Maurice Maeterlinck

Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949)

Belgian Playwright, Poet, Essayist

Maurice Maeterlinck was a Belgian playwright, poet and essayist who became involved with Symbolism, a French literary movement which uses symbols to represent ideas and emotions. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1911.

Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard, Count Maeterlinck, was born in Ghent, Belgium on August 29, 1862. He studied law at the University of Ghent where he was profoundly influenced by Symbolism. His early works were not in plays but poetry. He published his first poem, The Rushes, when he was a 21-year-old university student.

Read more…  Maurice Maeterlinck Brief Biography

 

Works by Maurice Maeterlinck

• The Rushes, 1883
• Hot Houses, 1889
• The Princess Maleine, 1889, play
• The Blind, 1891, play
• Pelléas and Mélisande, 1892, play
• Aglavaine and Selysette, 1896
• Ariadne and Bluebeard, 1901
• Sister Beatraice, 1902
• Monna Vanna, 1902, play
• The Blue Bird, 1908
• The Burgomaster of Stilmonde, 1918

John Bunyan

John Bunyan (1628-1688)

English Writer and Preacher

John Bunyan was a great English writer who communicated his religious beliefs and ideas through storytelling and allegory. He is famous for his masterpiece, The Pilgrim’s Progress.

John Bunyan was born on November 30, 1628, in Elstow, Bedfordshire, near London in a village where his family had been farmers for generations. He hardly received any education and seemed destined to lead a simple existence until two events that changed everything.

Read more…  John Bunyan Life and Works

 

Works by John Bunyan

• Grace Abounding to the chief of Sinners, 1666 
• A Confession of my Faith, and a Reason of my Practice, 1672
• The Pilgrim’s Progress, 1678
• The Life and Death of Mr. Badman, 1680
• The Holy War, 1682 (or The Losing and Taking Again of the Town of Mansoul)
• The Pilgrim’s Progress, Part II, 1684
• A Book for Boys and Girls, 1686

Homer

Homer  (lived in the 8th or 9th century BC)

Greek Poet

Famous for Iliad and Odyssey, Homer is the most mysterious and extraordinary of all the poets of ancient Greece. Nothing at all is known for certain about his life, and many scholars have argued that he never even existed.

Homer Profile

Homer may have lived c. 8th or 9th century BC. As no definite facts are known about him, by tradition he was blind, and that he wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, c. 9th – 8th century BC. Seven towns claim to be his birthplace.

Admired by Aristotle for his writing, his two epic poems, Iliad and Odyssey, are regarded the finest ever written, with realistic and descriptive style. They tell the stories of heroes and the incredible deeds in a mythical past when gods and goddesses interfered directly in the lives of mortals.

Read more… Homer and his Two Epic Poems

John Milton

John Milton (1608-1674)

English Poet and Essayist

Best known for Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Lycidas, John Milton was one of the greatest English poets with huge influence on English poetry.

Milton’s Life in a Nutshell

John Milton was born on December 9, 1698 in London. His father was a successful lawyer and composer. They had a second house in the country where Milton spent six years in private study after finishing education in Cambridge University in 1632.

Read more…   John Milton Life and Works

Works by John Milton

•”On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity”, 1629
•”L’Allegro”, c. 1631
•”Il Penseroso”, c. 1631
•Comus, 1634
•Lycidas, 1637
•Areopagitica, 1644
•Poems, 1645
•Paradise Lost, 1667
•Paradise Regained, 1671
•Samson Agonistes, 1671

Robert Frost

Robert Frost (1874-1963)

American Poet

Considered as America’s Poet Laureate, American writer Robert Frost is one of the best of rural New England’s poets. He was best known for his collection New Hampshire and A Witness Tree, both Pulitzer Prize winners.

Early Life of Robert Frost

Robert Lee Frost was born on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco, California. Following the death of his father, his family moved from San Francisco to Massachusetts when he was 11-years-old. He completed his education in New England, attending both Dartmouth College and Harvard University but without graduating.

Read more... Robert Frost Life and Works

Works by Robert Frost:

• A Boy’s Will, 1913
• North of Boston, 1914
• Mountain Interval, 1916
• New Hampshire, 1923
• West-Running Brook, 1928
• Collected Poems, 1930
• A Further Range, 1936
• A Witness Tree, 1942
• A Masque of Mercy, 1947
• Steeple Bush, 1947
• In the Clearing, 1962

E.T.A. Hoffmann

E.T.A. Hoffman (1776-1822)

German Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Composer, Music Critic, Jurist

E.T.A. Hoffmann was one of Germany’s most important authors belonging to the romantic literary movement. He wrote fantasy and horror and was best-known for Nighttime Tales.

Jacques Offenbach’s brilliant fictional opera The Tales of Hoffmann, made him very famous. In it, he was portrayed as a dreamy character.

Biography of E.T.A. Hoffmann in a Nutshell

E.T.A. Hoffmann was born Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, on January 24, 1776, in Königsberg, East Prussia. He came from a family of jurists, with his father, Christoph Ludwig Hoffman, being a barrister.

Read more… E.T.A. Hoffman brief biography

Works by E.T.A. Hoffmann:

• The Golden Pot, 1814
• On Beethoven’s Instrumental Music, 1813
• Fantasies, 1814-1815
• The Devil’s Elixir, 1815-1816
• Nighttime Tales, 1817
• Strange Sufferings of a Theatre Director, 1818
• Opinions of the Tomcat Murr, 1819-1821
• Little Sachs, called Cinnaber, 1819
• The Serapion Brothers, 1819-1821

Omar Khayyam

Omar Khayyam (1048 – 1131)

Persian Poet, Mathematician and Astronomer

Omar Khayyam, a great scholar in the ancient Muslim kingdom of Persia, now Iran, is the author of one of the greatest poetic works, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 1859, published posthumously.

Khayyam was best-known for his over 200 four-line verses, and for Persian philosophy aside from Persian poetry.

Read more — Omar Khayyam

André Breton

André Breton (1896 – 1966)

French Poet and Novelist, Dadaist, Surrealist

André Breton was a French poet who helped found Surrealism, which became one of the most influential artistic movements of the 20th century. As one of the first organizers of the group, he fully articulated the theory of Surrealism and to put it into literary practice.

André Breton and Early Influences

André Breton was born on February 18, 1896, in Tinchebray, France.

Read more — André Breton

Works by André Breton

• Magnetic Fields, 1921
• Light of the Earth, 1923
• Manifesto of Surrealism, 1924
• Nadja, 1928
• The Community Vessels, 1932
• What is Surrealism?, 1934
• Mad Love, 1937
• Ode to Charles Fourier, 1947
• Poems, 1948
• Constellations, 1959
• Selected Poems, 1969 (Published after he died)
• Poems of André Breton (Published after he died)