1.
1812 in poetry
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nations poetry or literature. January 15 – Lord Byron takes his seat in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, summer – English painter J. M. W. He continues to quote from it until the last year he exhibits, the publication of these first two cantos is received with acclamation, and Byron wrote, I awoke one morning and found myself famous. The title comes from the term childe, a title for a young man who was a candidate for knighthood. The Curse of Minerva H. F. G. Lewis, Poems Eliza Macauley, Effusions of Fancy Thomas Love Peacock, The Genius of the Thames, Palmyra, the Works, in Verse and Prose, of the Late Robert Treat Paine, Jun. To which are prefixed, sketches of his life, character and writings, contains Philenia to Menander by Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton, Boston, Printed and published by J
2.
1813 in poetry
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nations poetry or literature. April 20 - Lord Byron and Thomas Moore visit Leigh Hunt in the Surrey Gaol, april 23 - Byron takes Hunt some books to help with his composition of Francesca da Rimini. August 25 - Theodor Körner composes the patriotic lyric Schwertlied the night before his death in action aged 21, autumn - Robert Southey becomes Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom after Walter Scotts refusal of the post. First award of the Chancellors Gold Medal for poetry at the University of Cambridge in England, kālidāsas 4th/5th century Sanskrit poem Meghadūta is first translated into English by Horace Hayman Wilson
3.
1816 in poetry
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nations poetry or literature. This pall of darkness inspires Byron to write his poem Darkness in July, regular conversation with Byron has an invigorating effect on Shelleys poetry. While on a tour the two take together, Shelley is inspired to write his Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. Shelley, in turn, influences Byrons poetry and this new influence shows itself in the third part of Childe Harolds Pilgrimage, which Byron is working on, as well as in Manfred, which he writes in the autumn of this year. In late August Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin return to England from Switzerland, Shelley is introduced to John Keats in Hampstead towards the end of the year by their mutual friend, Leigh Hunt, who is to transfer his enthusiasm from Keats to Shelley. Sheriden, written at the request of Douglas Kinnaird, spoken at Drury Lane Theatre by Mrs. T
4.
1819 in poetry
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nations poetry or literature. He has been inspired by a series of recent lectures by Hazlitt on English poets, in the summer he writes Lamia and on September 19 he writes his ode To Autumn at Winchester. Percy Bysshe Shelley, in Italy, also has one of his most productive years, william Wordsworth begins another major revision of The Prelude. This version is completed in 1820 and his first version, in two parts, was done in 1798 and 1799. A second major revision occurred in 1805 and 1806, the book is not published in any form until shortly after his death in 1850. H. Reynolds, Peter Bell, A lyrical ballad, writing under the pen name W. W. B, new York, Philadelphia, Published by Inskeep & Bradford, and Bradford & Inskeep John Howard Payne, Brutus, or, The Fall of Tarquin. An Historical Tragedy in Five Acts, London, T
5.
1820 in poetry
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nations poetry or literature. On the suggestion of his doctors, he leaves London for Italy with his friend Joseph Severn and moves into a house on the Spanish Steps in Rome, william Wordsworth completes another major revision of The Prelude. This revision was begun in 1819 and his first version, in two parts, was done in 1798 and 1799. A second major revision, bringing the work to 13 parts, the book is not published in any form until shortly after his death in 1850, in a 14-part version. The revisions do not just add text but remove and rearrange passages as well, many of Wordsworths friends read the book in manuscript during his lifetime. First translation of the Old English epic poem Beowulf into a language, Danish, Bjovulfs Drape. Or goes to an American play, or looks at an American picture or statue
6.
1824 in poetry
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nations poetry or literature. March – Samuel Taylor Coleridge elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in Britain, february 15 – Lord Byron falls ill at Missolonghi while taking part in the Greek War of Independence, dying of fever on April 19. May 7 – Première of Beethovens Symphony No.9 at the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna, opposed only by Thomas Moore, the two volumes of memoirs are dismembered and burnt in the fireplace at the John Murray s office,50 Albemarle Street in London. The United States Literary Gazette, a semi-monthly, begins publication and it publishes poetry by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and William Cullen Bryant, among many others. E. L
7.
1819 in literature
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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1819. January 30 – Romney Literary Society established as the Polemic Society of Romney, on April 3, Charles Wentworth Dilke lets his house, next door to Keats, to Mrs Brawne, whose daughter Fanny would become the love of Keats life. In the summer he writes Lamia, on September 19 he writes his ode To Autumn at Winchester, and on October 19 proposes marriage to Fanny. April 1 – In London The New Monthly Magazine publishes John Polidoris Gothic fiction The Vampyre and it is first published in book form later in the year. August 16 – The Peterloo Massacre takes place in England, inspiring Percy Bysshe Shelley, in Italy, October – In Britain, Richard Carlile is convicted of blasphemy and sent to prison for publishing The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine. Joseph Perls epistolary novel Megalleh Temirim, written under the name Obadiah ben Pethahiah, the publisher Collins is founded as a printer of religious literature in Glasgow by William Collins. W. & R. Chambers, established by brothers William Chambers of Glenormiston and Robert Chambers in Edinburgh, edward Ball – The Black Robber Ann Hatton – The Oath of Vengeance Thomas Hope – Anastasius Washington Irving – The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. E. T. A. D. E. N. J. Urquhart Honoré de Balzac – Le Père Goriot
8.
1821 in literature
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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1821. August 4 – Atkinson & Alexander publish The Saturday Evening Post for the first time as a newspaper in the United States. James Ballantyne begins publishing his Novelists Library in Edinburgh edited by Sir Walter Scott, percy Bysshe Shelleys Queen Mab, a philosophical poem is distributed by an unauthorized publisher in London leading to prosecution by the Society for the Prevention of Vice. In the first known obscenity case in the United States, a Massachusetts court outlaws the John Cleland novel Fanny Hill, the publisher, Peter Holmes, is convicted for printing a lewd and obscene novel. At about this date Sunthorn Phu is imprisoned and begins his epic poem Phra Aphai Mani
9.
1824 in literature
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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1824. January 24 – First issue of the radical quarterly founded by Jeremy Bentham, February 9 – Because of his familys dire financial straits, Charles Dickens, just turned 12, begins work in a blacking factory in London. On February 23 his father, John Dickens, is committed to the Marshalsea prison as a debtor, February 15 – Lord Byron falls ill at Missolonghi while taking part in the Greek War of Independence, dying of fever on April 19. April – The United States Literary Gazette, a semi-monthly, begins publication and it publishes poetry by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and William Cullen Bryant, among many others. May 7 – Première of Beethovens Symphony No.9 at the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna, opposed only by Thomas Moore, the two volumes of memoirs are dismembered and burnt in the fireplace at the John Murray s office,50 Albemarle Street in London. June 21 – The Vagrancy Act in England provides for the prosecution of every Person wilfully exposing to view, or public Place, any obscene Print, Picture, or other indecent Exhibition. Julia Catherine Beckwiths St. Ursula’s Convent or, The Nun of Canada, the periodicals The Childrens Friend and The Childs Companion both publish their first issues
10.
John Keats
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John Keats was an English Romantic poet. He had a significant influence on a range of poets. Jorge Luis Borges stated that his first encounter with Keatss work was the most significant literary experience of his life, the poetry of Keats is characterised by sensual imagery, most notably in the series of odes. This is typical of poets, as they aimed to accentuate extreme emotion through the emphasis of natural imagery. Today his poems and letters are some of the most popular, John Keats was born in Moorgate, London, on 31 October 1795 to Thomas Keats and his wife, born Frances Jennings. There is no evidence of his exact birthplace. Although Keats and his family seem to have marked his birthday on 29 October and he was the eldest of four surviving children, his younger siblings were George, Thomas, and Frances Mary Fanny who eventually married Spanish author Valentín Llanos Gutiérrez. Another son was lost in infancy and his father first worked as a hostler at the stables attached to the Swan and Hoop Inn, an establishment he later managed, and where the growing family lived for some years. Keats believed that he was born at the inn, a birthplace of humble origins, the Globe pub now occupies the site, a few yards from the modern-day Moorgate station. He was baptised at St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate, and sent to a dame school as a child. His parents were unable to afford Eton or Harrow, so in the summer of 1803, he was sent to board at John Clarkes school in Enfield, the small school had a liberal outlook and a progressive curriculum more modern than the larger, more prestigious schools. In the family atmosphere at Clarkes, Keats developed an interest in classics and history, the headmasters son, Charles Cowden Clarke, also became an important mentor and friend, introducing Keats to Renaissance literature, including Tasso, Spenser, and Chapmans translations. The young Keats was described by his friend Edward Holmes as a character, always in extremes, given to indolence. However, at 13 he began focusing his energy on reading and study, in April 1804, when Keats was eight, his father died. The cause of death was a fracture, suffered when he fell from his horse while returning from a visit to Keats. Frances remarried two months later, but left her new husband soon afterwards, and the four went to live with their grandmother, Alice Jennings. In March 1810 when Keats was 14, his mother died of tuberculosis and she appointed two guardians, Richard Abbey and John Sandell, to take care of them. That autumn, Keats left Clarkes school to apprentice with Thomas Hammond, a surgeon and apothecary who was a neighbour, Keats lodged in the attic above the surgery at 7 Church Street until 1813
11.
Irish poetry
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Irish poetry includes poetry in two languages, Irish and English. The earliest surviving poems in Irish date back to the 6th century and this culminated in the work of the poets of the Irish Literary Revival in the late 19th and early 20th century. Poetry in Irish represents the oldest vernacular poetry in Europe, the earliest examples date from the 6th century, and are generally short lyrics on themes from religion or the world of nature. They were frequently written by their authors in the margins of the illuminated manuscripts that they were copying. The best known example is Pangur Bán and it was practical for poems to be short because the Irish recognized that it was necessary to use any means necessary to make the poems lasting in their oral culture. To accomplish such a feat as well as they have, they used complicated rhyme schemes that would render a poem nonsensical if any of the key words were changed from the original version, in an oral culture, Irish poetry had many uses. A poem could be used to both the poet and the subject of the poem, oftentimes kings would commission poets to create a piece about them. Such poems would be passed on to descendants so they would remember the deeds of past generations. Kings would also commission poets to write poems of advertisement, speaking of the greatness and worthiness. Oral poetry, because it was in the vernacular, was used for entertainment. Poems that were entertaining could also be informative, teaching people lessons or offering them wisdom of experience for dealing with situations they would encounter in their everyday lives. Finally, poems, especially those featured in the sagas, were thought to be an instrument of the supernatural, Another source of early Irish poetry is the poems in the tales and sagas, such as the Táin Bó Cúailnge. Unlike many other European epic cycles, the Irish sagas were written in prose, Irish bards formed a professional hereditary caste of highly trained, learned poets. As officials of the court of king or chieftain, they performed a number of official roles and they were chroniclers and satirists whose job it was to praise their employers and damn those who crossed them. It was believed that a well-aimed bardic satire, glam dicin, the Metrical Dindshenchas, or Lore of Places, is probably the major surviving monument of Irish bardic verse. It is a great onomastic anthology of naming legends of significant places in the Irish landscape, the earliest of these date from the 11th century, and were probably originally compiled on a provincial basis. As a national compilation, the Metrical Dindshenchas has come down to us in two different recensions. Knowledge of the real or putative history of local places formed an important part of the education of the elite in ancient Ireland, verse tales of Fionn and the Fianna, sometimes known as Ossianic poetry, were extremely common in Ireland and Scotland throughout this period
12.
Saturday Evening Post
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The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, the magazine declined in readership through the 1960s, and in 1969 The Saturday Evening Post folded for two years before being revived as a quarterly publication in 1971. It now appears six times a year, the magazine was redesigned in 2013. The Saturday Evening Post was founded in 1821 and grew to become the most widely circulated magazine in America. The magazine gained prominent status under the leadership of its longtime editor George Horace Lorimer, the editors claimed it had historical roots in the Pennsylvania Gazette, which was first published in 1728 by Samuel Keimer and sold to Benjamin Franklin in 1729. It was known for commissioning lavish illustrations and original works of fiction, illustrations were featured on the cover and embedded in stories and advertising. Some Post illustrations became popular and continue to be reproduced as posters or prints, Curtis Publishing Co. stopped publishing the Post in 1969 after the company lost a landmark defamation suit and was ordered to pay over $3 million in damages. The Post was revived in 1971 as a limited circulation quarterly publication, as of the late 2000s, The Saturday Evening Post is published six times a year by the Saturday Evening Post Society, which purchased the magazine in 1982. In 1916, Saturday Evening Post editor George Horace Lorimer discovered Norman Rockwell, Lorimer promptly purchased two illustrations from Rockwell, using them as covers, and commissioned three more drawings. Rockwells illustrations of the American family and rural life of a bygone era became icons, during his 50-year career with the Post, Rockwell painted more than 300 covers. He produced 120 covers for the Post between 1943 and 1968, ceasing only when the magazine began displaying photographs on its covers, another prominent artist was Charles R. Chickering, a freelance illustrator who went on to design numerous postage stamps for the U. S. Other popular cover illustrators include the artists George Hughes, Constantin Alajalov, John Clymer, W. H. D. Koerner, J. C. Leyendecker, Charles Archibald MacLellan, John E. Sheridan, Douglass Crockwell, the magazines line-up of cartoonists included Bob Barnes, Irwin Caplan, Tom Henderson, Al Johns, Clyde Lamb, Jerry Marcus, Frank ONeal, B. Tobey, Pete Wyma and Bill Yates, the magazine ran Ted Keys cartoon panel series Hazel from 1943 to 1969. Each issue featured several original stories and often included an installment of a serial appearing in successive issues. Most of the fiction was written for mainstream tastes by popular writers, the opening pages of stories featured paintings by the leading magazine illustrators. Lincoln, John P. Marquand, Edgar Allan Poe, Sax Rohmer, William Saroyan, John Steinbeck and Rex Stout and it also published poetry by such noted poets as Carl Sandburg, Ogden Nash, Dorothy Parker and Hannah Kahn. Jack Londons best-known novel The Call of the Wild was first published, in serialized form, emblematic of the Posts fiction was author Clarence Budington Kelland, who first appeared in 1916–17 with stories of homespun heroes, Efficiency Edgar and Scattergood Baines
13.
Lord Byron
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George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, FRS, commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet, peer, politician, and a leading figure in the Romantic movement. Among his best-known works are the narrative poems, Don Juan and Childe Harolds Pilgrimage. Byron is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential and he travelled extensively across Europe, especially in Italy, where he lived for seven years with the struggling poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Later in his life, Byron joined the Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire. He died in 1824 at the age of 36 from a fever contracted while in Missolonghi, ethel Colburn Mayne states that George Gordon Byron was born on 22 January 1788 in a house on 24 Holles Street in London. However, Robert Charles Dallas in his Recollections states that Byron was born in Dover and he was the son of Captain John Mad Jack Byron and his second wife, the former Catherine Gordon, a descendant of Cardinal Beaton and heiress of the Gight estate in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Byrons father had seduced the married Marchioness of Carmarthen and, after she divorced her husband. His treatment of her was described as brutal and vicious, in order to claim his second wifes estate in Scotland, Byrons father took the additional surname Gordon, becoming John Byron Gordon, and he was occasionally styled John Byron Gordon of Gight. Byron himself used this surname for a time and was registered at school in Aberdeen as George Byron Gordon, at the age of 10, he inherited the English Barony of Byron of Rochdale, becoming Lord Byron, and eventually dropped the double surname. Byrons paternal grandparents were Vice-Admiral the Hon. John Foulweather Jack Byron, vice Admiral John Byron had circumnavigated the globe, and was the younger brother of the 5th Baron Byron, known as the Wicked Lord. He was christened, at St Marylebone Parish Church, George Gordon Byron after his maternal grandfather George Gordon of Gight, a descendant of James I of Scotland, Mad Jack Byron married his second wife for the same reason that he married his first, her fortune. In a move to avoid his creditors, Catherine accompanied her husband to France in 1786. He was born on 22 January in lodgings at Holles Street in London, Catherine moved back to Aberdeenshire in 1790, where Byron spent his childhood. His father soon joined them in their lodgings in Queen Street, Catherine regularly experienced mood swings and bouts of melancholy, which could be partly explained by her husbands continuing to borrow money from her. As a result, she fell even further into debt to support his demands and it was one of these importunate loans that allowed him to travel to Valenciennes, France, where he died in 1791. When Byrons great-uncle, the wicked Lord Byron, died on 21 May 1798, described as a woman without judgment or self-command, Catherine either spoiled and indulged her son or vexed him with her capricious stubbornness. Her drinking disgusted him, and he often mocked her for being short and corpulent and she once retaliated and, in a fit of temper, referred to him as a lame brat. Langley-Moore questions the Galt claim that she over-indulged in alcohol, upon the death of Byrons mother-in-law Judith Noel, the Hon
14.
Sardanapalus
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Sardanapalus was, according to the Greek writer Ctesias, the last king of Assyria, although in actuality Ashur-uballit II holds that distinction. Ctesias book Persica is lost, but we know of its contents by later compilations, in this account, Sardanapalus, supposed to have lived in the 7th century BC, is portrayed as a decadent figure who spends his life in self-indulgence and dies in an orgy of destruction. The legendary decadence of Sardanapalus later became a theme in literature and art, Diodorus says that Sardanapalus, son of Anakyndaraxes, exceeded all previous rulers in sloth and luxury. He spent his life in self-indulgence. He dressed in clothes and wore make-up. He had many concubines, female and male and he wrote his own epitaph, which stated that physical gratification is the only purpose of life. His lifestyle caused dissatisfaction within the Assyrian empire, allowing a conspiracy against him to develop led by Arbaces, an alliance of Medes, Persians and Babylonians challenged the Assyrians. Sardanapalus stirred himself to action and routed the rebels several times in battle, believing he had defeated the rebels, Sardanapalus returned to his decadent lifestyle, ordering sacrifices and celebrations. But the rebels were reinforced by new troops from Bactria, sardanapaluss troops were surprised during their partying, and were routed. Sardanapalus returned to Nineveh to defend his capital, while his army was placed under the command of his brother-in-law, having sent his family to safety, Sardanapalus prepared to hold Nineveh. He managed to withstand a siege, but eventually heavy rains caused the Tigris to overflow. To avoid falling into the hand of his enemies, Sardanapalus had a funeral pyre created for himself on which were piled all his gold, silver. He had his eunuchs and concubines boxed in inside the pyre, burning himself, the Greek writer Choerilus of Iasus composed an epitaph on Sardanapalus, which he claimed to have been translated from the Chaldean. There is no king named Sardanapalus attested in the Assyrian King List, there is no evidence from Mesopotamia that either Ashurbanipal or Shamash-shum-ukin led hedonistic lifestyles, were homosexual or transvestites. It was Shamash-shum-ukin in Babylon who was besieged and defeated, and his allies crushed, after the formers defeat in 648 BC, an inscription of Ashurbanipals records, they threw down Shamash-shum-ukkin, enemy brother who attacked me, into the raging conflagration. The actual Fall of Nineveh occurred in 612 BC after Assyria had been weakened by a bitter series of internal civil wars between rival claimants to the throne. Its former subjects took advantage of these events and freed themselves from the Assyrian yoke, Assyria was attacked in 616 BC by allied forces of Medes, Scythians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Persians, Cimmerians and Elamites. Nineveh was besieged and sacked in 612 BC, Ashurbanipals son Sin-shar-ishkun was then ruling as king of Assyria
15.
Cain (play)
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Cain is a dramatic work by Lord Byron published in 1821. In Cain, Byron dramatizes the story of Cain and Abel from Cains point of view, Cain is an example of the literary genre known as closet drama. Cain tells his father he has nothing to thank God for because he is fated to die. As Cain explains in a soliloquy, he regards his mortality as an unjust punishment for Adam and Eves transgression in the Garden of Eden. Cains anxiety over his mortality is heightened by the fact that he not know what death is. At one point in Act I, he recalls keeping watch at night for the arrival of death, the character who supplies Cain with knowledge of death is Lucifer. In Act II, Lucifer leads Cain on a voyage to the Abyss of Space and shows him a vision of the Earths natural history. Cain returns to Earth in Act III, depressed by this vision of universal death, at the climax of the play, Cain murders Abel. The play concludes with Cains banishment, perhaps the most important literary influence on Cain was John Miltons epic poem Paradise Lost, which tells of the creation and fall of mankind. For Byron as for many Romantic poets, the hero of Paradise Lost was Satan, and Cain is modelled in part on Miltons defiant protagonist. Furthermore, Cains vision of the Earths natural history in Act II is a parody of Adams consolatory vision of the history of man presented by the Archangel Michael in Books XI and XII of Miltons epic. As Byron himself notes in the preface to Cain, Cains vision in Act II was inspired by the theory of catastrophism. In an attempt to explain large gaps in the record, catastrophists posited that the history of the Earth was punctuated with violent upheavals that had destroyed its flora. Byron read about catastrophism in an 1813 English translation of early work by French natural historian Georges Cuvier. Other influences include The Divine Legation of Moses by William Warburton and A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime, Byron, The Major Works, ed. Jerome J. McGann. Cain by George Gordon, Lord Byron Cain, A Mystery, The Poetical Works of Lord Byron, edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge, Charles Scribners Sons, NY, NY1901. Cain, A Mystery public domain audiobook at LibriVox
16.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets, and is regarded by some as among the finest lyric, as well as most influential, poets in the English language. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not see fame during his lifetime, but recognition for his poetry grew steadily following his death. Shelley was a key member of a circle of visionary poets and writers that included Lord Byron, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Love Peacock, and his own second wife, Mary Shelley. Shelley is perhaps best known for such poems as Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark, Music, When Soft Voices Die, The Cloud. Shelleys close circle of friends included some of the most important progressive thinkers of the day, including his father-in-law, the philosopher William Godwin and Leigh Hunt. Though Shelleys poetry and prose output remained steady throughout his life, most publishers, Shelley became a lodestone to the subsequent three or four generations of poets, including important Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite poets such as Robert Browning and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He was admired by Oscar Wilde, Thomas Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, yeats, Upton Sinclair and Isadora Duncan. Henry David Thoreaus civil disobedience was apparently influenced by Shelleys non-violence in protest, Shelleys popularity and influence has continued to grow in contemporary poetry circles. Shelley was born on 4 August 1792 at Field Place, Broadbridge Heath, near Horsham, West Sussex, England. He was the eldest legitimate son of Sir Timothy Shelley, a Whig Member of Parliament for Horsham from 1790–92 and he had four younger sisters and one much younger brother. He received his education at home, tutored by the Reverend Evan Edwards of nearby Warnham. His cousin and lifelong friend Thomas Medwin, who lived nearby and it was a happy and contented childhood spent largely in country pursuits such as fishing and hunting. In 1802, he entered the Syon House Academy of Brentford, in 1804, Shelley entered Eton College, where he fared poorly, and was subjected to an almost daily mob torment at around noon by older boys, who aptly called these incidents Shelley-baits. Surrounded, the young Shelley would have his books torn from his hands and his clothes pulled at and this daily misery could be attributed to Shelleys refusal to take part in fagging and his indifference towards games and other youthful activities. Because of these peculiarities he acquired the nickname Mad Shelley, Shelley possessed a keen interest in science at Eton, which he would often apply to cause a surprising amount of mischief for a boy considered to be so sensible. Shelley would often use an electric machine to charge the door handle of his room. His friends were particularly amused when his tutor, Mr Bethell, in attempting to enter his room, was alarmed at the noise of the electric shocks. His mischievous side was again demonstrated by his last bit of naughtiness at school, despite these jocular incidents, a contemporary of Shelley, W. H. Merie, recalled that Shelley made no friends at Eton, although he did seek a kindred spirit without success
17.
Queen Mab (poem)
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Queen Mab, A Philosophical Poem, With Notes, published in 1813 in nine cantos with seventeen notes, is the first large poetic work written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, the English Romantic poet. After substantial reworking, an edition of a portion of the text was published in 1816 under the title The Daemon of the World. This poem was written early in Shelleys career and serves as a foundation to his theory of revolution and it is his first major poem. In this work, he depicts a two-pronged revolt involving necessary changes, Shelley took William Godwins idea of necessity and combined it with his own idea of ever-changing nature, to establish the theory that contemporary societal evils would dissolve naturally in time. This was to be coupled with the creation of a mentality in people who could envision the ideal goal of a perfect society. The ideal was to be reached incrementally, because Shelley, believed that the society could not be obtained immediately through violent revolution. Instead it was to be achieved through evolution and ever-greater numbers of people becoming virtuous. He set the press and ran 250 copies of this radical, Queen Mab is infused with scientific language and naturalising moral prescriptions for an oppressed humanity in an industrialising world. He intended the poem to be private and distributed it among his close friends, about 70 sets of the signatures were bound and distributed personally by Shelley, and the rest were stored at William Clarks bookshop in London. A year before his death, in 1821, one of the shopkeepers caught sight of the remaining signatures, the shopkeeper bound the remaining signatures, printed an expurgated edition, and distributed the pirated editions through the black market. The copies were–in the words of Richard Carlisle– pounced upon, by the Society for the Prevention of Vice. Shelley was dismayed upon discovering the piracy of what he considered to be not just a juvenile production and he sought an injunction against the shopkeeper, but since the poem was considered illegal, he was not entitled to the copyright. William Clark was imprisoned for 4 months for publishing and distributing Queen Mab, the British bookseller Richard Carlile issued a new edition of the poem in the 1820s. Between 1821 and the 1830s over a dozen pirated editions of Queen Mab were produced and distributed among and by the labouring classes fuelling, when Shelleys widow, Mary Shelley, published her husbands Poetical Works in 1839, several atheistic passages of the poem were removed. After they were restored in an edition, the publisher. The poem is written in the form of a tale that presents a future vision of a utopia on earth, consisting of nine cantos. Queen Mab, a fairy, descends in a chariot to a dwelling where Ianthe is sleeping on a couch, Queen Mab detaches Ianthes spirit or soul from her sleeping body and transports it on a celestial tour to Queen Mabs palace at the edge of the universe. Queen Mab interprets, analyses, and explains Ianthes dreams and she shows her visions of the past, present, and the future
18.
Sunthorn Phu
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Phra Sunthorn Vohara, known as Sunthorn Phu, is Thailands best-known royal poet. He wrote during the Rattanakosin period, Phus career as a royal poet began in the reign of King Rama II, and when the king died, he resigned from the role and became a monk. Twenty years later, in the reign of King Rama III, he returned to court as a royal scribe, Phu was renowned for composing verse, and his epic poetry is popular in Thailand to the present day. His works include Nirat Phukaothong, a collection of poems recounting his journey to the Golden Mountain, Nirat Suphan, his journey to Suphanburi Province, Sunthorn Phu was born in the reign of King Rama I, on 26 June 1786. His familys house was behind the palace, near the present day Bangkok Noi train station. His father was from Klaeng District in Rayong Province, at the time the poet was born, Bangkok had been established as the Thai capital just four years earlier, founding the Rattanakosin era which continues to the present day. His father became a monk at Bangrum temple and his mother became a wet nurse for the royal family. Phu had an opportunity to work in the palace with his mother, where he fell in love with a lady in the palace named Jun, the couple were arrested and punished as their relationship violated the traditional social order, but they were pardoned on the kings death. Phu later returned to Rayong to visit his father, and wrote a poem about the journey called Nirat Muang Grang which became one of his most famous poems and he wrote the poem for his fiancée, Jun. After he returned to the palace in Bangkok he married Jun and it was at this time that King Rama II appointed him court poet. However, the couple were not married long, divorcing after Phu had an affair with another woman and this was the first of many marriages ending in divorce, although he later professed that the wife he had loved the most was Jun. Phu became an alcoholic, and, around 1821, was jailed after a fight and he began the epic poem, Phra Aphai Mani in prison, and published it in installments over the next twenty years. The epic tale follows the character, Prince Aphai Mani. King Rama II was so pleased with Phus poetry that he awarded him the title of Khun, during the reign of King Rama III, however, Phu made the grave mistake of publicly correcting one of the kings poems, and was stripped of his title as punishment. After this disgrace, he entered the Buddhist priesthood. King Rama IVs daughter read his unfinished work Phra Aphai Mani, King Rama IV appointed Phu Director of Royal Scribes, and awarded him the title of Phra. Suthorn left behind a legacy of poems that have become famous over time because of their description of Thai history, in 1986, the 200th anniversary of his birth, Suthorn was honored by UNESCO as a great world poet. His Phra Aphai Mani poems describe a world, where people of all races and religions live
19.
Epic poetry
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An epic poem, epic, epos, or epopee is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Milman Parry and Albert Lord have argued that the Homeric epics and these works form the basis of the epic genre in Western literature. Nearly all Western epic self-consciously presents itself as a continuation of the tradition begun by these poems, classical epic employs dactylic hexameter and recounts a journey, either physical or mental or both. Epics also tend to highlight cultural norms and to define or call into question cultural values, another type of epic poetry is epyllion, which is a brief narrative poem with a romantic or mythological theme. The term, which means little epic, came into use in the nineteenth century, the most famous example of classical epyllion is perhaps Catullus 64. The first epics were products of preliterate societies and oral history poetic traditions, in these traditions, poetry is transmitted to the audience and from performer to performer by purely oral means. Early twentieth-century study of living oral traditions in the Balkans by Milman Parry. What they demonstrated was that oral epics tend to be constructed in short episodes, each of equal status, interest and this facilitates memorization, as the poet is recalling each episode in turn and using the completed episodes to recreate the entire epic as he performs it. Parry and Lord also contend that the most likely source for written texts of the epics of Homer was dictation from an oral performance, poets in literate societies have sometimes copied the epic format. The earliest surviving European examples are the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes and Virgils Aeneid, other obvious examples are Nonnus Dionysiaca, Tulsidas Sri Ramacharit Manas. In his work Poetics, Aristotle defines an epic as one of the forms of poetry, contrasted with lyric poetry, an attempt to delineate ten main characteristics of an epic, Begins in medias res. The setting is vast, covering many nations, the world or the universe, Begins with an invocation to a muse. Begins with a statement of the theme, contains long lists, called an epic catalogue. Shows divine intervention on human affairs, features heroes that embody the values of the civilization. Often features the tragic heros descent into the Underworld or hell, the hero generally participates in a cyclical journey or quest, faces adversaries that try to defeat him in his journey and returns home significantly transformed by his journey. The epic hero illustrates traits, performs deeds, and exemplifies certain morals that are valued by the society the epic originates from, many epic heroes are recurring characters in the legends of their native culture. Conventions of epics, Preposition, Opens by stating the theme or cause of the epic and this may take the form of a purpose, of a question, or of a situation. Invocation, Writer invokes a Muse, one of the nine daughters of Zeus, the poet prays to the Muses to provide him with divine inspiration to tell the story of a great hero
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Phra Aphai Mani
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Phra Aphai Mani is a 30, 000-line epic written by Thailands best-known poet, Sunthorn Phu. It is also part of Thai folklore and has adapted into films. The main protagonists are Prince Aphai Mani, a mermaid, Phra Aphai Mani and his brother, Sisuwan, are Thai princes. Their father sent them away to study with the hope that they would gain knowledge to help rule the country. Sisuwan learned to fight and Phra Aphai Mani learned to play a magical flute that could put people to sleep or kill them. When they returned home, their father was angered by what they had learned, one day while Aphais companions were lulled to sleep by the sound of his pipe, a female ogress named Nang Phisua Samut, came and took Aphai away to her cave. She disguised herself as a maiden and Aphai fell in love with her. They lived together until she bore a son, Sinsamut, when Aphai found out that his wife was really an ogress, he fled with his son. He was assisted by a family of mermaids, a father, mother, the father and mother were caught and eaten by the ogress. The mermaid daughter took Aphai and Sinsamut to Kokaew Phitsadan where a hermit saved them from the ogress, Aphai married the mermaid daughter and they had a son, named Sutsakhon. One day, a ship, carrying King Silarat and Princess Suwwanmali of Phleuk, the princess was engaged to marry the European Prince Usaren of Lanka. Aphai and Sinsamut asked to join the ship, but the ogress saw them, Nang Phisua Samut attacked them and killed King Silarat. Aphai escaped to the shore, where he played his magic flute, afterwards, he met Prince Usaren, who was looking for his fiancée. Meanwhile, Sinsamut swam with the princess to an island and met Sisuwan and his daughter, together, they went in search of Phra Aphai. When they found Phra Aphai and Usaren, Princess Suwwanmali refused to leave with Usaren, the two parties fought and Prince Usaren fled to his homeland of Lanka. Phra Aphai continued on to Phleuk where the queen asked him to rule the country, angry at Phra Aphai for daring to give her up to Usaren, Princess Suwwanmali fled to become a nun. But later with the trick of a maid, Nang Wali, Suwanmali abandoned the nunhood to marry Phra Aphai and she bore him twin daughters named Soisuwan and Chantasuda. Years later, Usaren and his father returned to attack Phleuk, the father was killed and Usaren died heart-broken
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Protestant Cemetery, Rome
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The Cimitero Acattolico of Rome, often referred to as the Cimitero dei protestanti or Cimitero degli Inglesi, is a public cemetery in the rione of Testaccio in Rome. It has Mediterranean cypress, pomegranate and other trees, and a grassy meadow and it is the final resting place of non-Catholics including but not exclusive to Protestants or British people. The earliest known burial is that of a University of Oxford student named Langton in 1738, the English poets John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley are buried there. Keats died in Rome of tuberculosis at the age of 25, Shelley, who did not know how to swim, drowned in 1822 while sailing in his yacht off the Italian Riviera. When his body washed up upon the shore, a copy of Keats poetry was discovered in his pocket - doubled back - as though it had put away in a hurry. He was cremated on the beach near Viareggio by his friends, the poet Lord Byron and his ashes were sent to the British consulate in Rome, who had them interred in the Protestant Cemetery some months later. Shelleys heart supposedly survived cremation and was snatched out of the flames by Trelawny, Shelley and Marys three-year-old son William was also buried in the Protestant Cemetery. American author of Two Years Before the Mast Luce dEramo, Italian writer Frances Minto Elliot, English writer Robert K. Herbert Norman, Canadian diplomat and historian. Frederick Reinhardt, U. S. Ambassador to Italy 1961–1968, Administrator of this Cemetery 1961–1968 Heinrich Reinhold, German painter, draughtsman, engraver. Elihu Vedder, American painter, sculptor, graphic artist Shefqet Vërlaci, Prime Minister of Albania Wilhelm Friedrich Waiblinger, German poet, the Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome, its history, its people and its survival for 300 years. Antonio Menniti Ippolito, Il Cimitero acattolico di Roma, a Cemetery of Poets Is in Crisis in Rome, International Herald Tribune,8 February 2006
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Walter Crane
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Walter Crane was an English artist and book illustrator. Cranes work featured some of the colourful and detailed beginnings of the child-in-the-garden motifs that would characterize many nursery rhymes. He was part of the Arts and Crafts movement and produced an array of paintings, illustrations, childrens books, ceramic tiles, Crane is also remembered for his creation of a number of iconic images associated with the international Socialist movement. Crane was the son of Thomas Crane, a portrait painter and miniaturist, and Marie Crane. His older brother Thomas would also go into illustration, and sister Lucy a noted writer, a set of coloured page designs to illustrate Tennysons Lady of Shalott gained the approval of wood-engraver William James Linton to whom Walter Crane was apprenticed for three years in 1859–62. He was a student who admired the masters of the Italian Renaissance, a further and important element in the development of his talent was the study of Japanese colour-prints, the methods of which he imitated in a series of toy books, which started a new fashion. From the early 1880s, initially under William Morriss influence, Crane was closely associated with the Socialist movement and he did as much as Morris himself to bring art into the daily life of all classes. With this object in view he devoted attention to designs for textiles and wallpapers, and to house decoration. For a long time he provided the cartoons for the Socialist organs Justice, The Commonweal. Many of these were collected as Cartoons for the Cause and he devoted much time and energy to the work of the Art Workers Guild, of which he was master in 1888 and 1889 and to the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, which he helped to found in 1888. He was also a Vice President of the Healthy and Artistic Dress Union and they produced numerous pamphlets setting out their cause, including one entitled How to Dress Without a Corset which Crane illustrated. Although not himself an anarchist, Crane contributed to several publishers, including Liberty Press. He is credited with the design and decoration of the front facade of The Bomb Shop, Hendersons bookshop at 66 Charing Cross Road specialising in left-wing, Crane was controversial in his support of the four Chicago anarchists executed in 1887 in connection with the Haymarket affair. Financial support was withdrawn and planned dinners in Cranes honor were cancelled, the incident was memorialized in the press as probably the most dramatic episode in the artists career. Walter Crane died on 14 March 1915 in Horsham Hospital, West Sussex and his body was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium, where his ashes remain. He was survived by three children, Beatrice, Lionel and Lancelot, in 1863 the printer Edmund Evans employed Crane to illustrate yellowbacks, and in 1865 they began to collaborate on toy books of nursery rhymes and fairy tales. From 1865 to 1876 Crane and Evans produced two to three toy books each year and these are a few of his illustration suites, In 1864 he began to illustrate a series of sixpenny toy books of nursery rhymes in three colours for Edmund Evans. He was allowed more freedom in a beginning with The Frog Prince which showed markedly the influence of Japanese art
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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
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Joanna Baillie
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Joanna Baillie was a Scottish poet and dramatist. Baillie was very well known during her lifetime and, though a woman, intended her plays not for the closet, admired both for her literary powers and her sweetness of disposition, she hosted a literary society in her cottage at Hampstead. Baillie died at the age of 88, her faculties remaining unimpaired to the last, Baillie was born on 11 September 1762. Her mother Dorothea Hunter was a sister of the physicians and anatomists, William. Her father, Rev. James Baillie, was a Presbyterian minister and briefly, the Baillies were an old Scottish family, and claimed among their ancestors the Scottish patriot Sir William Wallace. Joanna Baillie was the youngest of three children, she had had a sister, but this child had died unnamed a few hours after her birth. Baillie grew up in close companionship with her sister, Agnes, and brother, Matthew Baillie, Baillie’s early years were marked by a passion for the outdoors. Uninterested in books, she preferred playing in the garden, riding her pony, splashing on the banks of the River Clyde, Baillie’s own gift for narrative invention revealed itself early in stories told to her companions or acted out in impromptu amateur dramatics. In 1769 the Baillies moved from Bothwell to Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, a few years later, at the age of ten, Joanna Baillie was sent to Glasgow to attend a boarding-school known for transforming healthy little hoydens into perfect little ladies. Her intellectual and artistic faculties were here stimulated, and she displayed a talent for drawing, considerable musical ability, above all, however, was her facility in the writing and acting of plays. It was in Glasgow that she visited the theatre for the first time, with the death of their father in 1778, the Baillie family found themselves with little to live on. Matthew Baillie went to Balliol College, Oxford, following in his uncles footsteps in the study of medicine, mrs Baillie and her daughters retired to Long Calderwood, her family home near East Kilbride, where they led quiet lives as country gentlewomen. Dr William Hunter of Windmill Street, London, died in 1783, leaving Matthew Baillie his house, the following year Joanna, Agnes, and their mother moved to London to keep house for Matthew. There Joanna Baillie had access to literary society through her aunt Anne Hunter, Anne Hunter was a poet of some renown and the hostess of a salon, which included among its circle Fanny Burney, Elizabeth Carter, and Elizabeth Montagu. Encouraged by her aunt’s example, Baillie began to write poetry, while at Windmill Street, Baillie also began seriously writing drama. She had a supply of books and studied the French authors Corneille, Racine, Molière, and Voltaire, as well as Shakespeare. In 1791, Matthew Baillie married Sophia Denman, the daughter of a leading obstetrician, mrs Baillie and her daughters settled, after two or three moves, in Colchester. There, Joanna Baillie conceived the idea of her great work, by 1802 Joanna Baillie had moved from Colchester to Hampstead, then on the outskirts of London, where she and her sister passed the remainder of their lives
