Thursday, April 30, 2020
Notes For April 30th, 2020
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 even Eskimo 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 lives with her third husband, biographer Robert D. Richardson, whom she met after writing him a fan letter praising his book, Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind. Her most recent book, a novel called The Maytrees, was published in 2007.
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!
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Notes For April 29th, 2020
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 years old, he ran away from home to escape his violently abusive 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 began keeping a journal and writing 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 American singer Terry Jacks 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.
Working 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: A Man Alone, a documentary made for Dutch TV. Enjoy!
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Notes For April 28th, 2020
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, the spend their days fantasizing about a mysterious neighbor - an enigmatic recluse named Arthur "Boo" Radley who never comes out of his home.
Wondering if he 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, who finally came out of his house.
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 non-fiction 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.
Harper Lee loved the film and called 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 the 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 non-fiction 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 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 really 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 89-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
"I never expected any sort of success with Mockingbird. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers but, at the same time, I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I'd expected." - Harper Lee
Vanguard Video
Today's video features an episode of Duke University's DukeReads TV series, with Harper Lee's classic novel To Kill A Mockingbird the subject of discussion. Enjoy!
Monday, April 27, 2020
IWW Members' Publishing Successes
Judith Quaempts
I submitted two poems a while back and when I checked Submittable for a sub to another venue, found that my poems were accepted by Buddhist Poetry Review, though I never heard from the editor.
I found the review. BPR is one of my favorites and thrilled that anything of mine is there. You can read my poems below:
Anticipation
And found After Her Death
Pamelyn Casto
The Centifictionist published my (fewer than) 100-word story, "Blocked Sewage." It went live yesterday. (This is a piece from my in-progress historical novel.) I think they did a fine job choosing an image for the piece. See my tiny story here.
Last month they also did a brief interview with me, which you can read here.
Charles P. Hobbs
My article, "Santa Barbara," documenting the history of public transportation in the Santa Barbara/Goleta area, has been published in Motor Coach Age magazine. The print magazines are being mailed this week.
The publisher has graciously allowed me to provide a link for you to download a read-only copy for your enjoyment.
Thanks to all who helped me with this article.
Preeth Ganapathy
My humour piece 'The Haircut' is up at The Short Humour Site.
Friday, April 24, 2020
Notes For April 24th, 2020
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 Henry, 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 Henry'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 refers to as 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 Henry to see Sibyl perform in Romeo and Juliet. More interested in love than in acting, Sibyl gives a lackluster performance and 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 Henry 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 that torments him.
One night, Basil Hallward pays Dorian a visit to see if the rumors of his decadence are true. He's shocked to find that Dorian hasn't aged. 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 Henry 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.
Dorian knows that he can only be absolved by making a full and honest confession to the murder of Basil Hallward. But he 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 it was published, Wilde (the married father of two children) would be 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 has been said, he lived the uninhibited gay lifestyle 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!
Thursday, April 23, 2020
Notes For April 23rd, 2020
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 Shakespeare 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 - son Hamnet and 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 so as 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 Richard III and the three parts of Henry VI. These plays were part of his histories.
More than just chronicles of 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, as 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.
Although Shakespeare's sonnets were first published in 1609 and have been republished ever since, evidence suggests that Shakespeare 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. Although he had achieved fame and fortune during his lifetime, it wouldn't be until over a century after his death that he would be 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. To this day, his works remain hugely popular throughout Asia.
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 once 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 classic play, As You Like It.
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a complete reading of William Shakespeare's sonnets. Enjoy!
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Notes For April 22nd, 2020
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. Throughout her short life, Sexton, a former model, suffered from severe mental illness.
After her second mental breakdown in 1955, she began seeing a therapist, Dr. Martin Orne, who diagnosed her with a condition now known as bipolar disorder. It was Dr. Orne who suggested that Anne Sexton take up writing poetry.
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 Anne's 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!
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
Notes For April 21st, 2020
This Day In Literary History
On April 21st, 1894, Arms and the Man, the classic play by the legendary Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, opened at the Playhouse Theatre in London.
Arms and the Man (the title comes from the opening words of Virgil's Aeneid) was set during the 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian War. The play's heroine is a Bulgarian girl, Raina Petkoff. Her fiance is Sergius Saranoff, a war hero whom she idolizes.
One night, Captain Bluntschli, a Swiss mercenary soldier in the Serbian army, bursts in through Raina's bedroom window. After threatening her, Bluntschli begs Raina to hide him.
She complies, though she thinks he's a coward - especially when he tells her that he is armed with chocolates instead of bullets. After the battle dies down, Raina and her mother sneak Bluntschli out of the house, disguising him in a housecoat.
The war ends and Sergius returns to Raina - and flirts with her servant girl Louka. Raina finds the man she once idolized to be tiresome and foolhardy. Then, Bluntschli unexpectedly returns to give Raina back the housecoat.
Raina comes to realize that Bluntschli respects her as a woman, where Sergius does not. She tells Bluntschli that she left a picture of herself in a pocket of the housecoat for him, with the inscription "To my chocolate-cream soldier." Unfortunately, Bluntschli never found it.
Later, Bluntschli receives word that his father has died and he has inherited considerable wealth. Louka then tells Sergius that Bluntschli was the man whom Raina protected - and is in love with.
Sergius challenges Bluntschli to a duel, but the men avoid fighting when Sergius and Raina break off their engagement amicably. To Raina's father's horror, Sergius proposes to Louka.
Meanwhile, Bluntschli is now a wealthy businessman. Raina, recognizing the shallowness of her romantic ideals and her ex-fiance's values, tells him that she would rather have her poor chocolate-cream soldier instead.
He convinces her that he's still the same person. The play ends with Raina proclaiming her love for Bluntschli, who then proclaims to everyone that he will marry Raina when he returns in two weeks.
The opening performance of Arms and the Man received a standing ovation - and loud boos from one lone heckler, to whom the playwright quipped, "My dear fellow, I quite agree with you, but what are we two against so many?"
When a group of Bulgarian students complained about Shaw using their country's military history as a vehicle for satirizing the absurdities of war, the playwright made the following apology:
I greatly regret that my play, Arms and the Man, has wounded the susceptibilities of Bulgarian students in Berlin and Vienna. But I ask them to remember that it is the business of the writer of comedy to wound the susceptibilities of his audience. When the Bulgarian students, with my friendly assistance, have developed a sense of humor, there will be no more trouble.
Quote Of The Day
"Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads." - George Bernard Shaw
Vanguard Video
Today's video a complete performance of George Bernard Shaw's classic play, Arms and the Man, taped live in London. Enjoy!
Friday, April 17, 2020
Notes For April 17th, 2020
This Day In Literary History
On April 17th, 1981, the original, unexpurgated version of Sister Carrie, the classic, controversial novel by the famous American writer Theodore Dreiser, was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.
Dreiser, then 28 years old, wrote the original manuscript of Sister Carrie in eight months, between 1899 and 1900. The first publisher he approached found his writing "[Not] sufficiently delicate to depict without offense to the reader the continued illicit relations of the heroine."
Fearing the novel would never be published in its original version, Dreiser began work on a major rewrite. With help from his wife and his friend and fellow writer Arthur Henry, he cut 40,000 words and made other changes, including an alternate ending.
When Dreiser approached publisher Doubleday, Page and Company with his new manuscript, junior partner Walter Page loved the novel and accepted it for publication, offering the author a verbal contract. Unfortunately, senior partner Frank Doubleday had a different reaction.
Doubleday found Sister Carrie extremely distasteful and unsuitable for publication, but Page's contract with Dreiser was binding, so he couldn't cancel it. So, he decided to sabotage the novel instead. He refused to promote the book in any way.
Not only that, Doubleday gave it a bland, red cover, with only the names of the novel and the author on it. Less than 500 copies were sold. When Doubleday's wife complained that the novel was too sordid, he withdrew it from circulation completely.
Theodore Dreiser earned only $68.40 from the ill-fated first publication of Sister Carrie. The ordeal drove the writer to a nervous breakdown and turned him off writing for ten years. Ironically, it also ended up saving his life.
In 1912, Dreiser had originally planned to book passage home from England on the Titanic. Unable to afford tickets for the ill-fated luxury ocean liner, he sailed home earlier on a less expensive passenger ship.
Sister Carrie was later republished when Frank Norris, a reader for Doubleday, sent a few copies to reviewers who raved about it. All future editions of the novel would come from the edited version of the manuscript.
Still controversial even in its edited version, the novel told the story of 18-year-old Caroline "Carrie" Meeber, a young girl living an unhappy life in rural Wisconsin. So, Carrie takes a train to Chicago, where she has made arrangements to move in with her older sister Minnie and her brother-in-law, Sven.
On the train, Carrie meets a traveling salesman named Charles Drouet. He is attracted to her and they exchange information. Carrie finds life at her sister's apartment not much happier than it was in Wisconsin. To earn her keep, Carrie takes a job at a shoe factory.
She finds her co-workers (both male and female) vulgar and the working conditions squalid, and the job takes a toll on her health. After getting sick, Carrie loses her job. She is reunited with Charles Drouet, who is still attracted to her.
He takes her to dinner, where he asks her to move in with him, lavishing her with money. Tired of living with her sister and brother-in-law, Carrie agrees to be Drouet's kept woman. Later, Drouet introduces Carrie to George Hurstwood, the manager of his favorite bar.
Hurstwood, an unhappily married man, falls in love with Carrie, and they have an affair. But she returns to Drouet because Hurstwood can't provide for her financially. So, Hurstwood embezzles a large sum of money from the bar and persuades Carrie to run away with him to Canada.
In Montreal, Hurstwood is trapped by both his guilty conscience and a private detective and returns most of the stolen money. He agrees to marry Carrie and the couple move to New York City, where they live under the assumed names George and Carrie Wheeler.
Carrie believes she may have finally found happiness, but then she and George grow apart. After George loses his source of income and gambles away the couple's savings, Carrie, who has been trying to build a career in the theater, leaves him.
She becomes a rich and famous actress, but finds that wealth and fame don't bring her happiness and that nothing will. Sister Carrie would be rightfully considered a classic American novel, and its author would finally be recognized as one of America's greatest novelists.
Dreiser would go on to write more classic novels, including his Trilogy of Desire - The Financier (1912), The Titan (1914), and The Stoic (1947) - and his masterpiece, An American Tragedy (1925).
For the rest of his life, Theodore Dreiser was haunted by the ordeal he suffered in getting Sister Carrie published. He felt that, just like his anti-heroine, he had prostituted himself to survive and thrive. He died in 1945 at the age of 74.
Though he wouldn't live to see it, his original manuscript for Sister Carrie would finally be published - over eighty years after the edited version was released. In 1930, during his Nobel Prize Lecture, legendary writer Sinclair Lewis said this about the novel and its author:
Dreiser's great first novel, Sister Carrie, which he dared to publish thirty long years ago and which I read twenty-five years ago, came to housebound and airless America like a great free Western wind, and to our stuffy domesticity gave us the first fresh air since Mark Twain and Whitman.
Quote Of The Day
"Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes." - Theodore Dreiser
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a complete reading of Theodore Dreiser's classic novel Sister Carrie. Enjoy!
Thursday, April 16, 2020
Notes For April 16th, 2020
This Day In Literary History
On April 16th, 1962, The Golden Notebook, the classic novel by the Nobel Prize winning English writer Doris Lessing, was published. The novel is rightfully considered a seminal early work of feminist literature.
That wasn't what the author intended, though the book does have feminist themes. The Oxford Companion to English Literature described it as "inner space fiction." A better description would be experimental existentialist fiction.
The Golden Notebook uses a fragmented, stream-of-consciousness narrative to tell the story of Anna Wulf, a middle aged writer and single mother who has come apart - literally and metaphorically. She keeps four notebooks, each one representing a part of her personality.
In her black notebook, Anna records her experiences in Africa, where she helped fight the colonial oppression of black Africans. In her red notebook, she records her idealism, specifically her political idealism, as she first becomes a passionate young communist.
Over time, she changes into a sober realist, disillusioned by the crimes of the Stalin regime and the realization that communism can't create the better world she had hoped for.
Anna's yellow notebook contains her novel, which is a fictionalized version of her life. Her blue notebook is her personal diary, where she records the actual events in her life.
The narrative is comprised of alternating fragments from each of her four notebooks, which reflects her chaotic state of mind. Fearing that she might go insane, Anna tries to weave together the threads of her four notebooks and create one complete Golden Notebook.
In doing so, she embarks on a harrowing journey in search of her true self, confronting her anxieties and the painful truths at the heart of her personal crises.
The Golden Notebook is a classic existentialist novel written in a post-modernist style. In 2005, TIME magazine listed it as among the 100 best English-language novels since 1923.
Quote Of The Day
"With a library, you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one - but no one at all - can tell you what to read and when and how." - Doris Lessing
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a BBC documentary on Doris Lessing. Enjoy!
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
Notes For April 15th, 2020
This Day In Literary History
On April 15th, 1755, A Dictionary of the English Language, the classic reference book by the legendary English writer Samuel Johnson, was published. Neither the first nor the last English language dictionary ever published, it was, however, one of the most memorable dictionaries ever published.
That's because it was written by Samuel Johnson - the legendary English poet, essayist, literary critic, biographer, and lexicographer considered to be "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history."
Most dictionaries of the time were found to be unsatisfactory at best, so in 1746, a group of London booksellers commissioned Samuel Johnson to write a dictionary for £1,575 - about £250,000 in today's money. Johnson claimed that he could complete the work in three years.
Actually, it took him almost nine years to finish his dictionary. It took Johnson a whole year just to draft a plan for the design of the dictionary. The plan received the support of statesman Lord Philip Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Sandwich.
After the dictionary was published, Stanhope wrote an anonymous essay endorsing the work and complaining that the English language lacked structure. Johnson didn't like the tone of the essay and felt that Stanhope hadn't done enough to fulfill his obligations as patron of the dictionary.
The first edition of A Dictionary of the English Language was published in a ponderously large sized volume, (18" tall by 20" wide) on the finest quality paper available at the time.
This made the dictionary incredibly expensive to print and affordable only by nobility and royalty. Johnson called this volume "Vasta mole superbus." - "Proud in its great bulk."
Johnson's dictionary contained the definitions of 42,773 English words (only a few more words would be added in its revised editions) and was innovative in its use of literary quotations used to illustrate the meanings of words.
The dictionary contained some 114,000 quotations by authors such as Shakespeare, Milton, and Dryden. In addition to the quotations, Johnson's dictionary was the first to use humor in its definitions of words.
A famous example is Johnson's definition of the word oats as "a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people." The legendary American writer Ambrose Bierce would employ similar humor in his masterpiece of scathing satire, The Devil's Dictionary (1911).
A Dictionary of the English Language was a huge hit in England, receiving rave reviews and becoming famous throughout Europe. In America, however, it was poorly received, especially by one Noah Webster.
Webster, an American lexicographer, argued that British English should no longer be the American standard because "the taste of [Britain's] writers is already corrupted, and her language is on the decline." He would later write a famous dictionary of his own - a dictionary of American English.
In England, Samuel Johnson's dictionary would be viewed as the preeminent English dictionary until the Oxford English Dictionary was completed and published in 1884. It earned Johnson a £300 pension from King George III and a legacy that continues to this day.
Quote Of The Day
"Books, like friends, should be few and well-chosen." - Samuel Johnson
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a BBC documentary on Samuel Johnson and his dictionary. Enjoy!
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
Notes For April 14th, 2020
This Day In Literary History
On April 14th, 1939, The Grapes of Wrath, the classic, Pulitzer Prize winning novel by the legendary American writer John Steinbeck, was published.
Steinbeck had previously scored a literary triumph with his acclaimed and controversial novella, Of Mice and Men (1937). The Grapes of Wrath would also court controversy.
The Grapes of Wrath - the title comes from a line in the song The Battle Hymn of the Republic - told the story of the Joads, a poor family of Oklahoma sharecroppers.
Driven from their home by the Great Depression and the dust storms, the Joads go to California hoping to improve their fortunes. Instead, they encounter more hardship. The novel opens with son Tom Joad being paroled after serving time in prison for manslaughter.
On his way home, he meets Jim Casy, an ex-preacher he once knew. Casy, who shares the same initials as Jesus Christ, lost his faith after having affairs with his congregants and realizing that religion can provide no real answers or solace for the difficulties that people are experiencing in the Depression.
Tom and Casy go to Tom's uncle's house, where Tom finds his family loading their truck with their possessions. Their crops were destroyed by the dust storms and their farm has been repossessed by the bank.
So, the Joads have decided to go to California after an advertisement convinces them that the Golden State holds the key to prosperity. Leaving Oklahoma would violate Tom's parole, but he believes that it's a risk worth taking.
They head out on Route 66, and soon realize that their prospects in California may not be as good as they thought. The road is full of other families making the same journey and the makeshift camps in which they live.
The Joads hear many stories of hardship from people who have been to California, but they feel they have no choice but to continue their journey.
When they finally arrive in California, the Joads find no hope of making a decent living. There's an oversupply of labor and no rights for workers, thanks to a collusion of big corporate farmers. Smaller farmers are suffering from a collapse in prices.
The Joads find hope at Weedpatch Camp, a clean camp operated by the Resettlement Administration, one of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal agencies. Since the camp is a federal facility, the poor migrant workers are protected there from the sadistic California state policemen.
The vigilante cops had been constantly harassing and brutalizing migrant workers in an attempt to drive them out of the state. Unfortunately, there's not enough money and space at Weedpatch to care for all the needy.
The novel reaches its apex when the Joads end up working (unknowingly) as strike breakers at a peach orchard. A strike turns violent and Tom Joad's friend Jim Casy is murdered. Tom witnesses the crime and kills the attacker to avenge his friend's death.
Now a fugitive, Tom says goodbye to his mother and flees, vowing that wherever the road takes him, he'll act as a defender of the oppressed.
The publication of The Grapes of Wrath in 1939 was described as "a phenomenon on the scale of a national event. It was publicly banned and burned by citizens, it was debated on national radio hook-ups; but above all, it was read."
Loved by most and denounced as communist propaganda by some, The Grapes of Wrath would become one of the most thoroughly discussed and studied novels of the twentieth century.
Though author John Steinbeck had been accused of exaggerating the camp conditions to make a political point, he had actually underplayed conditions that he knew had been much worse than what he'd described in his novel. He did this to avoid being labeled a propagandist, but he was denounced as a communist nonetheless.
In 1940, the legendary filmmaker John Ford directed a feature film adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath, starring Henry Fonda as Tom Joad and John Carradine as Jim Casy.
Though the ending of the film differs greatly from the novel, it's still rightfully considered one of the greatest films ever made. It won big at the Academy Awards, taking the Oscars for Best Actor (Fonda), Best Director (Ford), Best Picture, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
The legendary American folksinger Woody Guthrie was a big fan of the film. After he saw it, he wrote a song summarizing the plot for people who couldn't afford to see the movie. The result, Guthrie's classic song Tom Joad, turned out to be so long that it had to be broken into two parts.
In 1962, John Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for literature. The prize committee cited the brilliance of The Grapes of Wrath as one of their main reasons for giving Steinbeck the award.
Quote Of The Day
"The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true." - John Steinbeck
Vanguard Video
Today's video features an episode of the series Great Books dedicated to John Steinbeck's classic novel, The Grapes of Wrath. Enjoy!
Monday, April 13, 2020
IWW Members' Publishing Successes
Dave Gregory
My story "A River I Could Skate Away On" is now online in Remington Review. A very easy journal to work with, high acceptance rate, reasonably fast replies & no fee.
Thanks to Stella, Kristen, Deepa, Rekha, Eric, Bill, Louby, Wayne, & Chandrika for helpful feedback (when it was called "Amazing Journey").
Friday, April 10, 2020
Notes For April 10th, 2020
This Day In Literary History
On April 10th, 1906, The Four Million, the classic short story collection by the legendary American writer O. Henry, was published. It contained two of the author's most popular stories - The Cop and the Anthem and The Gift of the Magi.
The Cop and the Anthem is set in New York City. It's late autumn, and with winter coming, a homeless hobo called Soapy isn't looking forward to sleeping out in the cold.
Soapy decides to get himself arrested so he can spend the night in a warm jail cell. He tries swindling, petty thievery, vandalism, and pretending to be publicly intoxicated, but he just can't get arrested.
When Soapy tries sexually harassing a young woman, she turns out to be a prostitute. Heartbroken, he moves on. As the sun begins to set on a cold night, he finds himself standing outside a small church.
Inside the church, the organist is practicing. Soapy listens to him play. Moved by the music, he contemplates his life and decides to clean up his act and get himself a job and a home. Lost in reverie over the prospect of a brighter future, Soapy is approached by a cop - who arrests him for loitering.
The Gift of the Magi, considered O. Henry's most beloved story, is a heartwarming Christmas tale. Jim and Della are a poor young married couple living in a modest little apartment.
Although poor, they each have a valuable possession that they take pride in. Della has her beautiful, long flowing hair, while Jim's prize possession is his grandfather's pocket watch.
It's Christmas Eve, and Della has just under two dollars to spend on Jim's Christmas present. Desperate, she decides to sell the only thing of value she has - her hair. She sells it for $20 and buys a shiny platinum fob chain for Jim's treasured pocket watch.
When Jim comes home, she gives him his present and tells him she sold her hair to pay for it. He fixes her with an expression “that she could not read, and it terrified her.” Then he gives Della her Christmas present - a set of expensive, fancy combs for her hair. He sold his grandfather's pocket watch to pay for them.
The couple is left with two Christmas presents they can't use and one invaluable gift they take great pleasure in - their deep love for each other. The story ends with the author comparing their sacrificial gifts to each other with the biblical gifts of the Magi given to the baby Jesus:
The magi, as you know, were wise men – wonderfully wise men – who brought gifts to the new-born King of the Jews in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication.
And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the Magi.
O. Henry was the pseudonym of William Sydney Porter, born in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1862. A voracious reader as a child, he took up writing in his twenties. While living in Austin, Texas, in the late 1880s, he wrote short stories and founded a humorous weekly literary magazine called The Rolling Stone.
Porter supported himself by working at a bank, which would lead to his downfall. He would be accused of embezzlement and fired, but not indicted. He moved to Houston, where he worked on his magazine and also wrote for the Houston Post.
During this time, the bank where Porter had worked was audited by the feds, who arrested him on embezzlement charges. He fled, and while on the lam, went to Honduras, where he coined the term "banana republic" to describe that third world Latin American country and others like it.
When Porter learned that his wife was dying of tuberculosis, he returned to Texas and surrendered. He was granted bail so he could remain with his wife pending an appeal. After she died, Porter lost his appeal and was sentenced to five years in a federal prison in Ohio.
While serving his time, Porter continued to write. He used several pseudonyms, settling on O. Henry - the name he was becoming famous under. He had a friend in New Orleans forward his stories so that publishers wouldn't realize that he was in prison.
After serving three years of his five year sentence, he was paroled for good behavior. The year after his release from prison, O. Henry moved to New York City, which was the mecca of the publishing world.
He would become one of the great masters of the short story, writing nearly four hundred of them. The critics of the day were rarely kind to O. Henry, but his readers loved him and couldn't get enough of his stories.
Sadly, O. Henry's life would be cut short by chronic health problems such as diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver, and an enlarged heart. These problems were caused or worsened by his heavy drinking. He died in 1910 at the age of 47.
Stories from his classic collection would be adapted as a classic anthology feature film, O. Henry's Full House, in 1952. The movie, directed by multiple filmmakers, featured an all-star cast, with each story introduced and narrated by legendary writer John Steinbeck.
Quote Of The Day
"Each of us, when our day's work is done, must seek our ideal, whether it be love or pinochle or lobster à la Newburg, or the sweet silence of the musty bookshelves." - O. Henry
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a complete reading of O. Henry's classic short story collection, The Four Million. Enjoy!
Thursday, April 9, 2020
Notes For April 9th, 2020
This Day In Literary History
On April 9th, 1821, the legendary French poet Charles Baudelaire was born in Paris, France. His father Francois was a civil servant and amateur artist 34 years older than his wife, Baudelaire's mother Caroline. He died when Charles was six years old.
The following year, Caroline remarried. The young Baudelaire hated his stepfather Jacques Aupick, who was a lieutenant colonel in the army and a fierce disciplinarian at home. Aupick later sent his young stepson to boarding school in Lyon.
Recalling his boyhood, Baudelaire said, "I was a precocious dandy." As such, he was greatly disliked by most of his classmates. One of his few friends at school agreed with this assessment.
His friend would later say of the then 14-year-old Baudelaire, "He was much more refined and distinguished than any of our fellow pupils... [we] shared tastes and sympathies, the precocious love of fine works of literature."
While attending the Lycee Louis-le-Grand - the famous and demanding secondary school in Paris - Baudelaire's academic performance was erratic. Sometimes he was extremely diligent in his studies, while at other times, he was prone to periods of idleness.
He graduated in 1839 at the age of eighteen. At that time, he was described as "an exalted character, sometimes full of mysticism, and sometimes full of immorality and cynicism, which were excessive, but only verbal."
Baudelaire told his brother, "I don't feel I have a vocation for anything." His stepfather wanted him to pursue a career in law or diplomacy. Instead, he decided to become a writer. He spent the next two years living a bohemian life and socializing with other writers and artists.
He frequented prostitutes, and as a result, visited a pharmacist who specialized in the treatment of venereal disease. He took one prostitute, a girl named Sara, as his live-in lover.
In order to keep him under control, Baudelaire's stepfather kept him on a strict allowance, which he often spent immediately, most of it on clothes. When the money ran out, he bought on credit and ran up debts.
His stepfather decided to send him to Calcutta, to be supervised by an ex-naval captain. The arduous experience failed to dissuade Baudelaire from pursuing a literary career and failed to change his laid-back nature.
The captain let Baudelaire go home to France. He did gain something from his year of travels - strong impressions of the sea, the sailing life, and exotic ports of call, all of which would have an effect on his poetry. Back in Paris, he began his literary career by reading his poems in taverns.
At the age of 21, Baudelaire inherited over 100,000 francs and several parcels of land. He squandered most of his new found wealth, and his family obtained a decree placing the rest of his assets in trust. Around this time, he met Jeanne Duval, the illegitimate daughter of a prostitute.
Their love affair would be the longest relationship he would have in his short life. His mother thought she was a "Black Venus" who "tortured [my son] in every way" and drained him of his money. By 1845, at the age of 24, Baudelaire was broke and eating on credit.
He began writing the poems that would appear in his classic first poetry collection, Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil) which would be published twelve years later. His first published work was an art review titled "Salon of 1845."
He gained a reputation as a passionate and well-informed art critic. Unfortunately, his debts were rising and his future was doubtful, so he attempted suicide by stabbing himself. He lost his nerve and ended up with a superficial wound.
Baudelaire wrote to his mother, begging her to visit him, but she ignored his pleas under orders from his stepfather. After being homeless for a time, he resolved to improve his situation. He continued his work as an art critic.
In 1846, he published a novella, La Fanfarlo. Being fluent in English since childhood, he earned extra money as a translator. He translated English language works of literature into French - including some of his favorite works.
His translations included Matthew Lewis' notorious and classic Gothic novel The Monk, the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, and other classic works.
In 1857, Baudelaire's stepfather died. Although he had been disinherited, he did gain something from Jacques Aupick's death - he reconciled with his mother, to whom he had become estranged. As a boy, he had been very close to her, but he never forgave her for marrying Jacques Aupick.
1857 was a good year for Baudelaire. Not only did he reconcile with his mother, his first and most famous poetry collection was finally published. It had taken him twelve years to complete, as he had been sidetracked by indolence, emotional distress, and physical illness.
Les Fleurs du Mal established Baudelaire as one of the greatest French poets of all time. Some of the poems in it had been previously published in the Revue des Deux Mondes (Review of Two Worlds) magazine.
Sex and death were the main themes of the poems collected in Les Fleurs du Mal, which touched on taboo subjects such as lesbianism. Critics offered high praise for some of his poems; for others, they demanded he be arrested for obscenity.
In a letter to his mother, Baudelaire addressed the outcry over the alleged obscenity in his poems:
You know that I have always considered that literature and the arts pursue an aim independent of morality. Beauty of conception and style is enough for me. But this book, whose title (Fleurs du Mal) says everything, is clad, as you will see, in a cold and sinister beauty. It was created with rage and patience. Besides, the proof of its positive worth is in all the ill that they speak of it. The book enrages people.
Moreover, since I was terrified myself of the horror that I should inspire, I cut out a third from the proofs. They deny me everything, the spirit of invention and even the knowledge of the French language. I don't care a rap about all these imbeciles, and I know that this book, with its virtues and its faults, will make its way in the memory of the lettered public, beside the best poems of V. Hugo, Th. Gautier, and even Byron.
Baudelaire, his publisher, and the book printer had all been charged with obscenity. None were imprisoned - they were fined instead. Baudelaire's fine was 300 francs. The French literati condemned the author's conviction and offered him their support.
Legendary novelist Victor Hugo wrote to Baudelaire, telling him "Your Fleurs du Mal shine and dazzle like stars... I applaud your vigorous spirit with all my might." As a result of the obscenity conviction, Fleurs du Mal was republished in a censored version with six poems deleted.
These poems would be published uncensored in Belgium as Les Epaves (The Wrecks) in 1866. In 1949 - nearly a hundred years after its first publication - the original, unexpurgated version of Fleurs du Mal would finally be published in France.
Baudelaire continued to write. In addition to his own works, he translated more English works into French, including Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1821).
Baudelaire wrote a book about his own experiences with opium and hashish, titled Les Paradis Artificiels (Artificial Paradises), which was published in 1860. He believed that these substances could help mankind create an ideal world.
In 1861, Baudelaire's publisher went bankrupt. At the time, he had been living a peaceful and productive life with his mother in the seaside town of Honfleur. The stress and poverty of his earlier life, along with his chronic illnesses and use of laudanum (tincture of opium) had taken a toll on his health.
Just as he was starting to recover his health, his publisher's bankruptcy added new stress to his life, as once again he faced the prospect of poverty. In 1864, Baudelaire went to Belgium, hoping to have his works published there and to give lectures.
In addition to his on and off relationship with Jeanne Duval, he took actress Marie Daubrun and courtesan Allonie Sabatier as his lovers. None of his relationships ever blossomed into true love.
Unsatisfied in his personal life and fearful of poverty, Baudelaire smoked opium and drank to excess. In 1866, he suffered a massive stroke that left him half-paralyzed. For the remainder of his life, he lived in sanitariums in Brussels and Paris.
Charles Baudelaire died in August of 1867 at the age of 46. Many of his unpublished works were published posthumously, and his previously published works were republished.
The proceeds enabled his mother to pay off his substantial debts. She found comfort in his fame, saying "I see that my son, for all his faults, has his place in literature."
Quote Of The Day
"Always be a poet, even in prose." - Charles Baudelaire
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a reading of selected poems from Charles Baudelaire's classic poetry collection, Fleurs du Mal (Flowers of Evil). Enjoy!
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
Notes For April 8th, 2020
This Day In Literary History
On April 8th, 1950, For Esmè - with Love and Squalor, the classic short story by the legendary American writer J.D. Salinger, was published in The New Yorker.
Set during World War II and based in part on the author's own experiences during the conflict, the story's narrator is an American ex-soldier who refers to himself as Staff Sergeant X.
It opens with X receiving an invitation to a wedding in England. He wants to go, but he can't because his mother-in-law is coming to visit at that time. So, he decides to make "a few revealing notes about the bride as I knew her almost six years ago."
The story then flashes back to Devon, England, circa 1944, where X is stationed along with some 60 other American soldiers as part of a secret three-week training program for an upcoming invasion - the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
On his last day of training, after packing his bags, X takes a final walk through Devon and ends up at a church where a children's choir practice is taking place. He finds himself entranced by the singing of one particular child.
She's a thirteen-year-old girl “with straight ash-blond hair of ear-lobe length, an exquisite forehead, and blasé eyes that, I thought, might very possibly have counted the house.” Hers is the “sweetest-sounding” voice, though she seems “bored with her own singing ability.”
X leaves the church. Later, he goes to a tea room, where he orders tea and cinnamon toast. The girl he'd seen singing at the church enters the room, along with a little boy and "an efficient looking woman." They sit a few tables down from him.
When the girl notices X staring at her, she gets up and walks over to him. She is surprised to see him at the tea room, because she "thought all Americans despised tea." X asks her if she'd like to join him, and she accepts the invitation.
As they engage in a conversation, the girl, whose name is Esmè, surprises X with her precociousness when she asks him if he goes “to that secret Intelligence school on the hill.” She also asks him if he's married.
Esmè describes herself as "a terribly cold person" and says that she's teaching herself to be more compassionate. She and her little brother Charles live with their aunt. Her father was a solider, killed in action in North Africa.
Charles comes over to join Esmè and X. When Esmè asks what X's job was before he became a soldier, he tells her that he'd like to consider himself a professional writer, but he has yet to be published, which he blames on American editors.
When X notices the "enormous-faced, chronographic-looking wristwatch" that Esmè is wearing, he asks if it belonged to her father. She says that it did and “I’d be extremely flattered if you’d write a story exclusively for me sometime.”
She prefers stories about squalor. Before she leaves, Esmè offers to write letters to X, adding that "I write extremely articulate letters." He tells her that he'd love it if she wrote to him, and gives her his contact information.
The story flashes forward to V-E Day in 1945, as X tells his tale of personal squalor. He suffered a nervous breakdown from combat stress and is currently living in a "civilian home" for shell-shocked soldiers in Bavaria.
(After his own tour of duty, J.D. Salinger spent time in a mental hospital in Nuremberg following a nervous breakdown brought on by combat stress.)
X suffers from psychosomatic symptoms such as facial ticks and a badly shaking hand. He's gaunt, he can't sleep, and his friend Corporal Z says that he "looks like a corpse." Festivities are taking place in town, but X stays in his room.
He turns his attention to a pile of unopened letters by his writing table. Nauseous and trembling, X opens a letter. It's from Esmè. She apologizes for not writing sooner and asks if X is well, obviously worried about him. She also asks if he would write her back as soon as possible.
Enclosed in Esmè's letter is a note from her little brother Charles and a present - her father's wristwatch. X sits there for a while, contemplating the letter and the present, then "suddenly, almost ecstatically" feels sleepy - something he hasn't experienced in a long, long time.
For Esmè - with Love and Squalor was a huge hit. It would be included in Salinger's classic 1953 short story collection, Nine Stories. That year, the legendary English actor Sir Laurence Olivier asked Salinger for permission to adapt For Esmè - with Love and Squalor as a BBC radio play.
Salinger turned him down. When another one of his short stories, Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut, was adapted as a Hollywood feature film, the result was a critical and commercial failure that had little to do with the story upon which it was based.
Despite Hollywood's dogged determination to adapt his celebrated novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951) as a feature film, an irate Salinger vowed that no more adaptations of his works would be made - a vow he kept until he died in January of 2010 at the age of 91.
Quote Of The Day
"I don't suppose a writing man ever really gets rid of his crocus-yellow neckties. Sooner or later, I think, they show up in his prose, and there isn't a hell of a lot he can do about it." - J.D. Salinger
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a short film adaptation of J.D. Salinger's classic short story, For Esmè - with Love and Squalor. Enjoy!
Tuesday, April 7, 2020
Notes For April 7th, 2020
This Day In Literary History
On April 7th, 1770, the legendary English poet William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland, England. He had two older brothers, a younger brother, and a younger sister.
Of his four siblings, Wordsworth was closest to his younger sister Dorothy, whom he would live and travel with. Only a year younger than her brother, she was a poet and a noted diarist.
As a young boy, Wordsworth would frequently stay with his mother's parents in Penrith. He loved the moors and the landscape, which would influence his poetry, but he hated his grandparents and uncle, whose harsh treatment nearly drove him to suicide. To avoid them, he would spend hours communing with nature.
Wordsworth's mother, who had taught him how to read and write, died when he was eight years old. His father tutored him in poetry and gave him access to his large collection of books.
Later, he sent young William to a boarding school for children of upper class families. His beloved sister Dorothy went to live with relatives in Yorkshire. He wouldn't see her again for nine years.
At boarding school, Wordsworth's headmistress, Ann Birkett, instituted a curriculum of mostly biblical studies for her students. She also encouraged them to partake in local activities, especially the festivals of Easter, May Day, and Shrove Tuesday.
During his time at boarding school, he would meet his future wife, Mary Hutchinson. In 1787, at the age of 17, Wordsworth enrolled at St. John's College, Cambridge. That same year, his poetry debuted in print when one of his sonnets was published in The European Magazine.
He graduated in 1791. A year earlier, he spent his holidays taking walking tours across Europe. He toured the Alps extensively and visited France, Switzerland, and Italy. After graduating, Wordsworth made a return visit to France, which was mired in revolution.
He supported the revolution and fell in love with a French girl named Annette Vallon, who gave birth to his illegitimate daughter, Caroline. Though he wanted to marry Annette, financial trouble and growing tensions between France and Britain led Wordsworth to return home alone.
The ensuing war between the two countries prevented Wordsworth from returning to France for almost ten years. Meanwhile, in 1793, Wordsworth's first two poetry collections, An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches, were published, establishing him as a major talent.
Two years later, he received a £900 legacy so that he could write full time. That same year, in Somerset, he met writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who became his closest friend. He bought a house in Somerset, near Coleridge's home, and moved in along with his sister Dorothy.
Wordsworth and Coleridge collaborated on a poetry collection called Lyrical Ballads, which was published in 1798. It featured Wordsworth's classic poem Tintern Abbey and Coleridge's classic epic poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
The book was considered a seminal work of English Romantic poetry. For the second edition of the book, Wordsworth wrote an essay, Preface to Lyrical Ballads, where he discussed Romantic literary theory.
In the fall of 1798, Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge traveled to Germany. During the harsh German winter, while living with Dorothy in Goslar, Wordsworth wrote to escape his stress and homesickness.
He began an autobiographical piece called The Prelude and wrote many of his famous poems, including his "Lucy poems." The trio returned to England and settled in Grasmere in the Lake District, where Wordsworth, Coleridge, and their new friend Robert Southey would come to be known as the Lake Poets.
After the Peace of Amiens treaty ended the war between England and France, British subjects were once again allowed to travel to France. So, Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy went to see Annette Vallon to discuss mutually acceptable terms of financial support.
Wordsworth was happy to see his daughter Caroline again and to be able to provide for her and her mother financially. He returned to England and married his childhood sweetheart Mary Hutchinson, who would bear him four children.
Wordsworth continued to write. He published another poetry collection, Poems in Two Volumes, in 1807. Seven years later, he published his epic poem, The Excursion. Before it came out, Wordsworth became estranged from his opium-addicted friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
In 1812, Wordsworth lost two of his children, Thomas and Catherine. The following year, he was appointed as the Distributor of Stamps for Westmorland, for which he would earn £400 per year.
Financially secure, he moved his family, including his sister Dorothy, to a new home in Ambleside, where he would live the rest of his life. In 1823, Wordsworth and Coleridge reconciled when they toured the Rhineland together.
Wordsworth retired in 1842 after the British government awarded him a pension of £300 a year. When his friend Robert Southey died in 1843, Wordsworth became the new Poet Laureate of England, but when his daughter Dora died four years later in 1847, he stopped writing poetry.
William Wordsworth died of lung disease in April of 1850 at the age of 80. Several months later, his wife Mary published his epic poem The Prelude. It attracted little attention at the time, but later came to be recognized as Wordsworth's masterpiece.
Quote Of The Day
"Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart." - William Wordsworth
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a reading of William Wordsworth's classic epic poem, The Prelude. Enjoy!