Walt Whitman

Literature / Poet Datebook:  May 31

The life and works of Walt Whitman, American poet and journalist famous for Leaves of Grass, one of America's greatest 19th-century poets

 

Walt Whitman, famous for "Leaves of Grass" and short poem "O Captain! My Captain!", was one of America's greatest 19th-century poet. He was also a journalist. Whitman wrote one of the finest works of American literature, the poetry collection "Leaves of Grass", basis of Ralph Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony.

Early Life of Walt Whitman 

Walt Whitman (1819-1892), was born on May 31, in West Hills, Long Island, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. His father was a Quaker carpenter, while his mother took care of nine children. Even as a child he read a lot, in particular, Dante, Homer, Shakespeare and the Bible.    

As a youth, Whitman attended rural schools, originally trained to be a printer. Spending many summers on Long Island, he developed a deep love of nature that was to dominate his writing. 

Whitman the Journalist

For most of his life Whitman worked as a journalist. It was in New York that he began writing on newspapers, but as a young man, he traveled to New Orleans to work on a paper there and saw the huge difference and diversity of his country for the first time. Back in New York, Whitman witnessed the rapid growth of the city as hundreds of thousands of people arrived from all over he world to make a better life. From this experience and excitement, he was inspired to write a new kind of poetry that could capture and express his sentiment at this amazing conglomerate of people and their everyone's hope for freedom.

Whitman the Poet 

The first edition of Leaves of Grass was published at Whitman's own expense; he was thirty six years old. At that time, his poems were taken as unusual and therefore, no publisher would accept them. The poems of Walt Whitman are celebration of nature, of freedom, of the individual, and of kinship of all humanity, from his experience of the influx of diverse people moving to America. He was widely criticized for his use of blank verse, as well as his openness about sexuality.

The American Civil War to Whitman

During the American Civil War, Whitman worked as a nurse. After the war he published Drum-Taps – poems about his experience of war – including one of his most famous and monumental poems, 'O Captain! My Captain!', about the death of President Abraham Lincoln. He died aged 72, March 26, 1892.

Walt Whitman's Works:

• Leaves of Grass, 1855 (basis of Ralph Vaughan Williams' "A Sea Symphony"). Text from A Sea Symphony by Ralph Vaughan Williams based on Walt Whitman's poem of the same name.  
  (Magnificent work by RV Williams from an equally magnificent poem by Walt Whitman: Here.  One of the most arresting piece of work in my entire life as a chorister.)  

  
  

  I. A Song for All Seas, All Ships 
  

  II. On the Beach at Night, Alone
  

  III. Scherzo: The Waves 

  IV. The Explorers

  
  

Apology: Video no longer available from YouTube. Here's a link, "Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony", uploaded by Colin, to what I found, 20 May 2022.  (Ralph Vaughan Williams's first symphony 'A Sea Symphony' was written over several years in the 1900s and was first performed at the Leeds Festival in 1910, on the composer's 38th birthday. Bernard Haitink conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus with soprano Felicity Lott and Jonathan Summers. It's an EMI recording from 1989 CDC 7 49911 2)

• Drum-Taps, 1865

• Sequel to Drum-Taps, including 'O Captain! My Captain!, 1865-1866

• Democratic Vistas, 1871

• Memoranda During the War, 1875

• Specimen Days and Collect, 1882

Photo Credit:

Walt Whitman. NNDB / Public Domain

Resources: 

Goring, Rosemary (Ed.)  Larousse Dictionary of Writers. (1994)

McGovern, Una (Ed.).  Chambers Biographical Dictionary. (2002)

Note: This piece was originally published for Suite101.com, April 8, 2008, posted here in abridged form. / Tel  

(c) May 2010. Updated May 20, 2022. Tel. Inspired Pen Web.  All rights reserved.

Patrick White

 Literature / Writer's Datebook: May 28

Australian Writer, short story writer, playwright, and Poet, 1973 Nobel Prize in Literature

 

Brief biography of the life and works of Australian author Patrick White, 1973 Nobel Prize in Literature

 

Australian writer Patrick White is regarded as an important writer of the 20^th century whose work explores the theme of isolation in his characters, often separated from society by age, sexuality, race or geography. He is best known for The Aunt's Story, Voss and The Eye of the Storm. 

Despite his popularity worldwide he was not as popular in Australia because of his often cruel depictions of the Australian middle class as materialistic, cold and unfeeling. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973.

 

Early Life: Childhood and Youth

White was born in London on May 28, 1912, while his Australian parents were on vacation there. At the age of 13 he was sent back to England to attend at Cheltenham College, which he did not like. In his youth, he already began to write plays and stories. After a few years on remote sheep ranches in Australia, where he worked as a stockman near the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales, Australia, at the age of 20 he returned to England to attend King's College, Cambridge.

 

The Writer / Author

During World War II White served in the RAF in Greece and the Middle East. Following the war he eventually settled on a farm near Sydney, Australia, with his partner Manoly Lascaris. There he wrote his first important work, The Aunt's Story – the reminiscences of an elderly woman. The Tree of Man, about the struggles of a small farmer, and Voss, about the early days of Australian exploration, also received critical acclaim. One of his most important novels, The Eye of the Storm, was published when he was 61. It is about a city dweller who remembers the most significant time of her life, when she was stranded on a tropical island.

White also published short stories, The Burnt Ones (1964) and The Cockatoos (1974), and plays, including Four Plays (1965) and Signal Driver (1981).

 

Last Years

In his memoirs, Flaws in the Glass: A Self-Portrait, White focuses on his life as a writer and as a homosexual in Australian society. He died in Sydney at the age of 78 on September 30, 1990, after a long illness.     

 

Works by Patrick White

Happy Valley, 1939

Living and the Dead, 1941

The Aunt's Story, 1948

The Tree of Man, 1955

Voss, 1957

Riders in the Chariot, 1961

The Solid Mandala, 1966

The Eye of the Storm, 1973

The Twyborn Affair, 1979

Flaws in the Glass: A Self-Portrait, 1981

 

Image Credit:

Patrick White.  NNDB / Public Domain

 

Resources:

Cambridge Guide to Literature in English by Ian Ousby, Cambridge University Press, 1993

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

 

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

Rachel Carson

Science / Scientist's Datebook: May 27 

 

Brief biography of  Rachel Carson, American marine biologist and science writer, famous for Silent Spring, and works on ecology and pesticides.

Best known for Silent Spring and her other influential books on pollution and wild life, Rachel Carson made her career with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. er other works include The Sea Around Us, winner of a National Book Award, and the Edge of the Sea. She championed works on marine biology and ecology, and fight against toxic pesticides.

 

Early Life of Rachel Carson

Rachel Louise Carson was born on May 27, 1907, the youngest child in a family of two girls and a boy. She grew up near Springdale, Pennsylvania. Her father was a businessman. Carson characterized herself as a rather solitary child, she early developed an interest in nature and spent great deal of time in the woods near streams, and learning about the birds, insects and flowers. Illness kept her out of school in periods of time, although she was an avid reader. 

At 18 years old, she entered the Pennsylvania College for Women (Chatham College) in Pittsburgh majoring in English with intention of becoming a writer. Her career direction changed when in her second year she took a biology subject under a brilliant teacher, Mary Scott Skinker. She changed her major to science.

 

Career in Marine Biology and Science Writing

Graduating magna cum laude in 1929, Carson got a summer study fellowship at the US Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts, which was her first experience with the ocean. With Skinker’s support, Carson won a scholarship to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. On the side, she also worked as laboratory assistant at Hopkins and as a teaching assistant in zoology at the University of Maryland. In 1932, she received her master’s degree in zoology.

In mid-30s, her family suffered tragedies with the death of her father and sister. She helped support the family by working with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries in Washington, D.C. as a writer of short radio programs on marine life. She was eventually offered a full-time job when she passed the Civil Service test with the highest score possible. Various work writing assignments ensued followed by publications of her books on marine and wildlife.

 

Advent of Carson’s Silent Spring 

In 1958, when she received a letter from a friend that described the devastating effects of spraying pesticides on bird sanctuary, Carson felt it was time to speak out against the use of pesticides, then advocated by the Department of Agriculture. After careful and thorough research across the US and Europe, Carson published Silent Spring in 1962. In it she demonstrated the effects of DDT pesticides, and other toxic chemicals that endanger creatures, humans included.  Forcibly, she argued that the use of biological controls  should be utilized with understanding and knowledge of the living organisms wanted to be controlled.

As Carson, predicted, Silent Spring was fiercely attacked by the agricultural chemical industry, which mounted a huge but unsuccessful campaign to discredit her book and her.

Fortunately, then President John F. Kennedy was impressed and ordered a re-evaluation of Federal Pesticide Policy. A year later after Silent Spring’s publication, the president’s Science Advisory Committee formed a subcommittee to study activities related to the use of pesticides. The presidential committee endorsed Carson’s position, and its findings led to legislation banning the use of DDT.

 

Legacy and Contributions of Rachel Carson

With gratitude to Carson and her Silent Spring, strong sense of environmental awareness, first called for by her, has strongly continued.  In recent years, it has become central to mainstream thinking through related issues of conservation and the earth’s protection.  Among her other awards is a presidential Medal of Freedom Award, posthumously awarded in her honour.  

Rachel Carson died April 14, 1964, aged 56, silenced by her own fight with bone cancer.  To the world, she is primarily responsible for influencing the awareness of protecting the living species, and the factoring out of environmental costs to the natural world she so dearly loved.  

 

Major Works by Rachel Carson:

Under the Sea-Wind, 1941

The Sea Around Us, 1951

The Edge of the Sea, 1955

Silent Spring, 1962

 

Image Credit:

Rachel Carson. Wikipedia Commons / Public Domain.  Accessed May 27, 2010

 

Resources:

Clark, John, Ed. Illustrated Biographical Dictionary. London: Chancellor Press, 1978

McGovern, Una, Editor. Chambers Biographical Dictionary. Edinburgh: Chambers, 2002

Uglow, Jennifer (later revised by Maggy Hendry), Macmillan’s Dictionary of Women’s Biography.  London: Macmillan, 1999

Weatherford, Doris.  American Women’s History. New York: Prentice Hall, 1994

 

(c) May 27, 2011. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 Literature / American Writer & Poet

 

American Essayist, Poet, and Transcendentalist

 “Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.” ~ R.W. Emerson

 

Biography and works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of America's great poets and  essayists, 19^th century leader of transcendentalism.  

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an important 19^th-century American poet and essayist, a  transcendentalist, and an orator. His ideas had a strong influence on the development of American culture. He's famous for Nature, his first book.

Early Life of Emerson

Emerson was born on May 25, 1803, the son of a minister, was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. Like his father, he attended Harvard and then entered the ministry. He was appointed pastor of the Second Unitarian church in Boston, but three years later, at the age of 29, he had a crisis of faith and left the church. A year later, he went to Europe and visited England, and became a close friend of the writer Thomas Carlyle, with whom he corresponded for almost 38 years.  

Works Published

Back in the United States, Emerson settled in concord, Massachusetts, and began a successful career as a lecturer and essayist. His first book Nature, a prose rhapsody, was published when he was 33, summed up his ideas. This was followed by "The American Scholar," an oration delivered at Harvard. Emerson's address in 1838 before the Divinity Class in Cambridge produced a sensation, especially among the Unitarians. 

Philosophy of Transcendentalism

Emerson formulated the philosophy of transcendentalism or in simple term, an idealist, who advocated self-reliance, spiritual independence, and rejected traditional authority. He is famous for the often quoted "Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you." Emerson believed that people should rely on their reasons to learn what is right and should try to live a simple life in harmony with nature and with others.

More Lectures, Poems and Essays

Emerson became famous for his lectures. He encouraged American scholars to break free of European influences and create a new American culture. His first collection of essays, in which he explored his ideas more fully, was published when he was 38. They were widely read and further collections followed. At the age of 44 he published his first collection of poetry. Later he became involved in the antislavery movement and worked for women's rights. In 1849, he revisited England to lecture on Representative Men. 

Considered 10 of the Best R.W. Emerson Poems

1. The Bell
2. The Snow-Storm
3. Boston Hymn
4. Give All too Love
5. Brahma
6. Concord Hymn
7. Water
8. The Rhodora
9. The Mountain and the Squirrel   
10. Terminus
    

Analyses presented from Poem Analysis by Emma Baldwin. Accessed 25 May 2022. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson died at the age of 78, on April 27, 1882.

 

Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature, 1836

Essays, 1841

Essays, 1844

Poems, 1847

Representative Men, 1850

English Traits, 1856

The Conduct of Life, 1860

May Day and Other Pieces, 1867

Society and Solitude, 1870

Letters and Social Aims, 1876

Natural History of intellect, 1893

 

Photo Credit:

R. W. Emerson. Public domain.

 

Resources:

1. Goring, Rosemary. (Ed.) Larousse Dictionary of Writers. (1994)

2. McGovern, Una, (Ed.) Chambers Biographical Dictionary. (New Edition). (2002)

Note: I first published this piece for Suite101.com, 26th May 2008. / Tel

(c) May 2010. Updated May 25, 2022. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

Richard Wagner

Classical Music / Composers Datebook:  May 22

 

 

German Composer, Critic, Teacher, 19th-century Orchestra Master 

 
Richard Wagner (May 22, 1813-Feb 13, 1883), born in Leipzig, was an influential German composer, famous for such compositions as Lohengrin, The Ring of the Nibelungs, The Twilight of the Gods, The Flying Dutchman, and The Valkyrie. Self-taught for several years, he eventually found a tutor in Theodor Weinlig.

Wagner revolutionized 19th-century opera concept as a new art form in which musical, poetic, and scenic elements were unified through a theme known as 'leitmotif' (leading motive.)  Allthough grossly arrogant, his genius has adoring fans as well as harsch critics. He founded the Festival Theatre in Bayreuth in 1872, and four years later, in 1876, his masterpiece, The Ring of the Nibelungs, which is a sequence of four operas, was first performed.
Wagner wrote the libretto and music over the course of about twenty-six years, from 1848 to 1874. The four parts that constitute the Ring cycle are, in sequence:

• Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold)
• Die Walküre (The Valkyrie)
• Siegfried
• Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods)

Although individual works of the sequence have occasionally been performed separately, Wagner intended them to be performed in series. A great visionary, his insights and inventiveness in music left a legacy of ideas how music should be performed, including provision of comprehensive and stage directions. In particular, opera to him was a complete work of art, the orchestra and singing should have variety of colours and textures.

Richard Wagner's The 'Ring' Without Words (A Symphonic Synthesis by Lorin Maazel). Uploaded by EuroArtsChannel. Accessed May 22, 2020. Lorin Maazel conducts the Berliner Philharmoniker. Strongly influenced by the comments of Richard Wagner's grandson, Wieland, about the importance of the orchestra in the Ring, Lorin Maazel eventually agreed to produce a symphonic synthesis of the tetralogy, which he called The Ring Without Words, a seventy-five-minute orchestral distillation designed with the express purpose of bringing the magic of these monumental music dramas to a new audience of musically sensitive listeners. Recorded live at Philharmonie Berlin, 2000.

WATCH in YouTube.  (Video no longer allowed in websites / Tel. 22 May 2021.)

History of the Rolls-Royce

Charles Rolls and Frederick Henry Royce came from the opposite sides of the tracks, and therefore and unlikely partner. However, the rest is history, the duo hit it off to produce the powerful Rolls-Royce automotive giant.

Frederick Henry Royce

Frederick Henry Royce was nine years old when his father died in 1872. He became the breadwinner for his family and took odd jobs in London, from bird-scaring to newspaper-selling. At the age of 14, he was hired as an apprentice toolmaker at the railway works.

Sören Kierkegaard

Great Philosophers Datebook: May 5

 

Brief biography and philosophies of Danish Philosopher Sören Kierkegaard, father of Existentialism, known for the “leap of faith” and the book, Either/Or.

"To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner. Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner, put yourself in his place so that you may understand what he understands and the way he understands it." - Søren Kierkegaard

Sören Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was a Danish philosopher considered the father of Christian existentialism and a great influence to Sartre.  His writings fall into three periods – the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. As founder of Christian existentialism, he believed that God is known only by a “leap of faith,” which is a leap into the eternal and irrational.

 

Born on May 5, 1813, in Copenhagen where he spent all his life, Sören Kierkegaard was the seventh and last child. His father was a wool merchant who at first cursed God, but later in life, had a pietistic faith as he contemplated Christ’s sufferings. It was his father’s faith that had a deep effect on Sören and how he viewed the world.      

In 1830, he entered the University of Copenhagen, where he studied philosophy, theology and literature. On his mother’s death four years later, he decided to move away from home, he thought the only way he’ll know what to do with his life was to know himself.  He worked as a Latin teacher, and when his father died in 1838, the money he inherited was enough to keep him independent all his life.

Kierkegaard’s Philosophies on Aesthetics, Ethics and Religion  
    

Kierkegaard was engaged to Regine Olsen, but broke the relationship, devoting himself to writing instead.  Fearing the ethical commitment of the institution of marriage, he remained a scholarly bachelor. He considered marriage and domestic responsibility incompatible with philosophical tasks.

His earliest and first significant work, On the Concept of Irony, (his 1841 dissertation), proved a masterful criticism of the philosophy of George W. Hegel, in which he attacked philosophical system building.  Instead, he formulated the thesis that subjectivity is truth. He argued that each individual has the freedom to choose his own truth on the subjective basis of faith.  His main point was the belief in a person’s immortality. This was in conflict with Hegel who created the “Absolute Spirit” that denies the personality of God.      

On religious belief, Kierkegaard held this to be a matter of passion not reason, that even when a person might indulge in proof of God’s existence, the way of Aquinas or Anselm, it has nothing to do with belief in God as an intellectual exercise, but rather a choice to believe in God passionately. 
    

Kierkegaard’s Final Years

In later years, his personality became a target of attack, both in satirical magazines and in public ridicule. In 1848, he had spiritual crisis and started to ponder on death. He also held a sermon at the cathedral. In his last few years he published a series of articles, some under a pseudonym, and compiled them as Attack Upon Christendom. 

Kierkegaard was stricken with a spinal disease and died on November 11, 1855. He was 42.  He deeply affected theologians and Existential philosophy in the second quarter of the 20th century. Like Nietzsche, Kierkegaard was lonely and neurotic. He opposed all strict philosophical constructions, and hid his thoughts under pseudonyms. A prolific writer, he published some thirty books.

Books by Sören Kierkegaard

Either/Or, 1843

Repetition, 1843

Fear and Trembling, 1843

Stages on Life’s Way, 1845

The Concept of Dread, 1844

Concluding Unscientific Postscript, 1846   


Photo Credit:

S. Kierkegaard. In Public Domain.
Sketch of Søren Kierkegaard. Based on a sketch by Niels Christian Kierkegaard (1806-1882).
Copyright expired as artist died more than 70 years ago. (Accessed:  May 5, 2017)

 
Resources:
 

Clark, John, Ed. Illustrated Biographical Dictionary.  London: Chancellor Press, 1994

McGovern, Una, Ed. Biographical Dictionary, Edinburgh: Chambers, 2002
Soren Kierkegaard. en.wikipedia.org 

Stokes, Philip.  Philosophy: The Great Thinkers. Capella, 2007  

Note: This abridged piece was originally written for Suite101.com (now close) August 9, 2010.

(c) May 2010. Updated May 5, 2017. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.