1.
Robert Hayman
–
Robert Hayman was a poet, colonist and Proprietary Governor of Bristols Hope colony in Newfoundland. Hayman was born in Wolborough near Newton Abbot, Devon, the eldest of nine children and his mother was Alice Gaverocke and his father, Nicholas Hayman, a prosperous citizen and later mayor and MP of both Totnes and Dartmouth. By 1579 the family was living in Totnes, where in the high street Hayman as a small boy met Sir Francis Drake, according to the 17th-century historian Anthony Wood Hayman was educated at Exeter College and the college register shows him matriculating on 15 October 1590. He then, according to Wood, retired to Lincolns-inn, without the honour of a degree and these encouraged his literary efforts with the result, according to Wood, that Hayman had the general vogue of a poet. Perhaps because of these distractions Hayman seems not to have achieved any significant public office in England, although Edward Sharpham dedicated a play to him in 1607 there is nothing further known about his activities for twenty years until he emerges as a venturer and colonist to the new world. Several of the later published in the book Quodlibets however are dedicated to other members of the Spicer family. Hayman was appointed the Newfoundland colonys first and only governor in 1618 when Bristols Society of Merchant Venturers received a charter from King James I of England to establish the settlement, Haymans brother-in-law John Barker was the societys master. Hayman lived in the colony for fifteen months before returning to England, much of his work was in England raising money for the settlement, publicizing it and encouraging more colonisation efforts. As Newfoundlands first poet in English, Hayman is remembered for his writings extolling the island, its climate, in his leisure hours as Governor in Harbour Grace he composed a work later published in England as Quodlibets. Quodlibets was the first book in the English language written in what would become Canada, some of it consisted of original short poems by Hayman, and some of translations, both of Latin poems by John Owen and of French prose by Rabelais. It was published in London in 1628, presumably as part of Haymans attempts to raise interest in the colony, although Hayman apparently remained committed to Newfoundland he was also interested in other colonial ventures, including one to Guyana under the direction of Robert Harcourt. Having arranged his affairs he made his will late in the fall of 1628. By February 1629 he was in Guiana looking into using the river Wiapoco as a trading route. It was while travelling up the Oyapock by canoe that Hayman died of a fever and was hastily buried by his companions near the banks of the river. His will, signed and sealed on 17 November 1628 but not proved until 1633, leaves his estate to my loving Cosin and his will also mentions two policies of insurance taken out with the diocesan Chancellor of London, Arthur Duck. Of the value of each, one related to the safe arrival of Haymans ship in Guiana
2.
Satirical
–
Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society. This militant irony or sarcasm often professes to approve of the things the satirist wishes to attack. Satire is nowadays found in artistic forms of expression, including literature, plays, commentary, television shows. The word satire comes from the Latin word satur and the subsequent phrase lanx satura, satur meant full but the juxtaposition with lanx shifted the meaning to miscellany or medley, the expression lanx satura literally means a full dish of various kinds of fruits. The word satura as used by Quintilian, however, was used to denote only Roman verse satire, a genre that imposed hexameter form. Quintilian famously said that satura, that is a satire in hexameter verses, was a genre of wholly Roman origin. He was aware of and commented on Greek satire, but at the time did not label it as such, the first critic to use the term satire in the modern broader sense was Apuleius. To Quintilian, the satire was a literary form. The odd result is that the English “satire” comes from the Latin satura, by about the 4th century AD the writer of satires came to be known as satyricus, St. Jerome, for example, was called by one of his enemies a satirist in prose. Subsequent orthographic modifications obscured the Latin origin of the satire, satura becomes satyra. The word satire derives from satura, and its origin was not influenced by the Greek mythological figure of the satyr, in the 17th century, philologist Isaac Casaubon was the first to dispute the etymology of satire from satyr, contrary to the belief up to that time. Laughter is not a component of satire, in fact there are types of satire that are not meant to be funny at all. Conversely, not all humour, even on such topics as politics, religion or art is necessarily satirical, even when it uses the tools of irony, parody. Even light-hearted satire has a serious after-taste, the organizers of the Ig Nobel Prize describe this as first make people laugh, Satire and irony in some cases have been regarded as the most effective source to understand a society, the oldest form of social study. They provide the keenest insights into a groups collective psyche, reveal its deepest values and tastes, some authors have regarded satire as superior to non-comic and non-artistic disciplines like history or anthropology. In a prominent example from ancient Greece, philosopher Plato, when asked by a friend for a book to understand Athenian society, historically, satire has satisfied the popular need to debunk and ridicule the leading figures in politics, economy, religion and other prominent realms of power. Satire confronts public discourse and the imaginary, playing as a public opinion counterweight to power, by challenging leaders. For instance, it forces administrations to clarify, amend or establish their policies, Satires job is to expose problems and contradictions, and its not obligated to solve them
3.
Greek language
–
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
4.
Battle of Thermopylae
–
It took place simultaneously with the naval battle at Artemisium, in August or September 480 BC, at the narrow coastal pass of Thermopylae. The Persian invasion was a response to the defeat of the first Persian invasion of Greece. Xerxes had amassed an army and navy, and set out to conquer all of Greece. A Greek force of approximately 7,000 men marched north to block the pass in the middle of 480 BC. The Persian army, alleged by the ancient sources to have numbered one million. The vastly outnumbered Greeks held off the Persians for seven days before the rear-guard was annihilated in one of historys most famous last stands, during two full days of battle, the small force led by Leonidas blocked the only road by which the massive Persian army could pass. After the second day, a resident named Ephialtes betrayed the Greeks by revealing that a small path led behind the Greek lines. Leonidas, aware that his force was being outflanked, dismissed the bulk of the Greek army and remained to guard their retreat with 300 Spartans,700 Thespians,400 Thebans, fighting to the death. At Artemisium, the Greek navy, under the command of the Athenian politician Themistocles, since the Greek strategy required both Thermopylae and Artemisium to be held, and given their losses, it was decided to withdraw to Salamis. The Persians overran Boeotia and then captured the evacuated Athens, the Greek fleet—seeking a decisive victory over the Persian armada—attacked and defeated the invaders at the Battle of Salamis in late 480 BC. Fearful of being trapped in Europe, Xerxes withdrew with much of his army to Asia, however, the following year saw a Greek army decisively defeat the Persians at the Battle of Plataea, thereby ending the Persian invasion. Both ancient and modern writers have used the Battle of Thermopylae as an example of the power of an army defending its native soil. The primary source for the Greco-Persian Wars is the Greek historian Herodotus and this account is fairly consistent with Herodotus. Archaeological evidence, such as the Serpent Column, also some of Herodotus specific claims. For example, the military strategist Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart defers to Grundy, Grundy also explored Plataea and wrote a treatise on that battle. On the Battle of Thermopylae itself, two sources, Herodotus and Simonides accounts, survive. In fact, Herodotus account of the battle, in Book VII of his Histories, is such an important source that Paul Cartledge wrote, we write a history of Thermopylae with. The Greek city-states of Athens and Eretria had encouraged the unsuccessful Ionian Revolt against the Persian Empire of Darius I in 499–494 BC, the Persian Empire was still relatively young and prone to revolts amongst its subject peoples
5.
Hellenistic period
–
It is often considered a period of transition, sometimes even of decadence or degeneration, compared to the enlightenment of the Greek Classical era. The Hellenistic period saw the rise of New Comedy, Alexandrian poetry, the Septuagint, Greek science was advanced by the works of the mathematician Euclid and the polymath Archimedes. The religious sphere expanded to include new gods such as the Greco-Egyptian Serapis, eastern deities such as Attis and Cybele, the Hellenistic period was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization which established Greek cities and kingdoms in Asia and Africa. This resulted in the export of Greek culture and language to new realms. Equally, however, these new kingdoms were influenced by the cultures, adopting local practices where beneficial, necessary. Hellenistic culture thus represents a fusion of the Ancient Greek world with that of the Near East, Middle East and this mixture gave rise to a common Attic-based Greek dialect, known as Koine Greek, which became the lingua franca through the Hellenistic world. Scholars and historians are divided as to what event signals the end of the Hellenistic era, Hellenistic is distinguished from Hellenic in that the first encompasses the entire sphere of direct ancient Greek influence, while the latter refers to Greece itself. The word originated from the German term hellenistisch, from Ancient Greek Ἑλληνιστής, from Ἑλλάς, Hellenistic is a modern word and a 19th-century concept, the idea of a Hellenistic period did not exist in Ancient Greece. Although words related in form or meaning, e. g, the major issue with the term Hellenistic lies in its convenience, as the spread of Greek culture was not the generalized phenomenon that the term implies. Some areas of the world were more affected by Greek influences than others. The Greek population and the population did not always mix, the Greeks moved and brought their own culture. While a few fragments exist, there is no surviving historical work which dates to the hundred years following Alexanders death. The works of the major Hellenistic historians Hieronymus of Cardia, Duris of Samos, the earliest and most credible surviving source for the Hellenistic period is Polybius of Megalopolis, a statesman of the Achaean League until 168 BC when he was forced to go to Rome as a hostage. His Histories eventually grew to a length of forty books, covering the years 220 to 167 BC, another important source, Plutarchs Parallel Lives though more preoccupied with issues of personal character and morality, outlines the history of important Hellenistic figures. Appian of Alexandria wrote a history of the Roman empire that includes information of some Hellenistic kingdoms, other sources include Justins epitome of Pompeius Trogus Historiae Philipicae and a summary of Arrians Events after Alexander, by Photios I of Constantinople. Lesser supplementary sources include Curtius Rufus, Pausanias, Pliny, in the field of philosophy, Diogenes Laertius Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is the main source. Ancient Greece had traditionally been a collection of fiercely independent city-states. After the Peloponnesian War, Greece had fallen under a Spartan hegemony, in which Sparta was pre-eminent but not all-powerful
6.
Elegy
–
In English literature, an elegy is a poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead. The Greek term elegeia originally referred to any written in elegiac couplets. The term also included epitaphs, sad and mournful songs, the Latin elegy of ancient Roman literature was most often erotic or mythological in nature. Because of its potential for rhetorical effects, the elegiac couplet was also used by both Greek and Roman poets for witty, humorous, and satiric subject matter. Ovid wrote elegies bemoaning his exile, which he likened to a death and this looser concept is especially evident in the Old English Exeter Book which contains serious meditative and well-known poems such as The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and The Wife’s Lament. In these elegies, the use the lyrical I to describe their own personal. They tell the story of the rather than the collective lore of his or her people as epic poetry seeks to tell. For Samuel Taylor Coleridge and others, the term had come to mean serious meditative poem and it may treat of any subject, but it must treat of no subject for itself, but always and exclusively with reference to the poet. As he will feel regret for the past or desire for the future, so sorrow, Elegy presents every thing as lost and gone or absent and future. A famous example of elegy is Thomas Grays Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, in French, perhaps the most famous elegy is Le Lac by Alphonse de Lamartine. Elegy may denote a type of work, usually of a sad or somber nature. A well-known example is the Élégie, Op.10, by Jules Massenet, dirge Elegiac Funeral march Kommós Lament Marsiya Noha Obituary poetry Pastoral elegy history Poetry Rithā Soaz Threnody Ağıt Casey, Brian. Genres and Styles, in Funeral Music Genres, With a Stylistic/Topical Lexicon, american Elegy, The Poetry of Mourning from the Puritans to Whitman. Poetry of Mourning, The Modern Elegy from Hardy to Heaney, the English Elegy, Studies in the Genre from Spenser to Yeats. Media related to Elegies at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of elegy at Wiktionary Elegy Explained at Literary Devices
7.
Martial
–
In these short, witty poems he cheerfully satirises city life and the scandalous activities of his acquaintances, and romanticises his provincial upbringing. He wrote a total of 1,561, of which 1,235 are in elegiac couplets, Martial has been called the greatest Latin epigrammatist, and is considered the creator of the modern epigram. Knowledge of his origins and early life are derived almost entirely from his works, which can be more or less dated according to the well-known events to which they refer. In Book X of his Epigrams, composed between 95 and 98, he mentions celebrating his birthday, hence he was born during March 38,39,40 or 41 AD. His place of birth was Augusta Bilbilis in Hispania Tarraconensis and his parents, Fronto and Flaccilla, appear to have died in his youth. Martial professes to be of the school of Catullus, Pedo, the epigram bears to this day the form impressed upon it by his unrivalled skill in wordsmithing. The success of his countrymen may have been what motivated Martial to move to Rome, from Hispania, once he had completed his education. This move occurred in AD64, in which Seneca the Younger and Lucan may have served as his first patrons, not much is known of the details of his life for the first twenty years or so after he came to Rome. He published some poems of which he thought very little in his later years. Martial had neither youthful passion nor youthful enthusiasm to precociously mold him a poet and he made many influential friends and patrons and secured the favor of both Titus and Domitian. From them he obtained various privileges, among others the semestris tribunatus, the earliest of his extant works, known as Liber spectaculorum, was first published at the opening of the Colosseum in the reign of Titus. It relates to the performances given by him, but the book as it now stands was presented to the world in or about the first year of Domitian, i. e. about the year 81. The two books, numbered by editors xiii. and xiv. and known by the names of Xenia, in 86 he bore for the world the first two of the twelve books on which his pendulous and sterling reputation rests. From that time till his return to Hispania in 98 he published a volume almost every year. The first nine books and the first edition of Book X. appeared in the reign of Domitian, Book XI. appeared at the end of 96, shortly after the accession of Nerva. A revised edition of book X. that which we now possess extant, appeared in 98, the last book was written after three years absence in Hispania, shortly before his lamentable death, which happened about the year 102 or 103. These twelve books bring Martials ordinary mode of life between the age of forty-five and sixty very fully before us for leisurely consideration of a Sunday afternoon and his regular home for thirty-five years was the bustle of metropolitan Rome. He lived at first up three flights of stairs, and his garret overlooked the laurels in front of the portico of Agrippa
8.
Greek Anthology
–
The Greek Anthology is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature. Most of the material of the Greek Anthology comes from two manuscripts, the Palatine Anthology of the 10th century and the Anthology of Planudes of the 14th century and it contained poems by the compiler himself and forty-six other poets, including Archilochus, Alcaeus, Anacreon, and Simonides. Meleagers Anthology was popular enough that it attracted later additions, prefaces to the editions of Philippus of Thessalonica and Agathias were preserved in the Greek Anthology to attest to their additions of later poems. The scholar Maximus Planudes also made an edition of the Greek Anthology and his anthology was the only one known to Western Europe until 1606 when Claudius Salmasius found in the library at Heidelberg a fuller collection based on Cephalas. The copy made by Salmasius was not, however, published until 1776, the first critical edition was that of F. Jacobs. Since its transmission to the rest of Europe, the Greek Anthology has left an impression on its readers. Its influence can be seen on writers as diverse as Propertius, Ezra Pound, since full and uncensored English translations became available at the end of the 20th century, its influence has widened still further. e. The modern use of the word is a departure from the original sense, the term was soon extended to any piece by which these conditions were fulfilled. These causes came into operation during the Alexandrian era, in which we find every description of epigrammatic composition perfectly developed. About 60 BC, the sophist and poet Meleager of Gadara undertook to combine the choicest effusions of his predecessors into a body of fugitive poetry. The arrangement of his collection was alphabetical, according to the letter of each epigram. In the age of the emperor Tiberius the work of Meleager was continued by another epigrammatist, Philippus of Thessalonica and his collection, which included the compositions of thirteen writers subsequent to Meleager, was also arranged alphabetically, and contained an introductory poem. It was of quality to Meleagers. These and other collections made during the Middle Ages are now lost, of his compilation extant, but who probably lived during the temporary revival of letters under Constantine Porphyrogenitus, at the beginning of the 10th century. His arrangement, to which we shall have to recur, is founded on a principle of classification and his principle of selection is unknown, it is only certain that while he omitted much that he should have retained, he has preserved much that would otherwise have perished. We are, however, indebted to him for the preservation of the epigrams on works of art, the Planudean Anthology was the only recension of the anthology known at the revival of classical literature, and was first published at Florence, by Janus Lascaris, in 1494. The manuscript itself had changed its quarters. In 1816 it went back to Heidelberg, but in an incomplete state and it is now represented at Heidelberg by a photographic facsimile
9.
Late antiquity
–
Late antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages in mainland Europe, the Mediterranean world, and the Near East. The development of the periodization has generally been accredited to historian Peter Brown, precise boundaries for the period are a continuing matter of debate, but Brown proposes a period between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Generally, it can be thought of as from the end of the Roman Empires Crisis of the Third Century to, in the East, the early Islamic period, following the Muslim conquests in the mid–7th century. In the West the end was earlier, with the start of the Early Medieval period typically placed in the 6th century, beginning with Constantine the Great, Christianity was made legal in the Empire, and a new capital was founded at Constantinople. The resultant cultural fusion of Greco-Roman, Germanic and Christian traditions formed the foundations of the subsequent culture of Europe, the term Spätantike, literally late antiquity, has been used by German-speaking historians since its popularization by Alois Riegl in the early 20th century. Concurrently, some migrating Germanic tribes such as the Ostrogoths and Visigoths saw themselves as perpetuating the Roman tradition, Constantine confirmed the legalization of the religion through the so-called Edict of Milan in 313, jointly issued with his rival in the East, Licinius. Monasticism was not the only new Christian movement to appear in Late Antiquity, notable in this regard is the topic of the Fifty Bibles of Constantine. Within the recently legitimized Christian community of the 4th century, a division could be distinctly seen between the laity and an increasingly celibate male leadership. Celibate and detached, the clergy became an elite equal in prestige to urban notables. The Late Antique period also saw a transformation of the political and social basis of life in. The later Roman Empire was in a sense a network of cities, archaeology now supplements literary sources to document the transformation followed by collapse of cities in the Mediterranean basin. Burials within the urban precincts mark another stage in dissolution of traditional urbanistic discipline, overpowered by the attraction of saintly shrines, in Roman Britain, the typical 4th- and 5th-century layer of black earth within cities seems to be a result of increased gardening in formerly urban spaces. A similar though less marked decline in population occurred later in Constantinople. In Europe there was also a decline in urban populations. As a whole, the period of antiquity was accompanied by an overall population decline in almost all Europe. Long-distance markets disappeared, and there was a reversion to a degree of local production and consumption, rather than webs of commerce. The degree and extent of discontinuity in the cities of the Greek East is a moot subject among historians. In the western Mediterranean, the new cities known to be founded in Europe between the 5th and 8th centuries were the four or five Visigothic victory cities
10.
Byzantine Empire
–
It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empires Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military, the borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia, the Empire recovered again during the Komnenian restoration, such that by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Byzantine Empire, the term comes from Byzantium, the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantines capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, and in 1680 of Du Canges Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, however, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world. The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans, Romania, the Roman Republic, Graikia, and also as Rhōmais. The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and Graikoi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to modern Greek as Romaika and Graikika. The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor was challenged by the coronation of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III in the year 800. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm, the Roman army succeeded in conquering many territories covering the entire Mediterranean region and coastal regions in southwestern Europe and north Africa. These territories were home to different cultural groups, both urban populations and rural populations. The West also suffered heavily from the instability of the 3rd century AD
11.
Graffiti
–
Graffiti are writing or drawings that have been scribbled, scratched, or painted illicitly on a wall or other surface, often within public view. Graffiti range from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and they have existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, in modern times, paint and marker pens have become the most commonly used graffiti materials. In most countries, marking or painting property without the property owners permission is considered defacement and vandalism, Graffiti may also express underlying social and political messages and a whole genre of artistic expression is based upon spray paint graffiti styles. Within hip hop culture, graffiti have evolved alongside hip hop music, b-boying, unrelated to hip-hop graffiti, gangs use their own form of graffiti to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Controversies that surround graffiti continue to create disagreement amongst city officials, law enforcement, both graffiti and its occasional singular form graffito are from the Italian word graffiato. Graffiti is applied in art history to works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface, a related term is sgraffito, which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was used by potters who would glaze their wares. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, the word originates from Greek γράφειν — graphein — meaning to write. The term graffiti referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, use of the word has evolved to include any graphics applied to surfaces in a manner that constitutes vandalism. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD, the first known example of modern style graffiti survives in the ancient Greek city of Ephesus. Local guides say it is an advertisement for prostitution, located near a mosaic and stone walkway, the graffiti shows a handprint that vaguely resembles a heart, along with a footprint and a number. This is believed to indicate that a brothel was nearby, with the handprint symbolizing payment, the ancient Romans carved graffiti on walls and monuments, examples of which also survive in Egypt. Graffiti in the world had different connotations than they carry in todays society concerning content. One inscription gives the address of a woman named Novellia Primigenia of Nuceria, another shows a phallus accompanied by the text, mansueta tene. Etched on the surface of the Mirror Wall, they contain pieces of prose, poetry, the majority of these visitors appear to have been from the elite of society, royalty, officials, professions, and clergy. There were also soldiers, archers, and even some metalworkers, the topics range from love to satire, curses, wit, and lament. Many demonstrate a high level of literacy and a deep appreciation of art. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there, one reads, Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems
12.
Pompeii
–
Pompeii was an ancient Roman town-city near modern Naples, in the Campania region of Italy, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the area, was mostly destroyed and buried under 4 to 6 m of volcanic ash. Researchers believe that the town was founded in the seventh or sixth century BC by the Osci or Oscans. It came under the domination of Rome in the 4th century BC, by the time of its destruction,160 years later, its population was estimated at 11,000 people, and the city had a complex water system, an amphitheatre, gymnasium, and a port. The eruption destroyed the city, killing its inhabitants and burying it under tons of ash, the site was lost for about 1,500 years until its initial rediscovery in 1599 and broader rediscovery almost 150 years later by Spanish engineer Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre in 1748. The objects that lay beneath the city have been preserved for centuries because of the lack of air and these artefacts provide an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life of a city during the Pax Romana. During the excavation, plaster was used to fill in the voids in the ash layers that once held human bodies and this allowed archaeologists to see the exact position the person was in when he or she died. Pompeii has been a tourist destination for over 250 years, today it has UNESCO World Heritage Site status and is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Italy, with approximately 2.5 million visitors every year. Pompeii in Latin is a second declension plural, the ruins of Pompeii are located near the modern suburban town of Pompei. It stands on a formed by a lava flow to the north of the mouth of the Sarno River. Today it is some distance inland, but in ancient times was nearer to the coast, Pompeii is about 8 km away from Mount Vesuvius. It covered a total of 64 to 67 hectares and was home to approximately 11,000 to 11,500 people on the basis of household counts and it was a major city in the region of Campania. Three sheets of sediment have been found on top of the lava that lies below the city and, mixed in with the sediment, archaeologists have found bits of bone, pottery shards. Carbon dating has placed the oldest of these layers from the 8th–6th centuries BC, the other two strata are separated either by well-developed soil layers or Roman pavement, and were laid in the 4th century BC and 2nd century BC. It is theorized that the layers of the sediment were created by large landslides. The town was founded around the 7th-6th century BC by the Osci or Oscans and it had already been used as a safe port by Greek and Phoenician sailors. According to Strabo, Pompeii was also captured by the Etruscans, and in recent excavations have shown the presence of Etruscan inscriptions. Pompeii was captured for the first time by the Greek colony of Cumae, allied with Syracuse, in the 5th century BC, the Samnites conquered it, the new rulers imposed their architecture and enlarged the town
13.
Cicuta
–
Cicuta, commonly known as water hemlock, is a small genus of four species of highly poisonous plants in the family Apiaceae. They are perennial plants which grow up to 2.5 meters tall. Plants in this genus may also be referred to as cowbane or poison parsnip, Cicuta is native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, mainly North America and Europe, typically growing in wet meadows, along streambanks and other wet and marshy areas. These plants bear a resemblance to other members in the family Apiaceae and may be confused with a number of other edible. The common name hemlock may also be confused with poison hemlock, water hemlock is considered one of North Americas most toxic plants, being highly poisonous to humans. Three members of the genus contain a toxin named cicutoxin which causes central nervous system stimulatory effects including seizures following ingestion, high doses of anticonvulsant medicine are often required to halt seizure activity and further medical care including intubation and mechanical ventilation may be required. Cicuta spp. are perennial plants that are all similar in morphology, the stem of the plant is branching, erect, smooth and hollow, sometimes being purple-striped, or mottled. Attached to the base of the stem is a root with thickened rootstocks. The rootstocks are multichambered and contain an oily liquid which turns reddish brown on exposure to air. The alternate leaves are 2 or 3 pinnately compound and may reach 30 centimeters to 90 centimeters in length, the leaflets are lanceolate, serrate,5 centimeters to 10 centimeters in length, and sharply toothed. The plants produce a fruit which is 4 millimeters to 6 millimeters in length. The plant is primarily by seeds which are produced in large numbers and are small in size. The Cicuta genus is one of many genera in the Apiaceae family which is in the order Apiales, the Apiaceae family is also known as Umbelliferae and both of these family names are permitted to be used by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. In Europe, Cicuta was not distinguished from the similar genus Conium before the year 1500, the first mention of the genus in the United States was in the eighteenth century. Carl Linnaeus formally described three species in 1753, the type species is Cicuta virosa. Cicuta maculata is now recognized to have four varieties, var. maculata, var. augustifolia, var. victorinii and it was also suggested a specimen from California may warrant recognition as a distinct species. Other common names for the genus in general include poison parsnip, beaver poison, wild carrot, wild parsnip, members of the family Apiaceae bear close resemblance to each other, and have many characteristics in common. Cicuta spp. are often mistaken for edible plants such as kvanne, wild celery, pignut, wild carrot, wild parsnip, and water parsnip
14.
Lucan
–
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, better known in English as Lucan, was a Roman poet, born in Corduba, in the Hispania Baetica. Despite his short life, he is regarded as one of the figures of the Imperial Latin period. His youth and speed of composition set him apart from other poets, Lucan was the son of Marcus Annaeus Mela and grandson of Seneca the Elder, he grew up under the tutelage of his uncle Seneca the Younger. Born into a family, he studied rhetoric at Athens and was probably provided with a philosophical. He found success under Nero, became one of the close friends and was rewarded with a quaestorship in advance of the legal age. In 60 AD, he won a prize for extemporizing Orpheus and Laudes Neronis at the quinquennial Neronia, during this time he circulated the first three books of his epic poem, Pharsalia, which told the story of the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey. At some point, a feud began between Nero and Lucan, two very different accounts of the events have survived that both trivialize the feud. According to Tacitus, Nero became jealous of Lucan and forbade him to publish his poems, according to Suetonius, Nero lost interest in Lucan and Lucan responded by writing insulting poems about Nero that Nero continued to ignore. Other works, though, point to a serious basis to the feud. Works by the grammarian Vacca and the poet Statius may support the claim that Lucan wrote insulting poems about Nero, Vacca mentions that one of Lucans works was entitled De Incendio Urbis. Statiuss ode to Lucan mentions that Lucan described how the flames of the criminal tyrant roamed the heights of Remus. Additionally, the books of Pharsalia are anti-Imperial and pro-Republic. This criticism of Nero and office of the Emperor may have been the cause of the ban. Lucan later joined the 65 AD conspiracy of Gaius Calpurnius Piso against Nero. His treason discovered, he was obliged, at the age of 25, to suicide by opening a vein. According to Tacitus, as Lucan bled to death, recalled some poetry he had composed in which he had told the story of a soldier dying a similar kind of death. His father was involved in the proscription but his mother escaped, statiuss poem about Lucan was addressed to his widow, Polla Argentaria, upon the occasion of his birthday during the reign of Domitian. Cornell Studies in Classical Philology 39, ideology in Cold Blood, A Reading of Lucans Civil War
15.
Pharsalia
–
The poems title is a reference to the Battle of Pharsalus, which occurred in 48 BC, near Pharsalus, Thessaly, in northern Greece. Caesar decisively defeated Pompey in this battle, which all of the epics seventh book. The poem was begun around 61 AD and several books were in circulation before the Emperor Nero, a total of ten books were written and all survive, the tenth book breaks off abruptly with Caesar in Egypt. Despite an urgent plea from the Spirit of Rome to lay down his arms, Caesar crosses the Rubicon, rallies his troops and marches south to Rome, the book closes with panic in the city, terrible portents and visions of the disaster to come. Book 2, In a city overcome by despair, an old veteran presents a lengthy interlude regarding the civil war that pitted Marius against Sulla. Cato is introduced as a man of principle, as abhorrent as civil war is. After siding with Pompey—the lesser of two evils—he remarries his ex-wife and heads to the field, Caesar continues south through Italy and is delayed by Domitius brave resistance. He attempts a blockade of Pompey at Brundisium, but the general makes an escape to Greece. Book 3, As his ships sail, Pompey is visited in a dream by Julia, his dead wife, Caesar returns to Rome and plunders the city, while Pompey reviews potential foreign allies. Caesar then heads for Spain, but his troops are detained at the siege of Massilia. The city ultimately falls in a naval battle. Book 4, The first half of book is occupied with Caesars victorious campaign in Spain against Afranius and Petreius. Switching scenes to Pompey, his forces intercept a raft carrying Caesarians, the book concludes with Curio launching an African campaign on Caesars behalf, where he is defeated and slain by the African King Juba. Book 5, The Senate in exile confirms Pompey the true leader of Rome, appius consults the Delphic oracle to learn of his fate in the war, and leaves with a misleading prophecy. In Italy, after defusing a mutiny, Caesar marches to Brundisium, only a portion of Caesars troops complete the crossing when a storm prevents further transit, he tries to personally send a message back but is himself nearly drowned. Finally, the storm subsides, and the face each other at full strength. With battle at hand, Pompey sends his wife to the island of Lesbos, Book 6, Pompeys troops force Caesars armies – featuring the heroic centurion Scaeva – to fall back to Thessaly. Lucan describes the wild Thessalian terrain as the wait for battle the next day
16.
Catullus
–
Not to be confused with Romans named Catulus, see Catulus. Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote in the style of poetry. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry, Catullus poems were widely appreciated by other poets. He greatly influenced poets such as Ovid, Horace, and Virgil, after his rediscovery in the late Middle Ages, Catullus again found admirers. His explicit writing style has shocked many readers, indeed, Catullus work was never canonical in schools, although his body of work is still frequently read from secondary school to graduate programs across the world. Gaius Valerius Catullus was born to an equestrian family of Verona. The social prominence of the Catullus family allowed the father of Gaius Valerius to entertain Julius Caesar when he was the Promagistrate of both Gallic provinces. Catullus was raised primarily by his mother, Blandus, who exposed him to poetry, in a poem, Catullus describes his happy homecoming to the family villa at Sirmio, on Lake Garda, near Verona, he also owned a villa near the resort of Tibur. Catullus appears to have spent most of his adult years in Rome. He appears to have been acquainted with the poet Marcus Furius Bibaculus, a number of prominent contemporaries appear in his poetry, including Cicero, Caesar and Pompey. In his poems Catullus describes several stages of their relationship, initial euphoria, doubts, separation, and his wrenching feelings of loss. Clodia had several partners, “From the poems one can adduce no fewer than five lovers in addition to Catullus, Egnatius, Gellius, Quintius, Rufus. Yet, a sensitive and passionate Catullus could not relinquish his flame for Clodia, regardless of her obvious indifference to his desire for a deep, in his poems, Catullus wavers between devout, sweltering love and bitter, scornful insults that he directs at her blatant infidelity. His passion for her is unrelenting— yet it is unclear when exactly the couple split up for good, Catulluss poems about the relationship display striking depth and psychological insight. He spent the provincial command year summer 57 to summer 56 BC in Bithynia on the staff of the commander Gaius Memmius, while in the East, he traveled to the Troad to perform rites at his brothers tomb, an event recorded in a moving poem. There survives no ancient biography of Catullus, his life has to be pieced together from scattered references to him in ancient authors. Thus it is uncertain when he was born and when he died, st. Jerome says that he died in his 30th year, and was born in 87 BC. But the poems include references to events of 55 and 54 BC, other authors suggest 52 or 51 BC as the year of the poets death
17.
William Shakespeare
–
William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the worlds pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called Englands national poet, and the Bard of Avon and his extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays,154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright, Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children, Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a career in London as an actor, writer. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, at age 49, Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories, which are regarded as some of the best work ever produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, in his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and it was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as not of an age, but for all time. In the 20th and 21st centuries, his works have been adapted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship. His plays remain highly popular and are studied, performed. William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden and he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26 April 1564. His actual date of birth unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23 April. This date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholars mistake, has proved appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616 and he was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son. At the age of 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, the consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next day, two of Hathaways neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage, twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596, after the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in the bill of a law case before the Queens Bench court at Westminster dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9 October 1589
18.
Sonnet 76
–
Sonnet 76 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. Its a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man and this poem repeats the theme of Sonnet 38, which examines the issue of the poets obsession with the Youth as the repeated and sole theme of his poetry. The poet expresses frustration with his poetry, that it is repetitive and he ponders finding inspiration from other artists. He ends the poem justifying the endless, uninspired, repetition of his poetry to the endless repetition to the rising and setting sun. Sonnet 76 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet, the English sonnet has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the rhyme scheme of the form, abab cdcd efef gg and is composed in iambic pentameter. The 7th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter, × / × / × / × / × / That every word doth almost tell my name, / = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. The 1st line begins with a variation, an initial reversal, and ends with a less-frequent one. Noted weed is usually glossed to mean familiar clothing, the Norton Shakespeare annotates and keep invention in a noted weed thus, And keep literary creativity in such familiar clothing. This conforms with the Oxford English Dictionarys definition of Weed, sb2,1, an article of apparel, a garment, and is consistent with the theme of mending, re-using, etc. In this interpretation, Compounds strange is taken to be a reference to strange chemicals, instead of a use of inverted construction, one could argue the poet is thinking he could use drugs to be inspired. He then states he decides not to use such inspiration, the colloquialism weed was not used in reference to the drug cannabis in the USA until the 1920s. However, the term could have used as a reference to the commonplace plant. Diana Rigg, for the 2002 compilation album, When Love Speaks Poeterra recorded a pop version of Sonnet 76 on their album When in Disgrace. Alfred Janson set the sonnet for SATB choir with Tenor/Baritone solo
19.
William Blake
–
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a figure in the history of the poetry. His so-called prophetic works were said by 20th century critic Northrop Frye to form what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language. His visual artistry led 21st-century critic Jonathan Jones to proclaim him far, in 2002, Blake was placed at number 38 in the BBCs poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. Although he lived in London his entire life, he produced a diverse and symbolically rich œuvre and his paintings and poetry have been characterised as part of the Romantic movement and as Pre-Romantic. Reverent of the Bible but hostile to the Church of England, Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French, despite these known influences, the singularity of Blakes work makes him difficult to classify. William Blake was born on 28 November 1757 at 28 Broad Street in Soho and he was the third of seven children, two of whom died in infancy. Blakes father, James, was a hosier and he attended school only long enough to learn reading and writing, leaving at the age of ten, and was otherwise educated at home by his mother Catherine Blake. Even though the Blakes were English Dissenters, William was baptised on 11 December at St Jamess Church, Piccadilly, the Bible was an early and profound influence on Blake, and remained a source of inspiration throughout his life. Blake started engraving copies of drawings of Greek antiquities purchased for him by his father, within these drawings Blake found his first exposure to classical forms through the work of Raphael, Michelangelo, Maarten van Heemskerck and Albrecht Dürer. The number of prints and bound books that James and Catherine were able to purchase for young William suggests that the Blakes enjoyed, at least for a time, a comfortable wealth. When William was ten years old, his parents knew enough of his headstrong temperament that he was not sent to school and he read avidly on subjects of his own choosing. During this period, Blake made explorations into poetry, his work displays knowledge of Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser. On 4 August 1772, Blake was apprenticed to engraver James Basire of Great Queen Street, at the sum of £52.10, at the end of the term, aged 21, he became a professional engraver. This aside, Basires style of line-engraving was of a kind held at the time to be old-fashioned compared to the flashier stipple or mezzotint styles. It has been speculated that Blakes instruction in this form may have been detrimental to his acquiring of work or recognition in later life. After two years, Basire sent his apprentice to copy images from the Gothic churches in London and his experiences in Westminster Abbey helped form his artistic style and ideas. The Abbey of his day was decorated with suits of armour, painted funeral effigies, ackroyd notes that. the most immediate would have been of faded brightness and colour
20.
Lord Byron
–
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
21.
Don Juan (Byron)
–
Don Juan is a satiric poem by Lord Byron, based on the legend of Don Juan, which Byron reverses, portraying Juan not as a womaniser but as someone easily seduced by women. It is a variation on the epic form, Byron himself called it an Epic Satire. Byron completed 16 cantos, leaving an unfinished 17th canto before his death in 1824, Byron claimed he had no ideas in his mind as to what would happen in subsequent cantos as he wrote his work. When the first two cantos were published anonymously in 1819, the poem was criticised for its immoral content, Byron was a rapid as well as a voluminous writer. Nevertheless, the composition of his poem, Don Juan, was coextensive with a major part of his poetical life. He began the first canto of Don Juan in late 1818, the poem was issued in parts, with intervals of unequal duration. Interruptions in the composition and publication of Don Juan were due to the disapproval, Canto I. was written in September 1818, Canto II. in December–January, 1818–1819. Both were published on 15 July 1819, Cantos III. and IV. were written in the winter of 1819–1820, Canto V. after an interval of nine months, in October–November 1820, but the publication of Cantos III. IV. V. was delayed till 8 August 1821, in June 1822, Byron began to work at a sixth, and by the end of March 1823, he had completed a sixteenth canto. But the publication of these later cantos, which had declined by John Murray. VIII. with a Preface, were published on 15 July, X. XI on 29 August, Cantos XII. XIV. on 17 December 1823, Cantos XV and it has been said that the character of Donna Inez was a thinly veiled portrait of Byrons own wife, Annabella Milbanke. The story, told in seventeen cantos, begins with the birth of Don Juan, as a young man he is precocious sexually, and has an affair with a friend of his mother. The husband finds out, and Don Juan is sent away to Cadiz, on the way, he is shipwrecked, survives, and meets the daughter of a pirate, whose men sell Don Juan as a slave. A young woman who is a member of a Sultan’s harem and she disguises him as a girl and sneaks him into her chambers. Don Juan escapes, joins the Russian army, and rescues a Muslim girl named Leila, Don Juan meets Catherine the Great, who asks him to join her court. Don Juan becomes sick, is sent to England, where he finds someone to watch over the young girl, next, a few adventures involving the artistocracy of Britain ensue. The poem ends with Canto XVII, Don Juan lives in Seville with his father José and his mother Donna Inez
22.
John Gay
–
John Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggars Opera, a ballad opera, the characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peachum, became household names. Gay was born in Barnstaple, England, and was educated at the grammar school. John Hanmer, the Nonconformist minister of the town, the dedication of his Rural Sports to Alexander Pope was the beginning of a lasting friendship. In 1714, Gay wrote The Shepherds Week, a series of six pastorals drawn from English rustic life, Gays pastorals achieved this goal and his ludicrous pictures of the English country lads and their loves were found to be entertaining on their own account. In 1715, probably with help from Pope, he produced What dye call it. A dramatic skit on contemporary tragedy, with reference to Thomas Otways Venice Preservd. It left the public so ignorant of its meaning that Lewis Theobald. In 1716 appeared his Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London and it contains graphic and humorous descriptions of the London of that period. In taking a form, Gays poem was able to poke fun at the notion of complete reformation of street civility. In January 1717 he produced the comedy, Three Hours After Marriage, which was thought to be grossly indecent and he had assistance from Pope and John Arbuthnot, but they allowed it to be assumed that Gay was the sole author. Gay had numerous patrons, and in 1720 he published Poems on Several Occasions by subscription, in that year James Craggs, the secretary of state, presented him with some South Sea stock. Gay, disregarding the advice of Pope and others of his friends, invested all his money in South Sea stock, the shock is said to have made him dangerously ill. His friends did not fail him at this juncture and he had patrons in William Pulteney, afterwards Earl of Bath, in the third Earl of Burlington, who constantly entertained him at Chiswick or at Burlington House, and in the third Duke of Queensberry. He was a frequent visitor with Pope, and received unvarying kindness from William Congreve and he was offered the situation of gentleman-usher to the Princess Louisa, who was also still a child. He refused this offer, which all his friends seem to have regarded as an indignity and he had never rendered any special services to the court. This famous piece, which was said to have made Rich gay and Gay rich, was an innovation in many respects, the satire of the play has a double allegory. Gays decision to launch the work was also influenced by the huge interest that the Jack Sheppard
23.
Alexander Pope
–
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet. He is best known for his verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the second-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations after Shakespeare, Alexander Pope was born to Alexander Pope Senior, a linen merchant of Plough Court, Lombard Street, London, and his wife Edith, who were both Catholics. Ediths sister Christiana was the wife of the miniature painter Samuel Cooper. Pope was taught to read by his aunt, and went to Twyford School in about 1698/99 and he then went to two Catholic schools in London. Such schools, while illegal, were tolerated in some areas, in 1700, his family moved to a small estate at Popeswood in Binfield, Berkshire, close to the royal Windsor Forest. This was due to strong anti-Catholic sentiment and a statute preventing Catholics from living within 10 miles of either London or Westminster, Pope would later describe the countryside around the house in his poem Windsor Forest. He also studied languages and read works by English, French, Italian, Latin. After five years of study, Pope came into contact with figures from the London literary society such as William Wycherley, William Congreve, Samuel Garth, William Trumbull, at Binfield, he also began to make many important friends. One of them, John Caryll, was twenty years older than the poet and had many acquaintances in the London literary world. He introduced the young Pope to the ageing playwright William Wycherley and to William Walsh, a minor poet and he also met the Blount sisters, Teresa and Martha, both of whom would remain lifelong friends. From the age of 12, he suffered health problems, such as Potts disease. His tuberculosis infection caused other problems including respiratory difficulties, high fevers, inflamed eyes. He grew to a height of only 1.37 m. Pope was already removed from society because he was Catholic, although he never married, he had many female friends to whom he wrote witty letters. Allegedly, his lifelong friend Martha Blount was his lover, in May,1709, Popes Pastorals was published in the sixth part of Tonsons Poetical Miscellanies. This brought Pope instant fame, and was followed by An Essay on Criticism, published in May 1711, around 1711, Pope made friends with Tory writers John Gay, Jonathan Swift, Thomas Parnell and John Arbuthnot, who together formed the satirical Scriblerus Club. The aim of the club was to satirise ignorance and pedantry in the form of the fictional scholar Martinus Scriblerus and he also made friends with Whig writers Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. In March 1713, Windsor Forest was published to great acclaim, during Popes friendship with Joseph Addison, he contributed to Addisons play Cato, as well as writing for The Guardian and The Spectator
24.
Emily Dickinson
–
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, although part of a prominent family with strong ties to its community, Dickinson lived much of her life in reclusive isolation. After studying at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, considered an eccentric by locals, she developed a noted penchant for white clothing and became known for her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, to even leave her bedroom. Dickinson never married, and most friendships between her and others depended entirely upon correspondence, Dickinson was a recluse for the later years of her life. While Dickinson was a private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly 1,800 poems were published during her lifetime. The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional rules of the time. Dickinsons poems are unique for the era in which she wrote, they contain short lines, typically lack titles, many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends. Her first collection of poetry was published in 1890 by personal acquaintances Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, a complete, and mostly unaltered, collection of her poetry became available for the first time when scholar Thomas H. Johnson published The Poems of Emily Dickinson in 1955. Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born at the homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts, on December 10,1830, into a prominent. Her father, Edward Dickinson was a prominent lawyer in Amherst, two hundred years earlier, her patrilineal ancestors had arrived in the New World—in the Puritan Great Migration—where they prospered. Emily Dickinsons paternal grandfather, Samuel Dickinson, had almost single-handedly founded Amherst College, in 1813, he built the homestead, a large mansion on the towns Main Street, that became the focus of Dickinson family life for the better part of a century. On May 6,1828, he married Emily Norcross from Monson and they had three children, William Austin, known as Austin, Aust or Awe Emily Elizabeth Lavinia Norcross, known as Lavinia or Vinnie By all accounts, young Emily was a well-behaved girl. On an extended visit to Monson when she was two, Emilys Aunt Lavinia described Emily as perfectly well & contented—She is a good child &. Emilys aunt also noted the affinity for music and her particular talent for the piano. Dickinson attended primary school in a building on Pleasant Street. Her education was ambitiously classical for a Victorian girl and her father wanted his children well-educated and he followed their progress even while away on business. When Emily was seven, he wrote home, reminding his children to school, and learn, so as to tell me. While Emily consistently described her father in a manner, her correspondence suggests that her mother was regularly cold
25.
George Eliot
–
Mary Anne Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She used a pen name, she said, to ensure that her works would be taken seriously. Female authors were published under their own names during Eliots life and she also wished to have her fiction judged separately from her already extensive and widely known work as an editor and critic. Eliots Middlemarch has been described by Martin Amis and Julian Barnes as the greatest novel in the English language, Mary Ann Evans was born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. She was the child of Robert Evans and Christiana Evans. Mary Anns name was shortened to Marian. Her full siblings were Christiana, known as Chrissey, Isaac and she also had a half-brother, Robert, and half-sister, Fanny, from her fathers previous marriage to Harriet Poynton. Robert Evans, of Welsh ancestry, was the manager of the Arbury Hall Estate for the Newdigate family in Warwickshire, in early 1820 the family moved to a house named Griff House, between Nuneaton and Bedworth. The young Evans was obviously intelligent, a voracious reader, at Mrs. Wallingtons school, she was taught by the evangelical Maria Lewis — to whom her earliest surviving letters are addressed. In the religious atmosphere of the Miss Franklins school, Evans was exposed to a quiet, after age sixteen, Evans had little formal education. Thanks to her fathers important role on the estate, she was allowed access to the library of Arbury Hall and her classical education left its mark, Christopher Stray has observed that George Eliots novels draw heavily on Greek literature, and her themes are often influenced by Greek tragedy. The other important early influence in her life was religion and she was brought up within a low church Anglican family, but at that time the Midlands was an area with a growing number of religious dissenters. In 1836 her mother died and Evans returned home to act as housekeeper, when she was 21, her brother Isaac married and took over the family home, so Evans and her father moved to Foleshill near Coventry. The closeness to Coventry society brought new influences, most notably those of Charles, Charles Bray had become rich as a ribbon manufacturer and had used his wealth in the building of schools and in other philanthropic causes. The people whom the woman met at the Brays house included Robert Owen, Herbert Spencer, Harriet Martineau. Through this society Evans was introduced to more liberal theologies and to such as David Strauss and Ludwig Feuerbach. As a product of their friendship, Bray published some of Evanss earliest writing, such as reviews, in his newspaper the Coventry Herald and Observer. When Evans began to question her religious faith, her father threatened to throw her out of the house, instead, she respectfully attended church and continued to keep house for him until his death in 1849, when she was 30
26.
Adelaide Crapsey
–
Adelaide Crapsey was an American poet. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she was raised in Rochester, New York, daughter of Adelaide T. Crapsey and Episcopal priest Algernon Sidney Crapsey, Adelaide Crapsey was born on September 9,1878 in Brooklyn Heights, New York. Her parents were Algernon Sidney Crapsey and Adelaide Crapsey and she was the third child of her parents. Their first child was a son Philip and their child was a daughter Emily. Adelaide was baptized on November 1,1878 in Trinity Church in New York City where her father was an assistant minister, before Adelaide was a year old, her father became the rector of St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Rochester, N. Y. His family followed him to Rochester from New York City on the canal boat, in Rochester, Adelaide attended the public schools. Crapsey was raised in an environment that encouraged great expectations for women. After leaving the Rochester public schools, Adelaide with her sister Emily entered Kemper Hall in 1893, Kemper Hall was an Episcopalian womans college preparatory school in Kenosha, Wisconsin. At Kemper Hall, she took the preparatory courses which included Latin. She was the editor of the magazine and she played and referred basketball. She graduated in 1897 as the valedictorian for her class, Adelaide matriculated in Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1897. She had a very active four years in Vassar, for three years she was class poet. She was the editor-in-chief of the Vassarion and managed the basketball team and she was a member of the debating club and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She played the role of Lucy the maid in the play The Rivals, Crapsey roomed with Jean Webster who continued to be her best friend and literary comrade for the rest of her life. Two of Adelaides sisters died while she was in college, ruth died in 1898 of undulant fever at the age of eleven. Emily, with whom Adelaide was closest, died in 1901 of appendicitis at the age of twenty-four, Adelaide planned a career in teaching after graduating from Vassar in 1901. However, before beginning work, she took a year off both to regain her strength and to recover from the shock of Emilys death, after her year off, Adelaide returned to Kemper Hall to teach history and literature in 1903-1904. While there, she suffered chronic fatigue, which was a symptom of her not-yet-diagnosed tuberculosis and this caused Adelaide to leave her teaching in 1904, to study at the School of Classical Studies of the American Academy in Rome
27.
William Soutar
–
William Soutar was a Scottish poet and diarist, who wrote in both English and Braid Scots, and is known best for his epigrams. William Soutar was born on 28 April 1898 in Perth, Scotland, the child of John Soutar, master joiner, and his wife, Margaret Smith. His parents belonged to the United Free Church of Scotland and he was educated at Southern District School, Perth, and at Perth Academy, before joining the wartime navy in 1916. By the time he was demobilized in November 1918, he was suffering from what was to be diagnosed in 1924 as ankylosing spondylitis. Soutar began to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1919 and he did not excel academically, but he began to contribute to the student magazine. His first volume, Gleanings by an Undergraduate, was published at his fathers expense and he began to keep a diary on 18 April 1919. During that period he made contact with Hugh MacDiarmid, then in Montrose, Soutars work correspondingly altered radically, and he became a leading figure of the Scottish Literary Renaissance, whom posthumous editors would dub one of the greatest poets Scotland has produced. His family adopted a cousin of his, the seven-year-old Evelyn, in 1927. Seeds in the Wind was a volume of bairn-rhymes in Scots, by 1930 Soutar was bedridden with his disease. He died in 1943 of tuberculosis, which he had contracted in 1929 and he is buried in Perths Jeanfield and Wellshill Cemetery. A collected poems edited by MacDiarmid was published in 1948 and his journal, The Diary of a Dying Man, was published posthumously. One form of verse which he used was the cinquain, which he preferred to call epigrams. Interest in Soutars work in Scots and English, and for adults and children, has revived considerably since the 1980s, in 2014 he was the subject of a BBC radio programme, The Still Life Poet by Liz Lochhead. Benjamin Britten set twelve of Soutars poems for tenor and piano in his 1969 song cycle Who Are These Children, Gleanings by an Undergraduate Brief Words. One Hundred Epigrams Seeds in the Wind, Poems in Scots for Children Diaries of a Dying Man ISBN 0-86241-347-8, in fact only a short selection. The Collected Poems of William Soutar, ed, Hugh McDiarmid Poems of William Soutar, a New Selection, ed. W. R. More can be found here Retrieved 16 August 2013 and here Retrieved 16 August 2013
28.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
–
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He wrote the poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan and his critical work, especially on William Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking culture. Coleridge coined many words and phrases, including suspension of disbelief. He was an influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson and American transcendentalism. Throughout his adult life Coleridge had crippling bouts of anxiety and depression, it has been speculated that he had bipolar disorder and he was physically unhealthy, which may have stemmed from a bout of rheumatic fever and other childhood illnesses. He was treated for these conditions with laudanum, which fostered a lifelong opium addiction, Coleridge was born on 21 October 1772 in the town of Ottery St Mary in Devon, England. He had previously been Master of Hugh Squiers School in South Molton, Devon, John Coleridge had three children by his first wife. Samuel was the youngest of ten by the Reverend Mr. Coleridges second wife, Anne Bowden, probably the daughter of John Bowden, Mayor of South Molton, Devon, Coleridge suggests that he took no pleasure in boyish sports but instead read incessantly and played by himself. At that school Coleridge became friends with Charles Lamb, a schoolmate, in fancy I can almost hear him now, exclaiming Harp. Pen and ink, boy, you mean, oh aye. the cloister-pump, I suppose. Be this as it may, there was one custom of our masters and he would often permit our theme exercises. To accumulate, till each lad had four or five to be looked over, throughout his life, Coleridge idealised his father as pious and innocent, while his relationship with his mother was more problematic. His childhood was characterised by attention seeking, which has linked to his dependent personality as an adult. He was rarely allowed to return home during the term. He later wrote of his loneliness at school in the poem Frost at Midnight, With unclosed lids, from 1791 until 1794, Coleridge attended Jesus College, Cambridge. In 1792, he won the Browne Gold Medal for an ode that he wrote on the slave trade, afterwards, he was rumoured to have had a bout of severe depression. His brothers arranged for his discharge a few months later under the reason of insanity and he was readmitted to Jesus College, at Jesus College, Coleridge was introduced to political and theological ideas then considered radical, including those of the poet Robert Southey. Coleridge joined Southey in a plan, soon abandoned, to found a utopian society, called Pantisocracy
29.
A. E. Housman
–
Alfred Edward Housman, usually known as A. E. Housman, was an English classical scholar and poet, best known to the general public for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. Lyrical and almost epigrammatic in form, the poems evoke the dooms. Their beauty, simplicity and distinctive imagery appealed strongly to late Victorian and Edwardian taste, through their song-settings, the poems became closely associated with that era, and with Shropshire itself. Housman was one of the foremost classicists of his age and has ranked as one of the greatest scholars who ever lived. He established his publishing as a private scholar and, on the strength and quality of his work, was appointed Professor of Latin at University College London. His editions of Juvenal, Manilius and Lucan are still considered authoritative and his mother died on his twelfth birthday, and his father, a country solicitor, remarried, to an elder cousin, Lucy, in 1873. Housmans brother Laurence Housman and their sister Clemence Housman also became writers, Housman was educated at King Edwards School in Birmingham and later Bromsgrove School, where he revealed his academic promise and won prizes for his poems. In 1877 he won a scholarship to St Johns College, Oxford. Although introverted by nature, Housman formed strong friendships with two roommates, Moses Jackson and A. W. Pollard, Jackson became the great love of Housmans life, but he was heterosexual and did not reciprocate Housmans feelings. Housman became an atheist while attending Oxford, accordingly, he failed to obtain a degree. Though some attribute Housmans unexpected failure in his final exams directly to his rejection by Jackson, Housman was indifferent to philosophy and overconfident in his exceptional gifts, he felt contempt for inexact scholarship, and he enjoyed idling away his time with Jackson and others. He may also have been distracted by news of his fathers desperate illness and he felt deeply humiliated by his failure and became determined to vindicate his genius. After Oxford, Jackson got a job as a clerk in the Patent Office in London, Moses Jackson moved to India in 1887, placing more distance between himself and Housman. When Jackson returned briefly to England in 1889, to marry, Housman was not invited to the wedding, adalbert Jackson died in 1892 and Housman commemorated him in a poem published as XLII – A. J. J. of More Poems. Meanwhile, Housman pursued his studies independently, and published scholarly articles on such authors as Horace, Propertius, Ovid, Aeschylus. He gradually acquired such a reputation that in 1892 he was offered and accepted the professorship of Latin at University College London. Many years later UCLs academic common room was dedicated to his memory as the Housman Room, in his private life Housman enjoyed gastronomy, flying in aeroplanes and making frequent visits to France, where he read books which were banned in Britain as pornographic. Benson, a don, described him as being descended from a long line of maiden aunts
30.
Benjamin Franklin
–
Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Franklin was a polymath and a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, freemason, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman. As a scientist, he was a figure in the American Enlightenment. As an inventor, he is known for the rod, bifocals. He facilitated many civic organizations, including Philadelphias fire department and the University of Pennsylvania, Franklin earned the title of The First American for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity, initially as an author and spokesman in London for several colonies. As the first United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation, in the words of historian Henry Steele Commager, In a Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat. To Walter Isaacson, this makes Franklin the most accomplished American of his age, Franklin became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies, publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette at the age of 23. He became wealthy publishing this and Poor Richards Almanack, which he authored under the pseudonym Richard Saunders, after 1767, he was associated with the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a newspaper that was known for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of the British policies. He pioneered and was first president of The Academy and College of Philadelphia which opened in 1751 and he organized and was the first secretary of the American Philosophical Society and was elected president in 1769. Franklin became a hero in America as an agent for several colonies when he spearheaded an effort in London to have the Parliament of Great Britain repeal the unpopular Stamp Act. An accomplished diplomat, he was widely admired among the French as American minister to Paris and was a figure in the development of positive Franco-American relations. His efforts proved vital for the American Revolution in securing shipments of crucial munitions from France, during the Revolution, he became the first US Postmaster General. He was active in community affairs and colonial and state politics, from 1785 to 1788, he served as governor of Pennsylvania. He initially owned and dealt in slaves but, by the 1750s, he argued against slavery from an economic perspective, Franklins father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler, a soap-maker and a candle-maker. Josiah was born at Ecton, Northamptonshire, England on December 23,1657, the son of Thomas Franklin, a blacksmith-farmer, and Jane White. His mother, Abiah Folger, was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on August 15,1667, to Peter Folger, a miller and schoolteacher, and his wife, Mary Morrill, Josiah Franklin had seventeen children with his two wives. He married his first wife, Anne Child, in about 1677 in Ecton and emigrated with her to Boston in 1683, after her death, Josiah was married to Abiah Folger on July 9,1689 in the Old South Meeting House by Samuel Willard. Benjamin, their child, was Josiah Franklins fifteenth child and tenth
31.
John Dryden
–
John Dryden was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was made Englands first Poet Laureate in 1668. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in circles as the Age of Dryden. Walter Scott called him Glorious John, Dryden was born in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire, where his maternal grandfather was rector of All Saints. He was a cousin once removed of Jonathan Swift. As a boy Dryden lived in the village of Titchmarsh. In 1644 he was sent to Westminster School as a Kings Scholar where his headmaster was Dr. Richard Busby, having recently been re-founded by Elizabeth I, Westminster during this period embraced a very different religious and political spirit encouraging royalism and high Anglicanism. Whatever Drydens response to this was, he respected the headmaster. As a humanist public school, Westminster maintained a curriculum which trained pupils in the art of rhetoric and this is a skill which would remain with Dryden and influence his later writing and thinking, as much of it displays these dialectical patterns. The Westminster curriculum included weekly translation assignments which developed Drydens capacity for assimilation and this was also to be exhibited in his later works. Busby had first prayed for the King and then locked in his schoolboys to prevent their attending the spectacle, in 1650 Dryden went up to Trinity College, Cambridge. Though there is specific information on Drydens undergraduate years, he would most certainly have followed the standard curriculum of classics, rhetoric. In 1654 he obtained his BA, graduating top of the list for Trinity that year, in June of the same year Drydens father died, leaving him some land which generated a little income, but not enough to live on. Returning to London during the Protectorate, Dryden obtained work with Cromwells Secretary of State and this appointment may have been the result of influence exercised on his behalf by his cousin the Lord Chamberlain, Sir Gilbert Pickering. At Cromwells funeral on 23 November 1658 Dryden processed with the Puritan poets John Milton, shortly thereafter he published his first important poem, Heroic Stanzas, a eulogy on Cromwells death which is cautious and prudent in its emotional display. In 1660 Dryden celebrated the Restoration of the monarchy and the return of Charles II with Astraea Redux, in this work the interregnum is illustrated as a time of anarchy, and Charles is seen as the restorer of peace and order. After the Restoration, as Dryden quickly established himself as the poet and literary critic of his day. Along with Astraea Redux, Dryden welcomed the new regime with two more panegyrics, To His Sacred Majesty, A Panegyric on his Coronation and To My Lord Chancellor and these, and his other nondramatic poems, are occasional—that is, they celebrate public events. Thus they are written for the rather than the self
The dictionary definition of epigram at Wiktionary
Quotations related to Epigram at Wikiquote
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Epigram". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "