Acquaintances C.C-608
(1) Earnest Hemingway
Ernest
Hemingway (1899 – 1961) was an American novelist, short story writer and
journalist he was born and raised up in a Park Illinois. After school he was a
reporter for the “Kansas City Star”. Hemingway also took part in World War 1 as
an ambulance driver. Hemmingway’s debut novel “The Sun also rises” was
published in 1926 and immediately got popular.
Notable Works
(1) The Sun also rises
(2) A Farewell to Arms
(3) For Whom the Bell Tolls
(4) The Old man and The Sea
The
economical and understated style of Hemingway which he termed the “Iceberg
theory” had a strong influence on 20th century friction, while his adventurous
lifestyle and public image brought him admiration for the later generations.
Hemingway
published 7 novels, 6 short stories collections and 3 nonfiction works which
were published after his death, many of his works are considered as classics of
American literature so he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature. “The
sun also Rises” is his first famous Novel is published as a spare novel that
made Hemingway famous and also changed the nature of American writing.
Hemingway
called his style of writing as Iceberg theory which means the facts floats
above water the supporting structure and symbolism operate out of Sight the
concept price is sometimes referred as theory formation having you that a
writer could describe thing occurs below surface.
Hemingway’s
writing includes themes of love, war, travel, wilderness and loss. He described
West America as “The Sacred Land” in his works including mountains in Spain,
Switzerland and Africa. Theme of women and death is important in stories of Hemingway;
the theme of death defines his short stories.
Hemingway's
Legacy to American literature in his style of writing so writers who came after
him avoided it. After his first Publication he was the spokesperson for the
post world war generation. In his later days of life he lived in a Cuba, he
almost died in 1954 after 2 plane crashed having injuring him in pain and in
rest of his life then in 1959 he died by suicide.
(2) Edward Albert
Edward
Albert Albee (1928 to 2016) was an American playwright born in Washington D.C
as his biological father left his mother he was placed for adoption and he was
adopted and grew up in New York in rich Albee family.
Albee
attended the Rye country day school but he was expelled from it and later he
got a dismissed many times during school because of his behavior finally
finished his graduation from Trinity College in Hartford during his graduation
he published 9 poems, 11 short stories, essays, a along act play and a
novel.
Albert
Albee left his home because he never felt comfortable with his adoptive parents
he said this in his many interviews.
Notable works
(1) Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
(2) The Zoo Story
(3) A Delicate Balance
(4) The Goat or who is Sylvia?
(5) Three tall Women.
Many
critics argued that some of his works reflects after theatre of absurd. Three
of his plays won the Pulitzer Prize for drama and two of his other works won the
other literary awards for the best play.
Albert’s
works are often considered as examples of modern conditions. His early works reflects
a mastery and Americanization of the theatre of Absurd Albert’s middle life
period comprised plays and that explored psychological of maturing marriage and
relationship later in his life he continued to experiment in work like “The Goat”
or “Who is Sylvia?(2002)”
(3) William Faulkner
William
Cuthbert Faulkner 1897 – 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and
short stories mostly set in fictional town which he was famous for ‘Yoknapatawpha
country’ based in Mississippi, where he was born and spent his most of his life.
Faulkner
was born in Mississippi where he spent most of his life, he enjoyed Royal
Canadian Air Force in his teenage with the outbreak of World War 1 but he did
not served in compact. Returning to Mississippi he attended his graduation but
eventually dropped out after 3rd semester and started writing his first Novel
“Soldier’s Pay”. Falcon accepted writing as career and also got financial
success and eventually went to Hollywood to work as a screen writer.
Notable works
(1) The Sound and the Fury
(2) As I Lay Dying
(3) Light in August
(4) A Rose for Emily
(5) The Bear
Faulkner
was known for his experimental style with meticulous attention to “Diction Candense”,
he also made use of stream of consciousness in his writings and wrote often
highly emotional complex and Gothic stories.
Many
literary critics examined Faulkner’s works and they had a variety of critical
perspectives about him and they were not agreed to his ideas including his
position on slavery in South American and views of desegregation. French
philosopher Albert Camus adopted Faulkner’s whiting of tragedy and critically
appreciated him.
William
Faulkner was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature and also won the
Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1962. He fell from his house following the death
by heart attack.
(4) Emily Dickinson
Emily
Elizabeth Dickinson (1830 – 1886) born in Amherst, U.S she was an American poet,
very little known during his lifetime although he has been regard as one of the
most important literary writers in American poetry.
Dickinson
came from prominent family with strong ties to its community, after studying
from Amherst Academy then she attended Mount Holyoke female seminary before returning
to her home Dickinson lived most of her life in isolation considered as eccentric
(abnormal) by her relatives and neighbors during her lifetime.
Although
being a prolific writer she published only 10 of her almost on 1800 poems and
one of a letter. Her poems were unique for her era as they contains of short
lines and punctuation.
Notable works
(1) List of Poems
(2) I am Nobody! Who are you?
(3) Hope is the thing with Feathers
(4) Wild Nights
Many
of her poems deals with themes of death and immortality, these two topics which
mentioned in letters to her friends and she also explores themes like aesthetics,
society, nature and spirituality.
Dickinson's
work does not fit in one of genre but of variety of things apart from major themes
discussions below poetry frequently uses humor, puns, irony and satire.
(5) Eugene O' Neil
Eugene
Gladstone O’Neill (1888 – 1953) was an American playwright, his poetically
titled plays were among the first to introduce the drama techniques of realism into
the U.S.
O’Neil
was born in hotel called the Barrett house at Broadway, New York, U.S in Irish
immigrant family. O’Neil studied at Catholic boarding school and then he
attended Princeton University to complete his graduation but he was being
suspended from college due to his bad behavior.
Notable works
(1) Long day's Journey into night
(2) The Iceman Cometh
(3) A Moon for the Misbegotten
(4) Mourning becomes Electra
(5) Desire under the Elms.
O’Neil’s
plays were considered among the first to include speeches in American English
Vernacular and involve characters to the end of society. He described about the
struggle of the maintaining their hopes and aspiration but ultimately get into disappointments.
Nearly
all of his the plays involve degree of tragedy and personal pessimism he wrote
very few comedies in which one of his well known “Ah wilderness”. In 1913 he
was recovering from tuberculosis and he realized and decided to devote himself
as a full time to write plays, he has been previously employed by new London
Telegraph to write poetry. O’Neil received the Nobel Prize in Literature in
1936 and he also got the Pulitzer Prize for the drama.
In
his letter life spent most of his time at the sea during which he suffered from
depression alcoholism because he had a deep love for sea which reflexes in the
themes of many of his plays. Because O’Neil’s parents and elder brother died of
alcoholism he was also disease from it.
(6) F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis
Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896 – 1940) was an American novelist and short story
writer, he is mostly known for his novels expressing the Jaaz age and
popularized the term the Jazz in the English literature.
Fitzgerald
was born in the middle class family in Minnesota USA attended Princeton
University where he befriends the future literary critic admins Wilson fills
physical card dropped out from the college and join the US Army he married to
Zelda surface after he published this side of Paradise which was financially
successful this novel become the cultural sensation and build his reputation as
one of the eminent writers of this decade.
Notable works
(1) The Beautiful and Dammed
(2) The Great Gatsby
(3) All the Sad Young Men
(4) Tender is the Night
Fitzgerald
also wrote some short stories for popular magazine such as “Saturday Evening Post”,
“Collier’s week and “Esquire”. During this period he becomes friends with
modernist of the last generations, his third novel “The Great Gatsby” initially
it was a literary failure but it is considered as Great American novel.
Fitzgerald
is considered as one of the leading authorial voices of Jazz age, his literary
style of writing influenced numbers of contemporary and future writers.
Fitzgerald’s influence was such to an extended that it cannot be estimated,
Great Gatsby recognized as a most influential author of hi generation.
In
his little life Fitzgerald struggling financially because of the declining of
popularly of his works so he moved to Hollywood to adopt screen whiting as a
career but he was unsuccessful after struggling from alcoholism and he was
being sober and died of heart attack, his last work the “Last Tycoon” was
edited and published by his friend Edmund Wilson.
(7) Walt Whitman
Walt
Whitman (1819 to 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. As a
humanist he was the part of a change of literary movement between a Transcendentalism
and realism and including both views. Whitman is among the most influential
poet in the American Canon, often called the ‘Father of free verses’.
Whitman
was born in Huntington at the age of 11 he left formal schooling to go to work
later he worked as a journalist and a teacher and a government clerk.
Whitman’s
major poetry collection “Leaves of Grass” was published in 1855 and became very
well known but at the same time it was controversial to describe as an obscene
of it over sensuality although “Leaves and Bud” was an attempt to reaching out
to the common person with an American epic.
Notable works
(1) Leaves and Grass
(2) Song of Myself
(3) O Captain, my Captain
Whitman
wrote 2 poems after death of Abraham Lincoln whom he is greatly admired the
poems are “O Captain my Captain” and “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard bloom’d”
Whitman’s
works broke the boundaries of poetic form and is generally prose like. His
style departs from the course set by a Presidency and includes Idiosyncratic
Treatment of body and the Soul as well as of the self and other”.
Whitman
has been described as the “First poet of democracy in America” this title mean
to reflect his ability to write in singularly American characters. Whitman's
influence and on poetry remains strong as many critique believed that “we cannot
really understand America without Walt Whitman, without “Leaves and Grass” he
has expressed this Civilization, modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman “America's
poet”…. “He is America”
In
his later life after having stroke Whitman moved to a New Jersey where his
health declined and he died at the age of 72.
(8) Sam Shepard
Samuel
Shepard Rogers (1943 to 2017) was an American actor, playwright, author, screen
writer and director whose career seemed half a century.
Sam
was born in 1943 in Chicago; he was named after his father but was called Steve
Rogers. His parents were teachers and he characterized his father as a drinking
man and dedicated alcoholic after graduation from Duarte High School in
California, while in college he was influenced by Samuel Beckett’s absurd plays
and literary movement of Jazz, He eventually dropped out to go in Bishop’s
company, a touring group.
He
wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories essays and memorials
for his contribution he won Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1979 and also won many
awards as an actor.
Notable works
(1) True West
(2) Buried Child
(3) Fool for Love
(4) Cowboy Mouth
(5) Curse of Starving Class
Shepard’s
plays are known for their bleak poetic surrealist elements, black comedy and
rootless characters of American society, His style evolved from the absurdist
of his early works to the realism and interested in abstract drama. Two of the
Shepard’s earliest plays “The Rock Garden” and “The Cowboys” were performed in
theatre of Genesis at the this time he adopted his professional name Sam
Shepard.
Shepard
died at Kentucky aged 73, many actors and playwrights paid tribute to Sam as a
great play writer. New York magazine described him as the greatest American
playwright of his generation.
(9) H.D Thoreau
Henry
David Thoreau (1817 to 1862) was an American naturalist, poet and philosopher leading
transcendentalist, he is best known for his book “Walden - a reflection upon
simple living in natural surroundings” and his essay “Civil disobedience” an
argument for Disobedience to an adjust state.
Henry
David Thoreau was born in Massachusetts U.S into a British family; his father
was of a French protestant. He studied at Harvard college and taken classes in
rhetoric classic philosophy mathematics and Science.
Notable works
(1) Walden
(2) Civil Disobedience
(3) Walden Pond
(4) Walking
(5) Where I live and what I lived for
Thoreau’s
books, articles, essays, Journals and Poetry amount to more than 20 volumes, his
most important contributions are his writings on natural history and philosophy.
Thoreau literary style anticipates of close observations of nature, personal
experience, meanings and historical facts while displaying poetic sensibilities
philosophical and attention to practical details. Thoreau’s philosophy of “Civil
disobedience” later influenced the political thoughts and actions of notable
personalities such as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
In
“Civil Disobedience” Thoreau wrote that “I heartily accept the Motto, that
government is best which governs least and also the government is best which
governs not at all”, “but to speak practically as a citizen unlike those who
call themselves no government man I ask for not at once no government but at
once a better government”.
Thoreau’s
political writings and little impact during his lifetime but after his death he
seems as the theorist and radicalist his political essay including “Civil Disobedience”
were ignored at the time and not even published although today it is considered
as one of the best American naturalist writers.
(10) Elaine Showalter.
Elaine
Showalter born in 1941, is an American literary critic feminist writer and also
wrote on social and cultural issues. She influenced the feminist literary
criticism in the United States and developed the concept of practice of Gynocriticism-
means the study of women as writers.
Notable works
(1) A Literature of their Own
(2) The Female Malady
(3) Teaching Literature
Elaine born in Boston USA pursued career of literary
critic and writer as going against her parents and completed her PhD from
University of California. She worked as a professor in Princeton University but
took early retirement.
Showalter
has written and edited numerous books and articles focused on a variety of
subjects from feminist literary criticism to fashion, sometimes controversy
also worked as a television critic for ‘People’s magazine’ and commentator on
BBC Radio and televisions.
Showalter is a specialist in a
Victorian literature, her most innovative works in this field is in “Madness
and Hysteria” in Literature specifically in women's writing and in the
portrayal of female characters.
“The
Double critical Standard” criticism of women Writers in England which was later
turned into the book named “A literature of their own”, which contains a
Lengthy and much discussed chapter on Virginia Woolf.
