1.
Portuguese poetry
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It was in this region that the ancestral language of both modern Portuguese and modern Galician, known today as Galician-Portuguese, was the common language of the people. However, this produced a specific type of song, known as cantigas de amigo. In these, the subject is always a woman talking about her friend from whom she has been separated - by war or other activities - as shown in the Reconquista. They discuss the loneliness that the woman feels, but some poems also project eroticism, or confess the lovers meeting in a secret place, often through a dialogue she has with her mother or with natural elements. Epic poetry was produced, as was common in Romantic medieval regions. With the Portuguese expansion south, poetry preserved some of main characteristics - cantigas de amigo were written even by kings. But it was with the Renaissance that poets embarked on a new age of literature due to influences from Italy, Sá de Miranda introduced the sonnet, which became, until today, a very common form. But his lyrical works never abandoned traditional forms and he displays a certain antipathy to rapid changes in social structure and values. Bernardim Ribeiro made use of poetry, singing about love fatalistically. In the next generation, António Ferreira, making a wide use of forms, expresses the same antipathy related to the detriment of society. This was also the time of António Gonçalves de Bandarra, a cobbler who learned to read despite his low status. His songs can be considered the birth of sebastianism, a theme of Portuguese culture. The Portuguese expansion also gave birth to epic poetry, jerónimo Corte-Real, with his O Segundo Cerco de Diu should be mentioned, but his classic influence is not well defined. But the great poet, both of lyric and epic, is, unquestionably, Luís de Camões and he wrote what is considered the most important poem of Portuguese Literature, Os Lusíadas, singing the maritime voyage of Vasco da Gama from Lisbon to India. After this period of national pride, the years of the Philippine Dynasty saw a continuation of epic production. Poems from this era may be seen as a resistance to foreign domination, significant authors include, Luís Brandão, Rodrigues Lobo, Vasco Mouzinho de Quevedo, Sá de Meneses, Gabriel de Castro, António Macedo. Such epic cycle ended with the poem Viriato Trágico, by Brás Garcia de Mascarenhas, in the 17th century, poets had their liberty constrained by the Portuguese Inquisition. Among other factors, one could see this period as a decline on Portuguese poetry and this may well be seen as a crisis of Portuguese identity in a world to which they do not seem to have adapted
2.
English poetry
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This article focuses on poetry written in English from the United Kingdom, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The article does not include poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, the earliest surviving English poetry, written in Anglo-Saxon, the direct predecessor of modern English, may have been composed as early as the 7th century. This is generally taken as marking the beginning of Anglo-Saxon poetry and it is possible to identify certain key moments, however. The Dream of the Rood was written before circa AD700, by and large, however, Anglo-Saxon poetry is categorised by the manuscripts in which it survives, rather than its date of composition. While the poetry that has survived is limited in volume, it is wide in breadth, beowulf is the only heroic epic to have survived in its entirety, but fragments of others such as Waldere and the Finnesburg Fragment show that it was not unique in its time. Other genres include much religious verse, from works to biblical paraphrase, elegies such as The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and The Ruin, and numerous proverbs, riddles. With one notable exception, Anglo-Saxon poetry depends on alliterative verse for its structure, with the Norman conquest of England, beginning in 1111 the Anglo-Saxon language rapidly diminished as a written literary language. The new aristocracy spoke predominantly Norman, and this became the language of courts, parliament. While Anglo-Norman or Latin was preferred for high culture, English literature by no means died out, other transitional works were preserved as popular entertainment, including a variety of romances and lyrics. With time, the English language regained prestige, and in 1362 it replaced French and Latin in Parliament, the reputation of Chaucers successors in the 15th century has suffered in comparison with him, though Lydgate and Skelton are widely studied. A group of Scottish writers arose who were believed to be influenced by Chaucer. The rise of Scottish poetry began with the writing of The Kingis Quair by James I of Scotland, the main poets of this Scottish group were Robert Henryson, William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas. The Renaissance was slow in coming to England, with the generally accepted start date being around 1509 and it is also generally accepted that the English Renaissance extended until the Restoration in 1660. However, a number of factors had prepared the way for the introduction of the new learning long before this start date. A number of medieval poets had, as noted, shown an interest in the ideas of Aristotle. The introduction of printing by Caxton in 1474 provided the means for the more rapid dissemination of new or recently rediscovered writers and thinkers. Caxton also printed the works of Chaucer and Gower and these books helped establish the idea of a poetic tradition that was linked to its European counterparts. In addition, the writings of English humanists like Thomas More and Thomas Elyot helped bring the ideas, the establishment of the Church of England in 1535 accelerated the process of questioning the Catholic world-view that had previously dominated intellectual and artistic life
3.
Nuneham Courtenay
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Nuneham Courtenay is a village and civil parish about 5 miles southeast of Oxford, it occupies a pronounced section of left bank of the River Thames. The parish is bounded to the west by the River Thames, the 2011 Census recorded the parishs population as 200. The parish is on an escarpment running north-east to south-west. Its highest point is a tiny knoll 100 m above sea level. Between these points is Windmill Hill where no evidence of a windmill survives, the minimum elevation is 52m to 53m along the Thames which follows the line of the central eminent land. Most of the nature reserve Bluebell Wood is on the slopes, across Marsh Baldons straight. The parish covers about 2 km north to the same south-west of the point shown and its population was 0. 15% of the districts total of 134,257. The Oxford Green Belt Way passes through the parish, the toponym was Newenham from the 11th century on, until it was changed to Nuneham in 1764. Just southeast of Lower Farm, about 1 1⁄2 miles northwest of the present Nuneham Courtenay village, is the site of a former Romano-British pottery kiln, the kiln was about 1 1⁄2 miles west of the Roman road that linked the Roman towns at Dorchester on Thames and Alchester. It began production about 100 CE, producing a range of fine wares in the 2nd century. It then declined, and in about the middle of the 4th century it ceased production, the remains of the kiln were discovered in 1991 during excavations to lay a new water main for Thames Water. It remained in his family until the death of his great-grandson and it then passed from William de Courcys widow Gundreda via her female heirs to Baldwin de Redvers, 7th Earl of Devon. Baldwin died without an heir, so Newenham again passed to an overlord, Isabella de Fortibus. She too died without an heir, but in 1310 King Edward II granted Newenham to Hugh de Courtenay, under the terms of the sale Margaret de Bohun, 2nd Countess of Devon retained the use of Newenham Courtenay for life. Sir John died in 1417 leaving the manor to his widow Isabel, younger daughter of Sir Maurice Russell of Dyrham, Gloucestershire and Kingston Russell, Isabel then married, as her 4th husband, Stephen Hatfield. Upon Isabels death in 1437, Newenham Courtenay passed to Alice Chaucer, daughter of Thomas Chaucer, Alice was married to William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk. The manor remained in the de la Pole family until 1502, in 1514 Henry VII made his brother-in-law Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk, and granted him the forfeited de la Pole estates. In 1528 Brandon conveyed Newenham Courtenay to Cardinal Wolsey, but the following year King Henry VIII deposed Wolsey, the manor was administered by royal stewards until 1544, when it was bought by John Pollard
4.
American poetry
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Unsurprisingly, most of the early colonists work relied on contemporary British models of poetic form, diction, and theme. However, in the 19th century, a distinctive American idiom began to emerge, the history of American poetry is not easy to know. The received narrative of Modernism proposes that Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot were perhaps the most influential modernist English-language poets in the period during World War I. But this narrative leaves out African American and women poets who were published, by the 1960s, the young poets of the British Poetry Revival looked to their American contemporaries and predecessors as models for the kind of poetry they wanted to write. There are 14 such writers whom we might on that basis call American poets, early examples include a 1616 testimonial poem on the sterling warlike character of Captain John Smith and Rev. One of the first recorded poets of the British colonies was Anne Bradstreet, the poems she published during her lifetime address religious and political themes. She also wrote tender evocations of home, family life and of her love for her husband, edward Taylor wrote poems expounding Puritan virtues in a highly wrought metaphysical style that can be seen as typical of the early colonial period. This narrow focus on the Puritan ethic was, understandably, the dominant note of most of the written in the colonies during the 17th. Of course, being a Puritan minister as well as a poet, a distinctly American lyric voice of the colonial period was Phillis Wheatley, a slave whose book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, was published in 1773. She was one of the poets of her day, at least in the colonies. The 18th century saw an emphasis on America itself as fit subject matter for its poets. The work of Rebecca Hammond Lard, although old, still apply to life in todays world. She writes about nature, not only the nature of environment, on the whole, the development of poetry in the American colonies mirrors the development of the colonies themselves. The early poetry is dominated by the need to preserve the integrity of the Puritan ideals that created the settlement in the first place, as the colonists grew in confidence, the poetry they wrote increasingly reflected their drive towards independence. This shift in subject matter was not reflected in the mode of writing which tended to be conservative and this can be seen as a product of the physical remove at which American poets operated from the center of English-language poetic developments in London. The first significant poet of the independent United States was William Cullen Bryant, whose contribution was to write rhapsodic poems on the grandeur of prairies. Formed the Fireside Poets were a group of 19th-century American poets from New England, the poets primary subjects were the domestic life, mythology, and politics of the United States, in which several of the poets were directly involved. Other notable poets to emerge in the early and middle 19th century include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Sidney Lanier, and James Whitcomb Riley
5.
George Whitefield
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George Whitefield, also spelled George Whitfield, was an English Anglican cleric who was one of the founders of Methodism and the evangelical movement. Born in Gloucester, he matriculated at Pembroke College at the University of Oxford in 1732, there he joined the Holy Club and was introduced to the Wesley brothers, John and Charles, who he would work closely with in his later ministry. Whitefield was ordained after receiving his BA and he immediately began preaching, but he did not settle as the minister of any parish. Rather he became an itinerant preacher and evangelist, in 1740, Whitefield traveled to America, where he preached a series of revivals that came to be known as the Great Awakening. His methods were controversial and he engaged in debates and disputes with other clergymen. Whitefield received widespread recognition during his ministry, he preached at least 18,000 times to perhaps 10 million listeners in Great Britain, Whitefield could enthrall large audiences through a potent combination of drama, religious rhetoric, and imperial pride. Whitefield was born on 27 December 1714 at the Bell Inn, Southgate Street, Whitefield was the fifth son of Thomas Whitefield and Elizabeth Edwards who kept an inn at Gloucester. He was educated at the Crypt School, Gloucester, and Pembroke College, because business at the inn had become poor, Whitefield did not have the means to pay for his tuition. He was a part of the Holy Club at the University with the Wesley brothers, John, an illness, as well as Henry Scougals The Life of God in the Soul of Man, influenced him to turn to the Church. Following a religious conversion, he became passionate for preaching his new-found faith, the Bishop of Gloucester ordained him a deacon. Whitefield preached his first sermon at St Mary de Crypt Church in his town of Gloucester. He had earlier become the leader of the Holy Club at Oxford when the Wesley brothers departed for Georgia, in 1738 he went to Savannah, Georgia, in the American colonies, as parish priest. While there he decided that one of the needs of the area was an orphan house. He decided this would be his lifes work and he returned to England to raise funds, as well as to receive priests orders. While preparing for his return, he preached to large congregations, at the suggestion of friends he preached to the miners of Kingswood, outside Bristol, in the open air. Because he was returning to Georgia he invited John Wesley to take over his Bristol congregations, Whitefield accepted the Church of Englands doctrine of predestination and disagreed with the Wesley brothers views on the doctrine of the atonement, Arminianism. As a result, Whitefield did what his friends hoped he would not do—hand over the ministry to John Wesley. Whitefield formed and was the president of the first Methodist conference, the society meeting at the second Kingswood School at Kingswood, a town on the eastern edge of Bristol, was eventually also named Whitefields Tabernacle
6.
Colonial history of the United States
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The colonial history of the United States covers the history of European settlements from the start of colonization until their incorporation into the United States. In the late 16th century, England, France, Spain, small early attempts often disappeared, such as the English Lost Colony of Roanoke. Everywhere, the rate was very high among the first arrivals. Nevertheless, successful colonies were established several decades. European settlers came from a variety of social and religious groups, few aristocrats settled permanently, but a number of adventurers, soldiers, farmers, and tradesmen arrived. They built colonies with distinctive social, religious, political, non-British colonies were taken over and most of the inhabitants were assimilated, unlike in Nova Scotia, where the British expelled the French Acadian inhabitants. There were no civil wars among the 13 colonies. The colonies developed legalized systems of slavery, based largely in the Atlantic slave trade from Africa or by way of the Caribbean, Wars were recurrent between the French and the British—the French and Indian Wars especially—and involved French support for Native American attacks on the British frontiers. By 1760, France was defeated and the British seized its colonies, on the eastern seaboard of what became the United States, the four distinct British regions were, New England, the Middle Colonies, the Chesapeake Bay Colonies, and the Lower South. Some historians add a fifth region of the Frontier which was never separately organized, see timeline of Colonial America for list of historical events. Colonizers came from European kingdoms that had highly developed military, naval, governmental and these efforts were managed respectively by the Casa de Contratación and the Casa da Índia. England, France, and the Netherlands had also started colonies in both the West Indies and North America and they had the ability to build ocean-worthy ships but did not have as strong a history of colonization in foreign lands as did Portugal and Spain. However, English entrepreneurs gave their colonies a foundation of merchant-based investment that seemed to need much less government support, initially, matters concerning the colonies were dealt with primarily by the Privy Council and its committees. The Commission of Trade was set up in 1625 as the first special body convened to advise on colonial questions, mercantilism was the basic policy imposed by Britain on its colonies from the 1660s. The goal of mercantilism was to run trade surpluses, so that gold, the government took its share through duties and taxes, with the remainder going to merchants in Britain. The government spent much of its revenue on a superb Royal Navy which protected the British colonies, thus, the British Navy captured New Amsterdam in 1664. The colonies were captive markets for British industry, and the goal was to enrich the mother country, the prospect of religious persecution by authorities of the crown and the Church of England prompted a significant number of colonization efforts. People fleeing persecution by King Charles I were responsible for settling most of New England, anonymous Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans to map the future eastern seaboard of the U. S. from New York to Florida, as documented in the Cantino planisphere of 1502
7.
John Trumbull
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John Trumbull was an American artist during the period of the American Revolutionary War and was notable for his historical paintings. His Declaration of Independence was used on the reverse of the two-dollar bill, Trumbull was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, in 1756, to Jonathan Trumbull and his wife Faith Trumbull. His father served as Governor of Connecticut from 1769 to 1784, both sides of his family were descended from early Puritan settlers in the state. The young Trumbull entered the 1771 junior class at Harvard College at age fifteen, due to a childhood accident, Trumbull lost use of one eye, which may have influenced his detailed painting style. As a soldier in the American Revolutionary War, Trumbull rendered a service at Boston by sketching plans of the British works. He witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill and he was appointed second personal aide to General George Washington, and in June 1776, deputy adjutant-general to General Horatio Gates. He resigned from the army in 1777 after a dispute over the dating of his officer commission, in 1780 he traveled to London, where he studied under Benjamin West. At Wests suggestion, Trumbull painted small pictures of the War of Independence and he painted about 250 in his lifetime. On September 23,1780, British agent Major John André was captured by Continental troops in North America, after news reached Great Britain, outrage flared and Trumbull was arrested, as having been an officer in the Continental Army of similar rank to André. He was imprisoned for seven months in Londons Tothill Fields Bridewell, after being released, Trumbull returned to the United States. In 1784, following the British recognition of the United States independence, while working in his studio, Trumbull painted Battle of Bunker Hill and Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec. Both works are now in the Yale University Art Gallery, in 1785 Trumbull went to Paris, where he made portrait sketches of French officers for the Surrender of Lord Cornwallis. With the assistance of Thomas Jefferson, serving there as the US minister, while in Paris, Trumbull is credited with having introduced Jefferson to the Italian painter Maria Cosway, they became lifelong intimate friends. Trumbulls painting became widely known due to an engraving of it by Asher Brown Durand. All now hang in rotunda of the United States Capitol, congress reportedly authorized only funds sufficient to purchase these four paintings. Trumbulls The Sortie Made by the Garrison of Gibraltar,1789, in 1831 Trumbull sold a series of 28 paintings and 60 miniature portraits to Yale University for an annuity of $1,000. This is by far the largest single collection of his works, the collection was originally housed in a neoclassical art gallery designed by Trumbull on Yales Old Campus, along with portraits by other artists. His portraits include full lengths of General Washington and George Clinton, New York also bought his full-length paintings of Alexander Hamilton and John Jay
8.
James Beattie (poet)
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James Beattie FRSE was a Scottish poet, moralist and philosopher. James Beattie was born the son of a shopkeeper and small farmer at Laurencekirk in the Mearns, in 1760, he was appointed Professor of moral philosophy there as a result of the interest of his intimate friend, Robert Arbuthnot of Haddo. In the following year he published a volume of poems, The Judgment of Paris, the two works, however, which brought him most fame were An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, and his poem of The Minstrel. The Essay, intended as an answer to David Hume, had immediate success, and led to an introduction to the King, a pension of £200. The first book of The Minstrel was published in 1771 and the second in 1774 and it contains much beautiful descriptive writing. Beattie was prominent in arguing against the institution of slavery, notably in his Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, Beattie was an amateur cellist and member of the Aberdeen Musical Society. He considered questions of philosophy in his essay On Poetry and Music. His poem The Hermit was set to music by Tommaso Giordani, Beattie was co-founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1783. Beattie underwent much domestic sorrow in the death of his wife, Mary Dunn, whom he had married in 1767 and he died in Aberdeen in 1803 and is buried there in St Nicholas Churchyard. His niece, Margaret Valentine, married Rev Prof George Glennie FRSE, a biographical sketch, An Account of the Life of James Beattie, LL. D. was published in 1804 by Alexander Bower. Beattie is one of the sixteen Scottish poets and writers depicted on the Scott Monument on Princes Street in Edinburgh and he appears on the left side of the east face. On poetry and music as they affect the mind, of the origin and general nature of speech. A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, london, J. M. Dent & Sons. Beattie, James, Elements of Moral Science,1790, facsimile ed.1975, Scholars Facsimiles & Reprints, ISBN 978-0-8201-1167-4. Chambers, Robert & Thomson, Thomas Napier, a biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen. An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, in Opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism
9.
Henry Mackenzie
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Henry Mackenzie FRSE was a Scottish lawyer, novelist and writer. He was also known by the sobriquet Addison of the North, Mackenzie was born at Liberton Wynd in Edinburgh on 26 July 1745. His father, Dr Joshua Mackenzie, was a distinguished Edinburgh physician and his mother, Margaret Rose, Mackenzie was educated at the High School and then studied Law at University of Edinburgh. He was then articled to George Inglis of Redhall, who was attorney for the crown in the management of exchequer business. In 1765 he was sent to London to prosecute his studies, and on his return to Edinburgh became partner with Inglis. Mackenzie had attempted to interest publishers in what would become his first and most famous work, The Man of Feeling, for several years, finally, Mackenzie published it anonymously in 1771, and it became instantly successful. The Man of Feeling is a creature, dominated by a futile benevolence. A clergyman from Bath named Eccles claimed authorship of the book, mackenzies name was then officially announced, but Eccles appears to have induced some people to believe in him. Julia de Roubigné is an epistolary novel, the first of his dramatic pieces, The Prince of Tunis, was produced in Edinburgh in 1773 with a certain measure of success. At Edinburgh Mackenzie belonged to a club, at the meetings of which papers in the manner of The Spectator were read. This led to the establishment of a periodical called the Mirror, of which Mackenzie was editor. It was followed in 1785 by a paper, the Lounger. Mackenzie was an ardent Tory, and wrote many tracts intended to counteract the doctrines of the French Revolution and he was rewarded by the office of comptroller of the taxes for Scotland. In 1776 Mackenzie married Penuel, daughter of Sir Ludovich Grant of Grant and he was, in his later years, a notable figure in Edinburgh society. He was nicknamed the man of feeling, but he was in reality a man of affairs with a kindly heart. Some of his reminiscences were embodied in his Account of the Life and Writings of John Home. He also wrote a Life of Doctor Blacklock, prefixed to the 1793 edition of the poets works, in 1807 The Works of Henry Mackenzie were published surreptitiously, and he then himself superintended the publication of his Works. There is an admiring but discriminating criticism of his work in the Prefatory Memoir prefixed by Sir Walter Scott to an edition of his novels in Ballantynes Novelists Library and he died at home,6 Heriot Row, a huge Georgian townhouse in Edinburghs New Town on 14 January 1831
10.
Poetry of Scotland
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Much of the earliest Welsh literature was composed in or near Scotland, but only written down in Wales much later. These include The Gododdin, considered the earliest surviving verse from Scotland, very few works of Gaelic poetry survive from this period and most of these in Irish manuscripts. The Dream of the Rood, from which lines are found on the Ruthwell Cross, is the surviving fragment of Northumbrian Old English from early Medieval Scotland. In Latin early works include a Prayer for Protection attributed to St Mugint, there were probably filidh who acted as poets, musicians and historians. After the de-gallicisation of the Scottish court from the twelfth century, what survives of their work was only recorded from the sixteenth century. This includes poems composed by women, including Aithbhreac Nighean Coirceadail, the first surviving major text in Scots literature is John Barbours Brus. In the early fifteenth century Scots historical works included Andrew of Wyntouns verse Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland and Blind Harrys The Wallace and they were probably influenced by Scots versions of popular French romances that were produced in the period. Much Middle Scots literature was produced by makars, poets with links to the court, which included James I. Makars at the court of James IV included Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, Douglass Eneados was the first complete translation of a major classical text in an Anglian language. James V supported William Stewart and John Bellenden, David Lyndsay wrote elegiac narratives, romances and satires. George Buchanan founded a tradition of poetry that would continue in to the seventeenth century. From the 1550s cultural pursuits were limited by the lack of a court, political turmoil. Poets from this period included Richard Maitland of Lethington, John Rolland), Alexander Hume, a new tradition of vernacular Gaelic poetry began to emerge, including work by women such as Mary MacLeod of Harris. The tradition of neo-Latin poetry reached its fruition with the publication of the anthology of the Deliciae Poetarum Scotorum and this period was marked by the work of female Scottish poets including Elizabeth Melvilles, whose Ane Godlie Dream was the first book published by a woman in Scotland. The ballad became a literary form by aristocratic authors including Robert Sempill, Lady Elizabeth Wardlaw. After the Union in 1707 Scottish literature developed a national identity. Allan Ramsay led a revival, the trend for pastoral poetry. The eighteenth century was also a period of innovation in Gaelic vernacular poetry, major figures included Rob Donn Mackay, Donnchadh Bàn Mac an t-Saoir, Uilleam Ross and Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, who helped inspire a new form of nature poetry
