FEMALE AUTHORS WHO MADE HISTORY

LEARN ABOUT THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN MEDIEVAL TIMES WITH POETRY!

What was the English Language like in Medieval times?

Read this interesting summary about the history of English in those times and listen to this joyful song, "Sumer Is Icumen In" (also called the Summer Canon and the Cuckoo Song). 

It is a medieval English round or rota of the mid-13th century.

The title translates approximately to "Summer Has Come In" or "Summer Has Arrived" (Roscow 1999^]).

The song is composed in the Wessex dialect of Middle English.

Although the composer's identity is unknown today, it may have been W. de Wycombe. The manuscript in which it is preserved was copied between 1261 and 1264 (Wulstan 2000, 8).

This rota is the oldest known musical composition featuring six-part polyphony

OLD ENGLISH ROMANTIC POETRY: WULF AND EADWACER

Love poetry isn't a modern thing at all and nor are the plots! Let's go back in time to the beginnings of Old English Literature, to the Exeter Book, written during the period between the 8th and the 10th century, let's read and listen in Old English to  this poem, a woman's song, she is lamenting being apart from her lover Wulf, possibly by the doings of her husband Eadwacer. Click here to read the text and translation of this  Old English love triangle!
" Leodum is minum   swylce him mon lac gife;       It is to my people as if someone gave them a gift.        willað hy hine aþecgan,   gif he on þreat cymeð. They want to kill him, if he comes with a troop.
Ungelic is us.                                                             It is different for us.
 Wulf is on iege,  ic on oþerre.   "                            Wulf is on one island I on another.  

HERMAN MELVILLE?: YES, MOBY DICK AND......

HERMAN Melville was the super famous writer of the super famous novel "Moby Dick":
 who doesn't now the adventures of the white whale, Ismael and Captain Ahab?
However, few people know he was a great traveller, and a poet too.
 Therefore, today we are going to pay a little homage to this interesting character, going to the web: the Melville society and reading this composition:

MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE: RELIGION, KNIGHTS AND LOVE!

What was English literature like in the Middle Ages?

The term Middle English literature refers to the literature written in the form of the English language known as Middle English, from the 12th century until the 1470s. During this time the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English became widespread and the printing press regularized the language. 

 In literary terms, the characteristics of the literary works written did not change radically until the effects of the Renaissance and Reformed Christianity became more apparent in the reign of King Henry VIII. 
There are three main categories of Middle English Literature: Religious, Courtly love, and Arthurian, though much of Geoffrey Chaucer's work, its most famous, stands outside these. From The Canterbury Tales, I've picked up The Wife of Bath, an extremely relevant tale from today's feminist perspective.
 Read the information in this article about Chaucer's Feminist Thought.
To enjoy lots of text from the period, click here!

WORLD POETRY DAY!

😊Poetry well deserves a worldwide huge celebration, that's the reason why the UNESCO holds a World Poetry Day every year!

So, to celebrate this event with me, I invite you to choose just one poem, you can use the web poemhunter.com and read it, or you can read and listen at the same time if you search, you'll find lots of famous poems read with their texts on YouTube!

LISTEN TO WHAT OLD ENGLISH SOUNDED LIKE WITH THIS POEM!

In his  An Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the Venerable Bede (c. 673-735) records that Caedmon was an illiterate farmer working for a monastery who at first avoided singing. "Therefore, at feasts, when it was decided to have a good time by taking turns singing, whenever he would see the harp getting close to his place, he got up in the middle of the meal and went home" (25). Modern commentators presume that Caedmon actually "concealed his skill from his fellow workmen and from the monks because he was ashamed of knowing 'vain and idle' songs".
So take a journey in time with me and thanks to Bede, enjoy this shy singer's poem!
  

D.H.LAWRENCE'S SENSITIVITY: THE LIFE FORCE OF NATURE

In 1922 DH Lawrence spent some time in New Zealand. Somewhere on his visit to the southern hemisphere DH must have seen the whales that pass on their migration routes every year, north from the antarctic, and then south on a long pilgrimage to breed and feed. 
 New Zealand is regularly visited by the southern Right Whale, Humpbacks, Blue whales and Orca, and the 3,000 metre deep trench off the Pacific coast is home to a number of bachelor Sperm whales who feed on the giant squid that lurk in the darkness.  
He believed in the life force, in Nature, its beauty and its power, as this beautiful poem, Whales weep not, attests. 

"They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains
the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent.

All the whales in the wider deeps, hot are they, as they urgeon and on, and dive beneath the icebergs........."

Click here to read the poem Whales weep not, which was written after his moving encounter with the giant mammals and watch this video. 

"IF", ONE OF RUDYARD KIPLING'S DEEPEST AND MOST FAMOUS POEMS.

In this beautiful poem a father gives advice to his son about how to live a balanced life.
Click here if you want to know more information and an analysis about these lines.

POETRY AND WISDOM: "ETERNITY", BY WILLIAM BLAKE.

"He who binds to himself a joy

Does the winged life destroy; 

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in eternity's sun rise." 

These wise words were written by William Blake, a versatile artist who is  now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age.

Watch this video as you meditate on its meaning!

COME AGAIN, SWEET LOVE! ENJOY THE FRESHNESS OF ENGLISH RENAISSANCE POETRY TODAY.

The magic of poetry and music trascends time!. Although language and music evolve, the spirit of the words and the vibrations of the sound remain and communicate the aliveness of the period when they were written or composed. Try reading about what Shakespeare's English was like, read one of his poems, for example sonnet 147, entitled, My love is as a fever, or read John Donne's poetry.
To prove that the power of poetry and music are immortal, why don't you enjoy this video, where Sting sings a song composed in the Renaissance and allow yourself to travel to those times with the beauty, simplicity and passion of the song Come again, composed by John Dowland?  

VIRGINIA WOOLF, "LANGUAGE IS WINE UPON THE LIPS".

Regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century, Adeline Virginia Woolf (25 January 1882 -- 28 March 1941) was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group during the interwar period. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929), with its famous dictum, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
This is the only surviving recording of Virginia Woolf's voice. It is part of a BBC radio broadcast from April 29th, 1937. The talk was called "Craftsmanship" and was part of a series entitled "Words Fail Me".

 This excellent documentary will give you a very clear idea of what life was like in her times as well as many interesting and unknown details about her. 

Finally, at brainy quote,  you'll be able to read her wisest quotes!

D.H. LAWRENCE'S SENSITIVITY: MUSIC, FEELINGS AND POETRY

David Herbert Lawrence, novelist, short-story writer, poet and essayist, was born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England, on September 11, 1885. Though better known as a novelist (Sons and Lovers or Lady Chatterley's lover), Lawrence’s first-published works (in 1909) were poems, and his poetry, especially his evocations of the natural world, have since had a significant influence on many poets on both sides of the Atlantic. Click here to read some of his most famous quotes and listen to this beautiful poem where the poet pays homage to the piano and at the same time recalls with nostalgia, his childish days.

WAR, LIFE AND POETRY. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: THE GLORIFICATION OF HEROES

Heroes became icons for the population both in Britain and Germany during the First World War. They raised people's confidence in the final triumph and represented the sublimation of the sacrifice their nation were making. 

Two remarkable young figures died before they could celebrate their 30th birthdays: they were, on the one hand, the famous German pilot the Red Baron  and, on the other, English poet Rupert Brooke.

Was the cost worth it?  Here you have some food for thought:

 In 2008 this controversial film was shot in Germany, watch it if you are interested:

And here's an inspired reading of the English poet's moving and patriotic poem The soldier, in which the poet serenely accepted his death. 

Finally, you may listen to a lecture in which professor Andrew Barker analyses the poem.

WAR, LIFE AND POETRY: ROBERT GRAVES, A GEORGIAN POET IN MALLORCA.

   Thanks to "Witness", a BBC News 24 programme of the stories of our times told by the people who were there, we can enjoy a direct account of the effects the war had on people, in this case on Robert Graves, who became particularly popular for his historical novels like I, Claudius.

   In his case, I imagine the events were specially painful given his partly Anglo-Irish and partly German descent. He served in World War I until he was invalided out in 1917.  In 1929 he published Good bye to all an account of his experiences in the war. Later, he chose Mallorca to spend the rest of his life, where he lived in the picturesque village of Deià.

   A century after the start of World War One the sons of Robert Graves, one of Britain's best known war poets, remembers the profound effect the conflict had on his father on a BBC News programme.
William Graves recalls his father's work and how the experience of fighting and getting wounded in the Great War remained with him for the rest of his life.

Here's more information about his poem "A dead Boche".

A DEAD BOCHE*

To you who’d read my songs of War

And only hear of blood and fame,

I’ll say** (you’ve heard it said before)

”War’s Hell!” and if you doubt the same,

Today I found in Mametz Wood***

A certain cure for lust of blood:

Where, propped against a shattered trunk,

In a great mess of things unclean,

Sat a dead Boche; he scowled and stunk

With clothes and face a sodden green****,

Big-bellied, spectacled, crop-haired,

Dribbling black blood from nose and beard.

ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY:COLONIALISM (2)

Here is how some writers portrayed the other side of colonialism, if you are interested:


1)Read and listen to Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, describing his experience in Congo.

2)A Passage to India, by E.M.Foster

ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: OSCAR WILDE'S THE IMORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST.

This theatre play is a masterpiece, a farcical comedy which, on the one hand, shows Wilde's great dexterity as a writer and his enormous wit. To know his personality a bit more, why don't you read some of his most famous quotes? It was turned into a movie several times, the last one was in 2002. Here's the trailer of this perfect film to spend a wonderful autumn evening.

If you want more information about this Irish playwright or this play, you'll find it on the Victorian Web.

FOR POETRY LOVERS!

Dear fans of literature

Given that most of us like not only reading, but also writing poetry, here are some interesting links to enjoy much more our hobby:
1.ANALYZING POETRY: HOW TO READ POETRY

2.Two excellent webs, here you can revise LITERARY TERMS with examples taken from the great writers and this other one about LITERARY DEVICES.

3.And finally, a book, here is the review of The Ode Less Travelled, by Stephen Fry and visit his website if you are interested in this versatile artist. His book is a guide to writing poetry with lots of useful information!

THE NEW WOMAN AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY

The XIXth century had seen changes concerning the rights and situation of women as you can read in this passage from the Norton Anthology of English Literature.
By the end of the century the New Woman was increasing her presence in the public arena.
However, women in England did not get the vote until 1918, the year when World War I ended.
To look at two perspectives of the matter of the New Woman I've chosen two remarkable writers with active involvement in culture in those times: the novel written by  Ella Hepworth Dixon in 1894 entitled The story of a modern woman, and Edward Carpenter's book Woman and her place in a free society (1894).  
Edward Carpenter was a sensitive poet too, I'd like to finish this post with his poem to pay homage to those people who struggled for freedom and equality in the 20th century.

                       

  LOVE'S VISION

T night in each other’s arms,

Content, overjoyed, resting deep deep down in the darkness,

Lo! the heavens opened and He appeared--

Whom no mortal eye may see,

Whom no eye clouded with Care,

Whom none who seeks after this or that, whom none who has not escaped from self. 

There--in the region of Equality, in the world of Freedom no longer limited,

Standing as a lofty peak in heaven above the clouds,

From below hidden, yet to all who pass into that region most clearly visible--

He the Eternal appeared.

Read more at http://www.poetry-archive.com/c/loves_vision.html#Te8Aj6EIt0Keyg1p.99

VICTORIANISM AND THE SPREAD OF LITERACY AND CULTURE IN THE 19TH CENTURY

The spread of literacy which took place in the XIXth century in Britain, thanks to compulsory education and the new developments of the printing press marked a turning point in the history of literature. Here are two interesting links if you are interested in this fascinating period:

*The Victorian web, where you'll find great information about:

Cultural contexts
Literature
Science and Technology
The Visual Arts
Music, Popular Entertainment, and Theater

*the history of the press in the XIXth century, with lots of details about the printing industry in those times.