Virginia Woolf

Literature / Writers Datebook: January 25

 

 English Novelist, Critic, Feminist, Socialist

 

Brief biography of the life and works of influential English author Virginia Woolf, founder of Bloomsbury Group of Writers and co-founder of Hogarth Press. She is considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of 'stream of consciousness' as a narrative device in which the reader follows that characters' internal thoughts as the story unfolds. 

English novelist, essayist and critic Virginia Woolf was a founder of the Bloomsbury Group of writers and artists. Her famous books include: Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, and The Waves. Adeline Virginia Woolf née Stephen was born in London, England, on January 25, 1882 and died in Lewes, England, on March 28,  1941.  

 

Early Years

Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen into an affluent, distinguished literary family. Educated at home, she married Leonard Woolf, a social reformer, when she was 30, and published her first novel, The Voyage Out, three years later. By this time she was suffering from occasional mental illness. Woolf and her husband Leonard founded the Hogarth Press, a small company that published new and experimental work, such as the poems of T.S. Eliot.

The Novelist and Her Writing Style

In her third novel, Jacob's Room, published when she was 40, Woolf began experimenting with the stream-of-consciousness method. She continued this style of writing in her novels Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and The Waves.

Her book, Jacob's Room, was based on the life and death of her dear brother Thoby. From this book, her style of writing broke away from the realistic early writing mode, and she began the process of the stream of consciousness, as she laid down in her essay "Modern Fiction." Hereon, until The Waves, she clearly established herself as the leading exponent of Modernism.      

In Orlando, she wrote about a character who lived through several centuries and changed from male to female and back again several times. It traces the history of its androgynous protagonist through four centuries, much unlike her other novels, considered her greatest commercial success. It was dedicated to fellow-writer Vita Sackville-West, with whom she had an intimate friendship.

Woolf described the problems of women in a male-dominated world in A Room of One's Own. A more conventional in form is her penultimate work, The Years. However, her last novel, Between the Acts, in which she returned to the experimental. She completed it just before her final mental illness that drove her to commit suicide by drowning herself in a river near her home.

Legacy

Virginia Woolf is a pioneer of feminism. Since her death, she is acknowledged as one of the major novelists of the 20^th century, and best known for her Stream of Consciousness method. Her literary essays have been published in several volumes, such as The Common Reader.     

Works by Virginia Woolf

The Voyage Out, 1915

Night and Day, 1919

Jacob's Room, 1922

Mrs. Dalloway, 1925

To the Lighthouse, 1927

Orlando, 1928

A Room of One's Own, 1919

The Waves, 1931

The Years, 1937

Between the Acts, 1941

 

Image Credit:

Virginia Woolf. Public Domain

 

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)

Macmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography. 3^rd Ed, ed. by Jennifer Uglow (1999) 

 

(c) January 25, 2010. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved. 

Francis Bacon

Philosophy / Science Philosophers Datebook: January 22

 

A brief biography of the philosophy and works of English philosopher, statesman, lawyer and essayist Francis Bacon. His best known books include The Advancement of Learning, Novum Organum and New Atlantis. He's famous for the popular quote “Knowledge is power.”

 

 

 

English philosopher of science, statesman and essayist Sir Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Alban (b. January 22, 1561, The Strand, London - d. April 9, 1626, Highgate, Middlesex), was the forerunner of the famed British school of philosophers that include Locke, Berkeley, Hume, J.S. Mill and Bertrand Russell. His important works include Novum Organum, The Advancement of Learning, and New Atlantis.

Francis Bacon became a Chancellor after King James I’s succession of Queen Elizabeth I. Attributed as the originator of the saying “knowledge is power,” his importance as a philosopher is most notable with regard to his concern for scientific method.

 

Bacon’s Logic Away from Plato and Aristotle

Bacon was troubled by the two schools of thoughts, Platonism and Aristotelian: Platonism – by which knowledge could be gained by examining content and meaning of words, and Aristotelian – by which intent was on collecting masses of empirical data.

Bacon moved away from the ideas of Plato and Aristotle and advocated a science based on observation and inductive hypothesis.

 

Bacon’s Philosophy of Inductive Empiricism

Bacon was concerned with the problem of induction. The main problem of induction was that the mere repetitive occurrence of an incident does not guarantee that the same thing will happen again. Bacon responded to this problem by placing the emphasis of investigation on looking for negative instances of disconfirm hypotheses, rather than finding ways to confirm them. Despite his detractors, he greatly influenced later 20^th century philosopher Karl Popper who produced his falsificationist scientific methodology.   

Bacon’s hypothesis was later strongly refuted by David Hume. However, Bacon was less interested in the problem of justifying inductive generalizations, but in how to generate good inductive hypotheses out of the masses of data collected by observation. He argued that what was needed was a new way of collating and organizing data, which would help generate inductive hypotheses.  

His method was undoubtedly one way of applying order to a body of data, however, it was unlikely to fulfill his desire to find a systematic way of deriving scientific hypotheses from the data arrangement.

 

An Insight to Bacon’s Philosophy

His concern for scientific method was immense. Francis Bacon argued that nature could only be understood through systematic experimentation, and controlled only by being understood. He contained the notion of cataloguing all useful knowledge.    

His important contribution to science philosophy and in particular, the problem of induction, was by being the first to emphasize the importance of negative situations.    

Works by Francis Bacon

• Novum Organum or Novum Organon, 1620, contains Bacon's views in the correct methods of investigating nature.
• On the Dignity and Advancement of Learning, 1623, Bacon divides knowledge to three categories: history, poetry or literature, and philosophy.
• The New Atlantis, 1627, describes the revolutionary idea of a scientific research centre where researchers collect data and perform actual experiements, eventually applying their knowledge to produce useful things for humankind.   
  

Photo Credit:

Francis Bacon.  Wikipedia Commons / Public Domain.

 

Resources:

McGovern, Una, Ed. Biographical Dictionary, 7^th Ed.  Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap, 2002

Stokes, Philip. Philosophy, the Great Thinkers. London: Capella, 2007

Bullock, Alan and R.B. Woodings, Ed. Dictionary of Modern Thinkers. London: Fontana, 1983

 

(c) January 2010. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.  

Molière Life and Works

Writers Datebook: January 15

Playwright and Actor, Greatest Writer of French Comedy     

Brief biography of dramatist and actor Molière, considered greatest master of French comedy, famous for Tantruffe and Le Misanthrope.

Molière was a French playwright and actor considered one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature. Among his best-known dramas are Le Misanthrope, (The Misanthrope), L'Ecole des femmes (The School for Wives), Tartuffe au l'Imposteur, (Tartuffe or the Hypocrite), L'Avare au l'École du mensange (The Miser), Le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (The Bourgeois Gentleman).

Early Life of Molière

Molière was the pen name of Jean-Baptisete Poquelin, one of the greatest French comedy writers. He was born on January 15, 1622, in Paris, the son of a wealthy upholsterer. He had a strict upbringing at a Jesuit school. Despite qualifying as a lawyer, he never practiced law. His first love was the theatre, and at the age of 21 he formed a theatre company with a group of friends. They toured France for a number of years before coming to the attention of King Louis XIV, who gave them a permanent theatre.

Life as a Playwright

Molière had his first major success as a playwright at the age of 40, with The School for Wives. The play poked fun at the limited education that was given to daughters of rich families, and it was the first of what are generally regarded as a series of masterpieces. His comedies ranged from broad slapstick comedy to subtle satire. He almost always acted in the lead role himself, as he firmly believed that there was 'no comedy without truth, and no truth without comedy.'  

He made fun of anyone he thought was dishonest, and because of his satires, he often found himself in trouble especially from moralists – two of his plays, The Impostor and Don Juan, were banned. His plays - Tartuffe ou l'Imposteur (Tartuffe or the Hypocrite), for its attack on religious hypocrisy received condemnations from the Church, while Don Juan was banned from performance.

Later Years of Molière

Molière's hard work in the theatre began to take its toll on his health and, by 1667, he was forced to take a break from the stage. He concentrated on writing musical comedies later in his life. In these plays the drama was interrupted by songs and dance or a combination of both.

Final Years

While performing in the production of  Le Malade Imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), who suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis, was taken ill. He died in the same day on February 17, 1673. After his death the theatre group Comédie Française was formed to promote his works. They still enjoyed by modern theatre goers throughout the world.     

Books by Molière

The School for Wives, (L'Ecole des femmes), 1662

The Impostor, (Tartuffe au l'Imposteur), 1664

Don Juan, 1665

The Misanthrope, (le Misanthrope),1666

The Doctor in Spite of himself, 1666

Tartuffe, (a revised version),1667

The Miser, (L'Avare au l'École du mensange), 1668

George Dandin, 1668

The would-Be Gentleman, 1670

Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (The Citizen Turned Gentleman), 1672

The Imaginary Invalid, (Le Malade imaginaire), 1673

 

Image Credit:

Moliere. Wikipedia / Public Domain.

 

Resources:

1. Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una McGovern, Chambers, 2002

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

 

Note: I first published this piece in August, 2008, written for Suite.com (now close).     

(c) January 2010. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.    

Picture is Not Wolfgang Mozart

Wolfgang Mozart / Picture Misattribution

The above picture is one of the most commonly reproduced portraits of the famous composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It is misattributed. The boy is actually Count Karl Firmian who was a childhood friend of Mozart.  


Also note the keyboard’s odd assortment of black keys.

Information Credit: 

Copyright © 2002 Division of Rare & Manuscript Collections
2B Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853

Oil Painting by Thaddäus Helbling, ca. 1767. Original owned by the Mozarteum, Salzburg


Resource Link:

Count Karl Firmian. Mozart and the Keyboard of His Time. Accessed  January 9, 2010.

(c) January 9, 2010. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.