Freely sharing passions for classical music, literature, and art (intuitive art, including watercolour painting, neurographic art & neurographica), science, biographies, films & soundtracks, icons & legends. (down memory lane, in remembrance...)
English Librettist and Playwright, Best Known as Sullivan's Opera/Operetta Partner
Brief biography of the life and times of William S. Gilbert, of 'Gilbert and Sullivan' comic opera/operetta partnership.
Sir William Gilbert, librettist, playwright, poet and illustrator, collaborated with Sir Arthur Sullivan on an immensely successful comic operas. His lyrics are often exuberant and full of humour with brilliant rhyme and rhythm. Some of their famous works include H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado.
Early Life of Gilbert
William Schwenck Gilbert was born on November 18, 1836, in Strand, London, a son of a retired naval surgeon who later became a novelist and a short story writer. He had an ordinary upbringing apart from an unusual episode when he was kidnapped in Italy, at the age of two, by a gang who demanded a random for his release.
He studied at King's College London. He took training as an artillery officer and was taught military science with hopes of participating in the Crimean War. He did not graduate until it was over, at which point he still joined the militia and stayed being a member for twenty years.
Career in Law
After his military training, Gilbert worked in a government bureau. Thanks to his aunt who bequeathed an inheritance, Gilbert pursued an interest and became a barrister.He did work as a barrister at the age of 28, but this was short-lived as he failed to attract significant briefs. Before leaving his law practice, he married an army officer's daughter.
Life and works of American
playwright and screenwriter, Arthur Miller, one of America’s leading
playwrights. Death of a Salesman is regarded as his greatest play.
Arthur Miller, one of the most
prominent and popular American playwrights and screenwriters, wrote some of the
20th century’s most important and famous plays for the American
theater and film productions. His best known plays includeDeath of a Salesman, All My Sons and The
Crucible.
Miller was a Pulitzer Prize
winner for Drama. Married to the famous actress, Marilyn Monroe (1956 to 1961),
he was popular from the late 1940s until the early 1960s, during which he
testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Early Life of Arthur Miller
Arthur A. Miller was born on
October 17, 1915 in New York City. Just before the Great Depression his
father’s business shut down, reducing the family to near poverty. This change
in fortune strongly influenced Miller as seen in many of his plays depicting families
destroyed because they live by the rules of a society that says money is the
most important thing.
Initially, Miller was more
interested in sports than literature, but all that changed when he read The Brothers
Karamazov by Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky. Miller decided to become a writer and enrolled
at the University of Michigan to study journalism.
Miller’s Plays All My Sons, The Death of a Salesman and The Crucible
Miller’s first successful play,
All My Sons (1947), was performed when he was 32 years old. The story is about
a factory owner who sells faulty aircraft parts during the Second World War. The
play clearly shows Miller’s belief that the desire for money in American
society encourages people to act immorally. This play has been influenced by Henrik
Ibsen’s The Master Builder.
Death of a Salesman, regarded Miller’s
greatest play, was produced two years later after All My Sons. It won him a
Pulitzer Prize in 1949. The story is about a man who kills himself when he
realizes he will never be considered a success.
His 1953 play, The Crucible, is based on the
17th-century Salem witch trials, actually an attack on the
anti-communist trials held during the McCarthy Era. He also wrote the screenplay
for Marilyn Monroe’s last movie, The Misfits.
Miller's description in writing for the stage:
"I am in the ultimate place of vision - you can't back me up any further.
Everything is inevitable, down to the last comma".
Legacy of Playwright
Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller died on February
10, 2005. His plays have always been delicately structured, mainly focused on
the major concerns of post-war America and the lives of the American people of
the time.His works, not necessarily
just a pre-occupation of guilt, show more importantly, that in order to redeem the
past, it should first be remembered.
Miller was the most popular
American playwright since his predecessor, Eugene O’Neill. His three greatest
plays, Death of a Salesman, All My Sons and The Crucible, have remained
popular.
Works by Arthur Miller:
All My Sons, 1947
Death of a Salesman, 1949
The Crucible, 1953
A View from the Bridge, 1955
Incident at Vichy, 1964
After the Fall, 1964
The American Clock, 1980
The Last Yankee, 1990
Broken Glass, 1994
Plain Girl, 1995
Photo Credit:
Arthur Miller. Public Domain
Resources:
Goring, Rosemary, Ed. Larousse Dictionary of
Writers. New York: Larousse, 1994
Oxford Who's Who in the 20th
Century. Oxford: OUP, 1999
Payne, Tom. The A-Z of Great Writers. London: Carlton, 1997
Note: I originally wrote this piece for Suite101.com, June 28, 2010. It is being republished in short version for Inspired Pen Web.
(c) October 17, 2019. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.
Brief biography of American playwright, novelist and poet Tennessee Williams.
American
writer Tennessee Williams (Thomas Lanier (Tennessee) Williams), is famous for the plays A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat
on a Hot Tin Roof, and Glass Menagerie, among others. He is considered one of
the best playwrights in the United
States since the Second World War.
He wrote
powerful and involved dramas that mainly deal sensitively with emotionally
damaged people trying to survive in a hostile environment. He used the pieces of his stormy life to create some of the most memorable characters on the stage.
Early Life
of Tennessee
Williams
Tennessee
Williams was born on March 26, 1911, in Columbus,
Mississippi. His family lived with his grandfather where he was brought up. When he was twelve, the family moved
to St. Louis. Tennessee and his sister were not happy and did not adjust to the city life. They were made fun of for
their poverty and Southern accents.
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 ofLe 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.
Literature / Poet Datebook: June 13 Life and works of Irish poet and playwright William Butler Yeats, one of the most influential 20th century writers and widely considered one of the greatest poets of the English language.
William Butler Yeats' work was greatly influenced by the heritage and politics of Ireland.Yeats won the Nobel Prize of literature in 1923. He is best known for his plays The Land of Heart's Desire and Cathleen Ni Houlihan.
Early Life of W.B. Yeats
William Butler Yeats was born on June 13, 1865 in Sandymount, Dublin. His family was Anglo-Irish, that is,
Protestant upper class that felt strong ties to England. His father, John B. Yeats, a painter, moved the family to London when he was three. So, for much of his early life he lived sometimes in London and sometimes in Ireland, but he was always attached to his homeland, especially captivated by the landscape of County Sligo in northwestern Ireland.
Yeats was half-blind in one eye; he didn't do well in school. At the age of 15, his family moved back to Ireland, to Howth on Dublin Bay. Five years later, the Dublin University Review published his first two poems.
Enjoy this wonderful performance, beautiful and heartwarming interpretation by Australian soprano Taryn Fiebig and harpist Jayne Hockley of W.B. Yeats' "Down by the Salley Gardens", from the Album Thyme & Roses, licensed by The Orchard Music (on behalf of MBT Publishing); Imagem Music (publishing) US, and 1 music rights societies. (YouTube, uploaded by artandcode. Accessed May 29, 2018.)
The Young Poet
In London he became increasingly interested in Eastern philosophy and religions, the supernatural and Irish folklore. It was also this time in 1889 that Yeats fell in love with Maud Gonne, a beautiful Irish actress who was involved in the political struggle to end English rule in Ireland. His inability of attaining Maud would haunt him through his life. He proposed in 1891 and again in 1916 but was refused both times.
His mystical beliefs and love for Gonne inspired The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems, published when he was 24. The poetry is filled with sad longings yet beautiful. Yeats believed that the Anglo-Irish and Irish could be united under a rich although mystical Celtic heritage.
Below, I'd like to share one of my favourite poems by Yeats:
Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Kind thanks to Ilse Isler, my friend at Facebook, for this straightforward heartwarming paraphrase:
"If I could offer you the secret of the sky Embroidered with golden light and silver reflections, The mysterious secret, the eternal secret of night and day, of life and time With all my Love I will put it on your feet!"
Later Years
In 1896 Yeats returned to live permanently in Ireland. He met a wealthy aristocrat, Lady Gregory, whose interest in Irish traditions matched his own. Together in 1904 they formed the Abbey Theatre group.
In a Vision, Yeats set out his philosophy, his belief in myths and the meanings of the symbols he used. As he aged, his
writing became stronger and more solid. His best work is in The Tower, The Winding Stair and Last Poems and Plays. The Tower includes some of his famous works, including "Sailing to Byzantium," "Among School Children," and "Leda and the Swan."
Legacy of W.B. Yeats
Yeats founded the National Literary Society and what would become the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Yeats received the Nobel Prize in literature in 1923. He also served as an Irish Free State senator for six years.
He died on January 28, 1939, aged 73.
Works by William Butler Yeats
The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems, 1889
The Celtic Twilight, 1893
The Land of Heart's Desire, 1894
The Secret Rose, 1897
Cathleen Ni Houlihan, 1902
The Second Coming, 1921
A Vision, 1925
The Tower, 1928
The Winding Stair, 1928
Last Poems and Plays, 1936-39
A famous poem by Yeats: "Down by the Salley Gardens"
"Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree.
In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she lay her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears."
Resources:
Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring, Larousse, 1994 The Cambridge Literature in English, New Edition, edited by Ian Ousby,Cambridge, 1993
Photo Credit:
W.B. Yeats. en.wikipedia.org / Public Domain
Note: This article was originally written and published by me for Suite101.com, June 16, 2008. It's an abridged version. / Tel
(c) June 2009. Updated August 27, 2023. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.
Norwegian Playwright and Poet, considered "Father of Modern Drama"
Brief biography and works of Norwegian dramatist and poet
Henrik Ibsen, famous for 'A Doll's House', 'Peer Gynt', and 'Hedda Gabler.'
Ibsen is often called the father of modern
drama because his plays moved away from the Romantic style of theatre popular in the 19th century toward realism. He was famous for 'A Doll's House,' 'Hedda Gabler' and 'Peer Gynt,' with the last two plays having numerous
new productions of plays worldwide, perhaps outdone only by top Shakespearean plays.
During his life Ibsen's work was much admired. In 1891, fellow playwright George Bernard Shaw, in a lecture entitled "The Quintessence of Ibsenism", called him the greatest living dramatist. James Joyce corresponded with him. British novelist Dame Rebecca West coined her nom de plume after one of Ibsen's characters in his play Rosmersholm. Composer Edvard Grieg, his own countryman, is famous for "Peer Gynt Suite" based on Ibsen's play.
Early Childhood
Henrik Ibsen was born in Skien, Norway,
on March 20, 1828 and died at the age of 78, on May 23, 1906. His father was bankrupt and almost immediately became a social outcast. This event gave Ibsen a lasting impact on his life that resulted in a strong distrust of society
which much of his work reflects.
Ibsen's Youth
At age 16, Ibsen became an apprentice
pharmacist. Money was scarce, but he was determined to improve his situation and studied in the evenings. When revolution swept Europe, in 1848, Ibsen, aged twenty-two, captivated by the new democratic ideas, wrote his first play, Catiline, which deals with personal freedom, but this was never performed.
Ibsen went to college in Oslo and hoped to become a physician. He supported himself by writing. A year later, however, he was offered the job of writer-manager of the Norwegian Theatre in Bergen, a position he held for eleven years.
Ibsen's Turning Point
At 30, he married Suzannah Thoresen. Their son, Sigurd, was born a year later.
The play Brand, published when he was 38 years old, was the turning point in his writing career. With its emphasis on the individual pitted against society, the play became popular with young liberals at that time. A series of plays dealing with real-life issues soon followed. A
Doll's House, which deals about a woman who refuses to obey her husband, caused a sensation and reached Europe and America.
Works by Henrik Ibsen
Brand, 1866
Peer Gynt, 1867
A Doll's House, 1879
Ghosts, 1881
An Enemy of the People, 1882
The Wild Duck, 1884
Rosmersholm, 1886
The Lady from the Sea, 1888
Hedda Gabler, 1890
The Master Builder, 1892
Little Eyolf, 1894
When We Dead Awaken, 1899
Resources:
Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una
McGovern, Chambers (2002)
Dictionary of the Arts, Gramercy Books, (1994)
Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary
Goring, Larousse (1994)
(Note: I originally published this piece for Suite101.com March 2008. / Tel)
(c) March 2009. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.
