Racine, Jean (1639-1699)
French dramatist, known for the effective simplicity of his poetic style and his psychological portrayals of the passions of his characters.
His works include La Thébaïde ( 1664); Alexandre ( 1665); Andromaque ( 1667); Les Plaideurs ( 1668), his sole comedy; Britannicus (1669); Bérénice (1670); Bajazet (1672); Mithridate (1674); Iphigénie ( 1674); Phédre ( 1677), regarded as the author's masterpiece; Esther (1688-1689); Athalie (1690), performed privately, called by some critics the author's greatest dramatic poem. The subjects of most of these dramas were derived from the tragedies of Euripides or historical accounts.
Racine was educated in a Jansenist school and at first intended for the priesthood; the influence of Jansenist doctrines of Original Sin combined with the classic Greek concept of Fate has been found in his tragedies. Moliére, La Fontaine, and Boileau were his friends in Paris, where his plays suffered through the enmity of partisans of his rivals, among whom was Corneille. Racine retired as a writer for the stage after the production of Phèdre. Esther was performed by the schoolgirl daughters of French nobles, and Athalie was not produced in Paris until 1716.
Rabelais, François (1494?-1553)
Rabelais, François (1494?-1553)
French scholar, humanist, physician, and satirist, early in his career a member first of the Franciscan order and then of the Benedictine order.
He is famous for his robust and outspoken burlesque Gargantua and Pantagruel, satirizing contemporary religion, pedantry, politics, and social institutions, exalting nature, empiricism, and characteristic Renaissance variety and richness, and showing evidence of derivations from numerous source-books of the author's day. This work was published as follows: Les Grandes et Inestimables Chroniques du Grand et Enorme Géant Gargantus ( 1532), a chapbook; Pantagruel ( 1533), later Book II of the work in its best-known form; La Vie Inestimable du Grand Gargantua, Père de Pantagruel ( 1534), later Book I; Book III (1546); Book IV (1552), condemned by the Sorbonne and prohibited from sale; Isle Sonnante ( 1562) and Le Cinquième et dernier Livre des Faits et Dits Héroïques du Bon Pantagruel ( 1564), constituting Book V and considered by some scholars to be of doubtful authenticity, although it is believed that an outline prepared by the author was used for it.
Rabelais took his Master's and Doctor's degrees in medicine and divided his time between his practice as a physician and a second profession of editing and publishing books. His great work contributed in an important degree to the development of the French language, more than 600 words having been added through it to the Vocabulary of the modern language of France. Rabelais is considered to have influenced most Montaigne, Moliere, Blaise Pascal, Anatole France, Jonathan Swift, and Laurence Sterne.
French scholar, humanist, physician, and satirist, early in his career a member first of the Franciscan order and then of the Benedictine order.
He is famous for his robust and outspoken burlesque Gargantua and Pantagruel, satirizing contemporary religion, pedantry, politics, and social institutions, exalting nature, empiricism, and characteristic Renaissance variety and richness, and showing evidence of derivations from numerous source-books of the author's day. This work was published as follows: Les Grandes et Inestimables Chroniques du Grand et Enorme Géant Gargantus ( 1532), a chapbook; Pantagruel ( 1533), later Book II of the work in its best-known form; La Vie Inestimable du Grand Gargantua, Père de Pantagruel ( 1534), later Book I; Book III (1546); Book IV (1552), condemned by the Sorbonne and prohibited from sale; Isle Sonnante ( 1562) and Le Cinquième et dernier Livre des Faits et Dits Héroïques du Bon Pantagruel ( 1564), constituting Book V and considered by some scholars to be of doubtful authenticity, although it is believed that an outline prepared by the author was used for it.
Rabelais took his Master's and Doctor's degrees in medicine and divided his time between his practice as a physician and a second profession of editing and publishing books. His great work contributed in an important degree to the development of the French language, more than 600 words having been added through it to the Vocabulary of the modern language of France. Rabelais is considered to have influenced most Montaigne, Moliere, Blaise Pascal, Anatole France, Jonathan Swift, and Laurence Sterne.
Swinburne, Algernon Charles (1837-1909)
Swinburne, Algernon Charles (1837-1909)
English poet, associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, known for his rebellion against Victorian social conventions and religion, his active sympathies with the movements and leaders of political revolution of his time, and the pagan spirit and amazing musical effects of his poetry.
He was an intense admirer of P. B. Shelley and Victor Hugo, and was influenced in his own poetry by Greek legend and Roman classic literature, medieval romance, and Elizabethan drama. Among his poetic works are Atalanta in Calydon ( 1865), a drama in classical Greek form; The Queen Mother, Rosamund--Two Plays ( 1860); Poems and Ballads: First Series ( 1866), lyrics dealing chiefly with sensual love, which caused a sensation on its first publication; A Song of Italy ( 1867) and Songs before Sunrise ( 1876), on the cause of Italian union and independence; Poems and Ballads: Second Series ( 1878); Songs of the Springtides ( 1880) and Studies in Song ( 1880), concerned mostly with the sea; Tristram of Lyonesse ( 1882), a narrative poem on the legend of Tristan and Iseult; Poems and Ballads: Third Series ( 1889); Chastelard ( 1865), Bothwell: A Tragedy ( 1874), and Mary Stuart ( 1881), a trilogy of verse dramas on Mary Queen of Scots; Marino Failero ( 1885), a tragedy on the same theme used by Byron; Astrophel ( 1894); A Tale of Balin ( 1896); A Channel Passage ( 1904); The Duke of Gandia ( 1908). Essays and Studies ( 1875), Miscellanies ( 1886), and several sketches in the Encyclopaedia Britannica works of criticism.In his early career, Swinburne's behavior was eccentric, violent, and dissipated, intended to shock the respectable people of his age.
After an illness resulting from his excesses, he was taken into the home of Theodore WattsDunton, a literary critic, and stayed there the rest of his life. Some critics believe that WattsDunton stifled Swinburne's talent by "reforming" him, curbing his rebellion and forcing him to be docile and conventional. The poet's later work is not considered to be of as high a quality as his earlier. Cf. Max Beerbohm's classic essay "No. 2, The Pines," describing a visit to the couple.Among Swinburne's best-known single lyrics are Hymn to Artemis, Hymn to Prosperpine, The Garden of Proserpine, and Hertha. A study of Swinburne's life and poetry is contained in Poor Splendid Wings, by Frances Winwar , and a biography was written by Edmund Gosse.
English poet, associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, known for his rebellion against Victorian social conventions and religion, his active sympathies with the movements and leaders of political revolution of his time, and the pagan spirit and amazing musical effects of his poetry.
He was an intense admirer of P. B. Shelley and Victor Hugo, and was influenced in his own poetry by Greek legend and Roman classic literature, medieval romance, and Elizabethan drama. Among his poetic works are Atalanta in Calydon ( 1865), a drama in classical Greek form; The Queen Mother, Rosamund--Two Plays ( 1860); Poems and Ballads: First Series ( 1866), lyrics dealing chiefly with sensual love, which caused a sensation on its first publication; A Song of Italy ( 1867) and Songs before Sunrise ( 1876), on the cause of Italian union and independence; Poems and Ballads: Second Series ( 1878); Songs of the Springtides ( 1880) and Studies in Song ( 1880), concerned mostly with the sea; Tristram of Lyonesse ( 1882), a narrative poem on the legend of Tristan and Iseult; Poems and Ballads: Third Series ( 1889); Chastelard ( 1865), Bothwell: A Tragedy ( 1874), and Mary Stuart ( 1881), a trilogy of verse dramas on Mary Queen of Scots; Marino Failero ( 1885), a tragedy on the same theme used by Byron; Astrophel ( 1894); A Tale of Balin ( 1896); A Channel Passage ( 1904); The Duke of Gandia ( 1908). Essays and Studies ( 1875), Miscellanies ( 1886), and several sketches in the Encyclopaedia Britannica works of criticism.In his early career, Swinburne's behavior was eccentric, violent, and dissipated, intended to shock the respectable people of his age.
After an illness resulting from his excesses, he was taken into the home of Theodore WattsDunton, a literary critic, and stayed there the rest of his life. Some critics believe that WattsDunton stifled Swinburne's talent by "reforming" him, curbing his rebellion and forcing him to be docile and conventional. The poet's later work is not considered to be of as high a quality as his earlier. Cf. Max Beerbohm's classic essay "No. 2, The Pines," describing a visit to the couple.Among Swinburne's best-known single lyrics are Hymn to Artemis, Hymn to Prosperpine, The Garden of Proserpine, and Hertha. A study of Swinburne's life and poetry is contained in Poor Splendid Wings, by Frances Winwar , and a biography was written by Edmund Gosse.
Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
English poet and satirist, born in Dublin, Ireland, of an English father, known for his proud and sensitive temperament, which made him furiously intolerant of the stupidities and vices of mankind, and for his brilliant and biting satire written on the controversial issues of his time. His works include The Battle of the Books ( 1697), written in connection with the literary controversy between the Ancients and Moderns; The Tale of a tub ( 1704); Drapier's Letters ( 1724), an attack on a currency scandal in Ireland; Gullivers Travels ( 1726), his most celebrated work; A Modest Proposal ( 1729). His Journal to Stella was written in a cryptic language for his private interest but was deciphered and published after a number of years, becoming one of the best-known of his works. Swift spent an unhappy and humiliating childhood in Ireland among his Irish relatives, and was similarly unhappy and disillusioned during most of his life.
He became a member of the clergy of the Church of England, associated with the English Tory leaders and made the acquaintance of Pope, Addison, and Steele, and for a while, during the reign of Queen Anne, held a position of power in England through his pamphlets and essays. In 1713 he was appointed Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin but lost his power on the death of the Queen the following year. His relations with both Stella and Vanessa ended tragically, and during the final years of his life he was insane. Swift, who is regarded as one of the most brilliant minds in English literature, is frequently mentioned throughout James Joyce's Finnegans Wake.
English poet and satirist, born in Dublin, Ireland, of an English father, known for his proud and sensitive temperament, which made him furiously intolerant of the stupidities and vices of mankind, and for his brilliant and biting satire written on the controversial issues of his time. His works include The Battle of the Books ( 1697), written in connection with the literary controversy between the Ancients and Moderns; The Tale of a tub ( 1704); Drapier's Letters ( 1724), an attack on a currency scandal in Ireland; Gullivers Travels ( 1726), his most celebrated work; A Modest Proposal ( 1729). His Journal to Stella was written in a cryptic language for his private interest but was deciphered and published after a number of years, becoming one of the best-known of his works. Swift spent an unhappy and humiliating childhood in Ireland among his Irish relatives, and was similarly unhappy and disillusioned during most of his life.
He became a member of the clergy of the Church of England, associated with the English Tory leaders and made the acquaintance of Pope, Addison, and Steele, and for a while, during the reign of Queen Anne, held a position of power in England through his pamphlets and essays. In 1713 he was appointed Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin but lost his power on the death of the Queen the following year. His relations with both Stella and Vanessa ended tragically, and during the final years of his life he was insane. Swift, who is regarded as one of the most brilliant minds in English literature, is frequently mentioned throughout James Joyce's Finnegans Wake.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher (1811-1896)
Stowe, Harriet Beecher (1811-1896)
American novelist, daughter of Lyman Beecher, best known for Uncle tom's Cabin (1852), the most famous example of antislavery literature in 19th-century U.S. Her other works include A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin ( 1853), a collection of factual material on slavery to justify the charges implied by her novel; Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands ( 1854), an account of a tour to England; Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp ( 1856), a second fictional attack on slavery; The Minister's Wooing ( 1859), Pearl of Orr's Island ( 1862), Oldtown Folks ( 1869), Sam Lawson's Oldtown Fireside Stories ( 1871), and Poganuc People ( 1878) local-color stories and novels of New England; Agnes of Sorrento ( 1862), an historical novel; Pink andWhite Tyranny White Tyranny ( 1871); My Wife and I ( 1871), on woman suffrage; We and Our Neighbors ( 1875).
Mrs. Stowe was brought up in an atmosphere of strict Calvinism, against which she later rebelled. She achieved unfavorable notoriety in England by the publication of Lady Byron Vindicated ( 1870), a book charging Lord Byron with incest, written after her acquaintance with the poet's widow. Cf. Crusader in Crinoline ( 1941), by Forrest Wilson.
American novelist, daughter of Lyman Beecher, best known for Uncle tom's Cabin (1852), the most famous example of antislavery literature in 19th-century U.S. Her other works include A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin ( 1853), a collection of factual material on slavery to justify the charges implied by her novel; Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands ( 1854), an account of a tour to England; Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp ( 1856), a second fictional attack on slavery; The Minister's Wooing ( 1859), Pearl of Orr's Island ( 1862), Oldtown Folks ( 1869), Sam Lawson's Oldtown Fireside Stories ( 1871), and Poganuc People ( 1878) local-color stories and novels of New England; Agnes of Sorrento ( 1862), an historical novel; Pink andWhite Tyranny White Tyranny ( 1871); My Wife and I ( 1871), on woman suffrage; We and Our Neighbors ( 1875).
Mrs. Stowe was brought up in an atmosphere of strict Calvinism, against which she later rebelled. She achieved unfavorable notoriety in England by the publication of Lady Byron Vindicated ( 1870), a book charging Lord Byron with incest, written after her acquaintance with the poet's widow. Cf. Crusader in Crinoline ( 1941), by Forrest Wilson.
Stevenson, Robert Louis Balfour (18501894)
Stevenson, Robert Louis Balfour (18501894)
Scotch novelist, essayist, and poet, known for his tales of fantasy and adventure and his romantic essays in the personal vein. His fiction includes The New Arabian Nights ( 1882), fantastic tales; Treaure Island ( 1883); The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ( 1886); Kidnapped ( 1886); The Master of Ballantrae ( 1889); The Wrecker ( 1892); Catriona (called in the U.S. David Balfour; 1893), a sequel to Kidnapped. Among his volumes of essays are An Inland Voyage ( 1878); Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes ( 1879); The Amateur Emigrant; The Silverado Squatters ( 1883); Familiar Studies of Men and Books ( 1881); Virginibus Puerisque ( 1881). A Child's Garden of Verses ( 1885) and Underwoods ( 1887) are books of poetry, and he collaborated with W. E. Henley on the following dramas: Deacon Brodie ( 1882), Beau Austin ( 1890), and Admiral Guinea ( 1897). A Lodging for the Night, Markheim, and The Sire de Maletroit's Door are among his best-known short stories.
Stevenson, although seriously ill all his life with tuberculosis, lived adventurously, vagabonding through Belgium, France, California, and the Pacific islands. He spent his last years in Samoa, known among the natives as Tusitala, "teller of tales." He died while working on Weir of Hermiston, an unfinished novel which promised to be one of his best.
Scotch novelist, essayist, and poet, known for his tales of fantasy and adventure and his romantic essays in the personal vein. His fiction includes The New Arabian Nights ( 1882), fantastic tales; Treaure Island ( 1883); The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ( 1886); Kidnapped ( 1886); The Master of Ballantrae ( 1889); The Wrecker ( 1892); Catriona (called in the U.S. David Balfour; 1893), a sequel to Kidnapped. Among his volumes of essays are An Inland Voyage ( 1878); Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes ( 1879); The Amateur Emigrant; The Silverado Squatters ( 1883); Familiar Studies of Men and Books ( 1881); Virginibus Puerisque ( 1881). A Child's Garden of Verses ( 1885) and Underwoods ( 1887) are books of poetry, and he collaborated with W. E. Henley on the following dramas: Deacon Brodie ( 1882), Beau Austin ( 1890), and Admiral Guinea ( 1897). A Lodging for the Night, Markheim, and The Sire de Maletroit's Door are among his best-known short stories.
Stevenson, although seriously ill all his life with tuberculosis, lived adventurously, vagabonding through Belgium, France, California, and the Pacific islands. He spent his last years in Samoa, known among the natives as Tusitala, "teller of tales." He died while working on Weir of Hermiston, an unfinished novel which promised to be one of his best.
Stendhal. Pseudonym of Henri Beyle (1783-1842)
Stendhal. Pseudonym of Henri Beyle (1783-1842)
French novelist, known as one of the first outstanding authors of the psychological novel in France, represented by his studies, considered to be partly autobiographical, of the proud and egotistic nature involved in love and war. His chief works are De l'Amour ( 1822), a series of notes on the effects of four types of love on a variety of temperaments; Armance ( 1827); Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black; 1830), regarded as one of the most important works in the development of the 19th-century novel; La Chartreuse de Parme ( 1839). He also wrote Racine et Shakespeare ( 1823), criticism, and Histoire de la Peinture en Italie.
Stendhal, who participated in several campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars and thought of both Byron and Napoleon as his heroes, disliked France and lived for a number of years in Italy. His books were not widely read during his lifetime, but later in the 19th century he was hailed as a precursor of Balzac in his studies of the strong-willed, self-made man, and he influenced Bourget, Taine, and Zola, among others. Cf. Stendhal, by Matthew Josephson ( 1946).
French novelist, known as one of the first outstanding authors of the psychological novel in France, represented by his studies, considered to be partly autobiographical, of the proud and egotistic nature involved in love and war. His chief works are De l'Amour ( 1822), a series of notes on the effects of four types of love on a variety of temperaments; Armance ( 1827); Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black; 1830), regarded as one of the most important works in the development of the 19th-century novel; La Chartreuse de Parme ( 1839). He also wrote Racine et Shakespeare ( 1823), criticism, and Histoire de la Peinture en Italie.
Stendhal, who participated in several campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars and thought of both Byron and Napoleon as his heroes, disliked France and lived for a number of years in Italy. His books were not widely read during his lifetime, but later in the 19th century he was hailed as a precursor of Balzac in his studies of the strong-willed, self-made man, and he influenced Bourget, Taine, and Zola, among others. Cf. Stendhal, by Matthew Josephson ( 1946).
Stein, Gertrude (1874-1946)
Stein, Gertrude (1874-1946)
American poet, novelist, and author of miscellaneous prose, for a number of years one of the leading expatriate American residents of Paris and the subject of wide literary controversy during the 1920's. Her unique and celebrated style, in the development of which she is considered to have been influenced by the psychological theories of William James and 20th-century French painting, is characterized by a use of words for their associations and their sound rather than solely for their literal meaning, an intricate system of repetition and variation on a single verbal theme, an avoidance of conventional punctuation and syntax, an emphasis on the presentation of impressions and a particular state of mind rather than the telling of a story, and concreteness and extreme simplicity in diction, preference for the commonplace and the monosyllabic.
All these elements combine to produce an appealing pattern of sound, occasional flashes of beauty, and frequent vivid, striking images, in a total effect of wit, humor, gaiety, and sensuous immediacy. Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway are considered to have been influenced by the Stein style. John Chamberlain once remarked that "Steinese" style is like "the Chinese water torture; it never stops and it is always the same."
Gertrude Stein's works include Three Lives ( 1909), a novel; Tender Buttons ( 1914), poetry; Geography and Plays ( 1922); The Making of americans ( 1925), a novel; Composition as Explanation ( 1926), lectures; Useful Knowledge ( 1928); Acquaintance with Description ( 1929); Ten Portaits ( 1930); Lucy Church Amiably ( 1930), a novel; Before the Flowers of Friendship Faded ( 1931); How to Write ( 1931); Operas and Plays ( 1932); A Long Gay Book ( 1932); Matisse, Picasso, and Gertrude Stein ( 1932); The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas ( 1933); Four Saints in Three Acts ( 1934), an opera, music for which was written by Virgil Thomson; Portraits and Prayers ( 1934); Narration ( 1935), lectures; Lectures in America ( 1915); Geographical History of America ( 1936); Everybody's Autobiography ( 1937); Picasso ( 1938); The World Is Round ( 1939), a book for children; Paris France ( 1940), a study of Parisian life before World War II; Ida ( 1941), a novel; Brewsie and Willy ( 1946).
Gertrude Stein, who came of a wealthy family, studied psychology under William James at Radcliffe College and received an M.D. degree from Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1902. In that year she went abroad, where, except for a lecture tour in America in 1933, she stayed until the defeat of France in World War II. In Paris she became the center of a group of outstanding painters and writers of the period, being especially interested in such artists as Matisse, Picasso and Juan Gris. Her brother, Leo Stein ( 1872-1947), was a leading art critic.
American poet, novelist, and author of miscellaneous prose, for a number of years one of the leading expatriate American residents of Paris and the subject of wide literary controversy during the 1920's. Her unique and celebrated style, in the development of which she is considered to have been influenced by the psychological theories of William James and 20th-century French painting, is characterized by a use of words for their associations and their sound rather than solely for their literal meaning, an intricate system of repetition and variation on a single verbal theme, an avoidance of conventional punctuation and syntax, an emphasis on the presentation of impressions and a particular state of mind rather than the telling of a story, and concreteness and extreme simplicity in diction, preference for the commonplace and the monosyllabic.
All these elements combine to produce an appealing pattern of sound, occasional flashes of beauty, and frequent vivid, striking images, in a total effect of wit, humor, gaiety, and sensuous immediacy. Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway are considered to have been influenced by the Stein style. John Chamberlain once remarked that "Steinese" style is like "the Chinese water torture; it never stops and it is always the same."
Gertrude Stein's works include Three Lives ( 1909), a novel; Tender Buttons ( 1914), poetry; Geography and Plays ( 1922); The Making of americans ( 1925), a novel; Composition as Explanation ( 1926), lectures; Useful Knowledge ( 1928); Acquaintance with Description ( 1929); Ten Portaits ( 1930); Lucy Church Amiably ( 1930), a novel; Before the Flowers of Friendship Faded ( 1931); How to Write ( 1931); Operas and Plays ( 1932); A Long Gay Book ( 1932); Matisse, Picasso, and Gertrude Stein ( 1932); The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas ( 1933); Four Saints in Three Acts ( 1934), an opera, music for which was written by Virgil Thomson; Portraits and Prayers ( 1934); Narration ( 1935), lectures; Lectures in America ( 1915); Geographical History of America ( 1936); Everybody's Autobiography ( 1937); Picasso ( 1938); The World Is Round ( 1939), a book for children; Paris France ( 1940), a study of Parisian life before World War II; Ida ( 1941), a novel; Brewsie and Willy ( 1946).
Gertrude Stein, who came of a wealthy family, studied psychology under William James at Radcliffe College and received an M.D. degree from Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1902. In that year she went abroad, where, except for a lecture tour in America in 1933, she stayed until the defeat of France in World War II. In Paris she became the center of a group of outstanding painters and writers of the period, being especially interested in such artists as Matisse, Picasso and Juan Gris. Her brother, Leo Stein ( 1872-1947), was a leading art critic.
Staël, Mme de. Née Germaine Necker (1766-1817)
Staël, Mme de. Née Germaine Necker (1766-1817)
French author of Swiss parentage, daughter of the French Minister of Finance and wife of Baron de Staël-Holstein, ambassador to France from Sweden. She is known for her celebrated salons, which were attended by the leading literary and political figures of the day, for her sensibility and kindness in personal relations, her talent for conversation, her vigorous mind, and her influence on the movement of Romanticism in France. Among her works are Lettres sur les Écrits et le Caractère de Jean Jacques Rousseau ( 1788); De l'Influence des Passions ( 1796); Essai sur les Fictions; Delphine ( 1802) and Corinne ( 1807), called by some critics the first "modern" novels in their view of French society, anticipating the works of George Sand ; De la Littérature ( 1800), criticism, in which she was among the first to break away from neo-Classical principles and which caused a sensation on its publication; De l'Allemagne ( 1813), a study of German literature, which introduced German romanticism into France and was at first suppressed on orders by Napoleon; and Considérations sur la Révolution Française ( 1818).
Mme de Staël had an eventful career, being exiled from France after the Revolution of 1789, allowed to return in 1795, and banished again later by Napoleon, of whom she was an outspoken critic. She had several disappointing love affairs, the chief of which involved the Don Juan-like Swiss novelist Benjamin Constant; Chateausriand and she were rivals in the literary world. Her influence has been found in Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and Charles Nodier in poetry and criticism; Cousin, Ticknor, and Prescott in the study of the German language; and Guizot, Villemain, and Cousin in the study of English and German literature.
French author of Swiss parentage, daughter of the French Minister of Finance and wife of Baron de Staël-Holstein, ambassador to France from Sweden. She is known for her celebrated salons, which were attended by the leading literary and political figures of the day, for her sensibility and kindness in personal relations, her talent for conversation, her vigorous mind, and her influence on the movement of Romanticism in France. Among her works are Lettres sur les Écrits et le Caractère de Jean Jacques Rousseau ( 1788); De l'Influence des Passions ( 1796); Essai sur les Fictions; Delphine ( 1802) and Corinne ( 1807), called by some critics the first "modern" novels in their view of French society, anticipating the works of George Sand ; De la Littérature ( 1800), criticism, in which she was among the first to break away from neo-Classical principles and which caused a sensation on its publication; De l'Allemagne ( 1813), a study of German literature, which introduced German romanticism into France and was at first suppressed on orders by Napoleon; and Considérations sur la Révolution Française ( 1818).
Mme de Staël had an eventful career, being exiled from France after the Revolution of 1789, allowed to return in 1795, and banished again later by Napoleon, of whom she was an outspoken critic. She had several disappointing love affairs, the chief of which involved the Don Juan-like Swiss novelist Benjamin Constant; Chateausriand and she were rivals in the literary world. Her influence has been found in Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and Charles Nodier in poetry and criticism; Cousin, Ticknor, and Prescott in the study of the German language; and Guizot, Villemain, and Cousin in the study of English and German literature.
Spenser, Edmund (1552-1599)
Spenser, Edmund (1552-1599)
English poet of the Elizabethan age, known for the misty, languid quality of his poetry, its imaginative appeal, use of allegory, individual diction involving the use of archaic and coined words, and subtlety of sound effects through the combination of alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, etc., with controlled rhythm and meter.
His works include The Shepherd's Calendar ( 1579), a pastoral and allegorical poem; The Faerie Queene ( 1590, 1596), his most famous work, left incomplete at the time of his death; Complaints ( 1591), containing The Ruins of Time, The Tears of the Muses, Virgil's Gnat, Prosopopoeia, Or Mother Hubberd's Tales, Muiopotmos, Or The Tale of the Butterfly, and other shorter poems; Daphnaïda ( 1591), an elegy on the death of the daughter of Henry, Lord Howard; Colin Clout's Come Home Again ( 1595), an allegorical attack on artistic taste at Elizabeth's court; Astrophel ( 1595), an elegy on the death of Sir Philip Sidney; Amoretti, a sonnet sequence; Epithalamion ( 1595), a poem celebrating his own marriage to Elizabeth Boyle, considered his best lyric work; Four Hymns to Love and Beauty ( 1596); Prothalamion ( 1596), a poem celebrating the double wedding of the two daughters of the Earl of Worcester; A View of the Present State of Ireland, a prose defense of the repressive policy of Lord Grey de Wilton in Ireland, not published until 1633.
Spenser was in the service of the Earl of Leicester at Elizabeth's court and became a close friend of Sir Philip Sidney, to whom he dedicated The Shepherd's Calendar, and of Gabreil Harvey. In 1580 he went to Ireland as secretary to Lord Grey de Wilton, Lord Deputy of Ireland, and was later granted an estate, Kilcolman Castle, in Munster, where he wrote The Faërie Queene. In 1598 he was appointed Sheriff of Cork, but in an Irish rebellion soon afterwards Kilcolman Castle was burned, and Spenser and his family were forced to flee to England. Spenser admired Chaucer greatly, and the Chaucerian influence is evident in much of his work.
Because of a certain austerity and "coldness" Which some critics find in his own poetry, and because of its predominant formal perfection, Spenser is sometimes called a "poet's poet." John Keats was an especially enthusiastic admirer of The Faërie Quenne in his early career.
English poet of the Elizabethan age, known for the misty, languid quality of his poetry, its imaginative appeal, use of allegory, individual diction involving the use of archaic and coined words, and subtlety of sound effects through the combination of alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, etc., with controlled rhythm and meter.
His works include The Shepherd's Calendar ( 1579), a pastoral and allegorical poem; The Faerie Queene ( 1590, 1596), his most famous work, left incomplete at the time of his death; Complaints ( 1591), containing The Ruins of Time, The Tears of the Muses, Virgil's Gnat, Prosopopoeia, Or Mother Hubberd's Tales, Muiopotmos, Or The Tale of the Butterfly, and other shorter poems; Daphnaïda ( 1591), an elegy on the death of the daughter of Henry, Lord Howard; Colin Clout's Come Home Again ( 1595), an allegorical attack on artistic taste at Elizabeth's court; Astrophel ( 1595), an elegy on the death of Sir Philip Sidney; Amoretti, a sonnet sequence; Epithalamion ( 1595), a poem celebrating his own marriage to Elizabeth Boyle, considered his best lyric work; Four Hymns to Love and Beauty ( 1596); Prothalamion ( 1596), a poem celebrating the double wedding of the two daughters of the Earl of Worcester; A View of the Present State of Ireland, a prose defense of the repressive policy of Lord Grey de Wilton in Ireland, not published until 1633.
Spenser was in the service of the Earl of Leicester at Elizabeth's court and became a close friend of Sir Philip Sidney, to whom he dedicated The Shepherd's Calendar, and of Gabreil Harvey. In 1580 he went to Ireland as secretary to Lord Grey de Wilton, Lord Deputy of Ireland, and was later granted an estate, Kilcolman Castle, in Munster, where he wrote The Faërie Queene. In 1598 he was appointed Sheriff of Cork, but in an Irish rebellion soon afterwards Kilcolman Castle was burned, and Spenser and his family were forced to flee to England. Spenser admired Chaucer greatly, and the Chaucerian influence is evident in much of his work.
Because of a certain austerity and "coldness" Which some critics find in his own poetry, and because of its predominant formal perfection, Spenser is sometimes called a "poet's poet." John Keats was an especially enthusiastic admirer of The Faërie Quenne in his early career.
Socrates (ca. 469-399 B.C.)
Socrates (ca. 469-399 B.C.)
The great Greek philosopher, who was born and died at Athens. He used to call himself "the midwife of men's thoughts," and out of his intellectual school sprang those of Plato and the Dialectic system, Euclid and the Megaric, Aristippus and the Cyrenaic, Antisthenes and the Cynic. Cicero said of him that "he brought down philosophy from the heavens to earth." He was condemned to death for the corruption of youth by introducing new gods (thus being guilty of impiety) and drank hemlock in prison, surrounded by his disciples. Socrates is caricatured in Aristophanes' comedy The Clouds.
Socratic irony
Leading on your opponent in an argument by simulating ignorance, so that he "ties himself in knots" and eventually falls an easy prey--a form of procedure used with great effect by Socrates.
the Socratic method
The method of conducting an argument, imparting information, etc., by means of question and answer.
the English Socrates
Dr. Samuel Johnson, so called by Boswell.
The great Greek philosopher, who was born and died at Athens. He used to call himself "the midwife of men's thoughts," and out of his intellectual school sprang those of Plato and the Dialectic system, Euclid and the Megaric, Aristippus and the Cyrenaic, Antisthenes and the Cynic. Cicero said of him that "he brought down philosophy from the heavens to earth." He was condemned to death for the corruption of youth by introducing new gods (thus being guilty of impiety) and drank hemlock in prison, surrounded by his disciples. Socrates is caricatured in Aristophanes' comedy The Clouds.
Socratic irony
Leading on your opponent in an argument by simulating ignorance, so that he "ties himself in knots" and eventually falls an easy prey--a form of procedure used with great effect by Socrates.
the Socratic method
The method of conducting an argument, imparting information, etc., by means of question and answer.
the English Socrates
Dr. Samuel Johnson, so called by Boswell.
Skelton, John (ca. 1460-1529)
Skelton, John (ca. 1460-1529)
English poet, known for his satire, his humorous and realistic verse, and his use of short, "breathless" lines and irregular rhyme-scheme, called "Skeltonic meter." His surviving works include A Garland of Laurel, an allegorical poem, dealing with the crowning of Skelton himself as a great poet; Philip Sparrow, a lyric mourning the death of a sparrow, the pet of a young girl; Colin Clout, a satire on the abuses of the Church; The Bowge of Court, a satire in allegory on life at the English court; Magnificence, a Morality Play; The Tunning of Elinor Rumming, a coarse and humorous work, giving a realistic picture of contemporary "low life"; Why Come Ye Not to Court? and Speak, Parrot, satires on Cardinal Wolsey. Skelton received the title of Poet Laureate from both Oxford and Cambridge Universities and held an unofficial position as Laureate under Henry VIII, to whom he had served as tutor.
He was ordained a priest but spent most of his time at court, making enemies by his outspokeness. As a result of the hostility between him and Cardinal Wolsey, he was forced to seek refuge with the Abbot of Westminster, with whom he stayed virtually as a prisoner until his death.
Skelton is considered a poet of the transition between England of the Middle Ages and the Elizabethan period, writing in the tradition of Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate and the medieval Latin poets. Interest in his work was revived in the 20th century by Robert Graves, and Skeltonic meter is parodied in the early verse of W. H. Auden.
English poet, known for his satire, his humorous and realistic verse, and his use of short, "breathless" lines and irregular rhyme-scheme, called "Skeltonic meter." His surviving works include A Garland of Laurel, an allegorical poem, dealing with the crowning of Skelton himself as a great poet; Philip Sparrow, a lyric mourning the death of a sparrow, the pet of a young girl; Colin Clout, a satire on the abuses of the Church; The Bowge of Court, a satire in allegory on life at the English court; Magnificence, a Morality Play; The Tunning of Elinor Rumming, a coarse and humorous work, giving a realistic picture of contemporary "low life"; Why Come Ye Not to Court? and Speak, Parrot, satires on Cardinal Wolsey. Skelton received the title of Poet Laureate from both Oxford and Cambridge Universities and held an unofficial position as Laureate under Henry VIII, to whom he had served as tutor.
He was ordained a priest but spent most of his time at court, making enemies by his outspokeness. As a result of the hostility between him and Cardinal Wolsey, he was forced to seek refuge with the Abbot of Westminster, with whom he stayed virtually as a prisoner until his death.
Skelton is considered a poet of the transition between England of the Middle Ages and the Elizabethan period, writing in the tradition of Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate and the medieval Latin poets. Interest in his work was revived in the 20th century by Robert Graves, and Skeltonic meter is parodied in the early verse of W. H. Auden.
Simms, William Gilmore (1806-1870)
Simms, William Gilmore (1806-1870)
American novelist, known for his romances dealing with Indians and frontier life and the Revolutionary War in South Carolina.
These include Guy Rivers ( 1834); THe Yemassee ( 1835), Richard Hurdis ( 1838), Border Beagles ( 1840), Beauchampe ( 1842), Charlemont ( 1856), The Cassique of Kiawah ( 1859), and others, all constituting the series known as the Border Romances; The Partisan ( 1835), Mellichampe ( 1836), and Katherine Walton ( 1851), a trilogy, the outstanding volumes in the series called the Revolutionary Romances, which also contains The Kinsmen ( 1841; later issued as The Scout, 1854), The Sword and the Distaff ( 1853; later appearing as Woodcraft, 1854), The Forayers ( 1855), and Eutaw ( 1856).
Simms' novels, which have been compared to those of James Fenimore Cooper, are characterized by melodrama, chiefly aristocratic heroes and heroines, and a consistent bias in favor of the society, culture, and politics of South Carolina, in keeping with the author's intense admiration for his native state.
American novelist, known for his romances dealing with Indians and frontier life and the Revolutionary War in South Carolina.
These include Guy Rivers ( 1834); THe Yemassee ( 1835), Richard Hurdis ( 1838), Border Beagles ( 1840), Beauchampe ( 1842), Charlemont ( 1856), The Cassique of Kiawah ( 1859), and others, all constituting the series known as the Border Romances; The Partisan ( 1835), Mellichampe ( 1836), and Katherine Walton ( 1851), a trilogy, the outstanding volumes in the series called the Revolutionary Romances, which also contains The Kinsmen ( 1841; later issued as The Scout, 1854), The Sword and the Distaff ( 1853; later appearing as Woodcraft, 1854), The Forayers ( 1855), and Eutaw ( 1856).
Simms' novels, which have been compared to those of James Fenimore Cooper, are characterized by melodrama, chiefly aristocratic heroes and heroines, and a consistent bias in favor of the society, culture, and politics of South Carolina, in keeping with the author's intense admiration for his native state.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)
Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)
English poet of the period of Romanticism, known for his extreme emotional and physical sensitivity, his vivid imagination, his rebellion against authority of all kinds, and the Pantheism, idealistic and visionary aspiration, and musical quality of his poetry. His works include Queen Mab ( 1813); Alastor (1816); The Revolt of Islam (1818); Prometheus Unbound ( 1819); The Cenci ( 1819); The Witch of Atlas (1820); Adonais (1821). His best-known single poems are Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, The Sensitive Plant, Mutability, The Indian Serenade, To Night, Ozymandias, The Cloud, Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark, and Stanzas Written in Dejection. He had an important influence on Browning and Swinburne.
Shelley, who is in many ways considered a typical romantic poet, was childlike, naively self-centered and irresponsible, and amoral in character. As early as his schooldays he became known for his excessive sensibility and his rebellious spirit, being called "Mad Shelley" and "Shelley the Atheist." He was married twice, on both occasions after an unconventional elopement, and had a number of attachments with other women of his acquaintance, seeking in them an ideal spiritual mate. In 1817 the English court removed from his custody his two children by his first marriage with Harriet Westbrook, and, heart-broken, the poet left England for Italy, where he did his best work. See also Byron, a close friend of Shelley. He was drowned in a storm at sea in the Adriatic, and his body was cremated. The Orphan Angel, a novel by Elinor Wylie, tells 2 fanciful story of Shelley's adventures in the America of his day, after he has been rescued from the sea by an American whaling vessel in the storm which in fact caused his death.
English poet of the period of Romanticism, known for his extreme emotional and physical sensitivity, his vivid imagination, his rebellion against authority of all kinds, and the Pantheism, idealistic and visionary aspiration, and musical quality of his poetry. His works include Queen Mab ( 1813); Alastor (1816); The Revolt of Islam (1818); Prometheus Unbound ( 1819); The Cenci ( 1819); The Witch of Atlas (1820); Adonais (1821). His best-known single poems are Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, The Sensitive Plant, Mutability, The Indian Serenade, To Night, Ozymandias, The Cloud, Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark, and Stanzas Written in Dejection. He had an important influence on Browning and Swinburne.
Shelley, who is in many ways considered a typical romantic poet, was childlike, naively self-centered and irresponsible, and amoral in character. As early as his schooldays he became known for his excessive sensibility and his rebellious spirit, being called "Mad Shelley" and "Shelley the Atheist." He was married twice, on both occasions after an unconventional elopement, and had a number of attachments with other women of his acquaintance, seeking in them an ideal spiritual mate. In 1817 the English court removed from his custody his two children by his first marriage with Harriet Westbrook, and, heart-broken, the poet left England for Italy, where he did his best work. See also Byron, a close friend of Shelley. He was drowned in a storm at sea in the Adriatic, and his body was cremated. The Orphan Angel, a novel by Elinor Wylie, tells 2 fanciful story of Shelley's adventures in the America of his day, after he has been rescued from the sea by an American whaling vessel in the storm which in fact caused his death.
Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
English poet and dramatist of the Elizabethan and early Jacobean period, probably the most widely known author in all English literature. His plays, the plots of most of which were derived from traditional medieval legend, contemporary chronicles, classic literature, and existent dramas of his own day, are distinguished by a more profound understanding and conception of character than is found in the work of other Elizabethan playwrights and by superior poetry of great delicacy, sensitivity, variety, and dramatic appropriateness.
His lyric and narrative poetry is closer to the conventional product of his time but, especially in his Sonnets and the songs from his plays, it is often marked by a combination of imagination, precision, and deep and sincere emotion that is lacking in similar work of his contemporaries.The following is a list of the accepted canon of Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays, arranged in the classification sometimes used, and followed by the dates generally agreed upon, by 20th century scholars:
Experiment
LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST (ca. 1590)
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS (ca. 1591)
TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA (ca. 1592)
KING HENRY VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3 (1592?)
THE TRAGEDY OF KING RICHARD III (ca. 1593)
ROMEO AND JULIET (ca. 1593)
Development
TITUS ANDRONICUS (1594)
THE TRAGEDY OF KING RICHARD II (ca. 1594)
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (ca. 1594)
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING JOHN (ca. 1594)
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE (ca. 1595)
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW (ca. 1596)
KING HENRY IV, Part 1 (1597?)
KING HENRY IV, Part 2 (1598?)
THE LIFE OF KING HENRY V (1599)
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR (1599?)
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (ca. 1599)
JULIUS CAESAR (1599)
AS YOU LIKE IT (ca. 1600)
TWELFTH NIGHT (1600?)
Tragedies
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL (ca. 1602)
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA (ca. 1602)
HAMLET (ca. 1602)
MEASURE FOR MEASURE (ca. 1604)
OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE (ca. 1604) KING LEAR (1605?)
MACBETH (1606?)
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA (1607?)
CORIOLANUS (ca. 1608)
TIMON OF ATHENS (ca. 1608)
PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE (ca. 1608)
Romances
CYMBELINE (1610?)
THE WINTER'S TALE (1610?)
THE TEMPEST (1611?)
THE FAMOUS HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF KING HENRY VIII (ca. 1611)
The most famous of these are Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar, and As You Like It. Shakespeare's nondramatic works are Venus and Adonis ( 1593), The Rape of Lucrece ( 1594), and his Sonnets ( 1609).
Beyond the fact that his birthplace was Stratford-on-Avon, that his father at one time was a butcher, that he was a player with the Lord Chamberlain's company, and that he lived for awhile as a country gentleman after his success in the theater, very little is known of Shakespeare's life; as a result, numerous writers have speculated on it and tried to find biographical significance in his works, especially his Sonnets. See W. H. There are also a great many curious theories ascribing Shakespeare's plays to other authors, notably Bacon.
He was popular in his own day and much admired by his contemporaries, but during the later 17th century and the 18th century his value as a poet and dramatist was minimized. In the period of Romanticism interest in him and his works was revived in the criticism of S. T. Coleridge, Charles Lamb, and William Hazlitt, and later Shakespearean enthusiasm grew to the point of adulation, with Germany and other European countries adopting the playwright as one of their own authors.
English poet and dramatist of the Elizabethan and early Jacobean period, probably the most widely known author in all English literature. His plays, the plots of most of which were derived from traditional medieval legend, contemporary chronicles, classic literature, and existent dramas of his own day, are distinguished by a more profound understanding and conception of character than is found in the work of other Elizabethan playwrights and by superior poetry of great delicacy, sensitivity, variety, and dramatic appropriateness.
His lyric and narrative poetry is closer to the conventional product of his time but, especially in his Sonnets and the songs from his plays, it is often marked by a combination of imagination, precision, and deep and sincere emotion that is lacking in similar work of his contemporaries.The following is a list of the accepted canon of Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays, arranged in the classification sometimes used, and followed by the dates generally agreed upon, by 20th century scholars:
Experiment
LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST (ca. 1590)
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS (ca. 1591)
TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA (ca. 1592)
KING HENRY VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3 (1592?)
THE TRAGEDY OF KING RICHARD III (ca. 1593)
ROMEO AND JULIET (ca. 1593)
Development
TITUS ANDRONICUS (1594)
THE TRAGEDY OF KING RICHARD II (ca. 1594)
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (ca. 1594)
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING JOHN (ca. 1594)
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE (ca. 1595)
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW (ca. 1596)
KING HENRY IV, Part 1 (1597?)
KING HENRY IV, Part 2 (1598?)
THE LIFE OF KING HENRY V (1599)
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR (1599?)
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (ca. 1599)
JULIUS CAESAR (1599)
AS YOU LIKE IT (ca. 1600)
TWELFTH NIGHT (1600?)
Tragedies
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL (ca. 1602)
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA (ca. 1602)
HAMLET (ca. 1602)
MEASURE FOR MEASURE (ca. 1604)
OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE (ca. 1604) KING LEAR (1605?)
MACBETH (1606?)
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA (1607?)
CORIOLANUS (ca. 1608)
TIMON OF ATHENS (ca. 1608)
PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE (ca. 1608)
Romances
CYMBELINE (1610?)
THE WINTER'S TALE (1610?)
THE TEMPEST (1611?)
THE FAMOUS HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF KING HENRY VIII (ca. 1611)
The most famous of these are Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar, and As You Like It. Shakespeare's nondramatic works are Venus and Adonis ( 1593), The Rape of Lucrece ( 1594), and his Sonnets ( 1609).
Beyond the fact that his birthplace was Stratford-on-Avon, that his father at one time was a butcher, that he was a player with the Lord Chamberlain's company, and that he lived for awhile as a country gentleman after his success in the theater, very little is known of Shakespeare's life; as a result, numerous writers have speculated on it and tried to find biographical significance in his works, especially his Sonnets. See W. H. There are also a great many curious theories ascribing Shakespeare's plays to other authors, notably Bacon.
He was popular in his own day and much admired by his contemporaries, but during the later 17th century and the 18th century his value as a poet and dramatist was minimized. In the period of Romanticism interest in him and his works was revived in the criticism of S. T. Coleridge, Charles Lamb, and William Hazlitt, and later Shakespearean enthusiasm grew to the point of adulation, with Germany and other European countries adopting the playwright as one of their own authors.
Sewall, Samuel (1652-1730)
Sewall, Samuel (1652-1730)
English-born American statesman of early New England, known for his liberal views and for his Diary, written between 1674 and 1729, which gives a lively and vivid picture of life and personalities in the Boston of his day and has been compared to the similar and more famous work of Samuel Pepys.
Among his other writings are The Revolution in New England Justified ( 1691), which seeks to justify the deposition of the dictatorial English governor Andros; The Selling of Joseph ( 1700), an attack on slavery; and A Memorial Relating to the Kennebec Indians ( 1721), a humanitarian appeal with regard to the settlers' treatment of the Indians.
Sewall held a number of political offices in the colony of Massachusetts, serving as a deputy to the general court, a member of the Council, and eventually Chief Justice of the superior court. He was one of the judges at the Salem Witchcraft trials, but later repented publicly in church while his confession was read to the congregation. He is considered an excellent representative of the rising merchant class of New England of his time.
English-born American statesman of early New England, known for his liberal views and for his Diary, written between 1674 and 1729, which gives a lively and vivid picture of life and personalities in the Boston of his day and has been compared to the similar and more famous work of Samuel Pepys.
Among his other writings are The Revolution in New England Justified ( 1691), which seeks to justify the deposition of the dictatorial English governor Andros; The Selling of Joseph ( 1700), an attack on slavery; and A Memorial Relating to the Kennebec Indians ( 1721), a humanitarian appeal with regard to the settlers' treatment of the Indians.
Sewall held a number of political offices in the colony of Massachusetts, serving as a deputy to the general court, a member of the Council, and eventually Chief Justice of the superior court. He was one of the judges at the Salem Witchcraft trials, but later repented publicly in church while his confession was read to the congregation. He is considered an excellent representative of the rising merchant class of New England of his time.
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (4 B. C-65 A. D.)
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (4 B. C-65 A. D.)
Latin philosopher and dramatist, a member of the School of Stoicism, known for the rhetorical tragedies called by his name. These include Hercules, Troades, Phoenissae, Medea, Phaedra, Agamemnon, Oedipus, and Thyestes. Marked by violence, bloodshed, bombast, and characters of little individuality or differentiation, they bad an important influence on the tragic drama of Italy, France, and especially Elizabethan England.
Seneca was a tutor of Nero and, when the latter succeeded to the throne of emperor, became an important imperial official, building up a great fortune. When he lost favor, his fortune was confiscated and he committed suicide at Nero's command. His Naturales Questiones was used as a textbook of physical science during the Middle Ages.
Latin philosopher and dramatist, a member of the School of Stoicism, known for the rhetorical tragedies called by his name. These include Hercules, Troades, Phoenissae, Medea, Phaedra, Agamemnon, Oedipus, and Thyestes. Marked by violence, bloodshed, bombast, and characters of little individuality or differentiation, they bad an important influence on the tragic drama of Italy, France, and especially Elizabethan England.
Seneca was a tutor of Nero and, when the latter succeeded to the throne of emperor, became an important imperial official, building up a great fortune. When he lost favor, his fortune was confiscated and he committed suicide at Nero's command. His Naturales Questiones was used as a textbook of physical science during the Middle Ages.
Scott, Sir Walter (1771-1832)
Scott, Sir Walter (1771-1832)
Scotch poet and novelist of the romantic period, known for his historical novels, narrative poems and ballads on medieval themes and incidents in Scotch history. He was influenced in his choice of subject-matter by German ballads in the medieval manner and by the Gothic Novel, and in his turn had an important influence on the school of the historical novel that developed in the 19th century in England, France, and the U.S. Scott's novels, for which he is most famous, are marked by vividness of detail, adventure, and a colorful re-creation of the past. In the field of poetry, his works include THE EVE OF SAINT JOHN (1799), a celebrated ballad; Minstrelsy of the, Scottish Border ( 1802-1803), a collection of ancient Scotch ballads and legends; THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL (1805); MARMION (1808); THE LADY OF THE LAKE (1810); The Vision of Don Roderick ( 1811); ROKEBY (1813). The best-known of his novels and tales include the following:
WAVERLEY (1814); GUY MANNERING (1815); THE ANTIQUARY (1816); OLD MORTALITY (1816); THE BLACK DWARF (1816); THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN (1818); ROB ROY (1817); THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR (1819); THE LEGEND OF MONTROSE (1819); IVANHOE (1819); THE MONASTERY (1820); THE ABBOT (1820); KENILWORTH (1821); THE PIRATE (1821); THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL (1822); PEVERIL OF THE PEAK (1823); QUENTIN DURWARD (1823); ST. RONAN'S WELL (1823); REDGAUNTLET (1824); THE BETROTHED (1825); THE TALISMAN (1825); WOODSTOCK (1826); THE HIGHLAND WIDOW (1827); THE TWO DROVERS (1827); THE SURGEON'S DAUGHTER (1827); THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH (1828); ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN (1829); COUNT ROBERT OF PARIS (1832); CASTLE DANGEROUS (1832); THE DEATH OF THE LAIRD'S JOCK (1827); TALES OF A GRANDFATHER (1828-1830).
Scott also wrote several dramatic works, a number of studies in biography and in the history, legends, and antiquities of Scotland, and miscellaneous essays, including articles in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
The novelist came of a family related to the old Scotch clan of Buccleuch, and in childhood was ill with infantile paralysis. In his maturity he was socially ambitious and built the mansion of Abbotsford on the banks of the Tweed. He also was a partner lit the publishing business with two brothers named Ballantyne, issuing, among other things, the Quarterly Review, a periodical rivaling the Edinburgh Review: in the later years of his life much of his writing was done in order to pay the debts of this firm, which went into bankruptcy about 1825.
Scott was known to the readers of his day as "The Wizard of the North."
Scotch poet and novelist of the romantic period, known for his historical novels, narrative poems and ballads on medieval themes and incidents in Scotch history. He was influenced in his choice of subject-matter by German ballads in the medieval manner and by the Gothic Novel, and in his turn had an important influence on the school of the historical novel that developed in the 19th century in England, France, and the U.S. Scott's novels, for which he is most famous, are marked by vividness of detail, adventure, and a colorful re-creation of the past. In the field of poetry, his works include THE EVE OF SAINT JOHN (1799), a celebrated ballad; Minstrelsy of the, Scottish Border ( 1802-1803), a collection of ancient Scotch ballads and legends; THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL (1805); MARMION (1808); THE LADY OF THE LAKE (1810); The Vision of Don Roderick ( 1811); ROKEBY (1813). The best-known of his novels and tales include the following:
WAVERLEY (1814); GUY MANNERING (1815); THE ANTIQUARY (1816); OLD MORTALITY (1816); THE BLACK DWARF (1816); THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN (1818); ROB ROY (1817); THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR (1819); THE LEGEND OF MONTROSE (1819); IVANHOE (1819); THE MONASTERY (1820); THE ABBOT (1820); KENILWORTH (1821); THE PIRATE (1821); THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL (1822); PEVERIL OF THE PEAK (1823); QUENTIN DURWARD (1823); ST. RONAN'S WELL (1823); REDGAUNTLET (1824); THE BETROTHED (1825); THE TALISMAN (1825); WOODSTOCK (1826); THE HIGHLAND WIDOW (1827); THE TWO DROVERS (1827); THE SURGEON'S DAUGHTER (1827); THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH (1828); ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN (1829); COUNT ROBERT OF PARIS (1832); CASTLE DANGEROUS (1832); THE DEATH OF THE LAIRD'S JOCK (1827); TALES OF A GRANDFATHER (1828-1830).
Scott also wrote several dramatic works, a number of studies in biography and in the history, legends, and antiquities of Scotland, and miscellaneous essays, including articles in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
The novelist came of a family related to the old Scotch clan of Buccleuch, and in childhood was ill with infantile paralysis. In his maturity he was socially ambitious and built the mansion of Abbotsford on the banks of the Tweed. He also was a partner lit the publishing business with two brothers named Ballantyne, issuing, among other things, the Quarterly Review, a periodical rivaling the Edinburgh Review: in the later years of his life much of his writing was done in order to pay the debts of this firm, which went into bankruptcy about 1825.
Scott was known to the readers of his day as "The Wizard of the North."
Schnitzler, Arthur (1862-1931)
Schnitzler, Arthur (1862-1931)
Austrian novelist and playwright, best known for his witty psychological studies of Viennese amours, many of which were considered immoral on their first introduction to the public.
Das Märchen (The Tale; 1893), Anatol ( 1893), Liebelei ( 1895; translated into English as Flirtation), and Reigen ( 1900), are his bestknown plays. English translations of other works include Comedies of Words ( 1917), Intermezzo, Countess Mizzie, and The Lonely Way ( 1926), and Professor Bernhardi ( 1928), all plays; Viennese Idylls ( 1913), Bertha Garlan ( 1918), The Shepherd's Pipe, And Other Stories ( 1922), Dr. Graesler ( 1923), Beatrice ( 1926), Rhapsody ( 1927), and Daybreak ( 1928), novels and stories.
Schnitzler, of a well-known medical family, was a leading physician and a specialist in laryngology before turning to writing.
Austrian novelist and playwright, best known for his witty psychological studies of Viennese amours, many of which were considered immoral on their first introduction to the public.
Das Märchen (The Tale; 1893), Anatol ( 1893), Liebelei ( 1895; translated into English as Flirtation), and Reigen ( 1900), are his bestknown plays. English translations of other works include Comedies of Words ( 1917), Intermezzo, Countess Mizzie, and The Lonely Way ( 1926), and Professor Bernhardi ( 1928), all plays; Viennese Idylls ( 1913), Bertha Garlan ( 1918), The Shepherd's Pipe, And Other Stories ( 1922), Dr. Graesler ( 1923), Beatrice ( 1926), Rhapsody ( 1927), and Daybreak ( 1928), novels and stories.
Schnitzler, of a well-known medical family, was a leading physician and a specialist in laryngology before turning to writing.
Friedrich von Schlegel (1772-1829)
Friedrich von Schlegel (1772-1829), brother of August Wilhelm, was also a critic and poet and a leading spokesman for the typical theories and ideas of romanticism. His writings include Lucinde ( 1799), a fragmentary novel on the subject of free love; Alarkos ( 1802), a tragedy; History of Ancient and Modern Literature ( 1815); and Language and Wisdom of the Indians ( 1808). He was particularly known for his irony and his melancholy temperament.
The two brothers are important figures in the launching of romantic criticism and romantic standards of aesthetics, philosophy, and individual conduct, as well as founders of the sciences of comparative mythology and philology; in connection with philology, both did work in Indian languages.
Their wives, Caroline, née Böhmer and Dorothea, née Mendelssohn, were both women of brilliant minds and literary talent, Dorothea and Friedrich were together converted to Roman Catholicism in 1808. The father and the uncle of Friedrich and August Wilhelm, Johann Elias Schlegel ( 1718-1749) and Johann Adolf Schlegel ( 1721-1793), respectively, were well-known men of letters of their own time. Johann Elias was a critic and playwright, an early admirer of Shakespeare; Johann Adolf was a publicist and critic.
The two brothers are important figures in the launching of romantic criticism and romantic standards of aesthetics, philosophy, and individual conduct, as well as founders of the sciences of comparative mythology and philology; in connection with philology, both did work in Indian languages.
Their wives, Caroline, née Böhmer and Dorothea, née Mendelssohn, were both women of brilliant minds and literary talent, Dorothea and Friedrich were together converted to Roman Catholicism in 1808. The father and the uncle of Friedrich and August Wilhelm, Johann Elias Schlegel ( 1718-1749) and Johann Adolf Schlegel ( 1721-1793), respectively, were well-known men of letters of their own time. Johann Elias was a critic and playwright, an early admirer of Shakespeare; Johann Adolf was a publicist and critic.
Sainte-Beuve, Charles-Augustin (1804 - 1869)
Sainte-Beuve, Charles-Augustin (1804 - 1869).
French literary critic and author, successively influenced in his thought by scientific skepticism, physiology and Positivism, Romanticism, Saint-Simonism, liberal Catholicism, Swiss Calvinism, and other intellectual movements of his time. His criticism is sometimes divided into three periods: one, in which he was the spokesman for the romantic school; the second, in which he developed his biographical and psychological approach, studying a literary work through the life and personality of its author; and a third, in which he emphasized historical background and social environment in his studies in a method similar to that of Naturalism in the novel. His standards of judgment are taste, truth in the portrayal of life, moderation, and artistic unity.
Sainte-Beuve's works include Vie, Poésies, et Pensées de Joseph Delorme ( The Life, Poetry, and Thought of Joseph Delorme; 1829), an autobiographical work, morbid in tone; Consolations ( 1831); Pensées d'Aôut ( 1837); Le Livre d'Amour ( 1843); Volupté ( 1834), an autobiographical novel in the romantic vein, ending in a conversion of the hero to religion; Tableau de la Poésie Française au XIVe Siècle ( 1828); Port-Royal ( 1840-1860), a study of the Jansenists; Chateaubriand et son Groupe Littéraire; Causeries du Lundi ( 1851-1862) and Nouveaux Lundis ( 1863-1870), weekly critical articles; Portraits Littéraires ( 18621864); Portraits Contemporains ( 1869-1871).
Sainte-Beuve had a reputation for extreme variability in his friendships, personal loyalties, and intellectual affiliations. Le Livre d'Amour celebrates with great frankness the critic's early love-affair with the wife of Victor Hugo and aroused a great deal of scandal on its publication.
French literary critic and author, successively influenced in his thought by scientific skepticism, physiology and Positivism, Romanticism, Saint-Simonism, liberal Catholicism, Swiss Calvinism, and other intellectual movements of his time. His criticism is sometimes divided into three periods: one, in which he was the spokesman for the romantic school; the second, in which he developed his biographical and psychological approach, studying a literary work through the life and personality of its author; and a third, in which he emphasized historical background and social environment in his studies in a method similar to that of Naturalism in the novel. His standards of judgment are taste, truth in the portrayal of life, moderation, and artistic unity.
Sainte-Beuve's works include Vie, Poésies, et Pensées de Joseph Delorme ( The Life, Poetry, and Thought of Joseph Delorme; 1829), an autobiographical work, morbid in tone; Consolations ( 1831); Pensées d'Aôut ( 1837); Le Livre d'Amour ( 1843); Volupté ( 1834), an autobiographical novel in the romantic vein, ending in a conversion of the hero to religion; Tableau de la Poésie Française au XIVe Siècle ( 1828); Port-Royal ( 1840-1860), a study of the Jansenists; Chateaubriand et son Groupe Littéraire; Causeries du Lundi ( 1851-1862) and Nouveaux Lundis ( 1863-1870), weekly critical articles; Portraits Littéraires ( 18621864); Portraits Contemporains ( 1869-1871).
Sainte-Beuve had a reputation for extreme variability in his friendships, personal loyalties, and intellectual affiliations. Le Livre d'Amour celebrates with great frankness the critic's early love-affair with the wife of Victor Hugo and aroused a great deal of scandal on its publication.
Sackville, Thomas
Sackville, Thomas
1st Earl of Dorset and Baron Buckhurst ( 1536-1608). English poet and statesman, known for his authorship of the last two acts of the Tragedy of Gorboduc ( 1562), an important work in the history of the English drama, the first three acts of which were written by Thomas Norton, and especially for his Induction to the 1563 edition of The Mirror For Magistrates.
The latter piece is the most famous part of the Mirror, considered by many critics to be the most outstanding poem written in England between the death of Chaucer and the publication of Spenser Shepherd's Calendar. Sackville followed his Induction with an account of the life of Henry, Duke of Buckingham, also included in the 1563 edition.
In later life, Sackville devoted himself to a public career, serving variously as a Member of Parliament, an ambassador, a member of the Privy Council, Lord Treasurer, and Chancellor of Oxford University.
1st Earl of Dorset and Baron Buckhurst ( 1536-1608). English poet and statesman, known for his authorship of the last two acts of the Tragedy of Gorboduc ( 1562), an important work in the history of the English drama, the first three acts of which were written by Thomas Norton, and especially for his Induction to the 1563 edition of The Mirror For Magistrates.
The latter piece is the most famous part of the Mirror, considered by many critics to be the most outstanding poem written in England between the death of Chaucer and the publication of Spenser Shepherd's Calendar. Sackville followed his Induction with an account of the life of Henry, Duke of Buckingham, also included in the 1563 edition.
In later life, Sackville devoted himself to a public career, serving variously as a Member of Parliament, an ambassador, a member of the Privy Council, Lord Treasurer, and Chancellor of Oxford University.
Twain, Mark ( 1835-1910)
Twain, Mark. Pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens ( 1835-1910)
American humorist, journalist, and author, best known for his humorous stories of American frontier life in the 19th century, written at first under the influence of Bret Harte, with whom he was for a time associated. His Works include The Adventures of Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass ( 1856); The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County ( 1865), his first work to attract attention, reissued in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, And Other Sketches ( 1867); The Innocents Abroad ( 1869); Roughing It ( 1872); The Gilded Ace ( 1873), a novel written with Charles Dudley Warner; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (see Tom Sawyer; 1876), with its sequel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ( 1884) the most famous of Twain's books; A Tramp Abroad ( 1880), an account of European travel; Life on the Mississippi ( 1883); The Prince and the Pauper ( 1882); A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court ( 1889); The American Claimant ( 1890); Pudd'nhead Wilson ( 1894); Tom Sawyer Abroad ( 1894) and Tom Sawyer Detective ( 1896), late sequels to the earlier Sawyer books; Personal Recollections of joan of Arc ( 1896); Following the Equator ( 1897), an account of a lecture tour of the world; The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg ( 1890); What Is Man? ( 1906); Christian Science ( 1907); Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven ( 1909); The Mysterious Stranger ( 1916); Mark Twain's Letters ( 1917); Mark Twain's Autobiography ( 1924). Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are considered his best work, marked, as are his most representative humorous sketches, by vigor, high-spirited exaggeration, and native colloquial idiom.
Clemens was born in Missouri and in his early youth held a number of odd jobs, working as a printer and as apprentice to a pilot on a steamboat on the Mississippi River. His pseudonym had its origin in this latter job, "mark twain," meaning "two fathoms deep," being a phrase used in taking soundings on the river boats. At the time of the Civil War he went to Nevada and California, where he met Artemus Ward and Harte, worked on frontier newspapers, and first attracted attention by his writing. He soon became extremely popular, and was also praised by serious critics of the day. After 1894, when he suffered a financial failure, his work began to show a pessimistic, misanthropic quality. Some critics, notably Van Wyck Brooks in The Ordeal of Mark Twain, have attributed this to the frustration of Twain's genuine creative talents by the conservative, Puritanical influence of his wife, Olivia Langdon, and her friends. The author himself directed that some of his works be published only after his death, feeling that they were too pessimistic for the public of his own lifetime.
American humorist, journalist, and author, best known for his humorous stories of American frontier life in the 19th century, written at first under the influence of Bret Harte, with whom he was for a time associated. His Works include The Adventures of Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass ( 1856); The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County ( 1865), his first work to attract attention, reissued in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, And Other Sketches ( 1867); The Innocents Abroad ( 1869); Roughing It ( 1872); The Gilded Ace ( 1873), a novel written with Charles Dudley Warner; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (see Tom Sawyer; 1876), with its sequel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ( 1884) the most famous of Twain's books; A Tramp Abroad ( 1880), an account of European travel; Life on the Mississippi ( 1883); The Prince and the Pauper ( 1882); A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court ( 1889); The American Claimant ( 1890); Pudd'nhead Wilson ( 1894); Tom Sawyer Abroad ( 1894) and Tom Sawyer Detective ( 1896), late sequels to the earlier Sawyer books; Personal Recollections of joan of Arc ( 1896); Following the Equator ( 1897), an account of a lecture tour of the world; The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg ( 1890); What Is Man? ( 1906); Christian Science ( 1907); Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven ( 1909); The Mysterious Stranger ( 1916); Mark Twain's Letters ( 1917); Mark Twain's Autobiography ( 1924). Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are considered his best work, marked, as are his most representative humorous sketches, by vigor, high-spirited exaggeration, and native colloquial idiom.
Clemens was born in Missouri and in his early youth held a number of odd jobs, working as a printer and as apprentice to a pilot on a steamboat on the Mississippi River. His pseudonym had its origin in this latter job, "mark twain," meaning "two fathoms deep," being a phrase used in taking soundings on the river boats. At the time of the Civil War he went to Nevada and California, where he met Artemus Ward and Harte, worked on frontier newspapers, and first attracted attention by his writing. He soon became extremely popular, and was also praised by serious critics of the day. After 1894, when he suffered a financial failure, his work began to show a pessimistic, misanthropic quality. Some critics, notably Van Wyck Brooks in The Ordeal of Mark Twain, have attributed this to the frustration of Twain's genuine creative talents by the conservative, Puritanical influence of his wife, Olivia Langdon, and her friends. The author himself directed that some of his works be published only after his death, feeling that they were too pessimistic for the public of his own lifetime.
Turgenev, Ivan Sergeëvich (1818-1883)
Turgenev, Ivan Sergeëvich (1818-1883)
Russian novelist and poet, known for the realism and local color of his portrayals of life in 19th-century Russia, especially the conflicts between young, Westernized intellectuals and their conservative fathers. He is considered to have fixed the type of introspective, nihilist hero in Russian fiction, and is believed to have influenced George Sand, Flaubert, and Henry James in the technique of the novel.
His works include A Sportsman's Sketches ( 1847-1851); Rudin ( 1856); A Nest of Gentlefolk or A Nest of Nobles, also known as Liza ( 1859); Fathers and Sons ( 1862); On the Eve ( 1860); Smoke ( 1867); Virgin Soil ( 1876). Among other titles are The Gamekeeper at Home; A Lear of the Steppes; Torrens of Spring; Clara Milch; Dream Tales and Prose Poems.
Turgenev traveled a good deal in western Europe and was influenced by the ideas and techniques he encountered there. He was interested in the attempts of his time to westernize Russia, although his art had greater attractions for him than participation in active politics. He took a brief part in the movement to free the serfs, and was exiled to his country estate for calling Gogol "a great man" in one of his articles. Nationalistic authors, most notably Dostoyevsky, scorned Turgenev for his European ways and ideas, and the character of Karmanizov in The Possessed is considered to be a satirical portrait of the novelist.
Russian novelist and poet, known for the realism and local color of his portrayals of life in 19th-century Russia, especially the conflicts between young, Westernized intellectuals and their conservative fathers. He is considered to have fixed the type of introspective, nihilist hero in Russian fiction, and is believed to have influenced George Sand, Flaubert, and Henry James in the technique of the novel.
His works include A Sportsman's Sketches ( 1847-1851); Rudin ( 1856); A Nest of Gentlefolk or A Nest of Nobles, also known as Liza ( 1859); Fathers and Sons ( 1862); On the Eve ( 1860); Smoke ( 1867); Virgin Soil ( 1876). Among other titles are The Gamekeeper at Home; A Lear of the Steppes; Torrens of Spring; Clara Milch; Dream Tales and Prose Poems.
Turgenev traveled a good deal in western Europe and was influenced by the ideas and techniques he encountered there. He was interested in the attempts of his time to westernize Russia, although his art had greater attractions for him than participation in active politics. He took a brief part in the movement to free the serfs, and was exiled to his country estate for calling Gogol "a great man" in one of his articles. Nationalistic authors, most notably Dostoyevsky, scorned Turgenev for his European ways and ideas, and the character of Karmanizov in The Possessed is considered to be a satirical portrait of the novelist.
Trumbull, John (1750-1831)
Trumbull, John (1750-1831)
American poet, a member of the Hartford Wits, known as the author of satires and bombastic patriotic poems in the neo-Classical style. See Neoclassicism.
His works include The Progress of Dullness ( 1772-1773), a satire on the methods of contemporary education; An Elegy on the Times ( 1774), a patriotic piece; MCFincal ( 1782), an anti-British satire, extremely popular in its time; essays in the style of The Spectator; several anonymous revolutionary essays; and a number of incidental poems. He also collaborated with Joel Barlow and other members of the Hartford school on The Anarchiad.
Trumbull, considered the most popular of the Hartford Wits, came of an outstanding Connecticut family and began his career as a child prodigy. He learned to read and write at the age of two, passed the Yale entrance examinations at the age of seven, and entered the college at thirteen. During the period just before the Revolution he studied law in the office of John Adams in Boston and took part in the political agitation of the time. Later he was a representative in the state legislature of Connecticut and a judge in the superior and supreme courts. He died of tuberculosis.
American poet, a member of the Hartford Wits, known as the author of satires and bombastic patriotic poems in the neo-Classical style. See Neoclassicism.
His works include The Progress of Dullness ( 1772-1773), a satire on the methods of contemporary education; An Elegy on the Times ( 1774), a patriotic piece; MCFincal ( 1782), an anti-British satire, extremely popular in its time; essays in the style of The Spectator; several anonymous revolutionary essays; and a number of incidental poems. He also collaborated with Joel Barlow and other members of the Hartford school on The Anarchiad.
Trumbull, considered the most popular of the Hartford Wits, came of an outstanding Connecticut family and began his career as a child prodigy. He learned to read and write at the age of two, passed the Yale entrance examinations at the age of seven, and entered the college at thirteen. During the period just before the Revolution he studied law in the office of John Adams in Boston and took part in the political agitation of the time. Later he was a representative in the state legislature of Connecticut and a judge in the superior and supreme courts. He died of tuberculosis.
Tourgée, Albion Winegar (1838-1905)
Tourgée, Albion Winegar (1838-1905)
American lawyer and novelist, known for his depiction, realistic in background and detail, of the Reconstruction period in the South after the Civil War.
His works include 'Toinette ( 1874), reissued in 1881 as A Royal Gentleman; Figs and Thistles ( 1879); A Fool's Errand ( 1879); Bricks without Straw ( 1880); John Eax and Mamelon ( 1882); Hot Plowshares ( 1883); Button's Inn ( 1887); With Gauge and Swallow ( 1889); Pactolus Prime ( 1890); The Mortgage on the Hiproof House ( 1896). These are particularly marked by an understanding of the problems of the Negro.
Tourgée fought in the Northern army during the Civil War, and later went to North Carolina as a carpetbagger. As a judge in the superior court of the state he helped to break up the Ku Klix Klan, and much of the material in his books was based on first-hand experience.
American lawyer and novelist, known for his depiction, realistic in background and detail, of the Reconstruction period in the South after the Civil War.
His works include 'Toinette ( 1874), reissued in 1881 as A Royal Gentleman; Figs and Thistles ( 1879); A Fool's Errand ( 1879); Bricks without Straw ( 1880); John Eax and Mamelon ( 1882); Hot Plowshares ( 1883); Button's Inn ( 1887); With Gauge and Swallow ( 1889); Pactolus Prime ( 1890); The Mortgage on the Hiproof House ( 1896). These are particularly marked by an understanding of the problems of the Negro.
Tourgée fought in the Northern army during the Civil War, and later went to North Carolina as a carpetbagger. As a judge in the superior court of the state he helped to break up the Ku Klix Klan, and much of the material in his books was based on first-hand experience.
Tolstoi, Count Leo (1828-1910)
Tolstoi, Count Leo. Full Russian name Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoi (1828-1910)
Russian novelist, playwright, short-story writer, and essayist, known for his psychological studies of character and his panoramic pictures of Russian life in the 19th century, and later for his Primitivism and religious mysticism. Among his works are War and Peace ( 18651872), his most famous novel; Anna Karenina ( 1875-1876); The Death of Ivan Ilyich ( 1884); The Power of Darkness ( 1886), a play; The Kreutzer Sonata ( 1889); What Is Art? ( 1898), an analysis of art according to its emotional appeal; Resurrection ( 1899). Others include Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth, My Religion, and My Confession, autobiographical and introspective; The Cossacks; Sebastopol; Master and Man; What Is to Be Done?; The Kingdom of God Is Within You.
Tolstoi came of a wealthy and noble family, but eventually became discontented, developing a system of thought which emphasized simplicity, faith, love, and the Christian brotherhood of man, and deplored man-made institutions such as governments, churches, and creeds. He forswore literature and art, made an effort to renounce his material possessions, and endeavored to live as a peasant in the country. He died in a railway station after having fled from an unhappy domestic background to take refuge in a monastery.
Russian novelist, playwright, short-story writer, and essayist, known for his psychological studies of character and his panoramic pictures of Russian life in the 19th century, and later for his Primitivism and religious mysticism. Among his works are War and Peace ( 18651872), his most famous novel; Anna Karenina ( 1875-1876); The Death of Ivan Ilyich ( 1884); The Power of Darkness ( 1886), a play; The Kreutzer Sonata ( 1889); What Is Art? ( 1898), an analysis of art according to its emotional appeal; Resurrection ( 1899). Others include Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth, My Religion, and My Confession, autobiographical and introspective; The Cossacks; Sebastopol; Master and Man; What Is to Be Done?; The Kingdom of God Is Within You.
Tolstoi came of a wealthy and noble family, but eventually became discontented, developing a system of thought which emphasized simplicity, faith, love, and the Christian brotherhood of man, and deplored man-made institutions such as governments, churches, and creeds. He forswore literature and art, made an effort to renounce his material possessions, and endeavored to live as a peasant in the country. He died in a railway station after having fled from an unhappy domestic background to take refuge in a monastery.
Toller, Ernst (1893-1939)
Toller, Ernst (1893-1939)
German playwright and poet, of Jewish parentage, known for his revolutionary sympathies. His plays, many of which make use of the techniques of Expressionism, marked by fervent humanitarianism and indignation at injustice, deal with the miseries of working people in an industrial civilization, the horror and brutality of war, and the eventual political revolt of the oppressed classes.
Toller's dramatic works include Die Wandlung ( 1919); Man and the Masses (Masse-Mensch; 1921), his best-known play; The Machine Wreckers (Maschinenstürmer; 1922); Der entfesselte Wotan ( 1923); Hinkemann ( 1924); Hoppla, wir leben! ( 1927), written in a panoramic technique compared to that of John Dos Passos; Feuer aus Kesseln ( 1930); Nie wieder Friede! (No More Peace!; 1937); Pastor Hall ( 1939). Other works are Gedichte der Gefangenen ( 1923); Vormorgen ( 1924), and Das Schwalbenbuch (The Swallow-Book; 1924), books of poetry; Quer durck ( 1930), translated as Which World--Which Way?, an account of travel in Russia and America; Look through the Bars ( 1937), a collection of letters from prison.
Toller fought in the German army during the early years of World War I but later helped to organize labor strikes in Germany as a means of stopping the war. He was elected president of the Bavarian Soviet Republic, set up as a result of revolution, but he was imprisoned for five years when the revolution was suppressed; his best-known works were written during his term in prison. When the National Socialist government came to power in Germany in 1933, Toller's books were burned and he was deprived of citizenship. He came to the U.S. as a refugee and was active in the anti-Fascist movements of the 1930's. In despair, he committed suicide in New York.
German playwright and poet, of Jewish parentage, known for his revolutionary sympathies. His plays, many of which make use of the techniques of Expressionism, marked by fervent humanitarianism and indignation at injustice, deal with the miseries of working people in an industrial civilization, the horror and brutality of war, and the eventual political revolt of the oppressed classes.
Toller's dramatic works include Die Wandlung ( 1919); Man and the Masses (Masse-Mensch; 1921), his best-known play; The Machine Wreckers (Maschinenstürmer; 1922); Der entfesselte Wotan ( 1923); Hinkemann ( 1924); Hoppla, wir leben! ( 1927), written in a panoramic technique compared to that of John Dos Passos; Feuer aus Kesseln ( 1930); Nie wieder Friede! (No More Peace!; 1937); Pastor Hall ( 1939). Other works are Gedichte der Gefangenen ( 1923); Vormorgen ( 1924), and Das Schwalbenbuch (The Swallow-Book; 1924), books of poetry; Quer durck ( 1930), translated as Which World--Which Way?, an account of travel in Russia and America; Look through the Bars ( 1937), a collection of letters from prison.
Toller fought in the German army during the early years of World War I but later helped to organize labor strikes in Germany as a means of stopping the war. He was elected president of the Bavarian Soviet Republic, set up as a result of revolution, but he was imprisoned for five years when the revolution was suppressed; his best-known works were written during his term in prison. When the National Socialist government came to power in Germany in 1933, Toller's books were burned and he was deprived of citizenship. He came to the U.S. as a refugee and was active in the anti-Fascist movements of the 1930's. In despair, he committed suicide in New York.
Thoreau, Henry David (1817-1862)
Thoreau, Henry David (1817-1862)
American poet, prose-writer, and naturalist, a member of the school of Transcendentalm, chiefly influenced by the philosophic ideas of R. W. Emerson. Thoreau is known for his extreme individualism, his love of nature, his primitivistic preference for simple, even austere living, his tendencies toward mysticism, and his revolt against the demands of society and government.
His works include A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers ( 1849); Walden ( 1854), his most famous book; Excursions ( 1863); The Maine Woods ( 1864); Cape Cod ( 1865); A Yankee in Canada ( 1866); Early Spring in Massachusetts ( 1881), Summer ( 1884), Winter ( 1888), and Autumn ( 1892), selections from his massive Journal, which was published in its entirety, fourteen volumes, in 1906; Letters ( 1894); Poems of Nature ( 1895). Civil Disobedience ( 1849) and Life Without Principle ( 1863), are his best-known single essays, summarizing his ideas on the individual and society.
Thoreau was extremely eccentric, independent, and individualistic in his behavior. He spent several years in a little hut in the countryside near the village of Concord, Massachusetts, writing and observing nature; on one occasion he spent a day in jail for refusing to pay his poll-tax, because he disapproved of the war with Mexico then in process, regarding it merely as an expedition to seize land. In his later years he traveled in New England and Canada, lectured, especially in connection with the abolitionist movement, wrote in his journal, and worked on a study of the Indians which was never completed. He died of tuberculosis.
American poet, prose-writer, and naturalist, a member of the school of Transcendentalm, chiefly influenced by the philosophic ideas of R. W. Emerson. Thoreau is known for his extreme individualism, his love of nature, his primitivistic preference for simple, even austere living, his tendencies toward mysticism, and his revolt against the demands of society and government.
His works include A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers ( 1849); Walden ( 1854), his most famous book; Excursions ( 1863); The Maine Woods ( 1864); Cape Cod ( 1865); A Yankee in Canada ( 1866); Early Spring in Massachusetts ( 1881), Summer ( 1884), Winter ( 1888), and Autumn ( 1892), selections from his massive Journal, which was published in its entirety, fourteen volumes, in 1906; Letters ( 1894); Poems of Nature ( 1895). Civil Disobedience ( 1849) and Life Without Principle ( 1863), are his best-known single essays, summarizing his ideas on the individual and society.
Thoreau was extremely eccentric, independent, and individualistic in his behavior. He spent several years in a little hut in the countryside near the village of Concord, Massachusetts, writing and observing nature; on one occasion he spent a day in jail for refusing to pay his poll-tax, because he disapproved of the war with Mexico then in process, regarding it merely as an expedition to seize land. In his later years he traveled in New England and Canada, lectured, especially in connection with the abolitionist movement, wrote in his journal, and worked on a study of the Indians which was never completed. He died of tuberculosis.
Thackeray, William Makepeace (18111863)
Thackeray, William Makepeace (18111863)
English novelist and journalist, known for his satirical and moralistic studies of upper- and middle-class English life, especially in the Victorian age. His works include The Yellowplush Correspondence ( 1837); The Tremendous Adventures of Major Gahagan ( 1838-1839); Catherine ( 1839-1840); A Shabby Genteel Story ( 1840); The Paris Sketch-Book ( 1841); The Great Hoggarty Diamond ( 1841); The Fitz-Boodle Papers ( 1842-1843); Men's Wives ( 1843); Jeames's Diary ( 1845); Mr. Punch's Prize Novelists ( 1847); The Snobs of England ( 1847), later The Book of Snobs; Vanity Fair ( 1847-1848), his best-known work; Pendennis ( 1848-1850); Rebbecca and Rowena ( 1850); Henry Esmond ( 1852); The Newcomes ( 1853-1855); The English Humorists of the 18th Century ( 1851) and The Four Georges ( 1855-1856), lectures delivered on a tour of America; Christmas Books ( 1857), containing Mrs. Perkins' Ball and The Rose and The Ring, among other tales; The Virginians ( 1857-1859), a sequel to Henry Esmond; Lovel the Widower ( 1860); The Adventures of Philip ( 1862); and Denis Duval ( 1864), left unfinished at the author's death. Thackeray also wrote a number of ballads, satirical and otherwise.
Thackeray was born in India and early in his career studied law and then drawing. He worked on newspapers in Paris and London, and virtually all of his works were published serially in Fraser's Magazine or in Punch; in 1859 he became editor of The Cornhill Magazine. The insanity of his wife, Isabella Shawe, in 1840 is considered to have influenced the character of his work in some part.
English novelist and journalist, known for his satirical and moralistic studies of upper- and middle-class English life, especially in the Victorian age. His works include The Yellowplush Correspondence ( 1837); The Tremendous Adventures of Major Gahagan ( 1838-1839); Catherine ( 1839-1840); A Shabby Genteel Story ( 1840); The Paris Sketch-Book ( 1841); The Great Hoggarty Diamond ( 1841); The Fitz-Boodle Papers ( 1842-1843); Men's Wives ( 1843); Jeames's Diary ( 1845); Mr. Punch's Prize Novelists ( 1847); The Snobs of England ( 1847), later The Book of Snobs; Vanity Fair ( 1847-1848), his best-known work; Pendennis ( 1848-1850); Rebbecca and Rowena ( 1850); Henry Esmond ( 1852); The Newcomes ( 1853-1855); The English Humorists of the 18th Century ( 1851) and The Four Georges ( 1855-1856), lectures delivered on a tour of America; Christmas Books ( 1857), containing Mrs. Perkins' Ball and The Rose and The Ring, among other tales; The Virginians ( 1857-1859), a sequel to Henry Esmond; Lovel the Widower ( 1860); The Adventures of Philip ( 1862); and Denis Duval ( 1864), left unfinished at the author's death. Thackeray also wrote a number of ballads, satirical and otherwise.
Thackeray was born in India and early in his career studied law and then drawing. He worked on newspapers in Paris and London, and virtually all of his works were published serially in Fraser's Magazine or in Punch; in 1859 he became editor of The Cornhill Magazine. The insanity of his wife, Isabella Shawe, in 1840 is considered to have influenced the character of his work in some part.
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (1809-1892)
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (1809-1892)
English poet, considered the most representative of the Victorian age in England, appointed poet laureate in 1850. Tennyson, in his early career influenced by the English romantic poets, especially John Keats, is known for his faithful reflection in his poetry of the artistic and cultural tastes and the intellectual and moral values of his time and of the dominant Victorian social class, as well as for the characteristic response of his time and class to the encroachments of science in the domain of religious faith. He was the favorite target for the attacks of English and American poets of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who rebelled against Victorian standards, denouncing him for sentimentality, insipidity, over-ornateness, and narrow patriotism. Later in the 20th century critics began to praise Tennyson for the metrical skill and distinguished imagery of some of his brief lyrics, regarded as unimportant in his own day.
Tennyson's works include the following: Poems by Two Brothers ( 1827), early verse by his brothers and himself; Poems, Chiefly Lyrical ( 1830); Poems ( 1832); Poems ( 1842); Locksley Hall ( 1842); The Princess ( 1847); In Memorandum ( 1850); Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington ( 1852); Maud ( 1855); Idylls of the King ( 1859-1872); Enoch Arden ( 1864), a sentimental verse narrative; Queen Mary ( 1875), Harold ( 1876), and Becket ( 1884), historical tragedies in verse; Tiresias, And Other Poems ( 1885); Locksley Hall Sixty Years After ( 1886); Demeter, And Other Poems ( 1889): The Death of Oenone ( 1892). Among his best-known single poems are The Lady of Shalott; The Lotos-Eaters; Ulysses: Break, Break, Break; Sweet and Low; Tears. Idle Tears; The Charge of the Light Brigade; The Brook; Come into the Garden, Maud; Northern Farmer, a dialect poem; The Higher Pantheism; and Crossing the Bar. Cf. Tennyson ( 1923), by Harold Nicolson.
Tennyson was immensely popular and successful throughout his entire later career. The one shadow in his life was the early death of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam, which plunged him into a conflict between faith and doubt.
English poet, considered the most representative of the Victorian age in England, appointed poet laureate in 1850. Tennyson, in his early career influenced by the English romantic poets, especially John Keats, is known for his faithful reflection in his poetry of the artistic and cultural tastes and the intellectual and moral values of his time and of the dominant Victorian social class, as well as for the characteristic response of his time and class to the encroachments of science in the domain of religious faith. He was the favorite target for the attacks of English and American poets of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who rebelled against Victorian standards, denouncing him for sentimentality, insipidity, over-ornateness, and narrow patriotism. Later in the 20th century critics began to praise Tennyson for the metrical skill and distinguished imagery of some of his brief lyrics, regarded as unimportant in his own day.
Tennyson's works include the following: Poems by Two Brothers ( 1827), early verse by his brothers and himself; Poems, Chiefly Lyrical ( 1830); Poems ( 1832); Poems ( 1842); Locksley Hall ( 1842); The Princess ( 1847); In Memorandum ( 1850); Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington ( 1852); Maud ( 1855); Idylls of the King ( 1859-1872); Enoch Arden ( 1864), a sentimental verse narrative; Queen Mary ( 1875), Harold ( 1876), and Becket ( 1884), historical tragedies in verse; Tiresias, And Other Poems ( 1885); Locksley Hall Sixty Years After ( 1886); Demeter, And Other Poems ( 1889): The Death of Oenone ( 1892). Among his best-known single poems are The Lady of Shalott; The Lotos-Eaters; Ulysses: Break, Break, Break; Sweet and Low; Tears. Idle Tears; The Charge of the Light Brigade; The Brook; Come into the Garden, Maud; Northern Farmer, a dialect poem; The Higher Pantheism; and Crossing the Bar. Cf. Tennyson ( 1923), by Harold Nicolson.
Tennyson was immensely popular and successful throughout his entire later career. The one shadow in his life was the early death of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam, which plunged him into a conflict between faith and doubt.
Taylor, Bayard (1825-1878)
Taylor, Bayard (1825-1878)
American poet, prose-writer, and journalist, known for his popular essays, lectures, and sentimental poems of romance and adventure; an exponent of the Genteel Tradition. Among his accounts of travel and adventure are Views Afoot ( 1846); El Dorado ( 1850); A Journey to Central Africa ( 1854); The Lands of the Saracen ( 1855); A Visit to India, China, and Japan, in the Year 1853 ( 1855); Northern Travel ( 1858); Travels in Greece and Russia ( 1859); At Home and Abroad ( 1860). His verse includes Ximena ( 1844); Rhymes of Travel, Ballads and Poems ( 1849); A Book of Romances, Lyrics, and Songs ( 1852); Poems of the Orient ( 1855); Lars: A Pastoral of Norway ( 1863); Home Pastorals, Ballads, and Lyrics ( 1875); The Echo Club, And Other Literary Diversions ( 1876); Poetical Works ( 1880). He also wrote such fiction as: Hannah Thurston ( 1863); John Godfrey's Fortunes ( 1864); The Story of Kennett ( 1866); Joseph and His Friend ( 1870).
During his early career Taylor traveled widely in Europe, Asia, and Africa, writing of his journeys for American newspapers and making lecture tours. His best work is considered to be his translation of Goethe Faust ( 1870-1871), as a result of which in 1878 he was appointed minister to Germany, where he died soon after his arrival.
American poet, prose-writer, and journalist, known for his popular essays, lectures, and sentimental poems of romance and adventure; an exponent of the Genteel Tradition. Among his accounts of travel and adventure are Views Afoot ( 1846); El Dorado ( 1850); A Journey to Central Africa ( 1854); The Lands of the Saracen ( 1855); A Visit to India, China, and Japan, in the Year 1853 ( 1855); Northern Travel ( 1858); Travels in Greece and Russia ( 1859); At Home and Abroad ( 1860). His verse includes Ximena ( 1844); Rhymes of Travel, Ballads and Poems ( 1849); A Book of Romances, Lyrics, and Songs ( 1852); Poems of the Orient ( 1855); Lars: A Pastoral of Norway ( 1863); Home Pastorals, Ballads, and Lyrics ( 1875); The Echo Club, And Other Literary Diversions ( 1876); Poetical Works ( 1880). He also wrote such fiction as: Hannah Thurston ( 1863); John Godfrey's Fortunes ( 1864); The Story of Kennett ( 1866); Joseph and His Friend ( 1870).
During his early career Taylor traveled widely in Europe, Asia, and Africa, writing of his journeys for American newspapers and making lecture tours. His best work is considered to be his translation of Goethe Faust ( 1870-1871), as a result of which in 1878 he was appointed minister to Germany, where he died soon after his arrival.
Tarkington, Newton Booth (1869-1946)
Tarkington, Newton Booth (1869-1946)
American novelist and short-story writer, known for his popular books dealing with middle-class American life, chiefly in the Middle West, in a semi-realistic vein. Among his works are Monsieur Beaucaire ( 1900), an historical romance; The Gentleman from India ( 1899); The Conquest of Canaan ( 1905); The Man From Home ( 1908), a play; The Flirt ( 1913); Penrod ( 1914), Penrod and Sam ( 1916), Penrod Jashber ( 1929), and Little Orvie ( 1934), humorous books about small boys; Seventeen ( 1916) and Ramsey Milholland ( 1919), humorous books about adolescents; The Turmoil ( 1915), The Magnificent Ambersons ( 1918), and The Midlander ( 1923), published as a trilogy entitled Growth ( 1927); Clarence ( 1919), a comedy; Alice Adams ( 1921); The Plutocrat ( 1927); The World Does Move ( 1928), an autobiography; Claire Ambler ( 1928); Mirthful Haven ( 1931); Mary's Neck ( 1932); Wanton Mally ( 1932); Presenting Lily Mars ( 1933); The Lorenzo Bunch ( 1936); The Fighting Littles ( 1941); The Heritage of Hatcher Ide ( 1941). Both The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams were winners of the Pulitzer prize.
In 1943 he received, as the first man, the Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for "general distinction in the field of literature."
American novelist and short-story writer, known for his popular books dealing with middle-class American life, chiefly in the Middle West, in a semi-realistic vein. Among his works are Monsieur Beaucaire ( 1900), an historical romance; The Gentleman from India ( 1899); The Conquest of Canaan ( 1905); The Man From Home ( 1908), a play; The Flirt ( 1913); Penrod ( 1914), Penrod and Sam ( 1916), Penrod Jashber ( 1929), and Little Orvie ( 1934), humorous books about small boys; Seventeen ( 1916) and Ramsey Milholland ( 1919), humorous books about adolescents; The Turmoil ( 1915), The Magnificent Ambersons ( 1918), and The Midlander ( 1923), published as a trilogy entitled Growth ( 1927); Clarence ( 1919), a comedy; Alice Adams ( 1921); The Plutocrat ( 1927); The World Does Move ( 1928), an autobiography; Claire Ambler ( 1928); Mirthful Haven ( 1931); Mary's Neck ( 1932); Wanton Mally ( 1932); Presenting Lily Mars ( 1933); The Lorenzo Bunch ( 1936); The Fighting Littles ( 1941); The Heritage of Hatcher Ide ( 1941). Both The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams were winners of the Pulitzer prize.
In 1943 he received, as the first man, the Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for "general distinction in the field of literature."
Taine, Hippolyte (1828-1893)
Taine, Hippolyte (1828-1893)
French philosopher and literary critic, influenced in part by Hegel, Comte, and the English Utilitarians. He is known for his emphasis on the role of scientific determinism in literature and history, especially as exemplified in hereditary and environmental influences, among the latter of which even climate and atmosphere were included. His methods are considered to be associated with those of Naturalism.
His works include the following: La Philosophie de l'Art ( 1865-1869); Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise ( 1864 and later); Nouveaux Essais ( 1865); Origines de la France contemporaine ( 1875-1894). Taine's two most famous doctrines are the doctrine of the faculté maîtresse, or dominant trait, from which the critic hoped to be able to deduce an author's career "geometrically"; and the theory of race, milieu, et moment, the three forces respectively signifying biological inheritance, environment, and the configuration of tradition, precedent, and dominant literary trend at the time of an author's appearance.
French philosopher and literary critic, influenced in part by Hegel, Comte, and the English Utilitarians. He is known for his emphasis on the role of scientific determinism in literature and history, especially as exemplified in hereditary and environmental influences, among the latter of which even climate and atmosphere were included. His methods are considered to be associated with those of Naturalism.
His works include the following: La Philosophie de l'Art ( 1865-1869); Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise ( 1864 and later); Nouveaux Essais ( 1865); Origines de la France contemporaine ( 1875-1894). Taine's two most famous doctrines are the doctrine of the faculté maîtresse, or dominant trait, from which the critic hoped to be able to deduce an author's career "geometrically"; and the theory of race, milieu, et moment, the three forces respectively signifying biological inheritance, environment, and the configuration of tradition, precedent, and dominant literary trend at the time of an author's appearance.
Tagore, Sir Rabindranath. Ravindranatha Thakura (1861-1941).
Tagore, Sir Rabindranath. Written also Ravindranatha Thakura (1861-1941).
Hindu poet, painter, and author, known for his lyrics and songs on nature, childhood, and Oriental subjects and for his religious mysticism. English translations of his work include Gitanjali ( 1913); The Crescent Moon ( 1913); One Hundred Poems of Kabir ( 1914); Chitra (1916), a play; The Gardener ( 1917); Lectures on Personality ( 1917); Red Oleanders ( 1925); Fireflies ( 1928); The Religion of Man ( 1931), on his ideas of God; Broken Ties, And Other Stories ( 1925); The Child ( 1931); The Golden Boat ( 1932); Collected Poems and Plays ( 1936).
Tagore, awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1913, was active in instituting social and educational reforms in India. In 1915 he was knighted, but in 1919 he resigned the honor in protest against British repressive measures in his native country.
Hindu poet, painter, and author, known for his lyrics and songs on nature, childhood, and Oriental subjects and for his religious mysticism. English translations of his work include Gitanjali ( 1913); The Crescent Moon ( 1913); One Hundred Poems of Kabir ( 1914); Chitra (1916), a play; The Gardener ( 1917); Lectures on Personality ( 1917); Red Oleanders ( 1925); Fireflies ( 1928); The Religion of Man ( 1931), on his ideas of God; Broken Ties, And Other Stories ( 1925); The Child ( 1931); The Golden Boat ( 1932); Collected Poems and Plays ( 1936).
Tagore, awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1913, was active in instituting social and educational reforms in India. In 1915 he was knighted, but in 1919 he resigned the honor in protest against British repressive measures in his native country.
Voltaire: French poet, dramatist, satirist, historian, and philosopher
Voltaire
Pseudonym of François Marie Arouet ( 1694-1778). French poet, dramatist, satirist, historian, and philosopher, famous for his skepticism, his enmity to organized religion, fanaticism, intolerance, and superstition (attacked under the slogan Écrasons l'infâme!), his biting wit and his prejudices, his personal vigor in spite of chronic ill health, his clever and swiftly moving philosophic tales, and his contributions to the objective study of history. His dramatic works, chiefly neo-classical in form, include Oedipe ( 1718); Zaïre ( 1732); Alzire ( 1736); Mahomet, ou le Fanatisme ( 1742); Mérope ( 1743); Sémiramis ( 1748); L'Orphelin de la Chine. Among his polemic and philosophic writings are Lettres sur les Anglais, attacking what he regarded as Shakespeare's faulty dramatic construction and poor taste, while praising other aspects of English life and thought; Lettres Philosophiques ( 1734); Traité de Métaphysique; Epitre à Uranie and Discours en Vers sur l'Homme ( 1738), philosophical poems; Poème sur le Désastre de Lisbonne; Poème sur la Loi naturelle; Traité sur la Tolérance; Dictionnaire Philosophique Portatif ( 1764); Sermon des Cinquante; Le Philosophe ignorant ( 1766). Of his historical works, the greatest are considered to be Histoire de Charles XII ( 1731); Le Siècle de Louis XIV ( 1751); Essai sur les Moeurs et l'Esprit des Nations ( 1753-1756), regarded as the first history of civilization; Le Pyrrhonisme de l'Histoire ( 1768). The best-known of his philosophic tales, which became the most popular of his works in later times, are Le Monde Comme il va; ZADIG ( 1748); Micromegas ( 1752), often compared to Gulliver's Travels; L'Ingénu ( 1757); Candide ( 1759), the most famous of all his works.
Outstanding among his poetry are La Henriade ( 1728-1730), an epic on the period of Henry IV; Le Temple de Goût ( 1733), a satire believed to have been inspired by Pope Dunciad; and La Pucelle ( 1762), a burlesque on Joan of Arc. He also wrote numerous light and witty verses on a variety of occasions.
Voltaire, one of the most famous and influential figures in the history of thought, lived a turbulent life, constantly being arrested and exiled because of his unorthodox ideas, displeasing to political and religious authority of his time, and his merciless satire. He first made his reputation as a dramatist, but after being beaten and imprisoned by an offended noble, he went to England for a time. There he came under the influence of Pope and Swift, whom he met, of the ideas of Newton and Locke, and of English political ideals; as a result of this visit, he introduced the plays of Shakespeare into France on his return, although in time he came to regard Shakespeare's influence on the drama as deplorable. Later Voltaire was banished again from France because of his Lettres Philosophiques and took refuge first with Mme du Châtelet at Cirey and then in Holland. After a correspondence with Frederick the Great, the author was invited to Prussia, where he stayed at the monarch's court for three years until, in 1753, the two men became estranged. Then Voltaire retired to Ferney, and for nearly all the rest of his life he lived there at ease, writing treatises which violently denounced the cases of intolerance and injustice that came to his attention, quarreling with J. J. Rousseau, the Roman Catholic Church, and Calvinism, and winning fame all over Europe. When he returned once more to Paris, just before his death, he was honored as a great man and entertained so sumptuously that it is said he died of exhaustion. In 1791, after the French Revolution, on which he had an important influence, his ashes were placed in the Pantheon.
The name Voltaire is simply an anagram of Arouet L. I. (le jeune).
Pseudonym of François Marie Arouet ( 1694-1778). French poet, dramatist, satirist, historian, and philosopher, famous for his skepticism, his enmity to organized religion, fanaticism, intolerance, and superstition (attacked under the slogan Écrasons l'infâme!), his biting wit and his prejudices, his personal vigor in spite of chronic ill health, his clever and swiftly moving philosophic tales, and his contributions to the objective study of history. His dramatic works, chiefly neo-classical in form, include Oedipe ( 1718); Zaïre ( 1732); Alzire ( 1736); Mahomet, ou le Fanatisme ( 1742); Mérope ( 1743); Sémiramis ( 1748); L'Orphelin de la Chine. Among his polemic and philosophic writings are Lettres sur les Anglais, attacking what he regarded as Shakespeare's faulty dramatic construction and poor taste, while praising other aspects of English life and thought; Lettres Philosophiques ( 1734); Traité de Métaphysique; Epitre à Uranie and Discours en Vers sur l'Homme ( 1738), philosophical poems; Poème sur le Désastre de Lisbonne; Poème sur la Loi naturelle; Traité sur la Tolérance; Dictionnaire Philosophique Portatif ( 1764); Sermon des Cinquante; Le Philosophe ignorant ( 1766). Of his historical works, the greatest are considered to be Histoire de Charles XII ( 1731); Le Siècle de Louis XIV ( 1751); Essai sur les Moeurs et l'Esprit des Nations ( 1753-1756), regarded as the first history of civilization; Le Pyrrhonisme de l'Histoire ( 1768). The best-known of his philosophic tales, which became the most popular of his works in later times, are Le Monde Comme il va; ZADIG ( 1748); Micromegas ( 1752), often compared to Gulliver's Travels; L'Ingénu ( 1757); Candide ( 1759), the most famous of all his works.
Outstanding among his poetry are La Henriade ( 1728-1730), an epic on the period of Henry IV; Le Temple de Goût ( 1733), a satire believed to have been inspired by Pope Dunciad; and La Pucelle ( 1762), a burlesque on Joan of Arc. He also wrote numerous light and witty verses on a variety of occasions.
Voltaire, one of the most famous and influential figures in the history of thought, lived a turbulent life, constantly being arrested and exiled because of his unorthodox ideas, displeasing to political and religious authority of his time, and his merciless satire. He first made his reputation as a dramatist, but after being beaten and imprisoned by an offended noble, he went to England for a time. There he came under the influence of Pope and Swift, whom he met, of the ideas of Newton and Locke, and of English political ideals; as a result of this visit, he introduced the plays of Shakespeare into France on his return, although in time he came to regard Shakespeare's influence on the drama as deplorable. Later Voltaire was banished again from France because of his Lettres Philosophiques and took refuge first with Mme du Châtelet at Cirey and then in Holland. After a correspondence with Frederick the Great, the author was invited to Prussia, where he stayed at the monarch's court for three years until, in 1753, the two men became estranged. Then Voltaire retired to Ferney, and for nearly all the rest of his life he lived there at ease, writing treatises which violently denounced the cases of intolerance and injustice that came to his attention, quarreling with J. J. Rousseau, the Roman Catholic Church, and Calvinism, and winning fame all over Europe. When he returned once more to Paris, just before his death, he was honored as a great man and entertained so sumptuously that it is said he died of exhaustion. In 1791, after the French Revolution, on which he had an important influence, his ashes were placed in the Pantheon.
The name Voltaire is simply an anagram of Arouet L. I. (le jeune).
Villon, François ( 1431-?)
Villon, François. Real name perhaps either François de Montcorbier or François des Loges ( 1431-?)
French poet of the late Middle Ages, widely celebrated by 19th-century romantic novelists and poets and known for the vigor and imagination, the realism, pathos, technical skill, and expressive lyric power of his verse. Well-known single poems by him are his Petit Testament, Grand Testament, Ballade des Pendus, Ballade des Dames du temps jadis (famous in English in its translation by D. G. Rossetti), and Ballade pour Prier Nostre Dame. Villon came of a poor family with well-to-do relatives, from one of whom he took the name by which he is best known. He held both Bachelor's and Master's degrees front the Sorbonne and spent most of his time in student brawls in the Latin Quarter. He was arrested several times for complicity in murders and robberies, and in 1462 was sentenced to be hanged.
Later his punishment was changed to a banishment of ten years, and immediately thereafter the poet disappeared; no further record exists of him. Victor Hugo and R. L. Stevenson are among the writers who celebrated his exploits, many of which were imaginative inventions. The Vagabond King, a popular 20th-century operetta, deals with a highly fictitious episode in his career. Justin Huntly McCarthy's If I Were King and Needles and Pins portray Villon as a prominent character, and Stevenson depicts him in his Lodging for the Night.
French poet of the late Middle Ages, widely celebrated by 19th-century romantic novelists and poets and known for the vigor and imagination, the realism, pathos, technical skill, and expressive lyric power of his verse. Well-known single poems by him are his Petit Testament, Grand Testament, Ballade des Pendus, Ballade des Dames du temps jadis (famous in English in its translation by D. G. Rossetti), and Ballade pour Prier Nostre Dame. Villon came of a poor family with well-to-do relatives, from one of whom he took the name by which he is best known. He held both Bachelor's and Master's degrees front the Sorbonne and spent most of his time in student brawls in the Latin Quarter. He was arrested several times for complicity in murders and robberies, and in 1462 was sentenced to be hanged.
Later his punishment was changed to a banishment of ten years, and immediately thereafter the poet disappeared; no further record exists of him. Victor Hugo and R. L. Stevenson are among the writers who celebrated his exploits, many of which were imaginative inventions. The Vagabond King, a popular 20th-century operetta, deals with a highly fictitious episode in his career. Justin Huntly McCarthy's If I Were King and Needles and Pins portray Villon as a prominent character, and Stevenson depicts him in his Lodging for the Night.
Vigny, Alfred de (1797-1863)
Vigny, Alfred de (1797-1863)
French poet, playwright, and novelist of the romantic period, known for the emphasis placed in his poetry on the "inner life" of man and on the role of the poet as a lonely martyr to his art. Vigny is considered to have been among the first poets to express the latter concept and also to adopt the scientific view of the non-human and unalterable character of natural law. His poetry is marked by melancholy, pessimism, stern pride and an attitude of Stoicism, frequent primitive and historical coloring, a simple, classical technique. Among his works are the following: Poèmes ( 1822), Poèmes Antiques et modernes and Les Destinées ( 1864), volumes of poetry; La Maréchale d'Ancre, Quitte pour la Peur, and Chatterton ( 1835), dramas, the lastnamed being considered by some critics to be the best play of French romanticism; Servitude et Grandeur militaires ( 1835), short stories; Cinq Mars ( 1826), the first important example of the historical novel in France; and Journal d'un Poète ( 1867).
Vigny, of a noble family, was disillusioned by the low regard in which nobility was held in his day and by the failure of his term of military service to make a military career attractive to him. After an unhappy love affair with an actress, he broke with his former associates in the romantic movement and retired to intellectual, social, and artistic solitude. It was in connection with this retreat from the active world that Vigny became the first writer about whom the phrase "Ivory Tower," almost a cliché in later criticism, was used.
French poet, playwright, and novelist of the romantic period, known for the emphasis placed in his poetry on the "inner life" of man and on the role of the poet as a lonely martyr to his art. Vigny is considered to have been among the first poets to express the latter concept and also to adopt the scientific view of the non-human and unalterable character of natural law. His poetry is marked by melancholy, pessimism, stern pride and an attitude of Stoicism, frequent primitive and historical coloring, a simple, classical technique. Among his works are the following: Poèmes ( 1822), Poèmes Antiques et modernes and Les Destinées ( 1864), volumes of poetry; La Maréchale d'Ancre, Quitte pour la Peur, and Chatterton ( 1835), dramas, the lastnamed being considered by some critics to be the best play of French romanticism; Servitude et Grandeur militaires ( 1835), short stories; Cinq Mars ( 1826), the first important example of the historical novel in France; and Journal d'un Poète ( 1867).
Vigny, of a noble family, was disillusioned by the low regard in which nobility was held in his day and by the failure of his term of military service to make a military career attractive to him. After an unhappy love affair with an actress, he broke with his former associates in the romantic movement and retired to intellectual, social, and artistic solitude. It was in connection with this retreat from the active world that Vigny became the first writer about whom the phrase "Ivory Tower," almost a cliché in later criticism, was used.
Verlaine, Paul (1844-1896)
Verlaine, Paul (1844-1896)
French poet, an immediate forerunner of Symbolism in France, known for the grace, delicacy, and musical suggestiveness of his characteristic lyrics.
Among his books are Poèmes Saturniens ( 1866), a volume in the style of the Parnassians; Fêtes Galantes ( 1869), written in a Watteau-like, 18th-century mood; La Bonne Chanson ( 1870), a celebration of the poet's joy at his coming marriage; Romances sans Paroles ( 1874); Sagesse ( 1881), containing poems of religious sentiment; Jadis et Naguère ( 1884).
Verlaine was extremely erratic in personality and behavior, living a Bohemian life which took him from cafes to hospitals and prisons, and alternating between sensuality and mysticism. He loved his wife, but after their separation he engaged in liaisons of a perverted nature, the most notorious of which was with Arthur RIMBAUD. Rimbaud is considered to have had a morally corrupting influence on Verlaine but to have assisted the older man in developing a new conception of poetry. Verlaine was converted to Catholicism during the 1870's.
French poet, an immediate forerunner of Symbolism in France, known for the grace, delicacy, and musical suggestiveness of his characteristic lyrics.
Among his books are Poèmes Saturniens ( 1866), a volume in the style of the Parnassians; Fêtes Galantes ( 1869), written in a Watteau-like, 18th-century mood; La Bonne Chanson ( 1870), a celebration of the poet's joy at his coming marriage; Romances sans Paroles ( 1874); Sagesse ( 1881), containing poems of religious sentiment; Jadis et Naguère ( 1884).
Verlaine was extremely erratic in personality and behavior, living a Bohemian life which took him from cafes to hospitals and prisons, and alternating between sensuality and mysticism. He loved his wife, but after their separation he engaged in liaisons of a perverted nature, the most notorious of which was with Arthur RIMBAUD. Rimbaud is considered to have had a morally corrupting influence on Verlaine but to have assisted the older man in developing a new conception of poetry. Verlaine was converted to Catholicism during the 1870's.
Valéry, Paul Ambroise (1871-1945)
Valéry, Paul Ambroise (1871-1945)
French poet and critic, in his early career a protégé of Pierre Louÿs and at first influenced by the school of Symbolism. His interest later turned to philosophy, mathematics, science, and economics, and he professed himself to be attracted to poetry only as a mental exercise. Following Leonardo da Vince, whom he admired, he developed a kind of mathematical metaphysic to guide him in his thought and his art. Valéry is know for his personal aloofness, his emphasis on the importance of the intellectual classes in shaping and controlling society, and the precision, extreme condensation, and abstruseness of theme of his poetry, which was regarded by many contemporary critic as artificial and obscure.
His books of poetry include La Jeune Parque ( 1971), considered his best work; Odes ( 1920); L'Album des Vers ancienc ( 1920); Charmes ( 1922); Fragments du Narcisse ( 1922). Poésies ( 1923). He is generally best known for his series of literary and philosophical essays consisting of Variété ( 1924), Variété II ( 1930), Variété III ( 1936), and Variété II ( 1938), these were translated into English. Other works include L'ldíe Fixe ( 1934); Moralités ( 1932); Pièces sur l'Art ( 1936); Poésie et Pensée abstraite ( 1939) and La Politique de l'Esprit ( 1941), lectures.
Paul Valéry was elected to the French Academy in 1925, succeeding Anatole France, about whom he delivered a slighting address on his induction, although it was cutomary for the new member to laud his predecessor. Declaring that he was a businessman rather than a Bohemian. Valéry made a point of keeping his works inaccessible in order to increase their value, insisting that they be published only in limited and distinctive editions.
French poet and critic, in his early career a protégé of Pierre Louÿs and at first influenced by the school of Symbolism. His interest later turned to philosophy, mathematics, science, and economics, and he professed himself to be attracted to poetry only as a mental exercise. Following Leonardo da Vince, whom he admired, he developed a kind of mathematical metaphysic to guide him in his thought and his art. Valéry is know for his personal aloofness, his emphasis on the importance of the intellectual classes in shaping and controlling society, and the precision, extreme condensation, and abstruseness of theme of his poetry, which was regarded by many contemporary critic as artificial and obscure.
His books of poetry include La Jeune Parque ( 1971), considered his best work; Odes ( 1920); L'Album des Vers ancienc ( 1920); Charmes ( 1922); Fragments du Narcisse ( 1922). Poésies ( 1923). He is generally best known for his series of literary and philosophical essays consisting of Variété ( 1924), Variété II ( 1930), Variété III ( 1936), and Variété II ( 1938), these were translated into English. Other works include L'ldíe Fixe ( 1934); Moralités ( 1932); Pièces sur l'Art ( 1936); Poésie et Pensée abstraite ( 1939) and La Politique de l'Esprit ( 1941), lectures.
Paul Valéry was elected to the French Academy in 1925, succeeding Anatole France, about whom he delivered a slighting address on his induction, although it was cutomary for the new member to laud his predecessor. Declaring that he was a businessman rather than a Bohemian. Valéry made a point of keeping his works inaccessible in order to increase their value, insisting that they be published only in limited and distinctive editions.
Wyatt or Wyat, Sir Thomas (1503?-1542)
Wyatt or Wyat, Sir Thomas (1503?-1542)
English poet, known for his production of the first sonnets in English in his translations of Petrarch and for his popularization of other Italian and French verse-forms among the English writers of the 16th century. Wyatt was influenced by Serafino dell' Aquila, Pietro Aretino, Luigi Alamanni, Sannazaro, and other French and Italian poets of the time. His own poetry is characterized by extreme irregularity of rhythm, which 19th-century scholars regarded as evidence of crudity of technique. In the 20th century, however, critics began to point out that this irregularity was important in the total effect of the poems, comparing it with the dramatic rhythm of John Donne; they also praised the vigor and authentic intensity of feeling embodied in Wyatt's best poems. His work appeared in several anthologies of his time, as Seven Penitential Psalms ( 1549), a collection of religious poetry in imitation of a similar undertaking by Aretino; The Court of Venus ( 1542); and Tottel's Miscellany ( 1557).
Wyatt held a number of official positions under Henry VIII, including those of member of the Privy Council, ambassador to Spain, Member of Parliament, and Commander of the Fleet. During his career he was twice imprisoned: once at the time of the fall of Anne Boleyn, whose lover he was suspected of being; and again in 1541, during his ambassadorship to Spain, when he was charged with treason, although he was later able to clear himself. It was during an official trip to Italy in 1527 that he became acquainted with the work of the Italian love-poets. He was a friend of the Earl of Surrey and had a strong influence on the writing of the younger man; together, Wyatt and Surrey are credited as the founders of the school of English lyric poetry which flourished during the remainder of the 16th century and into the 17th.
English poet, known for his production of the first sonnets in English in his translations of Petrarch and for his popularization of other Italian and French verse-forms among the English writers of the 16th century. Wyatt was influenced by Serafino dell' Aquila, Pietro Aretino, Luigi Alamanni, Sannazaro, and other French and Italian poets of the time. His own poetry is characterized by extreme irregularity of rhythm, which 19th-century scholars regarded as evidence of crudity of technique. In the 20th century, however, critics began to point out that this irregularity was important in the total effect of the poems, comparing it with the dramatic rhythm of John Donne; they also praised the vigor and authentic intensity of feeling embodied in Wyatt's best poems. His work appeared in several anthologies of his time, as Seven Penitential Psalms ( 1549), a collection of religious poetry in imitation of a similar undertaking by Aretino; The Court of Venus ( 1542); and Tottel's Miscellany ( 1557).
Wyatt held a number of official positions under Henry VIII, including those of member of the Privy Council, ambassador to Spain, Member of Parliament, and Commander of the Fleet. During his career he was twice imprisoned: once at the time of the fall of Anne Boleyn, whose lover he was suspected of being; and again in 1541, during his ambassadorship to Spain, when he was charged with treason, although he was later able to clear himself. It was during an official trip to Italy in 1527 that he became acquainted with the work of the Italian love-poets. He was a friend of the Earl of Surrey and had a strong influence on the writing of the younger man; together, Wyatt and Surrey are credited as the founders of the school of English lyric poetry which flourished during the remainder of the 16th century and into the 17th.
Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)
Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)
English poet, with his friend S. T. Coleridge one of the early leaders of Romanticism in England, known for his worship of nature, his humanitarianism, his early sympathy with democratic liberalism, his interest in the lives, daily pursuits, and common speech of lowly people, and his Platonistically tinged pantheism. He was particularly interested in instituting a reform in poetic diction which would employ "a selection of language really used by men," as he proposes in his famous Preface to Lyrical Ballads, and many of his best-known poems make use of what the poet regarded as this "real" language. In later times these came to be considered sentimental and almost comically prosaic, failing in their objective.
Wordsworth's most ambitious works are The Prelude (published in 1850) and the uncompleted The Recluse, long poems autobiographical in character, and The Excursion ( 1814), a long "philosophical" poem. An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches were his earliest works, published in 1793; the bulk of his best-known poetry is contained in Lyrical Ballads ( 1798), which he published jointly with Coleridge. Among well-known shorter poems of Wordsworth are Alice Fell; Michael; Simon Lee; the Lucy poems; Resolution and Independence; The Solitary Reaper; Peter Bell; The Idiot Boy; I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud; Elegiac Stanzas; Nuns Fret Not; The World Is Too Much With Us; Tintern Abbey; Ode On Intimations of Immortality.
In his early youth, Wordsworth was influenced by the ideas of J. J. Rousseau and William Godwin and was an enthusiast for the French Revolution. He stayed in France for a while in 1792 and had a love affair with Annette Vallon, evidence of which was uncovered only in the 20th century. As he grew older, he became increasingly conservative in his political views and orthodox in his religion, living peacefully in the Lake Country of northern England. In 1843 he was appointed Poet Laureate, succeeding Robert Southey.
English poet, with his friend S. T. Coleridge one of the early leaders of Romanticism in England, known for his worship of nature, his humanitarianism, his early sympathy with democratic liberalism, his interest in the lives, daily pursuits, and common speech of lowly people, and his Platonistically tinged pantheism. He was particularly interested in instituting a reform in poetic diction which would employ "a selection of language really used by men," as he proposes in his famous Preface to Lyrical Ballads, and many of his best-known poems make use of what the poet regarded as this "real" language. In later times these came to be considered sentimental and almost comically prosaic, failing in their objective.
Wordsworth's most ambitious works are The Prelude (published in 1850) and the uncompleted The Recluse, long poems autobiographical in character, and The Excursion ( 1814), a long "philosophical" poem. An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches were his earliest works, published in 1793; the bulk of his best-known poetry is contained in Lyrical Ballads ( 1798), which he published jointly with Coleridge. Among well-known shorter poems of Wordsworth are Alice Fell; Michael; Simon Lee; the Lucy poems; Resolution and Independence; The Solitary Reaper; Peter Bell; The Idiot Boy; I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud; Elegiac Stanzas; Nuns Fret Not; The World Is Too Much With Us; Tintern Abbey; Ode On Intimations of Immortality.
In his early youth, Wordsworth was influenced by the ideas of J. J. Rousseau and William Godwin and was an enthusiast for the French Revolution. He stayed in France for a while in 1792 and had a love affair with Annette Vallon, evidence of which was uncovered only in the 20th century. As he grew older, he became increasingly conservative in his political views and orthodox in his religion, living peacefully in the Lake Country of northern England. In 1843 he was appointed Poet Laureate, succeeding Robert Southey.
Woollcott, Alexander Humphreys (1887-1943)
American literary and dramatic critic and journalist, best known for his whimsical and sentimental essays and radio talks expressing his opinions on a variety of subjects, including popular comedians and forgotten murder cases.
His books include Shouts and Murmurs ( 1922) ; Enchanted Aisles ( 1924); Going to Pieces ( 1928); and While Rome Burns ( 1934). He at one time wrote a column for The New Yorker, made lecture tours, and acted on the stage and screen. A notable appearance was in The Man Who Came to Dinner ( 1939), a satirical comedy by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, in which Woollcott played the leading role, portraying a character suggested by his own personality. His death came as the result of a heart-attack while he was making a radio broadcast. His biography, A. Woollcott, His Life and his World, by Samuel Hopkins Adams , was published in 1945. Attempts at Woollcottian characterizations of Woollcott include: "He had the memory of a pachyderm and a pianola's loyalty to the same tune."--"He can be described as the man who couldn't write fiction but who did."--"He was as fascinated by mortals as he was indifferent to the immortals."
American literary and dramatic critic and journalist, best known for his whimsical and sentimental essays and radio talks expressing his opinions on a variety of subjects, including popular comedians and forgotten murder cases.
His books include Shouts and Murmurs ( 1922) ; Enchanted Aisles ( 1924); Going to Pieces ( 1928); and While Rome Burns ( 1934). He at one time wrote a column for The New Yorker, made lecture tours, and acted on the stage and screen. A notable appearance was in The Man Who Came to Dinner ( 1939), a satirical comedy by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, in which Woollcott played the leading role, portraying a character suggested by his own personality. His death came as the result of a heart-attack while he was making a radio broadcast. His biography, A. Woollcott, His Life and his World, by Samuel Hopkins Adams , was published in 1945. Attempts at Woollcottian characterizations of Woollcott include: "He had the memory of a pachyderm and a pianola's loyalty to the same tune."--"He can be described as the man who couldn't write fiction but who did."--"He was as fascinated by mortals as he was indifferent to the immortals."
Woolf, Adeline Virginia, née Stephen (1882-1941)
Woolf, Adeline Virginia, née Stephen (1882-1941)
English novelist and critic, a member of the Blommsbury Group, known for the delicacy and sensitivity of her style, the penetration of her psychological studies, especially of mature women of the English upper classes, her skill in evoking mood in her writing, the intensity of her preoccupation with time, experience, and relationships, and her experiments in the use of the techniques of Interior Monologue and Stream of Consciousness. Among her works are The Voyage Out ( 1915); Night and Day ( 1919); Monday or Tuesday ( 1921); Jacob's Room ( 1922); Mrs. Dalloway ( 1925); The Common Reader ( 1925), criticism; To the Lighthouse ( 1927); Orlando ( 1928), said to have been based on the personality of V. Sackvillve-West; A Room of One's Own ( 1929), essays on women; Beau Brummell ( 1930); The Second Common Reader ( 1932), criticism; The Waves ( 1931), regarded as her best work; A Letter to a Young Poet ( 1932), poetry; Flush, a Biography ( 1933), on the spaniel pet of E. B. Browning; The Years ( 1937); Three Guineas ( 1938), essays on the problems of peace; Roger Fry ( 1940), a biography; Between the Acts ( 1941); The Death of the Moth, And Other Essays ( 1942).
Virginia Woolf, considered one of the most important novelists of the 20th century, was the daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen, a wellknown biographer and literary critic, and was related to a number of the most distinguished scholarly families in England, such as the Darwins, the Symondses, and the Stracheys. She was raised in an atmosphere of literature and learning, receiving her education at home and as a young girl made the acquaintance of numerous outstanding authors of the day. The Bloomsbury Group had its inception in the gatherings of a group of former Cambridge University students and their friends which were held at the home of Virginia and her sister Vanessa. The novelist and her husband, Leonard Woolf, an author, editor, and literary critic, together founded the Hogarth Press, a successful publishing house, known for its limited editions of the works of a number of leading 20th-century English writers, which began as a single hand-press. Depressed at the vision of the world about her at war ( World War II), Mrs. Woolf committed suicide by drowning in 1941. For a study of her work, cf. Virginia Woolf, by David Daiches.
English novelist and critic, a member of the Blommsbury Group, known for the delicacy and sensitivity of her style, the penetration of her psychological studies, especially of mature women of the English upper classes, her skill in evoking mood in her writing, the intensity of her preoccupation with time, experience, and relationships, and her experiments in the use of the techniques of Interior Monologue and Stream of Consciousness. Among her works are The Voyage Out ( 1915); Night and Day ( 1919); Monday or Tuesday ( 1921); Jacob's Room ( 1922); Mrs. Dalloway ( 1925); The Common Reader ( 1925), criticism; To the Lighthouse ( 1927); Orlando ( 1928), said to have been based on the personality of V. Sackvillve-West; A Room of One's Own ( 1929), essays on women; Beau Brummell ( 1930); The Second Common Reader ( 1932), criticism; The Waves ( 1931), regarded as her best work; A Letter to a Young Poet ( 1932), poetry; Flush, a Biography ( 1933), on the spaniel pet of E. B. Browning; The Years ( 1937); Three Guineas ( 1938), essays on the problems of peace; Roger Fry ( 1940), a biography; Between the Acts ( 1941); The Death of the Moth, And Other Essays ( 1942).
Virginia Woolf, considered one of the most important novelists of the 20th century, was the daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen, a wellknown biographer and literary critic, and was related to a number of the most distinguished scholarly families in England, such as the Darwins, the Symondses, and the Stracheys. She was raised in an atmosphere of literature and learning, receiving her education at home and as a young girl made the acquaintance of numerous outstanding authors of the day. The Bloomsbury Group had its inception in the gatherings of a group of former Cambridge University students and their friends which were held at the home of Virginia and her sister Vanessa. The novelist and her husband, Leonard Woolf, an author, editor, and literary critic, together founded the Hogarth Press, a successful publishing house, known for its limited editions of the works of a number of leading 20th-century English writers, which began as a single hand-press. Depressed at the vision of the world about her at war ( World War II), Mrs. Woolf committed suicide by drowning in 1941. For a study of her work, cf. Virginia Woolf, by David Daiches.
Wolfe, Thomas Clayton (1900-1938)
Wolfe, Thomas Clayton (1900-1938)
American novelist, known for the intense individualism, extreme exuberance of spirit, frequently extravagant rhetoric, and mystical celebration of youth, sex, and America which characterize his writings. His work, virtually all of which is autobiographical or semi-autobiographical in character, has been criticized as over-written in many places and naïve in its inordinate subjective emphasis, and has been found to show the influence of Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, and especially James Joyce.
His books include Look Hemward, Angel ( 1929) and its sequel of Time and the River ( 1935); From Death to Morning ( 1935), stories; The Story of a Novel ( 1936), criticism of his own work; The Face of a Nation ( 1939), a collection of excerpts from his various novels; The Web and the Rock ( 1939) and its sequel You Can't Go Home Again ( 1940), posthumously published novels resembling his first two novels. Critical opinion at the time of Wolfe's death was divided on the value and promise of his work.
American novelist, known for the intense individualism, extreme exuberance of spirit, frequently extravagant rhetoric, and mystical celebration of youth, sex, and America which characterize his writings. His work, virtually all of which is autobiographical or semi-autobiographical in character, has been criticized as over-written in many places and naïve in its inordinate subjective emphasis, and has been found to show the influence of Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, and especially James Joyce.
His books include Look Hemward, Angel ( 1929) and its sequel of Time and the River ( 1935); From Death to Morning ( 1935), stories; The Story of a Novel ( 1936), criticism of his own work; The Face of a Nation ( 1939), a collection of excerpts from his various novels; The Web and the Rock ( 1939) and its sequel You Can't Go Home Again ( 1940), posthumously published novels resembling his first two novels. Critical opinion at the time of Wolfe's death was divided on the value and promise of his work.
Wither, George (1588-1667)
Wither, George (1588-1667)
English poet, a friend of William Browne, with whom he was associated in the small group of poets at the beginning of the 17th century, who wrote in the pastoral style of Edmund Spenser. His verse publications include The Shepherd's Pipe ( 1614), a collection of eclogues to which Browne and John Davies of Hereford also contributed; Shepherd's Hunting ( 1615); Fidelia ( 1615); Fair Virtue ( 1622).
He also wrote Abuses Stript and Whipt, a book of satires for the publication of which he was sentenced to prison, several volumes of hymns and psalms, and a number of pamphlets on questions of religious and political controversy of the time. Wither was of strong Puritan sympathies and during the Civil War was a captain in the Parliamentary army. It is said that on one occasion he was saved from hanging by the Royalists by the plea by Sir John DENHAM that "whilst [Wither] lived, he [Denham] should not be the worst poet in England."
English poet, a friend of William Browne, with whom he was associated in the small group of poets at the beginning of the 17th century, who wrote in the pastoral style of Edmund Spenser. His verse publications include The Shepherd's Pipe ( 1614), a collection of eclogues to which Browne and John Davies of Hereford also contributed; Shepherd's Hunting ( 1615); Fidelia ( 1615); Fair Virtue ( 1622).
He also wrote Abuses Stript and Whipt, a book of satires for the publication of which he was sentenced to prison, several volumes of hymns and psalms, and a number of pamphlets on questions of religious and political controversy of the time. Wither was of strong Puritan sympathies and during the Civil War was a captain in the Parliamentary army. It is said that on one occasion he was saved from hanging by the Royalists by the plea by Sir John DENHAM that "whilst [Wither] lived, he [Denham] should not be the worst poet in England."
Wise, John (1652-1725)
Wise, John (1652-1725)
American clergyman of New England, known for his opposition to the strict Calvinist doctrine of the "elect" and for his espousal of the cause of democracy and equality a number of years before the American Revolution.
His two famous works are The Church's Quarrel Espoused ( 1710), an attack in satire on a proposal by the Mathers to set up a centralized control of the New England churches; and A Vindication of the Government of New England Churches ( 1717), an assertion of the doctrine of the natural rights of mankind, which Wise was the first American to employ in a plea for political democracy. In 1687 he attracted attention by leading his congregation in a refusal to pay taxes imposed on them by Governor Andros, and was arrested and imprisoned. His writings were widely read in the days of the Revolution.
American clergyman of New England, known for his opposition to the strict Calvinist doctrine of the "elect" and for his espousal of the cause of democracy and equality a number of years before the American Revolution.
His two famous works are The Church's Quarrel Espoused ( 1710), an attack in satire on a proposal by the Mathers to set up a centralized control of the New England churches; and A Vindication of the Government of New England Churches ( 1717), an assertion of the doctrine of the natural rights of mankind, which Wise was the first American to employ in a plea for political democracy. In 1687 he attracted attention by leading his congregation in a refusal to pay taxes imposed on them by Governor Andros, and was arrested and imprisoned. His writings were widely read in the days of the Revolution.
Williams, Roger (ca. 1603-1683)
Williams, Roger (ca. 1603-1683)
Englishborn New England Protestant clergyman, known for his individualistic views on religion, politics, and democracy in political and ecclesiastical government. Progressing in belief from the Anglicans through the Separatists and Baptists to the Seekers, he was expelled from Massachusetts for establishing a democratic organization in his church at Salem, and founded the colony of Rhode Island. He was a friend of both Milton and Cromwell in England, took part in the English Civil War, and engaged in a vigorous pamphlet controversy with the Puritan John Cotton. His works include A Key into the Language of America ( 1643), a study of Indian languages; Queries of Highest Consideration ( 1643), a plea addressed to the English Parliament against the establishment of a national church; Mr. Cotton Letter Lately Printed, Examined, and Answered ( 1644); The Bloody Tenent of Persecution ( 1644), his most famous work; The Bloody Tenent Yet More Bloody ( 1652); The Hireling Ministry None of Christ's ( 1652); George Foxe Digged Out of His Burrows ( 1676).
Williams befriended the Indians and established a democratic government in Rhode Island, permitting complete religious toleration, although he did attack the views of the Quakers and engaged in a bitter dispute with them. He is considered one of the most important crusaders for democratic rights in the American colonies in the period before the Revolution.
Englishborn New England Protestant clergyman, known for his individualistic views on religion, politics, and democracy in political and ecclesiastical government. Progressing in belief from the Anglicans through the Separatists and Baptists to the Seekers, he was expelled from Massachusetts for establishing a democratic organization in his church at Salem, and founded the colony of Rhode Island. He was a friend of both Milton and Cromwell in England, took part in the English Civil War, and engaged in a vigorous pamphlet controversy with the Puritan John Cotton. His works include A Key into the Language of America ( 1643), a study of Indian languages; Queries of Highest Consideration ( 1643), a plea addressed to the English Parliament against the establishment of a national church; Mr. Cotton Letter Lately Printed, Examined, and Answered ( 1644); The Bloody Tenent of Persecution ( 1644), his most famous work; The Bloody Tenent Yet More Bloody ( 1652); The Hireling Ministry None of Christ's ( 1652); George Foxe Digged Out of His Burrows ( 1676).
Williams befriended the Indians and established a democratic government in Rhode Island, permitting complete religious toleration, although he did attack the views of the Quakers and engaged in a bitter dispute with them. He is considered one of the most important crusaders for democratic rights in the American colonies in the period before the Revolution.
Wilde, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertic Wills (1856-1900)
Wilde, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertic Wills (1856-1900)
Irish-born English playwright, poet, and prose-writer, known for his eccentricity and affectation of behavior and the brilliant wit and paradox of his society comedies. During his undergraduate years at Oxford he became the leader of an English aesthetic movement, given impetus by the Preraphaelite Brotherhood and the theories of Walter Pater, which advocated "Art For Art's Sake" and sought to cultivate the hyperaesthetic characteristics of the contemporary Decadents in France. Wilde's works include Poems ( 1881); The Happy Prince, And Other Tales ( 1888), a collection of fairy tales and allegories; The Picture of Dorian Gray ( 1891), a novel in the form of a moral allegory; The House of Pomegranates ( 1892), another group of fairy stories; Intentions ( 1892), a collection of reviews and critical studies; Poems ( 1892); Lady Windermere's Fan ( 1892), A Woman of No Importance ( 1893), Salomé ( 1893), An Ideal Husband ( 1895), and The Importance of Being Earnest ( 1895), all plays; The Ballad of Reading Gaol ( 1898); and De Profundis ( 1905). The last two works were signed Sebastian Melmoth.
Wilde was the son of a well-known Irish surgeon and an eccentric poetess, Jane Francisca Elgee, who wrote under the name of Speranza. He attracted a deal of attention and ridicule during the period of his active aestheticism, when he wore his hair long, dressed eccentrically, and carried flowers in his hands while lecturing; the Gilbert and Sullivan opera Patience ( 1881) was a burlesque of the "art for art's sake" movement led by him. His plays were very successful and are considered by some critics to be in part forerunners of the similarly witty comedies of George Bernard Shaw. Wilde's career was wrecked when he brought a suit for libel against the Marquis of Queensberry, lost, and, as a result of evidence revealed at the trial, was sentenced to a prison term of two years at Reading Gaol on a charge of abnormal sexual vice. After his release from prison, he spent his last years in Paris in bitterness and despair.
Irish-born English playwright, poet, and prose-writer, known for his eccentricity and affectation of behavior and the brilliant wit and paradox of his society comedies. During his undergraduate years at Oxford he became the leader of an English aesthetic movement, given impetus by the Preraphaelite Brotherhood and the theories of Walter Pater, which advocated "Art For Art's Sake" and sought to cultivate the hyperaesthetic characteristics of the contemporary Decadents in France. Wilde's works include Poems ( 1881); The Happy Prince, And Other Tales ( 1888), a collection of fairy tales and allegories; The Picture of Dorian Gray ( 1891), a novel in the form of a moral allegory; The House of Pomegranates ( 1892), another group of fairy stories; Intentions ( 1892), a collection of reviews and critical studies; Poems ( 1892); Lady Windermere's Fan ( 1892), A Woman of No Importance ( 1893), Salomé ( 1893), An Ideal Husband ( 1895), and The Importance of Being Earnest ( 1895), all plays; The Ballad of Reading Gaol ( 1898); and De Profundis ( 1905). The last two works were signed Sebastian Melmoth.
Wilde was the son of a well-known Irish surgeon and an eccentric poetess, Jane Francisca Elgee, who wrote under the name of Speranza. He attracted a deal of attention and ridicule during the period of his active aestheticism, when he wore his hair long, dressed eccentrically, and carried flowers in his hands while lecturing; the Gilbert and Sullivan opera Patience ( 1881) was a burlesque of the "art for art's sake" movement led by him. His plays were very successful and are considered by some critics to be in part forerunners of the similarly witty comedies of George Bernard Shaw. Wilde's career was wrecked when he brought a suit for libel against the Marquis of Queensberry, lost, and, as a result of evidence revealed at the trial, was sentenced to a prison term of two years at Reading Gaol on a charge of abnormal sexual vice. After his release from prison, he spent his last years in Paris in bitterness and despair.
Wigglesworth, Michael (1631-1705)
Wigglesworth, Michael (1631-1705)
Puritan clergyman and author of early New England, best known for his long poem The Day of Doom ( 1662), extremely popular, republished in the U.S. as late as 1867.
He also wrote Meat Out of the Eater, Or Meditations Concerning the Necessity, End, and Usefulness of Afflictions unto God's Children ( 1669), a theological poem almost as popular in its day as The Day of Doom; God's Controversy with New England, Written in the Time of the Great Drought, Anno 1662, by a Lover of New England's Prosperity, first published in 1871; and a number of shorter poems on theological subjects, such as Death, Expected and Welcomed and A Farewell to the World.
Wigglesworth, both minister and physician at Malden, Massachusetts, during most of career, was a characteristic Puritan of his time, but, unlike the Mathers, he did not take part in the Salem Witchcraft trials, instead ordering public repentance and humiliation of those who did participate in the trials.
Puritan clergyman and author of early New England, best known for his long poem The Day of Doom ( 1662), extremely popular, republished in the U.S. as late as 1867.
He also wrote Meat Out of the Eater, Or Meditations Concerning the Necessity, End, and Usefulness of Afflictions unto God's Children ( 1669), a theological poem almost as popular in its day as The Day of Doom; God's Controversy with New England, Written in the Time of the Great Drought, Anno 1662, by a Lover of New England's Prosperity, first published in 1871; and a number of shorter poems on theological subjects, such as Death, Expected and Welcomed and A Farewell to the World.
Wigglesworth, both minister and physician at Malden, Massachusetts, during most of career, was a characteristic Puritan of his time, but, unlike the Mathers, he did not take part in the Salem Witchcraft trials, instead ordering public repentance and humiliation of those who did participate in the trials.
Whittier, John Greenleaf (1807-1892)
Whittier, John Greenleaf (1807-1892)
American poet, known for his portrayals of everyday life in rural New England, written largely under the influence of Robert BURNS, and for his poems expressing his humanitarian and politically liberal convictions, especially in connection with the anti-slavery movement.
His works include Legends of New England in Prose and Verse ( 1831); Moll Pitcher ( 1832); Mogg Megone ( 1836), a prose account of Indian life in the days of the colonies; Poems Written During the Progress of the Abolition Question ( 1838); Lays of My Home, And Other Poems ( 1843); Voices of Freedom ( 1846), anti-slavery poems; Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, 1678-1679 ( 1849), a prose romance based on records of the Salem Witçhcraft trials; Poems ( 1849); Songs of Labor ( 1850); Old Portraits and Modern Sketches ( 1850) and Literary Recreations and Miscellanies ( 1854), collections of prose; The Chapel of the Hermits ( 1853); The Panorama, And Other Poems ( 1856); Home Ballads, Poems, and Lyrics ( 1860); In War Time, And Other Poems ( 1864); Snow-Bound ( 1866), his bestknown poem, dealing with a heavy snowfall in the countryside of New England, presented in an idyllic vein; The Tent on the Beach ( 1867), narrative verse; Among the Hills ( 1869); Miriam, And Other Poems ( 1871); Hazel Blossoms ( 1875); The Vision of Echard ( 1878); St. Gregory's Guest ( 1886); At Sundown ( 1890). Well-known single poems are The Barefoot Boy, Maud Muller, Ichabod, Skipper Ireson's Ride, and Telling the Bees. Whittier, called "the Quaker Poet," was a fervent and active Abolitionist during a large part of his career.
American poet, known for his portrayals of everyday life in rural New England, written largely under the influence of Robert BURNS, and for his poems expressing his humanitarian and politically liberal convictions, especially in connection with the anti-slavery movement.
His works include Legends of New England in Prose and Verse ( 1831); Moll Pitcher ( 1832); Mogg Megone ( 1836), a prose account of Indian life in the days of the colonies; Poems Written During the Progress of the Abolition Question ( 1838); Lays of My Home, And Other Poems ( 1843); Voices of Freedom ( 1846), anti-slavery poems; Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, 1678-1679 ( 1849), a prose romance based on records of the Salem Witçhcraft trials; Poems ( 1849); Songs of Labor ( 1850); Old Portraits and Modern Sketches ( 1850) and Literary Recreations and Miscellanies ( 1854), collections of prose; The Chapel of the Hermits ( 1853); The Panorama, And Other Poems ( 1856); Home Ballads, Poems, and Lyrics ( 1860); In War Time, And Other Poems ( 1864); Snow-Bound ( 1866), his bestknown poem, dealing with a heavy snowfall in the countryside of New England, presented in an idyllic vein; The Tent on the Beach ( 1867), narrative verse; Among the Hills ( 1869); Miriam, And Other Poems ( 1871); Hazel Blossoms ( 1875); The Vision of Echard ( 1878); St. Gregory's Guest ( 1886); At Sundown ( 1890). Well-known single poems are The Barefoot Boy, Maud Muller, Ichabod, Skipper Ireson's Ride, and Telling the Bees. Whittier, called "the Quaker Poet," was a fervent and active Abolitionist during a large part of his career.
Whitman, Walter, known as Walt Whitman ( 1819-1892)
Whitman, Walter, known as Walt Whitman ( 1819-1892)
American poet, known for the intense individualism of his poetry, his use of Free Verse, and his mystical celebration of America, democracy, and the common man. His poetry, unique among the American verse of his time, is marked by exuberance of spirit, sometimes extravagant rhetoric, extreme love of the sensuous in what some critics have interpreted as a tendency toward homosexuality, a worship of the superior individual, romantic identification of the individual poet with nature and the universe, stress on mystical paradox and conflict, a glorification of democratic equality and the American pioneers, and frequent vivid passages giving a realistic picture of American life in the poet's age, especially in New York City.
In his work critics have found evidence of a number of diverse influences, including those of Shakespeare, the Bible, contemporary oratory, Ossiah, Scott, Italian opera, Homer, Goithe, the philosophy of Hegel, the Nibelungenlied, Dante, Carlyle, the Transcendentalists, and especially Emerson. His works include Leaves of Grass ( 1855), new and revised editions of poems under the same title being issued in 1856, 1860, 1867, 1871, 1876, 1881-1882, 1884, 1889, 1891-1892, 1897, 1900, and so on; Drum-Taps ( 1865); Sequel to Drum-Taps ( 1865-1866); Democratic Vistas ( 1871), a volume of prose; Passage to India ( 1871); As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free, And Other Poems ( 1872); Memoranda during the War ( 1875), prose; Two Rivulets ( 1876); Specimen Days and Collect. ( 1882-1883); November Boughs ( 1888); Good-Bye, My Fancy ( 1891); Calamus ( 1897); The Wound-Dresser ( 1898); Notes and Fragments ( 1899); The Complete Writings ( 1902), ten volumes; An American Primer ( 1904); The Gathering of the Forces ( 1920), a collection of prose writings published in the Brooklyn Eagle; The Uncollected Poetry and Prose ( 1921); Leaves of Grass ( 1926), an inclusive edition; The Half-Breed, And Other Stories ( 1927), a collection of his short stories; I Sit and Look Out ( 1932), a collection of prose writings published in various newspapers. His first work was Franklin Evans, or The Inebriate ( 1842), a temperance novel. Famous single poems are Song of Myself; There Was a Child Went Forth; Crossing Brooklyn Ferry; Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking; I Hear America Singing; Pioneers! O Pioneers!; Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night; When I Heard the Learned Astronomer; When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd; Once I Pass'd Through a Populous City; O Captain! My Captain!; The Base of all Metaphysics.
Whitman, who had very little formal education, taught in a school on Long Island, worked on various newspapers in New York City, Brooklyn, and New Orleans, and lived somewhat as a Bohemian in his youth, being particularly fond of encouraging the growth of colorful legends about himself. During the Civil War he served as a nurse in the army hospitals in Washington, and later worked as a clerk in the Department of the Interior. He suffered a paralytic stroke in 1873 and spent the remainder of his life in retirement. When his work first appeared in the U.S., it shocked the general public; it is said that he lost his government clerkship because the Secretary of the Interior regarded Leaves of Grass as immoral. Whitman was first recognized as an important literary figure in England and France, by such authors as William Rossetti, Robert Louis Stevenson, J. A. Symonds, and A. C. Swinburne; his free verse influenced the vers-libre movement in French poetry. By the 20th century he was regarded as one of the most important writers in the history of American literature and had a strong influence on a number of 20th-century American poets, especially Carl Sandburg, and the proletarian poets of the 1930's. For a study of Walt Whitman and his poetry, cf. American Renaissance, by F. O. Matthiessen.
American poet, known for the intense individualism of his poetry, his use of Free Verse, and his mystical celebration of America, democracy, and the common man. His poetry, unique among the American verse of his time, is marked by exuberance of spirit, sometimes extravagant rhetoric, extreme love of the sensuous in what some critics have interpreted as a tendency toward homosexuality, a worship of the superior individual, romantic identification of the individual poet with nature and the universe, stress on mystical paradox and conflict, a glorification of democratic equality and the American pioneers, and frequent vivid passages giving a realistic picture of American life in the poet's age, especially in New York City.
In his work critics have found evidence of a number of diverse influences, including those of Shakespeare, the Bible, contemporary oratory, Ossiah, Scott, Italian opera, Homer, Goithe, the philosophy of Hegel, the Nibelungenlied, Dante, Carlyle, the Transcendentalists, and especially Emerson. His works include Leaves of Grass ( 1855), new and revised editions of poems under the same title being issued in 1856, 1860, 1867, 1871, 1876, 1881-1882, 1884, 1889, 1891-1892, 1897, 1900, and so on; Drum-Taps ( 1865); Sequel to Drum-Taps ( 1865-1866); Democratic Vistas ( 1871), a volume of prose; Passage to India ( 1871); As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free, And Other Poems ( 1872); Memoranda during the War ( 1875), prose; Two Rivulets ( 1876); Specimen Days and Collect. ( 1882-1883); November Boughs ( 1888); Good-Bye, My Fancy ( 1891); Calamus ( 1897); The Wound-Dresser ( 1898); Notes and Fragments ( 1899); The Complete Writings ( 1902), ten volumes; An American Primer ( 1904); The Gathering of the Forces ( 1920), a collection of prose writings published in the Brooklyn Eagle; The Uncollected Poetry and Prose ( 1921); Leaves of Grass ( 1926), an inclusive edition; The Half-Breed, And Other Stories ( 1927), a collection of his short stories; I Sit and Look Out ( 1932), a collection of prose writings published in various newspapers. His first work was Franklin Evans, or The Inebriate ( 1842), a temperance novel. Famous single poems are Song of Myself; There Was a Child Went Forth; Crossing Brooklyn Ferry; Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking; I Hear America Singing; Pioneers! O Pioneers!; Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night; When I Heard the Learned Astronomer; When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd; Once I Pass'd Through a Populous City; O Captain! My Captain!; The Base of all Metaphysics.
Whitman, who had very little formal education, taught in a school on Long Island, worked on various newspapers in New York City, Brooklyn, and New Orleans, and lived somewhat as a Bohemian in his youth, being particularly fond of encouraging the growth of colorful legends about himself. During the Civil War he served as a nurse in the army hospitals in Washington, and later worked as a clerk in the Department of the Interior. He suffered a paralytic stroke in 1873 and spent the remainder of his life in retirement. When his work first appeared in the U.S., it shocked the general public; it is said that he lost his government clerkship because the Secretary of the Interior regarded Leaves of Grass as immoral. Whitman was first recognized as an important literary figure in England and France, by such authors as William Rossetti, Robert Louis Stevenson, J. A. Symonds, and A. C. Swinburne; his free verse influenced the vers-libre movement in French poetry. By the 20th century he was regarded as one of the most important writers in the history of American literature and had a strong influence on a number of 20th-century American poets, especially Carl Sandburg, and the proletarian poets of the 1930's. For a study of Walt Whitman and his poetry, cf. American Renaissance, by F. O. Matthiessen.
Whistler, Rex John (1905-1944)
Whistler, Rex John (1905-1944)
English painter who did murals for the Tate Gallery in London and illustrated Gulliver's Travels; Desert Island; etc. He also did stage settings, as for Victoria Regina, by Laurence Housman. white denotes purity, simplicity, and candor; innocence, truth, and hope.
The ancient Druids, and indeed the priests generally of antiquity, used to wear white vestments, as do the clergy of the Established Church of England when they officiate in any sacred service. The Magi also wore white robes.
The head of Osiris, in ancient Egypt, was adorned with a white tiara; all his ornaments were white and his priests were clad in white.
The priests of Jupiter, and the Flamen Dialis of Rome, were clothed in white, and wore white hats. The victims offered to Jupiter wore white. The Roman festivals were marked with white chalk, and at the death of a Caesar the national mourning was white; white horses were sacrificed to the sun, white oxen were selected for sacrifice by the Druids, and white elephants are held sacred in Siam.
The Persians affirm that the divinities are habited in white.
English painter who did murals for the Tate Gallery in London and illustrated Gulliver's Travels; Desert Island; etc. He also did stage settings, as for Victoria Regina, by Laurence Housman. white denotes purity, simplicity, and candor; innocence, truth, and hope.
The ancient Druids, and indeed the priests generally of antiquity, used to wear white vestments, as do the clergy of the Established Church of England when they officiate in any sacred service. The Magi also wore white robes.
The head of Osiris, in ancient Egypt, was adorned with a white tiara; all his ornaments were white and his priests were clad in white.
The priests of Jupiter, and the Flamen Dialis of Rome, were clothed in white, and wore white hats. The victims offered to Jupiter wore white. The Roman festivals were marked with white chalk, and at the death of a Caesar the national mourning was white; white horses were sacrificed to the sun, white oxen were selected for sacrifice by the Druids, and white elephants are held sacred in Siam.
The Persians affirm that the divinities are habited in white.
Wharton, Edith Newbold Jones (1862-1937)
Wharton, Edith Newbold Jones (1862-1937)
American novelist and short-story writer, strongly influenced by Henry James, best known for her studies of the tragedies and ironies in the lives of members of middle-class and aristocratic New York society in the 19th century. Her work is marked by penetrating psychological characterization, a preoccupation with moral problems, and a strict adherence to artistic form; in addition to that of James, the influence of Gustave Flaubert, George Eliot, Paul Bourget, and Marcel Proust has been found in her books.
Her works include The Greater Inclination ( 1899), short stories; The Touchstone ( 1900); Crucial Instances ( 1901), short stories; The Valley of Decision ( 1902); Sanctuary ( 1903); Italian Backgrounds ( 1905); The House of Mirth ( 1905); Madame de Treymes ( 1907); The Fruit of the Tree ( 1907); The Hermit and the Wild Woman ( 1908), short stories; Artemis to Actaeon ( 1909), poetry; Tales of Men and Ghosts ( 1910); Ethan Frome ( 1911); The Reef ( 1912); The Costum of the Country ( 1913); Fighting France ( 1915), on World War I; Xingu, and Other Stories ( 1916); Summer ( 1917); French Ways and Their Meaning ( 1919); The Marne ( 1918); In Morocco ( 1920); THhe Age of Innocence ( 1920), awarded the 1921 Pulitzer prize; Glimpses of the Moon ( 1922); A Son at the Front ( 1923); Old New York ( 1924), consisting of False Dawn, The Old Maid, The Spark, and New Year's Day, all novelettes; The Writing of Fiction ( 1925); The Mother's Recompense ( 1925); Here and Beyond ( 1926), short stories; Twilight Sleep ( 1927); The Children ( 1928); Hudson River Bracketed ( 1929), to which The Gods Arrive ( 1932) is a sequel; Certain People ( 1930), Human Nature ( 1933), The World Over ( 1936), and Ghosts ( 1937), more volumes of short stories; A Backward Glance ( 1934), an autobiography; The Buccaneers ( 1938), an uncompleted novel. The House of Mirth, The Old Maid (a Pulitzer prize-winning play), and Ethan Frome were successfully dramatized.
American novelist and short-story writer, strongly influenced by Henry James, best known for her studies of the tragedies and ironies in the lives of members of middle-class and aristocratic New York society in the 19th century. Her work is marked by penetrating psychological characterization, a preoccupation with moral problems, and a strict adherence to artistic form; in addition to that of James, the influence of Gustave Flaubert, George Eliot, Paul Bourget, and Marcel Proust has been found in her books.
Her works include The Greater Inclination ( 1899), short stories; The Touchstone ( 1900); Crucial Instances ( 1901), short stories; The Valley of Decision ( 1902); Sanctuary ( 1903); Italian Backgrounds ( 1905); The House of Mirth ( 1905); Madame de Treymes ( 1907); The Fruit of the Tree ( 1907); The Hermit and the Wild Woman ( 1908), short stories; Artemis to Actaeon ( 1909), poetry; Tales of Men and Ghosts ( 1910); Ethan Frome ( 1911); The Reef ( 1912); The Costum of the Country ( 1913); Fighting France ( 1915), on World War I; Xingu, and Other Stories ( 1916); Summer ( 1917); French Ways and Their Meaning ( 1919); The Marne ( 1918); In Morocco ( 1920); THhe Age of Innocence ( 1920), awarded the 1921 Pulitzer prize; Glimpses of the Moon ( 1922); A Son at the Front ( 1923); Old New York ( 1924), consisting of False Dawn, The Old Maid, The Spark, and New Year's Day, all novelettes; The Writing of Fiction ( 1925); The Mother's Recompense ( 1925); Here and Beyond ( 1926), short stories; Twilight Sleep ( 1927); The Children ( 1928); Hudson River Bracketed ( 1929), to which The Gods Arrive ( 1932) is a sequel; Certain People ( 1930), Human Nature ( 1933), The World Over ( 1936), and Ghosts ( 1937), more volumes of short stories; A Backward Glance ( 1934), an autobiography; The Buccaneers ( 1938), an uncompleted novel. The House of Mirth, The Old Maid (a Pulitzer prize-winning play), and Ethan Frome were successfully dramatized.
Werfel, Franz (1890-1945)
Werfel, Franz (1890-1945)
Austrian poet, novelist, and playwright, born at Prague of Jewish parents, best known for his works expressing a semi-mystical belief in the brotherhood of man, the most outstanding being the best-selling novels The Forty Days of Musa Dagh (Die Vierzig Tage des Musa Dagh; 1934), concerning an Armenian siege during World War I, and The Song of Bernadette (Das Lied von Bernadette; 1942), the life of a French saint.
Other works include Weltfreund ( 1911), Wir Sind ( 1913), and Einander ( 1915), books of poetry; Verdi ( 1924); The Man Who Conquered Death ( 1927), a translation of Der Tod das Kleinbürgers; Paulus unter den Juden (Paul Among the Jews; 1928), a tragedy; Goat Song (Bockgesang; 1926), a play; Juarez and Maximilian ( 1926), a play; Class Reunion ( 1929), a translation of Der Abituriententag; The Pure in Heart ( 1932), a translation of Barbara, oder die Frömmigkeit ( 1929); The Pascarella Family ( 1932), a translation of Die Geschwister von Neapel; The Eternal Road (Der Weg der Verheissung; 1936), a Biblical pageant; Hearken unto the Voice (Höret die Stimme; 1938); Embezzled Heaven (Der Veruntreute Himmel; 1940).
Werfel was in France during World War II when that country was invaded by the German army ( 1940), and he took refuge in the church of St. Bernadette. It is said that he vowed to dedicate a literary work to the saint if he should make his escape. He eventually escaped to the U.S., and the successful Song of Bernadette was announced to have been inspired by his experience. His last work, The Star of the Unborn ( 1945), is a vast and fantastic panoratna of the experiences of F. W. (═ Franz Werfel) in a distant future when only the Jews and the Catholics from among our denominations will have survived.
Austrian poet, novelist, and playwright, born at Prague of Jewish parents, best known for his works expressing a semi-mystical belief in the brotherhood of man, the most outstanding being the best-selling novels The Forty Days of Musa Dagh (Die Vierzig Tage des Musa Dagh; 1934), concerning an Armenian siege during World War I, and The Song of Bernadette (Das Lied von Bernadette; 1942), the life of a French saint.
Other works include Weltfreund ( 1911), Wir Sind ( 1913), and Einander ( 1915), books of poetry; Verdi ( 1924); The Man Who Conquered Death ( 1927), a translation of Der Tod das Kleinbürgers; Paulus unter den Juden (Paul Among the Jews; 1928), a tragedy; Goat Song (Bockgesang; 1926), a play; Juarez and Maximilian ( 1926), a play; Class Reunion ( 1929), a translation of Der Abituriententag; The Pure in Heart ( 1932), a translation of Barbara, oder die Frömmigkeit ( 1929); The Pascarella Family ( 1932), a translation of Die Geschwister von Neapel; The Eternal Road (Der Weg der Verheissung; 1936), a Biblical pageant; Hearken unto the Voice (Höret die Stimme; 1938); Embezzled Heaven (Der Veruntreute Himmel; 1940).
Werfel was in France during World War II when that country was invaded by the German army ( 1940), and he took refuge in the church of St. Bernadette. It is said that he vowed to dedicate a literary work to the saint if he should make his escape. He eventually escaped to the U.S., and the successful Song of Bernadette was announced to have been inspired by his experience. His last work, The Star of the Unborn ( 1945), is a vast and fantastic panoratna of the experiences of F. W. (═ Franz Werfel) in a distant future when only the Jews and the Catholics from among our denominations will have survived.
Wells, Herbert George (1866-1946)
Wells, Herbert George (1866-1946)
English novelist and journalist, known for his popular fantasies on pseudo-scientific themes, his satires on the English life of his day, his popularized accounts of history and science, and his outspoken social and political theories.
His works include Select Conversations with an Uncle ( 1895); The Island of Dr. Moreau ( 1896); The Time Machine ( 1895); The Invisible Man ( 1897); Thirty Strange Stories ( 1897); The War of the Worlds ( 1898); Tales of Space and Time ( 1899); Love and Mr. Lewisham ( 1899); When the Sleeper Wakes ( 1899); The Sea Lady ( 1902); A Modern Utopia ( 1904); Twelve Stories and a Dream ( 1905); Kipps ( 1905); The Misery of Boots ( 1907); Tono-Bungay ( 1908); The War in the Air ( 1908); Ann Veronica ( 1909); New Worlds for Old ( 1908); The History of Mr. Polly ( 1910); The New Machiavelli ( 1910); Marriage ( 1912); The Passionate Friends ( 1913); The Wife Of Sir İsaac Harman ( 1914); The Research Magnificent ( 1915); Mr. Britling Sees It Through ( 1916); War and the Future ( 1917); The Soul of a Bishop ( 1917); The Undying Fire ( 1919); The Outline of History ( 1920); The Salvaging of Civilization ( 1921); Men Like Gods ( 1923); A Short History of the World ( 1925); Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island ( 1928); The Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution ( 1928); The King Who Was a King ( 1929); The Autocracy of Mr. Parham ( 1930); The Way to World Peace ( 1930); The Work, Wealth, and Happiness of Mankind ( 1931); The Shape of Things to Come ( 1933); The Anatomy of Frustration ( 1936); Star Begotten ( 1937); Man's Mind and Behavior ( 1937); Apropos of Dolores ( 1938); The Brothers ( 1938); All Aboard for Ararat ( 1940); Babes in the Darkling Wood ( 1940); The New World Order ( 1940); Phoenix: A Summary of the Inescapable Conditions of World Reorganization ( 1942); You Can't Be Too Careful ( 1942).
Wells was the son of a small shopkeeper and was himself apprenticed to dry-goods dealers and druggists before going to college. In his early career he taught and was a student of biology and sociology, subjects which greatly influenced his writings and his ideas. He aroused much controversy by his criticisms of 20th-century society and his sensational predictions of the future, such as tanks, air warfare, and the atomic bomb.
English novelist and journalist, known for his popular fantasies on pseudo-scientific themes, his satires on the English life of his day, his popularized accounts of history and science, and his outspoken social and political theories.
His works include Select Conversations with an Uncle ( 1895); The Island of Dr. Moreau ( 1896); The Time Machine ( 1895); The Invisible Man ( 1897); Thirty Strange Stories ( 1897); The War of the Worlds ( 1898); Tales of Space and Time ( 1899); Love and Mr. Lewisham ( 1899); When the Sleeper Wakes ( 1899); The Sea Lady ( 1902); A Modern Utopia ( 1904); Twelve Stories and a Dream ( 1905); Kipps ( 1905); The Misery of Boots ( 1907); Tono-Bungay ( 1908); The War in the Air ( 1908); Ann Veronica ( 1909); New Worlds for Old ( 1908); The History of Mr. Polly ( 1910); The New Machiavelli ( 1910); Marriage ( 1912); The Passionate Friends ( 1913); The Wife Of Sir İsaac Harman ( 1914); The Research Magnificent ( 1915); Mr. Britling Sees It Through ( 1916); War and the Future ( 1917); The Soul of a Bishop ( 1917); The Undying Fire ( 1919); The Outline of History ( 1920); The Salvaging of Civilization ( 1921); Men Like Gods ( 1923); A Short History of the World ( 1925); Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island ( 1928); The Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution ( 1928); The King Who Was a King ( 1929); The Autocracy of Mr. Parham ( 1930); The Way to World Peace ( 1930); The Work, Wealth, and Happiness of Mankind ( 1931); The Shape of Things to Come ( 1933); The Anatomy of Frustration ( 1936); Star Begotten ( 1937); Man's Mind and Behavior ( 1937); Apropos of Dolores ( 1938); The Brothers ( 1938); All Aboard for Ararat ( 1940); Babes in the Darkling Wood ( 1940); The New World Order ( 1940); Phoenix: A Summary of the Inescapable Conditions of World Reorganization ( 1942); You Can't Be Too Careful ( 1942).
Wells was the son of a small shopkeeper and was himself apprenticed to dry-goods dealers and druggists before going to college. In his early career he taught and was a student of biology and sociology, subjects which greatly influenced his writings and his ideas. He aroused much controversy by his criticisms of 20th-century society and his sensational predictions of the future, such as tanks, air warfare, and the atomic bomb.
Walpole, Sir Hugh Seymour (1884-1941)
Walpole, Sir Hugh Seymour (1884-1941)
English novelist, born in New Zealand, author of best-selling novels dealing chiefly with middle- and upper-class English life.
His books include The Wooden Horse ( 1909); Maradick at Forty ( 1910); Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill ( 1911); The Prelude to Adventure ( 1912); Fortitude ( 1913), his best-known work; The Duchess of Wrexe ( 1914); The Golden Scarecrow ( 1915); The Dark Forest ( 1916); The Green Mirror ( 1918); The Secret City ( 1919); Jeremy ( 1919), Jeremy and Hamlet ( 1923), and Jeremy at Crale ( 1927); The Captives ( 1920); The Thirteen Travelers ( 1921); The Cathedral ( 1922); The Young Enchanted ( 1922); The Old Ladies ( 1924); Portrait of a Man with Red Hair ( 1925); Harmer John ( 1926); Wintersmoon ( 1928); The Silver Thorn ( 1928); Farthing Hall ( 1929), written with J. B. Priestley; Hans Frost ( 1929); Rogue Herries ( 1930), Judith Paris ( 1931), The Fortress ( 1932), and Vanessa ( 1933), a historical tetralogy; Above the Dark Tumult ( 1931); All Souls' Night ( 1933), a collection of stories; Captain Nicholas ( 1934); The Inquisitor ( 1935); A Prayer for My Son ( 1936); John Cornelius ( 1937); The Joyful Delaneys ( 1938); The Haxtons ( 1939), a play; The Sea Tower ( 1939); Roman Fountain ( 1940); The Bright Pavilions ( 1940); The Blind Man's House ( 1941); The Killer and the Slain ( 1942); Katherine Christian ( 1943), an unfinished novel.
English novelist, born in New Zealand, author of best-selling novels dealing chiefly with middle- and upper-class English life.
His books include The Wooden Horse ( 1909); Maradick at Forty ( 1910); Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill ( 1911); The Prelude to Adventure ( 1912); Fortitude ( 1913), his best-known work; The Duchess of Wrexe ( 1914); The Golden Scarecrow ( 1915); The Dark Forest ( 1916); The Green Mirror ( 1918); The Secret City ( 1919); Jeremy ( 1919), Jeremy and Hamlet ( 1923), and Jeremy at Crale ( 1927); The Captives ( 1920); The Thirteen Travelers ( 1921); The Cathedral ( 1922); The Young Enchanted ( 1922); The Old Ladies ( 1924); Portrait of a Man with Red Hair ( 1925); Harmer John ( 1926); Wintersmoon ( 1928); The Silver Thorn ( 1928); Farthing Hall ( 1929), written with J. B. Priestley; Hans Frost ( 1929); Rogue Herries ( 1930), Judith Paris ( 1931), The Fortress ( 1932), and Vanessa ( 1933), a historical tetralogy; Above the Dark Tumult ( 1931); All Souls' Night ( 1933), a collection of stories; Captain Nicholas ( 1934); The Inquisitor ( 1935); A Prayer for My Son ( 1936); John Cornelius ( 1937); The Joyful Delaneys ( 1938); The Haxtons ( 1939), a play; The Sea Tower ( 1939); Roman Fountain ( 1940); The Bright Pavilions ( 1940); The Blind Man's House ( 1941); The Killer and the Slain ( 1942); Katherine Christian ( 1943), an unfinished novel.
Wagner, Richard (1813-1883)
Wagner, Richard (1813-1883)
German musician and author. His major works, though often called operas, were designed as Gesammtkunstwerke ("works of all-arts-inone") with poetry, music, dance, etc., collaborating under the authorship of one creative genius. Posterity has decided that Wagner was (first) a great musician, (second) a secondrate poet, and (third) a man of various avocations. His "music dramas" (the term is his) stress characterization and continuity of action, they work with Leitmotiv and endless melodies, and abandon the bravura and stilted artifice of the operatic tradition. The subject matter of most of his works is drawn from Teutonic and German mythology or history. Wagner has been both praised and attacked as an exponent of heroic or tin-and-brass nationalism. Nietzsche, who had admired him greatly, came to despise him ferociously. For the performance of his works he founded the Festspielhaus (completed 1876), at Bayreuth.
His major work is Der Ring Des Nibelungen, based on the Nibelungenlied, the Völsunga Saga, and the Edda, and comprising an introduction, Das Rheingold (1st performance, 1869), and 3 parts: Die Walküre (1st performance, 1870); Siegfried (1st performance, 1876); and Götterdämmerung (1st performance, 1876). His only comedy, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1st performance, 1868), is a flawless masterpiece. It is performed, in Europe as well as in the U.S., more often than any of his other works.
His wife, Cosima Wagner, née Liszt ( 18371930), a daughter of Franz Liszt, was instrumental in securing funds for the establishment of the Bayreuther Festspielhaus. Their son, Siegfried Wagner ( 1869-1930), also a musician, was conductor of his father's works at Bayreuth.
German musician and author. His major works, though often called operas, were designed as Gesammtkunstwerke ("works of all-arts-inone") with poetry, music, dance, etc., collaborating under the authorship of one creative genius. Posterity has decided that Wagner was (first) a great musician, (second) a secondrate poet, and (third) a man of various avocations. His "music dramas" (the term is his) stress characterization and continuity of action, they work with Leitmotiv and endless melodies, and abandon the bravura and stilted artifice of the operatic tradition. The subject matter of most of his works is drawn from Teutonic and German mythology or history. Wagner has been both praised and attacked as an exponent of heroic or tin-and-brass nationalism. Nietzsche, who had admired him greatly, came to despise him ferociously. For the performance of his works he founded the Festspielhaus (completed 1876), at Bayreuth.
His major work is Der Ring Des Nibelungen, based on the Nibelungenlied, the Völsunga Saga, and the Edda, and comprising an introduction, Das Rheingold (1st performance, 1869), and 3 parts: Die Walküre (1st performance, 1870); Siegfried (1st performance, 1876); and Götterdämmerung (1st performance, 1876). His only comedy, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1st performance, 1868), is a flawless masterpiece. It is performed, in Europe as well as in the U.S., more often than any of his other works.
His wife, Cosima Wagner, née Liszt ( 18371930), a daughter of Franz Liszt, was instrumental in securing funds for the establishment of the Bayreuther Festspielhaus. Their son, Siegfried Wagner ( 1869-1930), also a musician, was conductor of his father's works at Bayreuth.
Zweig, Stefan (1881-1942)
Zweig, Stefan (1881-1942)
Austrian playwright, author, and biographer, of Jewish parentage, best known for his psychological portraits of literary and historical figures.
Among his works are Paul Verlaine ( 1913); Emile Verhaeren ( 1914); Jeremiah ( 1917), an allegorical play attacking war; Romain Rolland ( 1921); Passion and Pain ( 1925); Invisible Collection ( 1926); Conflicts ( 1927), three psychological novelettes; Adepts in Self-Portraiture ( 1928), on Casanova , Stendhal, and Tolstoi; Three Masters ( 1930), on Balzac, Dickens, and Dostoyevsky; Joseph Fouché ( 1930); Mental Healers ( 1932), on Franz Mesmer, Mary Baker Eddy, and Sigmund Freud; Marie Antoinette ( 1932); Kaleidoscope ( 1934), stories; Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles ( 1935); The Right to Heresy ( 1936); Conqueror of the Seas ( 1938), on Magellan; The Tide of Fortune ( 1940); Brazil, Land of the Future ( 1941); etc. As an expatriate in Brazil, Stefan Zweig took his own life. His autobiography appeared under the title of The World of Yesterday ( 1942). Cf. also Stefan Zweig by Friderike Zweig ( 1946).
Austrian playwright, author, and biographer, of Jewish parentage, best known for his psychological portraits of literary and historical figures.
Among his works are Paul Verlaine ( 1913); Emile Verhaeren ( 1914); Jeremiah ( 1917), an allegorical play attacking war; Romain Rolland ( 1921); Passion and Pain ( 1925); Invisible Collection ( 1926); Conflicts ( 1927), three psychological novelettes; Adepts in Self-Portraiture ( 1928), on Casanova , Stendhal, and Tolstoi; Three Masters ( 1930), on Balzac, Dickens, and Dostoyevsky; Joseph Fouché ( 1930); Mental Healers ( 1932), on Franz Mesmer, Mary Baker Eddy, and Sigmund Freud; Marie Antoinette ( 1932); Kaleidoscope ( 1934), stories; Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles ( 1935); The Right to Heresy ( 1936); Conqueror of the Seas ( 1938), on Magellan; The Tide of Fortune ( 1940); Brazil, Land of the Future ( 1941); etc. As an expatriate in Brazil, Stefan Zweig took his own life. His autobiography appeared under the title of The World of Yesterday ( 1942). Cf. also Stefan Zweig by Friderike Zweig ( 1946).
Zola, Émile (1840-1902)
Zola, Émile (1840-1902)
French novelist, son of an Italian father, known for his leadership of the school of Naturalism. His works, marked by scrupulous accuracy of background, speech, and psychological traits, and a determinism of character by heredity and environment which has been compared to that of Taine, include Thérèse Raquin ( 1867); Les Soirées de Medan ( 1880), stories of the Franco-Prussian War, regarded as a manifesto of Zola's group of naturalist writers ( Maupassant, Huysmans, Paul Alexis, Céard, Hennique); Le Roman Expérimentale ( 1880) and Les Romanciers Naturalistes ( 1881), books of criticism, explaining his method and his theories; the novels in the Rougon-Macquart series ( 1871-1893); the Trois Villes series ( 1894-1897); the Quatre Evangiles series ( 1897-), which was left incomplete at the author's death; and J'Accue ( 1898).
Zola was a clerk in a publishing house in the early part of his career, and later became a journalist. He spent most of his life as a recluse (cf. Balzac, Daudet, Flaubert, Goncourt brothers), writing his numerous novels, for the background of which he studied factual monographs and prepared actual dossiers for the characters, as though for real people. His work was attacked for immorality, exaggeration, and lack of taste, and caused much controversy in its day. Zola himself had strong humanitarian sympathies, especially favoring the working class; in 1898 he aroused official wrath by his defense of Dreyfus, and was sentenced to imprisonment, being obliged to seek refuge in England. He died of accidental asphyxiation.
French novelist, son of an Italian father, known for his leadership of the school of Naturalism. His works, marked by scrupulous accuracy of background, speech, and psychological traits, and a determinism of character by heredity and environment which has been compared to that of Taine, include Thérèse Raquin ( 1867); Les Soirées de Medan ( 1880), stories of the Franco-Prussian War, regarded as a manifesto of Zola's group of naturalist writers ( Maupassant, Huysmans, Paul Alexis, Céard, Hennique); Le Roman Expérimentale ( 1880) and Les Romanciers Naturalistes ( 1881), books of criticism, explaining his method and his theories; the novels in the Rougon-Macquart series ( 1871-1893); the Trois Villes series ( 1894-1897); the Quatre Evangiles series ( 1897-), which was left incomplete at the author's death; and J'Accue ( 1898).
Zola was a clerk in a publishing house in the early part of his career, and later became a journalist. He spent most of his life as a recluse (cf. Balzac, Daudet, Flaubert, Goncourt brothers), writing his numerous novels, for the background of which he studied factual monographs and prepared actual dossiers for the characters, as though for real people. His work was attacked for immorality, exaggeration, and lack of taste, and caused much controversy in its day. Zola himself had strong humanitarian sympathies, especially favoring the working class; in 1898 he aroused official wrath by his defense of Dreyfus, and was sentenced to imprisonment, being obliged to seek refuge in England. He died of accidental asphyxiation.
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