Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Literature / Writers-Poets Datebook: February 27.

 

 

 

 

 

Brief biography of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the first American to completely translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and one of the fireside poets from New England. His original works include the poems "Paul Revere's Ride", "The Song of Hiawatha", and Evangeline".    

 

American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, (b. February 27, 1807, Portland, Maine, USA - d. March 24, 1882, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA), wrote some of the famous poems in American literature.He was the first American to be honoured with a bust in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.

Early Years

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow traced his family back to the Plymouth Pilgrims.He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825, where Nathaniel Hawthorne, famous writer of novels and short stories, had been his classmate.

Career

Longfellow spent his early career teaching foreign languages, first at Bowdoin College and later at Harvard University. He then concentrated on poetry.

Longfellow was one of the few American poets who was so popular in his day that he could support himself by writing. His private life was filled with sadness. His first wife died shortly after they were married, and his second wife was killed in a fire. It is no surprise that this sadness is reflected in many of his poems.

The famous poet  

Aged 32, Longfellow published his first book of verse, Voices of the Night. The book brought him wide public recognition. He published Ballads two years later. Ballads contains some of his famous poems, including 'The Village Blacksmith'.

Famous for his romantic storytelling, he became known for his long poems that use simple ideas telling stories based on American history and mythology. These include the well-known The Song of Hiawatha, a tale from Native-American legends; Evangeline, the story of the French exiles of France's colonies in North America; and The Courtship of Miles Standish, a romance set during the Pilgrim Father's early days.

Works by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Voices of the Night, 1839

Ballads, 1841

Evangeline, 1847

The Seaside and the Fireside, 1849

The Song of Hiawatha, 1855

The Courtship of Miles Standish, 1858

Tales of a Wayside Inn (including 'Paul Revere's Ride'), 1863

Ultima Thule, 1880

 

Photo Credit:

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Wikipedia Commons / Public Domain. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron in 1868.

Resources:

Cambridge Guide to Literature in English, by Ian Ousby (1993)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. en.wikipedia.org 

Larousse Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring (1994)

 

(c) February 2009. Updated February 27, 2024. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.  

Christopher Marlowe

Literature / Writers Datebook: February 26

 

Brief biography of the life and works of Christopher Marlowe, Elizabethan playwright and poet, famous for tragedy plays and poem "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love."

 

 

 

English poet and dramatist Christopher Marlowe, (b. February 26, 1564, Canterbury, Kent - d. May 30, 1593, Deptford, Kent), was the first great dramatist of the English theatre and the most important writer of tragedy plays before William Shakespeare. He is best known for the play Tamburlaine the Great (two parts) and the lyric poem "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love."  

Early Years

Marlowe was the son of a shoemaker in the city of Canterbury and attended the King's School there. At 17 he went to Cambridge University on a scholarship. He graduated after three years and then stayed on to study for a higher degree. This was nearly refused because he was away too much, but the university relented when an official letter arrived saying he was on government business.

Political Affiliations and Activities

Historians believe he was abroad, working as a spy, alleged that while still at the university, Marlowe became an agent of Francis Walsingham. The detail of any mission he undertook in the secret service of Queen Elizabeth I's great schemer is not known, but an intelligent speculation leading to his early death. 

In London, Marlowe made important friends, including Sir Walter Raleigh, the famed English writer, poet and explorer, who had started the first colony in Virginia. Aged 25, Marlowe was imprisoned after a brawl in which a man was killed. He was involved in other street fights in between years, until in 1593, at 29, he was murdered in a dockside tavern. The official story released was that he had been stabbed in the eye during an argument over the bill, but a week earlier a warrant had been issued for Marlowe's arrest, and his former roommate, Tomas Hyd had been tortured to make him give information about Marlowe.

Many people think that Marlowe was deliberately silenced to stop him exposing secrets about powerful people. His personal life, as a free-thinker and being indiscreet, added to his infamous reputation.

The dramatist / playwright and Poet  

Marlowe first began to write poems and plays at university. It is not known exactly when his tragedies were written. Both parts of his greatest tragedy, Tamburlaine the Great, had been performed by the time he was 23.  The first part of Tamburlaine the Great was a great success at the London theatre. The second part met with equal success performed in the same year. Before his death, Marlowe spent time in writing his narrative poem Hero and Leander, along with his poetic masterpiece "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love."   

His plays often reflected on the aspirations of characters whose outright defiance of social, political and religious morality equally invites admiration and condemnation.

Works by Christopher Marlowe

Tamburlaine the Great, (in two parts), circa 1587

Doctor Faustus, c. 1588

The Jew of Malia, c. 1590

The Massacre at Paris, 1592

Edward II, c. 1592 

Hero and Leander, Narrative poem, 1598

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, Poem, 1598

 

Photo Credit:

Christopher Marlowe. Wikipedia Commons. This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. 

Resources:

Cambridge Guide to Literature in English, by Ian Ousby (1993)

Christopher Marlowe. en.wikipedia.org 

Larousse Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring (1994)

 

(c) February 2009. Updated February 26, 2024. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.  

Boris Pasternak

Literature / Writers Datebook: February 10

 

 

 

Brief biography of Boris Pasternak, celebrated 20th-century Russian poet and novelist, famous for epic novel Doctor Zhivago, and 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature. His My Sister Life, written in 1917, is arguably the most influential collection of poetry. 

 

 

 Early Life

Boris Pasternak was born in Moscow on February 10, 1890. His parents were a prominent Jewish painter Leonid Pasternak, a professor at the Moscow School of Painting, who was converted to Orthodox Christianity, and mother Rosa Kaufman, a popular pianist.

He was brought up in a cosmopolitan atmosphere, his father's home being visited by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Leo Tolstoy. His father's conversion to Christianity affected Pasternak deeply, and many of his later poems hold Christian themes. Inspired by his neighbour, composer Alexander Scriabin, Pasternak resolved to become a composer and entered the Moscow Conservatory. However, In 1910, he left the conservatory for the University of Marburg, where he studied under Neo-Kantian philosophers Hermann Cohen and Nicolai Hartmann. Although he was invited to become a scholar, he decided against philosophy as a profession and returned to Moscow in 1914.

Literary Influences

His first collection of poetry, influenced by Alexander Blok and the Russian Futurists, was published later that same year. He was also influenced by his favourite poets Rainer Maria Rilke, Mikhail Lermontov and German Romantics.

During World War I, he taught and worked at a chemical factory in the Urals. This would have provided him with material for his epic novel Dr. Zhivago. Unlike his relatives and many of his friends, Pasternak didn't leave Russia after the revolution. He supported the Russian Revolution but was disappointed by the brutality of the new communist government.

Dr. Zhivago

In the 1930s, he fell off favour with the communist authorities as his writings shifted from political issues to individuals and emotions, and not focusing on socialist themes. 

In 1956, Pasternak completed his masterpiece, Doctor Zhivago, a novel which became an epic film starring Omar Shariff in the title role. The novel describes the Russian Revolution and its effects on the lives of Zhivago, a doctor and poet based on Pasternak, and his love Lara (played by Julie Christie in the film), who was modeled on Pasternak's companion, Olga Ivinskaya. The novel was refused publication as the authorities thought it anticommunist, but the manuscript was smuggled into Italy where it was published to international acclaim.

In 1958, Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. The Russian government was outraged. He was forced to refuse the prize. Pasternak was persecuted and despite turning down the Nobel Prize, he was officially witch-hunted and threatened with expulsion.

Last Years

Pasternak died of lung cancer on May 30, 1960. Despite only a small notice appearing in the Literary Gazette, thousands of people came from Moscow to his funeral om Peredelkino his resting place. Doctor Zhivago was eventually published in Russia in 1987. Pasternak's post-Zhivago poetry probes the universal questions of love, immortality and reconciliation with God. 

Trivia: In the film "Doctor Zhivago", the haunting song "Lara's Theme" from the Academy Award Winning Music produced by Paul Francis Webster & Maurice Jarre, is popularized by Andy Williams with the title "Somewhere My Love"

 

Photo Credit:

Boris Pasternak. Wikipedia Commons / Public Domain

 

Resources:

Chambers Biographical Dictionary, edited by Uma McGovern, Chambers, 2002

Larousse Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring, Larousse, 1994 

 

(c) February 2009. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

James Joyce

Literature / Writers Datebook: February 2

Brief biography and works of Irish writer James Joyce, novelist, poet, short story writer, one of the most important 20^th century authors, famous for "Ulyssses".

 

 

 

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (b. 2 February 1882 – d. 13 January 1941), Irish novelist, poet, short story writer and literary critic. Regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century, Joyce's novel Ulysses (1922) is a landmark in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in a variety of literary styles, particularly stream of consciousness. Other well-known works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). His other writings include three books of poetry, a play, letters, and occasional journalism. 

Early Years of James Joyce

James (Augustine Aloysius) Joyce was the born in the Irish city of Dublin on February 2, 1882, the youngest of ten children. He was educated at strict Catholic schools (in particular, by Jesuits) that were intended to prepare him for a life as a priest. As a young man Joyce rejected this idea – the spiritual struggle he went through to reach this decision became a central theme of his writing in later life. Later, he went to Dublin University College. He was a wide reader. While studying at universities in Dublin and Paris, Joyce began to write. His first book, Chamber Music, was published when he was 25. It is a collection of poems. 

Influences of James Joyce

Joyce corresponded with Henrik Ibsen. Among his other strong influences were Dante and W.B. Yeats. His writing were championed by Ezra Pound. 

The Youthful Joyce

Distressed by what he felt bigotry of Catholicism, aged 20, he went to Paris for a year, wrote some poetry there, but lived in poverty. He returned to Ireland briefly for his mother's death, and stayed in the Martello Tower, featured in his Ulysses.

He eventually left Ireland, with his lifelong companion Nora Barnacle, and settled in Paris, although the couple settled in Switzerland for awhile.    

Joyce the Novelist

The genius of James Joyce became apparently in his novels. His first, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, is based on his early life. It is also reminiscent of Virginia Woolf, as Joyce use the stream-of-consciousness technique to tell the story through the thoughts and feelings of the main character, a sensitive young man who rejects religion and decides to become a great writer. Interestingly too, Woolf is just a week older than him.

His masterpiece, Ulysses, was written while Joyce was living in Italy and Switzerland. It returns to the central character of his first novel, this time a struggling writer living in Dublin. The events in the book take place in a one day in Dublin, but Joyce describes so completely the thoughts of his characters that people claimed he had summed up the whole of human life in this one book. 

Legacy

Joyce's Ulysses had a huge influence on many writers 20^th century writers. He invented a new kind of storytelling and experimented with language to create a kind of writing unlike anything that had been seen before.

 

Works by James Joyce

Chamber Music, 1907

Dubliners, 1914

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1916

Exiles, 1918

Ulysses, 1922

Poems Penyeach, 1927

Collected Poems, 1936

Finnegans Wake, 1939

 

Photo Credit:

James Joyce. Wikipedia Commons / Public Domain. (Joyce in Zürich, c. 1918)

 

Resources:

Cambridge Guide to Literature in English by Ian Ousby (1993)

Great British Writers, Colour Library Books (1993)

Larousse Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring (1994)

 

(c) February 2009. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.