This Day In Literary History
On April 30th, 1945, the famous American writer Annie Dillard was born. She was born Annie Doak in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The oldest of three daughters, Annie's parents were affluent, but liberal and non-conformist.
They believed in nurturing their children's creativity, curiosity, and sense of humor; as a young girl, Annie took piano and dance lessons, collected rocks and insects, and read voraciously.
Her father taught her about everything from plumbing and economics to Jack Kerouac's classic novel, On The Road (1957). Though her parents weren't churchgoers, Annie attended a local Presbyterian Church and went to a Presbyterian youth camp.
When as a teenager she told her minister she was rejecting her religion because of its hypocrisy, he gave her a collection of books by C.S. Lewis, which changed her mind about Christianity.
After graduating from high school, Annie attended Hollins College in Roanoke, Virginia, where she studied literature and creative writing. She married her writing professor, poet R.H.W. Dillard.
By 1968, she earned a Master's degree in English, writing her thesis on Henry David Thoreau's Walden (1854), focusing on Walden Pond as "the central image and focal point for Thoreau's narrative movement between heaven and earth."
Annie Dillard began her writing career by publishing poetry and short stories. In 1971, after recovering from a near-fatal case of pneumonia, she began work on what would be her most famous book.
For eight years, she'd lived near Tinker Creek, a suburban area where she was surrounded by woodlands, creeks, mountains, and many different species of animals. It took her eight months to complete her book.
Cut off from the outside world and having no interest in the events of the time, such as the Watergate scandal, she would sometimes write for up to 15 hours a day. Annie's finished book, published in 1975, won her a Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a Walden-esque collection of essays about Tinker Creek and its inhabitants. Dillard combines nature studies, philosophy, and spirituality to create a deeply introspective work of nonfiction.
It sold more than 37,000 copies in the first two months of publication and go through eight separate printings the first two years. Dillard was compared to Thoreau, and her book became required reading during the environmentalist movement of the 1970s.
At the time, Annie's spiritual outlook was a combination of elements from various religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Sufism, and Inuit spirituality, much like the transcendentalism of Thoreau and Emerson.
After making a name for herself with Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard moved to the state of Washington and became the writer-in-residence at Western Washington University. She divorced, remarried, and had a daughter named Rosie.
She continued to write and publish both fiction and nonfiction, including a memoir about growing up in Pittsburgh called An American Childhood (1987). For 21 years, she taught in the English department at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.
Annie Dillard's most recent book, The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old & New, was published in 2017.
Quote Of The Day
"Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spins the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair."
- Annie Dillard
Vanguard Video Today's video features a reading from Annie Dillard's classic book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Enjoy!
This Day In Literary History
On April 29th, 1933, the legendary American poet, singer, and songwriter Rod McKuen was born in Oakland, California. In 1944, when he was eleven, he ran away from home to escape his violent alcoholic stepfather.
He drifted throughout the West Coast, working at various jobs; he was a logger, a ranch hand, a railroad worker, and even a rodeo cowboy. Despite his lack of formal education, McKuen kept a journal and wrote frequently.
This would lead him to become a poet and writer of song lyrics. He also became a newspaper columnist. During the Korean War, he served his two-year tour of duty as a propaganda scriptwriter. After the war ended, he settled in San Francisco.
His first poetry collection, And Autumn Came, was published in 1954. He was soon reading his poems alongside fellow Beat writers such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Around this time, Rod McKuen began performing as a singer at the Purple Onion.
The Purple Onion was a famous cellar club in San Francisco where legendary comics such as Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Mort Sahl, Phyllis Diller, Richard Pryor, and the Smothers Brothers would also perform.
At first, McKuen performed traditional folk songs, then he began writing and performing his own songs. This led him to win a recording contract with Decca Records, for whom he recorded several pop albums.
He tried to start a career as an actor, and appeared in rock n' roll themed movies such as Rock, Pretty Baby (1956) and Summer Love (1958).
McKuen's acting career failed to take off, so in 1959, he moved to New York City to work as a composer and music conductor for the TV show CBS Workshop. In the early 1960s, he moved to France, where he met many of the country's top songwriters.
He struck up a close friendship with legendary Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel and embarked on a project to translate all of Brel's songs into English. His translation of Brel's song If You Go Away became a pop standard. British singer Scott Walker recorded many of McKuen's translations.
When Canadian singer Terry Jacks adapted and recorded McKuen's translation of Brel's classic song Seasons in the Sun, it became a #1 hit. McKuen also translated the works of other prominent French songwriters.
In the late 1960s, McKuen published more collections of poetry including Listen to the Warm (1967), Lonesome Cities (1968), and In Someone's Shadow (1969). He also returned to singing and songwriting.
With arranger Anita Kerr and the San Sebastian Strings, he recorded a series of pop albums, including The Sea (1967), The Earth (1967), The Sky (1968), Home to the Sea (1969), For Lovers (1969), and The Soft Sea (1970).
Legendary singer Frank Sinatra, impressed with McKuen's talents, then commissioned an album of his poems and songs, which was released as A Man Alone: The Words and Music of Rod McKuen.
In the 1970s, McKuen tried his hand at classical compositions, writing concertos, suites, symphonies, and chamber pieces for orchestra. He also wrote film scores and collaborated with legendary composers such as Henry Mancini and John Williams. He earned two Academy Award nominations.
He continued publishing great poetry collections, including Caught in the Quiet (1970), Fields of Wonder (1971), Moment to Moment (1972), and Come to Me in Silence (1973).
In 1977, he published a nonfiction book called Finding My Father, which was a chronicle of his search for his biological father. He became an activist, helping to make information about biological parents available to adopted children.
When he embarked on a concert tour of South Africa, which was segregated under the oppressive apartheid regime, McKuen demanded mixed seating for every one of his concerts, or else he wouldn't perform there.
He retired from live performance in 1981. A year later, he was diagnosed with clinical depression, which he would battle for nearly a decade. He continued to write poetry and appeared as a voice actor in movies and TV shows.
Rod McKuen died in January of 2015 at the age of 81. It has been estimated that he wrote over 1,500 songs during his remarkable career, most of them for other singers. All together, his songs account for over 100,000,000 records sold.
Quote Of The Day
"I try not to put messages in my songs. My only message is man's communication with his fellow man. I want to narrow the gap of strangeness and alienation."
- Rod McKuen
Vanguard Video
Today's video features Rod McKuen being interviewed on NPR's Fresh Air in 1978. Enjoy!
This Day In Literary History
On April 28th, 1926, the legendary American writer Harper Lee was born. She was born Nelle Harper Lee in Monroeville, Alabama. The youngest of four children, her father, Amasa Coleman Lee, was a lawyer.
He also served in the Alabama State Legislature from 1926 to 1938 and was a former newspaper editor. As a child, Harper Lee was a precocious tomboy and a voracious reader. Her best friend, neighbor, and classmate was the legendary writer Truman Capote.
After graduating from Monroe County High School, Harper Lee enrolled in the Huntingdon College for women, then transferred to the University of Alabama to study law.
She wrote for several student newspapers and edited the campus humor magazine, Rammer Jammer. After studying for a year in Oxford, she left college without obtaining a law degree.
In 1950, Harper moved to New York City and took a job as reservation clerk, first for Eastern Airlines, then BOAC. She divided her time between her cold water flat in New York and her family home in Alabama, where she cared for her ailing father.
By 1956, determined to become a writer, she began writing stories and found herself an agent. In December of 1956, she received a year's wages and time off from work as a Christmas present.
The gift came with a note that said, "You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas." Harper Lee used her time off to write a novel. Within a year, she completed the first draft.
Working with Tay Hohoff, an editor for J.B. Lippincott & Co., she completed her final draft in the summer of 1959. A year later, in July of 1960, her novel was published. It was called To Kill A Mockingbird.
Set in 1930s Alabama, the semi autobiographical novel is narrated by eight-year-old Jean Louise "Scout" Finch, a precocious tomboy. She lives with her older brother Jeremy "Jem" Finch and their widower father, Atticus Finch, a prominent, liberal attorney.
Scout's best friend is Charles Baker "Dill" Harris, who, although small for his age, has a big imagination. Together, they spend their days fantasizing about a mysterious neighbor - an enigmatic recluse named Arthur "Boo" Radley who never comes out of his house.
Wondering if Boo really is a monster, the kids try to draw him out. Meanwhile, a poor black man named Tom Robinson is falsely accused of raping a white woman, and Atticus Finch agrees to defend him. His determination to see justice done inflames the community against him.
As the trial progresses, the once respected and loved Atticus becomes the most hated man in town. As Scout's big brother Jem reaches adolescence, the climate of violent racism and the injustice meted out by a bigoted all-white jury disturbs him greatly.
Tom Robinson is convicted of rape despite the truth uncovered by Atticus Finch: when Tom's accuser, the lonely, abused Mayella Ewell, was caught making sexual advances to a black man, she falsely accused him of rape out of fear of her father Bob, a violent racist and alcoholic.
Later, Tom Robinson is shot and killed while trying to escape from prison. (Earlier, Atticus, Scout, Jem, and Dill had prevented a mob from lynching him.) Meanwhile, Bob Ewell, humiliated by Atticus' public revelations about his daughter, vows revenge.
He spits in Atticus' face and later attacks his children on their way home from a school Halloween pageant. Jem defends his little sister and gets his arm broken. Suddenly, someone appears out of the shadows and saves the kids.
Bob Ewell is attacked and killed by a strange, silent man who then scoops up the injured Jem and carries him home. Scout realizes that their savior is none other than Boo Radley. He finally came out of his house.
When they get home, Atticus calls the Sheriff, who convinces him that, given Radley's mental issues and what the publicity would do to him, justice would be best served by declaring Bob Ewell's death an accident.
To Kill a Mockingbird became an overnight sensation - an immediate bestseller that received rave reviews from both readers and critics. The following year, Harper Lee was stunned when her novel won her the Pulitzer Prize.
She moved on to her next project, accompanying her childhood friend Truman Capote to Kansas for what they had originally planned to be an article about a small town shocked by the murders of a local farmer and his family.
Capote later turned the true story into an acclaimed nonfiction book, In Cold Blood (1966). In 1962, a feature film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird was released. The highly acclaimed film starred Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch and featured an incredible performance by eight-year-old newcomer Mary Badham as Scout Finch.
Harper Lee loved the film and called playwright Horton Foote's screenplay "one of the best translations of a book to film ever made." The movie would win Gregory Peck the Best Actor Oscar and Horton Foote an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Peck and Harper Lee would become lifelong friends; his grandson Harper Peck Voll is named after her. In June of 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson named Harper Lee to the National Council on the Arts.
That same year, she experienced one of the first attempts at censoring her novel. A school board in Richmond, Virginia voted to ban To Kill a Mockingbird from classroom study and school libraries, denouncing the novel as "immoral literature."
Lee wrote the following response in a letter to the editor of Richmond's largest newspaper:
Recently I have received echoes down this way of the Hanover County School Board’s activities, and what I’ve heard makes me wonder if any of its members can read.
Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that “To Kill a Mockingbird” spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners. To hear that the novel is “immoral” has made me count the years between now and 1984, for I have yet to come across a better example of doublethink.
I feel, however, that the problem is one of illiteracy, not Marxism. Therefore I enclose a small contribution to the Beadle Bumble Fund that I hope will be used to enroll the Hanover County School Board in any first grade of its choice.
Over the years, To Kill a Mockingbird, which is a staple of study for eighth grade English classes, has faced similar attempts by disgruntled would-be censors to remove it from school libraries and classrooms.
Harper Lee originally planned to write another novel, but her manuscript for The Long Goodbye would be filed away unfinished. During the mid 1980s, she began writing a nonfiction book about an Alabama serial killer, but she gave up on that as well.
Her writing output since To Kill a Mockingbird consisted of just a few essays and articles. In 2006, she wrote a letter to legendary talk show hostess Oprah Winfrey, which would be published in O, the Oprah Magazine.
In it, she spoke of her childhood love of books and her dedication to the written word. She wrote: "Now, 75 years later, in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books."
In November of 2007, Harper Lee was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush at a ceremony in the White House. It appeared that To Kill A Mockingbird would be her only novel.
Then, on February 3rd, 2015, Harper Lee announced that she would be publishing another novel. The book, titled Go Set A Watchman and published a few months later in July, was a sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird that follows Scout as a grown woman.
Watchman was actually written before Mockingbird, which was originally intended to be its prequel. Lee thought the manuscript had been lost forever, but it was found by her lawyer in a safe deposit box in 2011. The manuscript was published exactly as written, with no revisions.
It's 20 years later, and the Civil Rights movement is just starting to become a major force for change. With racial tensions escalating across the country, especially in Scout Finch's home state of Alabama, she can't help but recall the lessons she learned in childhood.
Scout, now going by her proper name Jean Louise, joins the Civil Rights movement and is stunned to discover that her now elderly father Atticus, whom she idolized and who risked everything to defend an innocent black man from racist injustice, is opposed to civil rights.
What's more, he's determined to fight school integration and has been consorting with the Ku Klux Klan! For the first time, Jean Louise begins to see her father through the eyes of an intelligent grown woman instead of the rose colored glasses of a naive, adoring little girl.
She finds that Atticus is flawed like any other person and, like other white Southerners, fears the sudden end of the only way of life he's ever known. Can it be true? Will Jean Louise's relationship with her father be shattered forever?
The announcement of a second Harper Lee novel came as quite a shock to the literary community. The 88-year-old author had been residing in a nursing home, having suffered a stroke a while back. Her vision and hearing were deteriorating.
The timing of Watchman's publication made some wonder if Lee, perhaps senile, was being exploited by her publisher. Suspicion of elder abuse led the state of Alabama to conduct an investigation. They interviewed Lee and determined that no abuse had taken place.
Her longtime friend, historian Wayne Flynt, said that the "narrative of senility, exploitation of this helpless little old lady is just hogwash. It's just complete bunk."
Needless to say, the publication of Go Set A Watchman caused quite a stir. Many readers believed that Lee had betrayed them and soiled the legacy of one of America's most beloved literary characters.
Others, like this writer, found Watchman to be a powerful read and a worthy successor to To Kill A Mockingbird that truthfully explores the insidious nature of intolerance.
Harper Lee died in February 2016 at the age of 89.
Quote Of The Day
"Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends."
- Harper Lee
Vanguard Video
Today's video features an 83-minute PBS documentary on Harper Lee, part of the American Masters series.
This Day In Literary History
On April 24th, 1891, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the classic novel by the legendary Irish writer Oscar Wilde, was published. Like most novels of the time, it previously appeared in a serialized format. It had been published in Lippincot's Monthly Magazine the previous year.
For its debut in book form, Wilde had tweaked the manuscript, revising some sections and adding new chapters. This was the only novel that Wilde, who was best known as a playwright, ever wrote.
A famous, anonymously published gay erotic novel called Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal (1893) would be credited to Wilde, but it was most likely a collaborative effort written by his friends, with Wilde serving as editor.
Unlike his famous satirical comic plays, The Picture of Dorian Gray is a horror novel and considered one of the all time classics of the genre. But it's really more than a horror novel - it's an intriguing philosophical and satiric study of human nature - specifically, the nature of sin.
The novel opens with sensitive artist Basil Hallward painting the portrait of a handsome young man named Dorian Gray. Hallward is awestruck by Dorian's beauty and obviously infatuated with him.
In Dorian, he has found his muse. He believes that the young man's beauty is responsible for boosting his stagnant creative juices to new heights. While Hallward paints his portrait of Dorian, his friend, Lord Henry "Harry" Wotton, observes them and lectures them in his hedonistic philosophy.
To Lord Wotton, the only things that matter in life are beauty and the fulfillment of the senses. The shallow, narcissistic Dorian Gray couldn't agree more. Realizing that his good looks will fade with age, Dorian proclaims that he'd sell his soul if only his portrait could age while he remains young and beautiful.
He decides to become Lord Wotton's protege and explore the pleasures of the senses. His first stop is the theater, where he becomes smitten with Shakespearean actress Sibyl Vane. Dorian courts Sibyl and proposes marriage. She accepts, deliriously happy at the idea of marrying the handsome young man she calls her Prince Charming.
Her protective brother James, suspicious of Dorian's character, vows to kill him if he harms her. Dorian invites Basil Hallward and Lord Wotton to see Sibyl perform in Romeo and Juliet. More interested in love than in acting, Sibyl gives a lackluster performance. Dorian dumps her.
He tells her that her only beauty was in her acting, and now that it's gone, he's no longer interested in her. He leaves her heartbroken and returns home to find that his portrait has adopted a subtle sneer and aged a little.
Dorian decides to reconcile with Sibyl, but it's too late - Lord Wotton informs him that she committed suicide. He dismisses the tragic act and decides to devote his life to the pleasures of the senses.
Over the next eighteen years, Dorian Gray explores every possible desire on his path of debauchery. He never ages, remaining young and handsome while his portrait becomes an aged, hideously ugly reminder of his sins and corrupted soul that torments him.
One night, Basil Hallward visits Dorian to see if the rumors of his decadence are true. He's shocked to find that Dorian hasn't aged in almost twenty years. Dorian shows him the hideous portrait.
Blaming the artist for what the portrait and he himself has become, Dorian murders Basil in a fit of rage. Then he blackmails a chemist friend into helping him dispose of the body and takes off to France.
At an opium den in Paris, Dorian crosses paths with Sibyl Vane's vengeful brother James, who tries to shoot him. Dorian talks James into believing that he's too young to be Dorian Gray. After Dorian flees, a woman tells James that the young man was Dorian - a man who never ages.
Dorian fears for his life until James is killed in a hunting accident. Later, Dorian tells Lord Wotton of his strange fate and vows to change his ways and become a good man. He begins by not breaking the heart of his latest paramour, Hetty Merton.
Wondering if his portrait has changed, Dorian finds that it has become uglier than ever. He realizes that his actual motivations for becoming a good man were selfishness and curiosity rather than genuine atonement for his sins.
He knows that he can only be absolved by making a full and honest confession to the murder of Basil Hallward, but fears the repercussions of doing so. Left with no other alternative, Dorian picks up the knife that he killed Basil with, and in a rage, plunges it into the heart of his portrait.
Aroused by the scream heard from within Dorian's locked room, his servants call the police. This is what they find:
When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was.
The publication of The Picture of Dorian Gray caused a sensation and a furor in Victorian England. Although Wilde had toned down the homoeroticism prevalent in the original serialized version, it remained in the book. That wasn't the only objection.
One newspaper's literary critic denounced the novel for "its effeminate frivolity, its studied insincerity, its theatrical cynicism, its tawdry mysticism, its flippant philosophizing, its contaminating trail of garish vulgarity."
Oscar Wilde said of his novel, "I wrote this book entirely for my own pleasure... whether it becomes popular or not is a matter of absolute indifference to me."
Five years after its publication, Wilde (the married father of two children) was publicly outed as a homosexual by the Marquess of Queensberry, the brutal, hateful father of his boyfriend, Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas.
Convicted of "gross indecency" - the legal term for homosexual acts that were illegal under British law - Wilde would serve two years in prison for the crime of being gay in Victorian England. After his release, broke and broken, he settled at the Hotel d'Alsace in Paris.
There, it's been said, he lived the uninhibited gay life that had been denied him in England. He died of cerebral meningitis on November 30th, 1900, at the age of 46.
Quote Of The Day
"There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all."
- Oscar Wilde
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a complete reading of Oscar Wilde's classic novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Enjoy!
This Day In Literary History
On April 23rd, 1564, the legendary English writer William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. No attendance records survived, but scholars believe that he began his formal education at the King's New School in Stratford.
In 1582, at the age of eighteen, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years his senior and pregnant with his daughter, Susanna.
Two years later, the couple would have twins - a son, Hamnet, and a daughter, Juliet. Hamnet would die of unknown causes at the age of eleven, devastating Shakespeare and affecting his writing.
There are few if any historical traces of Shakespeare's life between 1585 (when the twins were born) and 1592, when he appeared on the scene (no pun intended) as an actor and playwright.
As a young actor, Shakespeare belonged to a company of players known as the Lord Chamberlain's Men. They would become the leading theatrical troupe in London. In 1603, when James I became king following the death of Queen Elizabeth, he awarded Shakespeare's company a royal patent.
The company changed its name to the King's Men. They had already built their own theater - the Globe - on the banks of the Thames. They later took over the Blackfriars indoor theater.
These theaters were built on the outskirts of London to avoid the city's strict censorship laws. Still, Shakespeare found his plays thoroughly scrutinized for subversive political content by the English government.
Shakespeare acted in his own plays as well as in the works of others, but he soon quit acting and devoted himself exclusively to play writing. When he acted in his own plays, he preferred to play kings. He made a tradition of playing the ghost of Hamlet's murdered father in his productions of Hamlet.
Beginning in 1594, Shakespeare's plays were published in quarto editions (magazine sized volumes) and became bestsellers. His first recorded plays were his histories Richard III and the three parts of Henry VI.
More than just chronicles of English (and other) historical events, Shakespeare's histories were also morality plays like his other works, depicting kings Richard III, Henry IV, and Henry V as having the same flaws as other men, though on a larger and more tragic scale.
He was also known for his classic comedies and tragedies. His comedies included such masterpieces as A Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Taming of the Shrew.
His tragedies - the plays he was most famous for - included such masterworks as Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, and Julius Caesar.
Shakespeare was also famous as a poet. Of course, the lines in his plays were poetry - literally, they were written in blank verse - but as a poet, he was most famous for his narrative poems and sonnets.
His narrative poems included epic works such as Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. His sonnets were numbered, from 1 to 154. They addressed three different characters, which scholars have labeled The Fair Youth, The Dark Lady, and The Rival Poet.
In his Fair Youth sonnets, Shakespeare addresses the young man in loving and romantic language, which has led some scholars to speculate that the author may have been bisexual.
The Dark Lady sonnets were supposedly addressed to the author's mistress, and the Rival Poet was most likely one of his contemporaries such as Christopher Marlowe or George Chapman.
Though Shakespeare's sonnets were first published in 1609 and have been republished ever since, evidence suggests that he never wanted them to be published. He intended to share them privately with his friends.
By 1607, Shakespeare wrote few plays. The last known work attributed to him appeared in 1613. He died on April 23rd, 1616 - his 52nd birthday. He achieved fame and fortune during his lifetime, but it wouldn't be until over a century after his death that he was recognized as the greatest dramatist of all time.
Scholarly works on Shakespeare and his writings published in the 18th century by such famous academics as Samuel Johnson and Edmond Malone brought attention to Shakespeare's genius. In the 19th century, Shakespeare was enshrined as England's national poet.
He was championed throughout Europe by legendary writers such as Voltaire, Goethe, Stendhal, and Victor Hugo. As the Eastern world opened itself to the West, Shakespeare became an ambassador of Western culture. His works remain hugely popular throughout Asia today.
Beginning in the mid-19th century, a small minority of scholars started to question if William Shakespeare had actually written the plays that bear his name. Some have speculated that other authors of the time, such as Francis Bacon or Christopher Marlowe, may have written them.
Marlowe, a great playwright second only to the Bard, had been a secret agent for the English government. A popular theory suggests that he faked his death for reasons of safety, then used an actor named William Shakespeare as a front for his future plays.
A more mundane theory states that Shakespeare's plays were a collaborative effort, written by Shakespeare and the actors in his company. All these theories are just that - theories that currently cannot and may never be proven.
The timeless themes of Shakespeare's plays make them adaptable at any time and by any culture. In 1957, the legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa released his classic film Throne of Blood - an adaptation of Macbeth set in feudal Japan. A more recent adaptation of Macbeth, starring Patrick Stewart, sets Shakespeare's classic tragedy in Soviet Russia during World War II.
William Shakespeare's writings had a lasting impact on the very language we speak. Scholars say that the evolution of Middle English (1066-1500) into Early Modern English (1500-1800) owes itself mostly to Shakespeare, whose writings added a thousand new words to the English language.
As Hamlet said, the play's the thing.
Quote Of The Day
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts..."
- William Shakespeare, from his play As You Like It.
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a complete reading of William Shakespeare's sonnets. Enjoy!
This Day In Literary History
On April 22nd, 1960, To Bedlam and Part Way Back, the classic first poetry collection by the famous American poet Anne Sexton, was published. A former model, throughout her short life, she suffered from severe mental illness.
After her second mental breakdown in 1955, she began seeing a therapist, Dr. Martin Orne. Diagnosing her with a condition now known as bipolar disorder, he suggested that Anne take up writing poetry as part of her therapy.
She decided to attend a poetry workshop, but was so nervous about it that she had a friend accompany her to the first session. The workshop was led by John Holmes - the poet, not the porn star.
It unlocked a talent Anne never knew she had. All of a sudden, her poems were being published in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and The Saturday Review.
She later attended Boston University, studying with Robert Lowell, alongside soon-to-be famous poets such as Sylvia Plath and George Starbuck. The Pulitzer Prize winning poet W.D. Snodgrass became her literary mentor.
When Anne's first poetry collection was published in 1960, it established her as one of the finest confessional poets of her generation. Her third poetry collection, Live or Die (1968), won her a Pulitzer Prize. Around this time, she had become a counterculture celebrity.
She would perform live readings accompanied by a jazz-rock group. The ensemble billed itself as "Anne Sexton and Her Kind." The name of her band is also the title of one of her most famous poems, which appeared in her first poetry collection. It was the signature piece of her performances:
HER KIND
I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.
I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.
I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.
Unfortunately, while Anne's fame and fortune grew, her mental illness grew worse. She committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning (she locked herself in her garage and started her car with the windows open) at the age of 45.
During her short life, Anne Sexton wrote over a dozen poetry collections and a play. She also co-wrote four children's books with her friend, Maxine Kumin. After her death, her troubled life would become the subject of controversy.
Her former therapist, Dr. Orne, gave audiotapes of his sessions with Anne to biographer Diane Middlebrook, whose book revealed many troubling details, including the fact that Anne had been sexually abused by her mother.
Her mother and some of her relatives vehemently denied that any abuse took place and accused her therapist of planting false memories during their hypnotherapy sessions.
Other relatives, including Anne's daughter Linda - who approved the biography - confirmed that Anne had in fact been abused by her mother. The biography is still hotly debated to this day, as is the issue of whether doctor-patient confidentiality should remain in effect after the patient dies.
Quote Of The Day
"The beautiful feeling after writing a poem is on the whole better even than after sex, and that's saying a lot."
- Anne Sexton
Vanguard Video
Today's video features rare documentary footage of Anne Sexton reading her poems. Enjoy!
On April 21st, 1947, the legendary American children's book writer Barbara Park was born. She was born Barbara Lynne Tidswell in Mount Holly, New Jersey.
In 1969, after graduating college with a degree in education, Barbara married her husband, Richard A. Park, with whom she had two sons, Steven and David. She planned to teach history and political science in high school, but found her calling in writing.
When she was a high school senior, her classmates had voted her Wittiest. Later recalling this, she said, "So several years later, I decided to try my hand at writing humor and see if I could be witty enough to make some money." It turned out that she could.
After a few rejections, her first children's story, Don't Make Me Smile, was published in 1981. The following year, she published two books: Operation: Dump the Chump and Skinnybones. It was the latter that made her name and became one of her most popular books.
Skinnybones is narrated by its main character, Alex Frankovitch, an awkward and unpopular gradeschooler with a big mouth. He's been playing Little League baseball for six years but he's "really stinky" at it, and is constantly berated by his nemesis T.J. Stoner, who's a great ballplayer.
Alex lets his big mouth get the best of him and he challenges T.J. to a pitching contest. Can he talk his way out of it, or will he be humiliated again by the biggest jerk in school? This novel established Barbara Park's talent for combining the hilarious and the heartwarming.
The Kid in the Red Jacket (1987) told the funny and poignant story of Howard Jeeter, a 10-year-old boy who struggles to make friends after his parents move him across the country. The other kids act like he's invisible - except Molly Vera Thompson.
Molly is the annoying yet endearing six-year-old chatterbox who lives next door. Her constant attempts to befriend Howard drive him to the point of exasperation. He wishes that he were invisible to her. But he could really use a friend. And so could Molly...
In 1990, Park published Maxie, Rosie, and Earl - Partners in Grime, the first book of her Geek Chronicles trilogy featuring three very different grade school outcasts who become friends.
Maxie Zuckerman is the smartest boy in school, and everyone hates him for it. Rosie Swanson writes detailed notes about her classmates and gives them to her teacher. They hate her for being a snitch.
She doesn't see it as snitching; she wants to be a detective like her grandfather, and that's what detectives do - observe and report. Meanwhile, Earl Wilber is an overweight wimp.
The three kids meet in the principal's office. Maxie got sent there for striking back at his bullying classmates, Rosie for passing notes to her teacher again, and Earl for refusing to read in front of his class.
The principal is too busy to see them, so he excuses them from his office until Monday. The three kids see the perfect opportunity to escape - literally, as they team up to skip school...
Barbara Park's most popular and longest running series of children's books began in 1992 with the publication of Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus.
Juniper Beatrice "Junie B." Jones is a brash, adorable, opinionated, funny, and sometimes rude five-year-old girl known for her Runyonesque nicknames for people and wisecracks, and for taking expressions literally.
Her adventures began with this classic opening:
My name is Junie B. Jones. The B stands for Beatrice. Except I don’t like Beatrice. I just like B and that’s all.
Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus, narrated by its young protagonist, opens with Junie about to face that scary and surreal experience that all young children must go through - the first day of kindergarten. She already met her teacher, whom she just calls Mrs., though the woman has a last name.
Junie hates having to ride the bus alone. She finds school buses loud and smelly, and meets an obnoxious boy named Jim who turns out to be in her class. She makes a friend, Lucille, who lives with her wealthy grandmother - her "richie Nana" - and carries herself like a pint-sized Paris Hilton.
Later, not wanting to ride the bus home, fearing that older kids will pour chocolate milk on her head, Junie hides in the classroom supply closet at the end of the day. When everyone is gone, Junie has the whole school to herself. She pretends to be her teacher and the school nurse.
When she needs to use the bathroom, she finds that the girls' bathroom doors are locked. So are the boys' bathroom doors. Fearing that she's going to have an accident and not knowing what else to do, she calls 911. The school janitor finds her and opens the girls' bathroom door just in the bare nick of time.
Junie avoids an accident, but her happiness is short-lived when the school is beseiged by firefighters and police officers responding to her call for help. There are 28 books in the Junie B. Jones series, but with the release of the 19th book, Junie B., First Grader (at Last!) in 2001, the series became known as Junie B., First Grader.
In her Junie B. Jones books, Park used impressionistic language to convey the point-of-view of her very young heroine. This language, though hugely effective, often included misused words and bad grammar, causing some parents and teachers to hate the books.
This, along with Junie's naturally sassy personality and use of words like stupid and dumb, have earned the Junie B. Jones books a place on the American Library Association's list of the most banned and challenged books in America, with Junie labeled a bad role model.
In reality, the impressionistic language accurately depicts a very young child trying to figure out the world around her and cope with the fears, confusion, and frustration that come with it. In doing so, she proves her mettle and shows that she has a good heart.
A good example of this is in the series' 10th book, Junie B. Jones Is Not a Crook (1997). In this entry, Junie's grandfather buys her a new pair of furry mittens - which are stolen while she's playing with her friends at recess.
Junie goes through the school Lost and Found box, but her mittens aren't in there. She thinks they're gone for good, and they were the last pair at the store. Later, while getting a drink at the water fountain, Junie finds a pen that can write in four different colors. She loves it.
Thinking that the owner was careless, Junie wonders if the "finders keepers, losers weepers" rule should apply. Then her grandfather tells her how he once lost his wallet. He was devastated, but then someone - he never found out who - returned it, with all of his money and credit cards still inside it.
In the end, Junie catches the thief who stole her mittens, gets them back, then drops the pen she found into the school Lost and Found box, explaining to the principal's secretary, "I am not a crook."
When Junie enters the first grade in Junie B., First Grader (at Last!), either due to the complaints or because she's learned more about words, her grammar has improved considerably. She's still her old sassy self, though. She has a male teacher, Mr. Scary, who isn't scary at all.
He introduces the class to journaling, giving out notebooks to use as class journals and assigning the kids to write in them every day. In her first grade year, Junie deals with missing old friends, making new ones, losing a tooth, and having to wear glasses.
May, a new girl in class and obnoxious narcissist who shamelessly brown noses the teacher, becomes Junie's nemesis. Junie calls her "Tattletale May" and nobody likes her, but in the classic Jingle Bells, Batman Smells! (P.S. So Does May) (2005), Junie's attitude changes.
It's Christmastime, and Mr. Scary has decided that the class Christmas party will be a "Secret Santa" party. Each kid will choose a name at random and buy that person a present, but they won't know who the present is from.
Junie B. Jones, who has just enough money for a cheap Secret Santa present and the expensive Squeeze-A-Burp toy she wants, is appalled when she picks May's name. But she has the perfect gift in mind for May - a lump of coal, or rather, a charcoal bricquette.
Then Junie learns why May acts the way she does - she tried so hard to make friends, and nobody wanted to be her friend. At the Secret Santa party, Junie feels terrible when she puts May's gift with the rest of the presents.
May has been hoping like crazy that someone would want to give her something nice for Christmas. As she goes to get her present, Junie has a sick feeling inside. When May unwraps her gift, she's absolutely shocked and says, "I can't believe someone would do this!"
She shows her present to the rest of the class - it's a Squeeze-A-Burp, the best toy ever! Junie really wanted it, and can't understand why she gave it to May, but she feels good that she did. It was a merry Christmas after all.
A huge hit with boys and girls alike, the Junie B. Jones books have sold tens of millions of copies. Despite the controversy surrounding them, they're still beloved by readers of all ages, as parents who grew up with them now read them to their own children.
The books, which include whimsical cartoon illustrations by Denise Brunkus, were all released as unabridged audiobooks narrated by Lana Quintal, who gives each character a distinct personality in her dramatic readings.
Though the Junie B. Jones books and other novels succeeded largely thanks to Barbara Park's wit and talent for comedy, she was never afraid to tackle difficult subjects in children's books, as seen in her standalone novels Mick Harte Was Here (1995) and The Graduation of Jake Moon (2000).
In Mick Harte Was Here, 13-year-old Phoebe Harte's family is devastated when her younger brother Mick dies from a head injury in a bicycle accident. He chose not to wear his bike helmet that day, and their father blames himself for not making Mick wear it.
Phoebe struggles with her own guilt as his older sibling, her anger at Mick for not wearing his helmet, and her grief over his loss. As she explores her memories of him, she tries to overcome her pain and anger enough to participate in a school assembly on bicycle safety.
The Graduation of Jake Moon tells the story of the title character, a boy about to graduate eighth grade. Jake Moon has always been close to his grandfather, Skelly - a source of wisdom, strength, and stability in his life.
Then Skelly is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and Jake watches his mind slowly disintegrate. To make matters worse, most of the responsibility for Skelly's care is placed on Jake's shoulders, which he begins to resent. Finally, he rebels - and something terrible happens...
Barbara Park's final book, Turkeys We Have Loved and Eaten (and Other Thankful Stuff), the last entry in the Junie B. Jones series, was published in 2012. She died the following year at the age of 66, after a long battle with ovarian cancer.
Quote Of The Day
"There are those who believe that the value of a children’s book can be measured only in terms of the moral lessons it tries to impose or the perfect role models it offers. Personally, I happen to think that a book is of extraordinary value if it gives the reader nothing more than a smile or two. In fact, I happen to think that’s huge."
- Barbara Park
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a reading of Barbara Park's classic first Junie B. Jones book, Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus. Enjoy!
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