa], as it shows in some sketchy records, allegedly had three children, Lewis, Thomas, and Elizabeth. It is for Chaucer's second son that the Treatise on the Astrolabe was written. Chaucer died mysteriously on October 25, 1400; no one knows the exact cause of death, though some speculate that he was murdered. During Richard II’s reign Chaucer supported him completely, but when Henry, Richard’s cousin, and Thomas Arundel overthrew Richard there may have been a problem with Chaucer’s loyalty. “Henry, Richard’s cousin, had no real claim to the throne and no real popular support. But he was

Gary Paulsen

2005-11-23T21:10:43-05:00

[color=blue:5315997e08]Gary Paulsen[/color:5315997e08]Gary Paulsen was born on May 17, 1939. Gary was forced to grow up fast. Gary’s family never had much money while he was growing up. Gary had a miserable home. Both his parents were drunks. His dad worked in the Military and Gary moved various times because of his father’s job. Sometimes Gary would sell newspapers in an alley or help at the bowling alley to make a little bit of money. When things got unbearable Gary would either run away or was taken to relative’s houses to stay for a while. Gary hated school. He had a D- average and wasn’t good at athletics either. He also had a bad reputation for getting in fights with other peers. One night Gary was selling newspapers in the twenty below temperatures, and saw the public libraries reading room bathed in beautiful golden light. At that point very few people had given Gary anything. Both his parents were drinking and it was a very rough run. He went in to get warm and to his astonishment the librarian asked him if wanted a book. He said sure in a sort of cocky tone and then she said to him “bring it back when you’re done and you can get another one.” First is took him a month to read a book, then two weeks, then a week, and pretty soon he was reading two books a week. She would give Gary westerns, science fictions, and everyone once in a while a classic. She didn’t care if Gary wore the right clothes or dated the right girls; none of those prejudices existed in the library. Hiding from his parent’s arguments, Paulsen would often retreat to their small apartment basement, snuggle beside the furnace with a book, milk, and some peanut butter sandwiches and read into the night. The librarian didn’t realize when she gave Gary a library card she had handed him the world. Gary barely managed to graduate high school. After high school he went to college for a short time but then quit to join the army. There he worked with missiles and was positive his future lay in electronics. But after a while he realized their must be more to life than sitting behind a computer screen all day. So, faking an impressive resume he scored an associate editor’s job with a men’s magazine. Shortly after his bosses discovered

Frederick Douglass What it's like to be a Slave and Hero

2005-09-18T00:30:54-04:00

Frederick Douglass - What it's like to be a Slave and Hero Frederick Douglass was born with no possessions, not even himself. He knew of his mother and siblings, but was never allowed to form a relationship with any of them. A white man named Captain Anthony, who is assumed to be Douglass' father, owned his mother as a slave. The circumstances under which Douglas was born offered him absolutely no money, no social influence and no political power. Lives of slaves were cruel: they received little or no food, little clothing, and no place to sleep, as well as were overworked and weak from fatigue. Slaves, who broke rules, were often beaten or whipped, sometimes even shot. At the age of seven Douglass was shipped off to Baltimore to work for Hugh Auld, a relative of the family. Sophia Auld, Hugh's wife, was not used to being a slave owner. She was disturbed by Douglass' inability to act independently, so she began to teach him to read. Douglass quickly learned how to read and write. He read everything he could get hold of which led him, eventually, to his freedom. He was still black, but using his writing skills to share his intelligence with the world once he was free took Douglas from the bottom of the social ladder to a much higher ring increasing his overall success. Eventually, Sophia started to act like a slave owner and treated Douglass as other slaves were treated. He learned from reading the newspapers about the abolitionists. From reading and learning about the abolitionists, he became determined to escape to the north. Due to the death of his owner, Captain Anthony, there were many property disputes. So, Douglass was transferred back and forth between Baltimore and the South. He ended up as a slave to a man by the name of Thomas Auld, who sent him to a slave breaker, Edward Covey. Douglass barely lived through the experience, but his desire to escape allowed him to out last any task. He devised an escape plan with a couple of other slaves, but Auld, feared that Douglass would be killed which would make Douglass of no value to himself, so he shipped Douglass back to Hugh and Sophia in Baltimore. When he got back to Baltimore, Douglass was granted permission from Hugh Auld to hire out the extra time trading, and caulking after

The Life and Death of Edgar Allen Poe

2005-08-23T08:02:03-04:00

The Life and Death of Edgar Allen Poe The Early Years Edgar Allen Poe was born on January 19, 1809 to two struggling actors, David and Elizabeth Poe. When his father died at the age of 36, Edgar was left alone with his pregnant mother. He traveled with his mother and sister from theatre to theatre, often sleeping backstage. When his mother died of Tuberculosis on December 11, 1811 at the young age of 24, Edgar and his sister, Rosalie, were orphaned. Edgar was only two years old. His sister was sent to live with Mrs. Mackenzie when she was one, Edgar went to live with John and Frances Allen, and Edgar's older brother, William, was already living with their grandfather, David Poe, Sr., because at the time of his birth, David and Elizabeth could not afford to care for him. Edgar moved to Richmond, Virginia with the Allens, where he had many luxuries that he had never had before. He had his own bedroom in the apartment above John Allen's store, Ellis & Allen, and even servants to help him wash before bed and put away his clothes. Growing up, Edgar never got along with his foster father, often arguing with him, and rarely showing his affection. John Allen once even described his son as "miserable, sulky, and ill-tempered". There was also the matter of Edgar's alcoholism, which brought shame upon his foster family and friends, even his beloved first fiancee, Sarah Elmira Royster, eventually refused to see him. One night after a particularly bitter argument with Mr. Allen, he decided to leave his home and go to Boston. After an unpleasant month in Boston, Edgar was once again on the road. After having a few poems published and withdrawing from a millitary academy he eventually wound up in Baltimore, Maryland, penniless. He soon found that his relatives there were as poor as he was. Even so, they welcomed him into their homes and hearts. He stayed for a while in the home of his aunt, Maria Clemm. Also living with Mrs. Clemm were her two children, Henry, 13, and Virginia, Poe's cousin and future wife, who was nine, his paralyzed grandmother, and his dying brother William, 24. He tried unsuccessfully to get a job at several newspapers, and seeing an ad for $100 for the best short story sent to the Philadelphia Saturday Review, proceeded to writing short stories. Even though

Helen Adams Keller Amazing Story

2005-08-04T06:48:20-04:00

Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was a deafblind American author, activist and lecturer. Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Her disabilities were caused by a fever in February, 1882 when she was 19 months old. Her loss of ability to communicate at such an early developmental age was very traumatic for her and her family and as a result she became quite unmanageable. Keller was born at an estate called Ivy Green, on June 27, 1880. She was not born blind and deaf, but was actually a typical, healthy infant. It was not until nineteen months later that she came down with an illness that the doctors described as an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain. Keller did not have the illness for a long time, but the illness left her blind, deaf, and unable to speak. By age seven she had invented over sixty different signs that she could use to communicate with her family. In 1887, her parents, Captain Arthur H. Keller and Kate Adams Keller, finally contacted Alexander Graham Bell, who worked with deaf children. He advised them to contact the Perkins Institute for the Blind, then in South Boston, Massachusetts. They delegated the teacher Anne Sullivan, who was then only 20 years old, to try to open up Helen's mind. It was the beginning of a 49-year period of working together. Sullivan demanded and got permission from Helen's father to isolate the girl from the rest of the family in a little house in their garden. Her first task was to instill discipline in the spoiled girl. Helen's big breakthrough in communication came one day when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on her palm symbolized the idea of "water" and nearly exhausted Sullivan demanding the names of all the other familiar objects in her world (including her prized doll). Anne was able to teach Helen to think intelligibly and to speak, using the Tadoma method: touching the lips of others as they spoke, feeling the vibrations, and spelling of alphabetical characters in the palm of Helen's hand. She also learned to read English, French, German, Greek, and Latin in braille. In 1888, Helen attended Perkins Institute for the Blind. In 1894, Helen and Anne moved to New York City to attend the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf. In 1898 they returned to Massachusetts and Helen entered the The Cambridge School

Disecting the Life of Frederick Baily AKA Frederick Douglass

2005-08-01T06:19:27-04:00

Born Frederick Baily, Frederick Douglass was a slave, his birthday is not pin pointed but known to be in February of 1818. He was born on Holmes Hill Farm, near the town of Easton, Maryland. Harriet Baily was Frederick's mother. She worked the cornfields surrounding Holmes Hill. As a boy, he knew little of his father except that the man was white. As a child, he had heard rumors that the master, Aaron Anthony was his father. Frederick's mother was required to work long hours in the fields, so he lived with his grandmother, Betsey Baily. Betsy Baily lived in a cabin a short distance from Holmes Hill Farm. Her job was to look after Harriet's children until they were old enough to work. "Frederick's mother visited him when she could, but he had only a hazy memory of her." He did not think he was a slave during the years with his grandmother. When Frederick was six he was put to work on the Lloyd Plantation. This was the last he saw of his grandmother as he realized that he was now a slave. He learned that the master, Aaron Anthony, would beat his slaves if they did not obey order. Luckily for Frederick he was picked to be Daniel Lloyd's friend, the youngest son of the plantation's owner. Frederick also found a friend in Lucretia Auld, the master's daughter. One day in 1826 Lucretia told Frederick that he was being sent to live with her brother-in-law, Hugh Auld, who managed a ship building company in Baltimore. When Frederick got to the Auld home his only duties were to run errands and care for the Auld's infant son, Tommy. Frederick liked the work and grew to love the child. Sophia Auld was the master's wife, she often read the bible to her son and Frederick. She started to teach Frederick to read and write but soon after the master learned of this and forbid it. Frederick only learned the abhalbit and some words. So he learned the rest by himself. Soon Frederick bought a local paper and learned about abolitionist. This changed his views on many things but was soon sent back to work on a plantation, this time to Thomas Auld's new farm near the town of Saint Michaels. Frederick was sad to leave Baltimore because he had recently become a teacher to a group of other young blacks. Frederick

Frederick Douglass Reformer, Author, Speaker

2005-07-29T06:49:23-04:00

Frederick Douglass - Reformer, Author, Speaker Frederick Douglass was the leading spokesman of African-Americans in the 1800s. He became a well-known reformer, author, and speaker. Frederick Douglass spoke about the situation that African Americans had to deal with everyday. His powerful speeches influenced many people, including President Abraham Lincoln. Frederick Augustus Washington Baily was believed to be born in 1818 in Tuckahoe, Maryland. He was born as a slave. When Frederick was eight, he was sent to one of his master’s relatives to work. He now lived in Baltimore, Maryland. Frederick educated himself there with the help of his new master’s wife. In 1838 Frederick ran away from his master and went to Bedford, Massachusetts. Frederick did not want to be captured so he changed his name to Frederick Douglass. In Bedford, Frederick worked as a caulker. The other caulkers refused to work with him because he was black. Frederick then had many other unskilled jobs, such as: cleaning up garbage and making cellars. In 1841, Frederick spoke at a meeting of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society. He told them what freedom meant to him. The society liked his speech so much that they hired Frederick to talk about his life as a slave. In the 1840’s, Frederick fought against whites and blacks being in separate train cars. He also fought against religious discrimination. Frederick walked out of a church that would not let blacks join the service until the whites were finished. In 1845, Frederick wrote an autobiography called Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. After he wrote his book, he went to England. He was afraid that people would find out who he really was and that he was a runaway slave. In England, he continued to talk against slavery. Frederick found friends that would buy his freedom from slavery. In 1847, Frederick came back to America and started an anti-slavery newspaper in Rochester, New York. This newspaper was called the North Star. In the 1850’s, Frederick fought against hiring white immigrants instead of Black Americans. He also fought against separating whites and blacks in Rochester schools. Frederick helped runaway slaves become free. His house was a station on the Underground Railroad for runaway slaves. Frederick helped get Black

Francis Bacon

2005-07-27T04:39:55-04:00

Francis Bacon was the son of Nicolas Bacon, the Lord Keeper of the Seal of Elisabeth I. He entered Trinity College Cambridge at age 12. Bacon later described his tutors as "Men of sharp wits, shut up in their cells of a few authors, chiefly Aristotle, their Dictator." This is likely the beginning of Bacon's rejection of Aristotelianism and Scholasticism and the new Renaissance Humanism. His father died when he was 18, and being the youngest son this left him virtually penniless. He turned to the law and at 23 he was already in the House of Commons. His rich relatives did little to advance his career and Elisabeth apparently distrusted him. It was not until James I became King that Bacon's career advanced. He rose to become Baron Verulam, Viscount St. Albans and Lord Chancellor of England. His fall came about in the course of a struggle between King and Parliament. He was accused of having taken a bribe while a judge, tried and found guilty. He thus lost his personal honour, his fortune and his place at court. Loren Eiseley in his beautifully written book about Bacon The Man Who Saw Through Time remarks that Bacon: "...more fully than any man of his time, entertained the idea of the universe as a problem to be solved, examined, meditated upon, rather than as an eternally fixed stage, upon which man walked." This is the title page from Bacon's Instauratio Magna which contains his Novum Organum which is a new method to replace that of Aristotle. The image is of a ship passing through the pillars of Hercules, which symbolized for the ancients the limits of man's possible explorations. The image represents the analogy between the great voyages of discovery and the explorations leading to the advancement of learning. In The Advancement of Learning Bacon makes this analogy explicit. Speaking to James I, to whom the book is dedicated, he writes: "For why should a few received authors stand up like Hercules columns, beyond which there should be no sailing or discovering, since we have so bright and benign a star as your Majesty to conduct and prosper us." The image also forcefully suggests that using Bacon's new method, the boundaries of ancient learning will be passed. The Latin phrase at the bottom from the Book of Daniel means: "Many will pass through and knowledge will be increased." Bacon saw himself as the inventor

Langston Hughes Writer, Editor, Lecturer

2005-07-18T06:12:40-04:00

Langston Hughes - Writer, Editor, Lecturer James Mercer Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, on February 1, 1902, to James Nathaniel Hughes, a lawyer and businessman, and Carrie Mercer (Langston) Hughes, a teacher. The couple separated shortly thereafter. James Hughes was, by his son's account, a cold man who hated blacks (and hated himself for being one), feeling that most of them deserved their ill fortune because of what he considered their ignorance and laziness. Langston's youthful visits to him there, although sometimes for extended periods, were strained and painful. He attended Columbia University in 1921-22, and when he died he, left everything to three elderly women who had cared for him in his last illness, and Langston was not even mentioned in his will. Hughes mother went through protracted separations and reconciliations in her second marriage (she and her son from this marriage would live with him off and on in later years. He was raised by alternately by her, by his maternal grandmother, and, after his grandmother's death, by family friends. By the time he was fourteen, he had lived in Joplin; Buffalo; Cleveland; Lawrence, Kansas; Mexico City; Topeka, Kansas; Colorado Springs; Kansas City; and Lincoln, Illinois. In 1915, he was class poet of his grammar-school graduating class in Lincoln. From 1916 to 1920, he attended Central High School in Cleveland, where he was a star athlete, wrote poetry and short stories (and published many of them in the Central High Monthly), and on his own read such modern poets as Paul Laurence Dunbar, Edgar Lee Masters, Vachel Lindsay, and Carl Sandburg. His classmates were for the most part the children of European immigrants, who treated him largely without discrimination and introduced him to leftist political ideas. After graduation in 1920, he went to Mexico to teach English for a year. While on the train to Mexico, he wrote the poem "the Negro Speaks of Rivers", which was published in the June 1921 issue of The Crisis, a leading black publication. After his academic year at Columbia, he lived for a year in Harlem, embarked on a six-month voyage as a cabin boy on a merchant freighter bound for West Africa. After its return, he took a job on a ship sailing to Holland. After being robbed on a train in Italy and working his passage back to New York in November of 1924, Hughes moved in with his mother

The extraordinary life of Frederick Douglass

2005-07-18T06:08:36-04:00

The extraordinary life of Frederick Douglass According to Plato the Soul is apart from the body. The soul cannot endure the pains of the body. As a slave endures physical harm their soul must not be affected. In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass, once a slave is born or brought into slavery, they will stay a slave until death part them. As a slave one does not possess much since one has surrendered and devoted himself to pleasing their masters. That is why a slave must sustain their hardship and never render their soul or spirit. At a young age Frederick Douglass, lost his mother. The woman who had brought him to life was still a stranger to him even at her death. When he was a slave he wasn't capable of recalling any dates, like all slaves they were kept uneducated and ignorant. In his narrative, Douglass described the cruelty that slave owners have imposed upon their own slaves as well as others. Douglass describes the monthly allowance of food, which consisted of " eight pounds of pork or its equivalent in fish, and a bushel of corn meal" (17). The slaves were given their clothing yearly and the children were barely clothe due to their lack of work in the field. The slaves owned nothing but their spirit; they were deprived of any happiness or abundance of food. Many of the slaves passed their days singing, in order to render their heart from pain. "Every testimony [in their singing] was a testimony against slavery and a prayer to God for deliverance from their chains" (19). Working in the fields was the hardest job a slave would endure apart from their punishments. Douglass didn't experience that wickedness of slavery right away. Rather, Douglass' first job was with the Auld's, a family that treated him like a human. It was at this instant that Douglass' life would change for the better as well as the worse. At the Auld's he learned to alphabet, which persuaded him to continue his education although deprived from it. In learning the alphabet his mistress "had given me the inch, and no precautions would prevent him from taking it ell" (31). He realized education and knowledge was to his advantage, he was capable of reading newspapers and had "resolved to run away" (34). Douglass had been one of the

William Wordsworth Biography

2005-07-10T00:58:05-04:00

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth in Cumberland, England, on April 7, 1770; William was the second of five children in a middle-class family. His father, John Wordsworth was a lawyer for the powerful Sir James Lowther. When William was eight years old his mother died and his family was split up, William went with his older brother Richard to Hawkshead Grammar School. At this point in William's life after his mother death his father was not a big part of his life. As a young boy with freedom he roamed the Lake District, and attend the Hawkshead School and got a great education. William's father died in 1783, leaving the five kids with no parents and no money. William went off to St. John's College, Cambridge. He did not graduate with honors. In 1789 the French Revolution erupted William impregnated a woman by the name of Annette Vallon instead of joining the war he scurried back to the Lake District to secure an income and return to her, but he never did. In 1793 his first published work appeared: Descriptive Sketches and An Evening Walk. At this point in William's life he needed to find a way to get a steady income because his family was not going to help him. Living in the Lake District, Wordsworth had acquaintance that also lived in the Lake District, a man named Raisley Calvert who was very well off. William had been a good friend to Calvert, so when Calvert who was very sick died he left Wordsworth a bit of money to help William on his way. William went back to London with a little money in his hand. Wordsworth became a disciple of the philosopher William Godwin. He lived a very idealistic, bohemian life, encountering and engaging with many of the most brilliant minds of the moment. While staying in London he met with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William got a chance to live in a small country cottage with his beloved sister, Dorothy, which is what she has always wanted to do. Then William and his sister moved to Racedown Lodge in Dorset, and a correspondence between Coleridge and William began. Dorothy became his muse, editor, and secretary. William, Coleridge and Dorothy became very close and inseparable working together, traveling and writing. After a tour of Germany the three moved to the Lake District, into a cottage in

EE Cummings LIfe and Poetry

2005-06-17T07:53:41-04:00

E.E. Cummings E. E. Cummings, who was born in 1894 and died in 1962, wrote many poems with unconventional punctuation and capitalization, and unusual line, word, and even letter placements - namely, ideograms. Cummings’ most difficult form of prose is probably the ideogram; it is extremely terse and it combines both visual and auditory elements. There may be sounds or characters on the page that cannot be verbalized or cannot convey the same message if pronounced and not read. Four of Cummings’ poems - l(a, mortals), !blac, and swi( - illustrate the ideogram form quite well. Cummings utilizes unique syntax in these poems in order to convey messages visually as well as verbally. Although one may think of l(a as a poem of sadness and loneliness, Cummings probably did not intend that. This poem is about individuality - oneness. The theme of oneness can be derived from the numerous inezces and forms of the number ‘1’ throughout the poem. First, ‘l(a’ contains both the number 1 and the singular indefinite article, ‘a’; the second line contains the French singular definite article, ‘le’; ‘ll’ on the fifth line represents two ones; ‘one’ on the 7th line spells the number out; the 8th line, ‘l’, isolates the number; and ‘iness’, the last line, can mean “the state of being I” - that is, individuality - or “oneness”, deriving the “one” from the lowercase roman numeral ‘i’. Cummings could have simplified this poem drastically (“a leaf falls:/loneliness”), and still conveyed the same verbal message, but he has altered the normal syntax in order that each line should show a ‘one’ and highlight the theme of oneness. In fact, the whole poem is shaped like a ‘1’. The shape of the poem can also be seen as the path of a falling leaf; the poem drifts down, flipping and altering pairs of letters like a falling leaf gliding, back and forth, down to the ground. The beginning ‘l(a’ changes to ‘le’, and ‘af’ flips to ‘fa’. ‘ll’ indicates a quick drop of the leaf, which has slowed by a longer line, ‘one’. Finally, the leaf falls into the pile of fallen leaves on the ground, represented by ‘iness’. Cummings has written this poem so perfectly that every part of it conveys the message of oneness and individuality. In mortals), Cummings vitalizes a trapeze act on paper. Oddly enough, this poem, too, stresses the

Shakespeare Man or Myth?

2005-05-26T09:41:49-04:00

Shakespeare - Man or Myth? Was the man we know as Shakespeare really the author of the "Shakespearean Works"? We know little about the man called Shakespeare, Did he really write the plays, or is he just a man that got confused within history? (Sobran 44) There is not even a correct spelling of this mans name, Some of the spellings include Shakspere, Shakespeare, And Shaxpere. Shakespeare, Is it the man, Or is it another? (Hayes 1D) Shakespeare is both fact and fiction, he was no concern until nearly two hundred years after he perished, and there is still no definite or probably will there ever be a conclusion to this mystery. (Sobran 44) There is another man that can be attributed with the works of "Shakespeare", His name is Edward DeVere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. (Bethell 47) The man known as Shakespeare does not fit perfectly into the necessary criteria to determine the author of these works. Thomas Looney invented a series of criteria that had to be filled, in order to be a possible candidate for the authorship of the Shakespearean works. To have all the knowledge that is portrayed in the works, the author must have accomplished many things. These including a superior education, from what we know of "Shakespeare", this was not a possibility.(Bethell 46) We do not even know if Shakespeare has ever written anything in his life, Nor do we know that he was paid for writing these works. The man Shakespeare does not even make a claim that he is the author.(Bethell 50) He may not have been able to write the simplest thing of all, His own name.(Hayes 1D) Its not how little we know about Shakespeare that causes confusion and difficulty, Its the things that we do know about this man that cause the confusion and difficulty. We know Shakespears father, a glover, could not write. When he signed documents, he simply made an "X", This is why it is beleived that Shakespeare could not write also, Because he probably did not attend school therefore his education was passed down from his father. (Bethell 48) We do know much more about the man Edward DeVere. We know that because deVere was a nobleman, he could not have his name written upon his writings because he would be considered of a lower class. The plays contain a sense of hate towards some of the

Shakespeare Biography

2005-03-21T01:34:39-04:00

William Shakespeare was a supreme English poet, and playwright, universally recognized as the greatest of all the dramatists in the early seventeenth centuries. A complete, authoritative account of Shakespeare's life is lacking; much supposition surrounds relatively few facts. His day of birth is traditionally held on April 23, and he was baptized on April 24, 1564. He was the third of eight children, and was the eldest son of John Shakespeare. He was probably educated in a local grammar school. As the eldest son, Shakespeare would of taken over his father's business, but according to one account, he became a butcher because of reverses in his father's financial situation. According to another account, he became a school master. That Shakespeare was allowed considerable leisure time in his youth is suggested by the fact that his plays show more knowledge of hunting and hawking than do those of other dramatists. In 1582, he married Anne Hathaway. He is supposed to have left Stratford after he was caught poaching in a deer park. Shakespeare apparently arrived in London about 1588 and by 1592 had attained success as a playwright. The publication of Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece and of his Sonnets established his reputation as a poet in the Renaissance manner. Shakespeare's modern reputation is based mainly on the 38 plays he wrote, modified, or collaborated on. Shakespeare's professional life in London was marked by a number of financially advantageous arrangements that permitted him to share in the profits of his acting company, the Chamberlain's Men, and its two theaters, the Globe and the Blackfriars. His plays were given special presentation at the courts of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I. After about 1608, Shakespeare's dramatic production lessened and he spent more time in Stratford. There he established a family in and imposing house, the New Place, and became a leading local citizen. He died on April 23, 1616, and was buried in the Stratford church. Although the precise date of many of Shakespeare's plays is in doubt, his dramatic career is divided into four periods: (1) the period up to 1594, (2) the years from 1594 to 1600, (3) the years from 1600 to 1608, (4) the period after 1608. In all periods, the plots of his plays were frequently drawn from chronicles, histories, or earlier fiction. Shakespeare's

Mary Shelley Biography

2005-02-20T05:23:23-05:00

Mary Shelley Biographical Essay Mary Shelley was born on August 30th, 1797. She was born to William Godwin, a philosopher, and Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the first radical feminists. Both of her parents were extremely active in the revolutionary movements of the late eighteenth century. Her father was a minister but later became an atheist and turned his attention to ethics and politics. When he met Wollstonecraft, he was taken by her intelligence and commitment to women's rights. Mary Wollstonecraft worked as as seamstress, lady's companion and director of a girls' school and as a governess. As an underpaid working woman, it was then when she realized and recognized that women were underrepresented in Parliament. She argued that " women are human creatures, who, in common with men, are placed on this earth to unfold their faculties" (Smith 2) Getting back to Mary Shelley, she grew up in a very loving environment even in spite of the fact that her mother died September 10, 1797, ten days after her birth. For four years he raised Mary and her half sister, Fanny with the help of friends and extended family. Although he felt he was doing the best he could, he still felt as though he wasn't giving them proper education. As a result of his feeling, he married Mary Jane Clairmont on December 12, 1801 creating a blended family consisting of William, Mary Jane, Mary, Fanny, Mary Jane's children Charles and Jane(Claire), and later William, Mary's half brother. The older children were required to perform household duties such as cooking, cleaning, and washing clothes. She also learned cooking, needlepoint, and how to throw a successful dinner party from her new stepmother. Her father gradually learned the art of proper schooling. He taught the children mythology, ancient and English history. It was around this time that her father and stepmother moved the family to a commercial part of London where they owned and operated M.J Godwin and Co., a publishing and book selling firm. After the move, William Godwin began to teach Mary Latin and the sciences as well as training her in such research skills as making chronologies. However, Mary has been quoted as saying "he had faults as a teacher...too much temper...to little sympathy...too grave and severe. (Smith 6) This caused a rift in not only her relationship with her father but with Mary Jane as well. She was known for wandering

Maya Angelou Biography

2004-12-29T06:40:30-05:00

Maya Angelou Maya Angelou, born April 4, 1928 as Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, was raised in segregated rural Arkansas. She is a poet, historian, author, actress, playwright, civil-rights activist, and director. She has been working at Wake Forest University in north Carolina since 1981.She has published ten best selling books and numerous magazine articles earning her Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nomination. At the request of President Clinton, she wrote and delivered a poem at his 1993 presidential inauguration. Whole her life, Maya Angelou has been trying to make something special in the poetry, history and in the film industry of the Africa-American women. Dr, Angelou, who speaks French, Spanish, Italian and West African Fanti, began her career in drama and dance. In 1940 she and her brother moved to San Francisco to be with their mother, who had remarried. She gave birth to her son Clyde Johnson, just a few month after graduating a high school in 1945.At 22, she married Tosho Angelos, a former sailor of Greek descent, but she left her marriage two and half years later and set out to become a professional dancer. Maya Angelou spent her formative years shuttling between St. Louis, Arkansas and San Francisco. She worked as an editor for The Arab observer, an English-language weekly published Cairo. Maya Angelou lived in Accra, Ghana, where Sergejs Golubevs under the black nationalist regime of Karane Nkrumah she taught music, dance, and. studied cinematography in Sweden. In the 1960's, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ms Angelou became the northern coordinator for the southern Leadership Conference. She Commission on the Observance of International women's Year. Maya Angelou, poet, was among the first African -American woman to hit the bestseller lists with her 'I know Why the Caged bird Sings " helds the Great Hall audience spellbound with stories of her own childhood. Maya Angelou's second achievement was in 1971 when she produced "Just Give Me a Cool Drink of water 'Fore I Die", in 1975"Oh Pray My Wings Are Going to Fit Me Well," in 1979"And I Still Rise," and in 1983 "Shaker Why Don't You Sing." She ranged from story to poem to song and back again, and her theme was love and the universality of all lives. "The honorary duty of a human being is to love, "Angelou said. She spoke of her early love for William Shakespeare's works, and

Robert Frost Biographical Essay

2004-12-26T00:55:56-05:00

Robert Frost Biography Robert Frost was an intelligent and influential poet in the early 1900's. He was the most famous American poet of his time. Robert Frost's life, poems, and external influences, brought enjoyment through his poetry to many of his readers. The life of Robert Frost was an uphill battle for many years. He wrote and published many books of poetry during his life. These books and poems are still enjoyed by many readers today. His poetry details the lives and landscapes, which surrounded him. These influences brought his writings to life. Through Frost his readers have enjoyed the many poems and experiences he has brought to their life. The life of Robert Frost brought many disappointments and eventually accomplishments. Mr. Frost's life began on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco, California. During his childhood, he experienced the sadness and abuse of an alcoholic father. When he was only eleven years old, his father died at the young age of 34. His mother Isabel Frost then moved the family from San Francisco to Lawrence, Massachusetts. His mother struggled for many years to support the family. Early in Frost's life, he discovered his love for poetry. This was no surprise since his father had worked in journalism for many years. In 1892, Frost graduated from Lawrence High School. It was during this time that he met his high school sweetheart. This young lady's name was Elinor White. After Mr. Frost graduated from high school, he decided to enter Dartmouth College. Unfortunately, he remained in college less than one semester due to a problem with his mother. After he quit school, he taught eighth grade at the private school that his mother had founded. He also worked at a mill in Lawrence. In 1895, he worked briefly as a newspaper reporter. It was also during this year that he married his high school sweetheart. A year later the birth of their first child occurred. In 1897, Frost was invited to attend Harvard College as a special student. During the next several years, Frost and his wife had many children. In 1900, his first-born son and his mother died. It was at this point in his life, that he decided to move his family to a farm near Derry, New Hampshire. In 1911, frost began teaching at the New Hampshire State Normal

Edith Wharton - THE BIOGRAPHY

2004-12-22T21:53:37-05:00

Edith Wharton - THE BIOGRAPHY Edith Wharton was born on January 24, 1862 under the name Edith Newbold Jones. She was born in New York, the great state. Her parents were George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Rhinelander, who were descendants of Dutch and English colonists who made fortunes in shipping, banking, and real estate. Georges parents were not happy with the marriage of Lucretia and George, they said that Lucretia was of a bad breed, but that didn't stop them. Edith constantly traveled back and forth to Europe, Rome and Paris. While living in Paris, the Franco-Prussian War broke out and they had moved to a German watering called Bad Wildbad in the Black Forest. While being there she became very sick with typhoid. All doctors were in the war helping soldiers that no one could care for her. She eventually became well but was very delicate for about two yrs. Then she moved back to New York at the age of 10 on Twenty-third Street, near Fifth Avenue. She didn't attend school but was given home schooling and read from her father's library. At age 23, she married Edward Robbins Wharton, nickname, Teddy. He was a nice man with good intellectual background. He was not that smart and didn't enjoy Edith's interests, which caused their marriage to be unhappy. Edith's father died due to many years of sickness. For a while Edith lived with her widowed mother. Edith was a participant of fashionable society and an observer of changes in New York. Edith was an ideal person to view the social ambitions of the Gilded Age, which was the post-civil War period of American expansion in business, foreign affairs, and arts. She wrote "THE MOUNT" in 1902. She wrote the fiction, "THE HOUSE OF MIRTH" in 1905 where she depicts materialism and the rich of the contemporary world. She was extremely creative. She had problems publishing her first book and didn't get published until she was thirty-six years old. She then settled in France, first in Paris. She had divorced Teddy in 1913. She spent most of her time with French writers and artists, Paul Bourget, Jacques-Emile Blanche. During WWI she became dedicated to the ALLIED cause. She created hostels and schools for refugees from northeastern France and Belgium. In her last years, Edith spent in two beautiful

Biography of Mary Shelley Author of Frankenstein

2004-12-22T21:32:26-05:00

Biography of Mary Shelley, Author of Frankenstein It was certain when Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin greeted the world on August 30, 1797, her life was going to be out of step with the ordinary. Her unorthodox parents and family structure ensured this from the beginning. Her father, William Godwin, himself a philosopher-historian, was cold and ever remote. Originally he trained for the Calvinist ministry, but only wore the cloth a few years. A sharp man who ate to excess and borrowed money from anyone who would give him a loan, he had little time for anything that did not constitute the cultivation of a formidable mind through writing. That is, until Mary Wollstonecraft entered his life. With the possible exception of William Blake, she was the most influential of the Enlightenment radicals. Independent at age twenty-one, she ran a school with her sisters and befriended Samuel Johnson. While in France, she took up with a captain and eventually had a daughter, Fanny. After being deserted, she returned to England and attempted suicide. Once she had recovered, she began to write for a living. Although she wrote in a variety of genres, it was a piece on women's liberation that won her lasting fame. The first meeting between these two people took place at a social evening in Godwin's home. Their identical intellectual beliefs made their coupling inevitable. An affair begun in the autumn of 1796. When Mary discovered she was pregnant, the couple decided to marry, that both illegitimate children would have a name. In spite of the ceremony, they continued to dwell separately and live independently. They were still very much in love, however. Unfortunately, about a week and a half after Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, was born, her mother died from labor complications. Although he wanted to be a good father, Godwin soon realized that he could not handle two young girls, and immediately set himself to the task of finding another wife. A proposal to Maria Reveley, who would later become Mary's best friend, was rejected. As Godwin started to sink into despair, Mary began to talk, and was so lively that she was nicknamed Mercury. The problem remained of finding a substitute mother, and Godwin found what appeared to be an answer in Mary Jane Clairmont. He quickly married her, that she could care for the children and leave him to his contemplation of the abstract. Fanny and Mary's

Biography of George Orwell Author of 1984

2004-12-22T21:29:20-05:00

Biography of George Orwell Author of 1984 George Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair on June 25, 1903, in Motihari, India. The Blair¹s were relatively prosperous civil servants, working in India on behalf of the British Empire. Blair would later describe his family¹s socioeconomic status as "lower-upper middle class," on comment on the extraordinary degree to which British citizens in India depended on the Empire for their livelihood; though the Blair were able to live quite comfortably in India, they had none of the physical assets or independent investments that would have been enjoyed by their class in England proper. Despite this factor, Ida Blair moved back to England in 1904 with Eric and his older sister Marjorie so that they could be brought up in a more traditional Christian environment. In England, Blair entered the public school system, and was admitted to Eton College in 1917. For most students of this era, Eton led directly to higher education at a university, often Oxford or Cambridge. Blair shunned further formal schooling, and after leaving Eton in 1921, returned to India in 1922 to join the Indian Imperial Police. This work gave Blair his first real experiences with the poor and downtrodden whom he would later champion, and unhappy with the his position as the "hand of the oppressor," Blair resigned from the police force in 1927, returning to England that same year. Upon return to England, Blair lived in the East End district of London, which was filled with paupers and the destitute, whom he saw as the spiritual kin of the Burmese peasants he had encountered as a policeman. In 1928, Blair moved to Paris to become a writer, where he again lived among the poor, and was eventually forced to abandon his writing temporarily and become a dishwasher. He returned to England the next year (1929), and lived as a tramp before finding work as a teacher at a private school. This position gave Blair time to write, and his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London, was published in 1933, under the pseudonym George Orwell. The publication of this first work, which was an account of his years living among the poor of Paris and London, marks the beginning of a more stable period for Orwell, in which he taught, opened a bookshop, and continued to write. His first fictional work, Burmese Days, appeared in 1934.

Anthony Burgess and A Clockwork Orange

2004-12-11T08:18:15-05:00

Anthony Burgess has been heralded as one of the greatest literary geniuses of the twentieth century. Although Burgess has over thirty works of published literature, his most famous is A Clockwork Orange. Burgess’s novel is a futuristic look at a Totalitarian government. The main character, Alex, is an “ultra-violent” thief who has no problem using force against innocent citizens to get what he wants. The beginning of the story takes us through a night in the life of Alex and his Droogs, and details their adventures that occupy their time throughout the night. At fifteen years old, Alex is set up by his Droogs—Pete, Dim, and Georgie—and is convicted of murder and sent to jail. At the Staja or state penitentiary, Alex becomes inmate number 6655321 and spends two years of a sentence of fourteen years there. Alex is then chosen by the government to undergo an experimental new “Ludovico’s Technique.” In exchange for his freedom, Alex would partake in this experiment that was to cure him of all the evil inside of him and all that was bad. Alex is given injections and made to watch films of rape, violence, and war and the mixture of these images and the drugs cause him to associate feelings of panic and nausea with violence. He is released after two weeks of the treatment and after a few encounters with past victims finds himself at the home of a radical writer who is strongly opposed to the new treatment the government has subjected him to. Ironically, this writer was also a victim of Alex’s but does not recognize him. This writer believes that this method robs the recipient of freedom of choice and moral decision, therefore depriving him of being a human at all. These themes are played out and developed throughout the entire novel. Alex eventually tries to commit suicide and the State is forced to admit that the therapy was a mistake and they cure him again. The last chapter of the novel which was omitted from the American version and from Stanley Kubrick’s film shows Alex’s realization that he is growing up and out of his ultra-violent ways on his own. He realizes that he wants a wife and son of his own and that he must move up and on in the world. Anthony Burgess was born John Anthony Burgess Wilson on February 25, 1917 in Manchester, England.

Letter from Isabel Allende to Gabriel Garcia Marquez

2004-11-21T21:37:29-05:00

Imaginary Letter from Isabel Allende to Gabriel Garcia Marquez Isabel Allende 5555 Magical Realism Way Sandy Ego, Sandia 32683 Dear Madam Allende: I have recently finished reading your book, House of Spirits, and I am amazed by how much your book mirrors that of my book. Now, I am not mad at you for taking my material and working with it, because many great works have come out of such replicas. I am truly intrigued by the character of Esteban Trueba and his endeavors. He mirrors that of my character, Jose Arcadio Buendía, both of

Alice Walker Discussion and Writing Analysis

2004-10-31T08:01:20-04:00

Alice Walker There are many different types of authors in the world of literature, authors of horror, romance, suspense, and the type that Alice Walker writes, through personal experiences. Although most critics categorize her writings as feminist, Walker describes herself as a "womanist", she defines this as "a woman who loves other woman...Appreciates and prefers woman culture, woman's emotional flexibility... and woman's strength... Loves the spirit... Loves herself, Regardless". Walker's thoughts and feelings show through in her writing of poetry and novels. Alice Walker writes through her feelings and the morals that she has grown with, she writes about the black woman's struggle for spiritual wholeness and sexual, political, and racial equality. Much of Walker's fiction is informed by her Southern background. She was born in Eatonton, Georgia, a rural town where most blacks worked as tenant farmers. At the age eight she was blinded in the right eye when an older brother accidentally shot her with a BB gun, after which she fell into somewhat of a depression. She secluded herself from the other children, and as she explained, "I no longer felt like the little girl I was. I felt old, and because I felt I was unpleasant to look at, filled with shame. I retreated into solitude, and read stories and began to write poems." In 1961 Walker won a scholarship to Spelman College in Atlanta, where she became involved in the civil rights movement and participated in sit-ins at local business establishments. She transferred to Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, graduating from there in 1965. She met her future husband Melvyn Leventhal, a Jewish civil rights attorney, in Mississippi where she was an activist and teacher. In 1967 Walker and Leventhal married, becoming the first legally married interracial couple to reside in Jackson, the state capital, they had one child together one year after they got married, named Rebecca . They divorced in 1976. Since then Walker has focused more on her writing and has taught at various colleges and universities. Walker is one of the most prolific black women writers in America. Her work consistently reflects her concern with racial, sexual, and political issues-particularly with black woman's struggle for survival. She explained, "The black woman is one of America's greatest heroes….Not enough credit has been given to the black woman who has been oppressed beyond recognition." Walker's insistence on giving black women their due resulted in

The Tragedy Of Edgar Allan Poe Paper

2004-07-04T20:53:01-04:00

The Tragedy Of Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe is one of the leading figures of American literature. He is known as a poet and a critic, but is most famous as the first master of the short story form, especially tales of the mysterious and gruesome. In Poe's poems, like his tales, his characters are tortured by nameless fears and longings. Today Poe is acclaimed as one of America's greatest writers, but in his own unhappy lifetime he knew little but failure. Poe had an unstable family life. The insecure place he held at home interfered with his emotional stability. He was born as the son of actors. "The two were not notably talented; they played minor roles in third-rate theatrical companies." (Buranalli 7) Between them they barely managed to make a living. Poe was the second of their three children. About the time the third child was born, the father died, or disappeared, and Mrs. Poe went to Richmond, Virginia with the two youngest children. The oldest child, William Henry, had been left in the care of his grandparents in Baltimore shortly after his birth. Mrs. Poe was overtaken by a fatal illness (tuberculosis). Devastated by the disease and worn out with the struggle to support her children, she died. Edgar, two years old, and the infant, Rosaline, were orphaned. Poe was taken into the home of John Allan, a wealthy merchant. His wife, Frances Allan, had no children and wanted to adopt Poe as her son. Mr. Allan was unwilling to commit himself to a step of such permanence. "The acting profession was despised at the time and was even considered immoral." (Meyers 11) Mr. Allan thought the little son of actor parents was a questionable person to inherit his name and the fortune he was busy accumulating. He was however, willing to support the child, to please his wife. Family was of the greatest importance in Richmond, the place where Poe spent most of his boyhood. Poe felt the difference between the children at school and himself. He was not close to his (foster) father, like other boys were. Mr. Allan's unwillingness to adopt him bothered him greatly. It hurt him that he was not wanted enough by his father to legally be his son.

William Faulkner Biography

2004-07-04T20:03:03-04:00

September 25, 1997 marks the centenary of the birth of William Faulkner, the South's--and perhaps America's--greatest writer. Almost all of Faulkner's most memorable work explores the intricate goings on in Yoknapatawpha County, his fictional north Mississippi world. Despite his focus on what he called his "own little postage stamp of native soil," Faulkner's fiction always pushes toward the universal. As much as cultures vary in space and time, the human condition remains constant; Faulkner's works, like all great literature, will never be dated. In his essay, "Mississippi," probably the best introduction to his life and his writing, William Faulkner ends with a striking statement expressing his volatile feelings toward the South: "Loving all of it even while he had to hate some of it because he knows that you don't love because; you love despite; not for the virtues, but despite the faults." Besides his deep affection for, and fascination with, the Southern folk--and I mean by that all Southerners, those of all color, class, and gender--Faulkner's love for his homeland centered on its rich landscape and its heroic past, particularly the period of settlement when those he called the "tall men" fought back the wilderness and laid the cultural foundations for future generations. But the region's ongoing history of racial injustice and intolerance, together with what he saw as traditional culture's inevitable decline before the forces of modernization and greed, painfully disturbed Faulkner. Faulkner's anguished feelings about the South's decline cloak much of his best work--generally considered that written between 1929 and 1944, including most notably, As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, Absalom, Absalom!, and Go Down, Moses--in something close to tragic doom. Lurking almost everywhere, too, are his explosively conflicted love/hate feelings toward the region, expressed most clearly in Quentin Compson's anguished thoughts about the South at the end of Absalom, Absalom!: "I dont hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark: I dont. I dont! I dont hate it! I dont hate it!" But of course Quentin--along with Faulkner--does hate it, as tenaciously as they love it. Faulkner's life as a writer was not an easy one. It was not until he received the Nobel Prize in 1950 that his stature as a writer--and his financial health--were secure. Before then, Faulkner was generally considered by most critics as a minor regionalist and something of a crackpot. Most of

Agatha Christie Biography

2004-07-04T19:07:49-04:00

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller Christy (September 15, 1890 - January 12, 1976), was a British crime fiction writer. Christy published over eighty books and other works, mainly whodunits. While her work is not considered part of the literary

George Orwell Biography

2004-07-04T18:20:09-04:00

George Orwell (1903-1950) was born Eric Arthur Blair in 1903 in Motihari, Bengal, India. His father, Richard Walmesley Blair was a civil servant for the British government. In 1904 Orwell moved with his mother and sister to England where he remained until 1922. He began to write at an early age, and was even published in college periodicals, but he did not enjoy school. Orwell wrote about his unfavorable prep-school experiences in the essay Such Such were the Joys (1968). Orwell failed to win a university scholarship and without the opportunity to continue his education he went to Bruma and served in the administration of the Indian Imperial Police from 1922 to 1927 when he resigned in part due to his growing dislike of British imperialism, a dislike he vocalized in his essays Shooting an Elephant (1950), and A Hanging (1931). When Orwell returned to Europe he was in poor financial condition and worked low paying jobs in France and England. Finally, in 1928, he decided to become a professional writer. Starting in 1930 Orwell became a regular contributor to the New Adelphi, and in 1933 he assumed the name "George Orwell" by which he would become famous. For his first novel he used his recent experience with poverty as inspiration and wrote Down and Out in Paris and London (1933). While teaching in a private school he published his second major work, Burmese Days (1934). Two years later Orwell married Eileen O'Shaugnessy. During the1930s Orwell had adopted the views of a socialist and traveled to Spain to report on their civil war. He took the side of the United Workers Marxist Party militia and fought alongside them, which earned him a wound in the neck. It was this war that made him hate communism in favor of the English brand of socialism. Orwell wrote a book on Spain, Homage to Catalonia, which was published in 1938. During the second World War Orwell served as a sergeant in the Home Guard and also worked as a journalist for the BBC, Observer and Tribune, where he was literary editor from 1943 to 1945. It was toward the end of the war that he wrote Animal Farm, and when it was over he moved to Scotland. It was Animal Farm that made finally Orwell prosperous. His other world wide success was Nineteen Eighty-Four, which Orwell said was written "to alter other people's idea of the kind

Count Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy Biography

2004-07-04T05:34:41-04:00

Chaucer

2004-06-10T04:48:35-04:00

A person can almost wholly learn the history of the world though literature that has been written. This is because the people and times have such a great influence on the writers and their work. Authors did not simply grab ideas from the sky. These ideas came from their mind; they wrote about what they knew. And what they knew is what surrounds them, whether it be war, peace, or a time of transition. In the early centuries, religion ruled the land and people. The first rulers came about from the idea that God or some other Supreme Being from up above sent forth these people to rule over the land. Literature from these times was highly influenced by religion. Almost every piece of work up until the 18th century contains some kind of religious reference. Evidence of the role and impact of religion in society is shown in the epic poem Beowulf of the eighth century and Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales of the fourteenth century. The time in which Chaucer lived was "one of the most disagreeable periods of our national history" (Legouis 80). The Black Death destroyed a third of the population and many people turned to the church for help. Goeffery Chaucer, being "the great poetical observer of men, who in every age is born to record and eternize" (Blake 51), wrote The Canterbury Tales in the late fourteenth century in England. Religion dominated this time period in history; and therefore, it played a huge role in literary work. The Tale's plot is based on a very religious practice, a pilgrimage. The narrator of the Tales starts out by saying that he is "ready to go on my pilgrimage to Canterbury with a most devout heart" (Chaucer 3). A pilgrimage is a very sacred aspect of religion. It is an act of religious devotion, where a person or groups of people travel to a holy site in honor of a religious figure (Quinn 76). Almost every literary work ever produced at the time that Chaucer lived had religious undertones. This was because of the simple fact that "the church was the fountain of literacy and sole purveyor of what education there was during these centuries"(Vinson 8). The church was the law. If someone went against what the Bible said, then you went against the government. One might assume that if the Bible

Edgar Alan Poe: A Man of Secrecy

2004-06-10T02:28:45-04:00

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 as Edgar Poe. He was the second son to Elizabeth Arnold Poe and David Poe. Both parents were actors, and shortly after Poe’s birth, his father deserted his family around 1810. Edgar became an orphan before the age of three years, when his mother died on December 8, 1811 in Richmond, Virginia at the age of twenty-four years. His father died at the age of twenty-seven years old. After his mother’s death, the childless couple, John and Frances Allan, took in Poe; his paternal grandparents took in brother William Henry; and foster parents cared for sister Rosalie. Allan was a strict and unemotional tobacco merchant and his wife was overindulgent. Poe was educated by the Allan’s aid, in private academies, excelling in Latin, in writing verse and declamation. However, regardless of his education, he was looked down upon by the upper class of society, perhaps because Poe was never legally adopted by the Allan’s, nonetheless he was regarded as an outsider by the Richmond elite. However, being the child of former actor’s could have also added to his reputation of not fitting in with Richmond’s culture at that time. The loss of his mother at an early age definitely affected Poe, “The angels, whispering to one another, Can find, among their burning terms of love, None so devotional as that of ‘Mother’” (To My Mother). In Tamerlane, he not only wrote about his father, but he wrote about his mother too. He had more respect for his mother than he did for his father. In Tamerlane he speaks much nicer of his mother. “O, she was worthy of all love! Love – as in infancy was mine – ‘Twas such as angel minds above Might envy; her young heart the shrine on which my every hope and thought…” (Tamerlane). He thought of life with his mother and how it might have been. In 1831 Poe moved to Baltimore to live with his aunt, Maria Clemm. There he fell in love and married her daughter and his cousin Virginia Clemm, who was not even fourteen at the time. Ten years later she also died of tuberculosis. He dearly loved his wife and after she died his life just went to pieces. In “The Raven”, the character

Carl Sandburg Biography

2004-06-10T02:06:19-04:00

Carl Sandburg was born in Galesburg, Illinois in 1878. At the age of thirteen, he left his Seventh Ward School to support his family. Even when he was young, he was a hard worker. He raised money for his family by driving a milk truck and delivering the milk, shining shoes, and farming on wheat fields in Kansas. When the Spanish-American War took place in 1898, Sandburg was enlisted in the 6th Illinois Infantry. He described these years in a later autobiography, Always the Young Strangers, written in 1953. Then, Sandburg attended Lombard College in Galesburg, Illinios. He married Lilian Paula Steichen in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1910. From 1910 to 1912 he served as an organizer for the Social Democratic Party and secretary to the mayor. In 1913, Carl Sandburg's writing career started. Sandburg was transferred to Chicago, Illinois where his work could be appreciated. In Chicago, he was the editor of \"System\", a business magazine. Sandburg also joined the staff of \"Chicago Daily News\". A year later, in 1914, a few of his poems were published in \"Poetry\", a Chicago literary magazine. \"Poetry\" awarded Sandburg with the Levinson Prize for his poem \"Chicago\" in 1914. Many people criticized his poems because they felt that they were written too simply. However, other people believed that his work contained \"vivid descriptions\".
In 1916, Chicago Poems, a collection of Sandburg's best poems, was published. Carl Sandburg is known for many other books. These include Cornhuskers published in 1918, Smoke and Steel published in 1920, Pigeons published in 1923, Country published in 1929, Potato Face published in 1930, The People Yes published in 1936, Complete Poems, published in 1950, and Honey and Salt published in 1963. He also published Rootabaga Stories in 1922. These were stories written for his three daughters, Margaret, Janet, and Helga. Sandburg also wrote and read his works to his two grandchildren. Sandburg also wrote biographies on Abraham Lincoln. These included Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years, which was written in 1926, and Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, which was written in 1939.
Carl Sandburg has won many prizes for his poems and books. He was awarded prizes by the Poetry Society of America in 1919 and 1921. Sandburg also was awarded Pulitzer prizes for Abraham Lincoln: The War Years in 1940, and Complete Poems in 1951. He published a novel, Remembrance Rock, in 1948. Carl Sandburg also earned money from

Mark Twain

2004-06-10T01:53:41-04:00

Samuel Clemens was born and grew up in Hannibal, Missouri. This was the home of his later characters Tom Sawer and Huck Finn. In these books he incorporated such features that really existed in Hannibal; features such as Holidays Hill, Bear Creek and Lover’s Leap. Clemens described the residents of Hannibal as happy and content with the lives they led in their small town. In his late teens, Clemens left Hannibal on a riverboat to become a printer in St. Louis. He moved up in the ranks of printing and moved to New York and eventually to Washington D.C. Clemens remembered how much fun he had had on the riverboat and how glorious it must have been to be a pilot. He soon decided to move to New Orleans to become a pilot. On the boat, he often heard things like ‘Mark the twain, two fathoms deep’. He liked how the words “Mark Twain” sounded and in one of his first books, ‘Life on the Mississippi’ about his four years piloting the Spread Eagle along the twisting river, he decided to use the name Mark Twain. Mark Twain stopped piloting the riverboat in 1861, at the start of the Civil War, to join the Union. He went to war for two weeks and left immediately after being involved in the shooting of a civilian. He said he knew retreating better than it’s inventor did. He soon decided to travel 1,700 miles from the Missouri Territory , to the Nevada Territory. He passed through Overland City, Horseshoe City, and many large and small cities in between. Clemens commented that Salt Lake City was healthy. He said that the city had one doctor who was arrested once a week for lack of work. Virginia City was very lively from all of the gold and silver found near. He commented that the saloons, courts and prisons were busy and there was a whiskey mill every fifteen steps. Inspired by the vein of silver as wide as a New York City street under Virginia City, Twain decided to go prospecting. Many people went prospecting crazy but Twain thought it must have skipped over him. After not finding any silver, he wrote a book called Roughing It. Clemens soon went to San Francisco and took a job at the San