1.
T. S. Eliot
–
Thomas Stearns Eliot OM was a British essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic, and one of the twentieth centurys major poets. He moved from his native United States to England in 1914 at the age of 25, settling, working and he eventually became a British subject in 1927 at the age of 39, renouncing his American citizenship. Eliot attracted widespread attention for his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and it was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including The Waste Land, The Hollow Men, Ash Wednesday, and Four Quartets. He was also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry. The Eliots were a Boston family with roots in Old and New England, Thomas Eliots paternal grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot, had moved to St. Louis, Missouri to establish a Unitarian Christian church there. Eliot was the last of six surviving children, his parents were both 44 years old when he was born, Eliot was born at 2635 Locust St. property owned by his grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot. His four sisters were between 11 and 19 years older, his brother was eight years older, known to family and friends as Tom, he was the namesake of his maternal grandfather, Thomas Stearns. Eliots childhood infatuation with literature can be ascribed to several factors, firstly, he had to overcome physical limitations as a child. Struggling from a congenital double inguinal hernia, he could not participate in physical activities. As he was isolated, his love for literature developed. Once he learned to read, the boy immediately became obsessed with books and was absorbed in tales depicting savages. In his memoir of Eliot, his friend Robert Sencourt comments that the young Eliot would often curl up in the window-seat behind an enormous book, setting the drug of dreams against the pain of living. Secondly, Eliot credited his hometown with fuelling his literary vision, I feel that there is something in having passed ones childhood beside the big river, which is incommunicable to those people who have not. I consider myself fortunate to have been here, rather than in Boston, or New York. From 1898 to 1905, Eliot attended Smith Academy, where his studies included Latin, Ancient Greek, French and he began to write poetry when he was fourteen under the influence of Edward Fitzgeralds Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a translation of the poetry of Omar Khayyam. He said the results were gloomy and despairing and he destroyed them and his first published poem, A Fable For Feasters, was written as a school exercise and was published in the Smith Academy Record in February 1905. Also published there in April 1905 was his oldest surviving poem in manuscript and he also published three short stories in 1905, Birds of Prey, A Tale of a Whale and The Man Who Was King. The last mentioned story significantly reflects his exploration of Igorot Village while visiting the 1904 Worlds Fair of St. Louis, such a link with primitive people importantly antedates his anthropological studies at Harvard
T. S. Eliot
–
T. S. Eliot in 1934
T. S. Eliot
–
Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot, passport photograph from 1920.
T. S. Eliot
–
A plaque at
SOAS 's Faber Building, 24
Russell Square, London
T. S. Eliot
–
The
Faber and Faber building where Eliot worked from 1925 to 1965; the commemorative plaque is under the right-hand arch.
2.
Wikisource
–
Wikisource is an online digital library of free content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project, the projects aims are to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts, the project officially began in November 24,2003 under the name Project Sourceberg. The name Wikisource was adopted later that year and it received its own domain name seven months later, the project has come under criticism for lack of reliability but it is also cited by organisations such as the National Archives and Records Administration. The project holds works that are either in the domain or freely licensed, professionally published works or historical source documents, not vanity products. Verification was initially made offline, or by trusting the reliability of digital libraries. Now works are supported by online scans via the ProofreadPage extension, some individual Wikisources, each representing a specific language, now only allow works backed up with scans. While the bulk of its collection are texts, Wikisource as a whole hosts other media, some Wikisources allow user-generated annotations, subject to the specific policies of the Wikisource in question. Wikisources early history included several changes of name and location, the original concept for Wikisource was as storage for useful or important historical texts. These texts were intended to support Wikipedia articles, by providing evidence and original source texts. The collection was focused on important historical and cultural material. The project was originally called Project Sourceberg during its planning stages, in 2001, there was a dispute on Wikipedia regarding the addition of primary source material, leading to edit wars over their inclusion or deletion. Project Sourceberg was suggested as a solution to this, perhaps Project Sourceberg can mainly work as an interface for easily linking from Wikipedia to a Project Gutenberg file, and as an interface for people to easily submit new work to PG. Wed want to complement Project Gutenberg--how, exactly, and Jimmy Wales adding like Larry, Im interested that we think it over to see what we can add to Project Gutenberg. It seems unlikely that primary sources should in general be editable by anyone -- I mean, Shakespeare is Shakespeare, unlike our commentary on his work, the project began its activity at ps. wikipedia. org. The contributors understood the PS subdomain to mean either primary sources or Project Sourceberg, however, this resulted in Project Sourceberg occupying the subdomain of the Pashto Wikipedia. A vote on the name changed it to Wikisource on December 6,2003. Despite the change in name, the project did not move to its permanent URL until July 23,2004, since Wikisource was initially called Project Sourceberg, its first logo was a picture of an iceberg
Wikisource
–
The original Wikisource logo
Wikisource
–
Screenshot of wikisource.org home page
Wikisource
–
::: Original text
Wikisource
–
::: Action of the modernizing tool
3.
Modernist poetry in English
–
Modernist poetry in English started in the early years of the 20th century with the appearance of the Imagists. In common with other modernists, these poets wrote in reaction to the perceived excesses of Victorian poetry, with its emphasis on traditional formalism. Modernists saw themselves as looking back to the best practices of poets in earlier periods and their models included ancient Greek literature, Chinese and Japanese poetry, the troubadours, Dante and the medieval Italian philosophical poets, and the English Metaphysical poets. Much of early modernist poetry took the form of short, compact lyrics, as it developed, however, longer poems came to the foreground. These represent the modernist movement to the 20th-century English poetic canon, specifically, poetic sonic effects would also, therefore, become an influential poetic device of modernism. The origins of Imagism and cubist poetry are to be found in two poems by T. E. Hulme that were published in 1909 by the Poets Club in London. Hulme was a student of mathematics and philosophy who had established the Poets Club to discuss his theories of poetry. The poet and critic F. S. Flint, who was a champion of free verse and modern French poetry, was critical of the club. From the ensuing debate, Hulme and Flint became close friends, the American poet Ezra Pound was introduced to this group and they found that their ideas resembled his. In 1911, Pound introduced two other poets, H. D. and Richard Aldington, to the Eiffel Tower group, both of these poets were students of the early Greek lyric poetry, especially the works of Sappho. In October 1912, he submitted three poems each by H. D. and Aldington under the rubric Imagiste to Poetry magazine. That month Pounds book Ripostes was published with an appendix called The Complete Poetical Works of T. E. Hulme, aldingtons poems were in the November issue of Poetry and H. D. s in January 1913 and Imagism as a movement was launched. The March issue contained Pounds A Few Donts by an Imagiste, the latter contained this succinct statement of the groups position, Direct treatment of the thing, whether subjective or objective. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation, as regarding rhythm, to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome. Free verse was encouraged along with other new rhythms, common speech language was used, and the exact word was always to be used, as opposed to the almost exact word. In setting these criteria for poetry, the Imagists saw themselves as looking backward to the best practices of pre-Romantic writing, Imagists poets used sharp language and embrace imagery. Their work, however, was to have a impact on English-language writing for the rest of the 20th century. Chinese grammar offers different expressive possibilities from English grammar, a point that Pound subsequently made much of, with a few exceptions, this represents a roll-call of English-language modernist poets of the time
Modernist poetry in English
–
Cathay title page
Modernist poetry in English
–
Marianne Moore photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1948.
4.
The Criterion
–
The Criterion was a British literary magazine published from October 1922 to January 1939. The Criterion was, for most of its run, a quarterly journal and it was created by the poet, dramatist, and literary critic T. S. Eliot who served as its editor for its entire run. Eliots goal was to make it a literary review dedicated to the maintenance of standards, the first issue of the magazine, of which 600 copies were printed, included Eliots The Waste Land. In its first year, it received contributions from Luigi Pirandello, Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound, E. M. Forster, and W. B. Other contributors over the years included Wyndham Lewis, Herbert Read, John Middleton Murry, John Gould Fletcher, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and Hart Crane. Nine contributions in 1924 and 1925 were made, pseudonymously, by Eliots first wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood, the Criterion became the first English periodical to publish Marcel Proust, Paul Valéry and Jean Cocteau. After four years she withdrew her support and the magazine was acquired by Eliots employer, Faber and Gwyer Publishing, from January 1926, when Faber became the publisher, though January 1927 the journal was titled The New Criterion. The issues from May 1927 though March 1928 were titled The Monthly Criterion, some of Eliots other contributions include his short story On the Eve, commentaries, and poems, including early versions of The Hollow Men and Ash Wednesday. Together with its rival, Adelphi, edited by John Middleton Murry, in this contest Eliot emerged a clear victor, in the sense that in the London of the 1930s he had taken the centre of the critical stage
The Criterion
–
Early poems
5.
The Dial
–
The Dial was an American magazine published intermittently from 1840 to 1929. In its first form, from 1840 to 1844, it served as the publication of the Transcendentalists. In the 1880s it was revived as a political magazine, from 1920 to 1929 it was an influential outlet for modernist literature in English. Members of the Hedge Club began talks for creating a vehicle for their essays and reviews in philosophy, other influential journals, including the North American Review and the Christian Examiner refused to accept their work for publication. Orestes Brownson proposed utilizing his recently established periodical Boston Quarterly Review, frederick Henry Hedge, Theodore Parker, and Ralph Waldo Emerson were originally considered for the editor role. On October 20,1839, Margaret Fuller officially accepted the editorship, george Ripley served as the managing editor. Its first issue was published in July 1840 with an introduction by Emerson calling it a Journal in a new spirit, in this first form, the magazine remained in publication until 1844. Emerson wrote to Fuller on August 4,1840, of his ambitions for the magazine, I would not have it too purely literary. A great Journal people must read, and it does not seem worth our while to work with any other than sovereign aims. So I wish we might court some of the good fanatics and publish chapters on every head in the whole Art of Living. I know the danger of such latitude of plan in any but the best conducted Journal. It becomes friendly to special modes of reform, partisan, bigoted, perhaps whimsical, but our round table is not, I fancy, in imminent peril of party & bigotry, & we shall bruise each the others whims by the collision. The title of the journal, which was suggested by Bronson Alcott and we wish it may resemble that instrument in its celebrated happiness, that of measuring no hours but those of sunshine. Let it be one cheerful rational voice amidst the din of mourners, the Dial was heavily criticized, even by Transcendentalists. Ripley said, They had expected hoofs and horns while it proved as gentle as any sucking dove, the journal was never financially stable. In 1843, Elizabeth Peabody, acting as manager, noted that the journals income was not covering the cost of printing. It ceased publication in April 1844, horace Greeley, in the May 25 issue of the New-York Weekly Tribune, reported it as an end to the most original and thoughtful periodical ever published in this country. After a one-year revival in 1860, the incarnation of The Dial. This version of the magazine was founded by Francis Fisher Browne in Chicago, Browne claimed it to be a legitimate offspring of Emerson and Fullers Dial
The Dial
–
July 1843 issue of The Dial, featuring
Margaret Fuller 's "
The Great Lawsuit "
The Dial
–
"The moral influence of The Dial ", a caricature by
Christopher Pearse Cranch, ca. 1836-1838
6.
Mantra
–
A Mantra is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words in Sanskrit believed by practitioners to have psychological and spiritual powers. A mantra may or may not have syntactic structure or literal meaning, the earliest mantras were composed in Vedic Sanskrit by Hindus in India, and are at least 3000 years old. Mantras now exist in various schools of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, in Japanese Shingon tradition, the word Shingon means mantra. Similar hymns, chants, compositions and concepts are found in Zoroastrianism, Taoism, Christianity, the use, structure, function, importance, and types of mantras vary according to the school and philosophy of Hinduism and of Buddhism. Mantras serve a role in tantra. In this school, mantras are considered to be a sacred formula, in other schools of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism or Sikhism, initiation is not a requirement. Mantras come in forms, including ṛc and sāman. They are typically melodic, mathematically structured meters, believed to be resonant with numinous qualities, at its simplest, the word ॐ serves as a mantra. In more sophisticated forms, mantras are melodic phrases with spiritual interpretations such as a longing for truth, reality, light, immortality, peace, love, knowledge. Some mantras have no meaning, yet are musically uplifting. The Sanskrit word mantra- consists of the root man- to think, scholars consider mantras to be older than 1000 BC. By the middle Vedic period—1000 BC to 500 BC—claims Frits Staal, mantras in Hinduism had developed into a blend of art, the Chinese translation is zhenyan 眞言, 真言, literally true words, the Japanese onyomi reading of the Chinese being shingon. Mantras are neither unique to Hinduism, nor to other Indian religions such as Buddhism, similar creative constructs developed in Asian, mantras, suggests Frits Staal, may be older than language. There is no accepted definition of mantra. Renou has defined mantra as thought, mantras are structured formulae of thoughts, claims Silburn. Farquhar concludes that mantras are a religious thought, prayer, sacred utterance, zimmer defines mantra as a verbal instrument to produce something in one’s mind. There is no universally applicable uniform definition of mantra because mantras are used in different religions, in some schools of Hinduism for example, suggests Gonda, mantra is sakti to the devotee in the form of formulated and expressed thought. Staal clarifies that mantras are not rituals, they are what is recited or chanted during a ritual, There is a long history of scholarly disagreement on the meaning of mantras and whether they are really instruments of mind, as implied by the etymological origin of the word mantra
Mantra
–
In
Tibet, many
Buddhists carve mantras into rocks as a form of meditation.
Mantra
–
The
Om syllable is considered a mantra in its own right in the
Vedanta school of Hinduism.
Mantra
–
Mantras written on a rock near
Namche Bazaar Nepal
Mantra
–
Om mani padme hum on the
Gangpori (photo
1938–1939 German expedition to Tibet.
7.
Sanskrit
–
Sanskrit is the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, a philosophical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and a literary language and lingua franca of ancient and medieval South Asia. As a result of transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia and parts of Central Asia, as one of the oldest Indo-European languages for which substantial written documentation exists, Sanskrit holds a prominent position in Indo-European studies. The body of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as scientific, technical, philosophical, the compositions of Sanskrit were orally transmitted for much of its early history by methods of memorization of exceptional complexity, rigor, and fidelity. Thereafter, variants and derivatives of the Brahmi script came to be used, Sanskrit is today one of the 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, which mandates the Indian government to develop the language. It continues to be used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals and Buddhist practice in the form of hymns. The Sanskrit verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- may be translated as refined, elaborated, as a term for refined or elaborated speech, the adjective appears only in Epic and Classical Sanskrit in the Manusmṛti and the Mahabharata. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit, with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved, Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini, around the fourth century BCE. Sanskrit, as defined by Pāṇini, evolved out of the earlier Vedic form, the present form of Vedic Sanskrit can be traced back to as early as the second millennium BCE. Scholars often distinguish Vedic Sanskrit and Classical or Pāṇinian Sanskrit as separate dialects, although they are quite similar, they differ in a number of essential points of phonology, vocabulary, grammar and syntax. Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, a collection of hymns, incantations and theological and religio-philosophical discussions in the Brahmanas. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Rigveda Samhita to be the earliest, for nearly 2000 years, Sanskrit was the language of a cultural order that exerted influence across South Asia, Inner Asia, Southeast Asia, and to a certain extent East Asia. A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of Indian epic poetry—the Ramayana, the deviations from Pāṇini in the epics are generally considered to be on account of interference from Prakrits, or innovations, and not because they are pre-Paninian. Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations ārṣa, meaning of the ṛṣis, in some contexts, there are also more prakritisms than in Classical Sanskrit proper. There were four principal dialects of classical Sanskrit, paścimottarī, madhyadeśī, pūrvi, the predecessors of the first three dialects are attested in Vedic Brāhmaṇas, of which the first one was regarded as the purest. In the 2001 Census of India,14,035 Indians reported Sanskrit to be their first language, in India, Sanskrit is among the 14 original languages of the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution. The state of Uttarakhand in India has ruled Sanskrit as its official language. In October 2012 social activist Hemant Goswami filed a petition in the Punjab. More than 3,000 Sanskrit works have been composed since Indias independence in 1947, much of this work has been judged of high quality, in comparison to both classical Sanskrit literature and modern literature in other Indian languages
Sanskrit
–
Rigveda (
padapatha) manuscript in
Devanagari, early 19th century
Sanskrit
–
Devi Mahatmya palm-leaf manuscript in an early
Bhujimol script,
Bihar or
Nepal, 11th century
Sanskrit
–
A poem by the ancient Indian poet Vallana (ca. 900 – 1100 CE) on the side wall of a building at the Haagweg 14 in Leiden, Netherlands
Sanskrit
–
Kashmir Shaiva manuscript in the
Śāradā script (c. 17th century)
8.
Holy Grail
–
The Holy Grail is a vessel that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Different traditions describe it as a cup, dish or stone with miraculous powers that provide happiness, a grail, wondrous but not explicitly holy, first appears in Perceval, le Conte du Graal, an unfinished romance written by Chrétien de Troyes around 1190. Here, it is a processional salver used to serve at a feast, in the late 12th century, Robert de Boron wrote in Joseph dArimathie that the Grail was Jesuss vessel from the Last Supper, which Joseph of Arimathea used to catch Christs blood at the Crucifixion. The word graal, as it is earliest spelled, comes from Old French graal or greal, cognate with Old Provençal grazal and Old Catalan gresal, meaning a cup or bowl of earth, wood, or metal. The most commonly accepted etymology derives it from Latin gradalis or gradale via a form, cratalis, a derivative of crater or cratus. Late medieval writers came up with an etymology for sangréal. In Old French, san graal or san gréal means Holy Grail, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia this is a false etymology. After the cycle of Grail romances was well established, later used this alternative etymology. Since then, Sang real is sometimes employed to lend a medievalising air in referring to the Holy Grail and this connection with royal blood bore fruit in a modern bestseller linking many historical conspiracy theories. The Grail was considered a bowl or dish when first described by Chrétien de Troyes, hélinand of Froidmont described a grail as a wide and deep saucer, other authors had their own ideas. Robert de Boron portrayed it as the vessel of the Last Supper, the Welsh romance Peredur had no Grail per se, presenting the hero instead with a platter containing his kinsmans bloody, severed head. The authors of the Vulgate Cycle used the Grail as a symbol of divine grace, Galahad and the interpretation of the Grail involving him were picked up in the 15th century by Sir Thomas Malory in Le Morte dArthur and remain popular today. The Grail is first featured in Perceval, le Conte du Graal by Chrétien de Troyes, in this incomplete poem, dated sometime between 1180 and 1191, the object has not yet acquired the implications of holiness it would have in later works. First comes a man carrying a bleeding lance, then two boys carrying candelabras. Finally, a young girl emerges bearing an elaborately decorated graal. Chrétien refers to this not as The Grail but as a grail, showing the word was used, in its earliest literary context. Perceval, who had warned against talking too much, remains silent through all of this. He later learns that if he had asked the questions about what he saw, he would have healed his maimed host
Holy Grail
–
How at the Castle of Corbin a Maiden Bare in the Sangreal and Foretold the Achievements of Galahad: illustration by
Arthur Rackham, 1917
Holy Grail
–
Galahad,
Bors, and
Percival achieve the Grail. Tapestry woven by
Morris & Co.. Wool and silk on cotton warp,
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
Holy Grail
–
Chalice of Doña Urraca in
Leon, Spain.
Holy Grail
–
One of the supposed Holy Grails in
Valencia, Spain
9.
Western canon
–
The Western canon is the body of books, music, and art that scholars generally accept as the most important and influential in shaping Western culture. Some examples of media such as cinema have attained a precarious position in the canon. There has been a debate over the nature and status of the canon since at least the 1960s, much of which is rooted in critical theory, feminism, critical race theory. The Bible, a product of Middle Eastern culture, has been a force in shaping Western culture, and has inspired some of the great monuments of human thought, literature. Although the term is associated with the Western canon, it can be applied to works of literature, music and art, etc. from all traditions. Historically, the word refers to a work of a high standard produced in order to obtain membership of a Guild or Academy. The first writer to use the classic was Aulus Gellius. Such classification began with the Greeks’ ranking their cultural works, with the word canon, contemporarily, the Western canon defines the best of Western culture. In the ancient world, at the Alexandrian Library, scholars coined the Greek term Hoi enkrithentes to identify the writers in the canon. There has been a debate over the nature and status of the canon since at least the 1960s, much of which is rooted in critical theory, feminism, critical race theory. Classicist Bernard Knox made direct reference to this topic when he delivered his 1992 Jefferson Lecture, some intellectuals have championed a high conservative modernism that insists that universal truths exist, and have opposed approaches that deny the existence of universal truths. Many argued that law was the repository of timeless truths. Bloom further comments, But one thing is certain, wherever the Great Books make up a part of the curriculum. His book was cited by some intellectuals for its argument that the classics contained universal truths. Defenders maintain that those who undermine the canon do so out of political interests. Ironically, the tradition is now regarded as oppressive. The texts once served a function, now we are told that it is the texts which must be unmasked. One of the objections to a canon of literature is the question of authority
Western canon
–
Dante,
Homer and
Virgil in
Raphael 's
Parnassus fresco (1511), in which the Western canon is visualised
Western canon
Western canon
–
The
Great Books of the Western World is an attempt to present the western canon in a single package of 60 volumes
10.
Buddhism
–
Buddhism is a religion and dharma that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. Buddhism originated in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, from where it spread through much of Asia, two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars, Theravada and Mahayana. Buddhism is the worlds fourth-largest religion, with over 500 million followers or 7% of the global population, Buddhist schools vary on the exact nature of the path to liberation, the importance and canonicity of various teachings and scriptures, and especially their respective practices. In Theravada the ultimate goal is the attainment of the state of Nirvana, achieved by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path, thus escaping what is seen as a cycle of suffering. Theravada has a following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana, which includes the traditions of Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren Buddhism, Shingon, rather than Nirvana, Mahayana instead aspires to Buddhahood via the bodhisattva path, a state wherein one remains in the cycle of rebirth to help other beings reach awakening. Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian siddhas, may be viewed as a branch or merely a part of Mahayana. Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth century India, is practiced in regions surrounding the Himalayas, Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow body. Buddhism is an Indian religion attributed to the teachings of Buddha, the details of Buddhas life are mentioned in many early Buddhist texts but are inconsistent, his social background and life details are difficult to prove, the precise dates uncertain. Some hagiographic legends state that his father was a king named Suddhodana, his mother queen Maya, and he was born in Lumbini gardens. Some of the stories about Buddha, his life, his teachings, Buddha was moved by the innate suffering of humanity. He meditated on this alone for a period of time, in various ways including asceticism, on the nature of suffering. He famously sat in meditation under a Ficus religiosa tree now called the Bodhi Tree in the town of Bodh Gaya in Gangetic plains region of South Asia. He reached enlightenment, discovering what Buddhists call the Middle Way, as an enlightened being, he attracted followers and founded a Sangha. Now, as the Buddha, he spent the rest of his teaching the Dharma he had discovered. Dukkha is a concept of Buddhism and part of its Four Noble Truths doctrine. It can be translated as incapable of satisfying, the unsatisfactory nature, the Four Truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism, we crave and cling to impermanent states and things, which is dukkha, incapable of satisfying and painful. This keeps us caught in saṃsāra, the cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha
Buddhism
–
Standing Buddha statue at the
Tokyo National Museum. One of the earliest known representations of the
Buddha, 1st–2nd century CE.
Buddhism
–
The Dharmachakra
Buddhism
–
Relic depicting Gautama leaving home. The Great Departure, c.1–2nd century. (
Musée Guimet)
Buddhism
–
Ascetic
Gautama with his five companions, who later comprised the first
Sangha. (Painting in
Laotian temple)
11.
Hinduism
–
Hinduism is a religion, or a way of life, found most notably in India and Nepal. Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, and some practitioners and scholars refer to it as Sanātana Dharma, scholars regard Hinduism as a fusion or synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions, with diverse roots and no founder. This Hindu synthesis started to develop between 500 BCE and 300 CE following the Vedic period, although Hinduism contains a broad range of philosophies, it is linked by shared concepts, recognisable rituals, cosmology, shared textual resources, and pilgrimage to sacred sites. Hindu texts are classified into Shruti and Smriti and these texts discuss theology, philosophy, mythology, Vedic yajna, Yoga, agamic rituals, and temple building, among other topics. Major scriptures include the Vedas and Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, prominent themes in Hindu beliefs include the four Puruṣārthas, the proper goals or aims of human life, namely Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha, karma, samsara, and the various Yogas. Hindu practices include such as puja and recitations, meditation, family-oriented rites of passage, annual festivals. Some Hindus leave their world and material possessions, then engage in lifelong Sannyasa to achieve Moksha. Hinduism prescribes the eternal duties, such as honesty, refraining from injuring living beings, patience, forbearance, self-restraint, Hinduism is the worlds third largest religion, with over one billion followers or 15% of the global population, known as Hindus. The majority of Hindus reside in India, Nepal, Mauritius, the Caribbean, the word Hindu is derived from the Indo-Aryan/Sanskrit word Sindhu, the Indo-Aryan name for the Indus River in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. The term Hindu in these ancient records is a geographical term, the Arabic term al-Hind referred to the people who live across the River Indus. This Arabic term was taken from the pre-Islamic Persian term Hindū. By the 13th century, Hindustan emerged as an alternative name of India. It was only towards the end of the 18th century that European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus. The term Hinduism, then spelled Hindooism, was introduced into the English language in the 18th-century to denote the religious, philosophical, because of the wide range of traditions and ideas covered by the term Hinduism, arriving at a comprehensive definition is difficult. The religion defies our desire to define and categorize it, Hinduism has been variously defined as a religion, a religious tradition, a set of religious beliefs, and a way of life. From a Western lexical standpoint, Hinduism like other faiths is appropriately referred to as a religion, in India the term dharma is preferred, which is broader than the western term religion. Hindu traditionalists prefer to call it Sanatana Dharma, the study of India and its cultures and religions, and the definition of Hinduism, has been shaped by the interests of colonialism and by Western notions of religion. Since the 1990s, those influences and its outcomes have been the topic of debate among scholars of Hinduism, Hinduism as it is commonly known can be subdivided into a number of major currents
Hinduism
–
Swami Vivekananda was a key figure in introducing
Vedanta and
Yoga in Europe and USA, raising interfaith awareness and making Hinduism a world religion.
Hinduism
–
Temple wall panel relief sculpture at the
Hoysaleswara temple in
Halebidu, representing the
Trimurti:
Brahma,
Shiva and
Vishnu.
Hinduism
–
The
Rigveda is the first and most important Veda and is one of the oldest
religious texts. This Rigveda
manuscript is in
Devanagari.
Hinduism
–
A wedding is the most extensive personal ritual an adult Hindu undertakes in his or her life. A typical
Hindu wedding is solemnized before Vedic
fire ritual (shown).
12.
Upanishads
–
The Upanishads are a collection of ancient Sanskrit texts that contain some of the central philosophical concepts of Hinduism, some of which are shared with Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Early Upanishads are considered by Hindus as part of their scriptures that discuss the nature of ultimate reality, the Upanishads are commonly referred to as Vedānta, variously interpreted to mean either the last chapters, parts of the Veda or the object, the highest purpose of the Veda. The concepts of Brahman and Ātman are central ideas in all the Upanishads, the Upanishads are the foundation of Hindu philosophical thought and its diverse traditions. Of the Vedic corpus, they alone are known. More than 200 Upanishads are known, of which the first dozen or so are the oldest and most important and are referred to as the principal or main Upanishads. The mukhya Upanishads are found mostly in the part of the Brahmanas and Aranyakas and were, for centuries, memorized by each generation. The early Upanishads all predate the Common Era, five of them in all likelihood pre-Buddhist, of the remainder, some 95 Upanishads are part of the Muktika canon, composed from about the last centuries of 1st-millennium BCE through about 15th-century CE. New Upanishads, beyond the 108 in the Muktika canon, continued to be composed through the modern and modern era. Along with the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahmasutra, the mukhya Upanishads provide a foundation for the later schools of Vedanta, among them. With the translation of the Upanishads in the early 19th century they started to attract attention from a western audience. Arthur Schopenhauer was deeply impressed by the Upanishads and called it the production of the highest human wisdom, modern era Indologists have discussed the similarities between the fundamental concepts in the Upanishads and major western philosophers. The Sanskrit term Upaniṣad translates to sitting down near, referring to the student sitting down near the teacher while receiving esoteric knowledge, monier-Williams Sanskrit Dictionary adds that, According to native authorities Upanishad means setting to rest ignorance by revealing the knowledge of the supreme spirit. Adi Shankara explains in his commentary on the Kaṭha and Brihadaranyaka Upanishad that the word means Ātmavidyā, other dictionary meanings include esoteric doctrine and secret doctrine. The word appears in the verses of many Upanishads, such as the verse of the 13th volume in first chapter of the Chandogya Upanishad. The authorship of most Upanishads is uncertain and unknown, Radhakrishnan states, almost all the early literature of India was anonymous, we do not know the names of the authors of the Upanishads. The Vedic texts themselves assert that they were created by Rishis, after inspired creativity. Women, such as Maitreyi and Gargi participate in the dialogues and are credited in the early Upanishads. There are exceptions to the tradition of the Upanishads and other Vedic literature
Upanishads
–
An early 19th-century manuscript of the Rigveda
Upanishads
–
Impact of a drop of water, a common analogy for
Brahman and the
Ātman
Upanishads
–
Adi Shankara, expounder of
Advaita Vedanta and
commentator (
bhashya) on the Upanishads
Upanishads
–
German philosopher
Arthur Schopenhauer, impressed by the Upanishads, called the texts "the production of the highest human wisdom".
13.
Prophecy
–
Prophecy is not limited to any one culture. It is a property to all known ancient societies around the world. Many systems and rules about prophecy have been proposed over several millennia, the related meaning thing spoken or written by a prophet dates from c. 1300, while the verb to prophesy is recorded by 1377, the former closely relates to the definition by Al-Fârâbî who developed the theory of prophecy in Islam. According to Western esotericist Rosemary Guiley, clairvoyance has been used as an adjunct to divination, prophecy, Modern research in prophecy is a pseudoscience. In general, a diviners foretelling or a prophetic prediction of the future does not adhere to the scientific method, from a skeptical point of view, there is a Latin maxim, prophecy written after the fact vaticinium ex eventu. The Jewish Torah already deals with the topic of the false prophet, the Haedong Kosung-jon records that King Beopheung of Silla had desired to promulgate Buddhism as the state religion. However, officials in his court opposed him, in the fourteenth year of his reign, Beopheungs Grand Secretary, Ichadon, devised a strategy to overcome court opposition. Ichadon schemed with the king, convincing him to make a proclamation granting Buddhism official state sanction using the royal seal, Ichadon told the king to deny having made such a proclamation when the opposing officials received it and demanded an explanation. Instead, Ichadon would confess and accept the punishment of execution, Ichadon prophesied to the king that at his execution a wonderful miracle would convince the opposing court faction of Buddhisms power. Ichadons scheme went as planned, and the officials took the bait. The omen was accepted by the court officials as a manifestation of heavens approval. In ancient Chinese, prophetic texts are known as Chen, the most famous Chinese prophecy is the Tui bei tu The New Testament refers to prophecy as one of the spiritual gifts given by the indwelling Holy Spirit. From this, many Christians believe that the gift of prophecy is the ability to receive. The purpose of the message may be to edify, exhort and comfort the members of the Church, in this context, not all prophecies contain predictions about the future. The Apostle Paul teaches in First Corinthians that prophecy is for the benefit of the whole Church, a recognized form of Christian prophecy is the prophetic drama which Frederick Dillistone describes as a metaphorical conjunction between present situations and future events. The gift of prophecy was acknowledged in the Church after the death of the apostles, in his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin Martyr argued that prophets were no longer among Israel but were in the Church. The Shepherd of Hermas, written around the mid-2nd century - John A. T. Robinson dates it before 85 AD, irenaeus confirms the existence of such spiritual gifts in his Against Heresies
Prophecy
–
The revolution of 1831. As prophecied by that learned astrologer General Ikey Wether-Bridge
Prophecy
–
King Saul
Prophecy
–
Key concepts
Prophecy
–
Revelations
14.
Augustine of Hippo
–
Augustine of Hippo was an early Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius, located in Numidia, Augustine is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity for his writings in the Patristic Era. Among his most important works are The City of God and Confessions, according to his contemporary, Jerome, Augustine established anew the ancient Faith. In his early years, he was influenced by Manichaeism. After his baptism and conversion to Christianity in 386, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and perspectives. Believing that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, he helped formulate the doctrine of original sin, when the Western Roman Empire began to disintegrate, Augustine developed the concept of the Church as a spiritual City of God, distinct from the material Earthly City. His thoughts profoundly influenced the medieval worldview, the segment of the Church that adhered to the concept of the Trinity as defined by the Council of Nicaea and the Council of Constantinople closely identified with Augustines On the Trinity. Augustine is recognized as a saint in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Christian Church, and he is also the patron of the Augustinians. His memorial is celebrated on 28 August, the day of his death, Augustine is the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, the alleviation of sore eyes, and a number of cities and dioceses. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists and Lutherans, consider him to be one of the fathers of the Protestant Reformation due to his teachings on salvation. Lutherans, and Martin Luther in particular, have held Augustine in preeminence, Luther himself was a member of the Order of the Augustinian Eremites. In the East, some of his teachings are disputed and have in the 20th century in particular come under attack by such theologians as John Romanides, but other theologians and figures of the Eastern Orthodox Church have shown significant appropriation of his writings, chiefly Georges Florovsky. The most controversial doctrine surrounding his name is the filioque, which has been rejected by the Orthodox Church, other disputed teachings include his views on original sin, the doctrine of grace, and predestination. Nevertheless, though considered to be mistaken on some points, he is considered a saint. In the Orthodox Church his feast day is celebrated on 28 August and he was an early Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. Augustine was the bishop of Hippo Regius, located in Numidia and he is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity for his writings in the Patristic Era. Among his most important works are The City of God and Confessions, Augustine was born in the year 354 AD in the municipium of Thagaste in Roman Africa. His mother, Monica or Monnica, was a devout Christian, in his writings, Augustine leaves some information as to the consciousness of his African heritage
Augustine of Hippo
–
Saint Augustine from a 19th-century engraving
Augustine of Hippo
–
The Saint Augustine Taken to School by Saint Monica. by
Niccolò di Pietro 1413-15
Augustine of Hippo
–
The earliest known portrait of Saint Augustine in a 6th-century fresco, Lateran, Rome.
Augustine of Hippo
–
Angelico, Fra. "The Conversion of St. Augustine" (painting).
15.
John Quinn (collector)
–
In the 1920s he owned the largest single collection of modern European paintings in the world. He fought key battles that opened American culture to 20th century art movements. He staged the first great exhibit of European modern art in America at the Armory in 1913, Quinn was born in Tiffin, Ohio to an Irish baker and grocer, James W. Quinn, and his wife, Mary. He grew up in nearby Fostoria, Ohio, where his parents relocated in 1871 and his paternal grandparents James and Mary Quinn, natives of County Limerick settled in Tiffin in 1851, where the grandfather was a blacksmith. His French adviser for Post-Impressionist art was Henri-Pierre Roche, who wrote the novel Jules et Jim. Quinn and Roche worked together to develop the famous 1913 Armory Show, Quinn was a principal supporter and purchaser of manuscripts of novelist Joseph Conrad during his lifetime. Yeats in 1902, and became a supporter, helping him found the Abbey Theatre. In the 1920s Quinn was a defender of the novel Ulysses by James Joyce. He was a friend of American poet Ezra Pound, a huge and controversial event, the 1913 Armory Show in New York City included examples of Symbolism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Neo-Impressionism, and Cubism. Quinn opened the exhibition with the words and it was time the American people had an opportunity to see and judge for themselves concerning the work of the Europeans who are creating a new art. In 1913 Quinn represented Margaret Kieley in a $2,000,000 legal contest over the Last Will, Margaret prevailed because her husbands nephews and nieces could not produce vital witnesses and defaulted. In the early 1920s Quinn represented Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap for their publication in The Little Review of serial portions of James Joyces Ulysses, Quinn died at age 54 of intestinal cancer, and was buried by his family in Fostoria, Ohio. Leaving no heirs, he willed that his art collection be auctioned off and dispersed among museums, in 1927, an exhibition and sale of Quinns art collection took place in New York City. Davies, Walt Kuhn, Marsden Hartley, Stanton MacDonald-Wright, the sale was conducted by Otto Bernet and Hiram H. Parke at the American Art Galleries. A catalog was published for the occasion by the American Art Association, John Quinn, The Irish Home-rule Convention, An American Opinion, The Macmillan company,1917 William M. Murphy. Prodigal Father, the Life of John Butler Yeats Richard and Janis Londraville, Dear Yeats, Dear Pound, Dear Ford, Jeanne Robert Foster and Her Circle of Friends Janis and Richard Londraville, eds. 1, Kennedy Galleries, Inc. pp. 56-71 The Library of John Quinn, complete catalogue of the library of John Quinn, sold by auction in five parts, New York, Anderson Galleries
John Quinn (collector)
–
John Quinn circa 1913
John Quinn (collector)
–
Photograph of works in a Quinn estate auction, New York, 1927
John Quinn (collector)
–
Vincent van Gogh, 1887, Self-Portrait, oil on canvas, 41 × 33.5 cm,
Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, CT
John Quinn (collector)
–
Georges Seurat, 1888, Les Poseuses, ensemble, oil on canvas, 39.4 × 48.7 cm, Henry P. McIlhenny Collection,
Philadelphia Museum of Art
16.
Thomas Gray
–
Thomas Gray was an English poet, letter-writer, classical scholar and professor at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He is widely known for his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Thomas Gray was born in Cornhill, London. His father, Philip Gray, was a scrivener and his mother, Dorothy Antrobus, was a milliner He was the fifth of 12 children, and he lived with his mother after she left his abusive and mentally unwell father. Grays mother paid for him to go to Eton College where two of his uncles worked, Robert and William Antrobus, Robert became Grays first teacher and helped inspire in Gray a love for botany and observational science. Grays other uncle, William, became his tutor and he recalled his schooldays as a time of great happiness, as is evident in his Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Gray was a delicate and scholarly boy who spent his time reading and avoiding athletics and he lived in his uncle’s household rather than at college. He made three friends at Eton, Horace Walpole, son of the Prime Minister Robert Walpole, Thomas Ashton. The four prided themselves on their sense of style, sense of humour and they were called the quadruple alliance. In 1734 Gray went up to Peterhouse, Cambridge and he wrote letters to friends listing all the things he disliked, the masters and the Fellows. Intended by his family for the law, he spent most of his time as an undergraduate reading classical and modern literature, in 1738 he accompanied his old school-friend Walpole on his Grand Tour of Europe, possibly at Walpoles expense. The two fell out and parted in Tuscany, because Walpole wanted to attend parties and Gray wanted to visit all the antiquities. They were reconciled a few years later and it was Walpole who later helped publish Grays poetry. When Gray sent his most famous poem, Elegy, to Walpole, Walpole sent off the poem as a manuscript, Gray then published the poem himself and received the credit he was due Gray began seriously writing poems in 1742, mainly after his close friend Richard West died. He moved to Cambridge and began a programme of literary study, becoming one of the most learned men of his time. Gray was a brilliant bookworm, a quiet, abstracted, dreaming scholar and he became a Fellow first of Peterhouse, and later of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Gray moved to Pembroke after the students at Peterhouse played a prank on him, Gray spent most of his life as a scholar in Cambridge, and only later in his life did he begin traveling again. Although he was one of the least productive poets, he is regarded as the foremost English-language poet of the mid-18th century, in 1757, he was offered the post of Poet Laureate, which he refused. Gray was so self-critical and fearful of failure that he published only thirteen poems during his lifetime and he once wrote that he feared his collected works would be mistaken for the works of a flea
Thomas Gray
–
Portrait by
John Giles Eccardt, 1747–1748
Thomas Gray
–
Plaque marking Thomas Gray's birthplace at 39 Cornhill, London
Thomas Gray
–
Monument, in
Stoke Poges, inscribed with Gray's
Elegy
Thomas Gray
–
The Hours by
Maria Cosway, an illustration to Gray's poem Ode on the Spring, referring to the lines "Lo! where the rosy-bosomed Hours, Fair Venus' train, appear"
17.
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
–
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is a poem by Thomas Gray, completed in 1750 and first published in 1751. The poem’s origins are unknown, but it was inspired by Gray’s thoughts following the death of the poet Richard West in 1742. Originally titled Stanzas Wrote in a Country Church-Yard, the poem was completed when Gray was living near St Giles parish church at Stoke Poges and it was sent to his friend Horace Walpole, who popularised the poem among London literary circles. Gray was eventually forced to publish the work on 15 February 1751, the poem is an elegy in name but not in form, it employs a style similar to that of contemporary odes, but it embodies a meditation on death, and remembrance after death. The poem argues that the remembrance can be good and bad, claimed as probably still today the best-known and best-loved poem in English, the Elegy quickly became popular. It was printed many times and in a variety of formats, translated into many languages, Grays life was surrounded by loss and death, and many people that he knew died painfully and alone. In 1749, several events occurred that caused Gray stress, on 7 November, Mary Antrobus, Grays aunt, died, her death devastated his family. The loss was compounded a few days later by news that his friend since childhood Horace Walpole had been almost killed by two highwaymen, although Walpole survived and later joked about the event, the incident disrupted Grays ability to pursue his scholarship. The events dampened the mood that Christmas, and Antrobuss death was ever fresh in the minds of the Gray family, as a side effect, the events caused Gray to spend much of his time contemplating his own mortality. As he began to contemplate various aspects of mortality, he combined his desire to determine a view of order and progress present in the Classical world with aspects of his own life. With spring nearing, Gray questioned if his own life would enter into a sort of cycle or, should he die. Grays meditations during spring 1750 turned to how individuals reputations would survive, eventually, Gray remembered some lines of poetry that he composed in 1742 following the death of West, a poet he knew. Using that previous material, he began to compose a poem that would serve as an answer to the questions he was pondering. On 3 June 1750, Gray moved to Stoke Poges, I have been here at Stoke a few days, and having put an end to a thing, whose beginnings you have seen long ago. You will, I hope, look upon it in light of a thing with an end to it, a merit that most of my writing have wanted, and are like to want, but which this epistle I am determined shall not want. The letter reveals that Gray felt that the poem was unimportant, the version that was later published and reprinted was a 32-stanza version with the Epitaph conclusion. Before the final version was published, it was circulated in London society by Walpole, with Walpoles help, he was able to convince Robert Dodsley to print the poem on 15 February as a quarto pamphlet. The pamphlet contained woodblock illustrations and was printed without attribution to Gray, immediately after, Owens magazine with Grays poem was printed but contained multiple errors and other problems
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
–
First page of
Dodsley 's illustrated edition of Gray's Elegy with illustration by
Richard Bentley
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
–
Thomas Gray, by
John Giles Eccardt, 1747–48,
National Portrait Gallery, London
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
–
Holograph manuscript of Gray's "Stanzas Wrote in a Country Church-Yard"
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
–
William Blake's watercolour illustration of the first stanza
18.
Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot
–
Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot was an English governess and writer, who became known for her marriage in 1915 to the American poet T. S. Eliot. Her legacy, and the extent to which she influenced Eliots work, has been the subject of much debate. She has been seen variously as a femme fatale who enticed the patrician Eliot into a marriage, or as his muse. Valerie Eliot, the second wife claimed the copyright of Haigh-Woods writings in 1984, including her private diaries. Haigh-Wood met Eliot in Oxford in March 1915, while he was studying philosophy at Merton College and they were married in Hampstead Register Office three months later. Her brother had her committed to an asylum in 1938, after she was wandering the streets of London at five oclock in the morning. Eliot won the Nobel Prize for Literature the following year, carole Seymour-Jones writes that it was out of the turmoil of the marriage that Eliot produced The Waste Land, one of the 20th centurys finest poems. Eliots sister-in-law, Theresa, said of the relationship, Vivienne ruined Tom as a man, Haigh-Wood was born in Knowsley Street, Bury, Lancashire, the first child of Rose Esther and Charles Haigh-Wood, an artist and member of the Royal Academy of Arts. The journey may have triggered the birth earlier than expected, and she was registered at birth as Vivienne Haigh, though as an adult she called herself Haigh-Wood. Her paternal grandfather was Charles Wood, a gilder and picture framer from Bolton, the Haigh came from his mother, Mary Haigh, originally from Dublin. They settled into a house there at 3 Compayne Gardens around 1891, Haigh-Woods brother, Maurice, was born there in 1896, he went on to train at Sandhurst and fought during the First World War. Little is known of her education and she played the piano, painted, took ballet lessons, was a good swimmer and worked for a short time as a governess for a family in Cambridge. She was diagnosed with tuberculosis of the bone in her arm when she was a child. She was treated by Sir Frederick Treves and said she had had so many operations and she was also plagued by heavy, irregular menstruation, to her great embarrassment, and severe pre-menstrual tension, which led to mood swings, fainting spells and migraines. She would insist on washing her own bedlinen, often twice a day and she apparently felt unable to ask her mother for help. Eventually her mother took her to a doctor who prescribed potassium bromide to sedate her, which meant he had diagnosed hysteria. Virginia Woolf famously described Haigh-Wood on 8 November 1930 in her diary, was there ever such a torture since life began. This bag of ferrets is what Tom wears round his neck, as the medical bills rose, so did her familys resentment of her
Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot
–
Photographed by
Lady Ottoline Morrell, 1920
Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot
–
Haigh-Wood in 1921
Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot
–
Photograph from Haigh-Wood's American passport, 1920
Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot
–
Early poems
19.
Margate, Kent
–
Margate is a seaside town in the district of Thanet in Kent, England. It lies 38.1 miles east-north-east of Maidstone, on the coast along the North Foreland and contains the areas of Cliftonville, Garlinge, Palm Bay, Margate was recorded as Meregate in 1264 and as Margate in 1299, but the spelling continued to vary into modern times. The name is thought to refer to a gate or gap in a cliff where pools of water are found. The cliffs of the Isle of Thanet are composed of chalk, the towns history is tied closely to the sea and it has a proud maritime tradition. Margate was a limb of Dover in the ancient confederation of the Cinque ports and it was added to the confederation in the 15th century. Margate has been a seaside resort for at least 250 years. Like its neighbour Ramsgate, it has been a holiday destination for Londoners drawn to its sandy beaches. Margate had a Victorian pier which was destroyed by a storm in 1978. Like Brighton and Southend, Margate was infamous for violence between mods and rockers in the 1960s, and mods and skinheads in the 1980s. The Turner Contemporary art gallery occupies a prominent position next to the harbour, the Thanet Offshore Wind Project, completed in 2010, is visible from the seafront. Since 1983, the Member of Parliament for North Thanet, covering northern Thanet and Herne Bay, has been the Conservative, at the 2010 General Election, in North Thanet the Conservatives won a majority of 13,528 and 52. 7% of the vote. Labour won 21. 5% of the vote, Liberal Democrats 19. 4%, Margate was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1857. This was abolished in 1974, since which date Margate has been part of the Thanet district of Kent, the town contains the seven electoral wards of Margate Central, Cliftonville West, Cliftonville East, Westbrook, Garlinge, Dane Valley and Salmestone. These wards have seventeen of the fifty six seats on the Thanet District Council, at the 2007 Local Elections, nine of those seats were held by the Conservatives, seven by Labour and one by an Independent. Margate experiences a climate similar to much of the United Kingdom. Like almost all of southern Britain, Margate experiences mild temperatures, which is complimented by a large amount of sunshine, higher than London. Rainfall is quite low, Margate being one of the drier Kentish towns, at the 2001 UK census, Margate had a population of 40,386. The urban area had a population of 46,980 at the 2001 census, the ethnicity of the town was 97. 1% white,1. 0% mixed race,0. 5% black,0. 8% Asian,0. 6% Chinese or other ethnicity
Margate, Kent
–
Margate Clock Tower
Margate, Kent
–
A
photochrom print of Margate Harbour in 1897
Margate, Kent
–
Margate Clock Tower and buildings on the sea front
Margate, Kent
–
Tudor House
20.
Ezra Pound
–
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an expatriate American poet and critic, and a major figure in the early modernist movement. His contribution to poetry began with his development of Imagism, a movement derived from classical Chinese and Japanese poetry, stressing clarity, precision and his best-known works include Ripostes, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley and the unfinished 120-section epic, The Cantos. This included arranging for the publication in 1915 of Eliots The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, angered by the carnage of World War I, Pound lost faith in England and blamed the war on usury and international capitalism. Deemed unfit to stand trial, he was incarcerated in St. Elizabeths psychiatric hospital in Washington, while in custody in Italy, Pound had begun work on sections of The Cantos. These were published as The Pisan Cantos, for which he was awarded the Bollingen Prize in 1949 by the Library of Congress, triggering enormous controversy. Largely due to a campaign by his writers, he was released from St. Elizabeths in 1958. Hemingway wrote, The best of Pounds writing—and it is in the Cantos—will last as long as there is any literature, Pound was born in a small, two-story house in Hailey, Idaho Territory, the only child of Homer Loomis Pound and Isabel Weston. His father had worked in Hailey since 1883 as registrar of the General Land Office, both parents ancestors had emigrated from England in the 17th century. On his mothers side, Pound was descended from William Wadsworth, the Wadsworths married into the Westons of New York. Harding Weston and Mary Parker were the parents of Isabel Weston, harding apparently spent most of his life without work, with his brother, Ezra Weston, and his brothers wife, Frances, looking after Mary and Isabels needs. On his fathers side, the immigrant ancestor was John Pound, a Quaker, Ezras grandfather, Thaddeus Coleman Pound, was a Republican Congressman from northwest Wisconsin who had made and lost a fortune in the lumber business. Thaddeuss son Homer, Pounds father, worked for Thaddeus in the lumber business, Homer and Isabel married the following year, and Homer built a home in Hailey. Isabel was unhappy in Hailey and took Ezra with her to New York in 1887, Homer followed them, and in 1889 he found a job as an assayer at the Philadelphia Mint. The family moved to Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, and in 1893 bought a house in Wyncote. Between 1897 and 1900 Pound attended Cheltenham Military Academy, sometimes as a boarder, the boys wore Civil War-style uniforms and besides Latin were taught English, history, arithmetic, marksmanship, military drilling and the importance of submitting to authority. After the academy he may have attended Cheltenham Township High School for one year and it was at Pennsylvania in 1901 that Pound met Hilda Doolittle, his first serious romance, according to Pound scholar Ira Nadel. In 1911 she followed Pound to London and became involved in developing the Imagism movement, Pound was seeing two other women at the same time—Viola Baxter and Mary Moore—later dedicating a book of poetry, Personae, to the latter. He asked Moore to marry him too, but she turned him down and his parents and Frances Weston took Pound on another three-month European tour in 1902, after which he transferred, in 1903, to Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, possibly because of poor grades
Ezra Pound
–
Ezra Pound photographed in 1913 by
Alvin Langdon Coburn
Ezra Pound
–
Thaddeus Pound, Pound's grandfather, in the late 1880s
Ezra Pound
–
Ezra Pound with his mother Isabel in 1898, wearing his Cheltenham Military Academy uniform
Ezra Pound
–
H.D. c. 1921. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
21.
Lausanne
–
Lausanne is a city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and the capital and biggest city of the canton of Vaud. The city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva and it faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura Mountains to its north-west. Lausanne is located 62 kilometres northeast of Geneva, Lausanne has a population of 146,372, making it the fourth largest city in Switzerland, with the entire agglomeration area having 420,000 inhabitants. The metropolitan area of Lausanne-Geneva was over 1.2 million inhabitants in 2000, Lausanne is a focus of international sport, hosting the International Olympic Committee, the Court of Arbitration for Sport and some 55 international sport associations. It lies in a noted wine-growing region, the city has a 28-station metro system, making it the smallest city in the world to have a rapid transit system. Lausanne will host the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics, by the 2nd century AD it was known as vikanor Lousonnensium and in 280 as lacu Lausonio. By 400 it was civitas Lausanna and in 990 it was mentioned as Losanna, after the fall of the Roman Empire, insecurity forced the transfer of Lausanne to its current centre, a hilly site that is easier to defend. The city which emerged from the camp was ruled by the Dukes of Savoy, then it came under Bern from 1536 to 1798 and a number of its cultural treasures, including the hanging tapestries in the Cathedral, were permanently removed. Lausanne has made a number of requests to recover them, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Lausanne became a place of refuge for French Huguenots. In 1729 a seminary was opened by Antoine Court and Benjamin Duplan, by 1750 ninety pastors had been sent back to France to work clandestinely, this number would rise to four hundred. Official persecution ended in 1787, a faculty of Protestant theology was established at Montauban in 1808, during the Napoleonic Wars, the citys status changed. In 1803, it became the capital of a newly formed Swiss canton, in 1964 the city hosted the Swiss National Exhibition, displaying its newly found confidence to host major international events. From the 1950s to 1970s a large number of Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese immigrated, settling mostly in the district of Renens. The city has served as a refuge for European artists, while under the care of a psychiatrist at Lausanne, T. S. Eliot composed most of his 1922 poem The Wasteland. Hemingway also visited from Paris with his wife during the 1920s, in fact, many creative people - such as Edward Gibbon, an historian, and Romantic era poets Shelley and Byron - have sojourned, lived, and worked in Lausanne or nearby. The city has been quiet, but in the late 1960s. Later demonstrations took place to protest against the high cinema prices, the most important geographical feature of the area surrounding Lausanne is Lake Geneva. Lausanne boasts a dramatic panorama over the lake and the Alps, in addition to its generally southward-sloping layout, the centre of the city is the site of an ancient river, the Flon, which has been covered since the 19th century
Lausanne
–
Aerial view of Lausanne
Lausanne
–
Saint-François square, c. 1840
Lausanne
–
The agglomeration of Lausanne,
Lake Geneva and the
Alps.
Lausanne
–
The Charles-Bessières bridge with
Lausanne Metro car. In the background
the cathedral of Notre-Dame and the
old town.
22.
Switzerland
–
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
Switzerland
–
Founded in 44 BC by
Lucius Munatius Plancus,
Augusta Raurica was the first Roman settlement on the Rhine and is now among the most important archaeological sites in Switzerland.
Switzerland
–
Flag
Switzerland
–
The 1291 Bundesbrief (Federal charter)
Switzerland
–
The Old Swiss Confederacy from 1291 (dark green) to the sixteenth century (light green) and its associates (blue). In the other colors are shown the subject territories.
23.
Ottoline Morrell
–
Lady Ottoline Violet Anne Morrell was an English aristocrat and society hostess. Born Ottoline Violet Anne Cavendish-Bentinck, she was the daughter of Lieutenant-General Arthur Cavendish-Bentinck and his second wife, Lady Ottolines great-great-uncle was Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. The dukedom was a title which belonged to the Cavendish-Bentinck family, Morrell was known to have had many lovers. Her first love affair was with a man, the doctor and writer Axel Munthe. In February 1902, she married the MP Philip Morrell, with whom she shared a passion for art and they shared what would now be known as an open marriage for the rest of their lives. Philips extramarital affairs produced several children who were cared for by his wife, the Morrells themselves had two children, a son, Hugh, who died in infancy, and a daughter, Julian. Morrell had an affair with philosopher Bertrand Russell, with whom she exchanged more than 2000 letters. Her circle of friends included many authors, artists, sculptors and her work as a patron was enduring and influential, notably in her contribution to the Contemporary Art Society during its early years. The Morrells maintained a townhouse in Bedford Square, in the Central London neighbourhood known as Bloomsbury, Morrell delighted in opening both as havens for like-minded people. 44 Bedford Square served as her London salon, while Garsington provided a convenient retreat, gilbert Spencer lived for a while in a house on the Garsington estate. During World War I, the Morrells were notable pacifists, not a position then. They invited conscientious objectors such as Duncan Grant, Clive Bell, siegfried Sassoon, recuperating there after an injury, was encouraged to go absent without leave as a protest against the war. The hospitality offered by the Morrells was such that most of their guests had no suspicion that they were in financial difficulties, many of them assumed that Ottoline was a wealthy woman. This was far from being the case and during 1927, the Morrells were compelled to sell the house and its estate. In 1928 she was diagnosed cancer, which resulted in a long hospitalization. She died from a drug given by a doctor. Henry Green, the novelist, wrote to Philip Morrell of her love for all things true and her memorial in St Winifreds Church, Holbeck was carved by Eric Gill. Morrell wrote two volumes of memoirs, but these were edited and revised after her death, losing a little of their charm and she also maintained detailed journals, over a period of twenty years, which remain unpublished
Ottoline Morrell
–
Lady Ottoline Morrell
Ottoline Morrell
–
Portrait of Lady Ottoline Morrell by
Adolf de Meyer, c. 1912
Ottoline Morrell
–
Blue plaque, 10 Gower Street, London
Ottoline Morrell
–
Monument to Lady Ottoline Morrell by
Eric Gill in St Mary's parish church,
Garsington
24.
Sanatorium
–
A sanatorium is a medical facility for long-term illness, most typically associated with treatment of tuberculosis before antibiotics. A distinction is made between sanitarium and sanatorium. In 1863, Hermann Brehmer opened the Brehmersche Heilanstalt für Lungenkranke in Görbersdorf, Silesia, patients were exposed to plentiful amounts of high altitude, fresh air, and good nutrition. Tuberculosis sanatoria became common throughout Europe from the late-19th century onward, the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium, established in Saranac Lake, New York, in 1885, was the first such establishment in North America. According to the Saskatchewan Lung Association, when the National Anti-Tuberculosis Association was founded in 1904, its members, accordingly, they took the Latin verb root sano, meaning to heal, and adopted the new word sanatorium. Switzerland used to have many sanatoria, as health professionals believed that clean, in Finland, a series of tuberculosis sanatoria were built throughout the country in isolated forest areas during the early 1900s. The most famous was the Paimio Sanatorium, completed in 1933 and it had both sun-balconies and a rooftop terrace where the patients would lie all day either in beds or on specially designed chairs, the Paimio Chair. In Portugal, the Heliantia Sanatorium in Valadares, was used for the treatment of tuberculosis between the 1930s and 1960s. In the early 20th century, tuberculosis sanatoria became common in the United States, in the early 1900s, Arizonas sunshine and dry desert air attracted many people suffering from tuberculosis, rheumatism, asthma, and numerous other diseases. Wealthier people chose to recuperate in exclusive TB resorts, while others used their savings to make the journey to Arizona, TB camps in the desert were formed by pitching tents and building cabins. During the tuberculosis epidemic, cities in Arizona advertised the state as a place for treatment of TB. Many sanatoriums in the state of Arizona were modeled after European away-from-city resorts of the time, boasting courtyards, each sanatorium was equipped to take care of about 120 people. The greatest area for sanatoriums was in Tucson, with over 12 hotel-style facilities in the city, by 1920, Tucson had 7,000 people who had come for treatment of tuberculosis. So many people came to the West that not enough housing was available for them all, in 1910, tent cities began to pop up in different areas, one was described as a place of squalor and shunned by most citizens. Many of the infected slept in the open desert, the first tuberculosis sanatorium for blacks in the segregated South was the Piedmont Sanatorium in Burkeville, Virginia. Waverly Hills Sanatorium, a Louisville, Kentucky, tuberculosis sanatorium, was founded in 1911 and it has become a mecca for curiosity seekers who believe it is haunted. Because of its dry climate, Colorado Springs was home to several sanatoria, a. G. Holley Hospital in Lantana, Florida was the last remaining freestanding tuberculosis sanatorium in the United States until it closed on July 2,2012. In 1907, Stannington Sanatorium was open in the North East of England to treat tuberculosis in children, the sanatorium was opened using funds raised by a local charity, the Poor Childrens Holiday Association, now the regions oldest childrens charity, Children North East
Sanatorium
–
One of the remaining turrets of the Grunwald Sanatorium (now
Sokołowsko, Poland)
Sanatorium
–
Postage stamp depicting the Paimio tuberculosis sanatorium, Finland, by Alvar Aalto
25.
New York Public Library
–
The New York Public Library is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States and it is a private, non-governmental, independently managed, nonprofit corporation operating with both private and public financing. The library has branches in the boroughs of Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island, the City of New Yorks other two boroughs, Brooklyn and Queens, are served by the Brooklyn Public Library and the Queens Library, respectively. The branch libraries are open to the public and consist of circulating libraries. The New York Public Library also has four libraries which are open to the general public as well. At the behest of Joseph Cogswell, John Jacob Astor placed a codicil in his will to bequeath $400,000 for the creation of a public library. After Astors death in 1848, the board of trustees executed the wills conditions. The library created was a reference library, its books were not permitted to circulate. An act of the New York State Legislature incorporated the Lenox Library in 1870, the library was built on Fifth Avenue, between 40th and 42nd streets, in 1877. Bibliophile and philanthropist James Lenox donated a vast collection of his Americana, art works, manuscripts, at its inception, the library charged admission and did not permit physical access to any literary items. Both the Astor and Lenox libraries were struggling financially, although New York City already had numerous libraries in the 19th century, almost all of them were privately funded and many charged admission or usage fees. On May 23,1895, Bigelow and representatives of the two agreed to create The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. The plan was hailed as an example of philanthropy for the public good. The newly established library consolidated with the grass-roots New York Free Circulating Library in February 1901, the trustees hired McKim, Mead & White, Carrère and Hastings, and Walter Cook to design all the branch libraries. The notable New York author Washington Irving was a friend of Astor for decades and had helped the philanthropist design the Astor Library. They saw their role as protecting the librarys autonomy from politicians as well as bestowing upon it status, resources, representative of many major board decisions was the purchase in 1931 of the private library of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, uncle of the last tsar. This was one of the largest acquisitions of Russian books and photographic materials, at the time, the military drew extensively from the librarys map and book collections in the world wars, including hiring its staff. For example, the Map Divisions chief Walter Ristow was appointed as head of the section of the War Departments New York Office of Military Intelligence from 1942 to 1945
New York Public Library
–
The
New York Public Library Main Branch in
Bryant Park,
Manhattan
New York Public Library
New York Public Library
–
The New York Public Library main building during late stage construction in 1908, the lion statues not yet installed at the entrance
New York Public Library
–
Lenox copy of the Gutenberg Bible in the New York Public Library
26.
Valerie Eliot
–
Esme Valerie Eliot was the second wife and later widow of the Nobel prize-winning poet, T. S. Eliot. She was a stockholder in the publishing firm of Faber and Faber Limited. A native of Leeds, Valerie married Eliot, almost 40 years her senior and she had been a star-struck fan of Eliot since her schooldays, as she confided to the novelist Charles Morgan, for whom she worked as a secretary. Morgan used his influence to get her a job at Faber & Faber, where she finally met Eliot in August 1949, a debt of kindness which she always acknowledged. In a 1994 interview with The Independent newspaper she recalled a very ordinary life of evenings spent at home playing Scrabble and eating cheese. He wouldnt die until hed had it and she assisted Christopher Ricks with his edition of The Inventions of the March Hare, a volume of Eliots unpublished verse. A second volume of T. S. Eliots letters was edited by his widow, one of Valerie Eliots most lucrative decisions as executor was granting permission for a stage musical to be based on her husbands work Old Possums Book of Practical Cats. This became the hit Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats, with her portion of the proceeds Valerie Eliot established Old Possums Practical Trust – a literary registered charity – and funded the T. S. Eliot Prize. In late 2009, the volume of Eliots letters was published. The third volume, edited by Valerie Eliot and John Haffenden and she donated the £15,000 annual prize money for the T. S. Eliot Prize. Valerie Eliot died on 9 November 2012 at her home in London, Old Possums Practical Trust McCrum, Robert. TS Eliot – the secret passion, The Observer, the Two Mrs Eliots, The Independent. My Visit with Mrs. T. S. Eliot at the Kensington Home
Valerie Eliot
–
Early poems
27.
Faber and Faber
–
Faber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the United Kingdom. Faber has published some of the most well-known literature in the English language, Poet T. S. Eliot was once a Faber editor. In 2006 the company was named the KPMG Publisher of the Year, Faber and Faber Inc. formerly the American branch of the London company, was sold in 1998 to the Holtzbrinck company Farrar, Straus and Giroux, which now operates as part of the Macmillan Group. Faber and Faber began as a firm in 1929, but its roots go back to the Scientific Press, owned by Sir Maurice, the Scientific Press derived much of its income from the weekly magazine The Nursing Mirror. The Gwyers desire to expand into trade publishing led them to Geoffrey Faber, after four years, The Nursing Mirror was sold and Geoffrey Faber and the Gwyers agreed to go their separate ways. Faber selected the name of Faber and Faber, although there was no other Faber involved. T. S. Eliot, who had suggested to Faber by Charles Whibley, had left Lloyds Bank in London to join Faber as a literary adviser, in the first season. In 1928, Faber and Faber published its first commercial success, the book was at first published anonymously, the authors name, Siegfried Sassoon, was added to the title page for the second impression. Over the next six months, it was reprinted eight times, under Geoffrey Fabers chairmanship, the board in 1929 included Eliot, Richard de la Mare, Charles Stewart, and Frank Morley. Faber published biographies, memoirs, fiction, poetry, political and religious essays, art and architecture monographs, childrens books, and it also published Eliots literary review, The Criterion. Eliot rejected two books by George Orwell, A Scullions Tale and Animal Farm, during the Second World War, paper shortages meant profits were large, but almost all went to taxes, and subsequent years were difficult. Faber and Faber has continued to prosper in recent years, established names have been joined by new voices, including Kazuo Ishiguro, Peter Carey, Orhan Pamuk, and Barbara Kingsolver. Having published the works of Samuel Beckett for many years. Faber announced in October 2011 that Jarvis Cocker, lead singer of the band Pulp, would be joining as editor-at-large, in 2008, the imprint Faber Finds was set up to make copyrighted out-of-print books available again, using print-on-demand technology. In 2009, Faber Finds began to release e-books, Fabers American arm was sold in 1998 to Farrar, Straus and Giroux, where it remained as an imprint focused on arts, entertainment, media, and popular culture. In February 2015, Faber announced the end of its partnership with FSG, in June 2012, to coincide with the Queens Diamond Jubilee, Faber launched a website – Sixty Years in Sixty Poems. In 2008, Faber launched The Faber Academy, a creative writing business offering courses for aspiring writers, courses include The Art of Publication, Writing Fiction, and Becoming a Poet. At times, courses are tutored by famous writers, such as Mike Figgis, Jeanette Winterson, notable students have included S. J. Watson
Faber and Faber
–
Faber and Faber
28.
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
Alexander Pope
–
Alexander Pope (c. 1727), an English poet best known for his
Essay on Criticism,
The Rape of the Lock and
The Dunciad
Alexander Pope
–
Alexander Pope painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646–1723).
Alexander Pope
–
A likeness of Pope derived from a portrait by
William Hoare.
Alexander Pope
–
Plaque above Pope's grotto at Twickenham
29.
The Rape of the Lock
–
The Rape of the Lock is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope. Pope boasted that this more than three thousand copies in its first four days. The final form of the poem appeared in 1717 with the addition of Clarissas speech on good humour, the poem was much translated and contributed to the growing popularity of mock-heroic in Europe. The poem satirises a minor incident by comparing it to the world of the gods. It was based on an incident recounted by Popes friend. Petre, lusting after Arabella, had cut off a lock of her hair without permission, Pope, also a Catholic, wrote the poem at the request of friends in an attempt to comically merge the two. He utilised the character Belinda to represent Arabella and introduced a system of sylphs, or guardian spirits of virgins. Pope derived his sylphs from the 17th-century French Rosicrucian novel Comte de Gabalis, Pope, writing pseudonymously as Esdras Barnivelt, published A Key to the Lock in 1714 as a humorous warning against taking the poem too seriously. Pope’s poem uses the traditional high stature of classical epics to emphasise the triviality of the incident. The abduction of Helen of Troy becomes here the theft of a lock of hair, the gods become minute sylphs, the description of Achilles’ shield becomes an excursus on one of Belindas petticoats. He also uses the style of invocations, lamentations, exclamations and similes. Although the poem is humorous at times, Pope keeps a sense that beauty is fragile, as his introductory letter makes clear, women in that period were essentially supposed to be decorative rather than rational, and the loss of beauty was a serious matter. The humour of the poem comes from the storm in a teacup being couched within the elaborate and it is a satire on contemporary society which showcases the lifestyle led by some people of that age. Pope arguably satirises it from within rather than looking down judgmentally on the characters, Belindas legitimate rage is thus alleviated and tempered by her good humour, as directed by the character Clarissa. Pope added to the edition the following dedicatory letter to Mrs. Arabella Fermor, Madam. Yet you may bear me witness, it was intended only to divert a few young Ladies, who have good sense and good enough to laugh not only at their sexs little unguarded follies. But as it was communicated with the air of a secret and these Machines I determined to raise on a very new and odd foundation, the Rosicrucian doctrine of Spirits. The Rosicrucians are the people I must bring you acquainted with, according to these gentlemen, the four elements are inhabited by spirits, which they call Sylphs, Gnomes, Nymphs, and Salamanders
The Rape of the Lock
–
Arabella Fermor (1696–1737)
The Rape of the Lock
–
"The New Star," Illustration by
Aubrey Beardsley for The Rape of the Lock
30.
Richard Ellmann
–
Richard David Ellmann was a prominent American literary critic and biographer of the Irish writers James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, and William Butler Yeats. He won the U. S. National Book Award for Nonfiction for James Joyce and its 1982 revised edition was similarly recognised with the award of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. A liberal humanist, Ellmanns academic work focused on the major modernist writers of the twentieth century. Ellmann was born at Highland Park, Michigan, the second of three children of James Isaac Ellmann, lawyer, a Jewish Romanian immigrant, and his wife, Jeanette Barsook and he served in the United States Navy during World War II. He studied at Yale University, receiving his B. A. his M. A. in 1947 he was awarded a B. Litt degree from the University of Dublin, where he was resident while researching his biography of Yeats. As a Yale undergraduate, Ellmann was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Chi Delta Theta, and, with James Jesus Angleton and he achieved Scholar of the Second Rank. He felt a wince of disappointment at the idea that she had had a vision too, but then she was his wife and he would have to try it out, on the harvest. It was better to leave things the way they were, not much of a wedding night, but one could tell white lies about that to one’s friends. Ellman later returned to teach at Yale, and there with Charles Feidelson Jr and he edited the important anthology, The Modern Tradition. He earlier taught at Northwestern, and at the University of Oxford and his wife, Mary Ellmann, whom he married in 1949, was an essayist. The couple had three children, Stephen, Maud, and Lucy, the first two being academics and the third a novelist and teacher of writing, Ellmann died of motor neurone disease in Oxford at the age of 69. Many of his papers, artifacts, and ephemera were acquired by the University of Tulsas McFarlin Library, Department of Special Collections. Other manuscripts are housed in the Northwestern Universitys Library special collections department, in Yeats, The Man and the Masks, Ellmann drew on conversations with George Yeats along with thousands of pages of unpublished manuscripts to write a critical examination of the poets life. Ellmann is perhaps most well known for his biography of James Joyce. Anthony Burgess called James Joyce the greatest literary biography of the century, edna OBrien, the Irish novelist, remarked that H. G. Wells said that Finnegans Wake was an immense riddle, and people find it too difficult to read. I have yet to meet anyone who has read and digested the whole of it—except perhaps my friend Richard Ellmann, Ellmann quotes extensively from Finnegans Wake, as epigraphs in James Joyce. Ellmans biography Oscar Wilde won a Pulitzer Prize, capturing the warmhearted and generous spirit of the legendary wit, he examined Wildes ascent to literary prominence and his public downfall. Posthumously he won both a U. S. National Book Critics Circle Award in 1988 and the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Biography, the book was the basis for the 1997 film Wilde, directed by Brian Gilbert
Richard Ellmann
–
Richard Ellmann
The Waste Land public domain audiobook at LibriVox
